I sat down on the only chair in the room. He watched my movements carefully, like a mouse watches a cat. Or a cat a mouse.
“Listen, Ford, in light of everything that’s happened, this is hard to say. But I’ll just come out and say it. I need your help—again.”
His eyes darted around. “Well, if it’s tourist information you’re after, I can recommend some lovely places to visit. You and your friend like covered bridges?”
“Listen to me, Lieutenant Donaldson. In about three days’ time, the person who murdered Will Gryder is going to break into the house at the Covington colony.”
“Well, thank you for that tip.” His sarcasm was like a weight.
“And I want you to be there—with me—when that happens.”
He smiled, shook his head, and moved one foot on the floorboards as if he were stubbing out a cigarette.
“You’re not serious—are you?”
“Totally.”
“You mean you want to do that whole dance again, Alice?”
“I did make a mistake. But this time there is no mistake.”
His smile turned up a notch and I saw him grind his teeth—the giveaway signs that he was trying not to blow his stack. “You did a little more than make a mistake, Alice,” he said. “You pretty much made a fool out of me. And my department. And things were going bad enough as it was.”
“Did you go back to that shed at any time?” I asked.
“No. Why should I?”
“Someone shredded the duffel bag we planted.”
“So?”
“Can I just tell you what I’ve learned over the past few days about how Beth—”
“Hey! Listen, lady . . . I don’t want to hear anything you have to say about the Will Gryder case. Understand? You got me involved in some kind of dingbat sting operation. I bought it off you once. But that won’t happen a second time. I don’t care how good-looking you are—or how persuasive. You are persuasive, you know . . . but so are a lot of crazy people.”
“Ford, I promise you no one will be made a fool of this time.”
“You got that one right.” His face hardened into a blank. “Nice to see you again, Alice. Enjoy your stay.”
He opened the door.
I stood up. “Ford! Please wait!”
“I don’t think so, Alice,” he called over his shoulder, still moving.
I had expected skepticism from him. That was logical. After all, he had been burned once. But I hadn’t expected this kind of overt antagonism.
“Please listen!” I said again in the doorway. He stopped and turned then. But I could think of nothing to say that would spark his interest in my plan. I could think of nothing, period. I was living out the classic actor’s nightmare: not a single word came to mind. Ford didn’t wait there very long. I watched him disappear down the staircase.
Just as Donaldson pulled out of the gravel parking lot, Tony drove up in the dusty borrowed car. He came into the room carrying enough breakfast for six people: coffee, donuts, egg sandwiches, rolls, bacon and sausages in tin foil. He placed a towel over the large overturned suitcase and laid out his feast.
Over coffee, I told Tony about Donaldson’s visit and his refusal to help.
“So what do you want to do now?” he asked, sounding strangely detached.
“We have to do it ourselves.”
“Do what?”
“Wait for the murderer, Tony. Trap the murderer!”
“Oh, but of course.” He laughed. “Where do we wait?”
“In the car. Behind the main house at Covington.”
“And this cop Donaldson doesn’t want in on it? What the hell’s the matter with that guy? You must be losing your charms, Swede.”
“Ford doesn’t think much of my charms, or my methods either.”
“I can’t believe it! Didn’t you tell him about the mouse cut-outs, or any of that neat stuff with the book covers? I mean, once he heard about Hookers, he’d know how scientific your investigative methods are. Call him up now and tell him, Swede. He’ll be back here like a shot.”
I sipped my coffee, not rising to the bait. For some reason, my traps really offended Tony. They offend a lot of people. But I’m just one person: If I had the financial backing and the resources and personnel a police department has, I’d be able to pull off much more elaborate stings. I wouldn’t have to send out trick postcards. I could conduct large-scale surveillance operations.
But I have none of those things. And I never will. So I have to work quickly and inexpensively and target every move I make right at the heart of the matter—live by my wits. If I have to use whimsy or intuition or anything else that works—fine. Besides, what I’ve found is that a simple postcard will often flush out a murderer, while around-the-clock surveillance and sophisticated listening devices can miss the mark completely. My cards to the members of the quartet were a kind of performance art, and that’s why I knew they would work.
But how was one to explain that to a Ford Donaldson, pro that he was, or to a Tony Basillio, rogue stage designer?
So I overlooked Tony’s nasty comments and dedicated myself to being the sweetest girl in the world to him. We spent the next couple of days being tourists in old New England. We drove out to see Nathaniel Hawthorne’s house. We visited the Impressionist Art Museum in Williamstown, and looked at the shuttered summer playhouse there. We walked in the woods. We dined in the romantic little inn near Great Barrington and went back to our low-budget hotel and made extraordinarily sweet love at night.
Then, as the daylight vanished on the third day, our tourist impersonation ended. I had never seen Basillio so depressed.
We drove to the Covington colony and parked at the back of the main house, behind the kitchen, so that we would be invisible to anyone entering the premises through the front gate.
It was five forty-one in the evening. We had taken along a big thermos filled with black coffee, and we had plenty of cheese and bread and cookies from the gourmet shop in town. I still had Ford Donaldson’s flashlight from that night we’d “trapped” Miranda Bly in the shed, and Tony had brought his Walkman with its earphones.
As we settled into the front seat of the car, Tony whispered close to my ear: “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, but I’ll defend to the death your right to make me do it.”
It was a terribly cold night. Running the heater would have instantly tipped anyone on the premises to our presence. So we sat in the freezing car, just waiting.
“Tomorrow night I won’t forget the blankets,” I said sheepishly to Basillio, who had not spoken to me for hours. I heard him chuckle bitterly as he sat with his hands tucked into his armpits. His cackling seemed to go on and on.
By midnight we had finished the coffee and the food. I was listening to the all-night classical musical station on the small radio, while Tony dozed. At one-thirty they announced the next selection: Schumann’s String Quartet No. 5, featuring the Riverside String Quartet as recorded live at a 1982 performance. It was so bizarre I had to wake Tony to report it.
Around two-thirty he announced quietly, “I think I’m beginning to hate you, Swede.”
“No, you aren’t.”
He squirmed. “We have no business being out here. We should be in a warm bed in Manhattan.”
“We’ll wait till three thirty tonight. Just another hour.”
“And tomorrow night?”
“The same.”
He groaned.
“You can’t be losing heart, Tony. We just started.”
“I never had any heart for this adventure. Only for you.”
“Not an ‘adventure,’ Basillio. Bad choice of word. I’m too old for adventures.”
“Well, then ‘hubris.’ ”
“Whose hubris?”
“Yours, Swede. You can’t stand to lose. I mean, you can’t stand to lose your superiority in things criminal.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“It isn’t. No one’s going to get the bone away from you. The more you’re thwarted and insulted, the more obstinate you become, the more you worry the bone. And that’s why directors hate to work with you, too.”
“Is that the reason?”
“Exactly the reason. You’re so busy with the bone that you lose sight of the real goal. You stop thinking, and all kinds of fantasies take over. And you do nothing to quash them.”
“So you think this enterprise is a fantasy, do you?”
“I hope it isn’t. But it is a fantasy that the Riverside String Quartet is an evil entity.”
“Did I ever say that?”
“You didn’t say it, but you believe it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here freezing in the middle of the night on this godforsaken farm.”
“It’s not a farm, Tony! It’s an artists’ colony.” I knew that wasn’t much of a comeback, but I thought it best to stop the argument there.
I turned away from him and stared out of the car window. The night seemed sordid and threatening. It didn’t feel like being in the country.
Well, no matter what Tony thought, I knew it wasn’t just “hubris” that was driving me on. They had thwarted and insulted me, though, and I wouldn’t forget it soon.
We got back to the hotel at four in the morning and fell asleep immediately, thankful at least for the warmth.
The next night we were better prepared. We brought blankets and several thermoses, one with soup, and a lot more snacks, plus a deck of cards. The first couple of hours on the stakeout, as they say, were oddly pleasant. Until we started to play casino.
We had to rig up a flashlight so that it illuminated the cards between us on the seat, but not the car. We managed it with a blanket finally, but it made sitting there very uncomfortable. It had been more than fifteen years since I’d played a game of casino, and I had to have my memory refreshed as to the rules. Tony was little help, however, because he remembered even less than I. We got into a fight over the method of scoring. I knew there were eleven points in a game. And I knew the ten of diamonds counted for two and the two of spades was a point, and each ace was one. So that meant “cards” and “spades” had to total four points, but we couldn’t agree on the breakdown.
When we finally did come to an agreement, we commenced an intense game there in the car, in the freezing night, virtually under a tent, waiting for a killer.
I was winning handily. Then I decided to build fours. There was one on the table, so to speak, and I had two more in my hand. So I laid one of the fours from my hand on top of the one on the table and announced my intention to build.
Tony grinned, placed the two of spades on top of my four, and said he was building sixes.
I explained that he couldn’t do that—it was against the rules.
He said he could.
Tempers flared, I picked up the two of spades and threw it at him. He grabbed my hand. I had just raised my other hand when he suddenly put his finger to his lips, cautioning silence.
I had heard it, too. The sound of a motor—coming closer.
“I think a car’s turning up the drive,” Basillio said urgently.
I stiffened in my seat. We could see nothing. The house obscured our view just as efficiently as it hid us from sight.
“At least I think it was a car,” Tony whispered, “I saw bright lights coming up the main road, and then they vanished. So it either stopped and turned out its lights or it turned out its lights and made a right turn onto this property.”
I rolled down the window, in spite of the cold. “We’ll know for sure in a few minutes,” I said. “We should be able to see any lights on the ground floor.” I strained toward the hulking structure of the house, but I heard nothing.
“There!” Tony said.
“Where?”
“It’s gone now, but I saw something.”
Then I could see it too: a beam of light inside the house on the ground floor, sweeping.
“He’s in! He’s in!” I said, and opened the car door. The two of us slipped out quietly.
“What do we do now?” Tony asked.
“Wait for him to leave, and grab him. He’ll go up to Will’s room and tear it apart. He’ll find nothing. And then he’ll leave. We’ll be there.”
We walked around to the entrance to the house, hunched against the cold. I took my place on one side of the door and motioned Tony to the other side. We were like freezing, frightened bookends. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see the outline of the intruder’s car.
I’m not sure how long we were waiting for the intruder to finish his search and give up. But it was long enough for me to realize I’d left the flashlight in the car. I wanted to run back for it, but didn’t dare. It was long enough for me to develop an intensely painful cramp in my leg. The pain was so bad I must have groaned involuntarily.
“What’s the matter?” Basillio hissed from his post.
There was no time to explain. The front door opened then, and a figure walked out.
“Stop him, Tony!”
He grabbed the figure, but it shook free and ran, Tony in pursuit.
Suddenly the area was flooded with light. Dazzling, diamond-white light. Tony froze in his tracks. The intruder stopped too, for a second, but then swung an object at Tony. It landed. Tony grunted.
“Don’t move!” an authoritative voice boomed.
Now I could see the source of the light: the headlights of Ford Donaldson’s vehicle. The lieutenant himself was standing by the driver’s window, his weapon trained on the intruder. No one moved, except me. I walked over to Tony to see if he was okay. He had been hit by a leather pocketbook which now lay on the ground, its contents strewn about.
Ford walked closer, keeping his gun straight out. He looked over briefly at me. “I was just bringing you some coffee, Alice.”
I was breathing too heavily to thank him properly. I turned toward the intruder, now down on one knee.
“Stand up,” Donaldson ordered, “and keep your hands over your head.”
Slowly, the figure stood.
I took a good look. At first my brain registered nothing. The figure seemed familiar in a vague sort of way, but nothing actually clicked. Then Ford pulled the cap from the figure’s head.
It was Mrs. Wallace . . . My God, it was the cook, Mrs. Wallace!
She had cut her hair quite short and was wearing makeup and unisexual dark clothing. But there was no mistake about who it was.
I thought with dumb wonder: But I didn’t send her a postcard.
Ford lowered the gun and walked past Mrs. Wallace, bending to examine the contents of her bag on the ground. After a few seconds, I heard him whistle long and low. When he straightened, he had a small object in his hand. He showed it to me. “This is one of the pieces of jewelry taken from Gryder’s person. They said he won it at a piano competition in Belgium when he was just a kid. He came in third place.”
We all looked at the cook, who was staring hypnotically at the small ring. Her face seemed to be decomposing right before our eyes. Finally she burst into pitiful tears. “I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t destroy it,” she wailed. “I got rid of everything else, but I just . . . couldn’t. It was all that was left . . . it was so sad.”
I put an arm around the trembling woman. “We know why you’re here, Mrs. Wallace. You’re in a lot of trouble. But you didn’t murder Will Gryder . . . did you? But you know who did. You have to tell us everything, Mrs. Wallace. You have to think of yourself now.”
She nodded through the tears.
Ford went to his car to bring the coffee he’d purchased for me.
We helped Mrs. Wallace back in through the doors of the old house and sat her in the chilly dining room, where she choked down the coffee and then began her story. She spoke in a racing, low voice, as if the words were fast unwinding from a spool.
“It was the 1970s, and all those girls wanted their careers. They wanted the money to finance the group bad—and they decided to do whatever they had to do to get it. They were all turning tricks, every one of them. But not like the whores on the street. Oh, no. Their Johns were wealthy, and their fees were stiff. After all, these were beautiful young girls, educated, cultured—the stuff of fantasies for a lot of older men.
“The prostitution was Hazan’s idea. But he didn’t know where to begin. All he knew was how to book and manage small-time acts. He couldn’t set up something like that by himself. So he looked for help.
“He called an old friend from the army—a man who was then a Broadway ticket-broker with some shady connections. Few people knew that this ticket-broker had a background as a pimp.
“The fifteen thousand in seed money was raised quickly enough. And the whoring stopped. But that’s not something a woman forgets easily, even under the best circumstances. Most of the girls pulled through it all and started to put it behind them. But my poor little Rozalind had a harder time forgetting. She was . . . hurt . . . hurt badly . . . by a very sick man, a customer. She was lucky he didn’t kill her, lucky not to lose her mind. But even she got over it, learned to forget, except for the fact that she couldn’t ever have children, thanks to that sick man.
“So the years are moving on, and the quartet has become successful even beyond their own dreams. Then, at a social event, some charity thing for Carnegie Hall, the anonymous pimp, who’d gone on to make something of himself and is now a wealthy and respected businessman, meets the women for the first time. They know nothing about him. But he knows all about them, doesn’t he? Anyway, he takes one look at that angel—Roz—and he’s head-over-heels, hopelessly and forever in love. And soon they marry.”
I touched the cook on the arm then, interrupting her narrative. “Are you saying the pimp was Benjamin Polikoff?!”
“Yes. Ben. He adored Roz. He became the most wonderful husband any woman could ever want. And a wonderful friend to the entire quartet. He made life great for her, and I know she loved him, too.
Cat With a Fiddle (9781101578902) Page 16
