A Long Line of Dead Men

by Lawrence Block

Page 10

 

  You could open the windows in Karps building. It was a twenty-two-story prewar office building on Lexington Avenue, just a couple of blocks north of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building. Karp was an importer, dealing primarily in goods from Singapore and Indonesia. Hed sent his secretary home at five, called his wife to tell her hed be working late. A deli on Third Avenue delivered two sandwiches and a container of coffee around seven. At ten after nine he went out the window, and it was easy to pinpoint the time of death because there were people on the street who saw him land. One of them collapsed, and was treated by paramedics at the scene.

  This had happened just three years ago, and the police of-ficer I spoke to was still attached to the Seventeenth Precinct and had no difficulty remembering the incident. "Hell of a mess," he said, "and a hell of a way to do it. Suppose you change your mind halfway down. Hey. I take it back! I was only kidding! Yeah, right, lots of luck. "

  There was no question in his mind that it was suicide. There was the note, on Karps desk and in his pocket and right up there on the still-glowing screen of the computer monitor. And there were no injuries inconsistent with a fall from a great height, although he agreed that the fall itself would have erased evidence of an earlier blow to the head, or indeed of anything less obvious than a gunshot wound.

  I said, "I wish the note was handwritten. Who on earth types out a suicide note on a computer?"

  "Its a new world," he said. "You get used to a computer, you want to use it for everything. Pay your bills, balance your checkbook, keep your appointments straight. Heres a guy ran his whole business by computer. He wants to get the note right, he can tinker with it, phrase it just the way he wants it. Then he can print out all the copies he wants with one keystroke, plus he can save it on his hard drive. " He was around thirty, part of the computer generation himself, and he was eager to tell me how the computers in the station house speeded up the paperwork and took a lot of the unpleasantness out of it. "Computers are great," he said. "But they spoil you. The trouble with the rest of life is theres no UNDO key. "

  I went to Karps office, now occupied by an attorney specializing in patents, a man about my age with a drinkers complexion and the sour smell of failure clinging to him. Hed had the office for less than two years and knew nothing of its history. He let me look out his window, although I dont know what either of us thought I might see out there. I didnt tell him a previous tenant had taken a dive from that very window. I didnt want to give him any ideas.

  Karps widow, Felicia, lived in Forest Hills and taught math in a middle school in South Ozone Park. I phoned her at home around dinnertime and she said, "I cant believe the investigations been reopened. Does this have something to do with the insurance?"

  I told her it was in connection with another matter, and that I was trying to rule out the possibility that her husbands death had not been suicide.

  "I never thought it was," she said forcefully. "But what else could it be? Listen, do you want to come to the house? I have two hours of tutoring to do tonight, but I could meet you tomorrow. Say four-thirty?"

  She was waiting for me in the upper flat of a semidetached two-family house on Stafford Avenue, just a few blocks from where they used to play the tennis tournaments. She was a tall, angular woman with straight dark hair and a strong jawline. She had coffee made and we sat at her kitchen table. There was one of those black cat clocks on the wall, with the eyes rolling from side to side and the tail swinging like a pendulum. She said, "Isnt it ridiculous? The kids gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I have to admit its grown on me. Lets talk about Fred. "

  "All right. "

  "It never made sense to me that he would kill himself. They said he was having problems with his business. Well, he was in that business for over twenty years, and you always have problems. He never had trouble making a living. And we had two incomes, and we were never extravagant. Look where we live. "

  "Its a nice house. "

  "Its okay, and the neighborhoods decent, but its not Sutton Place. The point is my husband wasnt under any great financial pressure. Look, after his death I ran the business myself long enough to straighten things out and get a few dollars for the stock and goodwill. The business was in fine shape. Day-to-day chaos, yes, but nothing unusual. Certainly nothing to kill yourself over. "

  "Its hard to know what goes on inside another person. "

  "I realize that. But why are you here, Mr. Scudder? You didnt schlepp all the way out here to talk me into accepting my husbands suicide. "

  I asked her if she knew anything about a club her husband had belonged to. She said, "What club? He was in the mens club at the temple but he wasnt very active. His work took too much of his time. He joined Rotary but that was at least ten years ago and I dont think he maintained his membership. That cant be what youre referring to. "

  "This was a club of fellows who had dinner once a year," I said. "In the spring, at a restaurant in Manhattan. "

  "Oh, that," she said. "What threw me off was your using the word club. I dont think it was that formal, just a bunch of fellows who were friends in college and wanted to stay in touch over the years. "

  "Is that how he described the group?"

  "I dont know that he ever described it as such. That was certainly the impression I had. Why?"

  "I understand it was a little more formal than that. "

  "Its possible. I know he never missed a dinner. One year we had tickets donated at the school, the Manhattan Light Opera, and Fred told me Id have to find someone else to go with me. And he loved Gilbert and Sullivan, but he regarded his annual dinner as sacrosanct. What does the dinner have to do with his death? He died in December. The dinner was always sometime in April or May. "

  "The first Thursday in May. "

  "Thats right, it was a set day every year. Id forgotten. So?"

  Was there any reason not to tell her? I said, "There have been a lot of deaths in the group over the years, more than youd expect. Several of them were suicides. "

  "How many?"

  "Three or four. "

  "Well, which is it? Three or four?"

  "Three definite, one possible. "

  "I see. Im sorry, I didnt mean to snap. Do you want more coffee?" I said I was fine. "Three or four suicides out of how many members?"

  "Thirty-one. "

  "Theres a suicide virus, Ive heard it called. Therell be some perfectly nice middle-class high school in Ohio or Wisconsin, and theyll have an absolute rash of suicides. But thats teenagers, not middle-aged men. Were these suicides all grouped together?"

  "They were spaced over a period of several years. "

  "Well, ten to fifteen percent, thats a high suicide rate, but it doesnt seem…" Her words trailed off and I watched her eyes. I could almost see the wheels turning as her mind sorted the data. She was not a pretty woman by any means but she had a good, quick mind and there was something quite attractive about her intelligence.

  She said, "You mentioned a high death rate overall. How many deaths in all?"

  "Seventeen. "

  "Of thirty-one. "

  "Yes. "

  "And theyre all Freds age? They must be if they were all in college together. "

  "Approximately the same age, yes. "

  "You think someones killing them. "

  "Im investigating the possibility. I dont know what I think. "

  "Of course you do. "

  I shook my head. "Its a little too early for me to have an opinion. "

  "But you think its possible. "

  "Yes. "

  She turned to look at the cat clock. "Of course Id rather believe that," she said. "Ive never completely come to terms with his suicide. But its awful to think of someone, God, killing him. How was it done, I wonder? I suppose the killer would have knocked him out, then written the suicide note on the computer and opened the window and, and, and…" She made a visible effort and got hold of herself. "If he w
as unconscious when it happened," she said, "he wouldnt have suffered greatly. "

  "No. "

  "But I have," she said softly, and was silent for a long moment. Then she looked up at me and said, "Why would anybody want to kill a bunch of fellows who went to Brooklyn College together thirty-five years ago? A group of Jewish guys in their fifties. Why?"

  "Only a few of them were Jewish. "

  "Oh?"

  "And they werent in college together. "

  "Are you sure? Fred said-"

  I told her a little about the club. She wanted to know who the other members were, and I found a page in my notebook where Id listed all thirty-one members, living and dead, in alphabetical order. She said, "Well, heres a name that pops out. Philip Kalish. He was Jewish, and Fred knew him in college, if its the same Phil Kalish. But he died, didnt he? A long time ago. "

  "In an auto accident," I said. "He was the first of the group to die. "

  "Raymond Gruliow. Theres another name I recognize, if its the same Raymond Gruliow, and it would almost have to be, wouldnt it? The lawyer?"

  "Yes. "

  "If Adolf Hitler came back to earth," she said, "which God forbid, and if he needed a lawyer, hed call Raymond Gruliow. And Gruliow would defend him. " She shook her head. "I have to admit I thought he was a hero during the Vietnam War when his clients were draft resisters and radicals. Now theyre all black anti-Semites and Arab terrorists and I want to send him a letter bomb. Fred didnt know Raymond Gruliow. "

  "He had dinner with him once a year. "

  "And never said a word? When Gruliow was running his mouth on the eleven oclock news, wouldnt he at least once have said, Hes a friend of mine or Hey, I know the guy? Wouldnt that be the natural thing to do?"

  "I guess they kept it private. "

  She frowned. "This club wasnt a sex thing, was it?"

  "No. "

  "Because Id find that very hard to believe. I know the most unlikely people keep turning out to be gay, but I cant believe this was-"

  "No. "

  "Or some sort of Boys Night Out, with too much to drink and some girl jumping out of a cake. It doesnt sound like Fred. "

  "I dont think it was like that at all. "

  " Boyd Shipton. The painter?" I nodded. "Now I know he was murdered several years ago, or am I confusing him with somebody else?"

  I agreed that Shipton had been murdered, and told her that several other members had also been the victims of homicide. She asked which ones they were and I pointed out the names.

  "No, I dont know any of them," she said. "Why would anyone want to kill these men? I dont understand. "

  Heading back to Manhattan, I wondered what Id accomplished. I hadnt learned very much, and Id left Felicia Karp wondering what sort of secret life her husband had led. If she could draw any comfort from the thought that he hadnt killed himself after all, it was very likely offset by the disquieting probability that hed been murdered.