Corpse de Ballet (15 page)

He had recognized her, too; she could see it in his eyes. As he came forward to shake her hand, Juliet remembered the scruffy art student he had once been. A sculptor, he was, always scrounging around for junked vehicles and toys, bits of furniture, silverware. He was restless and intense, almost electric with energy, the sort of boy (in those first years of college, she still thought of them as “boys”) who constantly stirred the coins in his pocket or prowled the room or sat and maddeningly jiggled a hand or foot as he talked. Many nights, Juliet had cleared out of the dorm room to give him and Mona privacy; many nights, the two were asleep together when drowsiness drove Juliet back home. She couldn't remember what had made the pair break up. Jealousy? Some sexual mess? That was usually the careless, lustful Mona's downfall. Juliet had always remembered Murray (as one does remember people for such things) as the first person to quote to her E. M. Forster's complaint that you can't “face facts” because facts are like the walls of a room: face one and your back is to the other three. He had been like that: unusually open-minded, all-sided in his thinking, curious, full of strange enthusiasms and unexpected opinions. He was also kind, and sensitive, and patient—you had to be, to go out with Mona—and (Juliet had thought) quite talented. Looking at him now, she supposed there must be less likely candidates for the New York Police Department, but she couldn't think of one offhand.

“Juliet Bodine. I thought it had to be you,” he said, in the strong Brooklyn accent she had forgotten. Jooliet. I thawdid hadda be you. Suddenly, she remembered: His father had been a cop, and maybe an uncle or two. He had been at Harvard on scholarship, and that, come to think of it, had been part of the trouble between Mona and him. He had a chip on his shoulder, a lurking suspicion that Mona, tooth-straightened, nose-jobbed only child of suburban wealth, was more interested in him as a socioeconomic curio than as a person.

“Okay if I sit down?” he asked now, as Juliet stood lost in recollection.

“Of course. Please.”

She came back to the present, made him comfortable in one of the leather armchairs, offered coffee, asked how he'd been.

He nodded and smiled. “Been good. Been good. You look good. It's a long time,” he said.

A horrified thought as to how she must have changed flitted through her head. “A long time,” she echoed faintly.

“You've done well for yourself,” he went on, indicating the prosperousness of her life with a quick glance around at the heavy curtains, the book-lined walls, the staircase to the second floor just visible through the doorway. Juliet's heart sank a notch at this seeming return to the theme where she had left him: money, prestige, who had it, who didn't.

“I've been lucky,” she said. “My books sell.”

“You're a writer?”

“Historical romances. Under a pen name.”

“You always were smart.”

“What happened to your art degree?”

“Oh, I still make art. I'm working with shadows right now. Light and shadows. I'll show you sometime if you want. It's hard to explain.”

“I'd like that.”

“You don't have to worry about the money thing, by the way,” he said, with a flash of the uncanny sensitivity she remembered of old. “I kind of got over that.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah, I married money.” He laughed. “And then money and I got divorced.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's a while ago. Listen, I'll tell you the reason I'm here.”

He sat forward, his face growing serious. He had lost his old change-rattling nervousness, but none of his intensity, Juliet noticed. He also smelled the same. Ivory soap, coffee, Mennen deodorant, and above it all a super-layer of pure man smell. Pheromones it might be. It hit her powerfully, even with her cold. How nice it was to be with him again. Abruptly, she recalled a thrilling hour they had spent together waiting for Mona in the dorm room; nothing had happened, but the buzz of attraction between them had been intoxicatingly strong.

“This man who died this morning, Anton Mohr,” he said. “He was a friend of yours?”

Juliet explained her connection to Anton, to the Jansch, to Ruth Renswick. She thought Landis might have known Ruth back at school, but he hadn't.

“And you think someone slipped some kind of drug to Mr. Mohr?” he took up. “That's what I read in the report.”

“I don't know,” said Juliet, noticing that formal “Mr.” Mohr. It seemed odd coming from the boy she remembered. “It crossed my mind. I do have his things from yesterday, including the Coke he was drinking. I brought them home for him, thinking I'd bring them to him today.” Tears prickled in her eyes at the reminder of what now seemed yesterday's innocence, but she forced them away.

At the same time, Murray's eyebrows rose. “This bag has been in your possession all night long?”

“Yes,” said Juliet. His tone seemed faintly to suggest this had been foolish, even criminal. Did he think she'd meant to steal the bag?

“Ever heard of a chain of custody of evidence?” he asked.

“Not really, no,” said Juliet. “Should I have?”

“Well, I sure wish you had, Juliet. What we call the chain of custody documents whoever had his hands on any piece of evidence and when. Now, if you had given this bag to Officer Peltz yesterday, I wouldn't have to wonder what happened to it in the last sixteen hours. See my point? So why didn't you give it to Officer Peltz?”

Juliet straightened herself in her chair. She knew she was not a very imposing figure even at the height of her dignity; but it couldn't hurt to sit up straight. What ailed the man? Didn't he remember how many nights she had stayed out of her own room so he could dally with Mona undisturbed? A moment ago, she had been so pleased to see him. But he seemed to have withdrawn into pure officialdom.

“Because I had no idea Anton was going to die,” she said, as neutrally as possible. “It belonged to him. I was planning to give it to him. Anyway, why didn't Officer Peltz take it himself?” she went on, her tone gaining heat. “He's the policeman. I told him Anton had drunk a soda. He should have asked me where it was.”

“Hmph,” said Landis. “Let me understand this: Why exactly did you suggest to Peltz that Mr. Mohr's drink might have been spiked?”

“I didn't suggest that.”

She heard the sharpness in her own voice, but really, it wasn't her fault. Landis was being positively peremptory.

Annoyed, she went on, “Look, I didn't have to come forward yesterday at all. I did it because I thought it was right. What I told Peltz was that Anton had been drinking a soda, but that I had not seen anyone tamper with it. And I tried to explain that Anton didn't seem to me the type to use recreational drugs. I certainly doubted, and I still doubt, whether he would have deliberately jeopardized an important performance. Maybe you don't understand just how important that run-through was.”

In a few words, she explained the significance of yesterday's event, how many people crucial to the production's success had been seeing it for the first time and why this mattered so much. Prompted, she went on to describe Mohr's normal, self-possessed demeanor, his increasingly erratic behavior as the performance began, and the explosiveness of his breakdown.

For a while, Landis allowed her to run on. He had removed a small notebook from an inner pocket in which, at mysterious intervals, he marked a word or two down. At first, Juliet assumed he was recording the details she reported. But eventually, she guessed it was not so simple as that.

“And—pardon me, I still don't quite understand,” Landis finally interrupted. “Did you have any actual reason to think anyone had a grudge against Mr. Mohr?”

He was leaning sharply toward her, his dark eyes narrowed. With a sense of physical shock, Juliet realized he was viewing her as a suspect, not a witness. What he had been writing down were probably questions about inconsistencies, possible motives, maybe her own involuntary body language.

At the same time, his question reminded her that he had no knowledge of the booby trap that had been set up in the rosin box a week before. No wonder he seemed so skeptical, so puzzled! Relieved, she hurried to clear things up.

“Oh, yes, I do have a reason,” she said, smiling. “I'm sorry, I should have explained in the first place.”

As succinctly as possible, she retailed the incident, described Anton's slip and temporary injury.

“I'm sure that powder was put in there at the very end of the ensemble session,” she finished. “Anyone with a schedule would have known only he would be using the studio after that. So it must have been meant for him.”

Detective Landis nodded. But, contrary to her expectations, he did not seem to relax.

“Talcum powder as a dangerous instrument,” he said, and one of his nostrils twitched as if he were suppressing a smile. “That's a new one. But it's still felony assault. Did you mention this to Peltz?”

“No, it didn't occur to me.”

“I see,” Detective Landis said, rather portentously, she thought. “And what happened after you reported the talcum episode to the Jansch administration?”

Juliet explained the flyer Greg Fleetwood had sent around. Hearing her own words, it struck her as very odd that Fleetwood should have taken such a limp approach to a problem that had endangered his own protégé and former lover. Why hadn't he done better?

“And did anyone come forward?” asked Landis.

“No.”

“No,” agreed Landis, eyeing her narrowly. “Did Mohr suggest to Fleetwood any possible perpetrator?”

“I don't know,” said Juliet, feeling obscurely defensive. “Ask Fleetwood. But the fact that no one did come forward is the reason I've been watching the
Great Ex
ensemble so closely myself,” she added.

“Watching—?”

“Watching and listening,” she added reluctantly. “And asking questions.”

“Oh, you mean snooping. Playing private eye.”

“I knew you were going to say that!”

“Did you know that in New York State, private investigators are required to have a license? Has Miss Renswick been paying you for your services at the Jansch?”

“Of course she hasn't,” Juliet said stiffly. “And I really didn't think of what I was doing as playing private eye.” She wondered if he would have taken this tone with her if she'd been a man. “Or playing anything,” she added.

Landis's look was frankly skeptical. “By the way, while you were snooping around, you didn't happen to question Mohr about who he thought might have done it?” he asked.

“No, I didn't.”

“No.” He gazed at her as if this omission was proof positive of some sinister motive on her part. Yet the truth was, she had not felt it was her place even to let Anton know she was aware of the booby trap into which he had fallen. That had seemed to her an internal affair of the Jansch, about which she ought to keep her mouth shut even with the victim. Besides, concerned about their star's performance, Ruth and Greg had both wished to downplay any suggestion that Anton had been the chosen target.

Gazing back at Detective Landis, however, she didn't think he would be very impressed by this reasoning.

“And so your close involvement with the Jansch has been purely altruistic?” he asked at length.

Juliet lost patience. “Look, do you really think I had anything to do with making Anton Mohr slip?” she finally burst out indignantly. “Or causing his death?”

“From my point of view,” Landis said, “you seem to be right in the middle of both events.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” Who was Murray Landis to come around judging her? She hadn't even thought of him in years.

He scrutinized her a moment longer. Then, quite abruptly, he seemed to make a conscious decision to warm his manner toward her radically. Deliberately, he set aside his notebook, leaned back, crossed one long, lean leg over the other and smiled.

“So whadja learn?” he asked. His tone now was direct, friendly. “Who do you like for the bad guy? Assuming somebody had it in for Mohr.”

Juliet hesitated. A minute ago, she thought she would have paid any amount to divert the detective's suspicions from herself. But she didn't trust this sudden about-face in his demeanor. And the prospect of implicating others was most unappealing.

“Okay, nobody likes to rat,” he prodded, reading her face, “but tell me who you think. You been nosing around. You musta learned something. Who do you suspect? Give me something to go on.”

Unhappily, Juliet shifted in her chair. “Well, I haven't come up with a suspect as such,” she said, aware that she was mumbling. “I did learn Mohr had had affairs with several people.”

“These being?” Landis prodded again.

“These being … a dancer named Olympia Andreades”—her color deepened to crimson as she gave the name—“and another named Lily Bediant, and Greg Fleetwood himself, and at least one other person, but I didn't learn who.”

To her distress, Murray had begun to write each name down as she gave it. But when he looked up now she saw no particular interest in his face.

“Any of these folks married?” he asked.

“I don't think so. Not that I know of, anyway.”

“Then they're not suspects,” he said.

Juliet was about to argue when his next question diverted her attention.

“How about yourself?”

“Am I married?”

“Yes.”

“No. You're not telling me you think I did it?”

“No, I'm asking. Did you?”

“Of course not. Why would—”

“You didn't dislike Mohr?”

“I didn't even know him.”

“But you knew him well enough to think he's not the type to do recreational drugs?”

“He just didn't strike me that way,” she repeated, her irritation mounting again. “Look, if I had been involved, what possible motive do you think I could have for approaching Officer Peltz yest—”