Bitch Slap

by Michael Craft

  “Uh, yes, I was.” I tried to sound neither agitated nor accusing as I asked through a smile, “Where have you been, Glee?”

  She shrugged. “Appleton.”

  When she mentioned the town, I recalled her telling me something about it, but the details didn’t click.

  Reading the confusion in my face, she explained, “I was following up on an earlier story about that big charity do that will benefit several area hospitals. I drove over there today to interview the organizer of the gala, but it was a wild-goose chase—the woman, a Mrs. Dresen, wasn’t home. Must’ve had our wires crossed.”

  As Glee recounted this, I remembered both the earlier story and Glee’s follow-up plans, so the explanation of her absence was perfectly plausible. Getting ahead of myself, however, I was now concerned that if Glee eventually needed an alibi for the time of Gillian’s death, she wouldn’t have one because Mrs. Dresen hadn’t been home. Obliquely, I asked, “Did you speak to anyone else in Appleton?”

  “Don’t think so. Why?”

  “No particular reason. Do you happen to recall when you left Dumont for Appleton?”

  “Right after I left the Reeces’ house—sometime before ten.”

  “Good.” The coroner had said Gillian died no earlier than eleven.

  “Good?” Glee’s features wrinkled. “Mark, what are you driving at?”

  “Let’s sit down, Glee.” We stepped to the chairs surrounding the low conference table. Glee took a seat, setting her zebra-print purse on the floor. Sitting next to her, I asked, “How did your meeting go with Gillian?”

  “Not well.” She expelled a long breath, almost whistling, before she continued, “I’m sure you recall that I arrived at the house just as you were leaving, around nine o‘clock. Gillian was in the living room, barking something at a decorating crew; I think they were there to hang curtains. When she saw me, she said, sweet as pie, ‘Ah! Glee! Can you wait a moment, please? I have something to attend to.’ She then proceeded to lecture all of the work crews, who were finishing various tasks. She informed everyone that their work was to be completed within one hour, and she wanted them out. The curtain crew left right away, and she badgered the others until they, too, had all gone. She kept me waiting all this time, and she yammered straight through, barely pausing to breathe. It was a nonstop harangue.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said grimly. “So when the two of you finally talked, you were alone.”

  “Right. The house was suddenly empty, and to tell the truth, as beautiful as it is, it was also sort of creepy—but that was the company, not the architecture. Gillian listened quietly as I apologized for my behavior yesterday. It was a good grovel, Mark—I took full blame and made no reference to the background issue, Hugh Ryburn. I paused, giving her an opportunity to accept my apology, but she simply nodded, saying, ‘You may continue … ’ It was a challenge to remain civil, but I did. Getting down to business, I told her how much the Register was looking forward to running the photo feature on her new home, and I asked when we might send over a photographer.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Plenty. She informed me brusquely that she was withdrawing her permission for the feature. I assumed she was having second thoughts because of privacy issues, so I tried to assure her that we wouldn’t shoot anything she considered off-limits, and I even offered to let her review the photos before we printed them. But she was unconvinced. In fact, she laughed at me, saying that she’d never intended to go through with the feature. The only reason she gave her initial okay was to cause me the professional embarrassment of promising the feature in my column this morning.”

  “She told you that?”

  “In so many words, yes. Needless to say, our meeting was over, and the atmosphere was tense.”

  “You didn’t, uh … slap her again, did you?” As Glee was right-handed, her parting blow might have accounted for the welt on the left cheek of Gillian’s body.

  Glee shook her knotted hand. “Believe me, Mark, I was tempted to do more than slap her. But no, I managed to control myself, and I simply left—without saying good-bye.” Glee gave a sharp nod, as if her parting breach of etiquette was tantamount to fisticuffs.

  “I can hardly believe it,” I said with a sympathetic shake of my head. “It’s unthinkable that Gillian would set you up that way. It’s so … premeditated and mean.” I paused, recalling the many incidents that had reshaped my view of the woman over the last two days. “On second thought, maybe I can believe it. I’m sorry, Glee.”

  “It’s not your fault, Mark. The story was my idea, and even after I realized who Gillian was, I wanted to proceed with the feature. It was my mistake thinking that I could work with the woman, that I could trust her. So I’ll just have to eat crow with our readers.”

  “Actually, Glee, that won’t be necessary. We wouldn’t run the story anyway, not after what’s happened.”

  “What’s … happened?” she asked with a quizzical squint.

  I reached to the arm of Glee’s chair and touched her hand. “Gillian is dead. We found her this afternoon—Lucy and I went over to the house, wondering if you were still there.”

  Glee’s brows arched. “Really?” Her tone carried no shock, no disbelief, but the lilt of pleasant surprise. She asked outright, “Who killed her—do they know yet?”

  “Why do you assume she was murdered?”

  “Because she looked plenty healthy this morning; she wasn’t on her deathbed. Besides, we’re talking about Gillian. She was a shrew, Mark. What goes around comes around.” Glee tossed her hands, pleased as punch.

  “In fact,” I told her, “the investigation is in its early stages, but Coroner Formhals thinks Gillian died accidentally—a fall from a ladder.”

  “What a shame.” Glee’s inflection was so ambiguous, I couldn’t tell whether she regretted that Gillian had fallen or she regretted that Gillian hadn’t been pushed.

  Suspecting the latter, I said, “Forgive me, Glee, but I must say, you don’t seem very upset by this news. I can understand that you feel a measure of relief, knowing you can now explain to our readers that the Sunday feature has been cancelled in light of an unexpected turn of events, but—”

  “No, Mark”—she wagged a finger—“that’s not it at all. It may be coldhearted of me, but I’m not the least upset by your news of Gillian’s ‘accident’ or whatever it was.” Glee stood. “Let’s not mince words. I’m glad she’s dead.”

  I stood as well, offering a weak smile. “I know you too well, Glee, to think you’re coldhearted. I simply hadn’t understood the depth of the pain Gillian caused you.”

  Glee sighed. “I hadn’t either, Mark.”

  We stepped to each other and embraced for a moment. Then Glee picked up her purse from the floor, telling me, “I’d better check with Lucy. We’ll need to come up with a new Sunday feature. I have a few ‘anytime’ stories on file.”

  I gave her a wink. “I’m sure you do.”

  Glee returned the wink. “I’ll get right on it.” She started out the door to the newsroom, then stopped, turning back to me. “I just thought—with Gillian gone, does this foul up the merger? I’m sorry, Mark. I know how hard you’ve been working on it.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I suppose these things happen for a reason. Let’s hope it’s for the best.”

  She nodded, thinking a moment before echoing, “Let’s hope.” And she left.

  As I watched her retreat toward the far end of the newsroom, I was mulling something I’d just said. When I’d told Glee that “these things happen for a reason,” I was speaking in the broad, metaphysical sense of fate or destiny. But my words also had a literal meaning, suggesting that I already believed there had been a reason for Gillian’s death, a motive that was possibly linked to the merger.

  These thoughts were nipped by the ring of my phone—my desk phone, the one with a cord. Moving to my inner office, I lifted the receiver and answered, “Yes, Connie?”

  “It’s S
heriff Pierce, Mr. Manning.” And she connected us.

  I said, “Hi, Doug. Any news?”

  “No, Mark, nothing on the autopsy, not yet. I was wondering if you know how to reach Esmond Reece. We need to notify him of his wife’s death, but don’t know where he is. Do you happen to know where he works?”

  “He doesn’t work, doesn’t need to.”

  “Ah, the perks of having a rich wife, I guess.”

  “Truth is, he made his own fortune quite a while ago. In recent years, he’s occupied his time with yoga and other Eastern studies. I’m pretty sure where you can find him.” I was about to tell Doug the details, but instead, I offered, “Want me to take you there?”

  He laughed; my tagalong ploys had become transparent. “Sure,” he said, “if you have time.”

  “I always have time to help.” While my civic-mindedness was doubtless admirable, we both understood that I was angling to be an eyewitness to a developing story.

  “Tell you what. I’m in the car right now, so I can swing by and pick you up in about two minutes. Meet me in front of the building?”

  “Great. I’ll be there. Two minutes.” I was about to hang up when I remembered something. “Oh, Doug. By the way. I have a cell phone now.”

  “I’m stunned. Welcome to the twenty—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Do you want the number?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  About two minutes later, an unmarked tan cruiser rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the Register building. Sheriff Douglas Pierce leaned to open the passenger door, and I hopped in. We greeted each other as I secured the seat belt across my chest. Then Doug asked, “Where are we headed?”

  “West, just outside of town. Take First Avenue to the highway.”

  As he roared away, the souped-up cop’s engine plastered my back against the seat. Doug, accustomed to his car’s ferocious acceleration, didn’t notice my blanched knuckles gripping the edge of the armrest. He casually glanced over to ask, “You said something about yoga?”

  I nodded. “Back in Harper, Esmond Reece took up yoga with an instructor named Tamra Thaine. When Gillian decided to move the corporate headquarters of Ashton Mills to Dumont, Esmond didn’t want to make the move, so they struck a deal. Gillian agreed to endow a nonprofit venture that Tamra wanted to establish here, an institute for Eastern studies.”

  “You told me earlier that Gillian slapped Tamra at the house this morning.”

  “Right. Gillian was backing out of her promised funding. Esmond brought Tamra to the house, and together they confronted Gillian, who didn’t budge. In fact, she became so verbally abusive, I was tempted to slap her myself.” As an afterthought, it seemed prudent to add, “But of course I didn’t.”

  A question pinched Doug’s features as he watched the road. “You also told me Esmond had made a fortune and didn’t need to work. Why doesn’t he bankroll the institute? Why go begging to Gillian?”

  I explained how Esmond’s cell-phone circuit had made him a wealthy man. “But since he had no head for business, he transferred control of his assets to his accounting-savvy wife. It’s a bizarre setup, at best.”

  Doug corrected me, “It was a bizarre setup.”

  As we neared the edge of town, the road curved out to the highway. Doug gripped the wheel, taking the turn without braking. Swaying toward the center of the car, I glimpsed the speedometer. Though the driving conditions were perfect and there wasn’t another car in sight, I couldn’t resist noting, “You’re ten miles over the limit, Sheriff.”

  He looked at me as if I’d just suggested he should wear high-button shoes. “Yeah? So?” He grinned.

  I myself never appreciated backseat drivers, so I understood his reaction. Still, I did feel that he was driving too fast, and since he was sworn to enforce the law, he should be the first to observe it.

  “Well,” I said, joking, “it’s a minor infraction. I’ll let you off this time.”

  He shook his head, laughing. I could almost hear his thoughts: I was hopelessly square.

  Sometimes, I realized, my thinking was indeed too rigid and inflexible. During private moments, Neil had occasionally cautioned me against being “priggish.” Coming from anyone else, that word would have been insulting, but coming from Neil, it was said, I knew, in the earnest belief that I was sometimes too exacting for my own good.

  Though I trusted Neil’s judgment, which sprang from love, not from a desire to be critical, I still found it hard to buy into the notion that my life would be in any sense better or more joyful if I were to abandon certain standards of thinking and behavior that had served me so well in the past. My attention to detail, my commitment to play by the rules, my scrupulous nature, had allowed me to excel in school when I was young and, later, to establish a successful career, first as an investigative reporter in Chicago and now as a publisher and businessman in Wisconsin.

  I reasoned that if I occasionally erred on the side of fastidiousness—even priggishness—I had done no harm, and in fact, I had demonstrated integrity to my own principles. Was I really to chuck my long-established code of personal ethics just to satisfy those who might feel I could afford to loosen up?

  “How far?” asked Doug, bringing me back to the moment.

  “Just beyond that next stretch of trees.” Offhandedly, I added, “You’ll barely recognize the place.”

  As my meaning sank in, Doug turned to me with a blank expression. “Don’t tell me—Miriam Westerman’s old property?”

  “The same.”

  “Whatever happened to that nutcase?”

  “She joined a new coven in the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Good riddance.” With a chortle, Doug added, “What a loon.”

  I didn’t say anything, but to my way of thinking, the jury was still out on whether the property’s old loon had been replaced by a new one.

  The twiggy sign came into view: DUMONT INSTITUTE FOR EASTERN STUDIES. I told Doug, “Same driveway, through that first clearing.”

  He slowed the car and turned onto the gravel drive, following it through the woods to the parking area at the middle of the compound. As during my visit of the previous afternoon, we found only two vehicles parked there—Esmond’s car and Tamra’s SUV, both white, near the entrance of the main building, also white.

  Getting out of Doug’s car, we both took care not to slam its doors. We instinctively lowered our voices while walking to the building, as if entering hallowed ground. Not that Doug or I placed much credence in the holism and cosmology that was once preached there—and apparently still would be. Rather, it was precisely because of our skepticism that we felt uncomfortable and out of our element in such surroundings.

  As I gently opened the building’s front door, music wafted from a distant hall. The twangy, mystical strains of a sitar, punctuated by the beat of a tabla, suggested Tamra was giving Esmond another lesson. I told Doug, barely above a whisper, “They must be in the same studio where I found them yesterday.”

  “A music studio?”

  “No, a yoga studio. The music’s for mood, I guess.” As I led him through the hallways, I noticed paint cans and tarps along the way; the efforts to spruce up the place had progressed since a day ago. A lingering scent of turpentine hung in the air, blending with the woozy music. The mixture seemed oddly appropriate, as the pungent smell of paint thinner took on the character of incense. “They should be in here,” I told Doug, indicating the doorway from which the music flowed.

  Quietly, Doug and I approached the door along the adjacent wall; we actually tiptoed, which lent a sinister, though cartoonish, quality to our escapade. Peeping around the jamb, we saw Tamra and Esmond inside, engaged in a lesson, as predicted. It looked for all the world as if she was trying to teach him to wrap his ankles behind his head, following up on Gillian’s earlier suggestion, but they were having a rough time of it, as he just wasn’t that limber.

  My inclination, as on the day before, was to wait quietly until they finished, but Doug fe
lt constrained by no such protocol. Rapping on the doorjamb, he cleared his throat. “Uh, Mr. Reece? Excuse me.”

  Esmond’s legs snapped back to the mat on the floor as Tamra bolted to her feet and crossed the room in a fluster to switch off the boom box. “Ah, Mark!” said Esmond, struggling to stand (his legs were doubtless feeling a tad rubbery). “Welcome back.”

  Stepping into the studio, I told both him and Tamra, “We’re sorry for the intrusion, but I’m afraid this is important. Have you met Sheriff Pierce?” I was sure they hadn’t. My mention of the sheriff underscored the gravity of our visit, and accordingly, both Esmond and Tamra moved forward, sober-faced, as I introduced them to Doug.

  Tentatively, Tamra began, “I hope there’s not a problem with our renovations, Sheriff. We made a point of securing all the permits before beginning our work on the facility. Our first students haven’t enrolled yet, but if safety is an issue—”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Thaine,” said Doug. “It’s nothing like that. I’m sure everything’s in order.” He turned to Esmond. “I’m here because of an unfortunate accident that occurred this morning. It’s most disturbing.”

  Esmond’s complexion, pale at best, turned whiter. “Good God, Sheriff, what’s happened?” He reached for Tamra; she came to his side and grasped his hand.

  “You may want to sit down,” Doug began, but then realized there was no furniture in the room, so he continued, “or just brace yourself for some very bad news. Mr. Reece, I regret to inform you that your wife, Gillian, died this morning of an apparent accident at your new home. It seems she fell from a ladder. Allow me to offer my sincere condolences.”

  Esmond and Tamra turned to look at each other, their faces conveying no emotion other than mild surprise, as if Doug had just told them we were in for a hard frost that night. Esmond returned his gaze to Doug. “You’re kidding.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Reece, I wouldn’t kid about such a subject.”

  “It’s true,” I added. “My editor and I went over to the house around noon, and that’s when we found Gillian—on the living-room floor, at the foot of one of the library ladders.”