Styx & Stone

by James W. Ziskin

  Then came Luigi Lucchesi. I noted his birthday: June 21, 1933. A very young lecturer indeed. His file was nearly empty besides a CV, a few recommendations in Italian, and some reviews of his syllabus and teaching performance. All was satisfactory, except for a note by Victor Chalmers about Mr. Lucchesi’s effect on some of the Barnard undergraduates. It seems his course on Galileo and the history of science was one of the most popular offerings in the fall of 1959 schedule.

  As I replaced the files, I discovered another manila folder tabbed, Minutes/Dept. Meetings. Inside were typewritten sheets, one for each meeting, dating back about ten years. The department faculty met two times per semester, taking up business ranging from budgetary planning, to disciplinary action, to fellowship appointments. I consulted the minutes from the most recent meetings, which were dominated by the great Purdy grade scandal.

  From December 14, 1959:

  Professor Chalmers, citing Chester Purdy’s proposed donation of $2,000, again urged Professor Stone to reconsider the change in grade, if only for the greater good of the university. Professor Stone refused, claiming academic integrity and independence, and demanded evenhanded treatment for all students, not just sons of wealthy donors to the university.

  But there was also a mention of the Gigi Lucchesi issue:

  Professor Stone raised new business, concerning a rumor he had heard about a Barnard undergraduate and lecturer Luigi Lucchesi. He wished to know why the incident had not been discussed officially in the last faculty meeting. Professor Chalmers insisted that it was a case of unrequited infatuation on the part of the girl, and that Mr. Lucchesi was blameless. Professor Stone was adamant that it be introduced into Mr. Lucchesi’s record. Professor Chalmers offered to take up the issue at the next meeting to be held at the end of January 1960 after the holiday break. Professor Ercolano was assigned to conduct an interview with Mr. Lucchesi in preparation for the meeting.

  From September 22, 1959:

  After calling the meeting to order, Professor Chalmers introduced the first agenda item: the continuing debate over Mr. Purdy’s grade from Professor Stone’s Divine Comedy course. Professor Stone refused to consider the question further, and the convened passed to new business.

  Professor Saettano inquired about the status of Assistant Professor Petronella’s grievance against the department. Professor Chalmers reported that the University Tenure Review Committee was studying the matter, but that the chair of that committee had informed him privately that Professor Petronella’s case was weak.

  Re: the allocation of the $100 Ettore Romilda-Buondì fellowship, nominations were submitted by each faculty member: Professor Chalmers named Hildy Jaspers; Professor Saettano, his dissertation student, Thomas Deane; Professor Stone submitted Bernard Sanger; Professor Ercolano seconded Professor Chalmers’s nomination; and Professor Bruchner, as visiting faculty, had no vote. It was agreed that the nominators would prepare written letters of support for their respective candidates, and that the departmental recommendation would be decided at the next faculty meeting before being forwarded to the dean for approval.

  I flipped back to November 22, 1957:

  Professor Chalmers called the meeting to order at 9:02 a.m. with Professors Saettano, Petronella, and Stone in attendance. Professor Chalmers introduced the case of Miss Jaspers’s Latin exam, which the department had judged unsatisfactory at the February meeting. Professor Stone repeated his insistence that Miss Jaspers retake the exam after proper preparation. Professor Chalmers suggested that the department grant a pass on the condition that Miss Jaspers audit an undergraduate Latin course. Professor Petronella seconded the motion. Professor Stone voiced strong disagreement. Professor Saettano then proposed that Miss Jaspers work with Professor Stone to prepare for a shorter Latin exam, concentrating on the problem areas. The motion passed three to one, with Professor Petronella dissenting. After the tally was recorded, Professor Petronella changed his vote to create unanimity. The meeting adjourned at 10:12 a.m.

  From February 6, 1958:

  Professors Chalmers, Saettano, and Stone were in attendance when the meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. Professor Petronella did not participate, as the sole item on the agenda was the discussion of his tenure case. Professor Chalmers called for a preliminary, nonbinding vote to be followed by discussion and a final, official vote. As the tally was three against and none for, the convened forewent a second vote and passed to the assignment of the final report. Professor Saettano asked that he be excused from the duty of writing the official departmental report. Professor Stone, citing his antagonistic dealings with the candidate, asked that he, too, be excused. Professor Chalmers nominated himself and was approved unanimously to prepare the final report for the University Committee on Tenure Review. Each of the attending faculty was asked to submit a brief report to Professor Chalmers, outlining the major objections to the candidate’s tenure. The meeting adjourned at 10:12 a.m.

  Twelve minutes to give Anthony Petronella the thumbs-down. When your senior colleagues blackball you unanimously in less time than it takes to sing all the verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” you might get a little angry. It’s an eviction, a rejection that transcends the professional and comments, in essence, on your personal worth. The rage must fester until you hate the elitist fools who gave you the air; told the world you weren’t good enough to play on their team. It must be enough to make you gnaw on your hands and tear at your hair. Enough to kill?

  But Petronella should not have known how the individual faculty members voted, as the process is supposed to be confidential.

  “I think we should go if we want to have a look at Ercolano’s place,” said McKeever. “It’s going on eleven thirty.”

  Jimmo McKeever was a funny little man. Normally, his timidity throbbed like a hammered thumb. But now he seemed different, more confident, as though an investigation was tonic for his nerves.

  “Not the lap of luxury,” said the detective, punching the light switch in Ercolano’s apartment. “It’s one bedroom, sitting room, and kitchen.”

  “And let’s not forget the bathroom,” I added, pulling off my coat and folding it over a chair near the door. “Is there anything I shouldn’t touch?”

  “No, we’ve been through here twice,” said McKeever.

  I strolled around the tidy flat, browsing through the late professor’s belongings. The apartment was mostly empty; understandable given his short time at Columbia. The furnishings, a little worn but clean, had probably come with the apartment. A newish, twelve-inch Silvertone television set sat on an aluminum rolling cart against one wall, a bookcase filled with pulp mysteries and assorted American classics in paperback format leaned against the other. Probably part of the furnishings; not Ercolano’s taste, I bet. Against a third wall, I saw a hi-fi on a cabinet. I knew where to find the radio.

  The kitchen cupboards held odd pieces of unadorned tableware, adding up to perhaps three full settings. In the refrigerator, there were several bottles of some Italian wine called Gavi di Gavi, some veal wrapped in waxed paper, a jar of black olives, some Italian ham, a variety of vegetables, and varicolored condiments. Ercolano, it seemed, was a slave to appetites other than concupiscence.

  The bedroom was as Spartan as a monk’s cell: double bed and nightstand with lamp, copies of the New Yorker and the Paris Review, and a wind-up alarm clock.

  I stepped into the bathroom, McKeever in tow, almost expecting to find Marat slumped over in the tub. The white tiles were clean beneath my feet, and I sensed the grit of scouring powder against the soles of my shoes. At arm’s length from the bathtub and toilet was a magazine stand, filled with recent issues of news and cultural publications. The flat wooden top was bare. I nudged the stand with my foot, exposing an electrical outlet on the wall behind it.

  “Is this where the radio was?” I asked, pointing to the magazine stand.

  McKeever was staring at my legs. Then he remembered himself. “Yes, that’s correct. You can see that it just rea
ches up to tub level. The radio could easily have fallen in.”

  “Provided something knocked it in,” I said crouching, knees carefully tucked together, to gauge the level of the stand and the lip of the tub.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Ercolano would have had to sweep the radio into the water,” I said, standing up again. “If the magazine rack had been taller, he might have elbowed it accidentally, making it rock a little, and the radio could have fallen in that way. But given the height of this thing, an elbow might have knocked the radio off onto the floor, but not back into the tub.”

  “What exactly are you implying, Miss Stone?” McKeever had turned white.

  I stood up, reached out to the rack, and jostled it. It stood squarely on its four balanced legs.

  “This isn’t a rickety old thing,” I said. “It’s sturdy, not likely to pitch a radio at the slightest bump.”

  “You’re saying someone tossed it into the water, aren’t you?” said the detective, his voice rising. “Do you see foul play in everything?”

  “Whenever two and two don’t add up to four.”

  “But why? There’s no reason to doubt an accident here.”

  “Was the radio plugged into that outlet?” I asked, pointing behind the stand.

  McKeever nodded. “Yes.”

  “I think not,” I said. “A radio falling into water should blow a fuse, right?”

  “That’s right. We’re reasonably certain of the time of death; several tenants said the lights went out at about ten thirty Saturday night. The super replaced the fuse five minutes later, and everyone went about their business. But what makes you think it wasn’t plugged in here? That’s where we found it.”

  “If the radio knocked out the fuse, it probably scorched the outlet where it was plugged in,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, let’s have a look around.”

  “All right,” said McKeever, following me out into the corridor.

  About five feet down the hall, behind an armchair, I discovered another outlet. I bent over to examine the electrical plate, whose white paint was smudged black around the prong slots.

  “You found the radio plugged into the outlet in the bathroom?” I asked, standing up again.

  McKeever nodded. “That’s what the police report said. And the cord was only four, maybe five feet long.”

  I leaned around the corner to look back into the bathroom and estimated the magazine rack was about twelve feet from the outlet in the hallway.

  McKeever glanced at me anxiously. “What is it?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “I think the radio was plugged into this outlet with an extension cord while Ercolano was in the bath,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Then the murderer walked down the hall and tossed it into the tub.”

  “What? Murderer? What are you saying? The radio was plugged into the bathroom socket.”

  “Once the fuse blew, the murderer disconnected the extension cord and plugged the radio into the wall in the bathroom. Not too complicated.”

  “You see conspiracy in everything,” said McKeever, shaking his head.

  “I think I’m right. The black smudge on the hallway socket might be from an earlier short. Or maybe the blown fuse didn’t scorch the bathroom outlet. Maybe. But then I have to ask myself: If Ercolano wanted to listen to music in the tub, why didn’t he just turn up the hi-fi? It’s just a couple of feet outside the bathroom door.”

  I crossed the room and took a seat on Ercolano’s couch. McKeever remained standing, too shy to move my coat from the chair or to sit down next to me.

  “You found nothing here belonging to my father?” I asked as I fished a cigarette from my purse.

  McKeever dashed to my side to give me a light. He tossed his match into an aluminum ashtray on the end table next to the couch. If Ercolano had stolen the crystal ashtray from my father’s study, he wasn’t using it in his parlor.

  “Do you know if Ercolano had a cleaning woman?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. His neighbors didn’t mention it.”

  “It seems he was a neat fellow, to be sure,” I said. “But this place is too clean for a single man without any help. I’d be interested to know who scrubs his floors and stocks his refrigerator.”

  McKeever patted his coat pockets, locating a scrap of paper after a few moments. He scribbled some notes and stuffed the paper back into the folds of his garment.

  “Let’s go talk to Mrs. Arnsberger,” he said. “She’s the widow next door who complained about the women.”

  “At this hour?”

  “She said I could call anytime. Insomnia.”

  Tillie Arnsberger unlocked, unbarred, and unchained for nearly a minute before finally opening up her apartment door. Recognizing McKeever, she jumped to life, smoothing the cotton housedress over the long johns she had on underneath. Patting the curlers on her head as if putting her hair right, she invited us into the close, warm flat, shuffling across the worn carpet runner in an old pair of flattened men’s bedroom slippers. The place smelled of mothballs.

  “I don’t like to judge,” she said as she eased into an armchair, a cup of steaming tea in her hand. “But that man was a sinner.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “He was pleasant enough on the surface,” she said, then leaned forward to whisper: “But he was a fornicator.”

  “Oh, my!” The word was unexpected, and I actually emitted a short gasp.

  She nodded, sat back, and sipped her tea. “Women streaming in and out at all hours. Different women, mind you, some young and some not so young. And I could hear everything. Not that I was listening; it’s just that these walls are no thicker than cigarette paper.”

  She reminded me of my own disapproving landlady in New Holland, Mrs. Giannetti, who kept track of my visitors and the empty bottles in my trash.

  “Did you overhear anything besides lewd behavior?”

  “His girlfriends were often jealous. They carped at him a lot.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Couldn’t say,” she spat, shaking her head. “There were two regulars and lots of brief affairs. What kind of girl visits a man in his apartment? Really!”

  Nice girls, sometimes, I thought. Other times not-so-nice girls. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Would you be able to recognize the two regulars?” I asked.

  “I ought to. Used to bump into them in the morning when they crept out of here, hair all mussed and sleep in their eyes. The young one didn’t like to look me in the eye in the morning. I suspect she was ashamed. The older one just smiled a dreamy smile and said hello on her way to the stairs. Probably doesn’t have much reputation left to protect.”

  “Did Ercolano have a cleaning lady?” I asked.

  Tillie shook her head, a smirk stretched across her wrinkled face. “No, but the older girlfriend used to scour that place at least once a week. I saw her on all fours in the open doorway, hair tied up in a red kerchief—a red-and-black kerchief—scrubbing his floors right out into the hallway.”

  McKeever and I exchanged glances. Ercolano seemed to have had some system.

  “How old were these two women?” asked the detective.

  “I wouldn’t rightly call the younger one a woman,” she said. “No more than twenty-one, twenty-three years old. About your age, dearie,” she said to me. “A shame when a young girl loses her way and is spoilt like that.”

  “What about the older one?” I asked.

  “Thirty-five, forty? I don’t know. No debutante, but pretty enough and well preserved.”

  “You said they often quarreled,” said McKeever. “Did you ever hear anything violent? Any fights?”

  “Nope. The young one cried a lot, begging him, you know, to love her proper and all. The old one stood up for herself a little more. She mostly complained about the other women. In the end, though, he always had his way with both of them.”

  “Why do you suppose t
hat is?” I asked.

  “He was Italian. Need I say more?” I was sure she would. And she did: “That’s all they think of: amore! Lust. After a while it poisons the soul.” She shook her head in pity.

  McKeever and I took another tour of Ercolano’s rooms, leaving Mrs. Arnsberger to her post of chief snooper and morals warden. We poked through Ercolano’s drawers, looking for something that might help trace the two women. There was nothing.

  “What was he wearing that day?” I asked.

  “Kinlaw told me he found a pair of trousers and a shirt on the bed. It looked like he took them off just before getting into the bath.”

  “Did he empty his pockets?”

  “The guys from the Twentieth bagged everything. They found a wallet with cash, Italian passport, keys. The usual. This wasn’t a robbery if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’d sure like to have a look at that stuff.”

  “I can get it,” he said. “What do you think you’ll find, anyway?”

  “Who knows? You just have to look, that’s all.”

  “Say, where does your nosiness come from?”

  “I’m a reporter,” I said, slightly exaggerating my modest role at a small, upstate daily. I wanted to impress him.

  “If you were a man, you’d make a good detective.”

  I’m sure he thought he was complimenting me, but that identity—a girl wanting to do a man’s job—had throttled me for too long. I wasn’t trying to blaze any trails for women; I just wanted to be a reporter, one who didn’t need to swat hands off her behind at every turn. For McKeever, I let it slide, though he noticed something was wrong.