“Nothing, thanks,” he answered quickly. “Just let me lay out what I got from Riggins. Fill in what you already know from Basillio here. First of all, they say the bomb was a sophisticated device. A pipe bomb, but a real beaut. I mean, very powerful. It was triggered by the opening of the door. They haven’t determined where on the door—or near it—the bomb was placed. Or when it was placed. There may or may not have been a timer to trigger it.”
“What are you saying?” Basillio interjected. “You mean the bomb could have been put on the door days ago? That Roman could have come in and out a dozen times without setting it off—until the timing device went off?”
“Like I said,” Rothwax replied, a little irritably, “they don’t know yet. It’s going to take some time to piece together what’s left of the scene. Anyway, Riggins is moving on this thing. He’s collecting information on Roman. And I told him about the Retro printout I did for you. I figured I’d better—wouldn’t want him to find out I’d been digging in Roman’s life and tried to keep it from him.
“As it is, I don’t know how much he bought of the song and dance I ad-libbed, but so far I kept you out of it.” He looked pointedly at me then. “And I want to stay out of it, too. Understand?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Detective.”
“Last bit of trivia,” he said. “Something I missed when I ran Roman’s name through the computer.”
I was prepared to hear that Tim had been an ax murderer, a ten-time bigamist, a hit man for the Mafia—anything.
“Several years ago,” Rothwax went on, “he was involved in a legal dispute over some kind of design patent. The suit was long and bitter and nasty. He wound up winning, and the settlement wiped out the owner of a furniture manufacturing business. Homicide thinks it’s possible the murder might be tied to that.” Rothwax made as if to stand up then.
“Just a minute,” I said. “Haven’t you left something out?”
“Like what?” he asked, suspicious.
“Didn’t you tell them that his wife was murdered? That in light of all this, her death couldn’t have been suicide?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t!” he barked. “They’ve got the facts on his wife’s death. What do you think, I’m gonna pass on that crap about her being a Catholic? I told you, I am not connected with this case. And besides, they’ll probably question you sooner or later anyway, since you were more or less a witness. That’ll be your chance to give them your brilliant theories about everything. And don’t you forget to include your very personal involvement with the gentleman in question.”
Basillio bristled and started to speak. But I cut him off before he got the chance. “All right, Detective Rothwax. Thank you for all your help. I understand your position . . . and mine.”
I knew that Tony had picked up on my fakery. I had delivered those lines in the style of a deceitful film noir siren. Rothwax had helped me in the past and would do so again, I knew, but for now I had to let him withdraw.
I knew that Barbara’s death had been planned and executed just as precisely and brutally as Tim’s. I knew as well that the setting of my ladylike trap, that crazy trick with the nonexistent letters, had been way off base. It was obvious that I was dealing not with a lovesick matron—we all would have fit that description—but with a cold-blooded murderer. I was now looking for a killer, rather than a crime.
Rothwax was halfway down the stairs when I realized I’d forgotten to ask one important question. I rushed to the landing and shouted down to him: “What happened to Swampy? Was he killed?”
“Who? His disembodied voice floated up to me.
“The cat who lived in the apartment. Barbara and Tim’s cat.”
“He’s okay. A priest took him in.”
“You don’t mean . . . Father Baer? Seventy-Second Street?”
“Sounds right,” he yelled. Then I heard the lobby door close.
I walked back into the apartment. Father Baer! But how? If no one was aware that Barbara even knew the priest, how had Swampy wound up there? My train of thought was interrupted when I caught sight of Basillio, who was aggressively pacing the floor.
***
I had improvised a spinach omelet. Tony was a little calmer after we’d eaten and come back into the living room with our brandies. We seated ourselves on the couch.
“I told you,” I said. “It wasn’t an ‘affair.’”
“What do you call it, then?” He was constantly crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“We went to bed a few times.”
“A few times. What does that mean—twice? thrice? forty-one times?”
“That’s right,” I snapped. “Forty-one times. In one day. A real Roman orgy.” I didn’t mean to, but I laughed.
“Very funny.”
“Oh, look, Tony. It just happened. The ‘affair,’ as you call it, was sudden and short. It was . . . At any rate, it really is no business of yours.”
He just stared at me, defying me to leave it at that, and knowing I wouldn’t.
“Tony, the thing with him was very . . . what? Unreal. I got completely engulfed in it, I lost myself in it while it lasted.”
“You mean the sex was great,” he said tonelessly.
“Not that—not only that. I mean that, in a strange way, it was just another function of missing Barbara, of trying to retrieve her, be her. It was almost another way to mourn her.”
“Ha! Sleeping with your dead friend’s husband is a way to mourn her? That’s one of the most interesting grieving rituals I’ve ever heard of.”
“All right, Basillio. I can’t justify what I did, and I’m not going to try. Just suffice it to say I came to regret it.”
“And what happened? Why did it end?”
“To be honest, I thought I’d discovered that he was sleeping with one of Barbara’s other friends—at least one other—at the same time.”
“God, this is getting stranger and stranger.” He got up to refill his glass. “You don’t seem to be mourning for him now. You recovered pretty quickly from the news of his death.”
“As I said, the whole relationship with him was bizarre, unreal.”
Tony continued to stand over by the stereo, lost in his resentment. He seemed to be very far away from me.
“You’re not going back to Connecticut tonight, are you?” I asked after a while. “You don’t have to, you know. You could stay. . . .”
“Yes,” he said curtly. “I am going. Soon.” We fell back into silence, until he asked: “You’re going to try to show them she was murdered, aren’t you? With or without Rothwax. And,” he added, “with or without proof.”
“Proof! Of course I have proof. There are a hundred threads of proof radiating out from her leap off that ledge. I have a murdered widower. I have reason to believe he was having an affair with one or more of her friends—before she died. I have her mysterious sessions with a priest. I have a record of Tim’s secret apartment in the Village. To my way of thinking, that’s enough proof to push twenty-seven wagonloads of cotton uphill.”
He stood there shaking his head. “I have always had great respect for you, Swede,” he said. “For your work and your passions, one of which is solving crimes. It’s admirable work, and you’re very good at it. And one of the reasons you were so good at it is that you were always able to see past the nonsense—all the extraneous stuff—and cut to the quick. You knew how to think, that’s what I’m trying to say. You could look at a fact or a person or an event and see something that no one else did. Including me. Something that was there all along.”
I began to thank him, but he held his hand up, signaling that I should hear him out first.
“But you have changed, my lovely. Ever since Barbara died, you’ve been different. And you know what you seem like now, since she died?” He timed his pause here very ni
cely. “Like a loon. Like you could pick up a tennis ball and say it’s the sun—and demand that everybody else agree. You run around crazily. You misname everything. You’re desperate and jealous and . . . nuts! If you don’t watch it, you’re going to be doing command performances at the laughing academy.”
I took a few deep breaths before I spoke. I didn’t want to say something I might regret forever. What I finally told him was: “I wouldn’t want you to miss your train, Tony. You had better leave now.”
“Swede . . .”
I picked up his grip from the floor and went over to open the door for him. I placed his bag on the landing. “Safe trip,” I said, and allowed him to kiss me quickly on the cheek before I came back in and closed the door. Given some time, this would all blow over. It always did.
I took our empty glasses in to the kitchen and tried to rinse out of my mind that ridiculous scene I’d just played with Basillio. There was so much else to focus on now.
So . . . wasn’t it sweet? Kindly Father Baer, Barbara’s confessor and coconspirator, had got himself a cat.
Chapter 18
I spotted the priest’s white hair in the small vestibule of the church. He was attaching a notice to the announcement board with a thumbtack. He seemed to be moving limberly enough now, in contrast to the rather cramped way he’d held his body during our first meeting. Perhaps he was an arthritis sufferer.
When he turned to go back into the church, I was there, blocking his way.
“Good afternoon, Father Baer. Do you remember me?”
He hesitated, as if trying to decide whether my face was familiar to him. But judging from his own face, mine was not.
“I was here some time ago—to talk to you about my friend Barbara Roman.”
He nodded then, his face clouding over. “Yes, yes . . . And now the husband.”
“I understand you have taken the Romans’ pet.”
He was startled that I knew of it. “Why, yes,” he said, a trace of hurt in his voice. “Is there something remarkable about that?”
“I wonder if I might see Swampy.”
“See him?”
“Yes. Just for a few minutes.”
“Very well. Of course. This way.”
I followed him through the church and out into a corridor. He opened a door with a key on his key ring, and then suddenly we were in the parish house. The door opened into the kitchen, and right there, on a large enameled table, yawning and blinking, was Swampy.
“He looks well,” I said, and went over to stroke him. “How did you end up with him, Father? You’ll have to admit, it’s pretty strange that Swampy should be living with you.”
I could tell the question ruffled him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when I spoke to you about Barbara, you told me quite distinctly that you didn’t know her husband Tim at all.”
“And I did not. I never met him, in fact.”
I waited for him to explain.
“One of my parishioners is the veterinarian Barbara and her husband used. It was he who told me about this tragedy. He said the cat needed a new home. And since mice are a constant worry to my housekeeper, we were happy to take the cat in. We’ve had many before.”
I took in his story. “May I ask the name of the vet?”
Father Baer’s exasperation was beginning to show. “I see no harm in your knowing. But why do you ask all these questions?”
“Habit,” I said, still fondling Swampy. “Will you give me his name, please?”
“Rich Doyle,” he finally answered. “His office is just down the block—between First and Second Avenue.”
“And did Doctor Doyle know about Barbara’s having received instruction from you?”
“No, of course not. . . . Well, not that I knew.”
“So then the whole sequence of events is just one big coincidence. Is that correct, Father? A woman with plans to become a Catholic jumps off a terrace. And then someone blows up her husband. Then the priest from whom she was receiving instruction adopts her pet, because a veterinarian who was the cat’s veterinarian just happens to be one of that same priest’s parishioners. It’s a pretty amazing story.”
“I don’t know what sort of story it is,” Baer said, moving toward the door. “I just know that Rich Doyle is my friend, and I was happy to do a favor for him.”
The priest’s voice was growing more and more distant. Quite clearly, he wanted this interview to come to a close. It hadn’t occurred to me before now that he might consider me dangerous.
“Do you remember,” I asked, “that discussion we had about her death? When you said it couldn’t have been suicide, because of Barbara’s strong faith at that time?”
“I don’t think you’re quoting me correctly.”
“Perhaps not exactly. But you were skeptical about suicide.”
“Yes. I was,” he admitted.
“Tell me again, Father, why Barbara didn’t reveal her coming conversion to her husband.”
“I suppose she didn’t want to upset him.”
“Why didn’t she tell anyone else?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she did.”
“Have you given instruction in Roman Catholicism to many people who wanted to convert?”
“Over the years, a great many.”
“Is it usual for them to keep their instruction secret?”
“I don’t think so. Most of them are not secretive. They are proud and happy. Converts are usually very enthusiastic about their decision. They are more devout than other parishioners. Their faith was not inherited but freely chosen as a result of a lot of thought.”
Swampy didn’t seem to care for our company anymore. He ambled off and started to inspect some kitchen cabinets.
I looked at Father Baer. I had never truly liked this priest. Or trusted him. Maybe because he talked in such a distracted manner. Or maybe because what he said about Barbara never seemed to have anything to do with her—as I knew her.
“You don’t like my visits, do you, Father?” I asked.
He was too polite to answer. I continued. “You don’t believe that I came here only to check up on the cat. Do you? Well, you’re probably right. Maybe I also came for conversation, Father. Because she was my friend and I loved her . . . and she was murdered.”
My voice had grown too loud and passionate. I could see the priest wince.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “I understand your grief.”
“No you don’t, Father! Because you believe in a full life after death. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“So my grief is not really comprehensible to you. At the spreading of her ashes, Father, I prayed that some part of her might survive somewhere in some form, and that that part of her would be at peace. But to tell you the truth, I don’t believe any part of us survives bodily death. Barbara was wiped out. Exterminated. There is nothing left. She’s gone forever.”
My whole body was trembling. I had to get ahold of myself. This visit to Swampy was getting out of hand.
“Would you like some water?” The priest asked.
“Holy water?” I quipped.
“No. From that sink.”
Swampy had returned from his expedition. He looked bored. I wondered if there really were mice in the parish house. I wondered if the parish house used cat-sitting services.
“You think,” Father Baer said wearily, “that I had some kind of special relationship with your friend. That I can tell you something that will be of great importance in understanding how or why she died. But I didn’t know her well.”
“How can that be? You converted her.”
“No, I didn’t. I gave her instruction. You are way off base. You seem to have an old-fashioned vis
ion of me as some kind of St. Paul. But Barbara had already made her leap of faith before she contacted me. All I had to do was explain the history and purpose of the sacraments . . . the Church . . . the priesthood. We didn’t have any deep discussions on God and Man. Do you understand?”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
“Look. . . . She would ask specific questions about the Mass or the Pope or Thomas Aquinas or Canon Law. But we never really had an intimate philosophical discussion.” He paused and stared at Swampy. “Well, maybe once.”
“About what?”
“She quoted a saying to me from some obscure Catholic writer. She said it was that particular quote, which she had read as a young woman, which made her conversion inevitable years later.”
“What was the phrase?”
“I don’t remember exactly. It was something like: ‘At any point in time, one half of all creation is being nailed to a cross.’”
I tried to digest it. What a depressing statement!
“Did you talk about it with her, Father?”
“Yes,” Father Baer admitted, “we talked about the inevitability of suffering. We also talked about the redemptive power of suffering.”
“You mean the one half of creation now on the cross redeems the other half?”
“Yes. And themselves.”
Father Baer reached out and pulled Swampy’s left ear gently. It was the first overtly kindly gesture I had seen him make toward the cat. Swampy ignored him.
“My grandmother would have liked that saying,” I noted.
“Was she Catholic?”
“No. She was nothing, as far as I could tell. She never went to church in her life. At least, not that I remember.”
It was odd how once again the mere mention of Barbara had led to memories of my grandmother.
“But you said that the problem of suffering absorbed her?”
“Did I say that? Well, I didn’t mean that specifically. My grandmother had a small leather Bible. Red leather. But she never took it out and never read it unless someone was sick. Animal or human or plant. If I was sick or a neighbor was sick, or a cat or a dog or a milk cow was sick, or a corn planting was infested—out would come that little red Bible.”
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