by Lev Raphael
Serena sidled over and introduced herself as co-chair of the conference. Valley wordlessly inspected her and nodded as if she confirmed his jaundiced idea of the kind of woman who’d work with me.
Serena bristled when Valley said he’d get to her after he was done asking me some more questions, but she left us alone.
“How’d you get involved in this stuff?” he asked.
“I’m a Wharton scholar. A bibliographer, actually. I published a book, a secondary bibliography, describing what other scholars have written about her.”
Valley’s eyes widened slightly as if he couldn’t believe anyone would pay for something like that. He wasn’t far off—not that many people had, and lots of them were at the conference. Academic writing is like poetry; it’s read almost exclusively by the people who write it. And secondary bibliographies of authors are about as specialized as you can get.
“You could say that I know where the bodies are buried,” I dropped, and instantly regretted it.
“What?”
I blushed at how unfortunate that line was. “Sorry. It’s just a joke I sometimes make—”
“What does it mean?”
How was I going to explain this to someone who wasn’t an academic? “Well, I’m an expert on Edith Wharton. I’ve read everyone’s work on Wharton, everyone’s, dead or alive. All the books and pamphlets and articles and introductions and prefaces and passing references in other books and pamphlets and articles—You get the picture. So I know who’s borrowed ideas from someone else without proper attribution. You’d be surprised what’s out there.”
“That’s stealing, isn’t it?”
“Plagiarism,” I corrected.
Valley asked me if that might have a bearing on the case—if Chloe DeVore had in fact been murdered, that is. But all I could share was my confusion. “Chloe DeVore wasn’t a Wharton scholar.”
“Then what was she doing here?”
I did not want to tell him anything about Chloe, Vivianne, and Priscilla. It was all too murky and made Priscilla look bad. Especially since she’d called so much attention to herself already.
“If anyone was going to be killed,” I mused, “it would have been one of the Wharton presidents. The groups hate each other.”
“Why’s that?”
“They see Wharton very differently.”
“And somebody’s gonna get killed over that?” Valley shook his head, having just been given more proof of the idiocy of academics.
Just then, the Campus Center manager walked up to tell Detective Valley that several rooms off a nearby corridor were at his disposal, with pitchers of water and coffee urns. I was surprised that Valley thanked him, and even more surprised when he said that since I knew the Wharton scholars and their work so well, he wanted me to sit in while he questioned witnesses or whatever they were. I assumed the cops in the crowd were separating out the people they thought had something to say.
“But you’re first,” he said, after conferring with one of his men. We entered the nearest of the rooms set aside by the manager. It was like thousands of such rooms in universities across the country: fluorescent lights too bright and carpet woven in drab colors that matched the worn-looking, cheap drapes. The tables and chairs were functional, but nothing more. And the saddest part was that it was all fairly new.
I found myself wishing Stefan were there to lend his calm insight to what had happened. But maybe he couldn’t find that strength right now—at least for me.
Valley sat on the edge of the conference table at the front of the room and waved me into a chair a foot away.
“Okay. How was the body discovered?”
“There was screaming—Joanne Gillian. It interrupted the second keynote speech. That was about 10:15, I think.” I tried to recall when we’d begun, and told him he should check with Serena to be sure. But I thought it was close to 9:30. Which meant that Chloe had died somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. I’d read enough about death to know she’d probably been dead about half an hour, given what I’d observed.
I told this to Valley, who said, “Moonlighting as a Medical Examiner?” and ignored me.
Valley wrote Serena’s name down, and asked who else I thought he should speak to after Joanne Gillian and Serena. I mentioned Vivianne Fresnel, and had to spell it for him.
“And she—?”
“She was Chloe DeVore’s lover, on and off. They had a fight tonight before the reception.”
But when Valley’s eyes looked greedy, I rushed to counter what I’d blurted out. “They seemed fine an hour later.”
Valley almost smirked, and I was sure his mind had settled into a precut groove about Killer Lesbians.
“What did they argue about?” he asked.
“I don’t know, since it was in French and they were talking too fast.”
“You understand French?”
“If it’s slow, and quiet.”
“So they were shouting?”
I shrugged. “It was an argument.”
Valley went to the door, called for one of the dark-blue-uniformed cops and asked that Vivianne be found and brought to him for questioning, and also asked where Joanne Gillian was. I stood and pulled a chair off to the side where I could watch Valley and whomever he questioned.
Joanne appeared moments later, pale, eyes down. Bob Gillian ac companied her into the room, insisting to Valley that he had to be there with her, “because of the shock.” Gillian helped his wife into a chair and sat by her.
Maybe I’m superficial, but it always puzzles me when good-looking men like Bob marry plain, even homely, women. There was something so squashed and unappealing about Joanne Gillian. She seemed the kind of bland, angry woman you could imagine having been laughed at as a teenage girl when she stuck an overly ornate barrette in her mousy hair. Who did she think she was, her mocking peers would have jeered, and she lived every day of her life haunted by that amphitheater of derision.
Bob was being so solicitous, I half expected him to coo at Joanne and stroke her hand. This intimacy was quite a change from their mood at the reception, when they’d seemed distant from each other. I could imagine Stefan pointing out to me that maybe the shock of finding a body had brought them closer together. He’s less quick than I am to make snap judgments about people.
Joanne Gillian wasn’t too overcome to glare at me and order Valley to kick me out. “He has no business here!”
I confess I admired the way Valley just ignored the outburst.
“Mrs. Gillian, what were you doing in that corridor?” he asked quietly. “It was dark and under construction.”
“I told that policeman already.”
“I want you to tell me.”
“I’m the chair of SUM’s Board of Trustees. I pay your salary.”
“The citizens of Michigan pay my salary.”
Joanne squared her shoulders, her round face assuming an air of hauteur that seemed slightly ridiculous under the circumstances. Who did she think she was, Marie Antoinette facing a Revolutionary tribunal?
“I was looking for a ladies’ room. I got confused.”
“Lost,” her husband added.
Valley silenced him with a curt wave of his hand. Gillian sat back in his chair as if he’d been smacked, but he didn’t stop talking. “Joanne sometimes has trouble making out signs—she’s dyslexic.”
Valley glanced at me as if for confirmation, and I nodded; I’d heard about Joanne Gillian’s dyslexia from someone I know in the provost’s office.
“Why are you asking him?” Joanne said, her face contorted by disgust. “Ask my doctor!” She gave Valley a name and phone number, which he wrote down, unflappable.
“I cannot believe you’d have that sodomite here while you’re questioning me!” Joanne was in her public address mode: head high, voice round and clear like God had just charged her with a mission to save the world from itself. I was sure people heard her out in the hall. “This murder is exactly the kind of thing you can expect at SU
M after all the open promotion of perversion! What’s next? Bestiality? Witchcraft?” Her face was as hateful as any other finger-pointing Sunday morning TV preacher’s.
I tried to stay calm.
“We don’t know it’s a murder, Mrs. Gillian. The Medical Examiner will tell us that.” And then Valley zapped her, quietly. “Are you implying there’s some Satanic cult at work here?”
“Of course not! But instead of harassing decent people, why don’t you find out why that woman, that tall woman with the ponytail out there, started crying when she heard the DeVore woman was dead—and said that she didn’t do it?”
“What woman?”
Joanne Gillian tossed her head impatiently—why should she have to remember anyone’s name?
“Priscilla Davidoff,” I said, reluctantly.
Valley turned to me, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t mentioned Priscilla. I tried to look apologetic but innocent, like I’d simply forgotten. I don’t know if I succeeded.
“What do you know about Chloe DeVore?” Valley asked them.
“I’m glad she’s dead!” Joanne shot. “She was evil, a pornographer.”
“Evil,” Bob said in a mindless-sounding echo.
Valley was clearly uncomfortable with their vehemence and seemed to be thinking it over. “You’ve read her books?”
“I tried,” Bob said. “Joanne finished one.”
“And have you ever met her before?”
Joanne laughed scornfully. “Mix with someone unclean?”
“Not everybody’s born with religion,” Valley said sagely, but Joanne just gave him a haughty look. “What did you do when you noticed the body?”
“I called. I asked if she was—all right.”
“And she didn’t answer?”
“Of course not!” Joanne was more and more indignant. It was clear that being challenged in any way pushed all her buttons.
“But how did you know she was dead?”
Joanne looked at Bob, then turned rapidly back to Valley.
“How did you know she wasn’t just unconscious?” he pressed.
“She seemed dead,” Joanne barked. “She wasn’t moving.”
Valley nodded, and I wondered if he was really probing or just trying to annoy Joanne. He went on asking Joanne and then Bob what they knew about Chloe DeVore, but didn’t learn anything significant that I could see. He let them go.
After they’d left, he pointed out to me that from behind, Joanne Gillian and Chloe DeVore looked somewhat alike.
“Huh?”
“Figure it out. About the same height, same hair color, both wearing dark blue suits, black shoes.”
Stunned, I said, “You think she was the target? Joanne Gillian? That it was a mistake?”
“If Joanne Gillian is really dyslexic,” Valley reasoned, “and it’s fairly well known, then maybe someone at the conference was hoping to take advantage of her condition in some way. I have to consider the possibility.”
I felt sick. If someone did want to kill Joanne Gillian, and that could be proven, then she’d have another weapon to use against the gay com munity at SUM. Even if it wasn’t true, Joanne Gillian could try riding that horse to the finish line. She was clearly not a woman grounded in reason and fact.
“Now, I want you to tell me the truth,” Valley said, and I was sure he meant to ask me about Priscilla’s bizarre declaration. “What’s this Gillian lady got against you?”
I relaxed a little. “She’s chair of the Board of Trustees.”
“She said that. And?”
“Don’t you know what she’s been doing at SUM?”
“I don’t follow politics, especially campus politics.”
Reluctantly, I explained to Detective Valley what had been happening on campus regarding domestic partner benefits and gay rights in general, insisting that none of this could have anything to do with Chloe’s death.
Valley was noncommittal, just taking it all in. “So you want to be treated like you’re married?” he asked.
“Of course!”
“But you’re not married, so how does that make sense? It’s not fair to people who are married.”
“What’s not fair is that we can’t be married.”
He nodded a few times, clearly unconvinced, and I did not feel this was the time to pick up a megaphone.
Valley went to the door and asked the cop waiting there to send in Serena Fisch. Out in the hallway, the hubbub was dying down. I assumed that most of the people not directly involved had already scattered, their names and phone numbers recorded just in case.
Serena came in smiling graciously, as if she were a celebrity granting a chatty at-home interview. Maybe she did think she was Jackie O in that white pants suit, even though she’d put away the large sunglasses. But it seemed a very strange attitude for someone being questioned in connection with a sudden death. Or was I being too picky? And given Serena’s usual “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy” aura, who could say what attitude of hers wasn’t strange?
Valley didn’t hesitate. “What do you know about this Chloe DeVore?”
“She was here in February to do the President’s Series, and was a guest at Nick and Stefan’s party afterwards.”
Valley glanced sidelong at me as Serena went on. “Another dinner guest?” he asked.
Serena continued. “And I met her once before that, years ago when I was a guest lecturer at Emory University. In Georgia. Chloe was the writer-in-residence there, but we didn’t really have much contact.”
This was the first time that Serena had ever said she’d met Chloe before. Why hadn’t she mentioned that to me? Putting it together with the way she’d stared daggers at Chloe during the reception, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I didn’t look at Serena, because I was sure that she was lying—about something.
“What are you doing at this conference?” Valley asked her.
“Running it,” she said, a bit smugly, and she flushed when he glanced my way.
“I thought that Professor Hoffman was the Wharton expert, and he was the one in charge.”
“Oh, he is. But pulling off a conference like this takes—it takes a team, working together.” She nodded, satisfied with her answer, and she smiled at me as if to say, “See? I gave you credit.”
“And you had no interest in seeing Chloe DeVore again?”
Serena flared up. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You tell me,” Valley rejoined, voice soft.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I met Chloe years ago, I met her again at the party, and that’s it. There’s no other connection between us.”
She was so vociferous I was convinced the truth was the exact opposite.
Valley seemed to think so, too, but even when he rephrased the question, she kept repeating her denial.
“Where were you between the reception and the speeches?”
Serena closed her eyes briefly to remember. “We all drifted out into the hall. I told Nick to hurry up but he was talking to Priscilla Davidoff. Then I was in the auditorium. Everyone saw me. That’s the only alibi I have.”
“I wasn’t asking for an alibi.”
“No? Then why are you questioning me?”
“Because we have a death here of undetermined cause.”
Serena gave him a silky grin. “Well, if it’s murder, I’m not in the habit of killing campus guests. I have a little more school spirit than that.”
Despite himself, Valley cracked a smile.
“Can I go now?” Serena asked.
Valley looked annoyed, but he nodded, and she left us, looking very disgruntled.
Vivianne’s entrance was quieter than Serena’s exit, but more dramatic. Valley was surprisingly intimidated by Vivianne’s beauty and her chic. She was still wearing that gorgeous lime-green Chanel suit and reeked of self-confidence, and even the ugly chair she sat in gained some elegance from her presence. I’m sure Vivianne was not his idea of what a lesbian was supposed to look like. I suppose she might
have vaguely fit his Basic Instinct file, but there was nothing predatory about her.
And right now, she seemed strangely unemotional to me.
Valley first asked her what her relationship was to Chloe, and I know he didn’t expect the offhand reply, “Well, she was my wife.”
Had Chloe seen the relationship that way? I wondered.
Poker-faced, Valley asked, “Where were you when her body was found?”
“I assume upstairs. I went to our room to take aspirin.” She gave a very Gallic shrug. “Headache, boredom.”
But the last time I’d seen Vivianne before the keynotes, out in the hallway, she had been smiling, with no sign of a headache. She was on a couch with Chloe, and then left—for the ladies’ room, I had thought.
“Why didn’t the deceased come with you?”
Vivianne raised an eyebrow. “To help me take aspirin?”
Valley hesitated, looking down at his notepad.
“Did anyone see you go to your room? Do you remember talking to anyone in the elevator?”
Vivianne gracefully shook her head.
“Why were you at this conference? Professor Hoffman says that your…that Chloe DeVore was not interested in Edith Wharton.”
“True, but this is such a beautiful campus and we simply took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy it again. We thought we might also explore your lovely state.”
Valley was disarmed, as Michiganders usually are when foreigners (like people from New York) praise their state. It’s so unexpected. And me, I was charmed just by listening to Vivianne’s English. Her pretty accent graced her speech as beautifully as a sachet sweetening the contents of a drawer.
“Tell me about your previous trip here.”
“Chloe flew ahead to make her address, and I followed on a later flight.” She shrugged as if to say there wasn’t anything more to it.
But I knew that Vivianne’s charm was covering up a great deal. I couldn’t believe she didn’t mention the confrontation at my house about the book, and Priscilla’s role in setting it up. Vivianne smiled at me, as if trying to tell me not to mention it myself. I looked away.