“Mr. Church,” the youngest lawyer pronounced, “are we correct in our understanding that under the terms of the will of Mrs. Martha Paul Frederick, all the art that has been purchased with funds from her estate must be displayed in her ancestral home?”
Simon managed to follow the sentence and said, “Correct.”
“Mr. Church,” the youngest lawyer then said, “are we further correct, in our understanding that since the bulk of the collection consists of works of art that have been purchased by using the funds from her estate, there has never been a large enough collection of art that has been purchased through the beneficence of other sources to allow for the construction or locating of a second or other museum?”
That one was tougher to track. Simon hesitated and then said, “Right again. It’s almost all stuff we bought with Martha’s money, so we have to keep it in her house.”
The attorneys blinked at the use of the word stuff to describe masterworks of the quality of the Degas they were empowered to protect. The eldest actually flinched when Simon called the redoubtable Mrs. Frederick by her first name.
“Mr. Church,” continued Junior, “is it also true that the house—the museum—is an eighteenth-century structure that is rapidly deteriorating? And that the works of art are, themselves, in danger of deterioration because of inadequate temperature and humidity controls; fire hazards; danger from severe storms; inadequate maintenance, storage and protective displays and shortage of trained staff?” He said all that without once referring to his notes. I was impressed.
Simon clenched his big red hands in his lap and looked defensive. “Correct,” he said through a visibly stiff jaw.
“Mr. Church.” Really, the man was most irritating. I felt sorry for Simon and wondered when my turn for the inquisition would come. The lawyer said, “It has also come to our attention that you cannot hope to move the works of art to another, safer facility without an attempt through the courts to break the original terms of Mrs. Frederick’s will” All three lawyers frowned at the mere thought of such temerity. The whippersnapper continued, “The museum, we understand, has no funds to finance such an attempt. We may, therefore, safely assume that the works of art will remain where they are—In clear and present danger—for some time to come.”
Simon and I looked at each other, and the thought of Arnie Culverson’s money and what it could accomplish passed between us. I felt Simon struggle with the question of whether to broach that delicate subject; I was relieved when he decided to leave it well enough alone.
“That is correct,” he finally said. My turn.
“Miss Cain.” The middle-aged lawyer took over. “Let us state a hypothetical situation. Let us suppose that an extremely valuable painting came into the possession of The Foundation. Let us further suppose that The Foundation chose to lend said painting to the Martha Paul Frederick Museum of Fine Art. Now, my question to you is this: If it became apparent that the painting was in danger of suffering damage because of adverse conditions at the museum, what would you do? Would The Foundation choose to leave the painting at the Martha Paul? Or would you have it removed to storage or to another museum where it could be kept in’ a safer fashion?”
I froze, chilled by the sudden realization of why the painting had been left to The Foundation instead of bequeathed directly to the Martha Paul. This had never happened before; it was an ominous precedent for the museum. I couldn’t bear to look at Simon, though I knew he was staring at me.
“We would remove the painting from the Martha Paul,” said I, the traitor. “We would place it in another museum where it could be maintained in greater safety.”
The three lawyers were the only ones in the room who relaxed. They would need the assurance in writing from my trustees, they told me. And then the young one smiled and became a person as well as an attorney.
“You can see,” he said, “why our client left the Degas to The Foundation.” He smiled at Simon, innocent of the pain his words caused. “Our client had seen for himself how your museum is crumbling. He didn’t want to risk keeping his beloved painting there past the time when it is safe to do so. You’ll have the Degas for a while, Mr. Church, at least until The Foundation finds a better spot for it. Our client did wish it to be displayed with its sister painting, at least for a while. Perhaps you can lend your Degas to the museum that gets our Degas!” His bright, friendly smile faltered in the face of Simon’s expression. He said, “Really, it is too bad about that will of Mrs. Frederick’s. People can be so shortsighted in their last testaments. I’m sure you’ll get other bequests routed through The Foundation, too, as the museum continues to deteriorate. Really, it is a shame, Mr. Church, and most unusual, but it can’t be helped, can it?”
They thanked us for our time.
I took the papers they wanted my trustees to sign.
They closed the heavy oak doors behind us and we took the elevator forty-eight floors down to the street.
“Simon …” I looked up at his stricken face.
“You’d really take that painting away from me?” he said wonderingly. “You’d do that to me, Jenny?”
“Rather than see the painting harmed? Of course, Simon, how could I do otherwise?”
“That goddamn house!” His large, handsome face twisted in anguish. “That goddamn house!”
He stalked away from me, pushing against the flow of the early lunch crowd.
“Simon!”
I wanted to remind him that we might successfully contest Arnie’s will and be able to start the process that might lead to a new museum. But he didn’t turn around.
I stood in the cold for a moment, full of sympathy for Simon. But I didn’t regret my answer. The lawyers’ client—that smart old man who loved Degas—had known what he was doing. So did I.
Chapter 16
The Plaza Hotel was within walking distance, so I did. Geof was waiting for me—looking remarkably at ease. I thought—on a chair in the lobby, his briefcase with its depressing reminders tucked unobtrusively behind his legs. His thick brown hair looked as if he’d recently combed it; his tweed sport coat, yellow shirt and brown wool slacks compared favorably with the designer and preppy attire strolling by. It occurred to me as I walked up to him that I didn’t know much about his family or background. Plumbers, I seemed to remember, probably good ones.
“Have any trouble finding the joint?” I asked him, and smiled.
He looked amused. “No problem,” he said. “I knew I was getting closer as the mink coats and limousines got longer.”
I laughed and gazed around us at the opulent lobby with its matching guests. “The wealth is astounding,” I said. “It’s hard to reconcile with the beggars and bag ladies outside.”
Geof bent to retrieve his briefcase and then put a surprising hand under my elbow. I felt a disconcerting flush go through my body at the nearness and male-ness of him. He was saying, “Well, that’s one good thing about your job, isn’t it, Jenny? Through The Foundation you can reconcile some of the disparities of the world. You find ways for the rich to give to the poor, don’t you?”
“We try, God and the IRS willing.” I looked up at him. “You seem to be leading me straight into the Palm Court. There are other restaurants in this hotel, you know. Would you rather try one of them?”
That amused look crossed his face again. “No,” he said, “there’s a table waiting for us here. I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and arranged it so we wouldn’t have to compete with the lunch crowd.”
“I don’t mind at all; I think that’s a fine idea.” I did, too, though I was surprised at the aplomb with which he was handling this bastion of privilege. I mentally kicked myself and told myself not to be such a snob; even policemen and plumbers’ sons have social graces.
The maitre d’ escorted us to a table for two, set beautifully with linen and crystal. Ah, the Plaza. I unfolded a yellow linen napkin and covered my lap with it.
“How do you reconcile the disparities, Geof?”
“Cops only reconcile domestic disturbances,” he said wryly, “and we’re not even very good at that. As for the poor and hungry and troubled of this world, I stopped trying to reconcile them with the idea of justice a long time ago. Goes with the territory, cop territory, where there is law but little justice.”
I fiddled with the heavy silver knife at my right hand.
“So here we sit,” I mused. “We will order caviar and wine ...”
“We will?” He looked delighted. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“… and we will pay for it what a beggar collects in a week …”
“Some beggars make $30,000 a year, I think you should know,” he said.
“… and why doesn’t that knowledge ruin my appetite?”
“What, that some beggars make good money?”
“Come on, Geof, you know what I mean.”
He met my serious gaze with one of his own. How did we get in so deep so soon, I wondered.
“Do you always get guilt spasms when you go to the Plaza?” he said. “I told you, Jenny, cops don’t worry about inequities. We can’t, I can’t. I’ll eat my caviar and drink my wine while the beggar whines, because I don’t know what else to do and because there’s always one more beggar. And after that, one more and one more. What? Shall I righteously refuse to dine here? Shall I insist on Schrafft’s and dedicate my chili dog to the bag ladies of the world? Hell, they’d be glad to eat at Schrafft’s, much less the Plaza! And my hot dog might be more than they’d get all day. So where do you draw the line, Jenny? At steaks or hot dogs or dog food? Maybe we should all starve to death; then we’d be equal for sure.
“Look.” Still his voice was low and calm. “I do what I can, as you certainly do. Sometimes we’re selfish and sometimes we’re generous; sometimes we screw up and sometimes we get it right. But mostly we’re human. That’s all I know. Do you mind if we order now? I’m starving.”
I stared at him.
“It has been said, you know,” I said, “that the real sinner is not the man who kicks the beggar, but the man who ignores him.”
“All right,” he said.
“All right, what?”
“All right, I agree, I’m a cynical bastard.”
I couldn’t help but smile, I was so startled. And he couldn’t seem to help but smile back at me. “You put on a good act,” I said, and he laughed as though. I’d told a marvelous joke. A couple of elegant heads turned. I was suddenly, ridiculously pleased to be seen with this contradictory, opinionated, Intimidating, appealing, good-natured man.
“Oh, Jenny,” he started to say when a waiter materialized at our table. He stood at a tactful, midway point between us. It used to be so easy for waiters to take the order from the male of the party and present the bill to him, too. Now, poor things, they don’t know where to look first or whom to thank. I’ve had some who thanked my male dining companion after I signed the charge slip!
Waiters at the Plaza, however, always know precisely what to do at all times in all situations. That’s why they’re waiters at the Plaza. I was irreverently tempted to ask this one to solve our philosophical conundrum. Instead, I ordered lunch for both of us. Thinking Geof might enjoy a sampling of the Plaza’s most famous dishes, I ordered a veritable smorgasbord of delicacies.
His smile was gratifyingly beatific.
“I have died and gone to heaven,” he said. I complimented myself for giving him a treat that so obviously delighted him. I hoped it would be a unique and special experience for an underpaid policeman. His eyes were dreamy as he said, “That’s what my mother used to order for us kids when she’d bring us to town for Christmas shopping.”
“Your mother brought you here?” I’m afraid my voice rose on the last word.
“Yep.” His eyes were still dreamy with fond memories. “We had a favorite suite, too, with a separate bedroom for us kids. We’d stay and play with our nanny while Mother shopped.”
I swallowed some water and chagrin.
“Geof,” I tried to say casually, “your family’s in the plumbing business—am I remembering right?”
“Right, and hardware. Bushware, Inc., you know.”
Bushware, Inc., was the third or fourth largest hardware and plumbing supply company in the Northeast. I felt as dense and small as the drain in a stopped-up sink as I said weakly, “But you’re not headquartered in Port Frederick, are you?”
“I am,” he said firmly, “at police headquarters. The rest of the family, you’re right, has been stationed in Boston for years. That’s why nobody in Poor Fred connects me with the firm, thank God.”
“Stationed?” Our wine arrived and the waiter, bless his correct little heart, presented the cork to me to sniff and the glass to me to sip and approve. I did, vigorously.
“That’s how I think of it.” The corners of his mouth pulled down in disgust. “A family business is like the army, you know, at least ours is. You start in basic training at the bottom and rise through the ranks to the top. And you’re in for life unless you’re willing to go AWOL and face the consequences.”
“Which are?”
He grinned. “You are looking at the Bushfield black sheep. If you get too close, you’ll find little tufts of black wool stuck to your clothes.” He grinned even more hugely.
“Baa,” he said. “Baa, baa.”
He looked so silly and smug that I giggled.
“Well, you make light of it now,” I said, and thought of Michael, “but I’ll bet it took some courage at the time.”
“Some,” he said mildly. “But it’s much easier to go your own way when you have enough money to grease the alternate path. I have the best of both worlds, Jenny—a profession I like as well as generous trust funds to compensate for the lousy pay.” He paused and looked a little embarrassed. “Uh, back home I don’t talk about my family much. I mean, you can see how the other cops might resent my privileges. I don’t blame them. Why should I be so lucky? But then, we’ve already decided life’s not fair.”
“You decided,” I said. “I still suspect it all works out somewhere along the line.”
“Well,” he shrugged, “I guess you have to be an optimist in your line of work. You know, my father says I’m still in the plumbing business—only I can’t fix the kind of sewers I walk in.”
On that appetizing note, lunch arrived.
Just before the first bite, I finally asked the single question I’d been dying to ask.
“Geof?”
He gave me that little mocking grin again.
“Yes, Jenny?”
“Why did you become a cop?”
He laughed. “What you mean to say is, How in God’s name did I ever become a cop, all things considered.”
“Okay,” I laughed, “okay, that’s what I mean.”
He raised his glass of red wine to me. “I’ll tell you about it sometime if you’re really interested.” There was an unexpected seriousness about his gaze. “Are you?”
“Yes,” I said, and lifted my glass to his.
By another of those unspoken accords into which we seemed to fall naturally and easily, we proceeded to avoid unpleasant subjects—like death and sewers—while we voraciously, unabashedly devoured every delectable morsel.
Ah, the Plaza.
The waiter cleared away the plates that we had all but licked clean. He wiped the tabletop of crumbs and spills. He supplied two cups of excellent coffee. I took a sip of mine and waited for the detective to take the conversational lead.
“Jenny, you think the killer knew Mrs. Hatch personally, that he’d have to have known her to have written what he did.”
“Yes, or knew about her from other people.”
“Was that trait of hers—that need for gratitude—was it widely known?”
“I wouldn’t think so. It’s the sort of thing you’d only recognize after you’d known somebody quite a while, don’t you think? Her family probably recognized it, although you can never tell about families, and a few of us who?
??d worked with her on charitable causes knew about it.”
“Who?”
I didn’t like specific, incriminating questions like that. I tried to be fair in my incrimination by spreading it around town; “Oh, the director of the Welcome Home for Girls …”
“Allison Parker. She had quite a bit to gain, didn’t she? Now she has money to secure her job and the future of the home.”
“… and my staff.” I didn’t even argue with his comments on Allison; they were obviously such weak motives for murder. “Edwin Ottilini. My other trustees. And just about anybody else in the world to whom any of us bad gossiped, I guess.”
“So we’re back to widely known.”
I leaned my forehead on my hand and smiled apologetically. “Yes,” I said, “sorry.”
“What about the other two verses?” He took copies of them out of his coat pocket and laid them on the table in front of me. “Do these make you think the killer also knew Culverson and Cohen?”
Like graffiti on a chapel wall, they profaned the genteel atmosphere. They were simpering, leering slashes of malevolence. They infuriated and frightened me. I wrapped my hands around the warm coffee cup to hide my craven trembling as I read again:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Devil take my soul to keep;
Cross my heart and hope to die,
If I tell another lie.
“I don’t know what lie Arnie might have told,” I said, “or what lie he might have been perceived to have told …”
“That’s an interesting, subtle point.” He smiled at me approvingly. “You’d mate a good detective, Jenny.”
I felt a pleasure in his approval that was all out of proportion to the event. I very nearly shuffled my feet and said aw shucks. He continued, oblivious of my inner wackiness: “But Culverson did lie to The Foundation and the museum, right? What about that?”
“Well, he didn’t so much lie as change his mind about who he would give his money to. And we didn’t even know about that until after he was dead. I suppose the only person who knew was his lawyer.”