Murder Keeps A Secret Read online

  Emily and Reuben walked back to the Colony.

  “It’s been a wonderful evening, my dear,” Frost said, at the door of the Club.

  “Oh, Reuben, and for me.”

  “You’re right about memories, Emily. We’re lucky with the ones we have. And don’t forget, in that old song, when Martha Tilton sang ‘We meet, and the angels sing,’ she knew what those words really meant, and we damn well did, too!”

  Frost embraced and kissed the widow Sherwood, then watched her disappear through the door, the good-time girl of old, laughing very hard as she did so.

  Continuing on home, Frost realized that he should be elated about his evening. The meal, the company and the memories had all been delicious. But he could not conquer a feeling of deep unease, a feeling generated by Emily’s description of the apparent quarrel between David Rowan and Wheeler Edmunds. And a feeling made totally vexing by his inability to imagine what on earth the two men could have been quarreling about.

  14

  Synergies

  “That was a disaster,” Cynthia said the next night, when she and Reuben had returned home from Il Cantinori. “I don’t mean the dinner—that was very good. But why, why did we have to be at the table next to that Times reporter?”

  “You recognized him, I didn’t,” Reuben said.

  “He’s a very nice fellow. Used to be on the cultural desk and then asked to be changed to metropolitan so he could get closer to the city’s real problems. If he weren’t so shrewd and clever on the uptake, I would have gone right on talking about David’s murder. But I knew he recognized me, and might have figured out what we were talking about if we’d kept on about David.”

  “You were right. The press and the TV are having a field day with David’s murder. They’ve suggested everything but a Russian spy. You probably didn’t see the News this morning, which said that the police weren’t earning any Pulitzer Prizes for finding the killer of Pulitzer-Prize-winning author David Rowan, et cetera.”

  “No. All I read was the Cleveland Plain-Dealer over breakfast at the hotel.”

  “I think the press sees David’s murder as a new way of annoying the Mayor. It’s not every day they get a prominent, white victim like David to write about.”

  “Poor Norman. If he could hold his temper, and keep his mouth shut, he’d have lots less trouble with the press.”

  “You know the Mayor so well, you ought to tell him,” Reuben said.

  “Sure. And have the pittance the Foundation gets from the city for its arts education program cut off?”

  “Anyway, dinner was quite nice, and I was just as happy to talk about something else. We haven’t talked about the state of the world, or our world, in ages.”

  “Or Eric Fischl.”

  “I think we’ve exhausted that subject. And my ‘tryst’ with Emily Sherwood, for that matter.”

  “Your expensive tryst with Emily Sherwood.”

  “After fifty years, my dear, it was the least I could do.”

  “I would have said the most you could do. But let that pass.”

  “Now look. We’re both relatively sober, though I know you’re tired from your trip. I need a quiet drink with you to get your advice. Are you game?”

  “Game? I’ve been waiting since eight o’clock to hear what’s going on. And to report on my very interesting lunch with Stanley Knowles.”

  “You’re on. Scotch and soda?” Frost did not even wait for a yes as he went to prepare drinks.

  “Who goes first? Tell me about Knowles.”

  “All right. Our lunch was supposed to be a routine little get-together to discuss the latest Brigham Foundation monograph. A fine little study of regional opera.”

  “Is there any?”

  “Reuben, don’t interrupt. I’ve got a surprisingly long story to tell, and I suspect you have, too. ‘Dawn-busting’ is great—you once told me that’s what Emily Sherwood loved to do—but I for one am too old to sit up all night talking. So please let me get on with my story. Which I think will interest you.”

  “Peace. I agree.”

  “We ate at the Grill at the Four Seasons. Stanley was doing the Publishers’ Power Lunch number. It’s like the medina in Marrakech. Agents, authors, publishers, lawyers, all doing literary deals. And of course old Philip Johnson sitting at his banquette in the corner.”

  “I’ve always suspected he took his architect’s fee for designing the place out in free lunches for life.”

  “If that’s true, they got a bad deal—at their prices. He’s going to live forever.”

  “If I had a calculator, I’d try to figure it out.”

  “Anyway,” Cynthia continued, “we got our business done over oysters. Then Stanley—I know him so well I can tell—seemed to slip into a mopey depression. Not at all the lively partygoer we saw the other night. Midway into our tuna steaks—delicious, by the way—I asked him straight out what the matter was.”

  “And?”

  “And he told me that Hammersmith Press is in bad financial trouble.”

  “Hmn. Maybe Donna was hinting at that the other night.”

  “Apparently costs are just going out of sight. Everything from paper to first-class mail rates. He’s had to get rid of his whole sales force, and now has a contract with Random House—I think—to distribute his books. His credit at the banks is exhausted and he really doesn’t know where to turn.”

  “He told you all this?”

  “Yes, like Niagara Falls. I had the feeling that he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about his problems, so sympathetic Cynthia provided a comforting shoulder.

  “He’s determined not to sell out—to the aborigines, as he put it. But keeping afloat is more and more difficult. ‘Maybe I’ll have to go to the Mafia,’ he said. ‘They can’t do much more damage than the banks.’”

  “His company is public, isn’t it? I know that he and Donna own a majority interest, but I’m sure Hammersmith’s stock’s traded over-the-counter.”

  “Oh, yes. There was much moaning about his duty to his stockholders. But then, Reuben, came the best part. I started sympathizing with him about the loss of David, and the big advance he’d paid him. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t worried about that at all. Said he knew from the beginning that David’s book probably wouldn’t ‘earn out,’ as he put it, but it didn’t matter. He took out a life insurance policy on David’s life when they signed their new contract!”

  “For the advance?”

  “I think so.”

  “How much was it, did he say?”

  “A ‘healthy’ six figures, was all he would tell me.”

  “Lord. Maybe four hundred thousand?”

  “Of course he never said it in so many words, but he almost did—or maybe I just imagined it—that David’s death had not been a financial catastrophe for him.”

  “Do you realize what this could mean, Cynthia?”

  “I’m afraid I do. I think dear Stanley, as much as I love him, might be right up there as a suspect.”

  Reuben took a deep drink of his Scotch and soda and then ran his hands through his hair. “All we need is another one,” he said, despair in his voice. “What did he say about Ralston Fortes?”

  “Oh, yes. Your conscientious wife raised your question. He said the novel is a piece of trash, but sexy trash. ‘Competent’ enough not to be obscene. But racy enough to sell.”

  “What about Fortes? Anything about him personally?”

  “Stanley says he considers himself very lucky because Donna has all the dealings with him. They had a meeting on Tuesday last week. He flew up from Washington and they were supposed to have lunch, and then a real working session to start getting the book in shape.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Ralston Purina got totally plastered at lunch. Totally plastered and abusive. Donna had to call off their meeting.”

  “What did Fortes do?”

  “As Stanley tells it, he star
ted shouting at Donna that she wasn’t sensitive to the Cuban experience. She left him in the middle of Seventh Avenue. Outside Bellini.”

  “So we don’t know what he did after that, or where he went?”

  “No.”

  “But he could have been in town at seven o’clock on Tuesday night? When David was killed?”

  “As far as she or Stanley knows.”

  “Good God.”

  “So that’s my story, my dear. What’s yours?”

  “I’m so shocked I’m going to have to think. I went to Washington and Trenton on Monday, you went to Cleveland yesterday. Let’s see …”

  With some effort Reuben collected his thoughts, then recapitulated in greater detail than he had the previous morning the visits to Marietta and Nancy, Alan Rowan’s addiction and Grace Mann’s friendship with Tom Giardi. For good measure he added the tale of David Rowan’s quarrel with Wheeler Edmunds that Emily Sherwood had recounted.

  “Let me try something,” Cynthia said once Reuben had finished, getting up to go to the library. She returned with four sheets of yellow foolscap and a felt-tip pen, and ripped the paper into quarters. On six of the torn segments she wrote a name, bending over the coffee table that separated her from her husband.

  “Okay, dear, here’s the conventional wisdom. The great ladies involved could not have committed the murders. But they might have spellbound men who could have. It looks like this.” She arranged six squares of paper on the coffee table, grouped in pairs:

  MARIETTA AINSLEE RALSTON FORTES

  NANCY ROWAN ALAN ROWAN

  GRACE MANN TOM GIARDI

  “Nothing new there, Cynthia.”

  “I know. And I also know the only real lead so far is those missing desk calendars. Which is why I have Marietta and Ralston at the top of the list. But we can’t overlook the others. Or maybe even some other synergies—isn’t that the word? Like this one.” Cynthia wrote on two more pieces of paper and put down a new combination:

  GRACE MANN

  ALAN ROWAN

  “From what you said, Reuben, Grace Mann must be close to young Alan. She found the addiction-treatment program for him, and concealed his addiction from the police and you.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “Or how about this one,” she said, laying down two more scraps that read:

  STANLEY KNOWLES

  RALSTON FORTES

  “Desperate publisher and ambitious author, the author trying to make it on his own and willing to help his new-found publisher collect some much-needed insurance proceeds?”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Or, finally, how about this one?” She produced a new combination:

  HORACE JENKINS

  RALSTON FORTES

  “I don’t get it,” Reuben said.

  “Well, poor Jenkins is gay, right? And Fortes knew his way around what you so dramatically called the ‘homosexual underworld.’”

  “That’s going too far,” Reuben said.

  “It’s stretching, I agree. But if we’re going to play synergy, let’s play the game out.”

  “Cynthia, I’ve got to go to bed. I’d like to say you’ve been no help at all, that you’ve only confused things. But of course I can’t. But tell me, what are those blank pieces you’ve got left?”

  “I wish I knew, dear. But I feel in my bones the synergy game isn’t over.”

  15

  Reading

  Reuben did not sleep well after his late-night conversation with Cynthia. Visions of the scraps of paper she had put down on their coffee table floated through his head, the names written on them combining and recombining in his mind. When he finally got up, and thought about the situation after coming fully awake, he despaired of ever identifying the murderer.

  Still, he realized that the search must go on, however difficult the circumstances. He reviewed in his mind what Cynthia had said about Stanley Knowles and his apparently grim financial situation. And weighed the interesting fact that Knowles had maintained an insurance policy on David Rowan’s life.

  Could Stanley Knowles have murdered David, or had him murdered, to collect ready cash? And if so, why would he tell Cynthia about the insurance? It was true they were old friends. And also true that Knowles did not have any reason to know that Frost was involved in the investigation of the murder.

  Or maybe Knowles was aware of Frost’s activities, and telling Cynthia about the policy was a preemptive move in anticipation of Frost’s finding out about it elsewhere.

  Frost was not pleased with his speculations. He was sufficiently paranoid about the mysterious circumstances of David’s death that he did not dismiss them outright. And he did call Frank Norton at Chase & Ward and asked him to have the firm’s library assemble all the information it could find on the Hammersmith Press. He could at least find out what if anything had become public about Hammersmith’s financial troubles.

  “This will probably be expensive,” he told Norton, “and the library people will want to know what client to charge. Just tell them it’s a pro bono matter of great interest to me and charge everything to the office. Or if that doesn’t work, charge my personal account.”

  Norton assured him that he was certain the digging Frost had requested could be done for free.

  Frost next decided that he would like to see David Rowan’s personal files. Bautista, once Frost had reached him on the telephone, agreed that another look might be useful.

  He learned that the material he wanted was still in Rowan’s office. Bautista said he would call the rookie patrolman guarding the premises and tell him to give Frost access to whatever was there.

  Before the morning was over Frost was back at Rowan’s tenth-floor office on Forty-fourth Street, now watched over by another young policeman with bad skin, sitting on a folding chair outside the office door.

  “Can I help you sir?” he asked, looking up from his memo book, which he had been leafing through.

  “Yes. I’m Reuben Frost. Did Detective Bautista call?”

  “Yessir. I’m Patrolman O’Bryan.” He stood up and stuck out his hand, which Frost shook, noting as he did so that this pimply minion of the law would be about the age of his grandson (if he had been lucky or unlucky enough to have had one).

  “Detective Bautista said to treat you as a VIP and to let you see any of the files you want. Come on in.”

  The tiny office was now almost bare, except for a desk and two chairs, Rowan’s word processor and the single four-drawer file cabinet. Frost speculated as to what “VIP treatment” might mean in this bleak setting.

  “It’s these files you’ll be wanting, isn’t it?” O’Bryan asked.

  “I believe so.”

  The officer took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the cabinet.

  “Can I use the desk?”

  “Sure. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

  Frost was glad the desk did not face the window from which David Rowan had been pushed. He still was not entirely comfortable, but set to work inspecting the contents of the file cabinet. The bottom drawer contained only office supplies, but the other three were full of neatly maintained legal-size folders, arranged in alphabetical order. Some of them (which it turned out dated back to Princeton days, when a secretary had been available) had neatly typed labels at the top, the others were lettered in what Frost assumed was Rowan’s handwriting.

  He decided to begin at the beginning, and was soon examining a file labeled simply “Alan.” Its contents confirmed what he had so recently learned, that the boy did have a drug problem. And Grace Mann’s name was prominently mentioned in correspondence urging the director of Fairhaven Gables to admit Alan.

  He next turned to a rather thick file, marked “American Historical Association.” As he flipped through it, he recalled Nancy Rowan’s observation that David was a participant in internecine struggles within the Association. David apparently had been on a crusade against what he called “gender” history. Frost was particularly struck by a
letter David had written to the permanent secretary, and members of the nominating committee:

  I think I am as aware as anyone of the desirability of seeking historical truth from a wide variety of perspectives; looking through a single facet of the prism that is history is unarguably too limiting. After last year’s convention, however, I fear that our Association is being taken over by the “single-perspective” historians, notably those who loudly advocate that historical studies, to be valid, must be based on considerations of sex and race.

  I am not so narrow-minded as to condemn panels such as those we had last year on “Sex, Gender and the Constitution,” or even “Sodomy and Pederasty Among Nineteenth-Century Seafarers.” But if anyone thinks that Constitutional history or the economic history of nineteenth-century trade is really advanced by such skews in focus, I can only say that I think they are very wrong.

  Rumors have reached me that Peter Jewett is now being considered by your committee for nomination as a vice-president of the Association, which means, of course, that he would be in line for president two years from now. As I am sure you all know, Professor Jewett several years back loudly advocated the view that history, of whatever period, can only be seen from a Marxist perspective. Now, presumably after achieving some maturity, he appears to believe that history can only be viewed from the perspective of so-called “new history,” in which considerations of race and sex—and sexual orientation—are paramount.

  I submit to you that Professor Jewett’s views, while trendy and fashionable, are outside the mainstream and that, in a position of power, he would lead the Association down an eccentric path that would bring discredit to the Association and cause our most important constituency—our students—to hold us in deserved contempt.

  For your information, I enclose a copy of my recent review of Professor Jewett’s history of women in the American Foreign Service, which I hope and trust will demonstrate to you the shortcomings of both his point of view and his methodology.

  And there are those who think courtroom lawyers are too argumentative! Frost thought. His brush with the AHA made him feel that he needed a break and, quite possibly, lunch.