Generous Death

“That’s very good of you,” I said.

  “However.” She grinned wickedly. “I am going to fight you for it! Who knows? Maybe I could do as much good with the money as you and The Foundation could. And maybe I’d enjoy a little luxury that money could buy me. I’ve never had luxury since I so proudly left home. My jobs have been menial and my budget’s been tight.”

  I read amusement in her eyes, and challenge. She had her father’s competitive spirit, all right; it just took a cause to galvanize it.

  “So be warned, my friend,” she said and winked at Michael. “I’ll give you a fight for your money—a fight for my money, that is!”

  “So be it.” I raised my coffee mug to her. “And may the most cunning attorneys win.”

  They stayed another half hour, chatting idly, avoiding unhappy topics, before bundling up to face the frozen tundra outside. Ginger tactfully left first.

  “Thank you, Jenny,” she said softly, just to me. “This is the second time now that you’ve provided an oasis during a rough time. It’s meant a lot to me, just to get away from my near and dear for an evening and to talk about something besides death and taxes.”

  “It’s been nice for me, too,” I said inadequately. “You were kind to stick around tonight.”

  “Kind had nothing to do with it.” She grinned and patted her stomach. “I figured I had to get a better meal here than I would at home.”

  She closed the front door behind her, leaving Michael and me alone in the hallway. He pulled me in toward his puffy ski jacket.

  “Will you be all right, Jenny?”

  “Yes, fine.” I had the feeling he was going to kiss me in something other than a brotherly fashion. I shoved my better judgment to one side, and let him.

  A few moments later, he said, “My father’s coming back permanently to take over the business, Jen.”

  “No!”

  “It’s okay; in fact, it’s a relief. It’s what he needs to keep him happy and alive. And maybe now he’ll finally see that our problems have not been entirely of my doing.”

  “What about you?”

  He chewed on the outer edge of his lower lip and gazed at me in an evaluative sort of way. I could imagine him looking just like that when he was estimating construction costs—and coming up with a price the client would not be willing to pay.

  “There’s nothing in Poor Fred, for me,” he said, “at least not in business. I’ve decided to look for opportunities elsewhere. I’ve got a friend who has a construction business in Colorado and it’s booming. He wants me to come in as partners with him and help him run it. It might be my chance to prove myself to myself …”

  And to your father, I thought, but didn’t say it.

  “Come with me, Jenny,” he said. My secretary would have dissolved, but then she reads Harlequin romances. I, on the other hand, reader of the Kiplinger Report and the Wall Street Journal, froze. Still, he managed not to look foolish as he said, “Come with me, and we’ll make a new start together.”

  I pulled away from him.

  “I don’t need a new start, Michael. I have the job I want and the future I want right here.”

  “You won’t have me right here.”

  “Can we talk about it later, Michael? Let’s talk about it after I get back from New York.”

  “That’s what people say when the answer is no, isn’t it?” he said bitterly. “They say we’ll talk about it later. But later the answer is still no.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Sure you do.”

  He lifted his ski cap from the coat tree. “Good night, Swede.”

  “Thank you for coming over.” I tried to soften my tone. “It was sweet of you to be concerned about me. Believe me, I do appreciate the fact that you’re so often there when I need someone.”

  “You might consider returning the favor,” he said and slammed the door behind him.

  I let the fire in the den die down and the room get cold before I stumbled to bed. I set the alarm early enough to allow me time to pack the bag I might need if I stayed the night in New York.

  The bed—the four-poster I’d slept in all the years of my growing up—was soft and warm as my mother’s hug. I went to sleep quickly, but woke in the middle of the night crying from a dream of loss and desolation.

  Chapter 14

  I read the morning paper in the cab on the way to the airport the next morning, having decided not to risk my car and neck on streets which had been freshly iced in the night.

  The cabbie heard me unfold the paper. He glanced back in the rearview mirror.

  “I don’t buy that sensational crap,” he declared. “A mass murderer in Poor Fred? Come on, what do they think we are, idiots?”

  I peered over the top of the News at the back of his big head of neatly trimmed gray hair. His cab was immaculate; he looked spiffy in black wool slacks, a red plaid Pendleton with a green turtleneck underneath, and a tan suede jacket with a matching billed cap. “It’s My Cab,” a sign on the visor announced, “and I’m Damn Proud of it. Wipe Your Feet. Don’t Smoke.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call three a mass,” I said. “But what do you think happened, if it wasn’t murder?”

  “They were old and they died, period, end of quote.”

  “In an abandoned icebox!”

  “People get senile, they do weird things. I’m telling you, it’s just the press making a murder out of a molehill, so to speak.”

  It was rather comforting to know there was at least one person in Port Frederick who hadn’t panicked. From the tenor of the stories in the paper, it seemed everyone else had.

  “But what about finding the same medicine in all three victims?” I demanded of him. “Especially in the two who didn’t have hypertension?”

  “So how do we know they didn’t have high blood pressure?” he rebutted. “You get old, you get hypertension. Maybe nobody knew they had it.”

  I sorted out the pronouns.

  “Not even their doctors?”

  “Maybe they only thought they had hypertension, the victims, I mean. You know, hypochondriacs. Listen, all it is, is it’s a conspiracy to sell more newspapers and get more money out of the Town Council so’s they can beef up the police force. You mark my words, now anytime some old coot kicks off, they’ll say he was murdered! Well, my aunty’s booties, that’s all I can say. Which airline you want? The commuter flight, right? I’ll drop ya at the gate.”

  “Uh, yes, fine,” I said and returned to reading the paper. Opening a cab door is like walking into an adventure; you never know what awaits you.

  I tipped him well when he, unnecessarily, carried my overnight bag to the ticket counter. He smiled a benediction on my generosity.

  “See?” he said to the public at large. “Women tip just fine. Just treat them nice like they was human like everybody else, and they’ll do you right. Thank you, ma’am, don’t be scared of getting killed or anything, they’re just selling newspapers.”

  With a tidy tip of his suede cap he was gone, leaving a variety of bemused, amused and offended expressions on the faces of the people around me. I picked up my ticket—open seating—and checked through security to the gate. Simon and Geof were there already, separated from each other by a blue plastic seat and their respective raised newspapers. I supposed they knew each other, since Geof would have had to interview Simon about Arnie’s murder at the museum.

  Simon saw me first. Slowly, like a striptease artist, he lowered his paper down past his nose, his mouth, his neck, the collar of his conservative white shirt that nicely complemented his conservative and proper dark blue suit with its thin red pinstripe, and ...

  “My God, Simon.” I must have sounded strangled. “A cravat?”

  He grinned and stroked the red and silky thing. He crossed one leg over the other so that his matching red socks showed vividly at his ankles.

  “We are going among the Philistines, my dear,” he said. “And they think all artists are strange; they expect artists t
o dress in a nonconformist manner. I shall not disappoint them! I shall epitomize the popular misconception of artist as fool.”

  Geof lowered his paper and looked bewildered. Simon does that to people.

  I set my briefcase and overnight bag on the seat between them and took the empty seat next to Geof. I leaned over him and glared suspiciously at Simon.

  “Simon,” I said, “are you doing this to drive me crazy? Because if that’s why you’re doing it. I want you to know it won’t work. I know you for the simpleminded practical joker you are, and I know perfectly well that you will remove those offensive objects and put on proper socks and a tie before we get to their offices.”

  He looked as if I’d run over his tricycle …

  “You’re no fun anymore, Jenny,” he said lugubriously, “you haven’t been any fun since I refused to sleep with you.”

  “Simon!”

  Geof shifted uncomfortably in his already uncomfortable seat; other passengers looked away from Simon’s purposely loud voice, hiding smiles.

  “We were lovers, you see,” Simon lied straightfaced to Geof. “I don’t suppose many people know that, but it’s true. But she’s so demanding, Detective Bushfield, such an insatiable woman, well I had to get my rest…”

  “Simon Church, you lying, rotten, lousy …”

  “You’re sputtering, Jenny, it’s getting all over your blouse. Disgusting habit, sputtering. Try to control yourself, my love, I don’t want you embarrassing me in New York.”

  He finished the process of folding his paper, which he had begun while we talked, and stood and placed it on the seat. Then, with an innocent smile, he strolled off toward the coffee machine across the hall.

  “Infuriating man,” I said to Geof, but loudly enough to amuse Simon as he walked away. “One of these days, I’ll lose my sense of humor and my patience and I’ll turn him over my knee and spank him.”

  Simon heard that and quickly turned around.

  “Oh, promise!” he simpered, so that I had to laugh.

  Geof smiled and said quietly to me, “It seems to me that geniuses are often childish. I’ve never yet met one I’d care to live with. It’s only after they’re dead that they become lovable.”

  “Well,” I said, “I will grudgingly admit to his genius. I don’t know if you know it or not, but Simon has an international reputation as an art historian and scholar. And he’s really quite a talented artist in his own right, which I don’t suppose many people know. Oils, pastels, photography, watercolor. Simon is one of those rare birds who can do as well as teach.”

  I gazed at the artist in question, watching him pound the coffee machine when it failed to release the correct change.

  “But you’re right about childish.” I sighed the sigh of experience. “I’ve seen him throw temper tantrums that would shame a two-year-old—yelling, throwing things, the whole scene. And then sometimes a silly mood comes over him, like today, and that’s when I really watch out. He’s totally unpredictable when he’s in this mood.”

  “Not much fun playing parent to a grown man,” Geof said sympathetically. And on that bit of wisdom we stood, gathered our belongings and joined the line of passengers to board the plane for New York City.

  We found seats together in nonsmoking. Simon took his foul French cigarettes to the rear.

  “Behave yourselves, children,” he said as he squeezed past in the aisle. “Tell her to keep her hands to’ herself, Detective Bushfield.”

  Absurdly, I blushed. Geof frowned in the exasperated way that people do around Simon. It reminded me of the way that our high school principal used to frown whenever he saw little Geoffrey Bushfield in the halls.

  By mutual unspoken accord, we waited until after lift-off and the passing out of coffee to talk about the murders.

  “Hold my coffee cup for me, will you, Jenny? Thanks.” He lifted his black briefcase from under the seat in front of him and used a key to open the lock. As he removed a small tape recorder, I glimpsed several small packages in the same sort of plastic envelope in which he had placed the poem about Mrs. Hatch. He saw my glance.

  “That’s why I’m going to New York,” he said. “Their crime labs can do tricks we can’t afford to do.”

  “That’s why they call us Poor Fred,” I said lightly. I was nervous. I’d never been interviewed about a crime before. And I was having a hard time adjusting to the fact that the juvenile delinquent I used to know was the experienced cop sitting next to me.

  As if he read my insecurities, he gave me a reassuring smile. If the boy is the father of the man, I had certainly missed something back in the days when I had looked down my nose at Geof the teenager. I squirmed inwardly at the memory of my snobbishness and hoped he didn’t remember me as well as I remembered him.

  He plugged a small microphone into the machine, slipped in a fresh cassette and turned the recorder to On. Then he took back his coffee from me, leaned back in his seat and made me a thoughtful present of that same nice smile.

  “Interview with Miss Jennifer Cain,” he said into the mike just loud enough for it and me to hear him. The noise of the twin props kept our conversation private. “Miss Cain is the executive director of the Port Frederick, Massachusetts, Civic Foundation, address…”

  He told the mike that he was asking me to explain my finding of the body of Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch.

  I did, closing my eyes now and then as I tried to recall accurately the horrifying details he wanted. He did not interrupt, but let me answer each question until I ran out of words. By the time I was through, the stewardess had announced preparations to land. Geof took the microphone back from my hands and put the recorder back into the briefcase and stuffed the thing back under the seat.

  “That was fine, Jenny,” he said. The stewardess came by and reached across for our empty cups. She left behind a provocative, subtle wave of perfume. Geof sniffed appreciatively before he said, “Now, when and where can I meet you today to finish this business?”

  “What’s to finish?” I pulled my seatback “to a full upright position” like a good little passenger.

  He smiled. “Well, if I’m doing my job right, one or two questions may occur to me. I’ll want to get the answers while they’re still fresh in your mind.”

  “Okay, how about the Plaza for lunch?”

  He looked as if I’d just displayed a surprising lapse of good taste. “Uh, Jenny, my police department expense account won’t cover the Plaza. Schrafft’s, maybe, but not the Plaza.”

  “Neither will my expense account from The Foundation.” I smiled winningly at him. “It’s on me, please. I like to pamper myself when I’m in New York. You may as well take advantage of my self-indulgence.”

  “Lunch at the Plaza.” His eyes had a hungry, yearning look. “This couldn’t be construed as bribing an officer of the law, could it?”

  “Absolutely not!” I said firmly. “It can’t be a bribe, because there’s nothing I want from you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said lightly. We tightened our seat belts and the plane landed.

  Chapter 15

  “I love New York,” I said to Simon in the back seat of our shared cab. Geof had departed, in a different direction in the patrol car that picked him up at La Guardia.

  “Unoriginal, my love,” Simon said. “It’s already been done.”

  I grinned at a Hare Krishna bicycling past; flimsy saffron fabric flowed from beneath his Salvation Army coat and draped the boots that rode the pedals. He threw a kiss at me. I said, “If I live to be a hundred…”

  “… which is getting harder to do in Poor Fred…”

  “… I will still love New York. It sizzles, Simon. And how many things still sizzle in this jaded world, I ask you.”

  “Steak, bacon, eggs on a sidewalk on a hot day …”

  “Look at that!” I pointed as a girl whirred by on roller skates; she was dressed in wool and warm raccoon—live warm raccoon. The creature—a young, small one—was snuggled int
o the front of her coat with only its bright-eyed, pointed head visible beneath her chin. They both looked as if they were enjoying the ride. We whisked past a street corner where two vendors argued territory. I heard one of them bellow: “I’ll show you where to roast your chestnuts, buddy!”

  I leaned back, deeply satisfied.

  “Oh, Simon, New York makes me feel alive and electric! Port Frederick is so conservative it’s barely breathing. Look at this! It’s exciting, they live on the edge, they take risks, they …”

  “They pay exorbitant rent,” he said. “They rob and mug and murder each other. On second thought, I guess they’re not so different from us, are they, my love?”

  “Splat,” I said. I turned away from the fascinating view to frown at him. “A little reality therapy, eh Simon? Thanks a lot. There goes my good mood.”

  “Good.” He didn’t bother to look my way. “I hate to pout alone.”

  He’d calmed down considerably since our departure from home, even loosening the cravat in what I fervently hoped was a first step toward removing it. But instead of settling into a congenial mood, he’d plunged straight down to sarcastic and depressed. I was worried about the impending meeting.

  I looked back out the window and tried to recapture the happy, anticipatory feeling. We passed the canopied doorway of an exclusive condominium where a uniformed doorman struggled to untangle the leashes of one Doberman, two Pekingese, a dachshund and a Brittany spaniel. The trees of Central Park emerged, bare and beautiful as a Japanese print, between the buildings ahead of us. I opened the window a crack to admit the crisp, invigorating air—an aromatic blend of espresso, fresh bread, Italian sausage and the smell of snow filled the cab.

  “I don’t care,” I said softly. “It makes me sizzle.”

  “Well, don’t splatter on me,” Simon said, having the last grumpy word.

  Our meeting with the lawyers was quick and hard and to the point. Simon and I sat in orange leather chairs facing three gray attorneys across an intimidating expanse of walnut table in a conference room that smelled of lemon oil and money. Simon had, at the last possible minute, exchanged the crimson cravat and socks for the proper socks and tie he had stuffed in his briefcase.