by Anna Porter
He was about to leave for the Zimmerman mansion when Betty, his secretary, called to say there was a woman to see him. Downstairs, with the constable at reception. A Ms. Thomas.
His first impulse was to take the back stairs to the emergency exit at the rear. “Does she know I’m here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Betty said with a question mark in her inflection.
“Thank you.” It would have been stupid anyway to involve Betty in the subterfuge. She had ways of leaning on his weaknesses to get long holidays and leaves of absence whenever the spirit moved her.
Why did his minor indiscretions have such a compulsive way of turning into major embarrassments? He pulled on his jacket, his salt-stained rubber overshoes, and his overcoat. At least he would seem to be on his way out.
Deidre was sitting on a black plastic chair near the door, reading a magazine. She wore her familiar high-heeled boots and the long raccoon. Her hair was in stiff bubbly curls that only a hairdresser would inflict on a woman. He hoped her hair appointment had been made long before she decided to come to see him.
“Hello,” he said awkwardly.
“I was on my way to lunch with an old friend,” Deidre said, with a warm smile. “Coming by here I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to surprise you. So this is where you work,” she said, looking around the waiting room as though she hadn’t been sitting there already for five minutes. “Very...” She paused for inspiration.
“Drab?”
“It’s not what I expected.” She flashed her eyelashes at him. “Homicide Bureau sounds so frightening. This is just an office, really.”
“And not much of one at that,” David said briskly. “I’m on my way out just now, Deidre. Can’t stop to talk. I’ll call. I said I would—”
“I’ve got something for you,” Deidre interrupted. She reached inside her coat and pulled out a brown paper package about half an inch thick. “It wouldn’t fit in my purse,” she said. “I’ve got to put it back this afternoon while Philip is out with a client. Between 2 and 3. So if you wouldn’t mind copying what you want while I wait...”
The package contained Paul Zimmerman’s canceled checks issued since the end of April 1986. He flicked through them once, quickly, then again without losing the order they were in. There were regular checks for Arthur and Eva Zimmerman, $20,000 for him each month, $100,000 for her. She would probably get by on that even at the Meurice.
There were no unusually large cash withdrawals until the 7th of January: that day he had removed $50,000 in cash. And a further $50,000 on the 3rd of February.
David copied the checks himself. He could have asked Betty, but that would force him to sit around with Deidre making conversation.
“Are you busy this week?” she asked when he handed back the package.
“Yes. I’m sorry,” David mumbled, ushering her out.
“All week?” she asked, her voice quivering.
“I’ll call you,” he said as warmly as he could muster. He’d bloody well make himself, he thought on the way to his car, and he’d tell her then that there weren’t going to be any more Saturday nights.
Twenty-Seven
ARNOLD NAGY WAS no friendlier today than he had been the first time David met him. Only difference was he allowed David to enter the house. But that was all. He didn’t even invite him to sit. They stood circumspectly observing each other in the extraordinarily pink reception area that reminded David of a posh 1950s Montreal bordello, even before he noticed the tasteful female statue in the corner. It was difficult for David to imagine what kind of mind Paul Zimmerman must have had to choose the decor.
Arnold was dressed in a stiff pinstriped three-piece suit with thin black tie, white shirt, and very shiny shoes—possibly because Betty had phoned ahead to say David was coming, but more likely Arnold always comported himself in the manner of a British gentleman’s valet. With pomp and discretion.
“A police matter, you said, I believe, Officer.” He repeated David’s opening line, his face expressionless.
“Homicide, actually,” said David.
He was disappointed with Arnold’s lack of response. “Yes?” said Arnold, raising one thin eyebrow. He clasped his hands behind him, assuming the position of polite expectation.
No sense beating about the bush. “A gentleman by the name of Harvey Singer was murdered in Toronto the night of February 26th. Perhaps you remember my asking you about him when I was last here?”
Arnold remained motionless.
“We believe,” David continued, “Mr. Singer was shot in Mr. Zimmerman’s red XJ-S Jaguar.”
Still no reaction. Was he accustomed to people being knocked off in the family’s automobile?
“Could you tell me where you were between 9 P.M. on the 26th of February and 1 A.M. on the 27th?”
“Certainly,” Arnold said thoughtfully. “Glad to.” As if he had been asked to move an ashtray. “That was a Thursday night, I think. Correct?”
“Right.”
“I watched Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous from 9 until 10. Then Night Heat. Went to sleep at 11 o’clock. Thursdays are my nights off, weekdays. I normally take Sundays as well, but I don’t suppose you’ll be interested in that.”
“No,” David stated categorically. “Was there someone else with you the night of the 26th?”
“No. I went to my quarters after Cook served my dinner at eight. I live alone.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Not unless someone was spying on me and I cannot think why someone would.”
“In that case you would not have known where Mr. Zimmerman was that night, would you?” David tried to check his hostility. Arnold Nagy, unless he traveled under an alias, had no criminal record and had every right to spend Thursday nights watching television and doing whatever else he wished.
“On the contrary,” Arnold said patiently. “I dressed Mr. Zimmerman at 6:30. He was dining at Mr. Griffiths’s home. He had been expected to be there by 6:30 for drinks, the actual dinner beginning at 7:30, but he had been late working with Mr. Masters. I set his clothes out at 5 and waited to be called on before I returned to my quarters. I checked the library clock when Mr. Masters left. That’s how I know it was 6:30. I asked Mr. Zimmerman if he wished me to call the Griffithses to say he would be late. I did telephone when he left.”
His memory for detail was astounding. “You wouldn’t happen to know when he came home?” David inquired.
“Not exactly. I do know that when I woke at around midnight and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk, the car was in front of the garage doors.”
“Which car?”
“The Rolls.”
“He drove it himself?”
“No,” Arnold protested, as though the very suggestion that Paul Zimmerman would drive his own Rolls was an insult. “Geoff Aronson drove him.”
“Who was driving the Jaguar that night?”
“No one,” Arnold declared. Another question he had been expecting?
“How can you be so sure?” David’s annoyance was growing minute by minute as they stood firmly planted in the general pinkness. “How can you remember so clearly what you and everybody else was doing almost two weeks ago?”
Arnold drew up his lips in what must have been his rendition of a smile. “You were here last Wednesday asking questions about the same evening. Then, too, you were inexplicably curious about the XJ-S, and who drove it. I made it my business to remember everything about that night and where we all were, in case you came back.”
“You thought I would come back?” David asked quickly.
“I thought you might.”
“Why?”
“Because you hadn’t finished with all your questions.”
“Not because you assumed I would check on Michael Ward?”
Arnold shrugged almost imperceptibly. “That had occurred to me,” he said. “It wouldn’t have taken much to discover that he had been incarcerated.”
Now there’s a fine word, David th
ought. “I want to speak to him now, if I may,” he asked politely.
“I’m afraid that will be impossible,” Arnold announced. “He left the day after you came here to question him. We have no forwarding address. As his parole is over, I assume he didn’t have to give one. Is that right, Officer?”
David didn’t reply. He focused on the huge glass case over Arnold’s shoulder, with its vast collection of dead butterflies. “We are going to search the garage, and maybe look around the house, then,” he said. “This is a murder investigation, Mr. Nagy, and we assume we will have your full cooperation.”
Arnold hesitated. “Have you informed Mrs. Zimmerman?” he asked.
“Yes. She has been told.”
Arnold insisted he would call her himself to confirm her permission. He left David cooling his heels in the doorway while he used the phone in the library. David examined the butterflies more closely: 15 rows of 15, each expertly stretched to display its full wingspan. The colors were iridescent blues and reds, oranges and yellows. Their bodies lay flat, each set of legs painstakingly arranged to line up in the same way: two forward, four backward.
“Mrs. Zimmerman is agreeable,” Arnold said on his return, making it clear by his tone that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t have agreed.
David called for Giannini and Stewart to come and assist him in the search. It might take hours.
Arnold led the way along a wide passageway that continued the pink flocked wallpaper and handsomely framed horse prints. Taking a key from a chain he carried in his pocket, he unlocked the polished wood door and let David into the garage. Some hazy blue light from the window across the main doors cast long shadows across the cement floor in front of the five cars that stood side by side, almost but not entirely filling the vast area of the garage.
After a moment’s wait in the darkness, David turned to the silent valet. “Do you think we could have some light here?”
“Certainly,” Arnold conceded, as though the idea would never have occurred to him without a reminder. He switched on a central light bulb and two smaller side lights.
The five cars were the Rolls, the Morgan convertible with the canvas sheet draped over its tidy body and tied down with leather thongs, the Cherokee Chief, the little Ferrari, and a large Oldsmobile he hadn’t noticed before.
“Where does the Jaguar sit when it’s at home?”
“No particular place,” Arnold said, determined to be helpful. “Wherever there is room.”
David walked slowly around the periphery. There was a groove all the way round, slanting into four drainage outlets, one in each corner. That would make cleaning the cars much easier. The floor and walls were spotless. The garage was a little cooler than the house, but not much, since it was kept warm by a series of space heaters.
Arnold still hadn’t suggested that David remove his overcoat. “When was the last time you saw the XJ-S?” Arnold had not budged from the connecting door, so David had to shout to be heard.
“Sunday the 1st,” Arnold too raised his voice.
“Where was it?”
“It was here,” Arnold indicated the far lane to his right. “The Laidlaw Cartage people came to ship it to Bermuda. I was supervising their removal of the vehicle.”
Naturally.
“How did the car look to you then, Mr. Nagy?” David had returned to his starting point, taking small steps all the way and paying attention to the fine-scrubbed floor in case he caught a glimpse of glitter off a piece of glass or heard a crunch under his shoes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, how close were you to the car, and did the car look any different to you?”
“I was approximately where I am now,” said Arnold, not unexpectedly. “And the car was as it had been since it arrived here last fall. At least the parts I could see.”
“You couldn’t see all of it?”
“Of course not. It had been covered with its padded canvas blanket, battened down for the flight. Occasionally a car can be damaged in transit by even the best company in the field. The XJ-S is a very sensitive automobile.”
“Who would have attended to covering it?”
“Michael Ward. He was in charge of the upkeep of the cars.”
“Did you actually see him do it?”
“No,” Arnold said peevishly. “The boy needed no supervision. He was one of the best staff we have had here and we would still have him, had it not been for your harassment.”
No sense in engaging Arnold in an argument over young Ward, though it might be pleasing to arrest Ward on Murder One. “Who telephoned for Laidlaw?”
“I did. At Mrs. Zimmerman’s request.”
“When did she ask you?”
“Let me see... Friday, I think. They wanted the car in Bermuda for the following weekend.”
“Wasn’t that an unusual request?”
“Unusual?” Arnold allowed his tone to rise. “Why would it be unusual? The XJ-S was Mr. Zimmerman’s favorite car. He wished to drive it on his holiday. Last summer they took it to France twice. By air. So why not Bermuda?”
“The fact remains, Mr. Nagy, that a man was murdered in Mr. Zimmerman’s most beloved car and I’m trying to establish who did it.” David sighed. “Where was Arthur Zimmerman that night?”
“I’m afraid you will have to ask him that yourself,” Arnold said firmly. “I do not keep track of Mr. Arthur’s movements, as I do not manage his household. All I can tell you is that Mr. Arthur did not arrive here until Sunday morning. He remained in his room most of that day, and resurfaced for the party in the evening.” Though Arnold’s face betrayed no emotion, it was easy to see he was no great fan of Arthur, a fact that was liable to endear Arthur to David Parr almost immediately.
“And Mrs. Zimmerman? Where was she Thursday night?”
“During the same hours? She was with Mr. Zimmerman at the party.”
“The guard, did he report anything unusual that night?”
“No. On the other hand, Thursday night was his night off, as well as mine and the upstairs maid’s. He was off after 6 P.M.”
A loud noise like a whistle issued from an instrument shaped like a small plastic barbell, attached to the wall. Arnold picked it up and said an ascending “Yes” into one end. Then he said “Yes” once more. “Your colleagues have arrived,” he told David.
He pressed a button to open the triple doors of the garage and floated to the entrance, where Giannini and Stewart appeared in a couple of minutes. They both had their collars up to cover their ears and had stuffed their hands into their pockets. It was a blistering cold afternoon, but David guessed they were also responding to the general splendor of Zimmerman’s house. They felt out of place.
“Constables Stewart and Giannini,” he said to Arnold. “We’ll start to examine the garage now, Mr. Nagy. Perhaps you could move all the cars out to give us a hand.”
Arnold winced.
“Now, there’s a good man,” David said patronizingly. He got some minor satisfaction from that wince.
Twenty-Eight
WHILE GIANNINI AND Stewart prepared the garage for Forensics’ once-over, David returned to the house for a reluctant guided tour by Arnold. Except for the gun, he had no notion what he was looking for. If Zimmerman had killed Singer and had made such a botch-up of the murder scene, he was probably amateur enough to have kept the gun. David also hoped he’d find some unusual papers along the way, but that was all to do with the why. In this case, more of an intellectual interest, because even if Zimmerman was proven the murderer, he could hardly be charged.
The first place Arnold showed him was the library, a much more pleasant spot than the entrance, but, like Judith, he found it uncomfortable. Not a room you’d choose if you wanted to curl up with a good book.
Arnold maintained his position by the door again, neither helping nor hindering David’s progress.
After about half an hour, he was forced to conclude that Zimmerman too must have found his library unfriendl
y. He kept no personal documents there, not one letter. Not even a bill or a bank statement. Certainly not a gun.
The rolltop Queen Anne writing desk by the window contained not one scrap of paper and no writing utensils. The whole room was like a stage set, unlived in.
Before proceeding to the study, he tried out the antique gold-encrusted telephone on the Queen Anne to call Chuck Griffiths. He was expected to return from a lunch meeting at 3 P.M. Parr thanked the secretary, making sure the import of Homicide Bureau sank in.
The study was not much smaller than the library, but more cluttered. It was not inconceivable that a person could have spent time in it. The baroque Italian marble-top table in the center had apparently been used as a desk: there was a large square piece of leather with green underfelt on one side, a stack of monogrammed papers, envelopes with “Paul Zimmerman” in the left-hand corner, pens, an antique inkwell, a box of colored pencils, and an electric pencil sharpener.
On the bookshelves there were dictionaries, a multivolume history of the Western world, atlases, books of quotations, a set of encyclopedias. The complete Oxford. An Andrew Wyeth limited edition. A big brass globe on a revolving wooden stand stood next to the table. David couldn’t resist the temptation to turn on its switch to see if it would light up. It did, in blue for the oceans and yellow for the continents. The main cities glowed red, the mountains dark brown.
Arnold cleared his throat noisily.
“Not a bad little toy,” David said before switching it off again.
There was an array of black-framed photographs on the wall, mostly pictures of a little girl with ash blond hair, a high, open forehead, a generous mouth, and near-white eyelashes. She obviously enjoyed posing for the camera. Even in the earliest photos, where she couldn’t have been more than a year old, she dimpled up for the photographer. A few of the pictures showed her with her mother. There was a strong resemblance of one to the other. Must be Meredith and Brenda Zimmerman. Daddy’s girl.
