The Secret Keeper

by Dorien Grey

  He looked at me, solemn-faced. “Will I?”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  *

  Wednesday, he called Bement from Evergreen to see if he should go over and was told to come ahead, which he did.

  “How is Mr. Bement doing?” I asked after our group hug as soon as I got home.

  “He looks terrible. But I can’t blame him. I told him how sorry I was. But then right after I got there, his grandson came over. I know I shouldn’t say it considering how sad Mr. Bement is, but his grandson—he’s the airline steward—is beautiful!”

  I grinned. “I think it’s a job requirement,” I joked, hoping to make him feel better.

  “He’s about my age,” he continued, letting my observation sail over his head. “A little shorter than me. Jet-black hair and really light blue eyes. And nice, too.”

  “Shall I move in with Tim and Phil?”

  He gave me a startled look, then grinned. “Only for a while.”

  “Uncle Dick’s moving?” Joshua asked, wide-eyed.

  “No, Uncle Dick isn’t moving,” Jonathan replied. “We’re only playing.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” I said.

  Jonathan looked at me. “Oh, no, you don’t! You’re not pulling that ‘bravely-noble-spouse’ number on me! You look all the time. I’m entitled.”

  He had me there. “Granted,” I conceded. “So, what’s his name?”

  “Mel. Mel Fowler, I think. I didn’t really talk to him all that much. He showed up just after I got there, and then he and Mr. Bement went into the house and I went back to work. I was really glad he came over, because I could tell Mr. Bement felt better as soon as he saw him. And he’s gay, of course.”

  “Mr. Bement?” I asked with a straight face, causing him to look at me as though I weren’t quite bright.

  “Uh, no. Not Mr. Bement. Mel. Mel Fowler. The airline steward. Mr. Bement’s grandson. Remember him?”

  “Vaguely,” I said. “So, how do you know he’s gay?”

  Again the same look. “Give me a break,” he said, and we exchanged grins.

  *

  Wednesday we got a call from Bob and Mario saying they were thinking of having a barbecue on Sunday.

  “The weather won’t be cooperating too much longer,” Bob said, “so we might as well get one more in.”

  When we—well, it was Jonathan who mentioned it—told him about our meeting Cory and Nick and said they were relatively new in town, Bob suggested we invite them, which Jonathan, of course, thought was a great idea.

  “I think they’ll really fit in with the group,” he told me after he’d hung up. I agreed, and he didn’t even replace the receiver on the cradle before dialing their number.

  *

  Friday night when I got home, and as I headed toward the kitchen after our group hug, I noticed a battered copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese on the couch.

  “Mr. Bement wanted me to read it,” Jonathan explained, “so I couldn’t say no. It was nice of him to lend me his very favorite book. But I want to get it back to him as soon as I can, because I know he’ll miss it.”

  “Have you had a chance to read any of it yet?”

  He sighed. “I just started it.”

  “What do you think so far?”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little over my head, to be honest. But I’ll read it because I said I would.”

  “Well, books talk to different people in different ways. Sometimes we understand everything they’re saying, sometimes we don’t. Don’t worry about it.”

  *

  I remember a time, long, long ago, when weekend mornings were for sleeping in. That, of course, was pre-Joshua. I’d seriously considered painting the window in his bedroom black to encourage him to sleep later than seven o’clock. It wouldn’t have worked.

  Jonathan, bless his heart, would often get out of bed the minute he heard Joshua up and about to prevent him from pounding on the door asking when breakfast would be ready. This might give me another ten or fifteen minutes of sleep, until the sounds of roughhousing or Joshua’s laughter would wake me.

  This Saturday was no exception. Hearing Joshua’s shrieks of laughter—I gather he’d conned Jonathan into a tickle-fest—I got up, slipped on a pair of sweatpants (I haven’t worn pajamas since I was Joshua’s age) and staggered into the living room.

  “Sorry we woke you,” Jonathan said from the floor, where he was on his back fighting off Joshua’s assault. Joshua was too intent on his mission to even notice I’d come into the room.

  I noticed the clock said it was one minute to seven, and went over to the couch and flipped on the television for the morning news. The lead story was about the threatened strike of the city’s transit workers. Talks had broken down, and it looked as though there would, indeed, be a strike.

  It was the second story that immediately snapped me awake.

  “Financier and philanthropist Clarence Bement is dead at eighty-nine, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police were called to Bement’s home Friday evening when his housekeeper reported finding his body in his study after she returned from shopping. An investigation…”

  Chapter 2

  I’d mentally tuned out the sound of the TV and concentrated on Jonathan, who’d gotten up from the floor and stood like a statue staring at the set, impervious to Joshua’s vigorous attempts to get his attention.

  “Joshua,” I called, “why don’t you go get out of your pajamas? We’ll be having breakfast soon.”

  “But we’re playing!” he objected.

  Jonathan looked down at him and put a hand on his head. “Uncle Dick’s right, Joshua,” he said. “We’ll play later.”

  Reluctantly, the boy turned and went into his room.

  The news moved on to other stories, and I flipped the set off. Jonathan came over to sit beside me on the couch.

  “I’m so sorry, Babe,” I said.

  “I think we should call the police.”

  “Call the police? Why? I don’t understand.”

  “Mr. Bement would never kill himself!” he said firmly. “Never! He loved life too much, and he knew he didn’t have very much of it left. He didn’t want to waste a day of it. We were making plans for the garden for next year. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t intend to be here. He never would have killed himself.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “But sometimes—well, people do unexpected things for reasons we can never know. And you said that his best friend had just died. Maybe that hit him harder than you realized.”

  “He didn’t kill himself,” Jonathan insisted.

  “I tell you what,” I said. “I can check with Marty Gresham Monday to see what he knows about it, okay?” Marty was a police contact with whom I’d become friendly. I took Jonathan’s hand. “Let’s see if they say anything more about it today or tomorrow.”

  At that point, Joshua came out of his room, more or less dressed, and we went on about our day.

  *

  It helped that Saturday was our family chores day. With Joshua always present and so much to get done, Jonathan didn’t have the time to spend on worry. I knew he was saddened and upset by Bement’s death, but he was very careful not to be anything but upbeat around Joshua.

  In addition to the chores, there were several phone calls—by me, since Jonathan wasn’t in a very social mood—to the gang and to Cory and Nick about Sunday’s get-together. It was to be a potluck, and Jonathan had planned to make potato salad, but Cory volunteered to bring it, so we opted for the buns and chips and dips, which was probably just as well under the circumstances.

  We also arranged to meet Cory and Nick at the MCC. Though Jonathan usually drove to and from church, I decided I could take them, and when I picked them up, Nick and Cory could follow us to Bob and Mario’s.

  *

  The barbecue on Sunday was, as always, a great success. Jonathan seemed to be emerging from the initial and understandable shock of Chester Bement’s death. As I suspect
ed they would, Nick and Cory fit right in.

  Mario, I found out for the first time in all the time we’d known him, had a deaf cousin and was fairly fluent in sign. Tim worked with a deaf lab technician at the coroner’s office and also had picked up a fair amount of sign, and two of Jake’s construction employees were deaf. I found it amazing that not only had so many of our friends had contact with the deaf community but that I’d been completely unaware of it. Cory was, as expected, spectacularly good in effortlessly carrying on a running interpretation of everyone’s conversation.

  While the grown-ups talked, Joshua alternated running around the yard looking for the tortoise Mario and Bob had found alongside a road some time before, trying to play with Pancake and Butch, their two cats (Pancake was pretty cool about it, but Butch wasn’t at all sure he wanted to be harassed by a five-year-old boy), and frequent trips to the main group for attention and something to eat. We’d made a rule before we arrived: he had to clear all food and drink requests through Jonathan to prevent a “no” from one of us sending him running over to try to get a “yes” from the other—usually, I have to admit, me.

  *

  We checked the TV news when we could, but there was nothing more about Bement’s death. The newspapers all carried small items but had no information other than the death was an apparent suicide and that there would be no formal funeral, only a family memorial.

  So, on Monday, as I’d promised, I called Marty Gresham at police headquarters to ask him what he knew about Bement’s death. Luckily, I caught him in.

  “Clarence Bement?” he asked. “Did you know him?”

  “No,” I said, “but Jonathan worked for him, and he is absolutely convinced Bement would never have killed himself. I was just wondering if there’s any possibility he might be right.”

  Marty sighed. “A lot of people think their friends could never kill themselves, but they do,” he said.

  “But how many eighty-nine-year-olds kill themselves?” I asked.

  “True,” he admitted, “and all suicides are considered possible murders until proven otherwise, though a lot more people kill themselves than are murdered. So, unless there’s some reason to suspect otherwise, the investigations are not as extensive as they are in obvious murder cases. Dan and I don’t have the case, and I don’t have any information, but I can check for you, if you’d like.”

  “I’d really appreciate it, Marty.”

  “No problem. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  *

  He called back shortly before lunch. Having friends in the police department definitely has its advantages.

  “I’ve got a copy of the report on Bement’s death right here,” he said.” His housekeeper said he had been in ill health for some time, and very depressed. She said he had just lost a close friend—his lawyer, Eli Prescott.

  “Apparently, he was pretty much estranged from most of his family, but those the investigating detectives talked to agreed he’d been seriously depressed ever since he was confined to a wheelchair after a fall this spring. The housekeeper says he’d often talked of suicide, but like I said, the rest of the family weren’t in close contact.”

  I’m not sure why, but for some reason I detected the faint aroma of fish.

  “The housekeeper found the body, I understand.”

  “Yeah. She’s a live-in, but she has every Tuesday and Friday afternoon off. She went to church, did some shopping, and returned home to find Bement dead. The doors were locked, there was no sign of forced entry, and nothing was missing or out of place.

  “The gun was his, and was lying beside the body just where it would have fallen when his hand relaxed after the shot. The prints on the gun were his, there was gunpowder residue on his right hand—he was right-handed—and what we call ‘tattooing’ on his temple, indicating the gun was pressed against the skin when it was fired. No suicide note, nothing to indicate a struggle.

  “The only thing out of the ordinary was that it took him two tries—the first shot missed and went into the wall. The second did the job.”

  “Two shots?” I asked, incredulous. “How can someone miss shooting himself in the head the first time?”

  “Well, it’s not unheard of. The bullet entered the skull just forward of the right temple, above the right eye and exited just above the left eye. Most aim farther back, nearer the ear. But a ninety-year-old with a shaky hand, with the barrel aiming toward the front of his temple, could well miss the first time. And the fact he made sure to press the gun against his head for the second shot might support that.”

  “So, what more can they do?” I asked.

  “They’ll be checking more closely with the family, to see if they can find something suspicious—where everyone was at the time of the death, whether any of them had, or knew of anyone who had, a particular reason to want him dead.

  “Of course, the fact he was a multimillionaire certainly can’t be overlooked. But unless they can find some definite indication of foul play—and there’s none so far—there’s only so much time and manpower we can afford to expend. Still, they know what they’re doing, and they aren’t likely to miss anything, if there’s anything to find.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have a hard time selling that ‘no foul play’ to Jonathan. He swears Bement would never have killed himself, and he never once mentioned Bement’s being anything but positive about life.”

  There was a slight pause before Marty spoke again. “With all due respect to Jonathan, how long and how well did he really know Bement? I understand he worked for him, but…”

  He had a point.

  “Yeah,” I said, “you’re right, of course. He only worked for him for a month or so, and then only a couple hours three times a week. But apparently they talked a lot while Jonathan was working in the garden, and he feels they got to be fairly close. He said Bement confided in him, and I’d think if he were suicidal, Jonathan would have picked up on something. He’s pretty perceptive.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Dick—I’m afraid he’s outnumbered on this one. But let’s see what else we can find out. I’ll let you know if there’s anything.”

  “Thanks, Marty. I appreciate your looking into it for me.”

  “Glad to do what I can.” There was a slight pause, then, “So now I’d better get back to work. I’ve got a desk full of cases.”

  “Understood. Thanks again, and we’ll have to get together for lunch before too long. My treat.”

  “Sounds good. See ya, Dick.”

  I hung up wondering yet again how, shaky hand or no, it could take two tries to shoot yourself in the head.

  *

  About two thirty that afternoon, I got a call from Jonathan saying someone had called him at work for a quote on a small landscaping project out near Prichert Park, a forest preserve on the edge of town. Since he was without a client for his freelance work at the moment, he had agreed to run out there after work, and asked if I’d mind picking Joshua up at day care.

  I’d had an appointment with a prospective client scheduled for three o’clock, but luckily the guy had called just before Jonathan did and rescheduled. Still, much as I hated myself for it, I felt a little less than happy by another last-minute notice.

  It was nearly six o’clock when Jonathan got home, and I’d started dinner. Even before we finished our group hug, I could tell something was bothering him.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  While I fixed my evening Manhattan, Jonathan took a Coke out of the fridge, pouring Joshua a small jelly-glass full, remembering to put a maraschino cherry into it. We then went into the living room to sit down.

  “I drove all the way out there,” he said, taking a swig of his Coke, “and I must have written the address down wrong. I was sure he said Woods Road, but there’s no such address there. As a matter of fact, there’s not a single house on that whole stretch of road.

  “He didn’t give me his phone number, so I don’t have an
y way to call him to explain. He’s probably mad at me for not showing up.” He sighed, then added, “As if that wasn’t bad enough, I drove all the way to County Line Road then turned around and came back. Just before I got to a stop sign where some dirt trail crosses the road, I had to swerve to avoid a pothole and a stone broke my windshield! I haven’t any idea where it came from—it’s a gravel road, but nobody was in front of me, and nobody passed me. I must have kicked it up myself, somehow. Anyway, I’m going to have to get it fixed.”

  “How bad is it broken?”

  “Not bad, really, just a hole with a few small cracks around it. But the rain will come in, and—I just hope my insurance will cover it.”

  I was fairly sure his deductible was higher than the cost of a replacement windshield would be—contrary to their ads, altruism is not an insurance company’s primary motivation in selling policies—but I didn’t want to say anything. He was already unhappy enough.

  *

  Maybe I’ve been in the P.I. business too long, but something about the broken windshield niggled at me. It was not until I’d gotten home Tuesday—Jonathan’s chorus practice night—that I realized why.

  I’d stopped on the way home to pick up a bucket of chicken, since time was a factor in his being able to get to rehearsal. In deference to time, I forewent my usual predinner Manhattan.

  “How was your day?” I asked, setting the sack on the counter and transferring the bucket of chicken and tubs of mashed potatoes and cole slaw to the table, which Jonathan and Joshua had just finished setting. Jonathan took a gallon of milk from the refrigerator and filled our glasses. “Did that guy call back?”

  “No,” he said as we sat down, “but something kind of strange happened.”

  The muffled sound of alarm bells echoed through my head.

  “What’s that?” I asked, as casually as I could.

  “I think someone was following me when I left work.”

  The mufflers came off, and the bells were impossible to ignore.

  “How do you know?” I asked, feeling rather stupid the minute the words left my mouth. Jonathan may be naive, but he’s certainly not stupid. If he says he was followed, he was followed.