Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, she put her hand on my knee and said, “Frankly, Norman, I’m glad he’s dead. Oh, I know it’s an awful thing to say.” She lifted her mildly mad, beautiful eyes to mine. “But he had become a regular dispenser of misery. He went around handing it out. Especially to himself. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but in Heinie’s case, being dead is a definite improvement.”
After she had left, not altogether steadily, I mentioned to Diantha that Merissa’s demeanor had not been that of a bereft widow. Indeed, she seemed quite jolly toward the end of her visit, a result perhaps of the wine.
Diantha came and sat next to me on the sofa, putting her hand on my knee as though to reclaim me. “Norman, darling, I think there’s something you should know, but you have to promise me not to tell anyone else.”
I nodded, but noncommittally.
“You promise?”
“Does it have to do with Heinie’s murder?”
“It might.”
“You know I can’t promise that. I’m already part of this investigation.” I winced inwardly, given how much I was already holding back, even from my wife.
“I’m going to tell you anyway.”
I waited, watching her troubled expression, which gave depth to her pretty features, showing character as well as beauty.
“Well, you know about the affair she’s been having with Max Shofar?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s been hot and long and it’s still going on.”
“Enough to give Max …?”
“And Merissa …”
“A motive?”
“Maybe.”
“Why didn’t she just divorce him?”
“They had a prenup. She would have only gotten a pittance.”
“And if he died?”
“She stands to get a hefty chunk of his estate.”
I nodded slowly, thinking back to that trip down to Raven’s Croft to tell her what had happened. The way she said, “He wouldn’t!”
Diantha’s disclosure was very much on my mind the next morning when I found a message on my voice mail to the effect that Lieutenant Tracy wanted to drop by. I left word that I would be in, all the while worrying even though I knew what it was he wanted to talk about.
I was restive, anyway, the result in part of an e-mail from Worried regarding the coins Heinrich von Grümh donated to the museum. Worried, some may remember, is the anonymous tipster who works in the Genetics Lab and who has proved helpful if not instrumental in resolving some decidedly tangled mysteries in the museum. He wrote:
Dear Mr. de Ratour:
I see you’re back in the news with this Grum [sic] guy murder. And I don’t know if what I’ve got to tell you has anything to do with the case. But the scuttlebutt going around the Labs is that the coins he gave the museum are fakes. The way I heard it is that the guy with the long name in charge of the Greek stuff brought some samples down to Robin Sylphan who runs the electron microscope which gets you in as close as you can get. It’s all very hush hush for some reason. You might want to check with Robin. I mean she’s a dike but she’s nice. I thought you’d want to know this because maybe it had something to do with the murder. It probably don’t mean squat, but you never know.
Worried
Professionally, of course, I am concerned by even the remote possibility that the coins are forgeries. There are so many good fakes out there that it has become the bane of the collector’s profession. And that, ultimately is what people in my position do: We collect rare and beautiful things; we study and classify them; we curate and exhibit them. Quite aside from the aesthetic bliss such objects afford, their beauty, utility, and timelessness give meaning to our past, indeed, to our very existence. At another level, any forgery undermines the appreciation of what is genuine and unique, of things that, in their essence, cannot be duplicated. Which is not an insignificant consideration as the world lapses ever deeper into a coma of virtuality.
Truth be told, I don’t entirely trust Feidhlimidh de Buitliér, Curator of the Greco-Roman Collection. A few months back he proposed that I appoint him assistant director of the museum, intimating that he could be useful in that position in our ongoing efforts to remain independent of the university. When I asked him how he might be useful, he evinced an evasiveness that had an undercurrent of insolence. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him in league with the ever-looming Mr. Morin.
But then, possible forgeries seemed the least of my concerns as the lieutenant took his accustomed seat in front of my desk. Though we remained cordial enough in our greetings, I remarked an edge of wary reserve as he told me he wanted to bring me up to date on the murder and that he had questions about Heinie von Grümh’s relations with the museum. Doreen, who is very happily married to and now hugely pregnant by the divinity student who came by as a grief counselor in the wake of the Ossmann-Woodley murders, brought us coffee and closed the door.
I took some solace from the thought that the officer’s attitude toward me undoubtedly sprang from a weariness with investigating murders at the museum. He began with a sardonic jest, wondering if we shouldn’t call it the Museum of Murder. I countered that we could certainly consider starting a collection or perhaps mounting a special exhibition that would draw from other museums and from the grisly detritus of homicide kept in police departments all over the world. Certainly, I said, warming to my rejoinder, murder and man, both as a gender designation and in the larger sense of Homo sapiens sapiens, go together like cakes and ale. But I did wonder to myself why the MOM attracts these acts of ultimate violence.
I reminded the lieutenant, who wore a suit of dark summer-weight wool, an impeccably turned shirt, and a jazzy tie with a design that look like linked handcuffs, that, technically speaking, the murder did not occur on museum property. I might, unconsciously, have been trying to exculpate myself. Because, for the whole time, I teetered on the edge of disclosing my own qualifications as a suspect.
“Close enough,” he said ruefully. Then, abruptly, “Who on the staff here or at the university might have had a motive for murdering von Grümh?”
Though I expected the question, I feigned musement, something, I think, the lieutenant noted. “Qui bono?” I said. “Well, let’s see, I suppose we could start with Feidhlimidh de Buitliér.”
“Felonious the what?” he half joked.
“Not quite. More like felimi.”
“Could you spell that?”
“Not off the top of my head.” My laugh sounded nervous, even to me. I rootled through a file and came up with a document with the man’s official name. “Feidhlimidh o Súilleabháin de Buitliér,” I said, spelling it out. “It’s Irish Gaelic. Or, as he informed me, a Gaelicized Norman name, at least the Butler part of it. I don’t how real it is. Someone told me his original name was Philip Buttles or Bottles and that he has Sullivans somewhere in his family. We call him Phil for short.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s Curator of the Greco-Roman Collection.”
“And why would he want to murder von Grümh?”
“Well, Lieutenant, I’m not saying he wanted to murder him. In fact, I doubt very much he could have.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I doubt very much he has the …”
“Testicular fortitude?”
“Exactly. What I’m saying is that the two of them never got along. Heinie always managed to treat Phil as a lackey. And Phil had difficulty accepting Heinie’s appointment as Honorary Curator of the Numismatic Collection. Heinie kept telling Phil how to do his job. Phil insinuated on several occasions that Heinie’s coins were fakes …”
“Is that a possibility?”
I paused for a moment, wondering if I should disclose the e-mail from Worried. “When it comes to anything in a museum, forgery is always a possibility. It is an art form in and of itself.” I paused. “As a matter of fact, here’s an e-mail sent anonymously to me this morning.” I handed him a
printout of Worried’s communication and waited as he read it.
“Have you asked the curator about it?”
“Not yet. But I plan to.”
He nodded. “Let me know if you turn up anything.”
“Of course.”
“So your curator and von Grümh didn’t get along?”
“There was a chronic, low-grade aggravation between them, but nothing, as far as I can see, that would lead to murder.”
“Anyone else?”
“I suppose Colin Saunders wouldn’t mind seeing Heinie among the dead.”
“Who’s Colin Saunders?”
“Col Saunders is the Groome Professor of Ancient Greek Civilization and Curator of Classical Antiquities in the Frock. You know, Wainscott’s …”
“I do. Groome with an e?”
“Right. Heinie’s late father. He funded the chair in a bequest, and Heinie was on the search committee that helped select Saunders. Only he campaigned against his appointment.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Heinie was like that. A gadfly in the ointment, as Izzy Landes called him.”
“So Saunders might carry a grudge?”
“Indeed, but it goes deeper than that.”
He waited and, I must say, his skeptical gaze put me on edge.
“Well, as you know, we are having some battles royal where the university has been concerned. We have conceded that, though independent, we are historically affiliated with the university and want to remain so. But there is an element in the Wainscott administration that will settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender. For them the revenues from the Genetics Lab …”
“Saunders and von Grümh,” he said, cutting off what might have become a familiar recitation.
“I’m getting to it,” I said, worried now about his acerbity, wondering what it might signify. “The sticking point has been our Greco-Roman Collection. Saunders has been claiming that it belongs in the Frock because, in truth, the various bequests to the MOM that resulted in our very modest but excellent Greco-Roman inventory contain ambiguous language in which it would appear that the donors considered the university and the museum as part of the same entity.”
“So?”
“So Saunders, perhaps in league with this cabal in the university’s administration, has been insisting that the museum accede to the transfer of the items in that collection to the Frock.”
“How might this tie in with von Grümh’s murder?”
“Well, Heinie has been a significant contributor to the museum, and he’s been more than vociferous in his opposition to combining the two collections.” I paused. I lowered my voice. “Strictly off the record, Lieutenant, I should tell you that for ethical and professional reasons I am willing, with proper legal safeguards, to consider joint title to any item with ambiguous provenance. But not everything. We are, after all, the Museum of Man in His Many Manifestations.”
“Did von Grümh know this?”
I hesitated. “I don’t think so.” But what if Diantha, in their pillow talk, had mentioned it to him? I’m afraid I colored just a little. “I mean these things have a way of circulating.”
The lieutenant gave me a keen, hard look. But he didn’t press me. He said, “What can you tell me about Merissa Bonne?”
I shrugged, a little too theatrically perhaps. “Not a whole lot. She was Heinie’s third wife. A trophy wife, as they say.”
“Did they get along?”
“I wasn’t that privy to their relations …” I hesitated, letting my small truth cover a large omission as I recalled the evening before and what Diantha told me about Merissa and Max Shofar. The substance of which I should have disclosed to the lieutenant. But I was reluctant to venture into the entanglements in which I found myself snared. I told myself it wasn’t that important. I told myself I would tell him later if it became necessary.
Keeping my expression neutral, I asked, “Was there any evidence of powder burns on von Grümh’s hands?”
The lieutenant thought for a moment. “No. None whatsoever. The GSR was negative.”
“GSR?”
“Gunshot residue. Why do you ask?”
“To rule out suicide.”
“Was he suicidal?”
“He should have been,” I said with a queasy laugh.
“Why do you say that?” The lieutenant did not laugh.
I sighed. “He was a very unhappy man. In my opinion.”
“What made him unhappy? In your opinion.”
I glanced sharply at the lieutenant to let him know I didn’t like his tone. I said drily, “He was one of those people who suffer the tragedy of getting everything they think they want.”
“Anything else?” he asked, grim with suspicion.
I shook my head outwardly and inwardly at myself. There was in fact much else to tell him about myself and Heinie and the night of his murder. About Merissa and Max and the motive they could have shared. I had even neglected to tell him about Col Saunders and the Dresden stater, one of the world’s most valuable coins. So I feigned thoughtfulness and lied. I said, “Not that I can think of.”
He briskly folded up his notebook. He stood up. He said, “And you, Norman, what did you have against Heinrich von Grümh?”
Again resorting to small truths, I said, “Oh, I thought the man a bore. But I’m sure I’d have been murdered myself long ago if that were a possible motive.”
At the door he granted me one of his wry smiles. “Don’t leave town, Norman.”
Which, though presumably meant as a jest, rattled me. I again cursed myself for not being candid with him. His questioning and especially his manner left me in a rare state of anxiety. How much did he already know? How much did he suspect? It is bad enough to sense when a friend begins to dislike you; it is worse when he ceases to trust you.
The best response to anxiety being action, I determined to walk down to Phil’s office to ask him about the coins when Doreen came in with the mail. I leafed through it listlessly. It included a letter from Millicent Mulally of Sign House that contained some remarkable information and the promise of another headache for me.
Dear Mr. de Ratour:
I am writing to inform you that I am engaged to be married on July 10, and that, well before that date, I will no longer be in a position to care for Alphus and to act as his guardian. My future husband and I will be moving to New York, where he works, to an apartment scarcely big enough for the two of us.
I will miss Alphus very much and hope to be able to visit him regardless of what his future living arrangements are. In this regard, you should know that it would be inhumane in the extreme to return Alphus to the cages in the museum. He is not like other chimpanzees in the least. It would be like condemning a man to prison for no reason whatsoever. It would be unjust.
Right now I am doing everything in my power to find Alphus another situation. I would suggest that he be left in the care of Boyd Ridley, who is a devoted friend. But Boyd has difficulties of his own and, to be candid, is not always stable. Unfortunately, at this time, I am not in a position to underwrite any suitable living arrangement for Alphus. I am hopeful that you, with all of the museum’s resources at your disposal, will be able to find him a real home.
You should also know that Alphus is not just an animal or even a pet. He is a highly intelligent and very sensitive individual. In fact, Alphus has learned to sign at an advanced level and has started to teach himself how to write using the computer. It seems he was familiar with the keyboard and already knew quite a few words. He told me he once participated in a writing program at the museum a few years ago.
I know I can trust you to help me find Alphus a place to stay other than those horrible cages. It might help if you could come up here and meet him socially. We have tea about four every day. Please do come.
Sincerely yours,
Millicent
I must confess I find myself incredulous at the idea that the animal can “sign” other than, perhaps, a
few rudimentary gestures. As everyone knows, the so-called literary output generated under the aegis of Damon Drex turned out to be a hoax of stupendous proportions. I thought about possible places for Alphus to stay as I made my way down the two flights to Phil’s office.
To my relief, he was out, apparently on holidays. I made a note of when he would return and considered taking the rest of the day off. Because, for all my complaints, I have found that living with Diantha has again become a marvel of happiness. It’s as though von Grümh’s murder has lifted an enormous weight from our life together even as my detestation of the man remains a troubling source of possibilities.
Elsie grows more communicative by the day. My own fluency in signing barely keeps pace. Sometimes I think the world would be better off if we all just shut up and used sign language. I know, I know, the beauty of the human voice and all that. Perhaps vocalizations could be limited to singing — by those who know how. Because signing, a dance of the hands, the arms, the whole upper torso, has a grace and eloquence all of its own.
It took me a while to reconcile to Elsie’s condition. When a child is handicapped in some way — yes, I know, that’s not the word, but being mute is a handicap whatever word or phrase you use for it. The reality remains: My child cannot or will not speak. Even as the tests go on and the reassurances grow thinner (at least her giggle is normal, one expert reassured us), a complex reaction begins. At first you think that what you cherish most in life has turned out to be damaged goods. Someone you love is less than whole, less than what they could have been. It’s difficult to resist the inevitable assessment and the kind of inner discounting that ensues. Which in turn provokes a fierce love and pride alloyed with tragedy. And, out of pity and guilt (What did I do wrong?), you find yourself in the grip of a deep, protective love. My dear silent little girl is ever more precious to me.
And then, gradually and without exercising what I would call deliberate virtue, the notion of deficiency abates and the state of being mute becomes just another kind of normality.
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 4
