Generous Death

by Nancy Pickard

  “Jenny,” Geof began, “I understand that Arnold Culverson was here the day he died …”

  “Oh dear.” I interrupted him. “Are you trying to find out why he killed himself? I’d like to know the answer to that myself.”

  I should have noticed that he ignored my question.

  “How’d he seem to you?” Geof sounded only mildly curious. “Worried about anything? Frightened?”

  I thought frightened was an odd word to use.

  “I don’t know about frightened,” I said doubtfully. “Unless maybe of dying in general. Of course you know he suffered from high blood pressure and terrible migraine headaches. I think both his father and one of his grandfathers were killed by strokes, and Arnie was convinced that’s the way he’d go, too.” I turned to Derek. “But do you think he was worried about anything else in particular?”

  “Well, he’d been acting fanny all week,” Derek said. “You know. We’d start to talk about the museum and he’d jump like a pogo stick.”

  “Because of the new will,” I said. “We know that now.”

  “Yes,” Geof said easily. I lifted inquisitive eyebrows at him. He explained that they’d just come from a thorough explanation at Edwin Ottilini’s home.

  “What were his plans for the rest of the day?” Mason demanded, managing to sound as pompous as he looked, which was no mean feat.

  “Oh …” I glanced at my assistant again. “Well, I think’ he said he was going by Mr. Ottilini’s office and, I don’t know, I suppose to the museum?”

  “Yeah,” Derek agreed, “and he usually ate dinner at the club.”

  “Why?” Geof’s question came quick and sharp enough to nudge a vague suspicion in my mind.

  This time, Derek looked to me to supply the answer to the delicate question.

  “Arnie didn’t get along with his family,” I said in as matter-of-fact a voice as possible. I saw no reason not to be straightforward. “He always said he’d rather eat alone than face Marvalene’s … uh …”

  “Marvalene’s what?” Again, the fast, sharp follow through.

  “… poison,” I finished weakly, feeling miserable for having to say it, but not quite sure why I felt so bad. I added quickly, “She’s a lousy cook, I hear, but fancies herself a gourmet, so she won’t hire anybody else to fix the meals.” For some reason, I didn’t want to divulge another of Arnie’s favorite jests—the one about how it was a good thing he wasn’t leaving Marvalene any money, because she’d probably poison him to get it. They had led separate lives, but had never divorced. “Bad habits are the hardest to break,” was how Arnie explained it.

  Then, oh so casually, Geof tossed the next unnerving query at me.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if Culverson got along with other people better than he did with his family. Would you know if he had any enemies?”

  “Enemies?” Derek repeated the melodramatic word as if it were some astonishing and distasteful object he had picked up by accident. My formless suspicions began to roll themselves into a definite and malevolent shape.

  “Why?” It was my turn for the hard fast ball.

  Geof parried my thrust by the simple expedient of ignoring it. He said, “Were you surprised that he changed his mind about the will?”

  “No,” I snapped. I was tired of dropping live questions into dead space. “I was not surprised. I was dumbfounded, stunned, stupefied. The word surprised does not even begin to express my feelings.”

  “And resentful?” That from Mason.

  “What?” I resented his unfriendly attitude, that’s for sure.

  “Did you resent his leaving his money to someone else?” Mason said.

  “Well, in the first place, he wasn’t leaving it to me,’ I said with exaggerated and, I hoped, insulting patience. “He was leaving it to The Foundation. But yes, of course, I felt some resentment. He promised the moon and we got eclipsed.”

  Geof’s mouth twitched.

  “We?” Mason again. He seemed to have a talent for picking up on all the irrelevant points. “You’re taking this very personally, Ms. Cain.”

  If he thought he could irritate me with the exaggerated emphasis on Ms., he was wrong; it’s what I prefer to be called. My marital status is nobody’s business. What he did manage to do was amuse me.

  I smiled openly at him and just shook my head.

  “How about you, Mr. Jones?” Mason turned his impassive face toward Derek. “Were you pretty disappointed when you heard you weren’t going to get the money?”

  “I was never going to get the money,” Derek said. His voice sounded amused, but his blue eyes glinted cold and angry. I wondered how long Geof would wait before he called off his idiot. “I think Jennifer has made it very clear that it was The Foundation that was promised the money. We were, naturally, ticked off to discover that all our work was wasted. But I think you can safely assume that neither Jennifer nor I nor any member of her staff had the slightest intention of going out and buying a new car with the money. Or fur coats. Or houses. Or tickets to Rio.”

  Mason forced a smile out of a face that wasn’t used to the exercise. He said, infuriatingly, “Why are you so angry, Mr. Jones? I didn’t imply …”

  “Yes,” I said, “you did.”

  Geof finally broke up the tension with his even, pleasant voice. He said, “Why do you suppose Culverson changed his mind? About the will, I mean?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “And it also beats the hell out of me why you’re asking these questions but won’t answer any of ours.”

  “I’m sorry, Jenny.” He was as calm as ever. “Tell me your question again.”

  I went straight to the heart of my fear.

  “Arnie was my friend,” I said, enunciating every syllable to be sure he got the message. “And the two of you are scaring me very badly. What are you getting at? Did he commit suicide or did he not?”

  “No,” Geof said, “it doesn’t look that way.”

  “Well, how does it look?”

  “It looks like murder.”

  In the suddenly silent room, Geof reached into a pocket and pulled out two scraps of paper. He handed them to me. His eyes were full of searching and purpose.

  “Look at these, Jenny,” he said, “and tell me if you’ve ever seen them before.”

  They were about the size of postcards and they’d been neatly cut from a heavy weight of good bond typing paper. I read the first one twice. Each time the pounding of my heart got a little louder in my ears.

  It said:

  Now I lay me down to sleep,

  Devil take my soul to keep;

  Cross my heart and hope to die,

  If I tell another lie.

  The second piece of doggerel took my breath away because of the unexpected evil it implied:

  If all the world’s a stage,

  My script is at the final page;

  This play is done because …

  Shylock’s dead. Applause.

  “Moshe,” I said, heartsick, Geof nodded. I passed the rhymes to Derek. “I’ve never seen them before. Do you mind telling us where you found them?”

  “A maintenance man at the museum found the first one yesterday. He was dusting the bed where Culverson’s body was found. That poem was stuck down in one of the cracks. The janitor took it to Simon Church and Church called us.”

  Derek had read the ditties by that time.

  “And the second one?” he asked quietly.

  “In the pocket of Moshe Cohen’s tuxedo,” Geof said. He added, “He died of a combination of wine and hypertension medicine, like Culverson.”

  “But Moshe didn’t have high blood pressure,” I said. “Did he?”

  “No. And elderly people are known to react badly even to standard doses of that medicine, if they’re not used to it. Alcohol increases the effects. It slows down the heart, leads to stupor, coma …”

  “Death,” Derek said.

  “But rhymes?” I could hardly believe the absurdity of it; t
he classic, sinister, silly absurdity of it. “It seems so ridiculous, so egotistical…”

  “So obvious,” Geof said, and those cool eyes looked into my frightened ones. “Somebody definitely wants us to know the two men were murdered.”

  The four of us sat silently for a long moment. We sipped our coffee. We each looked speculatively at the other three.

  Chapter 7

  After Geof and his partner left, Derek and I faced the fact that we weren’t going to be able to concentrate on corporate bonds and market shares. So we locked up and waved each other off to our respective homes. It was a crisp, sunny day, which showed a definite lapse of good taste on God’s part, I thought. A barometer reading of my mood would have indicated gray, wet and ugly.

  At home, my answer phone greeted me with messages to call Ginger Culverson, Michael, Edwin Ottilini and my sister. There were also three hang-ups and a giggling teenager telling me that if I had Prince Albert in the can I’d better let him out. I decided to allow myself to procrastinate for once and return, the most difficult call last.

  First;

  “Hi, Ginger, It’s Jenny Cain.”

  “Jenny. Hi. Have you heard what the police are saying about my father’s death?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Strangely enough, so am I. But that’s not really what I called to talk to you about. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your company the other night…”

  “Me too yours.”

  “Interesting sentence structure. And I want to know if you can arrange for me to meet Simon Church …”

  Oh golly, I thought.

  “… because I want to tell him personally how sorry I am about how the museum got screwed by my father…”

  Oh yes, I thought.

  “… and, well, Jenny, I don’t want to raise anybody’s hopes, but I would like to at least hear about my father’s plans. I mean, maybe I can help …”

  Yes, please, I thought.

  “… if I get interested, that is. I mean, please don’t say anything to Mr. Church that would even hint what I’m considering. I’d hate to bounce him back to earth again.”

  Oh you nice lady, I thought.

  “How about Sunday brunch at the club?” I said.

  “I’d love it.”

  “Great. I’ll fix it up with Simon. And Ginger—I think your father would be very grateful.”

  “For whatever that’s worth.”

  “See you tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at your mother’s house at eleven-thirty.”

  One call down, four to go.

  I got a reluctant Simon to agree to branch. He said he’d had enough of the Culversons to last him a lifetime; and why should the police grill him about the night Arnie died when it was Ginger who got the money?

  Then I called Michael at the Laurence Construction Company general office.

  “Michael. ’Tis I.”

  “Well, that’s at least one good thing in this rotten, miserable day.”

  “Your father’s at the office.”

  “You got it in one. Are you driving up to see your mother tomorrow?”

  “Yes, In the afternoon.” As usual. As always.

  “May I drive with you? I need to get out of town for a few hours. And I’d like to see you.”

  “Oh Michael, I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”

  Silence.

  “Michael? Please understand. You know these aren’t pleasure drives for me. I wouldn’t be good company.”

  “You don’t want to have to deal with her problems and mine too.”

  I hated to hear him say it, but I couldn’t deny it. Maybe love can be measured by how much of the other person’s misery you’re willing to share. Fair-weather friends need not apply. I was beginning to see that I was just that sort of friend to Michael. I cared about him, certainly; but I didn’t love him enough to take him, misery and all.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of saying that to me?”

  I didn’t like this new, self-pitying Michael very well. As I hung up, I realized that I preferred the “saint” who persevered, smiling, through all my rejections of him. It wasn’t fair of me, of course, but there it was.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ottilini,” I said next. “This is Jennifer Cain returning your call.”

  He said he understood the police had been to visit me; he assumed I knew that Arnie and Moshe had been murdered. I said yes to all of the above.

  “Well, my dear,” came the dry, whispery voice, “that gives us all the more reason to contest Arnie’s will. It is very obvious that someone had much to gain from his death.”

  Ginger. Oh, I didn’t like that implication at all. And I said so.

  “We must be objective, Miss Cain,” he said with his calm counsel “As you so often remind our more emotional trustees when they bring their pet projects to you.”

  Touché, I thought.

  “There is one other thing,” he said. I always worry when lawyers say things like that. “I have heard rumors that the Cohen family plans to contest the will.”

  “Oh no.” Moshe’s will split his large estate between his family and The Foundation. Our half would help support his Jewish causes and the new theater, with a little left over for other charities. “Why?”

  “They want all the money, my dear.” Of course. Ask a stupid question, get an obvious answer. “And Miss Cain, I think we should be prepared for the possibility of other rumors …”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s common knowledge that The Foundation has been rather desperately hurt by Arnie’s will. And now, you see, a second philanthropist has died—one who has left a generous bequest to The Foundation.”

  “So people will think we killed Moshe?” I would have laughed at the absurd notion if I hadn’t heard the suspicion in Ailey Mason’s voice that morning. “Who? Jack Fenton? You? Me? Faye Basil? That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”

  “Let us hope that everyone agrees with you.”

  “Well, whether they do or not, this is all just marvelous publicity for The Foundation, isn’t it,” I said dryly. “Other donors will race to give us money now.”

  “Oh, they’re just dying to give us money,” he said grimly.

  I was a little shocked.

  After we hung up, I called my sister.

  No one was home, so I didn’t have to talk to her.

  Now that was good news.

  Chapter 8

  Moshe and Arnie. Murdered.

  I focused my tired eyes on the screen of my home computer and realized with a shock that I had actually written the words. My fingers moved restlessly on the keyboard, seemingly of their own volition without conscious signals from my weary brain.

  WHO? the fingers tapped and the angry capital letters glowed in the little screen.

  WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY?

  And finally, HOW?

  I thought I had sat down at my favorite toy just to play around and relax on Saturday night. I had even inserted a video game, but when the machine beat me four out of four at Star Warriors, I knew I didn’t have my mind on the game.

  I love that computer; it appeals to my sense of logic and order. Already I had it programmed to balance my checking accounts, track my bills and budgets, remind me of birthdays and chart my mother’s medical history. Also stored in its gray discs were five chapters of the book I was writing in what I laughingly referred to as my spare time: a book about how to play the big league grants and foundations game. It is a game, as competitive and fierce as Space Battle with the big fast players remorselessly gobbling up the small slow players in the contest for big bucks from governmental and private sources. With Moshe and Arnie dead, and their bequests to The Foundation in question, I felt like the little orange space cadet who’d been blasted off the screen by the big purple monster from outer galactica. Pow, blooey, kabamm.

  Who, what, when, where, why and how.

  The classic five W’s and H of jour
nalism school and criminology. I had the questions all right, as evidenced on the little green screen, but neither the computer nor I had the answers.

  I lifted my restless fingers from the keyboard and turned off the computer. Its screen glowed for a moment before it went dark, leaving the den unlighted except for the fire I had built in the old stone fireplace. The logs, still wet from snow, crackled and popped merrily.

  I stared at the darkened screen, then turned around and stared at the fire. I got up and replenished my glass of dry red wine and stood by one of the four long, narrow windows. And stared.

  Outside, Mother Nature was putting an exclamation point on the weather bureau’s announcement that this was our worst winter in ten years. We hadn’t seen thirty-three degrees in six weeks or the ground in five. It’s about this time of year that I begin to feel claustrophobic, locked into the narrow paths of winter life by the rising drifts of snow and the forbidding cold.

  I indulged in a moment of longing for Fort Lauderdale, Martinique, Acapulco, a warm bed, a warm body, Geof Bushfield. What? Where had that come from? More to the point, where did I want it to go?

  I thought I had wanted to spend my Saturday night alone. I found I was glad when the doorbell rang.

  “Michael! You look like a snowman!”

  “Abominable or otherwise?” He grinned at me, those eyes the only warm part of him. Everything else, starting at the top of his ski cap and working down through his red ski jacket, snug blue jeans and waffle stompers, was white and icy.

  “Otherwise.” I helped him take off the top layers of clothing and reached up to warm his blue lips with a quick kiss. “Why are you covered with snow? Did you walk over here?”

  “I am covered with snow because some people never shovel their sidewalks.”

  “Oh, Michael. You didn’t fall down out there, did you? I’m so sorry!”

  “There you go being sorry again. I swear, you are the sorriest person I know.” His good humor was back, and with it his considerable charm. “I’d much rather you skipped the apologies and went straight to the drink.”