First Gravedigger

by Barbara Paul

  I sat staring at the gaudy package in front of me on the table. Incriminating evidence Lieutenant D’Elia would give his eyeteeth to get hold of. I reached for the package; might as well see what Charlie Bates considered an appropriate souvenir of murder.

  It was the Meissen Leda. Brown eyes and all.

  CHAPTER 9

  Thus began the winter of my discontent, said Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson or Art Buchwald. I didn’t hear from Charlie again; he disappeared into that new world of money and murder he’d found for himself. But other things—my god, the other things.

  First, Robin Coulter. Eventually she’d come around, but for the moment I wasn’t getting anywhere. Before Amos Speer died, she’d been full of animosity—prickling at everything I said, looking for excuses to insult me. But once I became The Boss, she’d had to pull back, watch what she said. She even had to work at being friendly. I got a lot of laughs out of that. Oh yeah, I laughed good. I even encouraged her in her hesitant attempts at camaraderie. Every chance I got, I encouraged her. Once I had her in a horizontal position she wouldn’t be so high and mighty.

  But she was proving a hard case. In December one day I gave her bottom a friendly little squeeze. She whirled on me and said she couldn’t think of a single reason why she should go on working for a man who thought he had the right to put his hands on her whenever he felt like it. Jeez. So I sent her off to Europe on a buying trip; it was the wrong time of year, but a bribe was clearly in order.

  Next, Peg McAllister kept hammering at me that not only were we liable to the people Wightman had cheated, we’d better get a move on and settle up fast. She said the best thing to do would be pay off all those people quietly. “Then we can put the word out in the business, Earl, without going to court, without headlines. Let the other dealers know how much Wightman cost us. That’ll cook his goose in the long run. Nobody’ll deal with him because nobody’ll trust him. And the customers will eventually catch on there’s something not quite kosher about Leonard Wightman’s gallery in San Francisco.”

  Wightman had opened to a roll of drums and a blare of trumpets, California style. Right away he’d cut into the profits of our west coast branch, but part of it might be a novelty appeal that would wear off in time. But I sure as hell couldn’t count on it. And it galled me to think I’d end up paying off Wightman’s victims to protect the professional reputation of Speer Galleries. “Peg, I’m not convinced we ought to pay up meekly and hope some higher justice will catch up with Wightman in the future. Besides, we don’t know the real value of that porcelain—why, it could cost us a fortune.” A wild guess: it might run to half a million. I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to find out.

  “All right,” Peg said, “if you’re determined to prosecute. But do it this way—pay off the people Wightman cheated first. Admit liability publicly. Then take the bastard to court. The courts will force him to repay whatever we paid out, and that’ll put him out of business in a hurry. It might even have some favorable publicity value—show the world how honest and conscientious Speer’s is. But no prosecution without first making things right with the folks Wightman rooked. Absolutely not. It would be suicidal.”

  Which meant I’d still have to pay out the money and then gamble the courts would see things our way. “How certain are you we’d get a favorable judgment?”

  Lawyer-like, she hedged. “Nothing’s certain in any judicial process. I feel confident we’d win. I have to admit your detective—Valentine, is that his name?—he did a good job. We have the evidence. But it’s time that’s important, Earl. We have to negotiate with the victims and reach an equitable settlement, and that’s going to take a while. You know damn well some of them are going to hire themselves smart lawyers and then the price will go up and up and up. They’ve got us over a barrel—we’ll just have to pay. But Earl, we have a good chance of getting it all back. Better than good—excellent.”

  An excellent chance. But still a chance, not a certainty. “Damn it, Peg, I don’t like getting stuck with Wightman’s bill. Even if we do get it back later, and we’re not even sure of that.”

  “Then the only alternative is to get Wightman to pay up himself.”

  “And how do we do that? Give me a weapon, Peg, something I can beat him over the head with.”

  “Just tell him what we’re going to do. Give him a deadline. Tell him if full reparation isn’t made by such and such a date, we’ll step in and pay the bill. And then we’ll take him for every cent he’s got.”

  “You think that’ll do it?”

  “It might.”

  It might. Yes indeedy it just might. And if threats failed to make him assume the responsibility, we could still fall back on the lawsuit. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Wightman might think we’re bluffing, though—he doesn’t think the way normal people do. I’ll go show him our evidence. But in case he won’t admit culpability, why don’t you start drawing up some sort of legal form we can get his victims to sign? Something that says they have accepted fair and honest recompense from us, that Speer’s is no longer liable, blah blah. You know what I mean.”

  “I’ve already done that,” she sniffed.

  I decided to put off my flying trip to San Francisco until January in spite of Peg’s urging haste. I didn’t want to abandon Nedda during the holidays. In fact I stuck to her like a leech, because—surprise, surprise—I had a little problem there. Nedda had taken a lover.

  I hadn’t confronted her about it; I wasn’t ready for a showdown. I didn’t know who he was or where they met for their illicit assignations or any of the other lurid details. I just knew he existed. Nedda no longer came prowling after me in that pantherlike way of hers; she allowed me to make love to her, the way a cat allows itself to be stroked. And she enjoyed it about the same way, as homage due her. But on nights I came home too tired to perform, she just rolled over carelessly and went to sleep. She didn’t need me. She was getting it somewhere else.

  So I made sure she didn’t spend even one hour of the holidays with him, whoever he was. And in the meantime I looked at her check stubs. No large amounts made out to cash, at least. That was one indulgence I refused to tolerate. Nedda had spent plenty on me when she was still married to Speer.

  Nedda was a beautiful woman. Not a very nice woman, but a beautiful one. And sexy as hell. She no more had to pay a lover than Cleopatra. She’d given me expensive gifts and even handed me cash on occasion because it amused her to do so. It was her none too subtle way of reminding me which of us held the upper hand. I’d let her get away with it; sure, why not? It had paid off. But Nedda liked playing games, and she’d just started a new one with a new player. I didn’t know anything about this guy, and rule one was always know your enemy.

  So I made one more call to Valentine.

  San Francisco in January is nothing like the travel posters say. It’s damp and chill, with that watery sun everywhere, smilin’ through. At least on the east coast all that rotten weather tells you exactly what time of year it is.

  A discreet plaque on the door said Wightman Porcelains. Not as much floorspace as our branch, but the pieces Wightman was displaying were good. He must have been planning this for years. I told his receptionist—Miss Centerfold of All Times—who I was and that I wanted to see her boss. I rested my attaché case on her desk while she used the phone.

  “Ah, there you are, dear boy,” came the familiar whinny. “I just knew you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself away—scouting out the competition, is that it? Do look around. Try not to turn too green.”

  He’d come from somewhere in the back of the gallery; I gestured in that direction. “Is your office back there?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said—pointedly not inviting me in.

  “We need to talk, Wightman. Let’s go to your office.”

  “Dear me, I see you haven’t learned a thing, Sommers. You don’t invite yourself into someone else’s office. You wait to be invited.” He said all this with such a rolling of the eyes and a tw
itching of the eyebrows that Miss Centerfold giggled.

  I remembered all the times he’d pushed his way into my office but didn’t remind him; it was exactly the kind of quibble Wightman loved. “We need to talk,” I repeated. “Now.”

  I must have said it right because he abandoned his opening gambit. “Oh, very well,” he said petulantly. “Don’t have a temper tantrum. If it’s talk that makes you happy, by all means let us talk.” He turned and strode toward the back, leaving me to trail after him.

  He closed the office door behind me and flapped a hand toward one wall. “I’ve been offered a hundred and fifty thousand for that. But of course it’ll go for much more.”

  He was referring to a shell-carved kneehole block-front desk against the wall. Good Newport workmanship, Townsend-Goddard school. Wightman was probably right; he’d be able to get more than a hundred fifty thousand for it. Those pieces always sold for more than they were worth. But the kneehole desk was strictly for show, to impress visitors. Wightman’s working desk was a Walter Gropius design. It figured.

  “You’re dealing furniture too?” I asked. “The plaque out front says porcelains.”

  “Just a sideline—nothing serious. It offers me a kind of rough-hewn relaxation, don’t you know. Porcelain can be so demanding, I need a change of pace once in a while. You probably work out in a gym.”

  Wightman must be losing his touch; I wasn’t even tempted. I sat down without waiting for an invitation and opened the attaché case. I took out copies of the statements signed by the people Wightman had bilked and dropped them on his desk. “Better take a look.”

  Wightman arched an eyebrow at me. “Better take a look?” he repeated. “Or what? Do you have some menacing threat to back that up?”

  “Look, you horse’s ass, I’m doing you a favor by coming here. You’re in trouble, Wightman, and I can’t say I’m sorry. How much trouble depends on what you do now. Look at the papers.”

  “Dear me, that is menacing. I am all a-tremble.” With one finger he casually flipped open the folder holding the statements. He glanced at the first one, turned it over, glanced at the second. When he’d looked at no more than four or five, he closed the folder. “Yes?”

  “Yes? What do you mean, yes? Do you understand what those are?”

  He chuckled. “Of course I understand, dear boy. Don’t assume everyone has the same sluggish mental processes you do.”

  I stared at him. I’d just shown him I had evidence he was a thief, and he was acting as unconcerned as if I’d said it was going to rain. “Then you understand we’re in a position to prosecute? You don’t think we’re just going to let this pass, do you? If you don’t make reparation to those people you ripped off, then we will. And if we have to pay for your sticky fingers, then you can be damned sure you’ll pay. And pay and pay and pay. You’ll lose your pretty new gallery, do you understand that?”

  Wightman was looking at me as if I were some interesting new specimen. “Feeling your power, old chap? Give a nonentity a little authority and look what happens! Your assumption of godhood doesn’t suit you, dear boy. You don’t have the style for it.”

  “A delaying tactic, Wightman? It won’t work. One way or another, those people are going to be repaid. The only question to be decided is whether you go to jail or not.”

  Wightman threw back his head and brayed. “Oh, you are a jewel, Sommers! True to form in every way—predictable as a bowel movement. Now if you can bring yourself to concentrate for a full thirty seconds, I’ll try to explain a few things in words of one syllable or less. In the first place, you’re not going to involve the grand old name of Speer Galleries in a scandalous lawsuit. Dear me, no. Even if you did win, the name of Speer would be suspect for years among the overendowed upper classes of this country that form the backbone of our business. In the second place, you’d have to prove I resold that porcelain for personal profit at the expense of Speer’s good name. Now do you really think you have the acumen to trace all that porcelain?”

  There I thought I had him. “I don’t have to. All we have to prove is one or two cases, and we have a lot to work from.” I wasn’t sure about that, but it seemed a safe gamble. “Are you willing to risk losing your gallery on the assumption we won’t be able to trace even one sale?”

  Wightman pursed his lips in a mock pout. “Alas, no, I confess I’m not. All this is très fade, Sommers—but if you insist on playing your little game out to its sordid end, so be it.” He got up from his desk and walked unhurriedly over to a wall safe. From the safe he took a large envelope which he casually tossed in my direction; I had to make a fumbling catch to keep from being hit in the face. “Now you had better take a look,” he said, sitting back down. “Turnabout and all that.”

  What was he up to? I opened the envelope and began to read the papers.

  They were all signed statements from the people I had bilked—the ones who’d sold me valuable pieces of furniture cheaply, pieces I’d resold for personal profit.

  Wightman was grinning wickedly. “You’re not the only one who can hire a detective.”

  He had me. God damn his smirking, conniving hide—he had me good. I’d never take legal action against him, I’d even end up paying off his victims. And he knew it. The bastard really had me.

  “You went about it in a remarkably unintelligent way, Sommers, even for you.” He was really enjoying himself. “Selling most of the pieces to Speer’s under assumed names. Well, really. A more inept piece of subterfuge I’ve never come across. My detective found it embarrassingly easy to uncover your trail. So you see, dear boy, I have more on you than you’ll ever have on me. You’re not exactly in a position to make threats, are you?”

  Jesus Christ. God damn it to hell. “So now what?”

  “I won’t use the term gentlemen’s agreement,” Wightman said, “because you’d never understand the meaning of the word. But I do like to think of myself as a reasonable man, willing to make concessions in the service of professional harmony.”

  “Mutual blackmail,” I said bluntly.

  He smiled with an aggravating blandness. “I have no objection to the term. Mutual blackmail it shall be. We both just forget this unpleasant little interlude in our lives and go our separate ways—which, I predict, will be to the top of the heap for me and the slough of despond for you. Poetic justice, I do love it so. I might point out that those statements you are grasping so fervidly in your sweaty hand are simply one of five sets. The originals and three sets of copies are in other hands, safe from any blundering derring-do you might be contemplating.”

  “Wightman, I’ll get you yet,” I said, sounding melodramatic even to my own ears.

  Wightman blinked his eyes and then opened a drawer of his desk. He took out a small piece of paper which he silently handed me. On the paper he’d written: “I’ll get you somehow, Wightman.” He took the statements from me and put them back in his safe. “As I say, Sommers, you are depressingly predictable. I can even tell you what you’ll do when you get back to Pittsburgh. But I won’t—life should hold some surprises, even for the likes of you.” He came back to the desk, put the folder I’d brought back into my attaché case, closed the case, pointedly handed it to me. “Now run along like a good boy and play your clumsy little games elsewhere. Try not to disturb the grown-ups. Go, Sommers. Go now.”

  I banged the attaché case down on its studs and drew it hard across the surface of the Walter Gropius desk. It left four deep scratches.

  “Get out!” Wightman was screeching as I left. “Get out, you aborigine!”

  As I passed the reception desk, Miss Centerfold looked up. “Come back soon,” she smiled.

  I remembered the last time I’d sat on a plane and tried to figure out a way to save my neck. That time it had been Charlie Bates, and I’d ended up deciding to kill him. It didn’t work out that way, but the fact that I’d been able to make such a decision must mean something. Desperate situations, etc. And god knows things were desperate now.


  Someday, somehow, I’d get that bastard Englishman; I swore it. But Wightman would have to wait; there were more urgent matters. Money, for one. Somewhere I was going to have to find the funds to pay off those fools who’d sold their porcelain so cheaply. I couldn’t just let the whole thing drop—I’d sent Valentine to talk to them, I’d brought Peg McAllister in on it. I’d let it go too far.

  Something Peg had said was bothering me. She’d claimed that the very act of asking questions would make Wightman’s victims suspect something was fishy about the deals they’d made with him. If that were true about my detective and Wightman’s victims, wouldn’t it be equally true about Wightman’s detective and the suckers I’d taken? Were there people out there right now thinking about making trouble for me?

  The only way I could be sure I was safe was to see that those people were adequately reimbursed as well. Where in the name of heaven was the money coming from?

  Horrible first thought: Sell the Duprée chair.

  No. It might not be enough, for one thing. And there had to be some other way—funnel the profits from the European branches into a special fund, then think up some explanation that would satisfy Peg. Or at least keep her quiet. Because of Peg, I’d have to take care of Wightman’s victims first. That meant I’d be covering up his double-dealing while my own peccadillos went unprotected. I would get him for this, yes I would, someday I would really get him.

  That whole business of Wightman’s having me investigated was curious. What had put him on to it? He himself had been asking for an investigation when he suddenly showed up with enough money to open his own gallery. But I’d done nothing like that. I’d simply married my money; happens all the time. But something must have started him looking.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I could of the statements he’d shown me. At least two of them were dated December, just last month. Wightman’s investigation had been recent, then—just completed, in fact. So he probably didn’t start looking until a short time ago. Not until I was investigating him.