Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  “Velez is over there,” said Malloy, pointing at a dark bowed head on the far side of the room. “I gotta go. I better move my car before somebody gets a hair up his ass over me blocking ’em in.” He gave me a naive smile as if we were now the best of friends. “Hey, if you ever think of selling your joint, gimme a call.”

  “You’ll be at the top of my list,” I replied.

  I felt oddly conspicuous as I walked to Detective Velez’s desk. Heads were turning, but it wasn’t quite the same as in the Drake. I suppose peach Escada isn’t often seen at Area Three. I decided too late I had overdressed.

  Detective Velez was engaged in a phone conversation, but acknowledged me by pointing his index finger at the plastic chair beside his desk. He then held up the same finger to indicate the number one. I wasn’t sure if this meant it would be one second, one minute, or one hour, but he had promised to get to me swiftly, so I sat down. On his desk, three raven-haired children smiled from one side of a silver frame and a raven-haired wife smiled from the other. While waiting, I couldn’t help but overhear the detective’s conversation.

  “I don’t care,” he shouted into the phone. “Tell them to go back and search the basement again. There’s got to be more. You don’t just take the hands and leave the head. Get the picture?”

  Silence. While the party on the other end responded, I drew a picture of my own. A rather unpleasant one I might add. “Yeah, you’re right, could have been scared off halfway through. Well, hopefully we’ll be able to I.D. from dental charts. Maybe the feds should start taking dental impressions instead of fingerprints, for Chrissakes.”

  Another long pause, and then the detective laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me. The wallet, huh? Look, I’ve got someone here. Don’t move him. I’ll be there as soon as I’m finished.” He replaced the receiver and looked at me. His slightly flushed face caused the jagged scar on his cheek to turn purple.

  “My apologies, Mrs. Cook,” he said, indicating the phone. “I hope that wasn’t too gruesome for you.”

  “Au contraire, detective. I found the conversation rather…enlightening. I’ve been known to read a mystery novel from time to time; they serve a purpose for an insomniac such as myself. If you don’t mind my asking, why would the culprit take someone’s hands?”

  “Oh, so we can’t identify the body by the fingerprints. But here’s the irony of the whole deal: the goofs who killed him left the guy’s wallet in his back pocket. Like we always say around here, “‘Thank God they’re stupid. If they had brains we’d be in trouble.’”

  He covered his mouth with his hand and collected his thoughts. When he took his hand away his visage had changed. Any trace of a smile was gone, and I knew he had mentally filed the case of the handless corpse away for the time being. He had pulled out a fresh one, the Ethan Campbell file.

  “Now as to your friend. We’ve got a match between his prints and the prints on the gun, and there’s residue on his hand that indicates he was the shooter. That pretty much says suicide. But…” The hesitation lasted a few seconds as he collected his thoughts. “We’ve also seen evidence that the bullet was fired from an intermediate range. That’s not real common in suicides.”

  “I told you Ethan wouldn’t have killed himself,” I interrupted. “Maybe someone put the gun in his hand and forced him to shoot it.”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up three yellowed papers that lay before him on the desk. They appeared to be documents of some kind. He shuffled through them once and then looked back at me with ponderous brown eyes.

  “How well did you say you knew Mr. Campbell?”

  “Quite well. We’ve been good friends for more than five years.”

  “And you’ve always known him as Ethan Campbell?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does the name Daniel Kehoe mean anything to you?”

  “No,” I replied, wondering what sort of game the detective was playing. “Why are you asking all these ridiculous questions?”

  He pushed the yellowed pages across the desk to me. Even a lay person such as myself could see they were birth certificates. They appeared to be ancient, falling apart at the seams where they had been folded and unfolded numerous times over the years.

  I looked at the first one. It was issued to a baby boy. Daniel Kehoe, born to Moira McMahon Kehoe and Patrick Kehoe on June 1, 1940, in Boston, Massachusetts. I wondered who these people were and what connection they had to Ethan. The second document was foreign issued with a very official looking stamp from Her Majesty’s Government. It gave testimony to the birth of Moira McMahon in Limerick, Ireland, on February 14, 1922. Obviously Daniel Kehoe’s mother. It still didn’t mean anything to me.

  It was the third birth certificate that gave me pause. It too bore the stamp of the English crown and documented the birth of an Ethan Campbell in Bury St. Edmunds, England. Parents: Sara and Lawrence Campbell. Date of birth: December 24, 1942.

  Mystified, I looked back at the detective. “Who is this Ethan Campbell? What does all this mean?”

  “I was hoping you might know. We found them in his apartment. In the same drawer as his appointment book.”

  To say I was confused would be a vast understatement. My friend Ethan had never owned up to his age, so I couldn’t know for certain the year he was born. But I did know his birthday was on Valentine’s Day—not Christmas Eve. One of Ethan’s extravagances every year was the celebratory birthday lunch he threw for himself at the Drake, inviting all his lady friends and insisting everyone wear red. I pictured him at the party just last month, seated at the head of a long table wearing a pink shirt and red tie, drinking Taittinger Rose Champagne and eating strawberry mousse, beaming as we sang “Happy Birthday” to him.

  “Whoever this Englishman is, he isn’t the same Ethan Campbell I knew,” I told the detective. “For one, my friend Ethan’s birthday was February 14. Secondly, he was not born in England. He was born in New York City.”

  “You’re certain of that.”

  “Yes, I am.” I would run out of fingers and toes if I tried to count how many times Ethan had spoken of his christening at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the sumptuous party thrown afterward. He could recite the list of attendees, the creme of New York society at the time—names found in the Social Register including his godfather—one of the Eastmans. The Kodak Eastmans.

  And then the first spark of doubt. A glimmer that perhaps Ethan hadn’t been completely honest about his past. Aside from the way he watched me before picking up his silverware at fundraisers, not to mention his occasional use of my bread plate instead of his, there was something else. Like the embers of a dying fire being fed a fresh piece of wood, a repressed memory flared to life. When Ethan’s publisher sent him to New York years ago to promote the Gloria book, Sandy St. Clair, my former college roommate, happened to be up from Palm Beach. To celebrate his new publication, she arranged a little reception in his honor at Sardi’s, a place he had waxed long and eloquently about being a fixture at during his New York days. She called me afterward to tell me she had found his behavior a bit disturbing. From the minute she picked him up at the Pierre, he had been completely disoriented, unsure of where he was going, making a wrong turn more often than not. And when they reached the theater district, he hadn’t even known where Sardi’s was located or that it was on two levels. She said it was as if he had never set foot in the restaurant in his life, much less the city. On top of that, Sandy added, though she had invited a good cross section of New York society to the reception, Ethan had not known one person there.

  I hadn’t paid her call much heed at the time, and forgotten about it shortly afterward. Now the papers sitting on the desk in front of me loosened it from the recesses of my mind.

  Detective Velez must have been speaking because his lips were moving. I hadn’t heard a word. I brought myself back to the cold, sterile precinct with a shake of my head.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.

&nb
sp; “I said is there anyone you can think of who might be able to tell us more about him? Someone who has known him longer than you?”

  “Well, there’s Juan Cardoza in Puerto Rico.” Ethan lived there for twenty-five years before moving to Chicago. He wrote the society column for Juan’s newspaper. “He worked for Juan for a long time.”

  “Would you know how to reach him?”

  “No, but I would guess you could find him through directory assistance. He’s the publisher of Puerto Rico Hoy,” I said, fairly certain Detective Velez would have no problem negotiating his way through the Puerto Rican telephone system.

  He wrote Juan’s name down on a pad of paper. Then he put the pen down and stared at me. “If we can’t be certain of who your friend was, I’m afraid we’re going to have to run a fingerprint check with the FBI.”

  “And that will tell us who he was?”

  “If he had a criminal record it will.”

  “I hardly think Ethan had a criminal record. May I ask what happens to his body in the meantime?”

  “Well, because of the nature of his wound, we’re still waiting for the M.E. to make a ruling on cause of death. After that, it will belong to the Public Administrators Office until we identify it. The F.B.I. check could take up to three weeks. Then we’ll release him to next of kin or anyone else who wants to take responsibility for him. If no one comes forward the state disposes of him.”

  It all seemed so cold. My mind was overloaded as I tried to assimilate the past twenty-four hours. My best friend, who never gave any indication of unhappiness, died a violent death that may or may not have been at his own hand. Now there was some convoluted mystery regarding his very identity. I didn’t know if I was more stunned, shocked, surprised or dismayed. One thing was for certain, I planned to find out who he really was. I tapped a finger on the mysterious birth certificates. “Would it be possible to get copies of these?”

  Detective Velez shrugged indifferently. “I don’t see any reason why not.” He picked up the tattered documents and disappeared, returning minutes later with sheets of crisp white copy paper. He remained standing as he handed them to me. A sure sign our time together had come to an end.

  “I’ll get someone to take you home,” he offered. Then he smiled as if he was just greeting me. “That’s a beautiful suit you’re wearing by the way. I’d love to buy my wife something like that. Where did you get it?”

  Though I doubted his budget had room for a two-thousand-dollar suit, I gave him the store name anyway. I hoped he would never go there. I wouldn’t want him to leave disappointed. He led me through the sea of desks to the front of the room where he barked some orders to a uniformed policeman in the front. With a quick nod he was off, presumably to learn more about the handless corpse. I followed the uniformed police officer back through Dante’s Inferno and out to the parking lot. This time I had the good fortune to ride in an actual squad car. The experience turned out to be especially delightful because Edna Atchison was walking her poodles on the parkway when we pulled up in front of the building.

  I gave Edna a playful wave and went inside.

  Edgar handed me my mail with a quivering hand and I tucked it into my purse. The entire ride up in the elevator, my mind was completely preoccupied with the photocopied birth certificates Detective Velez had given me. Daniel Kehoe of Boston. Moira McMahon Kehoe of Limerick, Ireland. Ethan Campbell of Bury St. Edmunds, England. Who were these people? What was their role in my friend’s life?

  I let myself into the apartment and went into the library to sort through the mail. A postcard from Emily Whitehead vacationing in Patagonia praised the beef. A creamy white envelope contained an invitation to Anne and Vincent Williamson’s daughter’s wedding, which meant the purchase of an expensive gift. Two bills from credit card companies got tossed into my desk drawer. They contained my stratospheric credit card statements—debt that had been riding for months now at 18 percent interest. A piece of junk from a different credit card company went into the trash.

  The final piece of mail nearly caused my knees to buckle. It was addressed in Ethan’s all too familiar hand, elaborate loops and curlicues that danced their way across the front of the plain white envelope. There was no return address.

  My entire body trembled. The letter was postmarked Wednesday. But that was impossible. Ethan died Tuesday night. For a ridiculous moment I thought maybe there had been a mixup and he wasn’t dead after all. Then I flashed back to the grotesque scene in his bedroom. One couldn’t get much deader.

  I waited for my adrenaline to slow enough that my hands weren’t shaking. Then I opened the envelope from the great beyond. There were two sheets of typing paper inside. I unfolded them slowly, my heart pounding as if it would like to come through my chest. With tear-filled eyes, I read the first page.

  Tuesday

  Dearest friend, Pauline:

  By the time you read this I will be dead.

  First I must say how sorry I am to have to do this to you this way. You were my best friend on earth and it wasn’t fair for me to bow out without giving you any warning. But I was unhappy, far more unhappy than you will ever know. My soul was so tormented that I felt I could no longer go on. There are things about me that you never knew—terrible things—and they ate at me night and day. I hope you need never suffer as I did.

  Please don’t ever think you weren’t a good friend to not pick up on my unhappiness. I had become a master at hiding it. No one could have ever known, not even you, my dear. I hope your life is long and wonderful, you deserve it, you deserve happiness. For me, this was not possible in this form.

  I’m afraid I’m not leaving much behind, but whatever I have, I want it to be yours. I am leaving you all my worldly goods, all my bank accounts, all my possessions. I want you and only you to have any future income I may derive from royalties or in any other way. You are the only person I want to inherit from me, and I write this as a person of sound body and mind. An odd thing for a person about to commit suicide to say, I realize this, but I can’t stress how much I want everything I have to go to you and only you. You deserve it for being such a dear, dear friend to me when I was alive.

  Goodbye and Godspeed,

  Ethan Campbell

  I reread the letter several times before I turned to the second sheet, his will. It was also written in longhand, a simple two sentences.

  I, Ethan Campbell, being of sound body and mind, do leave all my worldly goods to Pauline Cook. This will replaces any other will that may have come before it.

  It was dated March 29. Two people whose names I did not recognize served as witnesses, and there was a notary stamp from a local currency exchange.

  I felt immensely sad. I tried to imagine Ethan’s frame of mind, writing a will and then running out to notarize it before taking his own life. He referred to being in deep pain. He never seemed in any pain to me. In fact, he seemed to be having the time of his life. Although he wrote I couldn’t have known about his unhappiness, we were so close I just couldn’t believe I completely missed it. He had been tormented enough to take his own life and I saw no signs? His ear had always been ready for my fears and problems. Had my ear been closed to his?

  I suspected that the birth certificates found in his apartment had something to do with his torment, but nothing in his note explained them. However, the note did clear up one thing. There was no longer any doubt that Ethan’s death was a suicide.

  I looked at the Wednesday postmark. His letter must have been dropped into the mailbox after Tuesday’s last pickup—before he went home and shot himself. I wondered why he had chosen to mail it instead of simply leaving it in his room. Maybe he feared it would be overlooked in his paper jungle. Then a frightening thought occurred to me. Maybe his rationale was that once he mailed the letter, he would have no choice but to go through with the act it described.

  After sitting quietly for some time, I called Detective Velez and told him what the day’s mail had yielded. Though he tried to sound
sympathetic, it was clear he was relieved to have one less case to worry about. He asked if he could send Detective Malloy around to pick up the correspondence, assuring me that it would be returned to me as soon as they finished with it. While I wasn’t overly thrilled at the prospect of yet another visit with Detective Malloy, I told him it would be fine.

  After hanging up, I read and reread Ethan’s last words. There was something bittersweet about him making me his heir. Though to my knowledge there wasn’t much to inherit. He’d been living off the advance on the Daisy book for so long there probably wasn’t anything left of it. Nonetheless, I found the gesture to be truly thoughtful on his part.

  If only I had known how truly thoughtful it was.

  6

  The April Fool

  Black. It had to be black. Though fully one third of my closet is dedicated to the mourning color, I was hard-pressed to find the appropriate ensemble. The Valentino suit was too elegant, the Thierry Mugler too over-the-top. Then I spotted it buried in the back behind some formal gowns: an ancient St. John knit. It would serve perfectly.

  On the first Friday of every month, we ladies lunch at Scarlet’s, and it just so happened that this first day of April was the designated day. I initially toyed with skipping the monthly gathering in deference to Ethan, but then decided it would be better to attend. For several reasons. First, my peers would be expecting to hear every detail of Ethan’s death directly from my lips, and it would be inconsiderate on my part to deprive them of the maudlin pleasure. Secondly, it would be far more expeditious to get the story told in one fell swoop instead of having to repeat it ad nauseam over the next weeks.