Murder Keeps A Secret Read online

  “That’s your plate on the left,” the waiter said to Frost.

  “I’m aware of that,” he replied, astonished at the silly remark, wondering why the man hadn’t told him to eat his salad with a fork.

  As the tired salad greens were ladled out, Stanley Knowles turned to speak to Grace Mann on his right. Frost, obeying the switching-partners convention, himself turned to Donna Knowles. She was gray-haired and craggy-faced like her husband; they could have been brother and sister. She had never been a close friend, but Frost knew that she was considered a good editor at Hammersmith, where she was responsible for new fiction and poetry. She was also rumored to have sunk her modest inheritance into the publishing house.

  Donna Knowles began her end of the conversation by complaining about the food. “This food is terrible,” she said. “I know I eat like a bird, but these portions are much too big.”

  Frost looked at her sympathetically and then turned away to scan the dais, where he saw David laughing and talking with animation with Micella Reuff on one side and Professor John Wilson Torrance of NYU on the other. Frost remarked to Donna that the guest of honor seemed in very good spirits.

  “Oh, he is—as he ought to be. The reception for Ways and Means has been exceptional and his research for the Ainslee book seems to be going well.”

  “I’m delighted for him. And for you. It seems to me Hammersmith has had all the prizewinners this year,” Frost said, referring not only to David’s achievements but the National Book Award for fiction, won this year by a Montana novelist published by the firm, and, the previous fall, the Nobel Prize for literature, awarded to a Siamese poet Hammersmith published in English translation.

  “Yes, it’s very nice. But I can assure you those prizes and one dollar will get you a ride on the subway.” Her cheerfulness disappeared as she began talking about the book industry.

  “Oh, come, Donna. You’re still publishing Sylvia Simmons, aren’t you?” Frost asked, referring to a hack novelist whose romances about the antebellum South consistently headed the bestseller list.

  “Indeed. But you must realize the only thing Sylvia Simmons likes better than fame—she would admit this herself, so I’m not being indiscreet—is money. She helps pay the rent, there’s no question about that, but she escalates her demands with every book. Whatever all those foreign investors raiding American publishers think, publishing isn’t the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And everything’s more expensive these days.

  “Take that girl over there, Patricia McNiece,” she went on, lowering her voice once again and, by now, completely ignoring her food. “She’s a brilliant editor and we’re very pleased to have her. Twenty years ago, she would have made a pittance and would have—or at least should have—been grateful for the chance to learn her profession. Not today. She can command a handsome salary, and if we don’t pay it, she’ll get it somewhere else. Of course, Reuben, I hold you responsible—you and the other rich lawyers who pay your new recruits such obscene amounts of money.”

  Frost ignored the jibe; he knew the complaint about the extravagant pay scales of Wall Street law firms and often heard it in social conversation, but he didn’t feel like debating the subject tonight.

  “Is Ms. McNiece David’s editor?” he asked, scrutinizing the pert, freckle-faced woman of perhaps thirty almost directly facing him.

  “Yes, she is. She did a magnificent job on Ways and Means and I know is going to have a bigger job working with David on the Ainslee book.”

  “Why so?”

  “Force of circumstances. You know about Horace Jenkins, of course?”

  “Jenkins? No, I can’t say that I do.”

  “He’s been David’s research assistant. A brilliant, brilliant young man who wrote his Ph.D. thesis with David at Princeton. David was elated because he’d persuaded Horace to take off two years or more to help him with the biography. But then he was diagnosed.”

  “Diagnosed?”

  “I’m sorry. That’s a sad term going around the publishing industry these days—and I guess just about every other profession as well. He has AIDS.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “It’s a tragedy. And a real setback for David. Horace was an indefatigable worker and his work was the best. Unfortunately, what little time for recreation he had seems to have been spent at the baths.”

  “How sick is he?”

  “He’s in Tyler Hospital. He was working up until two months ago, but he got too sick to go on. He’s dying. Cancer and heaven knows how many other infections.”

  “I hate hearing about these things.”

  “So do I, but you can’t avoid it these days, can you?”

  Frost thought it was time to change the subject and, in any event, he was curious about Cynthia’s dinner companion, with whom she seemed to be carrying on a very animated conversation.

  “Who’s the fellow next to Cynthia?” he asked. “Burton was it?”

  “No, Taylor. Richard Taylor. He’s Senator Edmunds’s administrative assistant. Somebody said before dinner that he’ll be the head of the White House staff if Edmunds gets elected.”

  “Isn’t he a little young for that?”

  “After the Reagan administration?”

  “Good point.”

  Frost was fascinated with the conversation he was observing, though his wife and the AA were speaking too low to be heard. Taylor, with tiny horn-rimmed spectacles (the kind the British National Health passes out, Reuben thought) perched on his pink-cheeked face, was gesturing forcefully with his large hands as he made a point to Cynthia. She, in turn, was making almost balletic gestures as she dramatically gave her side of the argument.

  Reuben’s surveillance was interrupted as Grace Mann began talking across him to Donna Knowles.

  “Did I overhear you discussing the Senator?” she asked.

  “Yes. What do you think of him, Grace?”

  “I’m mildly impressed. Though given the candidates this year, that may be faint praise. He’s got a good record and he can talk in sentences. He was on the show a few weeks ago and I liked him.”

  “What does David think? Is he going to go to work for him?” Donna asked, alluding to the historian’s speechwriting avocation.

  “I don’t know. David loves ghostwriting, but I think the book’s going to keep him busy. There’s been a feeler or two, though I haven’t been told any of the details. Knowing David, I’m sure he’ll be tempted.”

  “What do you think, Reuben?” Donna asked.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I’m tired of politics. Too many pipsqueaks—in both parties. All the same, I’ve only heard good things about Edmunds. And I guess if he wins the New York primary next month he’ll pretty much have the nomination sewed up.”

  The political conversation was interrupted by another benefit-dinner rite: the few moments, usually between the main course and dessert, when the prominent guests descend from the dais, like gods coming down from Olympus, to mingle briefly with hoi polloi.

  David Rowan went at once to table ten and quickly made the rounds. He was without question in an “up” mood, his receding black hair, without a trace of gray, framing the top of his shiny and happy face. His toothy, but not unattractive, smile was bestowed in turn on each one at the table though, as he greeted each guest, the smile dissolved into mock gravity as he called each of them by a facetious nickname—“Pops” in the case of his father (whom he embraced), “my queen” for Grace Mann (whom he also embraced perfunctorily), “Emms, dear” for Emily Sherwood, “my patron and protector” for Stanley Knowles and “la bella Donna” for his wife, “amanuensis cara” for Ms. McNiece, “old friend” for Richard Taylor, and “dear godfather” and “the queen mother” for Reuben and Cynthia.

  Hands shaken as he went around the table, he stopped briefly between his father and Cynthia, embracing them both.

  “You’re all coming to Stockholm, I assume?” he asked, his eyes darting about the table as his listeners caught his reference to the Nobel
Prize, his staccato laugh making clear that he was not serious—or at least not quite serious.

  “See you there!” he said, patting both Harrison and Cynthia on their backs, then retreating back toward the dais, waving at table ten as he moved away.

  Once the dais guests were reassembled, Elliott Reuff, never the shrinking violet, took the podium to act as master of ceremonies at his own Foundation’s dinner. After a tepid joke, he introduced Professor Torrance, the head of the Reuff Prize selection committee. (Torrance, years before, had given Reuff a D in American History 201 at NYU, but bygones were apparently bygones.)

  Torrance, round as he was tall and with the hair of a wild violinist, gave a graceful, if not especially warm, encomium to the evening’s prizewinner. He made only one crack about David’s television career—a subject anathema to most academics, either as a matter of principle or as a matter of green-eyed envy. Then, taking a plaque and what appeared to be a check from the shelf beneath the podium, he presented them to David Rowan.

  David’s acceptance speech was witty, gracious and brief.

  “Everyone knows that historians covet professional acclaim,” he said. “What is less well known is the dirty little secret that they like money. And when you put the two together, the combination is downright irresistible.”

  Senator Edmunds, who spoke last, gave an impressive speech. It was not an all-purpose oration, equally suitable for award dinners, fundraisers, photo opportunities in Iowa farmyards and television debates, but one carefully crafted for the occasion. He spoke of the value of learning the lessons of history and of the importance of higher education in general (the latter reference giving him a chance to remind his audience of his record of support for education funding in the Senate).

  As the Senator talked, Frost observed the Secret Service agents who had positioned themselves in front of the dais, facing the audience. Was this a waste of taxpayers’ money or not? he asked himself. What if someone in the audience got up suddenly and appeared to threaten the speaker? Would a sharpshooter in the agents’ ranks pick him off? Or would they simply yell at the candidate to duck? Either eventuality would be a trifle embarrassing if the unfortunate spectator had merely leaped up because he had a charley horse.

  Reuben also thought of the dowager who lived around the corner from his townhouse who had entertained the First Lady recently—even though the electricity in the woman’s apartment had been knocked out earlier in the day by a freak accident in the basement of her building. From what he knew of the guest list, there had been at least one or two present whom he would not have been willing to encounter unless all the lights were on. Had it really been wise to let the First Lady visit an apartment illuminated only by candles? Well, he was not running the Secret Service. Given the recent course of American history, he concluded that it was probably a necessary, if possibly ineffectual, evil.

  Frost then observed Richard Taylor anew. The young man was listening to his boss with a look of intense concentration, and perhaps of rapture, on his face. His body English, slightly anticipating the rhythms of Edmunds’s speech, indicated to Frost that Taylor was its author. David Rowan might not find it easy to penetrate the candidate’s inner circle, even if he wanted to do so.

  The Senator ended his speech with a flag-waving flourish, albeit of the First Amendment-free speech variety, as befitted the gathering he was addressing. The applause at the end was hearty, and Elliott Reuff called the evening to a close.

  The audience immediately rushed out of the ballroom, not out of boredom or relief, but because the city’s movers and shakers, although of all ethnic and religious persuasions, were supposed to behave like rigorous Protestants and get to bed early.

  Harrison Rowan urged Reuben to join a small after-dinner celebration with David, but he declined, pleading that he was tired. After kisses for the women—and a promise to Emily Sherwood to call her—and handshakes for the men, Reuben piloted Cynthia toward the exit.

  Saying good night to Harrison, Reuben instructed him to tell David that he would see him soon, not realizing that he would see the Reuff Prizewinner only once more: on the television news; dead; and covered with a blanket.

  2

  Post-mortem

  As was their custom after an evening out, the Frosts relaxed with a nightcap in the living room of their East Side townhouse. Their light Scotches and soda tasted good on the unseasonably warm night.

  “Why do people go to those things unless they have to?” Cynthia asked her husband as she stretched out on the sofa. “Of course, I know why we were there. But wouldn’t people who had the choice rather be at the theater, or even at home in front of the TV, than eating a microwave dinner in a hotel ballroom?”

  “You know the real reason as well as I do, Cynthia,” her husband answered, sitting across the coffee table from her in an armchair. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It’s reciprocity, not generosity, that makes these dinners successful.”

  “What if you just sent out a letter and said, ‘We’ll spare you the agony of a hotel dinner—just send money instead’?”

  “I think somebody tried that once and no money came in.”

  “I guess people like to be seen. All dressed up and some place to go.”

  “Like Mrs. Reuff, for example?”

  “Micella! Wasn’t that incredible? Skirt up to her behind and ruffles sticking out about two feet. It’s that new French designer, Christian Lacroix. He must have a wicked sense of humor to dress women that way. Micella’s no chicken, either.”

  “I was hoping to see her sit down, but I didn’t.”

  “She wasn’t dressed, she was upholstered,” Cynthia commented.

  The Frosts laughed quietly and sipped their drinks as they thought about the incongruously dressed Micella Reuff. Then Reuben asked if Cynthia had learned anything of interest on her side of the table.

  “No, not really—oh, yes, there was one thing. A hot little tidbit at that. Did you know that Garrett Ainslee was quite the ladies’ man?”

  “No, I’ve never heard that.”

  “It seems that he went to bed with anything that moved—female, of course. According to Harrison, it was a well-kept secret. He’d never heard about it in all the years he lived in Washington.”

  “How did this come out, if it was such a secret?”

  “Apparently the old goat kept a record of his conquests. I don’t know the details, but he had a code letter for sex—O, Harrison said—that he meticulously entered, with the number of times, in his daily engagement book.”

  “That’s weird. He wasn’t a Catholic, was he?”

  “I don’t think so. Southern Baptist I would’ve guessed. Why?”

  “Well, as I understand it, Catholics tell their sins in confession. Maybe he was just keeping track for the priest.”

  “Oh, Reuben,” Cynthia said, with some exasperation. “But I agree with you, it’s pretty strange behavior.”

  “Where did Harrison get this bit of dirt?”

  “David cracked the code while going through Ainslee’s papers. Don’t ask me how. Harrison didn’t explain.”

  “Well, well, the Ainslee biography may have some spice after all.”

  “Ainslee’s widow knows about David’s discovery. He bragged a little too much about it and word got back to her. She’s fit to kill, Harrison says.”

  “Does that mean she’ll withdraw her support for the book?”

  “Harrison doesn’t think so, since that could lead to a public scandal. But David’s worried. It seems the widow has a new live-in—younger than she is—who’s a real brute. I gather he’s been egging the woman on.”

  “That’s pretty good gossip,” Reuben said. “What did you learn from your other dinner partner, that young fellow Taylor? You were certainly chatting him up!”

  “Me? Chatting him up! I had to fight to say a full sentence to him!”

  “Hmn. What was the big topic of conversation?”

  “Wheeler Edmunds, of course.
Richard’s …”

  “Richard, is it?”

  “Why, yes. Are you jealous?”

  “Of course not. I’m always glad to see my poor, aged wife making new friends.”

  “Richard is absolutely devoted to Edmunds. He began working for him as a volunteer when he was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, then full-time when he got back from Oxford and Edmunds had gone on to the Senate. He’s been with him ever since.”

  “What’s the Oxford part?”

  “Richard was a Rhodes Scholar. Magdalen, I believe.”

  “My God, you found out everything about the kid.”

  “Not exactly a kid. He’s thirty-three, he told me.”

  “He looks younger.”

  “He runs.”

  “Oh.”

  “To answer your question, though, we were talking about Presidential politics. I expressed the view rather gently …”

  “… of course …”

  “… that I didn’t think anyone was qualified to be President, that the job is just too tough. Well, I got a hand-waving argument that I was wrong. Or at least wrong as far as Wheeler Edmunds is concerned. By the time he finished, I was surprised he wasn’t telling me that the Senator could walk on water.”

  “Did you like—Richard?”

  “I guess so. But his dedication to Edmunds was really overpowering. I felt like I was being preached to by—what do they call holy rollers now?—a television evangelist.”

  “I think a lot of smart young men do what your Richard has done. Tie their fate to an up-and-coming politician and hope for glory.”

  “It’s interesting. Having your career, even your life, so dependent on someone else.”

  “Yes, yes it is,” Reuben agreed, before lapsing back into silence. Then Cynthia suddenly leaned forward as if she had just remembered something.

  “What about seeing Emily Sherwood again? Isn’t Harrison the sly old devil, ferreting her out after all these years?”

  “Indeed. I didn’t talk with her much, but Barton Sherwood apparently didn’t ruin her. She seemed her old, ample, jolly self.”