by Gerald Elias
“Was he a polite little guy?”
“They’re all polite because they all want me to write good papers. But yeah, he was polite. Too polite if you ask me. A little bit off his noggin, but who am I to talk? And he dressed like he talked. Not a thread out of place, but nothing fancy. I used to write up certificates for him a couple times a year. Always pretty good stuff. Not great. Good. And in good condition.”
Ziggy! thought Jacobus. Was it possible? But how could Ziggy have the money to own all those violins? And why? Why be an elevator boy all your life if you have all those assets?
Jacobus asked, “Lazlo, was this guy’s name by any chance Ziggy? Sigmund Gottfried?”
Novak laughed. “Nope. Don’t ring a bell. You shoulda brought the Avon lady with you, Jake, because you’re not ringing any bells today. I don’t remember what it was, but I know what it wasn’t, and it wasn’t no Ziggy.” He laughed again.
“Is it possible,” asked Nathaniel, “that this person with the German accent wasn’t the real owner?”
“Nathaniel,” said Novak, “you know better than to ask me a dumb-ass question like that. Are you saying I should’ve asked for a photo ID from everyone who ever brought me a violin? Maybe their rap sheet? Should I ask my customers, ‘Excuse me, madame, but is your violin by any chance hot?’ They bring in a violin, I tell them what I think it is, they pay me. Boom-boom, bye-bye.”
“Laszlo,” said Jacobus, finishing his beer and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Do me a favor. See if you can find the certificates for this guy. After all, you said there were a bunch of them. It might be important. It might not. But all we’ve got are loose ends and it’s starting to piss me off. You find the name, and Nathaniel will buy you dinner at Csardas.”
“Give me a week,” said Novak.
“How about a day?” said Jacobus.
“Then it’s going to be dinner and girls.”
EIGHTEEN
Nathaniel’s 1974 red VW Rabbit swerved onto the Taconic Parkway on their way to New York City. Though Jacobus would have preferred to endure sitting through a Bruckner symphony than to climb those four flights of stairs again, he knew that a return visit to Rose Grimes was unavoidable. Jacobus asked Nathaniel to make a few calls on his cell phone.
“You’re not supposed to make calls while you’re driving in New York,” said Nathaniel, his foot getting heavier on the pedal. Time was getting short for BTower and they were treading water.
“They can make an exception for you,” said Jacobus. “No way your driving could get any worse. Never mind. I’ll call.”
His first call was to Detective Malachi. He told Malachi he wanted measurements of all the angles and distances in the positioning of Allard’s left hand and arm. Malachi asked him why, and Jacobus told him that it just seemed very unnatural.
Malachi said, “You think getting your neck twisted in a vise is natural?” but agreed to do it if it would get Jacobus out of his hair.
Jacobus also gave him an update on his findings and asked if it was sufficient information to get Brown to agree to reopen the case.
“Are you kidding, Jacobus? All you’ve got is a lot of gornisht. Zilch. Bobkes. Nada. Nothing. You need me to make that any clearer? And none of your nothing has anything to do with Allard.”
“What about BTower’s paternity? His mother works in the Bonderman Building. She’s got a shady violin. A guy who fits Gottfried’s description is buying and selling violins, and don’t forget Gottfried’s the one who ratted on Grimes and got her fired.”
“Is there a law against buying and selling violins, Jacobus?”
“Well . . .”
“Does any of this have an iota of anything to do with Allard? I repeat, Jacobus, all you’ve got is gornisht.”
“I’m almost right about this, Malachi. I know it.”
“Like Mark Twain said, Jacobus, the difference between almost right and right is like the difference between a lightning bug and lightning. I’ll get you the measurements, and that’s it.”
“Smart-ass,” mumbled Jacobus, as he dialed the next number.
“Rosenthal here.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me about BTower’s parents?” Jacobus shouted without preamble.
“What are you talking about?” said Rosenthal. Jacobus explained BTower’s ancestry. Rosenthal said BTower had told him only that he and his family had become estranged when he was a kid, so he moved in with an aunt for a while, and then with friends. He had refused to disclose more than that, saying it had no relevance to the case. Besides, Rosenthal asked Jacobus, “Why didn’t you know anything about his parents? You taught him, didn’t you?”
“Ah, never mind,” said Jacobus. Rosenthal was right. Jacobus had a very broad definition of what were a good teacher’s obligations. It was more than teaching the mechanics of the violin, more even than conveying the mystery of musical aesthetics from one generation to another. It was taking on the role of mentor, career guidance counselor, instrument consultant, psychologist, philosopher, parent. That’s why teaching had exhausted him and was the main reason he couldn’t keep going as he had. He was unwilling to lower his standards, and for Rosenthal to now remind him that he already had done so in BTower’s case was a painful recognition. “We’re going to talk to the mother now, anyway. The father is non compos mentis. How’s the son doing?”
“Believe it or not, Jacobus, he seems better. Not happy, maybe. But calmer. Something you told him, he admitted. But he’s changed. I watched him on his cell monitor, and sometimes he just stands there like he’s holding up his violin. I don’t know. It’s a little odd, but at least he’s not banging his head against the walls anymore.”
“Well, I don’t know what I told him that he wouldn’t knock me over the head for,” said Jacobus, “but maybe you could ask him if there’s anything about his family background that might give me some direction.”
“Will do,” said Rosenthal. “And Mr. Jacobus?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“You say that now, but wait’ll you get the bill.”
NINETEEN
Jacobus banged on the door. “It’s Jacobus. Put your gun down, Grimes, and open up!”
“And why should I?”
“You lied about the name of that zombie in there!”
“Jake,” said Nathaniel, “that’s no way to talk.”
“No one lies to me,” he said.
The door was suddenly flung open. Jacobus heard it bang against the wall.
“I lied to no one!” said Rose. “You never asked me his name. You just assumed his name was Grimes. I never said it was.”
“And what about BTower? You forget he was your son?”
“Your sarcasm is offensive, Mr. Jacobus.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t stink as bad as dishonesty, Mrs. Grimes. Or is it Mrs. Freeman?”
Nathaniel intervened. He pleaded with the two to go inside and sit down. Yelling at each other in the echoing hallway was not doing them any good.
Once they were seated, Nathaniel continued. “Mrs. Grimes, is that your name?”
“Yes. I kept my maiden name, Mr. Williams.”
“Mrs. Grimes, you do have some explaining to do. You might not have outright lied to us, but what you said, and didn’t say, was certainly misleading. Can you please start with how you got the violin, other than that it had been in the family for a long time?”
“All right, Mr. Williams. I’ll tell you everything, and then I hope you and this other person will leave me in peace.
“In 1965 my husband, Mr. Freeman, returned from the war. When he went to Vietnam he and I had just married. He was not a highly educated man but he was a good man who worked hard. We promised each other that when he got back we were going to have a family, but then they told me he had been wounded in the head, so when he came back he was as you see him. But I never left his side, and I did . . . what was necessary to have a child because I intended to keep our promise. Shelby Junior was
born later that year.
“As you can see, Mr. Williams, this is not a proper neighborhood to raise a child, but financially we had no choice. So you would think it would be very difficult to keep a young boy out of trouble. But Shelby Junior was different. From the time he was born he would sit on my lap and the two of us would listen to music on the radio, and I would take him to choir rehearsals and I would hold him in my arms. He was never difficult.
“When he was old enough, I gave him the violin. He could barely hold it—he was such a small child—but I couldn’t afford a smaller one, what with caring for my husband and all. But somehow he managed to teach himself—couldn’t afford lessons either—by playing along with the gospel. I tell you, Mr. Williams, it was the happiest time of my life.”
Rose Grimes sighed.
“But then, you know, Shelby Junior got older, as children do. As his talent became clearer to him—he could play anything that he heard by ear—he started to become full of himself. He began to go to clubs to play jazz and he would sneak into concerts without paying. Gradually he stopped listening to gospel. Then one day . . .”
“Go on, Mrs. Grimes,” said Nathaniel.
“Then one day he ordered me to turn off my music. Ordered me, his own mother. I told him he was arrogant and that he should get down on his knees to thank the Lord for being blessed with God-given talent. ‘The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.’ ”
“And what did he do, Mrs. Grimes?”
“He laughed at me. A nasty laugh. Told me God had given him nothing. That here he was, living in a slum, and he learned to play the violin all by himself without any help from anybody, and that if God wanted to give him something, he’d get him out of this place.”
“And what did you do, Mrs. Grimes, when Shelby Junior said those things?”
“God help me, Mr. Williams. I picked up the violin and smashed it. Not even one’s child can blaspheme the Lord and not pay a price.”
“So Shelby Junior left?”
“Yes. Without another word. He moved in with my sister for a while. Then, I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since that day, so I didn’t know where he went or what he did, except that he was so ashamed of his name that he changed it.”
“Where did you get the violin?” asked Jacobus.
“It was a gift.”
“From?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know, Mrs. Grimes,” said Jacobus, “it’s kind of hard to take your holier-than-thou crap when you keep lying. We’re trying to save the life of your son, the son you denied was yours, and all you do is obfuscate. Have you ever considered the possibility that your Bible-toting proselytizing might have been one reason your son ditched it out of here and became a rebellious son of a bitch?”
“If we’re talking about obfuscating, Mr. Jacobus, don’t forget that you were his teacher at one time.”
“Just for a while.”
“ ‘Just for a while’! Oh, I am so sorry. Of course, no one of your character could possibly have any influence over an impressionable young man in such a short time. And where, may I ask, did you get your violin?”
“Mrs. Grimes,” said Nathaniel, “if I might just get a word in edgewise here. I’m not going to editorialize on your faith or your relationship with your son, but you have to admit that after all we’ve heard, it’s a stretch to believe you don’t know where the violin came from.”
“As I said, you may believe what you want. The truth—and may the Lord strike me down here and now if it isn’t—is that one day I opened my door and the violin was there. There was no letter, no explanation, no address where I could return it or say thank you. It was a gift from God.”
“Or the devil,” said Jacobus.
TWENTY
In recent years, Jacobus felt his age. Now, aching and exhausted both physically and mentally, he felt even older than his age. The traveling, the questions, the arguing, the misgivings, not to mention the attempt on his life had worn down his will. And for what? After having turned over all the stones and seeing the roaches scatter, there was still nothing convincing, nothing substantial or demonstrative to prove that BTower did not kill Allard. Some strange things, no doubt. Coincidences, maybe. Maybe not. But where would it all lead? The only certainty was that unless something happened, in a few days BTower would pay the price.
Nathaniel suggested that Jacobus spend the night in Manhattan rather than driving the two and a half hours back to the Berkshires. Jacobus, for once, agreed, so they drove the short distance to his apartment on Ninety-sixth Street.
“Want to go get some coffee?” asked Nathaniel. “Perko-Late’s still open down the block.” Jacobus declined. It was atypical for him to need more than five or six hours of sleep, but this time he said he just needed to go to bed.
They sat at the counter of Nathaniel’s cluttered but spacious kitchen and reviewed what remained to be done. Nathaniel offered to make tea. Jacobus said, “Tea? You must be kidding. Scotch.” He still didn’t believe a word of what Rose Grimes had told them. Nathaniel disagreed.
“Look at it from her point of view, Jake. She’s got two total strangers walking into her quiet life and turning it inside out, bringing up old painful wounds she’d spent a lifetime trying to forget. All she wants is for us to go away, so she tells us what she needs to and no more. There’s no crime in that. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I wouldn’t think a mother could . . . Ah, what the hell,” said Jacobus. “Maybe you’re right. Just check out what you can of the facts. Birth certificates, dates, whatever. You know the routine. Call Laszlo tomorrow. Make sure he didn’t forget we were there. Did you call Malachi? We’ll need those measurements. I’m gonna hit the sack.”
“Hold on a minute, Jake,” said Nathaniel. “I’ll need to write this all down.” Nathaniel rummaged for a pad in the drawer next to the stove and sat back down. Dossier, Novak, Malachi. He tore the page off the pad and went to put it on the cork bulletin board glued to the side of the refrigerator.
“Darn,” he said. “Outta thumbtacks. I should get those magnets like Laszlo.” Jacobus heard Nathaniel again rummaging through the drawer.
Jacobus swallowed some scotch and put his glass down. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing,” said Nathaniel. “I’m just looking for thumbtacks to put the note on the board. Here they are.”
“Thumbtacks,” said Jacobus.
“Yeah, thumbtacks. You’ve heard of thumbtacks, haven’t you?”
“Ziggy’s photos. Malachi’s report. He said the photos were thumbtacked to the wall. The photos we saw with Miller. They had no thumbtack holes.”
It took them a moment for the significance to sink in.
“The photos we saw,” said Nathaniel. “Are you implying those weren’t the ones that Ziggy took down?”
“What I’m saying is that lonely Mr. Gottfried, who enjoyed surrounding himself with pictures of famous violinists, might also have enjoyed the company of pictures of Italian violins. Violins for which he acquired certificates. What time is it in Salt Lake City?” he asked Nathaniel.
“Two, three hours earlier. Something like that.”
Jacobus dialed the number for Seglinde Oehlschlager. He spoke to her for five minutes and hung up, shaken.
“What is it, Jake?” asked Nathaniel.
“Ziggy. He’s dead. Suicide.”
TWENTY-ONE
Seglinde—calm but clearly distraught—had explained to Jacobus that Ziggy had driven up to the Antelope Island Music Festival.
“He went to hear the Markner Quartet with Simon Baker perform the Mozart G-Minor Quintet, just as he had told everyone,” Seglinde said. “After the concert he drove to the edge of the Great Salt Lake and threw himself into the water, Mr. Jacobus. He wrote a long note. It rambled and rambled—it was so much like Ziggy. He left it on the dashboard. The police have it now, but I can tell you Ziggy wrote about both his joy and his sadness—after such sublimely
glorious music in that setting. He so loved Antelope Island—he felt he was already almost in heaven. But there was the sadness at leaving his friends behind, and I think this is something he would want to you to know, Mr. Jacobus, a sense of responsibility for the attempt on your life, since you had gone to Utah to see him.”
Ziggy responsible? Jacobus thought. His stomach tightened. It was Jacobus who now felt like an accomplice in Ziggy’s death.
“Mr. Jacobus, are you still there?” said Seglinde.
“Yes. Yes,” he said. In his most sympathetic voice, Jacobus said he recalled that it was in fact Seglinde’s idea to go to the concert. Hadn’t she gone?
Her response was tearful.
“If only I had,” she said. “If only I had, then none of this could have happened. I have no excuse. I feel I let him down so.”
Jacobus did not know how to end the conversation. Eventually Seglinde composed herself and continued.
“The police are still searching for the body in the lake,” Seglinde explained, “but one way or the other there will soon be a small memorial service to which you and Mr. Williams are of course invited.” If they couldn’t make it, she would understand perfectly. It was so far away. “And I’m bearing up reasonably well, thank you, considering,” she said. “We were very close, the two of us.”
“What about possessions?” Jacobus asked as politely as possible.
“Possessions? There was a will in the safety-deposit box. But don’t worry, Mr. Jacobus, I’m comfortable enough.”
“Were there belongings from New York? Memorabilia? Photos, perhaps? Things to remember him by?”
“No. I’m quite sure nothing like that. Everything Ziggy brought from New York was in his father’s valise. Just bare essentials. No photos. The Leica, of course. That had been his father’s also.”
Jacobus thanked Seglinde, muttered a few more condolences, and hung up. After relating the conversation to Nathaniel, he rubbed his face, now rough with whiskers, with both hands. The crow’s-feet that had years ago sprouted from the outer corners of his eyes now traversed the entire sides of his face.