Cat With a Fiddle (9781101578902) (10 page)

Chapter 15

The room was warm as toast. And the musicians and their men were basking in the afterglow of the last chords in the immolation scene from something Teutonic.

I had a certain amount of interest in the murky Maria Callas tape—which, I learned, had been secretly recorded in Dallas—but the scary German selections that followed it made my skin crawl.

The music finally ended.

I had a midnight appointment with Ford Donaldson. I could barely wait.

Darcy was fiddling with a crossword puzzle, stopping every once in a while to relate another “lightbulb” joke that insulted violists. Mathew Hazan was scribbling in a spiral note pad. Beth was knitting leisurely with two lethal-looking needles, and the cat was skating around madly, snapping at the strings of purple yarn. Ben and Roz were dozing in facing armchairs, her feet in his lap. Miranda was stretched out on the sofa, entranced, it seemed, by whatever she was listening to on her Walkman. I was looking through a field guide to birds I'd found in the library, but my mind wasn't on it. I kept watching the clock and counting the
thuncks
Mrs. Wallace made on her board as she sat coring green apples at the dining room table.

At last, it was ten minutes to twelve.

I announced to the drowsy group, “I'm going out for a bit.”

“What!” Beth looked at me in astonishment. “But it's freezing outside. And pitch-black! And besides, anybody could be . . .
waiting
out there.”

Miranda sat up then. “Let her go, Beeswax,” she said dismissively. “Can't you see the lady has a heavy date?”

“I'm sure I'm quite safe
outside
,” I told Beth, ignoring Miranda. “I won't be gone long.” I had a sudden desire to say that I was feeling a little “unstrung” and needed some air, using the title of Will Gryder's secret novel. But I suppressed the impulse.

I walked into the biting wind, plodding toward the road where I was to meet up with Donaldson. His car was there, the inside light on, motor idling. He reached over and wordlessly opened the door for me.

“I guess I've ruined your evening,” I said apologetically, sliding in next to him.

“Part of the job description,” he said stoically. “This couldn't wait till morning, right?”

“It couldn't, no. I know why Will Gryder was murdered.”

He didn't say anything.

“And who killed him.”

He didn't say anything.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the four-page printout of
Unstrung
.

“What is this, Alice?”

“Read it.”

He finished two of the four pages, then repeated, “What is this, Alice?”

“Exactly what it says it is!” His purposeful denseness was making me a little crazy. “A fictionalized treatment of the Riverside String Quartet and the people around them.”

“Uh-huh.” He brushed at some imaginary lint on his coat sleeve. “Are you telling me, Alice, that somebody murdered that man because he was about to tell who was sleeping with who?”

I took the pages back. “No, that isn't what he was going to tell—I mean, he was, but that was the least of it. He was going to reveal something much more serious than that.”

“Like what?”

“Well . . . I can't tell you that right now.”

I watched him slowly lower his head until it rested on the wheel. “Then why am I here?” he said weakly.

“To help me—that is, for me to help you—get the murderer—in the next twenty-four hours. Do you hear what I'm saying? You can clear the case by tomorrow night.” I had used the term my policeman friend Rothwax always employed. Solving a murder was “clearing the case.”

“Just tell me something,” Ford said after a long minute. “Does this have anything to do with stuffed animals?”

“Really, Lieutenant! I want
you
to just tell
me
something: Do you want that murderer? Do you want to clear this case? In twenty-four hours?”

He was frightened to accept my offer. But obviously frightened not to.

“Listen, Alice, why can't you just tell me what you know, and let me take your murderer in for questioning?”

“Because that won't work. Believe me. We've got to do this my way.” Another uncomfortable silence followed, while Ford sat almost squirming with indecision.

“You really have nothing to lose, Ford,” I said. “If I'm wrong, you'll be able to close the book on me, write me off as a fool. If I'm right, though . . .” I allowed him to fill in the blank.

He sighed. “All right. What do you want to do?”

“I have a trap all—” I began.

“One more question for you,” he interrupted. “Just one more question. And I want you to answer it honestly.”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you recently been released from a mental facility of any kind?”

I pulled at the door handle, ready to leap from the car, but his hand on my arm stayed me.

“Okay, okay, okay. Settle down.”

I managed to, but I wanted very badly to slap him.

“This isn't going to cost the state anything, is it? Because I'd have to have it authorized first.”

“Not a penny,” I said.

“Then I guess I'm your man.”

I explained my plan to him, one step at a time. He listened very carefully, and seemed to understand everything.

And I still wanted to slap him.

Chapter 16

“Alice, are you awake?”

Beth was peering into my room through the partially open door.

I pretended to be still dazed from sleep, though I'd been awake for an hour—waiting.

“What time is it?” I mumbled.

“About eight. Sorry if I woke you, but the officer just came to the door and said that Lieutenant Donaldson would be here in an hour. He's coming by with some information on the investigation, and he wants us all to be there.”

“All right. I'll be down,” I told her.

Good for Lieutenant Donaldson. He could be difficult, but when push came to shove he was indeed a good soldier. He was right on schedule, just as we had planned.

It was freezing in my room. The central-heating system had apparently given up the ghost in the wee hours of the morning. I was grateful that I was the last to get the use of the large bathroom I shared with Beth and Darcy. The heat and moisture from their morning showers still hung in the room. I finished bathing and went back to my room, shivering as I jumped into my clothes. I put on heavy slacks and a purple ribbed sweater, and on top of that a lined wool vest with very sweet cat appliqués on the pockets. Mrs. Oshrin, my New York neighbor, had made it for me one winter when we'd had boiler problems in the building.

I left the room and headed down the stairs. On the third step down, I suddenly stopped. Why was I so bloody cool? Was I so sure of my directorial abilities—sure that everything would go off as planned? And where did I get the confidence? I had bits and pieces of this case, that's all.

Little things send me around the bend, but in times of stress and danger I seem to become insufferably cool. I'm not a particularly brave woman. Is it arrogance? Right there on the steps, I had a piercing memory of a particular rehearsal of the play I'd been in—the role that had been panned. In the last scene I was on my deathbed. John Marcher, the tentative hero of
The Beast in the Jungle
, was at my side. I said to him that at least the fear which had always kept us apart would now be gone, after I was dead. He retorted that nothing would ever be in the past for him, until the day
he
dies. And that, he added, would be soon, because he couldn't survive my passing.

I was directed to reach out at that point and touch him gently on the face. As a sign of love, as a sign of loss, a sign of inexplicable tragedy. I said no. I told the director that I would keep my hands at my sides. I told him he did not understand May Bartram.

A burst of laughter from downstairs brought me out of my reverie. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw the source of the laughter—Mat Hazan. He was regaling those gathered with field mice stories. Mrs. Wallace was walking about, refilling coffee cups and offering brioches from a tray.

“Last night I was lying there in bed,” Hazan went on, “and I heard this incredible racket. I looked up to see half a dozen mice stringing a banner across my window. I got up and put on my glasses. Sure enough, it was a banner. And on it were the words, ‘They have Lake Placid. We have Covington Center.' I realized that I was a privileged man indeed. I would be the first to witness the field mouse winter Olympics. Some of the events are really quite special. Like bobsledding down the perilous milk bottle. Downhill skiing on wet socks. And the luge! It's performed on discarded ladybug shells. I even saw the opening ceremonies—and very moving they were, I'm here to tell you, what with that huge disposable lighter they were carrying around. And you'll never guess to whom the games were dedicated.”

“Mickey Mouse,” offered Darcy.

“Yo-Yo Ma,” said Ben.

“Not even close,” Mat said scornfully. Then he stood and pointed dramatically to the center of the room, where Lulu sat, lovely and unconcerned.

The laughter that followed terminated only when the doorbell rang and Ford Donaldson walked in.

“Good morning,” he said solemnly. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Nothing that shouldn't have been interrupted,” Beth said. “Just the ridicule of a helpless animal.”

Ford took off his hat. He stood calmly in the middle of the room, towering over the others like a stately oak. He was wearing a nice tie, a rather daring one in fact, considering his monochromatic tastes.

“I won't take up too much of your time,” he said. “I just wanted to bring you up to date on the status of things.” That was good, I thought: spoken rather humbly, but not groveling or out of character.

“The investigation is proceeding,” he continued. “Maybe not as fast as any of us would like. But we are still on it full-time. To date, we haven't recovered anything taken from Mr. Gryder—credit cards, jewelry, what have you. We continue to believe that the murder occurred during a robbery, and the likely suspect is either a local or one of the many drifters who pass through this neck of the woods. I know that's not very much, but we've got our eyes and ears open and sooner or later there'll be a break.”

Beautiful!
I thought. Ford Donaldson was a better actor than many a professional I'd worked with.

Our eyes met ever so briefly as he looked around the room, waiting for questions, comments.

But there were none. The old sadness was back on the faces of every member of the group, and I saw Ben clench his jaw, as if willing himself not to voice his complaint about the lack of progress in the case.

Ford's face was grave, too. “I also thought you'd want to know that the coroner has released the body,” he announced. “It's being—Mr. Gryder's remains are being shipped to his sister in California.” He paused here, nodded good day to us, and turned toward the door.

Now
, I silently instructed him.
Now, Ford, turn back to the audience
. The Good Soldier followed my orders.

He took a few steps back into the room. “There's one favor I would ask of you. We found a white canvas duffel bag belonging to Gryder. It had been hidden in one of the old stone wells on the property. Any of you folks know of a reason for that?”

I could feel the tension rise suddenly in the audience. No one answered Donaldson's question, but they were all murmuring, looking nervously at one another.

“No . . . ?” Ford said. “Well, we can't figure out why he would have put it there. But in any case, the lab's finished with it. It contained nothing of interest to us—some papers and computer supplies. We stowed it in one of the sheds by the creek, the larger one, and I'm sending an officer around for it tomorrow. I figured we'd ship it off to Mr. Gryder's sister at the same time as the body. Would one of you be good enough to point the shed out to my men when he gets here?”

“Of course,” Mat Hazan said.

“We'll even give him a cup of tea,” Darcy offered. “Won't we, Mrs. Wallace?” But the cook had vanished into her kitchen.

Ford waved his thanks and was through the door. I exhaled. Bravo, Donaldson! Economy of words. Economy of motion. A great performance, even as he pulled open the teeth of the trap.

“Can you believe what he said about Will burying a duffel bag in the well?” Roz asked as soon as the door had swung shut.

“I didn't even know there
was
a well,” Darcy remarked.

“The locals don't tell you,” said Miranda. “Primarily because they hope you'll fall in.”

I didn't participate in the conversation. I walked to the space between the dining room and the kitchen and called out strongly to the cook, “Mrs. Wallace, I won't be here for dinner this evening. I'm seeing a friend this afternoon, and will probably be spending the night at his place.”

“Bragging, Alice?” Beth asked naughtily.

I had spoken loudly enough for all to hear. It was necessary to establish a plausible explanation for my absence.

For a minute, I didn't know whether Mrs. Wallace had heard me. But presently she grunted her understanding.

I helped myself to the coffee that had been left on the dining room table. It was still reasonably hot. I blew on it a little over the rim of my cup, and my eye caught Lulu stretching and yawning on top of the china cabinet. She seemed very relaxed, very pleased with her new life.

I felt good, too. Donaldson and I, so far, were a wonderful team. I just hoped it would not turn out to be a vaudeville act.

Chapter 17

“I hope you appreciate how ridiculous I feel here, Alice.”

I smiled in the darkness. At long last, I was getting the chance to patronize
him
a little.

It was seven
P.M.
We were, all things considered, comfortable in our hiding place behind a pile of cartons in the shed. Across the aisle, on the same blanket where Beth and Will had made love, was a white canvas duffel. I had stuffed it with all manner of junk and twisted the drawstrings around a six-dollar padlock, so that to open the strings one had either to undo the lock or cut the strings.

We were each seated on a carton covered with a blanket, behind two larger boxes that prevented anyone coming down the narrow aisle from spotting us. We had removed the single overhead bulb at the entrance. The darkness was severe.

I finally responded to his remark. “Why should you feel foolish? Police work is about surveillance, isn't it? Just hang in there, Ford.”

A few minutes later I heard a crinkling sound. A ripple went up my spine. In setting up this stakeout, I had never given a thought—until now—to rats! But then I realized the sound was being made by Donaldson. “What
is
that?” I snapped.

“LifeSaver. Want one?”

“Thank you, no.”

He let a few more minutes go by.

“Are you married, Alice?”

“Not for some time now.”

“Neither am I,” he said.

“Yes. I thought as much . . . Let me tell you again how sorry I am about monopolizing your evenings lately.”

I heard him sigh.

I'd spent enough time with the man to make a few educated guesses about the source of his temper, his burden. It seemed fairly clear he was no secret drinker, and neither a disgruntled employee nor a cocaine addict. Love problems, I had decided. An affair. That was the cause of his trouble.

“Think we're in for a long haul, do you?” he asked, with just a touch of amusement in his voice.

“More than likely,” I said, matching his tone. “Just hang in there.”

He took another candy. “So you're an actress.”

“When I'm working.”

“Ever in the movies?”

“No, never. I did some TV work years ago. But mostly the stage.”

“I get down to New York every once in a blue moon,” he said.

“Oh, really?” I didn't know what was coming next. I thought he might be about to invite me out to dinner on his next visit. Or perhaps call me to task—as a lot of people I meet do—for all the crime, dirt, and unhappiness in New York.

“Yes,” said Ford. “I've got a sister living in New York. She went down there twenty-five years ago to study music. Wanted to be an opera singer. But it didn't work out.”

“It usually doesn't,” I said sympathetically.

“Last time I was down there, I saw a play.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah, it was a privilege.”

“What was a privilege?”

“Mr. Eugene O'Neill,” he announced. “
A Moon for the Misbegotten
. Had to go out there to Brooklyn, but that was okay. Ever see it?”

“No,” I lied. I wasn't about to get into what I thought of O'Neill. Just seeing this new aspect of the enigmatic Lieutenant Donaldson was enough for me.

***

It was about ten thirty when he asked me, “Any predictions about what time this killer's going to show up?”

“I would think some time after eleven,” I said. “Those dinners can run a little late, depending on what Mrs. Wallace cooks up. And then there's dessert . . . and coffee . . . and brandy . . . and . . .”

“Might be a while, eh?”

“Yes, Ford.”

“Or never?”

“Or never,” I repeated. “Anything's possible.”

I heard him blowing into his hands against the cold. Then, just when I was wondering if he was too macho to wear gloves, he plucked a pair out of the pocket of his jacket.

“All this for a lousy diskette,” he mumbled.

“It's what the murderer thinks is on that diskette, Lieutenant. And then, there is something else.”

“Something else? You didn't tell me about anything else.”

“No. But I'm going to tell you now. The killer is also after some papers, papers that lay out cat pedigrees. That's what this whole thing is about.”

Nothing. A yawning silence. I knew that he was trying to get himself under control before speaking.

He said, finally, “Let's just agree to something—okay? You won't explain what you just said until we have the killer in custody—okay? Because I just don't want to hear about it now. Deal?”

“Yes, Ford.”

I could suddenly feel the cold in every part of my body. I wanted to move, but couldn't. And I could sense Donaldson's slightest gesture in the darkness, as though every movement were a potential threat to me. I kept my eyes on the luminous dial of his wristwatch, watching the minutes roll slowly by.

My stomach began to turn cartwheels. At last I stood up and walked in tiny circles. I heard Donaldson say something. I thought he chuckled evilly, too.

“What was that you said?”

“I said, you really hate them, don't you?”

“Who?”

“Those musician friends of yours.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I watched you with them. It's obvious.”

We had both fallen to whispering, engaging in a kind of desperate, pregnant dialogue.

“It is no such thing, Ford. Beth and Roz and the others are great musicians,” I said.

“Yeah? So why do you hate them?”

“Please stop this.”

“All right. If you won't tell me why you hate them, then tell me why you're so cool and calm now. If you're not an escapee from the booby hatch, we ought to have a killer walking in here soon. He might even try to kill
you
. Why are you so calm?”

Before I could answer, a thump somewhere silenced me. Ford and I froze where we were, waiting for the shed door to swing open. But it didn't.

“Probably a raccoon,” he said after five minutes. “Be a shame if I had to shoot him. But if he isn't carrying his pedigree papers, shoot him I will. That's just the way it is up here.”

Donaldson's glow-in-the-dark watch showed eleven forty-five.

I dozed off a little. Bushy and Pancho and Basillio and my favorite quilt and my favorite bakery and all the other familiar things in life danced around on the edge of my consciousness.

“Quarter past one, Alice.”

I snapped awake.

“Looks like your killer is a little behind schedule.”

“No, she's not!” I said, and grabbed Ford's wrist in a silencing gesture.

The clang against the shed door felt electric, as if my foot, had touched the third rail on the IRT. I sensed Donaldson moving for his gun.

The door opened, and a gust of freezing air coursed through the shed. Then the door closed easily. The killer was here with us!

A flashlight beam traveled down the aisle. And then the footsteps began, moving tentatively, the killer looking, looking for the white duffel.

I pressed back tight against the carton, my hands folded, turning white. Ford brushed against me as he inched forward silently.

I saw a figure. Directly in front of us, in the aisle, facing the duffel. The figure bent over and began to pull at the bag. I heard an intake of breath. I heard hands struggling to open the bag, and then the short break in breathing when the killer realized it was padlocked.

Then Donaldson tapped my shoulder to signal me, and I flicked on his powerful highway-cop flashlight, bathing the startled figure in its beam.

“Can I help you?” Donaldson said quietly, almost wryly, but the words reverberated with menace. Only then did I see the weapon in his hand, held straight out.

“Drop that flashlight!” he ordered. “Don't turn around! Raise your arms over your head!”

The plastic torch fell to the floor with a clang.

“Now turn around slowly.”

When Miranda Bly turned to face us, her eyes nearly rolled up into her head. She was dressed preposterously: a sweatshirt and a thermal nylon vest, worn over a nightgown with a Peter Rabbit print. She had on a Russian-style mink hat.

“Miss Bly, isn't it?” Ford said. “Please explain what you're doing here.”

She looked dumbly from Ford's face to mine. Her own face seemed absurdly elongated in the horror-white glare of the flashlight.

“Let me explain, Lieutenant,” I said, moving in. “Miss Bly is looking for some papers discussing the lineage of a particular breed of cat. And for a computer diskette with the beginning of a book Will Gryder was writing. Miss Bly had to stop that book's being written—at any cost. Isn't that so, Miranda?”

She still did not speak.

So I continued. “The Riverside String Quartet did not get its start through the financial benevolence of Roz Polikoff's Aunt Sarah—if indeed there ever was such a person. No, they raised the necessary capital by more shocking means. Miranda and Roz are the only ones who know that the Aunt Sarah story is a lie. It was the two of them who provided the money. And they got it by stealing litters of Scottish Fold kittens, back when they were young women working in an expensive pet store in New York. The kittens were commanding seven hundred dollars apiece back then, in the mid-seventies, even though the breed hadn't even been officially recognized. The kittens were just adorable—and people with the money wanted them. Then, something much worse than theft happened. Didn't it, Miranda?”

She didn't answer me, but stared down at the flashlight she had dropped to the floor. Its beam was still shining on my boots.

Lieutenant Donaldson gestured for me to go on.

“A man looking after the grounds where some of the cats were bred was shot one night when he stumbled upon a theft in progress. He pulled through, but he was paralyzed for life. No one was ever charged with the crime. But somehow Will Gryder found out about Roz and Miranda's involvement. And somehow Miranda found out that Will knew. Miranda may not have known what kind of book it was, but she thought Will was going to tell the whole story of what had happened, naming her and Roz. And she knew she had to stop him. Maybe she tried to bribe him. Maybe she thought sleeping with him would change his mind. But she failed. And one night, she killed him. It was Miranda who drove that chisel into his heart, and believe me, Lieutenant Donaldson, a woman who has been playing the cello all those years has the strength in her shoulders and arms to do it.”

I realized I was talking too fast, but I couldn't seem to slow down. The two of them seemed to be crowding me. I started to move around as I talked.

“I don't think it was premeditated. I just think she slipped out of the main house at a time when no one would notice, found Will in the barn and begged him, cajoled him, threatened him—whatever—and then when it didn't work, killed him in a fury. Once she realized what she'd done, she wiped off the weapon, took his money and other effects, and disposed of them somewhere, to make it seem like a robbery. Then she went back and joined the others. I don't know how, but the next day she caused that accident. It was some sort of warning to Roz—or maybe Miranda really did hope Roz would die—because she realized it could only have been Roz who'd told Will about the Scottish Fold cats, when he and Roz were lovers.”

I had finished my runaway analysis.

Donaldson blew out a long breath. “You've been a busy girl, Alice. I assume all that stuff about the cats and the assault on the watchman will check out?”

“It comes from an impeccable source.”

“Go and put the light back in, will you?” he asked me.

It was not until I'd done as Ford had asked that Miranda spoke. “Are you quite finished?” she said. “Both of you?”

I answered. “Yes, Miranda. Why?”

She shook her head slowly, then began to laugh derisively. “You should absolutely be under lock and key. You're a public menace, you crazy bitch. And as for you, Lieutenant Donaldson, words fail me at the moment. But I hope that won't be true when it comes time for your hearing before the police review board. You're both insane—the both of you.”

Ford said nothing.

“Look,” she said impatiently to him, “put your hand in my pocket—go ahead. I'd do it myself, if I didn't think you'd blow my brains out.”

He reached into her vest pocket and extracted what looked for all the world like a string of real pearls.

“Yes, that's right,” she said disgustedly. “Look at it, you ass! It's a pearl necklace, I wanted to send it to Will's sister Carolyn. She and I had been best friends since we were ten years old. When we were in school Willy said he couldn't afford to buy two necklaces, so he gave this to us to share—because we were so close. And we did. Except we had a horrible falling out more than fifteen years ago. We never spoke again. I've been in my room crying about it—about this whole horrible thing—all night, and I thought I could just come out here and put it into that bag with his things. She would know what it meant.”

Ford looked at me.

“As for the obscene charge that I murdered Willy,” Miranda said, almost screaming now, “this ridiculous woman has been trying to get something on us all from the minute she walked into our lives! But I didn't kill him! How could I? At the time they say he died, I was in Mat's room making love with him.”

The moment she spoke those words, Ford's confidence in me collapsed. I knew it. And Miranda knew it.

“Why don't I just give this necklace to you, Lieutenant,” she said. “You and your state troopers or whatever the hell you are can unlock that thing and . . . insert it—and you know where.”

The three of us walked in silence through the freezing night. Ford did not look at me once, but our two flashlights kept crisscrossing on the ground.

As soon as we were inside the house, Miranda wheeled on Donaldson, speaking through clenched teeth. “Let's get this over with right now, shall we? I want you to confirm what I said this instant. Talk to Mat.”