Unless, of course, I did murder Heinie von Grümh.
(Felix, playing with my name, once pointed out that the lower-case French preposition it contains, if transformed, as it was in the case of Scotland’s Robert the Bruce, into the English definite article, I become The N.A. Ratour. Which, under the circumstances, gives me little comfort.)
I have not been entirely honest, it’s true. But I really did not recognize the death car on that morning when I discovered Heinie’s body. I have a blind spot when it comes to cars and the vast, tedious subject of how people convey themselves from one place to another.
Yet I was truly more shocked than surprised to look through the rolled-up window to see the still form of the honorary curator. He had been most careless with my weapon the night before. I could at several points have taken it away from him. And there is a detail, a maddening, pertinent detail to this whole affair that I cannot for the life of me recall.
I scarcely know what I would have done without Felix. He showed up as the day began to wane along with hope of freedom before nightfall. He and his colleague had pushed for and gotten a bail hearing.
Jason Duff, the district attorney, a surprisingly young man with gelled hair and a complexion of steroid pink, shuffled papers at the table to the right of Judge Arlen McHenry, who glared out from his perch with the jaundiced look of one who has spent a long life weighing human foibles.
The proceedings began so abruptly, I scarcely realized that Mr. Duff was claiming he had enough evidence to have me charged with first-degree murder and held without bail.
Counsel for the defendant demurred. “Your Honor, I can prove that my client, a longtime and respected person of this community, was not present at the time that Heinrich von Grümh died from a gunshot wound.”
“Proceed, Mr. Skinnerman.”
“Your Honor, the electronic records of the Museum of Man show that Mr. de Ratour entered the building at precisely eight fifty-four on the evening in question. They show that he did not leave the building until close to ten past ten PM.”
“Your Honor …”
“Mr. Duff, you will have a chance to respond. Continue, Mr. Skinnerman.”
“I would like to place those records in evidence, Your Honor, along with a copy of the preliminary report from the office of the coroner. According to Doctor Cutler, this report, based on body temperature, lividity, and the incipient state of rigor mortis, puts the time of death with ‘high probability’ at between nine fifteen and ten o’clock on the night in question.”
District Attorney Duff’s pinkness deepened. “Your Honor, the museum records are of negligible value. As director of the museum, the defendant could easily have rigged the system to show what he wanted it to show.”
But Felix had another trick in his cards. “Your Honor, that is very unlikely. The alarm system at the museum is up to date and, according to the company that installed and maintains it, virtually tamper-proof. I would like to place in evidence a copy of the guarantee that Securart, the company in question, gave the museum upon installation of the new system.”
“Your Honor, the defendant was in the vicinity at the time of the murder. He had a motive. And it was his revolver that fired the fatal bullet. And he has admitted that he has already killed one man with the weapon in question, a man, Your Honor, who, like the murder victim, had been carrying on with the woman he professed to love.”
“Your Honor, the man my learned colleague is referring to was none other than Manfred Bannerovich, aka Freddie Bain. A criminal mastermind. And at the time, Your Honor, Mr. de Ratour was defending himself and the woman who was to become his wife.”
The judge looked skeptical.
The district attorney shrugged. “Your Honor, a killing is a killing.”
“Please approach the bench,” the judge said, indicating both attorneys.
I waited with bated breath as they went back and forth with emphatic if lowered voices. Felix returned smiling. “Deal,” he said. “We got it reduced to accessory to murder and a bail of fifty thousand dollars, which I’ll take care of.”
It wasn’t until I stepped outside into a still-bright summer evening to face a knot of feisty reporters that I realized my troubles were only beginning. There should be a new case added to our description of English grammar — the accusative interrogative. Did I murder Heinie von Grümh? Was it a crime of passion? Was I going to resign now as director of the museum? Where was the missing murder weapon?
Such was my befuddlement at the moment, I nearly answered, You know, I’m not sure I didn’t murder him.
7
It is a gorgeously warm, bright June day. The local Cardinalis cardinalis is in full throat along with other members of his class. The roses are primping for their triumphant, blushing glory. Honeysuckle scents the air. And I am living in hell.
Alone.
Out on bail, I returned home from police custody. Felix drove me through familiar and now estranged streets to what I thought would be the refuge of my home and family. I envisioned the scene. Diantha would be tearfully, fulsomely apologetic. I would hold her in my arms. I would comfort her. I would tell her that we would get through this together.
Life, alas, should never be rehearsed.
The remnant media included one of those television vans and a ten-year-old girl from her school newspaper. A police cruiser parked in front of the next house. I imagined the neighbors peering furtively through curtain slits at me as I profusely thanked Felix one more time and made my way through the unabashed reporters.
Diantha met me at the door not with a kiss but with finger to lips. “Elsie’s asleep,” she whispered and shut the door on the Third Estate. Still no kiss. No hug. I followed her into the kitchen where she was working at her computer.
“Just let me finish this one item,” she said and focused on the screen.
The bell and then the phone rang.
“Oh, Norman, is there nothing we can do about those people outside?”
I said nothing. Perhaps, I thought, she thinks a shared annoyance will bring us together. Or does she even care about that? Is this her way of diminishing the enormity of her betrayal? Which enormity ballooned in my closing heart as I turned in stony silence and walked from the room.
I went up to my study. The chest where my weapon had been locked remained open, its contents askew. The sight revived the scene of my humiliation in front of Lieutenant Tracy, who had been my friend and colleague.
The telephone rang again. I ignored it. It rang again and again. I picked it up finally. A crank caller who said, “You’re finished.”
When it rang again, I went downstairs to a master switch that shuts off all incoming communications on a fat cable that serves telephones, television, and, I forgot, computers.
Diantha came storming at me. “Norman, what are you doing! I just lost several hours of work.”
“You’ve lost more than that,” I hissed at her.
Thus began a long bout of acrimony, accusation, bad feelings, and feeble attempts at reconciliation.
Over the next few days, I became a bear to live with. Not always outwardly. I could be agreeable, even cordial at times. But I could no longer bring myself to talk directly to Diantha, to engage her face and eyes. I took to sleeping in my study where an ample couch serves as a comfortable bed. I found excuses for avoiding regular meals, preferring to snack. I hid my worst thoughts under a thick layer of inner frost.
To explain it, I suppose I must take the blame. I cannot bring myself to forgive her for lending my revolver to Heinie von Grümh without asking me or telling me. The offense is primal: You don’t give a man’s weapon to his rival, certainly not if you are the man’s wife.
Her folly revived in the worst way her sexual betrayal with the man. I am not in the least inclined toward Freudian explanations, but I could not separate finally her granting him her womanhood and giving him, in a sense, my manhood. It had nothing to do with reality. I am not a man who fondles weapons to bolster his
confidence. But in fact, did I not win Diantha with that gun by killing another man?
Fortunately, Elsie was napping when we had our knock-down drag-out. We’ve found that she hears perfectly well and understands a lot of what we say. She’s also very sensitive to any conflict between us, however much we dissemble our disagreements.
I cannot recall the trifle that sparked the conflagration. We were in the kitchen, tiptoeing around each other, when I made some casual, wounding remark. Diantha erupted. “What do you want me to do, Norman? Bleed? I’ve apologized, haven’t I? I know it was stupid to lend Heinie the gun, but, really, is it that big a deal?”
“Of course it’s a big deal,” I retorted, anger cracking through my mantle of ice. “Because of your … stupidity and your … lack of respect, I have been charged with a serious crime. My whole career is in jeopardy. My life’s work …”
I felt reduced to pompous fatuities. At one point, I proclaimed, “Your love was your own to give, Di, even if it was pledged to me. Vows get broken. We’ve gone through that. But my revolver was not yours to dispose of.”
Our verbal punches grew repetitive. Finally, with true pathos, Diantha said, “Norman, what do you want?”
And I could not tell her.
“Listen,” she said, sounding a conciliatory note, “Felix told me the DA doesn’t have the beginning of a case against you.”
“When were you talking to Felix?” I could not conceal that twitch of alarm that precedes jealousy. Felix, newly married and all, was attracted to and attractive to good-looking women. And Diantha was certainly one of those.
She rolled her eyes. “He called last night looking for you. I told him you were out.”
“The point being that it is immaterial what the merits of the case are. I have been charged, and in my position that is all that matters. You’ve seen the articles in the Bugle, on the radio, on the television. If the board doesn’t support me, I will be finished, the museum will wither to nothing in the clutches of Wainscott, my whole life …”
“Jesus, Norman …”
“Yes, Jesus, Norman,” I threw back in her face, turned and walked away.
I found that returning to work — the actual going there — took a certain amount of courage. I half expected to find my office barred to me, the locks changed, yellow police tape draped around the place.
Doreen, God bless her, welcomed me back with as big a hug as her very pregnant belly would allow. I swear she is going to have a litter. She had also brought in a small bouquet of flowers and put them on my desk. I had to hide my tearing eyes.
Outwardly, things seemed normal. I was not exactly shunned except in a couple of deplorable instances. Rather, people were just a little too nice, their smiles like sweetened grimaces. I came to expect the limp handshake, the averted face, the hurry to be away. They kept their distance, as though news had gotten around that I had contracted a disreputable and contagious disease.
But my real friends did not fail me. Izzy Landes called that first day back. He invited me to join him and Lotte at Albert’s, an old-fashioned sort of place with an excellent cellar. I should have accepted considering what happened later. But I was in no mood for company, for either the avoidance of the topic or, more likely as the wine flowed, explanatory excess.
The Reverend Alfie Lopes came by unannounced and sat with me for nearly an hour, just chatting. He is a charming and, in his own way, a profound man. Not once did he allude to my difficulties. He simply sat and talked, drinking café au lait of a shade that matched his complexion. It was as though he were administering the balm of normality.
I’ve also gotten a note of support from Father S.J. O’Gould, S.J. After commiserating, he stated I could call on him at anytime for support, references, and any useful advice he might render.
I was surprised and not a little reassured to receive an e-mail expressing support from Harvey Deharo who, as Director of the Ponce, is a member of the Board of Governors. “Dear Norman,” he wrote. “A quick note to let you know I am behind you one hundred percent. I think the savaging you have gotten from the Bugle has been nothing less than scandalous, and I have written to the editor saying as much. Call me anytime and let me know anything else I can do to help you. Yours fondly, Harvey.”
Support of that kind is more than academic. I spoke to Robert Remick, Chairman of the Board and an old family friend. He has been unfailingly polite and sympathetic, but I can tell he is worried. Old Wainscott alumni have been calling him with all kinds of questions.
“I have polled the other members of the board and convinced them that you are innocent until proven guilty, Norman,” he said. “But one more embarrassing incident and we will have to consider placing you on administrative leave and appointing an acting director.”
Which would be the end. The jury of public opinion would see to it.
That same afternoon I received a squirrelly little note from the Wainscott President’s office saying that my participation in this year’s commencement exercises would not be welcome. Each year, for decades now, I have donned my particular plumage to join in the self-congratulatory mardi gras of the academy — what are honorary degrees, after all?
Strange how academics and their administrative keepers, for all their rhetoric about freedom and for all their freedom — the whole point of tenure, after all — can be so pusillanimous when it comes to respectability. But then so many of the faculty these days are the new Babbitts, such unapologetic careerists as to make corporate executives blush.
Of course, I see the machinations of Malachy Morin in all this. His problem will be how to get this news into the media without making Wainscott look as petty as it has become.
I stayed late at work. I took a stroll around the galleries after closing time. The unfailing aesthetic bliss rendered by these timeless objects is like oxygen to one’s soul. I stopped and meditated for a while in front of the seagoing canoe of Polynesian origin. Here, in one object, is distilled the spirit, courage, and intelligence of a remarkable people. In such contemplation, my horizons widened and time stretched so that I and my problems shrank to liberating insignificance.
I would have gone home, but I could not face the queasy peace of an improvised reconciliation. Instead, I decided to go to the Club, which has been my refuge through so many troubles.
Quelle difference! The headwaiter, a man with pomaded hair and a waxed mustache, a man with whom I have been generous in the past, studiously ignored me as I stood waiting for a table. When I finally protested, he showed me to a place in a corner near the kitchen entrance that felt like it had been reserved for pariahs. As he led me there, people I knew casually — faculty, staff, administrators — people who acknowledged my presence in the past with friendly enough hellos, pretended not to notice me.
Once seated, though the place was hardly busy, I was again ignored. I glanced around, trying to catch the eye of a waiter. But to no avail. I sat and fumed. I wrote letters in my head to the management, withdrawing the museum’s institutional membership and the hefty support that went with it. I scowled. I wanted to tip my table over with a crash and storm out of the place.
I suppressed an impulse to go to the headwaiter and tell him that he was a jerk of the first order and walk out with dignity. But I managed to calm down. I began to understand in some small measure what Jews, blacks, and other historically despised groups had suffered over the years. Not that it helped a whole lot to place my hands on the table before me, bow my head, and submit to this exercise in public shame.
It wasn’t humility that finally made me hold my head up and wait; it was pride. I knew who and what I was, and that was all that mattered. When I had had enough, I rose and, with as much dignity as I could muster, quietly walked out of the place.
In the wake of this small debacle, things at home came to a head. We had a cruel exchange in which I drew tears if not blood. Diantha asked me, as it were a matter of idle curiosity, if I had murdered Heinie.
Again that question
caught me off balance. My automatic “Of course not” sounded hollow, and fear of possible guilt seized my heart along with a recollection of the awful wrath that could have made me murderous. I chafed that wound, nearly wanting the pain of it as I snarled, “Did you talk to him about using it on me?”
For a moment something akin to shock registered in her swollen eyes. She said, “Never.” Then she gave me a look of sincere loathing. “For Christ’s sake, Norman, I’ve tried to explain. It was a fling. It wasn’t even that. I was bored. I drank too much. I smoked some dope. I couldn’t wait to get away from him. The second time … He begged. He turned pathetic. It was a … mercy f*ck.”
“I wish I could believe you, Diantha,” I said quietly. “I wish …”
“What do you wish?”
Her tone of bored annoyance maddened me. I couldn’t resist saying what I had said before. “You told me, you swore that you had stopped seeing that ridiculous man.”
“So that’s what it comes down to. I screw a guy a couple of times and you can’t get over it.”
“You swore to me you wouldn’t see him again unless I was there.”
“Look, I wasn’t seeing him like that. I never ‘saw’ him after that stupid weekend on the boat. He kept calling. What could I do, close the door in his face? So I gave him a drink and listened to him complain yet again about Max and Rissa. He knew you had a gun. He said he needed it to protect himself because he thought they were plotting to have him murdered …” She broke off as though having said something she meant not to.
She quickly resumed. “Anyway, It was getting late in the afternoon and I didn’t want you to come home and find him here. So I said screw it and gave him the gun just to get rid of him. How was I to know someone would get it from him and shoot him with it.”
I might have missed her lapse had not my penchant for sleuthing twitched into operation. I took a moment to calm myself. “Diantha,” I said with as much quiet authority as I could muster, “please tell me everything you know about Max and Merissa and what Heinie said about them.”
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 9
