CHAPTER 22
It was Saturday morning, and Kevin was staring at the wall calendar beside his desk and feeling out of sorts. The calendar told him that it was mid-August, that only two weeks remained before he would have to head back to the city and the fall semester at Madison College. It had been a hectic summer, by far the busiest he had experienced since buying the cottage on the lake. Of course he had no one to blame but himself. The opera had been his idea, and it had been considerably more demanding than he had anticipated. It would have been worth it had those weeks of rehearsing and coping with the difficult temperaments of his small cast culminated in a successful production. But Harley Gerlach’s murder had denied him that pleasure, and now he was left with a not very satisfying consolation prize, helping Carol Kelleher catch Gerlach’s killer.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help Carol. He had found over the two previous summers that he enjoyed his role as an unofficial, off the books, member of the sheriff’s team as it investigated the crimes that had shattered the normally peaceful vacation season on Crooked Lake. But the deaths of John Britingham and Sandra Rackley had had nothing to do with him; seeking their killers had been almost like a game, a matter of matching his wits to theirs. And doing it as he and Carol had discovered each other and become lovers.
The summer now drawing to a close had been different. First the opera had been a thief of his time with Carol, and Gerlach’s murder, unlike that of Britingham and Rackley, had had a lot to do with him. In all probability it would never have happened had he not decided to stage an opera and recruited the members of the company, including the murder victim and, almost certainly, the murderer. He had had no way of knowing that some of the people he had chosen to participate in his opera would harbor such strong animosities toward each other, but by bringing them together he had created the volatile mix which had ended in murder.
It had been less than a week since the discovery of Gerlach’s body had derailed the opera and started the search for his killer. Yet it was already apparent that there would be little time for the shared end-of-summer evenings he had envisioned with Carol. If preparation of the opera had limited their time together over much of the summer, it looked as if the investigation into Gerlach’s death might have that same effect for what remained of it. They had had dinner at The Cedar Post on Thursday and supper at his place on Friday, but Carol had spent only three nights at the cottage in nearly a week, and it didn’t appear as if her schedule held out greater promise for the days and nights ahead. She didn’t like to take her work home with her, but in recent days she had found herself doing just that. It was, Kevin thought, a commentary on my marginalized role in her investigation of Gerlach’s murder. But what bothered him most was that while the summer was winding down, their relationship seemed to be losing some of its romantic excitement.
He shook off these unpleasant thoughts and got up to replenish his coffee. In spite of the fact that he had so far been only marginally involved in the investigation, Carol had agreed that he should concentrate on obtaining information on the other women pictured in Gerlach’s photo album. Of these the late Helen Conklin was most important, but there had been two other unfamiliar women whose pictures had been taken in Gerlach’s living room, meaning that they were among his relatively recent conquests and presumably lived in the area.
Kevin decided to go to Geneva and see what he could learn about Helen Conklin. When she had died, how she had died, anything else that might shed light on her relationship with both her husband and Harley Gerlach. There would, of course, be no mention of Gerlach in Helen’s obituary, but Kevin intended to do what he could to track down acquaintances who might know more.
The other two women posed a much more difficult problem. One of them, according to the name under her picture, was Linda; the other was Lauren. But Linda who? Lauren who? How does one go about locating someone when the only clue is a first name? In cop shows on TV the police were always going around asking people if they recognized a face in a photograph. But there was always a reason why they asked those people—they were neighbors or relatives, or they worked for the same company, or they were known to have been at a party with the deceased. Linda and Lauren were a very different story. Would he have to show the picture to tellers at all of the area banks? To clerks at the checkout counters of supermarkets?
Happily, Helen Conklin would be a simpler problem. He temporarily put Linda and Lauren out of his mind and got ready to drive over to Geneva.
In her interview with Arthur Conklin, Carol had elicited from him the information that he had lost his wife roughly a year ago, which meant that Kevin needn’t spend hours looking for her obituary in the Finger Lakes Courier. She could have pursued the matter and pinpointed the exact date, but hadn’t done so. No matter. When he pulled into the newspaper’s parking lot, he was confident that he would have the information he was seeking within half an hour.
It actually took only fifteen minutes, thanks to a cooperative staffer who guided him through the paper’s morgue and to plain old good luck. It was a fairly long obit, reflecting either Mrs. Conklin’s importance in the community or simply the paper’s practice of catering to the morbid interests of a small-town readership. The obituary was accompanied by a picture which confirmed what he had expected. The woman in the photo labeled Helen in Gerlach’s album was indeed Helen Conklin.
By the time he had finished reading the obituary, he had decided that its length was not due to Helen Conklin having done anything truly remarkable, but rather that she had been what is commonly called a pillar of the community. She had apparently been a member of important local service organizations, had served on the school board, and sung in the Methodist church choir. Her academic pedigree was noted, as was the fact that she had been a tournament bridge player. Her survivors included her husband, whose civic reputation was lauded, and three children, now all grown and successful.
What interested Kevin the most was the cause of her death, and the obituary had little to say about it except that it seemed to be related to a fall from which she had never fully recovered. He was disappointed but not surprised by this. He had been curious about it ever since he had overheard Conklin tell Janet Myers that his wife had passed away and confessed her affair with Gerlach on her deathbed. There was no mention, of course, of either Gerlach or a deathbed confession of infidelity in the obituary. But it was possible that someone in the community, someone other than Conklin, had been aware of Helen’s relationship with Gerlach. Kevin’s inquiry into the private lives of the Conklins was just beginning.
He located the address of the Conklin residence and drove through town and into an upscale neighborhood of well-maintained old homes, all with large wraparound porches and most with an old-fashioned widow’s walk. The cellist’s house had been painted an attractive Williamsburg blue and cream, and whomever he had hired to take care of landscaping had done an outstanding job. There was no car in the driveway, and no sign that Conklin was at home, but Kevin had no intention of talking with him anyway. It was the neighbors in whom he was interested.
He drove down the street a ways, parked, and took out his cell phone. He listened to the phone ringing in the Conklin home. Six rings and still no answer. Finally, an answering machine kicked in, informing him that the owner was unable to come to the phone and inviting him to leave a number, which Conklin promised to call back. It was only then that Kevin got out of his car, crossed the street, and walked back to a neighboring house with a well-polished Cadillac in its driveway.
“Hi,” he said to the woman who opened the door. “I’m sorry to bother you like this, but I’m interested in your neighbors, the Conklins. There doesn’t seem to be anyone at home.”
The woman, a tall brunette who might have been anywhere from 35 to 50, regarded him with the half smile of someone who wants to be polite but isn’t quite sure just what to say.
“No, I think Mr. Conklin left an hour ago. He lives alone.”
“What abo
ut Mrs. Conklin?”
“I’m afraid she died about a year ago,” the neighbor said, and then, obviously worried about the effect of this news on the man at her door, offered the opinion that Mrs. Conklin had been a wonderful person and was much missed by everyone who knew her.
“I didn’t know,” Kevin said in what he hoped was a tone of voice which expressed both shock and sadness.
It was time to introduce himself, or at least the person he was pretending to be.
“I’m a second cousin of Helen’s, and happened to be in the area and thought I’d stop by to say hello. A year ago, you say? She’s been dead a year and I’d never heard. I guess we’d pretty much lost touch.”
“Do you care to come in, Mr.—I don’t think I got your name.”
“No, of course not. Sorry. It’s Peter.” He’d try to finesse the family name, figuring that the woman would tell Arthur Conklin about this visit from Helen’s second cousin. It was possible that Conklin wouldn’t know anything about a second cousin, much less that person’s last name. But the less said about himself the better.
“Hello, Peter. I’m Sherri. Please come in. I feel badly, being the bearer of bad news.”
“That’s very kind of you. I won’t stay but a minute, but perhaps you can tell me a bit about it.”
Kevin followed Sherri into a parlor which didn’t look to be much used. She offered him a seat on an overstuffed couch and suggested coffee, which he gladly accepted. If he sipped it slowly and Sherri was not averse to gossip, he might learn more about Helen’s death and the cuckolded husband.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the coffee and waving off the cream and sugar. “May I ask what happened? I mean what caused Helen’s death?”
“The official word is that it was the result of complications from a fall she suffered. She was in the hospital for awhile. It looked like she was getting better, but then she suffered a relapse and died. I don’t pretend to know anything about her medical condition, but that’s what people were saying. Arthur said so, too.”
“Where did this happen?”
“Right in the house. It seems she lost her footing at the top of the stairs and fell, hitting her head on a marble column at the bottom.”
“How terrible. She’s one of the last people I’d have imagined taking a tumble like that. If you’d told me she’d left Arthur and run off with another man, I wouldn’t have been as shocked as I was when you said she was dead. Life can take some strange turns, can’t it?”
Kevin had no idea how Sherri would react to this conversational gambit. She might see it simply as an overly dramatic way of saying that he couldn’t believe the news that Helen was dead. On the other hand, she might interpret it as a maladroit admission that he had suspected his cousin of having affairs with other men.
For a long moment she said nothing. When she spoke, her response told him that perhaps she did know something about Helen Conklin’s infidelity.
“I guess you’re right—I mean about life taking strange turns. Do you know something about the life she was leading?”
“No,” he said. “It’s like I said, we’d been out of touch for a long time. More than two years, I think. Why—were she and Arthur having problems?”
“I don’t know. She and I weren’t close. But you know how it is with women—well, probably you don’t know. It’s a matter of intuition. Little things that are said, those unexpected silences that occur in a conversation.”
“Helen was a more complicated person than she appeared on the surface,” Kevin said. “At least that was my impression. I always wondered what she and Arthur saw in each other.”
Sherri considered her coffee cup, weighing what she ought to say about the relationship between the Conklins to Helen’s second cousin.
“After the accident,” she began, having apparently decided to share local gossip, “there was talk that maybe it wasn’t an accident. You know, that they’d been quarreling and Arthur pushed her.”
“Really?” Kevin’s surprise was genuine.
“For two or three days after her fall, the police were over at their house. It didn’t make much sense. The rescue squad, of course, but why the police? Anyway, nothing came of it. Arthur talked to me briefly a couple of times when he got back from the hospital, and then one day she was gone. I remember that day. He wasn’t a demonstrative type, but he looked like he was fighting back tears.”
“So you don’t know if he was ever under suspicion?”
“No,” she said, and Kevin had the impression that she might have regretted having to answer in the negative.
It was at this point that his hostess must have decided that she’d said enough. She cleared her throat and smiled.
“I’m sorry. I have no business going on like this. I really know nothing about the Conklins. They were nice neighbors, minded their own business—oh, and he still does.”
She got to her feet and put the coffee cups, neither of them empty, on the tray. She looked ready to take them to the kitchen. The little tete a tete with Arthur Conklin’s neighbor had come to an abrupt end. Kevin thanked her for her kindness and understanding, urged her to say hello to Arthur, and took his leave.
He turned at the sidewalk to wave before crossing the street. She was still standing in the doorway, tray in hand, watching as Helen Conklin’s second cousin made his way back to his car.
CHAPTER 23
While Kevin was discussing the Conklins with their neighbor over in Geneva, Carol was visiting the late Harley Gerlach’s ex-wife in Southport. She would have preferred to be following up her conversation with Ben Robertson about the fishing boat that had been left untended at his marina dock, but she had made an appointment with Janet Myers for Saturday morning and felt obligated to keep it. And talking with Myers again was also important in view of what she had learned from Francis Farris, the man with the telescope. In fact, there were many important things she ought to be doing, things that she preferred to do herself rather than delegate them to Sam or her other officers. They were also things that she could not ask Kevin to do.
The Myers woman had provided them with the vaguest account of her whereabouts on the day of Gerlach’s death of any of the members of Kevin’s opera company. Driving about the hills and dales of Cumberland County for much of that fateful afternoon, she had said. If she needed an alibi, this one wouldn’t do. And now, thanks to the voyeuristic Mr. Farris, it was known that Myers had not simply been driving around aimlessly. She had driven to her former husband’s home on the bluff. Why had she done that, when it appeared that she still hated the ground he walked on? And why had she not mentioned it during the interview that evening at Brae Loch College?
They had agreed to meet at a coffee shop in Southport. It appeared that Mr. Myers would be at home, and his wife preferred to have her conversation with the sheriff somewhere else. Carol did not know what Janet Myers’ husband knew about Gerlach. He surely knew that she had once been married to him, and was presumably aware that their divorce had not been amicable. But did he know that Gerlach was now living on Crooked Lake? That he and his wife had both been members of the cast of Gianni Schicchi?
Carol circled the town square in Southport, finding a parking spot across from the post office. She left the patrol car and took a seat on a bench near the bandstand. It was a pleasant day, not yet August hot, and she forced herself to relax and enjoy people watching. She was intentionally early.
At precisely 9:30 by the clock on the bank building, Janet Myers entered the coffee shop. Carol got up and made her way across the square to join her.
“Good morning, Mrs. Myers,” she said, adopting a tone of voice that she hoped was disarmingly cheerful. “What a beautiful day—much more pleasant than the one when we met.”
That day, less than a week ago, had also been sunny and warm, but they both knew what Carol was referring to.
“It’s nice to see you again, Sheriff,” the Myers woman said. It was doubtful that she meant it.
They found a table, ordered coffee, and quickly turned to the business of the day.
“Mrs. Myers,” Carol began, “as I’m sure you know, I’m still trying to piece together what happened last Tuesday. And I’m glad you live close. Most of the rest of you people in the opera have scattered, so it’s harder for me to follow up with them.”
She had no intention—or need—to ‘follow up’ with most of the members of the opera company, but saying so might leave the impression that the conversation they were about to have would be merely routine.
“Like I told you the other evening, Sheriff, I’m glad to be helpful if I can,” Myers said.
“I appreciate that,” Carol assured her. “I hope you’ll understand if I ask some of the same questions I asked when we talked over at the college. It was such a hectic night, so many people to interview. What I was trying to do was find out what everyone was doing during the time Mr. Gerlach must have been killed. So why don’t you tell me what you were doing that afternoon.”
Janet Myers sighed and affected a wan smile.
“I just drove around for a couple of hours.”
“Go anywhere in particular? See anyone? Talk with anyone?”
“No. It’s like I said before, I was just trying to relax, get myself ready for the dress rehearsal.”
“So you didn’t stop anywhere that afternoon?”
“Stop? No. But wait, I guess I did stop once. There’s that lookout site on the road to Yates Center. I pulled over there, got out for a few minutes.”
Carol was disappointed, but not surprised. Apparently nothing had happened since Tuesday to change Janet Myers’ mind about the story she’d tell the sheriff.
“I think I remember that you mentioned driving out on that road along the crest of the bluff. Were you going anywhere in particular?”
Setting the Stage for Murder Page 14