Larkspur

by Sheila Simonson

  "Dai kept a personal journal, you see." D'Angelo drew another breath. At that rate he was going to hyperventilate.

  Jay said mildly, "Take it easy, Professor D'Angelo."

  "Oh hell, don't be so formal. Did the three of us freeze our asses together in Dai's lake or did we not?" A brave attempt at jauntiness.

  "We did."

  The chair rocked. "The thing is, I had an affair with Dai one summer at the lodge."

  Jay nodded. I kept very still.

  D'Angelo closed his eyes, opened them. "It was fourteen years ago. I was married by then, and my wife and kids came up with me. Hal, that was Dai's lover, got jealous. He told Paula what was happening. She took the kids and..." His voice broke.

  Jay stirred beside me but said nothing.

  D'Angelo cleared his throat. "The upshot was she divorced me and kept the boys. She also threatened to expose my conduct to my colleagues at Presteign. It's a good school, but private and church-related. So she had me over a barrel."

  I must say my sympathies at that point were with the former Mrs. D'Angelo. I tried to keep a blank face.

  D'Angelo was gripping the wooden arm-rests very hard. Every time he moved, the chair creaked and rocked. "That school-year was hell," he went on in a low, tight voice. "I was up for tenure. My publications were okay, and I'm a pretty good teacher, so I suppose they would have awarded me a permanent contract, but I couldn't stand the strain of waiting."

  I heard the coffee maker give its last grumbles and slipped out to the kitchen, but I kept my ears tuned. I poured two cups.

  "Paula got the boys, half my salary, and the house we were buying." The chair creaked. "She stayed there, licking her wounds and biding her time. Sooner or later, the lid was going to blow off. The Monte position was the first thing that came along, and I grabbed at it. I said I wanted a change of scene because of the divorce." He gave another tight laugh. "Some of my friends even believed me, though Monte was a long step down the academic ladder."

  I brought him his mug. "Cream?"

  "What? Oh, no thanks." His hands shook when he raised the cup to the lips, but he drank a little.

  I went back to the couch.

  Jay said quietly, "Did the relationship with Llewellyn continue?"

  "No!" He bit his lip. "It's damned hard to explain this. You see, Dai--I guess the word would be seduced--he seduced me when I was an undergraduate at Muir. I don't mean to suggest it was rape. I was...willing."

  Beside me, Jay stirred again but he said nothing.

  D'Angelo took a hasty sip, burned his tongue, and swore. "I was an awful kid, what my students would call a nerd, and Dai was a suave sophisticate. I enrolled in his seminar on modern poetry. He liked my writing. His attention was enormously flattering, and he was...charming."

  "I met him," Jay said. "Remember?"

  "Yeah, but when he was younger..." He set his cup down, leaving the thought unfinished. "So he persuaded me into his bed a couple of times. Then he went on to better things." His mouth twisted. "I was devastated and confused. I thought I hated him, but I still needed his approval--of my work, I mean. Surprisingly enough, I continued to get it."

  "Then you left Muir and went to graduate school," Jay murmured.

  "Yeah. I met Paula in a Spenser seminar, and we fell in love." He was frowning now, as though puzzled. "You probably don't believe that, but it was true. I loved Paula, and I found her desirable. All this stuff about gay rights and coming out of the closet and so on, it's a good thing. It's good if you're not, well, ambivalent. I'm ambivalent."

  "Bisexual?" Jay suggested, cautious.

  D'Angelo heaved a sigh. "If you have to have a label. Believe me, I've tried to understand my...peculiar orientation. But Dai was my only experience of a male lover. And I'd always been a nerd, so my experience with women was limited, too. I was susceptible to being loved."

  "Who isn't?" Jay said mildly.

  D'Angelo picked up his mug, drank a good swallow of cooling coffee and set his cup on the end table. "In any case, I kept on needing Dai's academic approval, and I got it. I'm a critic, not a poet, but he liked my approach to poetry, wrote me glowing recommendations, even offered me advice on my dissertation, good advice. I owe...owed him my academic career."

  Jay rubbed his nose. "You must have had considerable talent and energy to finish out a Ph.D. program. I doubt that you owe your career to Llewellyn or anyone else."

  D'Angelo flushed, but he looked less as if he were going to fall to bits on my carpet. The rocking chair creaked. "Well, I worked hard, but connections matter. I felt as if I owed it all to Dai. I was flattered to be invited to the lodge when the invitation came. Hell, so was Paula." He paused brooding.

  I swallowed coffee.

  "Strangely enough," he went on, "I no longer found him sexually exciting. I went along..."

  "For old times' sake?" Jay's measured sarcasm made D'Angelo sit up straight.

  The rocking chair gave a large creak. "You don't believe me."

  "I'm trying to understand what you're saying, D'Angelo. Your heart wasn't in the summer fling, but you went along."

  "Yeah. Afterwards, I could see Dai had been using me to provoke Hal. By then it was too late. Paula and the boys were gone. He ruined my life..."

  "Isn't that a little melodramatic?"

  "Christ, who's supposed to be the literary critic?"

  Jay smiled.

  D'Angelo heaved a big sigh. "I'll try to be more precise. It felt at the time as if he had ruined my life. I hated him and hated myself for needing his love or approval or whatever you want to call it. The worst part was losing my sons. That was a kind of death." He looked at his hands. "I was a good father. I'd started Mikey in Little League, and I was looking forward to all that Leave It to Beaver stuff. I missed my kids horribly."

  "Didn't you have visitation rights?" I asked, incredulous.

  "I didn't ask for fear Paula would tell the judge why not. She would have, too. I saw them, supervised, one afternoon a month until I moved to Monte. Then we had to make do with phone calls and letters. I wrote great letters."

  I felt my eyes sting with sympathetic tears. I'm a sucker for good fathers.

  "Five years ago, Paula and I came to an arrangement. The boys spend a month with my parents in Sonoma County every summer. I go down, and we have August together. She's still suspicious, though. She never told the boys why we got divorced, but Mike's a college student now, plenty old enough to wonder, and I've had a hell of a time re-establishing any kind of father-son rapport with him. He's a bright kid, but he's rebellious. Fortunately, both boys like their step-father."

  "So your life didn't come to an end after all, and you kept on visiting Llewellyn's lodge until he died and left you in charge of his Foundation."

  D'Angelo started at the sudden harshness. So did I. Jay's hand closed briefly on mine. I subsided.

  "He felt guilty." D'Angelo's eyes pleaded. "He knew what had happened, how I felt about losing my family and my place at Presteign. He was remorseful. Maybe I played on that. I wanted him to know how rotten it was for me."

  "You knew about the directorship?"

  "Yes. After Hal's death Dai put his affairs in order. Last year he told me how he wanted the Foundation administered. And he promised me the directorship."

  Jay was silent for maybe a minute. I could tell he was turning D'Angelo's story over in his mind.

  D'Angelo bit his lip. "I'm getting married." Jay's eyebrows shot up.

  "To a woman who knows as much as I know about my peculiarities and wants to marry me anyway. She's had her own experiments and failures. We decided we've both had enough solitude. And enough charades. The directorship will free me of the need to masquerade as good old Win, man about town and universal escort. I'm forty-five years old. I don't kid myself. I love Martha partly because she loves me and mostly because she's a damned attractive human being. I'm also looking forward to having someone to talk to at breakfast."

  Jay leaned forward and picked a s
heaf of papers up from the coffee table. "Why did you decide to tell me all this now, sir?"

  "Mary Dailey..."

  "Yes, I can see that would be awkward, but names in the journal are in a private code."

  "You've seen it?"

  Jay gestured with the sheaf. "The current volume was in Llewellyn's room at the lodge. I had it photocopied and asked the San Francisco police to secure the rest of his private papers. There were a lot of them. I got a bale of photocopies yesterday afternoon, and I've been sifting through them since then."

  D'Angelo leaned back in the chair, eyes closed. Creak, creak went the rocker.

  "The journal is kind of like a painter's sketch book. Pictures in words, phrases. Like notes for poems."

  D'Angelo's eyes opened wide. "My God, what a bonanza that would be for a critical biography. You could see the stages of a poem from its inception."

  Jay nodded. "I guess so. There isn't a lot of stuff about people--except for his relationship with Brauer. He kept a running account of their emotional ups and downs."

  "I wonder whether I was an up or a down?" D'Angelo mused.

  I could see Jay swallow a grin.

  D'Angelo must have, too. He smiled wryly. "You said the names were in code."

  "Yes. He wrote enough about other people so you can tell when he was having an affair, or a family feud, or any other emotional upheaval, but he didn't go into detail. The relationship with Denise, for instance. I picked up on most of those references."

  D'Angelo shook his head, disbelieving. "Denise..."

  "Anyway, I might not have been sure about your connection with him, just from reading the journal."

  "I didn't know that."

  "Maybe not, but why hand me a motive for murder?" Jay laid the papers down again. "Reinforce a motive for murder. The directorship was a motive in itself, and I was puzzled."

  "That he'd name an undistinguished jerk from a jerkwater school to head his big Foundation?"

  "I knew you'd been his student."

  "So was Mary. So were a lot of people." D'Angelo got up. "Shit, it's ten thirty already. I have to get up at five." He walked to my window and looked out. "I told you because it was safe."

  Jay stood up, too. "Safe?"

  "You have the murderer--or you will have when you catch up with the Mercedes. I'm trying to clear my desk, Dodge. Metaphorically speaking. Dai gave me a chance to start over professionally."

  "And you'll be starting a new marriage, too."

  "That's right. This time around I want everything out in the open."

  A short silence fell. Jay said mildly, "I ought to warn you not to leap to conclusions. The case isn't closed."

  D'Angelo turned from the window and stared. "Even so."

  "Even if Miguel wasn't the poisoner?"

  "Why do you say that? He ran."

  "I'm hypothesizing, Professor D'Angelo."

  D'Angelo nodded. He understood that kind of thinking. "Even if Miguel wasn't the murderer, I think my motive would come way down the list." There were the Peltzes, who thought they were going to inherit, and Fromm, who did.

  "It is a big estate."

  "Denise would love to do The Woman Scorned."

  And the Huffs probably needed their seed money, I reflected.

  D'Angelo drew a breath. "If I'd wanted to murder Dai, I would have done it fourteen years ago. I didn't want him dead. I just wanted to see him squirm."

  There was more talk, of course. Jay needed a formal statement. He was willing to wait for it, though. He had corroboration of D'Angelo's tale (in the coded journal) and a witness to the story (me) in case D'Angelo decided to recant. I didn't think he would. He seemed relieved to have the story off his chest. At eleven Jay drove D'Angelo to his apartment.

  I sneaked a look at the famous journal but couldn't decipher it. Word-pictures, Jay had said. Images. Made sense. Llewellyn had been an Imagist.

  Chapter VIII

  I love my mother.

  I thought I'd better say that at the outset. What's more she's a good poet.

  She's also five two. When I'm with her I feel huge and inarticulate. I'm aware that the problem is mostly in my mind, but that doesn't make the feeling go away. With three thousand miles between us we get along well.

  I reached San Francisco around 8:00 a.m. and the St. Francis Hotel in time for breakfast. Ma had already asked room service to send up eggs Benedict, assorted fruit, and lots of coffee. The cart arrived as we disentangled ourselves from the flurry of greeting. She was wearing a neat little gray faille suit, gloves, no hat. I was wearing a dark cotton print and flats. I felt like a dark cotton giraffe. Ma told me I looked just right. She checked out of the hotel at ten. I stowed her bag with the bell captain and hailed a taxi.

  The memorial service was scheduled for ten thirty, but it started fifteen minutes late. By then half the academic poets in North America and a sprinkling of the rest, a segment of the gay community, a segment of the financial community, assorted representatives of the publishing industry, including the Huffs, a dozen lawyers, and Angharad Peltz's parents had assembled in the vast interior of the cathedral. Neither Ted nor Angharad showed up.

  The organist was playing a Bach prelude. Llewellyn had been cremated, so there was no casket. I could see through the floral arrangements in front of the altar rail to where the priest was set to enter. As the organ swooped, a rustle, like wind on a wheat field, ran through the assembled mourners. I turned and looked back down the long aisle. Denise was making an Entrance.

  She wore a black dress, chiffon with flowing sleeves, and a black summer hat with the hint of a veil. The outfit was vaguely nunnish. It suggested a great deal but stated nothing. Her face was composed, stark. Her hands clasped a black Prayerbook. Escorted by Dennis, she moved slowly, slowly up the center aisle.

  Denise's looks were dramatic rather than beautiful and when she opened her mouth she invariably betrayed herself, but could that woman move.

  I discovered I had been holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh. Every step Denise took expressed grief, loyalty, pain reined in by dignity, yet it was not possible to analyze how she created the effect. Watching her, I understood at last that she was a consummate artist.

  At her left hand, Dennis, in a dark suit, was red with embarrassment. The usher looked apprehensive. Denise moved serenely on.

  When they reached the front of the church, I thought she was going to demand to be seated in the family pew. I could even imagine her huge eyes flashing. However, she did nothing so vulgar. Head bowed, she made an infinitely graceful gesture of resignation and allowed herself to be seated in the second row. The occupants, lawyers by the look of them, moved aside for her as if they had been cued. She took her seat. Dennis, ears scarlet, sat beside her on the aisle.

  A low murmur from the congregation--audience?--indicated that I was not the only one impressed. My mother stirred and I bent to hear.

  "Magnificent," Mother murmured. On target as usual.

  I believe the Joneses, Angharad's mother and father, had chosen the service. The conventional Episcopal funeral rite had dignity and a certain elegance, but it was also impersonal. The priest gave a sermon rather than a eulogy. He referred to untimely and violent death in a sensible way. He offered comfortable ideas about resurrection. He did not allude to Llewellyn's sexual preference, said nothing of children born out of wedlock, and mentioned poetic pioneering in only the most general way. I suppose it was a wise decision. Bill Huff must surely have been disappointed. I think the poets were, too.

  Afterwards--when we had watched the Joneses leave, heads high, and seen Denise droop past on Dennis's arm--we all adjourned to a large reception area. The Joneses received condolences at one end of the room. At the other, Denise stood receiving the unplanned homage of anyone with a speck of human curiosity, including several members of the press. Dennis was there too, large and embarrassed. I wondered if the mourners were congratulating him. I gave him a kiss.

  When Mother had paid h
er respects, we went looking for poets. Since many of them were looking for Ma, we did not seek in vain. Soon she was deep in a discussion of the problems of editing a writer who had revised even his most successful works repeatedly. That had been a consideration in the definitive editions of other poets--Yeats, Auden, Ransom--so the subject drew the scholars, too.

  Everyone seemed to know that Ma would be looking for an editor. That added urgency to the debate. Most of the poets favored following the artist's changes. The scholarly solution was a variorum edition. Some literary historians argued for the best-known versions of the poems.

  I stood at the edge of this swirling controversy and looked for Winton D'Angelo. Finally I spotted him by the coffee urn in the company of a handsome, squarish woman I took to be Martha Finn. I had seen her play Gertrude, so I knew she could exude a ripe sexuality when she wanted to, but she looked anything but flamboyant in person. She and D'Angelo seemed to be marking time. I detached myself and drifted toward them.

  Halfway across the large room I was waylaid by Bill Huff.

  "Morning." His eyes looked like poached eggs.

  "Hullo, Bill. Where's Lydia?"

  He gestured toward the Joneses. Lydia was standing, head bent, beside Angharad's mother, listening to something the woman was saying. Mrs. Jones was small, with Llewellyn's elegant bone-structure, and she was dressed with understated elegance. Her husband looked as if he wished he were playing golf. Lydia cocked her head and said something, patting Ann Jones's arm.

  I returned my attention to Bill. "Nice service."

  "Yes." He looked disappointed. "Uh, Lydia said to tell you she'd like to meet your mother."

  "Sure. I'll work it in when the debate cools."

  He gave me the poached egg stare.

  "A little dispute over the definitive edition of Llewellyn's poems. They're going at it hot and heavy."

  "Oh."

  I concluded that the Huff Press poets were entirely Lydia's province. Otherwise he would have known what I was talking about.

  "Never mind, Bill. I'll see to it when I've said hello to D'Angelo and Martha Finn." I oozed off, leaving him looking as forlorn as an abandoned child.