by Kate Wilhelm
“I thought it was a concert, and those goddamn violins started screeching and I wanted to leave, but my car was blocked by some asshole and I couldn’t, so I sat on a swing and smoked. Rasmussen and a woman, the girl, and that’s all.”
He studied her a moment, then stood. “If that’s your story, you’d better stick to it. If they suggest you might have seen anyone else, you’d better stick to those answers, or I’ll help them invent that other something.”
She was cursing him as he walked back to the kitchen door.
“What was that all about?” Lawrence demanded when Charlie entered the kitchen.
“Not much,” Charlie said. “Where’s Stuart?”
“Television room with Ted,” Tricia said. “What about that girl who was killed? Who was she? Is that going to cause more trouble here?”
“Probably,” Charlie said. “The guy Stuart saw hassling her was Earl Marshall, the local hero who made good. He just might have a different story to tell about that incident.”
Stuart came into the kitchen at that moment. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you’re an outsider; he’s very much an insider with a family that has some clout in town. As crowded as that park was last night, you couldn’t have gotten to Eve Parish without tripping over people or else passing by Pamela, who just happened to be on the swings most of the time. And I don’t think Pamela is your biggest fan.”
“Well, she didn’t see me, so that’s that.” His hands were clenching and flexing and he glared at Pamela under the shade umbrella.
“Just keep the hell away from her and stick to your own story, and don’t lose your temper.”
“My God, this is all insane!” Tricia cried. “It’s time to call it quits and go home. We aren’t going to find anything and, Charlie, it looks like you’re not, either. I don’t think checks were ever hidden in this damn house in the first place.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Charlie said. “The cops won’t let Stuart leave yet, I’m afraid. They’ll want to ask him some questions, and depending on what story Marshall tells, the questions might eventually lead to wanting a lawyer.”
Stuart shook his head in disbelief. “They can’t think that I—”
“You can’t be serious,” Lawrence said. “They can’t pretend to have a motive or anything else besides a chance encounter.”
“What they had was a quiet little college town, and now they have a murder. Too many campus murders around the country, too much fear among parents and students. Too much bad publicity. They’ll want to close this as fast as they can. Eve Parish was an outsider. Stuart is an outsider. You never know what baggage outsiders will bring with them, what they might do. Wrap it up, put it on the shelf, and get back to the safe little college town. This whole community exists because that college exists and they want to keep it that way.”
There was a stunned silence that endured until Tricia said, “He was with me. He wasn’t gone long enough to do anything except get coffee.”
Charlie nodded. “So tell them that when they come.”
“Maybe they won’t come here at all,” Lawrence said.
“They will. How much do you intend to tell them about why you’re all hanging around? They’ve heard rumors, you know. It seems everyone in town has heard rumors about a hidden treasure.”
“Nothing,” Lawrence said after a moment. “We’re honoring the last wishes of my dead brother, trying to decide what item from the house each of us wants.”
“Wrangling over the car maybe?” Charlie mused. “About the only thing of any value.”
“That’s it,” Lawrence said. “We’re trying to decide who gets the car.”
“And Paley? What do you suppose he’ll tell them?” Ted asked from the doorway.
Charlie had seen him arrive there, but apparently none of the others had noticed. Tricia gave a start and shook her head.
“What do you think Paley will say?” Charlie asked Ted.
“If he’s anything like other lawyers I’ve dealt with, not a damn thing that doesn’t fit his own agenda. And whatever he does say will be so convoluted and obfuscatory that it will take another jerk of a lawyer to decipher it.”
Charlie nodded in silent agreement. “Well, it’s going to be a little hard to explain the need for watchmen around the clock and a lawyer on the premises at all times.”
“What about you? What story will you give them?”
“Constance and I are family friends standing by in a time of bereavement,” he said. “Not convoluted at all.”
“I think we should talk about how much longer the old family friends are needed to lend their support,” Ted said. “It seems like your business is everywhere but here.”
“Your call,” Charlie said. He glanced at his watch, then at Constance, who had not said a word. She nodded. “Since you all have a lot to talk about, we’ll be on our way to see to that business. Give me a call after the sheriff comes.”
Constance got behind the wheel this time when they reached the car. “Where now?” she asked.
“Let’s listen to more of the tapes, and wait for Jenna’s call. After lunch, I want a word with the chief of police.”
“Not the sheriff?”
“Nope. The chief will do. Remember that while you were tending to Jenna, Rasmussen told me about the chief, and a little about the sheriff. He’s a politician who’s been around for three years, and according to scuttlebutt, he wants to move on up the ladder. The chief’s a native son and has been on the job for seventeen years. He’s the one to talk to.”
“Charlie, I want to talk to Andrea’s mother. Teresa Briacchi. We have to find out if she’s still in Newton.”
He nodded. “Me too. Oglethorp might know.”
She drove, and when she drew even with the playground at the park, he said to pull in for a minute, let him get out. Children were on the swings and the seesaws, mothers on benches nearby keeping a close watch, especially on him when he left the car and walked toward the swings. Where the wide, cleared path led down to the waterfront, there were lampposts. This area would be well lighted at night. He looked up and down the street both ways, and lingered over the direction of the establishment houses. No trees blocked his view that way up to the point where Adams Street curved and started up the hill. He returned to the sidewalk and strolled toward Rasmussen’s house, studying the lake side of the street. After the playground and cleared path, there was a scattering of bushes, a maple tree, a couple of cedars, all well separated, and several large rocks, not the most desirable choice for sitting and listening to the concert, but okay if the rest of the park had already filled up. A streetlight was well behind him on the opposite side of the street, and there were none on this side for several blocks after the playground area. Satisfied, he glanced back to see Constance slowly following. He waited for her, got in the car, and they went on to the gingerbread house.
For the next hour, sitting on their small balcony, they listened to the first taped interview with Earl Marshall. When it ended, Constance said, “Now I understand why she wrote ‘Who is he?’”
“You have an answer?”
“No. That novel is sensitive and psychologically on the mark, and he was blatantly seducing her. No insight, no apparent understanding of his own actions and how she might have interpreted them, no apparent self-reflection. Parts of that tape sounded as if he had been reading from a script that held no meaning for him.”
She paused and frowned. “I should have paid more attention, or given her journal a little more time. There were names that didn’t mean anything to me and I skimmed over them. J Joyce, E Pound, W Allen, M Jackson, three or four others. Initials, last names, scribbled fast from all appearances.”
“Honey, I’m an unschooled clod. You know it and I know it, and you’ve lost me.”
“Oh. James Joyce impoverished his mother while living it up in Paris. Ezra Pound was a propagandist for Mussolini. T. S. Eliot was an anti-Semite. Michael Jackson, the others I skipped were all great artists also and they were all guilty of pretty reprehensible behavior in their personal lives.”
“Is Marshall a great artist?”
“That novel is a literary gem,” she said. “Beautifully written and true in every way. She was asking herself, ‘Who is he?’”
“But she didn’t answer her own question,” he said. “She left it hanging.”
“She had an answer,” Constance said. “The next line was ‘I could be wrong.’ She had decided, questioned her decision, and then crossed out the line. She had an answer.”
14
“I THINK, YOUNG MAN,” CONSTANCE SAID altogether too sweetly, “that I should make the call to Professor Oglethorp. I don’t think she approves of you.” She tapped in the number. Professor Oglethorp sounded pleased to hear from her, and especially pleased when Constance asked if she had Teresa Briacchi’s address or phone number.
“I don’t know why you’re pursuing this,” she said, “But I’m happy that someone is. Yes, I have Teresa’s address and phone number. We exchange Christmas cards. She remarried, you know. Hold on a second.”
After jotting down the information and thanking her, Constance placed a call to Teresa Briacchi March. “Mrs. March, my name is Constance Leidl and I’m calling from Stillwater. Professor Oglethorp was kind enough to give me your number. A matter my husband and I have been looking into may have something to do with the death of your daughter Andrea. Is it possible to have a few minutes of your time to discuss it?”
While she was on the phone with Teresa March, Charlie’s phone rang and he stepped out to the balcony to take his call. He finished first and stepped back inside.
“I would appreciate that very much, Mrs. March,” Constance was saying. “Tomorrow at eleven is fine. Thank you.”
“Busy, busy,” Charlie murmured when Constance disconnected. “Jenna is ready for some lunch, and so am I.”
“When are you not ready for a meal?” she said with a laugh. “You heard? Tomorrow at eleven in Newton. Do you know how to get to Newton from here?”
“Nope. I suggest a map.”
“Good thinking. Let’s go get Jenna. Where to for lunch? I bet things on this side of the campus will be full.”
“That nice Italian place?”
She nodded and they went to pick up Jenna at Eve’s apartment. She was waiting for them at the front of the Hammond house. Dressed in cream-colored pants and shirt, with a bright-blue sash at her waist, at first glance she looked fresh and rested somewhat, but she was pale and her welcoming smile was forced and not very successful.
“I hope you were able to sleep,” Constance said when Jenna got in the car.
“I did. I never use tranquilizers and the one Dad gave me seemed to knock me out, not merely calm me down.”
Charlie drove to the restaurant, which was crowded inside, but had outdoor dining in the rear in a facsimile of an Italian garden where they were seated at a table between two palm trees in tubs.
A waiter came, took their orders and left again, and as soon as he was gone, Jenna leaned toward Constance. “I want those tapes you took. I have to listen to them.” Her voice had a new intensity, an urgency that had not been there before.
“I have them,” Constance said. “And you should hear them if you feel up to it. This afternoon? After lunch?”
Jenna nodded. “This morning I read part of Eve’s journal. She wrote about the interviews. There are things… ” She shook her head, gazed past Constance as if examining the palm tree for an infestation, and said, “Never mind. I just need to hear the tapes.” She sipped water.
In a much duller tone she continued, “I can take my sister home next week. Sonya Talmadge helped me find people who can handle that, drive her home, and I’ll follow in my car. Sonya is a patter.”
She looked down at her hands folded on the table. “Everyone’s been so good to me, Dr. Rasmussen, Sonya, you and Charlie… Mrs. Hammond gave me a casserole for later.” In a lower voice she added, “The sheriff said they have a good lead, that this will be over in a few days.”
“I didn’t know you had a car here,” Constance said in the silence that followed.
“Eve borrowed my car to drive from New York. I drove down and helped her pack. Now I’ll pack up her things and take them home.” When she raised her head and looked at Charlie, there were tears in her eyes. “Will it all be over in a few days?”
#
He nodded. “I think so. Why don’t you tell us something about you, something about your sister, your parents. Whatever comes to mind.”
Haltingly, she began to talk about her family. Her father was a manager of an office complex, her mother an elementary schoolteacher. She and Eve had attended Wesleyan, and Eve had gone on to NYU for a master’s degree in English.
“She was really intelligent, an academic at heart,” Jenna said. “Smarter than I am. I was content with a B.A., but she would have gone on to a doctorate. She could read Chaucer without crib notes and I never made it past a few pages.”
When the salads were served, at first it appeared that Jenna had as little appetite as she had shown before, but she picked at her food and ate as she talked.
Constance waited until Charlie had finished his sandwich, then she asked Jenna, “Would you object to letting me listen to the tapes with you this afternoon? They’re in our room. We can have coffee there and hear them on a balcony without being disturbed. There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you after you hear them. Charlie has something to attend to.”
Jenna hesitated, then said, “I’d like to hear them with you.”
Before the waiter came with their check, Charlie’s phone rang and he excused himself, faced away from the table, and took the call. “Charlie, the sheriff is here asking questions,” Tricia said without preamble when he spoke. “He’s acting as if he thinks Stuart is guilty! What should we do?”
“Stick to your stories, the same as you told me. He doesn’t have enough to do more than ask questions. Let him. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Now! Can’t you come now?”
“No, afraid not. Soon though.” He nodded to Constance after disconnecting. “As you said, a couple of things to attend to.” He motioned the hovering waiter over and very soon they were back in the car. He drove back to the gingerbread house, where Constance and Jenna got out and he turned around and headed for downtown.
#
The police station shared the municipal building with the mayor’s office and other official offices. Like so many of the other buildings in Stillwater, it appeared that the redbrick building had been constructed a century earlier. It had high ceilings and wainscoting that had been painted pale green, repainted repeatedly, and was in need of another coat. Here and there off-colored white showed through. A young woman was in the anteroom at a desk with stacks of papers that looked as if they had been randomly tossed down.
“Is Chief Engleman available?” Charlie asked her.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Nope. Just ask him if he has a few minutes to spare. I’m Charles Meiklejohn.”
She nodded and picked up a phone, spoke briefly, then smiled at Charlie. “Go on in,” she said, pointing to a closed door.
Chief Engleman had come around his desk when Charlie entered the office. “Ray Engleman,” he said holding out his hand.
“How do you do, Chief,” Charlie said, shaking hands. “Charles Meiklejohn.”
“Have a seat. Guaranteed to be uncomfortable enough to cut most meetings short.”
In his late fifties, he was a tall, spare man without an ounce of fat evident. His face was long a
nd narrow, with a high, domed forehead and a receding hairline that emphasized a lean and hungry appearance, belied by laugh lines at his eyes and a wide generous mouth.
Charlie sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs and the chief took his own seat behind the desk, which was almost barren with only one closed folder on it, a computer, telephone, and one framed picture. The desk looked to be as old as the building itself. The computer seemed out of time and place there. His chair was high-backed and well padded, leather covered.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Meiklejohn?”
“I assume you and the sheriff have both looked me up, at least superficially,” Charlie said. “And probably you’ve guessed that I’m connected with the Bainbridge crew in some way.”
Engleman nodded. “Right so far.”
“And let’s assume you’ve heard about the hidden fortune in the Bainbridge house, and that by the time the sheriff finishes talking to the folks up there, he’ll have decided that not a single one of them has come clean about what’s going on in that house.”
Engleman laughed—a deep, resonant laughter that was engaging. “And what else are we assuming?”
“That I know more about it than either of you does.”
“You want a tit-for-tat exchange here?”
“Something like that.”
The chief leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Let’s put it on the table,” he said. “What do you want and what do you have for me?”
“First, a question. What’s the chain of command here? Eve Parish’s murder was in the sheriff’s hands from the start. Is he running the whole show? Am I speaking to the wrong person?”
“Two questions,” Engleman said. “He gets homicides as a matter of routine business for his office. They’ve got the investigators, the forensics guys, and so on. I handle local affairs, muggings, car thefts, local break-ins, routine for this office. There’s campus security that we cooperate with, but there’s little trouble from that quarter. They run a pretty tight ship at the college.” All traces of humor had vanished from his face. “What does the Bainbridge bunch have to do with the Parish homicide?”
