Setting the Stage for Murder

by Robert W. Gregg

  “I think we may be approaching a moment of truth in the Gerlach case,” she announced. As she ticked off recent developments, she began to have doubts as to whether that assessment was in fact an accurate one. But she was determined to create a sense of urgency, so she forged ahead.

  “Sam, you’ve been working at tying down some loose ends. What do you have for us?”

  This was the moment Sam had dreaded. He would rather have shared his findings quietly with the sheriff, rather than share them with a room full of his colleagues. He’d try to do it quickly.

  “Two people in the company chew gum. One of them is a young woman named Lisa Tompkins. No surprise there. You always see young women chewing gum. The other one’s a bit of a surprise—Paolo Rosetti. He thinks it helps keep his teeth a perfect white. The only member of the company who wears hearing aids is George Kulakowski. He uses a 312 battery, the kind we fished out of the wastebasket. The maxi-pad could have been Heather Merriman’s or Grace Overton’s. I didn’t think you’d want me to pursue the matter further. I’m still coming up blank on the note.”

  There, he’d said it. He looked around the room, half expecting to see an ill-concealed smirk on somebody’s face. But they all wore expressions of rapt attention, as if Sam had just announced that he had coaxed a confession from the orchestra’s flutist.

  “That’s good,” Carol said. “We can forget about the hearing-aid battery and the maxi-pad, I think, but the chewing gum may be important. How about Italian meatballs on somebody’s luncheon menu?”

  Sam wasn’t surprised that the sheriff dismissed as unimportant his report on the people who had a hearing loss or were having their period. He couldn’t imagine why who chewed gum was any more important, but she’d share her reasons when she was ready to do so. He turned to the meatballs.

  “Several restaurants put spaghetti and meatballs on their menus from time to time, but there are three who did so for lunch a week ago Tuesday. One is Bartoli’s in Yates Center. You can get it there any day, any lunch or dinner. They’re Italian, you know. The Cedar Post also had it on their menu that day, both lunch and dinner. In fact, they offer it almost as often as Bartoli’s. Finally, there’s the Hilltop. So Mr. Gerlach could have eaten spaghetti and meatballs at any one of those places. I suppose he could have gone to some place down in Elmira or up in Geneva, too, but I concentrated on restaurants around the lake.”

  “Good. That gives us a place to start. I’m going to want to show a picture of Gerlach around at these restaurants, talk to waiters, bartenders, anybody who might have seen him. We can ask about credit card records, too. At the moment, we don’t have a snapshot of Gerlach, but I expect to get one today. Then we start finding out who served our murder victim his last meal.”

  Carol then turned to Officer Grieves. To her chagrin, she had discovered that not only had she not assigned him the task of locating Gerlach’s car, she had completely forgotten to give that assignment to anyone. She had corrected her error earlier in the week, with the result that Grieves had been looking for the car as well as working his normal beat. It should have been an easy assignment, inasmuch as everyone assumed the car was somewhere on the Brae Loch campus. Gerlach had been found dead at the college, so surely his car would be found there as well. But finding the car was proving to be more difficult.

  “It’s still the same old story,” Grieves said, sounding frustrated. “They don’t have a parking system—you know, students here, faculty there, guests in a special lot. I’ve gone over the whole area several times. They assure me they haven’t towed anybody since Gerlach was killed. I suppose the car could have been stolen, but that would have been tough inasmuch as the keys were in Gerlach’s pants pocket. In any event, no car. Which is weird. It’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack after all. It’s a small campus.”

  Gerlach’s car’s whereabouts was a comparatively minor issue, but Carol found their inability to find it irritating. She didn’t like loose ends, and this was an annoying loose end.

  “Maybe Gerlach, like Rosetti, didn’t drive right onto campus that day. Have you looked along the lake road, say a dozen or so cottages either way? Can’t imagine why he would have parked somewhere like that, but who knows what went on in his mind.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Grieves said in a voice that lacked conviction.

  Carol eventually doled out the day’s assignments, giving Sam Bridges one which she suspected would go a long way toward making him feel better about himself—and about her. She had become conscious of the fact that his nose was out of joint, something she correctly blamed on her relationship with Kevin. It was time to ask him to tackle what would look like a more important task than finding out where one could get a spaghetti and meatballs lunch or who chewed gum. She detained him at the end of the meeting and explained the need to have a good chat with members of Geneva’s police department. Just what had been their thinking during the investigation of Helen Conklin’s death? Was there ever a real question of Conklin’s guilt? And if there was, what ultimately persuaded the police to drop that line of inquiry? Sam was tenacious. He’d get answers.

  She and Kevin had agreed that he’d go over to Gerlach’s house on the bluff and see if he could find a photo of Gerlach. If he’d taken better care of the harem album, they could simply crop one of the pictures of Gerlach and his women and circulate it. But Kevin insisted that finding another picture of Gerlach would be no problem. He promised to deliver that picture into Carol’s hands by noon.

  _____

  The missing pane of glass in the back door to the Gerlach house had been replaced, the doors and windows had all been locked, and a large sign had been stapled to the back door announcing that, on orders from the sheriff, trespassing was forbidden. Kevin took the keys Carol had given him and let himself into the house.

  There might be pictures of Gerlach in his desk, but Kevin headed for the darkroom first. It took all of thirty seconds for him to find half a dozen photos that would serve Carol’s purpose. The poses were different, as was Gerlach’s choice of clothes. But one thing was common to all of them: the man looked very pleased with himself. If one were to put a caption to any of the pictures, it could well read ‘I’ve got it made.’

  Kevin looked around the house for no other reason than that he had accomplished his mission and was in no hurry. He was tempted to ‘borrow’ another book or two, but he decided against it. When he let himself out, he wondered if Mr. Farris had seen him. And if he had, what he had made of Kevin’s presence there.

  It had been Kevin’s plan to take the upper road back to the end of the bluff and from there to Cumberland. But as he started out on the return journey, it occurred to him that if he took the lower road along the west arm of the lake he would go right by Heather Merriman’s home. Carol had made no mention of having told her about Redman’s death, and she would surely have said so if she had. Kevin decided that Miss Merriman was owed the courtesy of a report on this piece of bad news, so he changed course and dropped down to the lower lake road. Unlike the open road that ran along the crest of the hill, the one on which he soon found himself was narrow, the overhanging trees creating the illusion that he was driving through a green tunnel.

  The Merriman house was only about two miles north of the end of the bluff. Kevin anticipated no problem locating it, having just driven Heather home after her swim across the lake the previous week. Nor was there a problem. He pulled as far off the road as the terrain permitted, and walked down a short flight of wooden steps that led to the house and the beach. His knock on the back door was answered promptly by Heather herself. Once again she was wearing her bathing suit, and once again he was reminded of how attractive she was. And how young.

  “Professor Whitman! What are you doing here?” The question reflected pleasant surprise, not anxiety.

  “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”

  “Of course not. I’m the only one here—we won’t be bothering anybody.”

  The Mer
riman house was modest by any standard, especially when contrasted with the Gerlach home he had just left. They went out onto the porch, from which he could see the beach some twenty feet below, accessible via another flight of wooden steps. The neighboring cottages were close by, but the tree cover created a sense of privacy.

  Kevin declined the offer of something to drink. There was nothing to be gained by putting off his news of Mercedes Redman’s death, so he got right to the point.

  “I’m afraid I’m here to share some bad news with you,” he said.

  Heather said nothing, but the look that came over her face told him that she was steeling herself for whatever it was he had to tell her.

  “Mercedes Redman is dead,” he said. “She died sometime on Wednesday, just two days ago.”

  Heather closed her eyes and seemed to sink down into the cushions of the Adirondack chair on which she was sitting.

  “That’s terrible. I don’t believe it.” Obviously she did believe it, but desperately wanted not to. “She was only my mother’s age. What happened?”

  “Nobody knows, not yet. It looks like she had a heart attack, but the Ithaca police are investigating.”

  “Things like this don’t happen. I guess I mean they shouldn’t happen. Not to nice people like Ms. Redman.”

  Was it Kevin’s imagination or was Heather tearing up?

  “I know. I’ve known about it since Wednesday evening, and I still can’t believe it.”

  “I was over there, talking with her, just last weekend. She didn’t look sick or anything.”

  Kevin hadn’t known this. Neither had Carol.

  “You visited her in Ithaca just a few days ago?”

  “Yes. Remember, we’d talked about my being worried that she might have wanted to have a relationship with me. I’d given it a lot of thought, and finally decided that I’d better level with her—tell her I just couldn’t move in with her. We had a nice talk, although I have to admit I never got around to my real reason for going to see her. Her roommate came in, and somehow conversation became awkward.”

  “So you met Ms. Kane?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “No, but the sheriff went over there and met with her and the Ithaca police chief. It seems that Kane is the one who discovered the body. She said she found her when she came home from work on Wednesday.”

  “I’m pretty sure that Ms. Kane is Ms. Redman’s partner. Or was her partner. There was just the one bed, so I guess my hunch about Mercedes’ interest in me was right. You know, she probably did want to take me as her lover.”

  “I don’t think her interest in you was only physical, Heather. She was a pretty discerning woman, and I think she really admired you and hoped to help you realize your potential.”

  “You’re probably right. But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” There was now no question about it. Heather Merriman was crying. She excused herself and went inside to get a Kleenex.

  “What was your opinion of Ms. Kane?” Kevin asked when Heather came back onto the porch.

  “I didn’t get a chance to form an opinion. She only got home a few minutes before I left, and she had to change. They were going to a matinee or something like that.”

  “But surely you must have had some impression.”

  “It’s funny, but I got the feeling from what little I saw of her that she was jealous of me. That probably sounds self-serving of me, saying that I might have been a threat to her. Of course, I wasn’t, but she acted like she wasn’t happy to see me there, talking to Mercedes.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe that Mercedes had ever talked about you to Ms. Kane?”

  “I wouldn’t know. When she introduced us, she didn’t say something like ‘this is that woman from the opera I’ve told you about.’ It’s a pure guess, but I don’t think my name had ever come up before that afternoon.”

  “I have to be going, but now that I know you were at the Redman apartment on Sunday, there’s one more thing I’m curious about. Did Mercedes say anything about receiving a threatening message in the mail?”

  “No, she didn’t. What’s this about a threatening message?”

  “It’s my understanding that she received a letter last Saturday. It wasn’t really a letter, just a short one-line message. It said ‘leave her alone, remember Gerlach.’ She didn’t mention it?”

  “Absolutely not,” Heather said, but her facial expression and body language made it clear that she didn’t like what she heard. “Who was it from?”

  “The sheriff doesn’t know. There was no signature, no return address on the envelope.”

  Was it his imagination, or did Heather relax in her chair?

  “But that’s a weird message,” she said. “And it does sound like a threat. Mercedes was supposed to leave someone alone or what happened to Mr. Gerlach might happen to her. And now she’s dead, just like Mr. Gerlach. What do you make of it?”

  “I’m mystified. But until we learn otherwise, she died of a heart attack, so the comparison with Gerlach is a non-starter.”

  The conversation drifted back to the terrible fact that Mercedes Redman had died. Heather asked about a memorial service, but Kevin didn’t know about any plans for one. They soon ran out of anything more to say about the death of this woman who had raised such conflicting feelings in Heather Merriman’s mind, and Kevin said good-bye and set off for the sheriff’s office.

  He had learned more than he had expected to. Heather had visited Redman in Ithaca; she had met and formed a tentative and apparently negative opinion of Marcia Kane; and Mercedes had not shared with her the fact that she had received a cryptic and threatening note only days before. Kevin was certain that at that very moment Heather was reflecting on news of the note and trying to work out in her mind just who had written the message and to whom it referred. He did not doubt that she would have it figured out quickly.

  CHAPTER 40

  Carol had been giving a lot of thought to the fact that Brae Loch College still had no use of Wayne Hall. She had insisted that it be treated as a crime scene, and had had it locked, the keys in her possession. But she was having trouble conjuring up future developments which could justify her retaining control of the building where Harley Gerlach had been strangled to death. It was Friday morning after the staff meeting that she decided to turn the keys over to the school’s provost.

  She had Miss Franks call Armitage’s office to make an appointment, and learned that he would see her as soon as she could get there from Cumberland, if that was convenient. He’s really impatient to take down the yellow tape and the posted signs, she thought. He wants to freshen the place up before the fall semester starts. Or, more probably, he simply wants to reassert his authority, putting the unpleasant interlude of a misbegotten opera production, murder, and official lockdown behind him. Well, I’ll accommodate him, and I’ll do it now.

  Thirty-five minutes later, Carol was sitting in Jason Armitage’s office, ready to negotiate the terms of her surrender to Brae Loch College.

  “I’m glad you are prepared to let us have our auditorium back,” Armitage said, smiling at his witticism.

  “And I appreciate your patience with us,” Carol said. “I regret that we couldn’t turn the keys back to you sooner. Of course it’s only been a week and a half. I’ve heard of cases where it was weeks before things could return to normal after a murder. There was a theatre in the city which was blacked out for nearly two months after a well-known dignitary was found stabbed to death in the balcony.”

  Something like that may have been true, but Carol had made it up, trying to assure the provost that what he and Brae Loch had been through was not unusual.

  “I hope you are about ready to make an arrest,” the provost said.

  “I wish I could tell you an arrest is imminent, but we’re not there yet. You always hope that the guilty party will make a mistake, or that somebody will remember something important—some snatch of conversation, for example. That hasn’t happened yet
. But we’re making progress.”

  “Do you think you’ll want to stage one of those reenactments of the crime here at the college?”

  Carol studied Jason Armitage across his big desk. He had obviously read a lot of mysteries, especially the ones where sleuths like Hercule Poirot assembled the suspects at the crime scene, walked them through their steps leading up to the fatal moment, and then dramatically announced the identity of the culprit. She doubted that anything like that would be happening this time.

  “That is highly unlikely,” she said.

  “Well, you know that you have my promise of cooperation in case you need to do it,” he said. He went on to tell the sheriff how important it was to have Wayne Hall ready for the drama club to start work on its fall play.

  “What play will they be putting on?” Carol asked. She was mildly curious.

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the provost said proudly, obviously pleased to report that Brae Loch staged Shakespeare rather than some piece of inferior fluff. “Last fall we did Ibsen.”

  “I hope it’s a rousing success,” she said. Better than Gianni Schicchi she considered adding, but thought better of it.

  Remembering how worried he had been about the impact on recruitment of a murder on campus, she asked how things were going on that front.

  “Too soon to know,” Armitage said, “but I’m more optimistic than I was at first. We’re still getting applications for spring term, and registration for this fall is pretty steady.”

  “That’s good.”

  It was time to move on, to let the custodial staff get started on Wayne Hall, to let Armitage get back to whatever problems had piled up on his desk. Carol thanked him again for his understanding of any inconvenience she may have caused the college. He told her she could expect to see him at the trial of whoever had killed the opera’s leading man.

  Would there be a trial? That would depend on where her investigation led. At the moment it was going nowhere fast.