Killer, Come Hither

by Louis Begley

  With that he hung up.

  IV

  The housekeeper found him, Kerry said, that nice Irish girl.

  Mary, I murmured. The young woman who also runs a pet shop.

  Kerry nodded.

  She came to work on Monday morning as usual, at ten, expecting that Harry would have left by then for the city in accordance with established routine, and was surprised to see his Audi still in the garage. The front door was locked, which was strange because Harry always left it on the latch when he was at home. But she needed to open only the doorknob lock. Not the dead bolt, which he would have locked if he had gone away. Anyway, she opened the door using her own key, went into the house, and shouted loudly: Hello, Harry, this is Mary, I’m here! There was no reply. But she began to worry when she went into the kitchen and saw no trace anywhere of dinner or breakfast dishes. He certainly wouldn’t have washed and put away breakfast dishes. Had he had an accident? And where was Plato? The cat hadn’t come out to greet her. You know how that cat is, she said. He knows exactly where you are, and it had never happened before that Plato had ignored her. He was her friend. So she raced through the house looking for Harry and the cat. Harry’s bed hadn’t been slept in. The cat wasn’t in any of his usual sleeping places. If Harry had gotten a ride into the city and taken Plato, or for some crazy reason had taken the Jitney, wouldn’t he have left a note for her? Her heart, she said, began to beat so loud and so fast she thought her chest would burst. She hadn’t yet checked the studio, and she rushed there. And that’s where she found Harry hanging from a rope attached to one of the high barn beams, face green, tongue sticking out, eyes bulging—and on the ground, right by the desk, lay Plato. His neck had been wrung. Harry must have done it!

  Tears were streaming down Kerry’s face. I put my hand over hers and told her that this part of the story was impossible, plain wrong. Harry would have never hurt his cat. It can’t be. He’d have rather died.

  That’s what I thought, said Kerry, and that is what I told Mary, but she just repeated the description of what she had seen. I think she’s an intelligent and levelheaded woman, but she was in shock.

  She wiped the tears streaming down her face.

  I asked what happened next.

  She called the police, Kerry said, and then she called poor Barbara Diamond—you know, Harry’s secretary. Harry had her name and telephone numbers, at home and at the office, up on the bulletin board in the kitchen as the person to get in touch with if there was an urgent problem, an emergency. Barbara didn’t answer, but the receptionist picked up, and as soon as she grasped what Mary was calling about she transferred her to Will Hobson, the chairman of the firm. She called me next, and I called Will to ask whether I could help. But he was already on the phone with the police, and he left for Hauppauge to identify Harry at the morgue without calling me back. The Suffolk County medical examiner is in Hauppauge. That’s why he went there, and that’s where they performed the autopsy.

  I guess I looked puzzled because she added, This is standard procedure in cases of suicide as well as suspected violence.

  Did the autopsy show anything beyond the obvious?

  No. Will got the report a week or ten days ago and showed it to me. I was surprised he did. I’m not in his good graces. It was straightforward. Cause of death: consistent with hanging. No signs of struggle or other observable trauma. The amount of alcohol in the body was consistent with Harry’s having had one or two glasses of wine at lunch. Death was estimated to have occurred between seven and nine in the evening, on Sunday. So he could have been hanging for more than twelve hours!

  And no letter for me? I’d asked her that on the telephone, but I still couldn’t believe it.

  No, Jack, nothing. Nothing has been found.

  And what have they done with his body? Fred Minot told me over the telephone when I called him yesterday that there had been a service at a church in Sag Harbor.

  She began to cry again, and once again I tried to comfort her. Finally she said, Will Hobson or the T & E partner, Minot, arranged for Harry to be cremated. One or the other of them has told me that the funeral parlor in Sag Harbor is holding the ashes for you. And yes, there was a service in Sag Harbor and, of course, I attended. Who else came from the firm? Let’s see, Will Hobson and Minot, and I’m pretty sure all the associates who’d worked for Harry. Most of the partners of Harry’s vintage and a few who have retired recently. The firm arranged transportation to Sag Harbor and back. Will spoke, quite briefly, and then that nice painter neighbor of Harry’s, Sasha Evans, made a beautiful speech. Exactly the eulogy Harry would have wanted. The sermon was good too. You could tell that the priest really knew Harry and wasn’t dishing out the usual canned bullshit. Here, she added. I clipped for you the firm’s paid announcement of Harry’s death that ran in the Times.

  It gave the date of death, which was an apparent suicide at Harry’s Sag Harbor home, his graduation summa cum laude and magna cum laude from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, the clerkships on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court, the years spent as an associate and a leading partner at J&W, and the date and place of the funeral service.

  Rather dry, I said. Is that how these things are usually written? I take it there was no real obituary.

  She shook her head. They’ve become exceedingly rare in the case of someone like Harry, who wasn’t in any way a public figure. You’d have to know someone high up in the Times hierarchy and get whoever it is to pull strings. But you’re right about the paid notice. It’s really standoffish. But it’s possible they just didn’t know how to handle a suicide.

  And Plato? Has he been cremated as well?

  Kerry shook her head and admitted she didn’t know. Then she added, I bet that’s something that Mary took care of.

  Mary and the phone call to Barbara—my God, I must be losing my mind! What about Barbara? You told me when I called from Cuiabá that she was dead, that there had been a subway accident. I was in such a state of shock that I didn’t think to ask you exactly what had happened.

  I must be losing my mind too, she said, I keep forgetting that you don’t know. It was a ghastly accident, plastered for days on the front pages of the Post and Daily News. It even made the Times. As I told you, Mary found Harry’s body on Monday morning. That same morning, around a quarter of nine, Barbara was waiting as usual at the Jackson Heights subway station for the E train, which is how she traveled to the office. It was a little after the rush hour, so the platform wasn’t crowded. Apparently, she was reading the paper. Just as the train was pulling into the station a man, horribly dirty and disheveled—the eyewitnesses agree that he was white, a big, heavy man—yelling or chanting at the top of his voice, ran toward her at full speed, someone said like a football player going for a touchdown, and shoved her onto the tracks just ahead of the train. She was killed instantly.

  Good God, I said. Did anyone try to stop him? Was he caught?

  No. I guess everybody was stunned, and he ran away just as quickly—not that anyone was chasing him. Plain disappeared. There is no surveillance camera there, there isn’t a better description than the one I just gave you, and there aren’t any suspects. According to the papers, the police are doing everything they should be doing, the mayor has offered a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest, and so forth.

  Was there a service for her? Does she have any family? I’d known her since I was a little boy, but I guess I’ve never known anything about her personal life. She was just Miss Diamond at first and then Barbara….

  There is a younger brother in Florida. Nobody else. He organized a reception at a funeral home in Jackson Heights. I went and so did a lot of other people from the firm. Everybody loved her. She was also cremated.

  A grisly coincidence, I said, those deaths. It’s as though a single evil force had pursued them.

  I didn’t want to say so to Kerry, who was already upset enough, but although I had no other explanati
on I was not ready to accept that the coupling of two such unusual deaths was fortuitous.

  After some minutes’ silence, during which we ate our sushi and drank the miso soup, I said to Kerry that a thought had been forming in my mind that was rapidly becoming a conviction: the awful story she’d been telling me made no sense. Why would Harry have killed himself? You’ve told me he was in good health. So it wasn’t leukemia or cancer of the pancreas or anything of that sort. You’d talked at various times about pressures he’d been under, and that he’d suddenly retired. That by the way is a real surprise too. But he was a very sane, a very clearheaded, guy. He had plenty of money. It was managed by a very able, very solid investment adviser. I know that, because Harry fixed me up with him. All right, perhaps there were other worries, other forces, that tipped him over into depression. Depression deep enough and painful enough to lead him to hang himself. That is at least conceivable, and perhaps when you tell me about the pressures on him I will see how that could have been. But my mind boggles at the idea that Harry—the gentlest of men—would have killed Plato. Why? Why would he have done a thing like that? He couldn’t have been worried about who’d take care of the kitty after he died. Mary would have been delighted to take him. I would have taken him. If he had some crazy idea that there was no one who could be trusted—an absurd idea that wouldn’t have occurred to Harry—in that worst case I guess he could have had him put down. But this? Wringing Plato’s neck?

  She stared at me vacantly. Finally she shook her head and said, I hear what you’re saying. I can’t understand the part about the cat either. I think I can tell you something about the pressures on Harry, but it’s a long story. I don’t think I should even try to begin it now. There are some things I must attend to at the office.

  I’ve already heard more than I can absorb, and I too have to go to the office. I have a date with Fred Minot. Let’s walk over there together. Are you free this evening? Could we have dinner? I didn’t sleep much on the plane, but after Minot I’ll catch a nap, and I promise to be fresh as a rose.

  I’d rather we went to the office separately. But come to my place at nine. We’ll have a simple meal, probably something I’ll order in. The introduction to the marvels of my haute cuisine will have to wait.

  —

  I’d been cooling my heels in the reception area a good fifteen minutes before Fred Minot’s secretary came to lead me to his office and suggested I make myself at home. I sat down on the sofa. It was a large room, though not nearly so large as Harry’s corner office, and, unlike Harry’s, which, except for his desk, was modern and utilitarian, furnished with too many copies of heavy nineteenth-century furniture. Desk, two worktables, straight-back chairs, and armchairs, in addition to the horsehair sofa. Displayed on the bookshelves and walls were photographs of many blond children swimming, playing football, and skiing, and of a handsome hard-faced blonde woman I took to be Minot’s wife. I examined them with interest, my previous encounters with Minot, when I consulted him about my will and when I came in to sign it, having taken place in a conference room. Perhaps another ten minutes passed before he appeared. He was blond as well and large and wore a double-breasted navy-blue pinstripe suit that had surely been made for him by a bespoke English tailor. I remembered the booming voice when he greeted me saying, Sorry to have kept you waiting. I was with Will Hobson, our chairman. He hopes you will be able to stop by to see him after we’ve finished.

  I replied that I would be glad to do so.

  Good, said Minot. Apart from the unpleasant circumstances of your uncle’s death, the situation is straightforward. Here is a copy of the last will and testament. You will see that, as I told you over the telephone, he has left all his property to you. The bequests that come ahead of you are minor: Harvard College; Harvard Law School; Mrs. Jeanette Truman, the housekeeper at the Fifth Avenue apartment; Mrs. Mary Murphy, the housekeeper in Sag Harbor; the church in Sag Harbor where the memorial service took place; Barbara Diamond, his secretary, but she did not survive him within the meaning of the terms of your uncle’s will so that bequest fails; and Mr. José Rodriguez, the handyman in Sag Harbor. In total these amount to two hundred sixty thousand dollars. The assets are your uncle’s very substantial investment account managed by Bartleby Associates; his capital account in this firm, between two and a half and three million dollars, which Will Hobson just informed me will be paid out in a lump sum on the first day of next month instead of the usual two annual installments; cash in checking and money market accounts; the Fifth Avenue apartment; the Sag Harbor house; and a very substantial IRA. That’s a tax-advantaged savings and investment account. If I understand correctly, your earnings from your books and the film based on your first book have been considerable. With this legacy, it is fair to say you will be very well-off indeed. Of course, even with the current five-million-dollar federal exemption, significant federal and New York State estate taxes will be due, and you may decide to raise cash to pay them by selling the apartment. As you doubtless know, it’s very valuable. So is the house in Sag Harbor. You may wish to sell it too. In view of the unpleasant circumstances, your absence, and the need to pay the salaries of your uncle’s staff, I secured on an accelerated basis the preliminary appointment as executor under your uncle’s will. The salaries have been paid and will continue to be paid until you tell me that Mrs. Truman, Mrs. Murphy, or Mr. Rodriguez should be terminated.

  I don’t want to terminate anyone, I said. I’d like to leave all the arrangements as they are. Should I now begin to pay the salaries? How does that work?

  The estate can continue to pay them, Minot told me. Are there any other questions or requests before you see Will Hobson?

  I do have a request, I said. I’d be grateful to you for arranging to have my uncle’s personal papers sent to my uncle’s apartment. There are also things in his office—photographs, a couple of works of art, and I believe the desk that belonged to my grandfather—that I would ask you to send, also to my uncle’s apartment. I’ll be glad to pay the movers. And I do have a question. You’ve said that you have been appointed executor.

  Minot interrupted me. No, I’ve secured a preliminary appointment.

  All right, I continued. At some point you might explain to me the difference. But I’m concerned about something else. My uncle told me before I left for South America that you had been named his executor in his will, but he had recently executed a codicil canceling that provision and naming me his executor. Isn’t that right? I remember the conversation distinctly.

  How extraordinary, Minot said with irritation he didn’t try to conceal. I did not see any such codicil in the envelope containing your uncle’s will when we removed it from the vault the firm maintains at its bank. We will verify that immediately.

  He pressed a button on his telephone. When his secretary appeared, he said, Loretta, please bring the envelope with Mr. Dana’s last will and testament.

  It was a yellow envelope with Harry’s name and what I assumed was a file number written on it. Minot opened it and removed three documents.

  There you are, he said. The will, the first codicil adding the bequest to Mr. Rodriguez, and the second codicil that revoked a gift to the Council on Foreign Relations just after your uncle resigned from that organization. There is no codicil substituting you for me as executor.

  That’s odd, I said. I’m pretty sure I have a copy of the codicil in my files, together with a letter from my uncle informing me that he had signed it and that it was in your possession. Could it have been misfiled? Perhaps you’ll be good enough to look into this. At your convenience, of course. What is the next step for the estate?

  Apparently unable to form full sentences, Minot answered: Confirm the appointment of the executor. Prepare the estate’s tax returns. All in the works.

  As we were saying goodbye, I asked whether I could count on him to send the items I had asked for—Harry’s personal papers and those few items from his office—to his Fifth Avenue apartment.

&
nbsp; I’ve taken note of what you want from your uncle’s office and that should be no problem. Someone will let you know when to expect their arrival. The question of his papers is one you will have to take up with Will Hobson.

  Minot’s secretary took me back to the reception area. After another ten-or fifteen-minute wait, during which time I supposed Minot conferred with Hobson in person or over the telephone, I saw Hobson emerge from the elevator. He strode toward me, shook my hand, and, calling me Jack, told me he was sorry about my terrible loss. It would be useful to have a talk, he continued. Can you spare the time? Yes? Then let’s go up to my office.

  We didn’t speak in the elevator—I recalled with a pang of grief Harry’s chuckling over Mr. Whetstone’s rule that conversations in the elevator were to be eschewed because everybody eavesdrops—and remained silent until we got to Hobson’s office. Once there, he pointed to one of the two chairs facing his desk, closed the door, sat down in the other one, and said: Fred Minot has reported to me on your meeting. The mix-up concerning the codicil to your uncle’s will is regrettable. Such things shouldn’t happen, but unfortunately they do. However, no harm has been done, and perhaps some good. You’ve refreshed Fred’s memory, and he will take the necessary steps to have you take over as executor. The surrogate’s court in New York County is extremely busy, and Fred tells me that process may require as much as three or four weeks to complete. I suggest, if you agree, that Fred should as a matter of convenience continue as the preliminary executor until you qualify. That way the staff’s salaries, maintenance charges, utilities, and so forth can be paid from your uncle’s checking account, and there is someone in a position to sign such things as social security forms. Do you agree?

  I nodded.

  Good, Hobson said. I believe that Fred told you that the firm will pay out your uncle’s share of its capital in a lump sum. We’ve decided to waive the usual rules. I trust that’s satisfactory.