Setting the Stage for Murder

by Robert W. Gregg

  “As I remember, the light wasn’t so good. She was kinda short, and she wasn’t dressed upscale like the one this Tuesday. I guess you’d say she was pretty average.”

  “Less attractive than Mr. Gerlach’s other visitors?”

  Farris looked puzzled, as if the question was one he hadn’t considered before.

  “I’m not sure. None of the women I’ve seen down there are what you’d call lookers. Too old, for one thing.”

  The neighborhood voyeur seemed to be of the school that thought middle-aged men should be looking for young trophy wives. Carol chose not to comment.

  She briefly studied the entries on the other women who had visited Gerlach since Farris had taken to spying on his neighbor. There were only four in all, which probably meant either that the telescope was a relatively new toy or that Gerlach’s sex life on Crooked Lake had had its fallow periods.

  Of the other women mentioned in the notebook, only one had made an appearance in Gerlach’s driveway in the last five months. The others, each of whom had been a visitor on several occasions, had, for whatever reason, disappeared from his life some time ago and well before the ill-fated attempt to stage Gianni Schicchi. It was possible, but not very likely, that one of them had borne a grudge against Gerlach that led ultimately to his death by strangulation at Brae Loch College just a few days earlier. Carol knew, however, that she would have to track down and question all of the women Farris had briefly described in his notebook.

  After thanking him for his help and assuring him that she would be in touch again soon, Carol headed back down the path to where Kevin would be waiting, pondering what she had learned. It would be no easy task to locate some of the women who had been visiting Gerlach. All she had to go on were Farris’s sketchy and possibly unreliable notes on their appearance and the cars they were driving. But one car held out more promise as a lead, even if Farris had not recorded the number on its license plate. He had, however, identified it as a Studebaker. Not many of them around, Carol thought. I’ll put Bridges on it tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 19

  Identifying the owner of the Studebaker turned out to be even easier than Carol had expected. And it was Kevin who supplied her name. They had been discussing Farris’s report on their way back to the cottage, and when she mentioned that Gerlach’s visitor of August 10th had been driving a Studebaker, Kevin interrupted her.

  “That’s got to be Mercedes Redman,” he said. “She told me she’d been over to his place, and she drives a Studebaker. An old one that needs a wash. Unless he was specializing in women who drive Studebakers, she’s the one you’ll want to talk to.”

  “Good. I’ve got to start somewhere, so I guess I’ll call her and take a trip over to Ithaca. And then there’s the Myers woman. She told me she was driving around, nowhere in particular, the afternoon Gerlach was killed, and Farris says some woman dropped by that same day. Can’t imagine why his former wife would be that woman, but maybe she had her reasons. Do you know what kind of car she drives?”

  “Pretty sure it’s a BMW,” Kevin said.

  “Which means we’re still batting a thousand,” Carol said. “Farris identified the car he saw as a BMW, so odds are it was Myers. Only she wasn’t just driving idly around our back roads, like she said; she was going to see her ex. That makes two of your company I’ve got to talk with. Pronto.”

  “What about Mrs. Conklin?”

  “I won’t be seeing her. She’s dead, or so her widower told me.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Kevin said. “I was wondering whether your man Farris remembers seeing her at Gerlach’s. We know she was part of his harem. His photo album tells us that.”

  “There’s a good chance he did, but it would have been many months ago and there aren’t any names in his notebook. We’re going to have to dig a bit and come up with more information about her—when she died, and so on. Along with a picture. Tell you what, why don’t you go over to Geneva, see what you can find in the local paper’s files. No reason you can’t make time for it, is there?”

  “No, none at all.” Kevin was well aware that there were aspects of the sheriff’s investigation into Harley Gerlach’s death which he would have to stay out of. Looking into Arthur Conklin’s marriage was not one of them, as long as it did not entail questioning Conklin himself. Kevin could once more assume the role of private detective, a role he thought he had played so well the previous summer when they were tracking down the killer of that woman from Chicago. Had he forgotten her name already? No, he remembered, it was Rackley. Sandra Rackley. Now, more than a year later, a murderer had struck again on Crooked Lake.

  Carol dropped Kevin off at his cottage and set off for Cumberland, hoping that Bridges and the other officers who had been working on the case would have made progress in identifying the author of the note fragment found in Wayne Hall’s bathroom wastebasket.

  It’s too late in the day, Kevin decided, to go over to Geneva and hunt through the local paper’s files for Helen Conklin’s obituary. He’d do that tomorrow. Right now, he thought, I’ll take a swim.

  His favorite form of exercise was swimming. It had been an important factor in the decision some years back to buy the lake cottage. Susan hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as he did, but she was no longer a part of his life. Carol loved swimming and was good at it, even though she rarely had time to join him in the water.

  It turned out to be just as well that he hadn’t tried to fit the Geneva trip into what was left of the afternoon.

  He had changed and was standing at the end of his dock, watching several gulls that were wheeling about above the water some thirty or more yards offshore. Kevin had always assumed that the gulls he saw on Crooked Lake were refugees from their saltwater habitat well to the east and south. He was wondering whether they migrated or otherwise changed their fishing grounds during the winter when the lake could freeze over. It was while he was entertaining these thoughts that he spotted a boat coming his way. It was moving slowly, and it appeared that someone was swimming alongside of it. Whoever it was, they were heading almost directly for his dock.

  It was not until they were within fifteen feet of the dock that he thought he recognized the swimmer.

  “Miss Merriman?” he called out.

  The woman in the water stopped swimming and looked up at the dock and the man who was standing there.

  “Professor Whitman?” She was obviously surprised to find herself face to face with the director of the ill-fated Brae Loch opera project.

  “That’s right,” he said as she reached the dock and the rower of the boat pulled it alongside. “What are you doing here?”

  Heather Merriman backpedaled a few feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she sounded as if she was embarrassed. “I had no idea you lived here. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “Hey, no problem. You aren’t bothering me. Quite the contrary, I’m glad to see you. Didn’t expect to see you arriving quite like this, though.”

  “Oh, I was just taking my annual swim across the lake,” she said, her voice betraying her nervousness. “Only I didn’t know I’d end up at your cottage.”

  “Here,” Kevin said, extending his hand. “Why don’t you come up on the dock. You must be exhausted.”

  Heather let him pull her up out of the water.

  “Jimmy, let me have my towel.” The boy in the boat tossed her a large brightly colored beach towel, which she quickly wrapped around herself as if she were concerned that the professor would see her in her bathing suit.

  “No, I’m not exhausted,” she said, her face sporting a smile for the first time. “I do this every year. It isn’t that far or that hard.”

  Kevin had often thought about swimming across the lake. It seemed to be a rite of passage for many of the young people who lived or summered on the lake, and he didn’t think of himself as too old to do it. But in spite of the fact that he enjoyed swimming, he had never gotten around to tackle the cross-lake swim.
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br />   “How far do you think it is?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure. Half a mile, probably more, but nowhere near a mile. My dad used to worry about me doing it, but it’s really safe if you have a boat along with you. I’ve been doing it since I was eleven.”

  Heather Merriman was now several years past eleven. In fact she was past high school and in college, an attractive young woman with a good summer tan and a promising soprano voice who was to have been one of the stars of the opera that was supposed to be having its premiere at Brae Loch College the very next night.

  “Well, good for you,” Kevin said.

  “I mustn’t forget my manners,” she said, turning to the boat. “This is my brother, Jimmy. He doesn’t like to come along with me, but he’s a good sport. Aren’t you, Jimmy?”

  The boy in the rowboat had a family resemblance to Heather, but was several years younger. He mumbled something by way of acknowledging that he was indeed Jimmy Merriman and that he was willing, however reluctantly, to accompany his older sister when she swam across the lake.

  “I really can’t keep you, Professor Whitman. We’d better start back.” Heather started to unwrap the towel.

  “What’s the hurry? Won’t you stay, have a Coke or some iced tea with me? We haven’t talked since the opera was cancelled. Or even very much back when we were rehearsing. I’d enjoy hearing what you’ve been thinking about it, what your plans are.”

  “You really wouldn’t mind?” Miss Merriman suddenly sounded as if she would welcome the opportunity to talk with the man who had given her the chance to sing Lauretta’s great aria in Gianni Schicchi.

  “Absolutely not. Jimmy can stay, too, if he likes. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to drive you home. I assume you must live pretty much straight across from here.”

  “I do, and I think you can see it from here. It’s that white one with a second-floor deck,” she said, pointing toward the far shore. “What a coincidence, you living almost directly across from my parents’ place.”

  Kevin thought that the cottages on the other side of the lake all looked pretty much alike from this distance, but he agreed that he could see the Merriman place.

  “Are you willing to stay awhile?” he asked, now interested in hearing how members of his company were taking the unexpected cancellation of the opera. The only ones he had heard from were Redman and Rosetti, and the former had been preoccupied with telling him about her relationship with Gerlach while the Schicchi wannabe had been interested only in promoting his own star turn.

  “Sure. Jimmy won’t care.”

  Nor did he. In fact he seemed relieved to be given permission to take off and to do so at a faster pace than would have been necessary had his sister been swimming beside the boat.

  Kevin produced two Cokes and he and Heather settled into chairs at the end of the dock. He realized that he hadn’t really talked with her since their interview back in the spring. Or given much thought to how young she was. Sitting beside him on the dock, she looked very much like his students back in the city. Barely out of her teens, if that. Unquestionably the youngest member of the opera company, most of whom were at least twice her age. He wondered if she would really pursue a career in music. She had talent, and he hoped she would.

  “It’s a shame that we aren’t going to have a chance to stage the opera, isn’t it? I was particularly looking forward to the audience cheering your big aria.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that. Tell you the truth, I was scared. I haven’t done anything like that, ever. There was a high school musical several years ago, but it was just a lightweight thing, nothing like opera.”

  “You’d have been just fine. You’ve got a beautiful voice, and I’m sure you’ll have other chances to impress people with it.”

  Heather blushed through her tan.

  “Does anybody know what happened to Mr. Gerlach?” she asked.

  “If you mean does anybody know who killed him, I’m afraid the answer is no. They solve these cases in an hour on TV, but in real life it takes weeks. Sometimes months.”

  Kevin knew this from firsthand experience, but was not about to discuss his own recently acquired role in solving crimes with Heather Merriman.

  “I feel kind of bad,” Heather said. “I didn’t much like Mr. Gerlach, and now he’s dead. Maybe I should have tried harder to understand him. He was really good. I mean he knew a lot about opera. If I’d paid more attention, he could have taught me things.”

  “Perhaps. But let’s face it; he wasn’t a very nice man. It was terrible, his being killed like that, but you don’t have to feel guilty that you didn’t like him. I don’t think anyone else in our company liked him either.”

  Heather considered this while she adjusted a strap on her bathing suit.

  “Professor Whitman, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

  This sudden shift in the conversation caught Kevin off-guard. What was this going to be about? He was suddenly nervous.

  “Well, of course not,” he replied, not entirely sure that he wanted to hear her question. “But please, don’t call me professor. It’s much too formal.”

  “I know I should talk about this with my parents, but they aren’t comfortable discussing things with me.”

  Kevin suspected that it was Heather who wasn’t comfortable talking about things with her parents. He realized that he was in the habit of steering his students back at Madison College to counselors, but there were no counselors near at hand on Crooked Lake.

  “It’s about Mr. Carpenter,” she continued. “He’s very nice. And he’s been a lot of help. You know, working with me on the music and the stage business. He’s like a teacher—well, I guess you could say he is a teacher, and he’s helped my confidence a whole lot.”

  She paused, obviously trying to decide what to say next, because what she had said about Sean Carpenter’s mentoring role didn’t suggest that she might have a question. Kevin chose to say nothing, to let her go on in her own way when she was ready.

  “I’ve liked him as a teacher. And appreciated what he’s done for me,” she continued, “but something isn’t quite right.”

  She paused again, then started over.

  “Like I’ve said, he’s a good man. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “He was a good Rinuccio in our opera, that I know,” Kevin answered, finessing her question. “But I’m afraid I didn’t really know him well.”

  “No, I suppose not. The problem is that he seems to be interested in me,” Heather said, finally getting to her point. “Not just interested in my role as Lauretta. We were supposed to be getting married in the opera, but that was just in the plot. He’s interested in me as—what should I say?—as a person. Romantically. I think he believes he’s in love with me.”

  Kevin wasn’t surprised by this. He’d wondered about Carpenter ever since the initial interview, when the man had expressed an interest in who would be his partner onstage and asked that she not be told that he was twice her age.

  “I don’t know what I should do,” Heather said. “He’s old enough to be my father. I’m not interested in him—not in the way that he’d like me to be. In fact he bothers me. No, that isn’t how I should put it. But he doesn’t leave me alone. He’s always hanging around. During rehearsals, he was always trying to protect me from Mr. Gerlach. It was almost embarrassing. Actually, it was embarrassing.”

  “Then you must almost be relieved that it’s over. The opera, I mean.”

  “But it isn’t, Professor Whitman,” she said, ignoring his plea to forego the title. “He still won’t leave me alone. He’s called three times since that horrible day when Mr. Gerlach was killed. He wants to come down to the lake and see me. Just yesterday he suggested that he could pick me up and take me up to Rochester, show me around, have dinner at a nice restaurant. I’m afraid he’s got an idea we could spend the night in his place up there.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely, because I’m pretty sure he’s married.”
r />   “He is? Oh, my God, it’s even worse.”

  Heather Merriman sounded like a very troubled woman.

  “You said you had a question for me,” Kevin said. “I assume that what you want to know is what you should do about Sean Carpenter. Believe me, I’m no expert in matters like this, but it seems to me that you should be frank with him, brutally frank if you have to. Tell him that you have to get on with your life, and that you aren’t interested in seeing him. Thanks for his friendship at Brae Loch, but now you’re going back to being a music major in college and doing the other things that twenty-year-olds do.”

  “That sounds so cruel.”

  “You may have to be cruel. The alternative is to have to contend with his unwelcome presence in your life for heaven knows how long. I’m sure if you’re tough, he’ll get the message and back off.”

  Heather tugged at the errant strap of her bathing suit for a moment and then posed another question.

  “Okay, I say ‘no’ to Sean, but what about Mercedes Redman?”

  Mercedes Redman? What was Heather’s problem with Redman?

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

  “And I’m not sure myself. But it’s funny. She and I didn’t talk much over the summer—just the occasional bit about something in the score. But as we were getting to the end of rehearsals, she began to seek me out—you know, find an excuse to talk with me. And mostly she didn’t talk about the opera. She sounded interested in me, my career plans, what I did with my spare time, and so on. Which was fine, I guess. But it began to get personal. She wanted to know if I was dating anybody, and what we did. It just wasn’t the kind of conversation you have with somebody you hardly know.”

  “What do you make of this?” Kevin asked. He had a hunch what was on Heather’s mind.