Cat With a Fiddle (9781101578902) Read online

  He could offer no help. A sharp object with a wooden handle had been driven deep into the center of his chest. The flannel shirt he was wearing was drenched with blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.

  Chapter 2

  Situations like that are really weird. Once the shock and panic and the hysterical running around are done—once the police come and impose a kind of clinical order on things—the time begins to crawl.

  My legs had grown stiff.

  It was a real effort not to keep looking at the old clock on the mantel. This was a solemn affair, after all, and constantly monitoring the time would be like checking your watch at a funeral. Finally I did go over for a look, though, only to realize the clock wasn’t working.

  But I knew it must be at least two in the morning.

  The tall, strong-jawed state policeman in charge of the case had introduced himself as “Lieutenant Donaldson.” That had been ages ago. He and his men had since methodically peeled back and pried into and turned up every inch of the murder site and the main house and fanned out onto the darkened grounds.

  Now I was sitting with Beth and her colleagues in the manorly living room of the old house. As we waited for further instructions—if not orders—from the police, once in a while someone would voice his sorrow or express impatience with the goings-on. But for the most part we were silent, waiting out the dragging minutes.

  I felt very much the intruder. Perhaps it was because I had always stood in awe of classical musicians, and these women were world-class. My grandmother had instilled that awe in me. As was true for many isolated rural people, the weekly radio concerts and the old seventy-eight records she’d collected had been profoundly liberating for her. I remember well the absolute joy on Gram’s face as she listened to her favorite scratchy record: the London String Quartet playing the Brahms Opus 67. And I remember how she used to handle that boxed edition of the complete Beethoven quartets played by the Budapest String Quartet. She’d stand holding the box, staring at it before removing one of the discs, as if they contained a gospel.

  I found myself idly wondering what commanding officer Donaldson’s first name was. I knew I was being silly, but it was as good a way as any to pass the time. He looked like a Lewis, I decided, or possibly a Calvin—or even a strange, singular kind of Pete.

  Miranda Bly came back into the room, released from her session with the lieutenant, just as I was turning over the name Aloysius Donaldson in my mind. I guess the lieutenant was finished with her—for now.

  Miranda headed straight for the armchair where she’d left her cigarettes. She sat down wordlessly and lit up.

  Then Mrs. Wallace brought in that huge bottle of cognac. We all fell upon it. Thank God, she had softened toward me a little; she’d offered an hour ago to make me a cheese-and-tomato sandwich (she’d baked the bread just that morning, she told me, as though I really cared at that point) and had brought with it a hunk of homemade spice cake and a glass of delicious cider. I had had nothing to eat since lunch back in New York.

  Darcy had been snuffling quietly for the last hour or so, fidgeting in her seat. But now she rose and went over to poke the fire. She moved with great economy, as if she had once been a dancer. Beth got up and joined her. I could see her speaking to Darcy, but I couldn’t hear her words.

  Ben Polikoff, wearing an expensive red ski sweater, filled his wife’s brandy snifter yet again. He was trying to comfort Roz, obviously, but she seemed to be in another dimension. She was staring straight ahead into what under other circumstances would have been a very cozy fire; she was plainly somewhere else, disconnected from the rest of us. Her skin was a ghostly white, her eyes milky. Roz was even more beautiful in her grief—or shock, or loss, or whatever had seized her. I saw her shrug off her husband’s comforting arm absentmindedly. Ben looked over helplessly at Miranda, who glanced away.

  Mrs. Wallace reappeared then, coffee pot in hand. I saw the strain in her face as she bent to fill each of our cups.

  “Thank you,” I said when it was my turn. “Can you tell how far along they are out there?” By that, I meant Donaldson and his men.

  “None of my affair,” she replied immediately. “But if you think you can hurry those stupid cops along . . . well, more power to you.”

  But I didn’t have long to wait for a real answer to my question. Mathew Hazan came in shortly, looking shaken but resolute. He kept compulsively tidying his longish black hair. In his gray shirt and gray corduroy suit, he looked very much like a professor at some prestigious university—like Wesleyan—who has just delivered a lecture on ambiguity in Haydn’s middle period.

  And with Hazan’s entrance we were all back together again. Donaldson had now interviewed each of us in the dusty library next to the sitting room.

  Soon the lieutenant made an entrance of his own. He certainly was crisp for three in the morning—lightly graying hair all in place, Ivy League pink shirt nice and starched under his wool sport coat, trousers demonically pleated . . . I wondered whether he’d taken the time to shave as well.

  Donaldson stood surveying the room, sizing us up before he spoke. There was a hint of Gary Cooper—the High Noon incarnation—in his stance. I watched his Adam’s apple intently as he began to talk.

  “It’ll be just a while longer before you folks can get to bed,” he started. Firm but polite, but not deferential. “I have some preliminary information I can give you all now, but of course we’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report before anything’s official.

  “Looks to me as though Mr. Gryder died around eight tonight. But like I said, that isn’t gospel. The apparent cause of death was a blow struck into the victim’s . . . into Mr. Gryder’s chest with a chisel. The weapon is the sort of thing a sculptor would use. Now, that’s in keeping with the kind of tool used by some of the artists that would’ve stayed in the barn where Mr. Gryder had his studio.

  “We found no signs of a struggle. It seems Mr. Gryder was seated—relaxed, so to speak—when he was killed. This means there’s a very good possibility he knew the attacker.” Donaldson paused here, displaying not a bad sense of drama, and looked fleetingly from face to face.

  “But on the other hand, a search of his room here in the house didn’t turn up his wallet or any of the jewelry he was said to be wearing. So naturally robbery is a strong possibility.

  “There have been two reported instances of theft or vandalism here at the school in the last year, but—”

  “Actually this isn’t a school, Lieutenant Donaldson.” It was Mat Hazan who spoke. “It’s a colony for artists.”

  Donaldson turned grimly alert eyes on Hazan. He waited a few moments before resuming. “The two incidents over the past year were not particularly serious. But in each case they entered the school property on foot. Now, as you folks know, we’ve had a bit of a frost up here. The ground is too packed to show much of anything. So we’re pretty much out of luck as far as footprints go.

  “Whoever killed Mr. Gryder was careful with the weapon as well. We haven’t—”

  In the doorway, one of Donaldson’s uniformed underlings, a small-built man, had suddenly appeared. “Ford?” he called. “See you out here? Just a sec.”

  So my silly game about his first name was over. I had my answer. Ford Donaldson. Nice and stoic. Very American. Like John Ford. Or Ford Maddox Ford, who wrote The Good Soldier. No doubt Ford Donaldson was a good soldier, too.

  He stepped out of the room to consult with his man. And for the first time since the patrol cars had raced up the driveway, this cultivated group of friends, family and colleagues became animated.

  “What an officious, self-important prick he is!” Miranda spat out. “I suppose he thinks we’re impressed with his pathetic Clint Eastwood act.”

  I was a bit startled by her angry response to Donaldson. But then again, I had dealt with many NYPD detectives who made Don
aldson sound like a vice-president in a public relations firm. And Miranda, most likely, had not.

  Benjamin Polikoff had begun a bit of circular pacing. “Oh, he’s out to impress, all right,” he said. “There’s no doubt of that. Put the city slickers in their place. If those are his priorities I—” Someone in the room laughed at the use of the word “priorities,” but Polikoff continued unfazed. “If those are his priorities, I don’t know how much confidence we should place in his investigation.”

  “There must be some other authority we can call,” Mathew Hazan said hopefully. “The FBI or something. I have to wonder whether the local people up here have the . . . the equipment for dealing with a thing like this.”

  “The equipment, or the brains?” I asked quietly.

  “Don’t misunderstand, Miss Nestleton. I meant no insult to the Massachusetts State Police as a group, or any of the gentlemen on the premises. But you must understand, it’s as if a family member had been killed. Will Gryder was important to each and every one of us—extremely important. Not to mention his importance to the cultural life of New York—and the world.”

  That has to be an exaggeration, I thought. Not that I fancied myself among the classical music cognoscenti, but I knew very well that Gryder had hardly been a household word. Horowitz, perhaps, but not Gryder.

  “I just want to see to it that something is done!” Hazan continued.

  “Of course we want to see something done, Mathew,” Beth Stimson said. “But what’s the point of you and Ben throwing your weight around? What’s it going to do but alienate this man Donaldson further?”

  I made sure to modulate my voice. I wanted to be careful not to step on anyone’s toes, do any alienating of my own. “Actually,” I said, “Lieutenant Donaldson may be a little high-handed, but from what they’ve let us see, he seems very competent. And while he may not see the range of crimes a New York policeman might, the standards for state policemen—especially homicide detectives—are probably even higher than in the city. In fact, the training probably comes closer to FBI standards than the average big-city cop’s does.” Now, why am I pontificating this way?

  Miranda snorted. “Oh, I see. The situation’s in hand. Then I suppose we can sit back and relax—like Will did. I’d forgotten, Beeswax” she said, turning to Beth Stimson. “You told us your cat person was also an armchair criminologist. Right, Miss Nestleton?”

  “Well, yes,” I said pleasantly. “Armchair. Amateur. Whatever. But, frankly, I’d never counsel anyone to sit back and relax when there might be a murderer nearby . . . And please, call me Alice,” I said. Then I addressed them en masse. “All of you, please just call me Alice. I know I’m not really a part of your group, but we may all be spending a great deal of time together.”

  Darcy, with an amused look on her face, sauntered over to me. “A little more brandy, Alice?” she asked. And when I held up my glass, she said, “Please explain about the time we’re all going to be spending together.”

  But the lieutenant returned at that moment.

  “As I was saying, the chisel used to kill Mr. Gryder was wiped down. One thing we can say about this killer: he—or she—had a lot of time to cover his tracks, clean things up. I’m wondering if it was common for Mr. Gryder to spend so much time away from the rest of you people. According to your statements, he left the dinner table very early, maybe even a little abruptly. Not very sociable, was he? Or was that just last night?”

  Mathew Hazan answered first. “Will was here to work. If the urge to work occurs at dinnertime, then it comes at dinnertime. No one minded that he left.”

  “But he was working with you, if I understand it.”

  “Not solely. Will appears—appeared—with the Riverside Quartet, but as a guest artist. He wasn’t a member of the group. He said he was working on a new composition.”

  “So he wrote music too?”

  “And he was a studio musician,” Beth cut in. “And a voice coach sometimes. Will did a variety of things.”

  “Some better than others,” Miranda added, barely audibly. Audibly enough for there to be a hint of threat—or something else—in her words.

  Roz Polikoff came to life then. “Jesus, Miranda, will you stop that—please! Just stop it!”

  Donaldson waited out the silence that fell over the room. All eyes were on Roz, who looked in Miranda’s direction pleadingly.

  “If you’re playing the bitch to cover up how frightened you are, you can just drop it,” Roz said hoarsely, a catch in her voice. “You’re making this man think something’s wrong here, that we didn’t all . . . love Willy.”

  “We’re making him think a lot more than that,” Darcy mumbled. “Just take it easy, Miran. C’mon, give us a cigarette. Even though I’ve quit.”

  I saw the wetness shimmering on Miranda’s eyelashes as she passed over the pack.

  Ben handed Roz his handkerchief. “Look, Lieutenant Donaldson, can’t I please take my wife to bed now?”

  Darcy exploded with laughter at Ben’s awkwardly phrased request. She grabbed her mouth as if attempting to push the laughs back in. Everyone, I realized, was becoming unhinged.

  “Oh, God,” said Darcy. “Sorry, everybody. Sorry.”

  “This is grotesque,” Miranda said.

  “I said I’d let you go soon,” Donaldson assured us. “And I will. Just tell me, which one of you would have the address and phone number of Carolyn Bakiris?”

  “Who’s Carolyn Bakiris?” Ben asked.

  “Will’s sister” Mat said with a sigh. “She’s married, living out in LA. I have it. It’s in my book—upstairs.”

  “But shouldn’t one of us tell her?” Beth said. “It’s going to be so awful to hear it from some—” She broke off and looked guiltily over at Donaldson. “I mean, it should be one of his friends who gives her the news.”

  “And why should that be you?” Predictably, it was Miranda who spoke, but there was little venom in the question.

  “I’ll speak to his sister,” Hazan said firmly. “When Lieutenant Donaldson here gives me permission to do so, that is.”

  “One of my men will go with you to your room for the number,” Donaldson said, ignoring the edge in Mathew’s voice. “I think,” he added, turning to us, “that about does it for now. Except for one last thing.”

  Mathew stopped in the doorway. Miranda straightened in her chair. Ben paused momentarily in helping Roz from hers. Darcy placed the disposable lighter down silently on the cigarette table. Beth breathed noisily.

  “I’m asking that you all remain here while this investigation proceeds.”

  “Are we to understand we’re under some sort of house arrest?” Ben asked incredulously.

  “No,” Donaldson said. “Of course not. It wouldn’t be legal—even if that’s what I wanted to do. I mean, remain in the area. Available.”

  “Will may be dead, Lieutenant. But our work goes on. We’ll remain for the rest of our lease here—another two weeks.”

  The officer said nothing. Once again, he swept those searchlight eyes of his across our faces. He focused on me a few seconds longer than the situation warranted, I thought, but I didn’t look away.

  I wondered if this man was carrying a knapsack of pain on his back. And telling himself it didn’t hurt at all. That he’d just have to walk straighter. What was it—a recent divorce? A promotion that had never materialized? A case he’d never solved? Illness? Impotence? Alcohol?

  My theater training was beginning to get the better of me. Interpret the role. Study the character. Look for the hidden biographical strands. Feel the character’s past traumas. Construct the role from the bottom up. Don’t look at the face—look at the lines in it.

  By the time I’d pursued all those strands, Ford Donaldson was saying good night to us. I caught the tail end of something about his being “sorr
y for everyone’s loss.” He also informed us that one of his men would be remaining on the premises.

  “You don’t mean you think he . . . they . . . might come back?” Beth asked in alarm.

  “Is that what you’re saying, Lieutenant Donaldson?” Ben demanded to know.

  “What I’m saying is, we’re not taking any chance of that happening,” Donaldson replied.

  Then, just as he was turning to go, Lulu, with her divine ears, appeared out of nowhere.

  And Donaldson, after first stepping on her tail, which sent her yowling under the sofa, exited hopping and stumbling into the night.

  As the door slammed shut, Darcy said tartly, “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”

  ***

  We didn’t go to bed right away, as late as it was. Except for Roz. I’m not certain that she was quite as exhausted as Ben thought, but she seemed to grow weary all over again at his solicitude. In the end she allowed him to see her upstairs, leaving the rest of the group gathered around the dying fire.

  I knew I was now, more than ever, the interloper in the crowd. I couldn’t join in the reminiscences of Will. But my native curiosity overrode any hurt I might have felt at being excluded from the talk. I sat quietly and listened.

  “God, what a horror,” Miranda said. “I keep thinking it’s time for someone to pinch me and wake me up . . . Willy, Willy, how did this happen?”

  “I bet he’s mad as hell he won’t get to do that Berlin gig,” Darcy said, smiling and crying at the same time.

  “Yes,” Mathew agreed. “That was Willy—always narrowly missing it. So talented, and stretched so thin, and yet . . . oh, I don’t know . . . it’s as if he spent his life missing trains.”

  “Willy was very careless, wasn’t he?” Beth said quietly.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Miranda spoke.

  “I mean, sure he was talented. But he had a habit of overestimating his strengths sometimes. He wanted too much, maybe.”

  “And we don’t?” Darcy said.