Setting the Stage for Murder

by Robert W. Gregg

  “Anything yet on whether any of my people chew gum?” Kevin laughed, shaking his head. “Crazy, isn’t it? We’re supposed to be looking for a murderer, but what are we doing—trying to find out who chews gum. Spearmint at that.”

  “Sam’s on that one. He’ll probably tell me that half a dozen of your cellists and sopranos all chew. My bet is that that wrapper you found was Gerlach’s.”

  “Can’t be. He was dead by the time I found it.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe we just overlooked it when we went through the house.”

  Over a second glass of wine they agreed to talk about pleasanter things. Unfortunately, with Labor Day and Kevin’s return to the city looming, there weren’t a lot of pleasant things to talk about. But it was a beautiful evening, and Kevin snapped them out of their funk by suggesting they take the canoe out. There would be no need to talk. They could simply relax and enjoy the sight of swallows darting about over the lake’s surface in the gathering twilight.

  The moon had risen high above the bluff across the lake by the time they retired to bed. Kevin and Carol were no closer to solving the Gerlach case than they had been several hours earlier, but they slept soundly. Tomorrow would be another day.

  _____

  It was Kevin who started the coffee in the morning, but it was Carol who moved most quickly to get dressed, have breakfast, and set off on the day’s business.

  “My agenda didn’t shrink while I was sleeping,” the sheriff said, “but I’ve got to start somewhere and it’s going to be with little Miss Merriman. I’ve got to stop at the office, have a word with the men, and call Sean Carpenter. I need to set up a meeting with him, this afternoon or tomorrow if possible. But I want to get Merriman’s story—her revised story—first. I think there’s more to their relationship than she’d have us believe. Of course she’ll probably call him and tell him about our meeting before I see him, but there’s nothing I can do about that, and I don’t want to see them together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not sure. Just a hunch. Anyway, I think I’m more likely to get a straight answer from her than from him.”

  “I take it you think we should consider him a suspect in Gerlach’s death. I don’t see it. He strikes me as someone slipping into middle age who’s taken a fancy to a pretty young woman. I don’t see how that fits in with Gerlach’s murder. I know he took offense at the way Gerlach talked down to Heather during rehearsals, but come on, how does that become a motive for murder?”

  “I don’t have a favorite suspect,” Carol said. “Fact is, I can’t really imagine any of your opera company strangling Gerlach. Several of them seem to have had good reasons to be pissed off at him, but most people don’t go around killing someone just because they don’t like him.”

  “Hate him is more like it,” Kevin said. “I’ll be interested in whether you get a feeling that Carpenter hated Gerlach. Like Myers did, or Conklin. Even Rosetti.”

  “You’ll be the first to know. But I’ve got to run. You can clean up the kitchen, make up the bed, make yourself useful. And have supper ready for a tired sheriff. How’s six o’clock sound?”

  “You’re becoming more like ‘she who must be obeyed’ every day.”

  Carol gave him a big hug and a kiss, and was gone. Kevin still had to decide how he’d spend the day.

  _____

  Heather Merriman arrived at the sheriff’s office shortly ahead of eleven. She had caught a nasty summer cold, with the result that her summer tan gave way to a less attractive red around her nose. Carol commiserated with her on the cold and inquired as to whether she’d like coffee.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, pulling a Kleenex from a pocket and wiping her nose. “Sorry about this. It would have been a killer if we were still doing the opera.”

  “It’s such a shame about the opera. I’m sure you were really looking forward to it. I’ve never heard you sing, but I hear that you have a lovely voice. Are you planning on a musical career?”

  “Yes, I am. It’s my major in college. I was so thrilled when Professor Whitman gave me the part in the opera. He’s been awfully good to me. So have the others—well, most of them. It was a good experience, even if we didn’t get to do it.”

  Carol knew nothing about Merriman except what she had heard from Kevin. And from Bridges, who had interviewed her the night after Gerlach’s murder. She was appraising her as they talked. Very young. Attractive if one discounted the runny nose. She looked like someone perfectly suited for what theatre people call ingénue roles. There was a kind of youthful innocence about her, yet she had attracted the attention of Sean Carpenter, a middle-aged, married man. And she had lied about his presence at Brae Loch during the afternoon when Gerlach was strangled.

  “I asked you to come over so I could ask a few questions. I know my deputy probably went over the same ground with you last week, but please bear with me. Okay? I understand that you were at the college the afternoon Mr. Gerlach was killed. Sunbathing, I think.”

  “That’s right. I spent a lot of the afternoons over there. Unlike most of the cast, I didn’t have a job to go to. Besides, my kid brother couldn’t bug me like he does at our place.”

  Carol had never had a kid brother, but she could imagine what it might be like.

  “I’m sure you know that we have to account for where everybody was when the murder took place. And you were on the beach. Was anybody else from the opera group on campus then?”

  “I can’t say for sure. But I never saw anyone.”

  “Miss Merriman, you should know that someone saw you on the beach that afternoon and said that you weren’t alone. He said you were with Mr. Carpenter.”

  Carol left it at that, letting this challenge to the young woman’s veracity sink in. Heather took out another Kleenex and blew her nose before saying anything.

  “Who told you this?”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason to believe that it isn’t true. So I think we have stories that contradict each other. Why don’t you tell us who was with you?”

  Heather Merriman seemed to shrink into her chair.

  “I made a promise I wouldn’t tell.”

  “And why did you do that? Surely you don’t think that lying to the sheriff in a criminal investigation is a very good idea.”

  It was now clear to Heather that her cold was far from her principal problem.

  “Okay. It was Mr. Carpenter. Please don’t tell him I told you. He’s a good man. I think he was just worried that if you knew he’d been at the college that afternoon you’d blame him for Mr. Gerlach’s death.”

  “Why should I do that? You were at the college, and I haven’t blamed you for Mr. Gerlach’s death. To tell you the truth, lying makes him look more suspicious than admitting he was there. And it doesn’t make you look good, either.”

  The young woman was now close to tears. Carol decided to adopt another approach.

  “What exactly is your relationship with Mr. Carpenter?”

  “Relationship?” She made it sound as if she weren’t sure what the word meant.

  “Yes, your relationship. I realize that you had a relationship with him as members of the cast in the opera, but that’s not what I have in mind. You and he were together on the beach that day, and according to what I hear, the two of you often spent time together there. Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Heather blushed through her tan.

  “It was nothing like what you’re implying. It was just about singing. You know, about the opera. He was an experienced singer, and he was helping me learn my role. That and little tricks about using my voice. He’s really good. He could have been in the Metropolitan Opera chorus, just like Mr. Gerlach was. He auditioned for it a few years ago and says he really should have made it. It’s a shame he didn’t.”

  “I hadn’t meant to imply anything, Miss Merriman. But I’m sure you know that there was talk that Mr. Carpenter might have been romantically interested in you.”

  “Yes,
I know. But it’s not true. I don’t date men my father’s age.”

  No, I’m sure you don’t, Carol thought, but that doesn’t mean that men your father’s age might not want to have an affair with you. Happens all the time, even on Crooked Lake.

  “I shall have to talk with Mr. Carpenter and ask him about last Tuesday. If he denies being at the college that afternoon, I’ll have to tell him that there is another witness who says he was. It may not be necessary to tell him that you broke your promise to him. But if necessary, I’ll have to tell him what you told me. Like I said, this is a serious matter, and getting at the truth is more important than keeping promises. I’m sure you understand.”

  “You really don’t think he did it, do you? I mean, why would he? He wouldn’t have any reason to, and anyway he’s not that kind of man.”

  “At the moment we have no idea who killed Mr. Gerlach. But the more people we talk to, the more questions we ask, the closer we get to an answer to that question. I appreciate your coming over to Cumberland today. If you think of anything else we should know, tell me. Right away.”

  Heather Merriman left the sheriff’s office with her cold still bothering her and more things to worry about. Carol, armed with what she had learned from Merriman, got ready to leave for the drive to Rochester and the visit with Sean Carpenter.

  CHAPTER 31

  As it turned out, Carol did not drive to Rochester. Instead, she was sitting in her office staring out of the window and wondering why she had agreed to Carpenter’s offer to meet her in Cumberland. She could think of two reasons why he might have wanted to make the 140-mile roundtrip when he could more easily have stayed at home. The first was that he could pay a visit to Heather Merriman while he was in the vicinity of Crooked Lake. The second was that he wouldn’t have to worry that the sheriff might bump into his wife and ask her potentially awkward questions.

  It was now a quarter to three and too late to change plans. Carpenter would be arriving at any minute. Besides, she had put the extra time to good use, tidying up the loose ends in another case that she had neglected in the days following Harley Gerlach’s murder.

  Carol busied herself, rearranging things on her desk. They didn’t need to be rearranged, but she was uncharacteristically nervous and it gave her something to do with her hands while she waited for Carpenter. Would Merriman have contacted him, warned him that the sheriff now knew that he had been at Brae Loch the afternoon of the murder? And if she had, so what? The reason he had given Merriman for denying he had been there was a logical one, the lie a small and probably inconsequential one. What she was looking for was something more dramatic, something that would give her a real lead. She doubted that her conversation with Sean Carpenter would produce much of a lead.

  JoAnne Franks, the young woman who was trying very hard but with limited success to fill Ms. Maltbie’s shoes as Carol’s secretary, announced that Mr. Carpenter had arrived. He looked very much as he had when she had interviewed him the evening of Gerlach’s death, but Carol thought he seemed older. The reason was clear. It had been only a few hours earlier that Heather Merriman had sat in the same chair, and in view of the talk that Carpenter was romantically interested in her, it would have been difficult not to have noticed the obvious disparity in their ages.

  They exchanged small talk for a few minutes, Carpenter because he seemed anxious to avoid whatever the point of this meeting might be, Carol because she had decided to let him take the lead. Which he finally did.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not quite sure just why I’m here. When you called you said you needed to talk to me.”

  “That’s right, I did,” Carol said. “It’s been a week now since Mr. Gerlach was killed. I’m sure you’ve thought a lot about it, you and everyone else in the opera company. Got any ideas?”

  “Ideas? About who killed him?”

  “If you do, I’d like to hear them.”

  Carpenter looked puzzled, unsure whether she was merely inviting speculation or coaxing him into some revealing—and perhaps damaging—remark.

  “No,” he said tentatively, “I guess not. It still seems like—well, just unbelievable.”

  “You were there, working with the cast for—what was it?—two months, give or take a week or two. How did the cast feel about Mr. Gerlach? Were you aware of anything? Maybe it was something small at the time, but now, as you look back on it, do you remember anything that in retrospect might be important?”

  “There were the usual little disagreements, I suppose. But I can’t think of anything like what you’re talking about.”

  “How did you and Mr. Gerlach get along?”

  Carpenter would have assumed that this would be among the sheriff’s questions.

  “Okay. He was good. Of course he knew it. He had a big ego. I expect everyone would agree on that.”

  “But did you and he get along?”

  “Well, sure,” Carpenter said, clearly uncomfortable as the sheriff’s questions became more personal. “We weren’t drinking buddies—never would have been. Just putting on a show.”

  Carol remembered Kevin saying that there had been some sort of contretemps involving Carpenter and Gerlach. Something to do with Harley’s criticism of Heather Merriman. She decided to let it pass and turned to the subject of who had been where on the fateful afternoon.

  “Let’s talk about last Tuesday, the day of the dress rehearsal. The day Mr. Gerlach was killed. Where were you that afternoon?”

  Sean Carpenter’s expression told her that he was surprised by her question. And perhaps worried.

  “I already told you,” he said. “That night. You were questioning us about what had happened, and I said I’d been at my office up in Rochester. Remember?”

  So, Merriman had apparently not called him to report on her conversation with the sheriff. Either that or he was prepared to leave the impression that, for whatever reason, Heather had lied.

  “I remember. But I’ve been wondering whether you might have thought about it, decided that maybe you were at the college that afternoon.”

  Carpenter was no longer surprised by the sheriff’s questions. He was angry.

  “Are you accusing me of killing Gerlach?” he asked.

  “Of course not, Mr. Carpenter. I’m investigating his murder. All I want everyone to do is simply answer my questions truthfully. This is how we do it.”

  He looked somewhat mollified.

  “I didn’t mean to be unpleasant, but you seemed to be doubting my word.”

  “I was doubting your word. You see, I happen to know that you were on the campus of Brae Loch College last Tuesday afternoon. We have an eyewitness who swears you were there. So I think you can see why I am giving you a chance to change your story.”

  “Who told you I was there?”

  Carol had not mentioned Merriman, but figured that Carpenter suspected it was she who had betrayed him. It was time to set the record straight.

  “One of the students at the college, a young man who’s an assistant to the provost, saw you that day. You were on the beach, talking with Miss Merriman. He recognized you because she had introduced you to him not that many days earlier. I asked Miss Merriman if it was true that you had been there that day. She seemed reluctant to say so, but when I pressed her on it, she did. So I guess you could say that there are three people who know firsthand that you were there—the provost’s observant assistant, Miss Merriman, and you yourself.”

  To say that Sean Carpenter was an unhappy man would have been an understatement. Not only had he been caught out in a lie, a lie he had angrily repeated. But he had also learned that the young woman he admired and trusted had gone back on her promise to support his lie.

  “I thought it might look bad—Gerlach being killed and me being there when it happened. It was stupid, I know, but it made sense at the time to act like I hadn’t been at the school. And then it would have looked funny if I changed my story.”

  “Forgive me for being confused, Mr. Carpenter, b
ut I don’t understand why you thought I’d be suspicious of you if I knew you were at Brae Loch when Mr. Gerlach was killed. You just told me that you and he had had no problems. Gotten along fine, just doing your job putting on an opera, you said. People don’t go around strangling someone without a reason, and you don’t seem to have had a reason. Why would I be suspicious of you?”

  There didn’t seem to be anything Carpenter could say to that, and he didn’t.

  It was time, Carol decided, to bring this conversation to a close. Just one more question.

  “How would you describe your relationship with Miss Merriman?” she asked.

  He’d been asked this question more than once. He had seen the question, unasked, on the faces of a number of people in the Brae Loch opera company. He was not about to be drawn into a defense of his interest in the young woman.

  “We had a good professional relationship. She was my fiancée in the opera, so we sang together. It was a pleasure working with someone with her promise as a singer. I’m only sorry we didn’t get to do it before an audience.”

  After Carpenter had left, Carol reviewed what he had said and not said. And what she had asked and not asked. She had learned that Merriman had not warned him that the sheriff knew he had been seen at Brae Loch on the afternoon of the murder. Which heightened her respect for the young woman. She had not learned anything about Carpenter’s failed attempt to become a member of the Metropolitan Opera chorus. It was probably unimportant, but he had told Heather that he believed his rejection constituted a miscarriage of justice. And Kevin had reported that Harley Gerlach had been among those judging auditions for the chorus for several years and that his verdicts had increasingly been viewed as irrational and biased. What if Gerlach’s vote had helped to sink Carpenter’s aspirations, and what if Carpenter knew that?

  There were many things that Carol had to do in her quest to identify Gerlach’s killer. One of those things was to determine whether Gerlach had participated in Carpenter’s Met audition. And if he had, whether Carpenter knew that Brae Loch’s Gianni Schicchi had been responsible for his rejection by the Met.