by Susan Conant
“A lot more,” I said. “The stuff they were after was valued at a hundred and seventy-five million. And at first, the court went along with that. But in the end, they got what they deserved. The New Jersey Supreme Court really let them have it. Did you read that part?” I took the photocopies from Rita. “Here,” I said. “Here’s what the court said. ‘Her age, loneliness, insidiously progressive arteriosclerotic disease, and the loss of her trusted advisor’—that means her husband—’made her respond with friendship and confidence to the synthetically effusive attention and appearance of friendship pressed upon her by representatives of the college.’”
“It really is a sad story,” Rita said. “And that a college would have tried to pull something like that! The poor woman.” She paused. “Well, the unfortunate woman, anyway.”
“More wine?” I offered.
“I’m going to nurse this,” she answered. “Thanks. I don’t want to look tipsy when he gets here.”
The he who was due to arrive any minute was the leader of Rita’s birding group. His name was Artie Spicer, he lived on Belmont Hill—fancy!—he owned a company that manufactured paper products—money?—and, obviously, he watched birds. Oh, and he was an outdoor type. If topics like hiking, backpacking, canoeing, and snowshoeing arose, Steve and I were not to give even the slightest hint that Rita was other than an outdoor type, too. Steve, who actually is an outdoor type, was also supposed to arrive soon.
“Now, remember—” Rita began.
“What you liked best about the summit of Everest was the lack of oxygen,” I said. “When you did the Appalachian Trail, I mailed freeze-dried food to you at designated points on the route. There’s no one I’d rather have along on a wilderness adventure in winter camping, provided that there a facilities for a hot shower every morning and that we pack a generator so you can use your electric blanket.”
Rita lifted her chin. “I am not asking you to lie. I just don’t want a lot of smirking if the topic comes up.”
“I’ll behave! So will Steve.”
“Of course he will. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Relax. Steve and I know the rules. No dog talk or almost none. No jokes about you and the outdoors. No disgusting details about animal illnesses. Nothing about bird hunting. Really, we’ll be good.”
“Artie is not very psychological,” Rita said, as if confiding that the new man in her life spent his spare time dressing in garter belts, black stockings, and stiletto heels.
“Neither is Steve. They can talk about … oh, raptors, I guess. Parakeets. Canaries. Parrots. Steve knows a lot about cage birds.”
“I’m not sure Artie …”
“Well, what are we allowed to talk about? Books?”
“He isn’t very intellectual,” Rita confessed.
“That’s why you picked us. You knew we wouldn’t scare him off. But we can’t just sit there chewing in silence until the dessert arrives. Am I allowed to ask him if he has a key to Mount Auburn?” According to a persistent Cambridge rumor, certain dedicated birders had keys to the cemetery that enabled their fortunate bearers to observe birds at dawn, listen for night fowl, and otherwise pursue feathers and cheeps when Mount Auburn was closed to the public.
“Don’t ask him that!” Rita was adamant. “What if he doesn’t? I think it’s only important birders who have keys. I don’t know whether he’s that important. He might be embarrassed to say so.” She paused. “Maybe this whole thing is a mistake.”
“No, it isn’t. Really, Rita, it will be all right. No dog talk, no veterinary talk, nothing psychological, no keys.” With the kind of smirk Rita feared, I added, “We’ll just be ourselves.”
When Artie Spicer arrived, he wasn’t at all what I expected. I’d imagined him as tall and hawklike, with a small head and long arms spread like wings. I guess I was afraid he’d make a predatory swoop at Rita. In fact, he was of medium height and had a burly build and a round face. His neatly trimmed full beard blended into his short, curly hair. The conventional way to describe the color of both would be salt-and-pepper. To my eye, however, his hair and whiskers were a reassuringly familiar dark wolf gray.
In agonizing over the choice of a restaurant, Rita had been determined to avoid anything “too Cambridge,” whatever that meant. Balsamic vinegar? Anything “too ethnic” was out. Despite his name, Artie Spicer might not like Thai peppers or authentic curries. High prices could scare him off. Dives and greasy spoons, however, were unacceptable. She finally settled on an upscale Japanese restaurant within the city limits, yet somehow not “too Cambridge,” and in Rita’s view not “too ethnic,” either. It was actually a good choice. Rita had made a reservation for the traditional section, so we had to take off our shoes and sit with our stocking feet in a little pit under the low table. The need to remove pieces of clothing and then wiggle into seats on the floor created an informal, almost intimate, atmosphere. Steve, who sat next to me, was probably uncomfortable; his legs were long for the small space. As usual, though, he was a good sport. He and Rita enthusiastically ordered sushi. Instead of embarrassing Rita by announcing that I’d just as soon swallow live goldfish as let bits of raw tuna and, oh yuck, eel—snake! raw snake!—pass my lips, I quietly asked for miso soup and shrimp tempura. Looking relieved, Artie Spicer, who sat across from me, gave me a conspiratorial little smile and did the same.
Because the birding group at Mount Auburn was what Rita and Artie had in common, the talk started there and soon moved to the murder of Peter Motherway. By then, the soup and appetizers had arrived. The death by garroting of a man whose body had been left in a cemetery didn’t hit me as any more tasteful than the topics Rita had banned, but she didn’t glare at me or kick me under the table, and Artie did look interested.
“Are people allowed near the Gardner vault again?” I asked. “Or do the police have it sealed off?”
Rita and Artie exchanged a glance. He answered. “I didn’t see any sign of the police this morning.”
“Neither did I,” Rita agreed. “Everything looked back to normal.”
“What’s not clear to me,” Artie said, “is how anyone got in. Must’ve been in the night, Tuesday night. I’d’ve thought the guards would be around. I asked one of them. All he said was they didn’t see anything, and they can’t be everywhere at once. It’s a big place. Anyone have any idea why he picked the Gardner vault?”
“I keep thinking about the robbery,” Rita said. “But I don’t know what connection there could be.”
“I met Peter Motherway,” I told Artie. Heavily censoring references to dogs, I outlined the circumstances. “His father is a retired teacher of art history,” I said. “The house is like a museum, but it’s nothing like the Gardner Museum. It’s all Early American. Paintings. Furniture. Silver.” In deference to Rita, I refrained from mentioning what seemed to me the odd absence of any kind of dog art. The colonists didn’t like dogs, I reminded myself; in their art, dogs appeared only in the occasional family portrait. If Motherway had collected Egyptian art, the absence of dogs would’ve been strange; in his collection, it made sense. “And Peter didn’t strike me as a museum type,” I added. “But I didn’t really know him. It’s possible that the murderer didn’t even know it was the Gardner vault. He could’ve just picked any vault, anything that looked like a house.”
“It’s an out-of-the-way spot,” Artie observed.
Unwittingly picking one of the forbidden words, I said, “Yes, down in a depression.” I corrected myself. “In a little valley by that tiny lake. At night you wouldn’t see anything going on there unless you were close to the vault.”
A young woman in a kimono appeared with our main courses. By the time she was done, meat was sizzling on a stone above tiny flames, and the whole table was covered with dishes and bowls of all sizes.
“Well,” Artie said jovially, “here we are gathered around the campfire.”
I coughed up a bit of shrimp. Steve didn’t choke on anything. He just turned silently red. �
��Rita tells me you’re a backpacker,” he ventured.
There followed one of those interminable conversations about the Sierras, preferred brands of hiking boots, the merits of various tents, and other matters about which I knew almost nothing and Rita knew not a single thing. I decided that salvation lay in letting the males bond. Deliberately addressing only Rita, I said, “Do you read German?”
“What?”
“The language spoken in Berlin. Do you read it?”
“Why?” Her expression was suspicious. She probably thought I wanted her to translate a book with Hunde in the title.
“I got something odd in the mail today. There are a couple of things in German. At least I think it’s German.”
“This isn’t about … ?”
“No,” I assured her. “It has something to do with Mrs. Dodge.” When Rita first heard about Geraldine R. Dodge and the book, she was thrilled that I was writing about someone whose name was frequently mentioned on public radio and public television. I suppose she thought that my career was turning toward respectability, which is to say, away from dogs.
After chewing and swallowing what seemed to be a slice of yam, I said, “It was really very strange. I got a sort of little package addressed in block capitals, no return address. Inside was an old photograph. I’ll show it to you when we get home. It seems to be a group of servants. Maids with frilly aprons and caps. A couple of men. A butler, maybe. Footmen. I don’t know. But I think it must have been taken at Giralda, Mrs. Dodge’s estate. The people are all standing outside on a staircase, sort of formally posed. And there were also three letters. The one in English is a letter of reference written by Geraldine Dodge for someone named Eva Kappe. She was apparently a housemaid. I guess she’s one of the women in the picture.”
“What does the letter say?”
“Eva was industrious, tidy, and trustworthy. It’s dated June 1939. I’m only guessing, but I think the others, the letters in German, are more or less the same.” I may as well leap ahead by revealing that the letters were, in fact, in German, that Rita translated them, and that they were indeed similar to the one written by Mrs. Dodge. But back to the present. “The letters are dated 1938, and the same name is in them, Eva Kappe.”
“German name,” Rita remarked.
“My hunch is that this Eva Kappe came to America with these two letters of recommendation from people in Germany. Then she worked for Mrs. Dodge. And when she left, Mrs. Dodge wrote her this letter.” I went on to tell Rita about the mysterious envelopes I’d received previously, including the letter to Bro from Eva written from Giralda.
“This is quite bizarre,” Rita said.
“Why do you think I’m telling it to a shrink? It’s weird. I mean, by now a lot of people know I’m writing this book and I’m interested in Mrs. Dodge, but why send me this stuff? I mean, a picture of her”—I dropped my voice to a whisper—“kennel help might be relevant.” I resumed my normal volume. “But why send anything anonymously? And what am I supposed to do with bits and pieces about a housemaid?”
Chapter Sixteen
BEFORE RITA, ARTIE, STEVE, and I had left for the restaurant, I had performed the usual dog person’s predeparture safety survey. The procedure bears a superficial resemblance to normal home security precautions like fire and burglary prevention, but is, in fact, exclusively aimed at making sure that the dogs don’t die of smoke inhalation or get kicked, poisoned, or stolen by thieves. I’d made sure that the stove was off and that the front door and the door to the side yard were locked. I’d also cleared the coffee table of the remains of the drinks and appetizers I’d served to my guests. Rowdy and Kimi, agile creatures that they are, probably wouldn’t have knocked over the drinking glasses or plates, but I didn’t want to risk shards in their stomachs or in the pads of their feet. The cheese board could have triggered a dogfight, and the winner might have gnawed the wood and ended up with splinters requiring canine dentistry. Not to mention knives! I’d washed the cheese board and loaded the dishwasher. But having once read about someone whose dogs had died in a fire caused by a major appliance that she’d left running when she’d gone out, I’d left the dishes dirty. As usual, I’d checked the closet where I keep the dry dog food; if the dogs had found the door unlatched, they’d have torn into each other squabbling over the food and might have gorged themselves and bloated. I had definitely made sure that Tracker was in protective custody behind the firmly closed door of my study.
But when the four of us returned from the restaurant for what was supposed to be coffee at my place, the cat was perched on top of the refrigerator, and the dogs were prancing gleefully around. My first thought was that one of the dogs, probably Kimi, had opened the study door and gone after Tracker. Artie couldn’t understand my alarm.
“It’s a miracle she’s alive,” I explained. “These dogs were not raised with cats, and they aren’t good with them.” Actually, Tracker looked fine, at least for Tracker. Everything wrong with her was nothing new. She’d already lost most of one ear when I’d adopted her, and she has a birthmark on her face that’s the shape and color of a festering wound. From the head down, though, she’s a good-looking little plain black cat. I didn’t see any traces of blood. Steve had reached up to the top of the refrigerator and was patting her. She was purring. She hisses at me, but she loves Steve. “Steve, check her for puncture wounds, would you?” I asked. “I’ll get the dogs out of the way.”
After I shut Rowdy and Kimi in my bedroom, it occurred to me to glance at my study to find out whether Kimi had left evidence of what I was sure was her crime. I did, indeed, find a crime scene. The meaning of the dogs’ happy excitement was suddenly clear. In your absence, they’d exclaimed, we’ve had a visitor! There’s nothing we love more than unexpected company! Hurray!
My computer was as I’d left it, still on. The printer, too, was as I’d left it: off. Neither piece of equipment had been damaged. A few books that had been shelved lay on the floor. Most of the mess consisted of loose paper pulled from the drawers of my filing cabinets and from plastic file boxes I use to store material on topics of interest to me: the Byrd expeditions, Alaska, Morris and Essex. The floor was also strewn with letters from people who read my column, newspaper and magazine clippings, sheets from a yellow legal pad, hard copy of pages from the World Wide Web, and the contents of my latest mysterious envelope: the letters of reference for Eva Kappe and the old photograph of Mrs. Dodge’s servants.
The room reeked of Tracker’s litter, which was strewn everywhere. The dogs, I felt sure, had made a postburglary raid on the cat box. The presence of the litter box explained the ease with which the burglar had entered. Although I changed the litter frequently, cat odor built up when the room was sealed. Consequently, I’d left one window half open. It was now open wide. The screen that kept Tracker in and flies out had been cut around its edges. After a few moments of paralyzed silence, I started to swear. Tracker was a disagreeable, ugly cat, goddamn it, but she was my disagreeable, ugly cat, and if she’d escaped through that window, she could’ve been killed within minutes in the traffic on Concord Avenue. If the dogs had followed her through the window? They could have hurt themselves leaping to the ground, but at least they’d have landed in my fenced yard.
Rita, followed by Artie, came rushing into the study. I pointed to the screen, which hung from the open window. “Damn it!” I kept yelling. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Then I came to my senses. “Oh, God. Rita, maybe there’s more. We’d better check the rest of the building. You have things worth stealing, and so does Cecily.” Cecily and her husband rent my third-floor apartment. “Oh my God! Is she home? We better make sure—”
“They’re on the Cape for the weekend,” Rita said.
“My kitchen door was locked,” I said. “So was the outside back door. But we better check your place anyway.”
Artie shook his head. “He could still be up there. Would you like me to call the police? Or do you want to do it?”
“Wi
llie isn’t barking,” I said. “Rita’s Scottie,” I added for Artie’s benefit. A tough, scrappy character, Willie will yap over nothing. He flies at the ankles of people he knows. He always goes after mine. He has eyes of fire.
Rita panicked. “He’s dead! If he’s quiet, he’s dead!” She bolted out of my study, dashed through the hall and kitchen, flung open the door, and vanished up the stairs. Artie ran after her.
Still in shock, I wandered into the kitchen, where Steve was placidly holding Tracker in his arms and stroking her.
“No wounds that I can find,” he reported. “Where do you want me to put her?”
“Anywhere. Uh, just hold her. Someone’s been here. Someone broke in. Everything’s a mess. I need to go up to Rita’s, and I need to call the—”
A cacophony of terrier barking bit its way down through the ceiling. That’s Willie’s standard greeting. I hoped Artie had on thick socks and sturdy hiking boots, the kind meant to protect the ankles. Steve and I exchanged smiles. I felt suddenly better. “I guess Willie’s all right,” I said.
“Yes,” agreed Steve, “but is Artie?”
“He wasn’t supposed to meet Willie. That’s why we had drinks here instead of at Rita’s.”
“He was all right with your dogs.”
“They didn’t bite him,” I pointed out. On the contrary, they’d knocked themselves out to charm Artie. Kimi had dropped to the floor at his feet and wiggled her legs in the air in delight. Rowdy had presented Artie with a toy, a stuffed dinosaur lightly coated with dog saliva. The dogs had probably treated the burglar to an identical welcome.