Husbands And Lap Dogs Breathe Their Last

by David Steven Rappoport

  He looked at his watch and realized that he was due soon at Otto’s.

  Otto Verissimo lived in the Prairie Avenue Historic District, the section of the near South Side that housed Chicago’s wealthiest families in the late nineteenth century. Today the area is part of Chicago’s South Loop. Where there were once mansions, there are now condominia, though a few of the old mansions remain. Otto lived in one of these, a house commonly known by architectural preservationists, of which there are many in Chicago, as the Ogalala Castle. A gothic curiosity, it was built in 1894 by Harrison Glendenning, a patent medicine magnate, and his wife.

  Mrs. Glendenning designed the home herself after the famous Chicago architect Louis Sullivan refused to work with her. Her taste was more exuberant than informed; it was based on one grand tour of the Continent and a small collection of stereopticon slides. Local architectural historians often write that the house is a poor example of late Gothic Revival, but what they really mean is that it’s a monstrosity. Its facade is a cacophony of arches, flying buttresses, stained glass, martyrs and gargoyles. The interior is primarily ebony, so pervasive and dark that masses of electric light have little noticeable effect.

  In 1920 all but one of the Glendennings perished in a boating accident on Lake Michigan. Only Ogalala Glendenning, ten years old at the time, survived by clinging to her mother’s lifeless but buoyant body. Ogalala was so traumatized that she never spoke a word again. She died in 1985 without heirs, and the house deteriorated until Otto and Sebastian purchased it in 1990.

  It is difficult to say what attracted Otto and Sebastian to the Castle. One likes to imagine that Mrs. Glendenning’s passionate lack of discernment struck them as the perfect complement for Otto’s artless but heartfelt prose. However, this assumes a self-awareness that artists, particularly bad ones, rarely possess. More likely, Otto saw the grand where others saw the garish, and to keep the peace, Sebastian went along with Otto’s vision.

  During a three-year rehabilitation, Otto and Sebastian updated the wiring and plumbing, put in a functional kitchen and generally restored the house to its original state of pseudo-historical Gothic hysteria. It had been their home since.

  This was, of course, Cummings’s first visit to the Castle. As all new visitors are, he was a bit overwhelmed by its strange combination of ostentation and gloom. He approached the front door and depressed the buzzer. This resulted in an anemic electronic chirp.

  The hobbit-like creature, last seen photographing Otto at the Mathers Society, opened the door. Cummings noticed he was wearing the same kilt and yarmulke. The man raised his frizzled ginger eyebrows in greeting and spoke in a thick Scottish accent.

  “Guid morning! Hou’s aw wi ye? Are ye famischt?”

  Cummings did not have any idea what had just been said to him. Fortunately, the man raised his arm in a gesture of welcome, and Cummings understood he was being invited to enter.

  Cummings found himself in a large entry hall with marble floors in a morose gray, ceilings a slightly lighter shade of the same color and darkly stained paneling on the walls. A collection of mounted stuffed heads—lion, elk, tiger and cheetah—hung high up on the paneling. These creatures seemed to gaze down intensely, as if to remind visitors that they might end up as lunch. A massive chandelier illuminated the space, but only enough to allow for a cautious passage further into the house. Otto Verissimo stood nearby wearing a vivid lilac smoking jacket.

  “This is quite a house,” Cummings said.

  “Do you like it? I think of it as something between a castle and a cathedral, sort of a relic of the true schloss,” he said in a vaporous voice, smirking at his obscure pun.

  “Did you shoot those yourself?” Cummings asked playfully.

  “Sebastian’s grandfather did. He was a shooting buddy of Ernest Hemingway.”

  “Was he?”

  “I’m afraid so. Sebastian insisted we put them up. Mandrake, tea in the Parlor of the Orchids, I think.”

  Mandrake nodded and scurried off.

  “That gentleman—I assume he’s your assistant?”

  “Mandrake is my personal assistant. I find him quite delightful, but perhaps I should warn you that some people find him a bit odd,” Otto confided to Cummings as he led him down the hall. “It seems Mandrake was born in Scotland, but he was taken as a small child to Minnesota, where he was raised by religious Jews. The rest is lost in the mists of his personal history.”

  A miniature poodle appeared in the hallway, groomed, as all self-respecting poodles are, to resemble the topiary at Versailles. It approached Otto with a certain haughtiness and stood by his side. Otto’s husband, whom Cummings remembered from the Mathers meeting, followed a few moments later.

  “This is Barbara Cartland,” Otto announced, indicating the poodle. Barbara approached Cummings and imperiously sniffed his crotch. “And this is my husband, Sebastian Grinnell.”

  “I remember seeing you at the Mathers event. It’s tragic what happened,” Sebastian said, extending his hand to Cummings with a well-practiced professional smile. They shook. “You must excuse me. I’m late for a meeting.” He leaned over and kissed Otto. “I’ll be home early,” he said and walked toward the front door.

  What kind of man introduces his dog before his husband? Cummings wondered, while he said, “I think I’ve heard the name Barbara Cartland. She was some kind of writer, wasn’t she?”

  “She was the most successful writer of romance novels the world has ever known! She passed over in 2000. She’s very much missed.”

  Otto stopped in front of a pair of heavy oak doors and flung them open. Inside was another dark room, primarily illuminated by colored light filtering in through various stained glass windows. The room was painted red and featured a massive stone fireplace carved with scenes of assorted Christian martyrs meeting horrible deaths. The room was populated with heavy Jacobean furniture, on every flat surface of which were massed various species of black orchids.

  “Please sit down,” Otto said as Mandrake wheeled a silver teacart into the room and left. His camera hung from a cord around his neck.

  “Tea?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like some rugelach? Mandrake bakes it fresh every morning.”

  As he sipped his tea and munched on prune rugelach, Mandrake took several photos.

  “You don’t mind a few pictures, do you? We like to document everything I do. It’s so useful for publicity.”

  Cummings observed a carved bookcase nearby. All the books displayed appeared to be Otto’s: hard covers, paperbacks, translations, special deluxe editions and box sets.

  “You must be quite prolific,” Cummings said.

  “Barbara Cartland published seven hundred twenty-three books in her lifetime, and she left another one hundred fifty manuscripts behind. I’ve only managed eighty-four novels to date. Years ago I wrote rather conventional heterosexual romances, but in the last few years I’ve been blessed to pioneer the gay historical romance sub-genre.”

  “I understand you’re quite popular. My friend Luther is very fond of your books.”

  “Is he?” Otto said with a hint of a smile. He stood and yanked twice on a velvet bell pull near the door. A few moments later, Mandrake appeared, wheeling another silver cart. This one contained neatly piled stacks of hard cover books.

  “Perhaps he’d like an autographed copy of my latest, The Hirsute Cavalier. Luther, was it?”

  Otto picked up a fountain pen from the cart. He elegantly inscribed a volume and handed it to Cummings.

  “Thank you,” Cummings said. “I’m sure he will be delighted.”

  “You’re quite welcome.” Otto nodded his head in Mandrake’s direction, who understood this to be his cue to exit the room.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked to meet with you,” Otto said as soon as Mandrake was gone. “I want you to find the brooch.”

  “Do you mean the pendant the victim was wearing?”

  “Yes. It’s called the
Craddock Brooch. Somehow it disappeared in the fire.”

  “Why are you interested in it?”

  “It’s a cherished pagan reliquary, a piece of Ida Craddock’s leg bone. Pagan reliquaries are quite rare, you know. It’s mostly the Catholics who go in for that sort of thing.”

  “How do you know it’s disappeared?”

  Otto seemed startled by the question. “It wasn’t on the body, nor was it in the room. People looked for it.”

  “How is it possible anyone could have searched? The fire spread very quickly. No one would have had time.”

  “Someone snuck in and searched that night,” Otto explained with slight hesitation. This led Cummings to wonder if he was making the plot line up on the spot.

  “Why would someone take that risk?”

  “As I said, the brooch is rare. I assure you that it’s gone. Can you help us?”

  “Perhaps. May I ask you some questions? How well did you know the victim?”

  Before Otto could respond Mandrake entered the room and said something to Otto that was incomprehensible, at least to Cummings.

  “Oh, my! Apparently I am terribly late for an appointment,” Otto announced. “I’m counting on you, Cummings. You must help. You must. I’ll be in contact.”

  “But I have a number of questions ...”

  “We’ll chat again soon!”

  Mandrake showed Cummings to the door.

  Cummings spent the afternoon following up leads for consulting jobs. None led to work. Subsequently he made a simple chicken and pasta dish, timed for Odin’s arrival home from work.

  “How was your day?” Cummings asked as Odin walked in.

  “Another day in the salt mines,” Odin said in a dejected tone.

  “Did something happen?”

  “I really don’t want to talk just now,” Odin said, pouring himself a Scotch.

  Cummings let it go. They ate their dinner in silence.

  Later the phone rang.

  “Ernestine here. Is that you, Cummings?” a crisp female voice said. It was Ernestine Cutter, Cumming’s only real friend in Horeb, Maine.

  Ernestine was an elderly upper class New Englander, patrician and practical, stolid and well mannered. She was always polite but kept loaded guns in both of her Georgian sideboards.

  She had been born a Biederman, one of Horeb’s founding families, and was raised in the village. However, as a child she spent a lot of time with relatives in more remote parts of the state. This accounted for her vestigial Downeast accent, the disappearing patois of rural Maine. Except for these rural sojourns and attendance at Smith College, Ernestine had spent all of her seventy-odd years in Horeb. She had married Horeb’s wealthiest citizen, Benjamin Cutter. Mister Cutter, as Ernestine referred to him when a reference to him couldn’t be avoided, turned out to be a bore, a drunk and a pedophile, and not even in that order. Fortunately, she was now a widow.

  As far as Cummings could tell, she had a great deal of money and the apparent forgiveness of her neighbors for her husband’s heinous acts. The price was a remorse that never left her.

  She persevered as best she could. She read travel books, though she rarely travelled, as well as detective novels, though she and Cummings had solved the great crime of both of their lives: the murder of her son, Terry, her only child, with whom Cummings had had a long relationship.

  “Ernestine, how nice to hear from you!”

  “Perhaps not, dear. I am the bearer of wicked bad news. Chess Biederman is dead. They found his body in a boat.”

  “Really?” Cummings said, surprised.

  “He disappeared in the fall and everyone thought the worst. Still, it cannot help but give you a grue when you rip the winter covering off of a dinghy and find a body, even these days when one is surprised only when nothing awful happens.”

  “Were you the one that found him?”

  “No, dear. Elektra Philemon did. She’s Deuteronomy Smelt’s housekeeper. Did you ever meet him?”

  “I heard about him. He’s a recluse, isn’t he? A writer of some sort.”

  “He used to write spy novels under the name of Nash Hammer. Elektra is his housekeeper. She and some local boys found the body. She didn’t react well. I guess that’s to be expected if your name is Elektra. One of the boys came to the house to get me right after they found Chess.”

  “Where was the boat?”

  “On my land. I’ve allowed Deuty to keep his boat at my place for some years now. His books don’t sell like they once did. It’s no trouble to do it. It’s just an old broken down lobster boat. It’s moored to my dock during the summer, and we raise it onto the land during the winter.”

  “Why does he keep a boat if he’s a recluse?”

  “He likes the water. He just doesn’t like to talk to people while he’s floating on it. They say he goes out late at night with Elektra.”

  “I assume the death is suspicious?”

  “Of course it’s suspicious.”

  “Any word yet on the police investigation?”

  “Officer Bernier’s working on it.” Bernier was a local sheriff of whom neither was overly fond. “He hasn’t used the word murder, but a pterodactyl is not a tabby cat, even if they both have teeth. Word is there’s going to be an autopsy. Anyway, you knew Chess, and I thought you’d want to be told.”

  It was true. Cummings did want to be told, but the reason was curiosity, not a deep connection to the deceased. Cummings barely knew Chess Biederman.

  The first time they’d met, Chess had been sitting in what looked to Cummings to be a small armoire or perhaps a large pie safe, except that it didn’t quite resemble either. It was oblong, about the size of a large refrigerator—perhaps six feet high, two feet wide and three-feet deep. It was constructed, or at least finished, in varnished wood. Its door was presently closed.

  “What is that you’re sitting in?” Cummings had asked.

  “An orgone accumulator, sometimes called an orgone box,” Chess responded. “I design and build them. Have you ever heard of Wilhelm Reich?

  “No.”

  “He invented them,” Chess explained. “He was a psychiatrist, one of Freud’s disciples, and a renegade. He lived in Maine from the mid-1940s to the late ‘50s. Then the government threw him in prison, where he died. The theory is that by sitting in here for a half-hour a day, you accumulate life energy and vitality.”

  “And have you become more alive and vital?”

  “Of course. I ejaculate with the force of a steam engine.”

  Their subsequent interactions had been sporadic but no less eccentric.

  Drifting back to the present, Cummings exclaimed to Ernestine, “That’s where I heard it!”

  “Heard what?”

  “Wilhelm Reich. He invented the orgone box.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, dear. I don’t go in much for psychology. Life is hard enough without trying to understand why some people have to make it so much harder for everybody else,” Ernestine said.

  “When is the funeral?”

  “The police still have the body, but the word is they will release it soon. I imagine next week. I’ll let you know when I know.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Cummings said.

  Chapter Five

  Deuteronomy Smelt was retired now. He’d penned thirty-six thrillers under the name Nash Hammer. The first, The Gun with the Platinum Woman, had narrowly missed The New York Times Bestseller List in 1957. The last, Tomorrow, Your Breasts, was quickly remaindered in 2001. His current royalty checks, when they arrived, were hardly worth depositing. Still, between what little he’d saved from television and film sales, and money left to him by an aunt, he managed to get by.

  Deuteronomy was more intelligent than talented and more strategic than adaptable. The 1950s and early 1960s had served him well, as they were full of memes he understood: gin, Communism, prosperity, seduction. By the 1970s he was struggling but keeping up, substituting marijuana for martinis, adding computers into his
espionage toolkit and creating female characters with a diminished sense of moral order and extraordinarily large breasts.

  By the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, the thrill had gone out of his thrillers. International terrorism, with its lack of nuance, held no interest for Deuteronomy. It lacked the vigor of Ernest Hemingway, the intrigue of Eric Ambler, the moral ambivalence of Graham Greene—even the testosterone of Mickey Spillane. Deuteronomy was a man who understood thinking twenty moves ahead in a struggle with Russian espionage. He did not understand the new world order in which ideological zealots wished only to blow up the game board.

  Like Ernestine Cutter, Deuteronomy was born and raised in Horeb, the only child of an imperious English teacher who was widowed young. She insisted on unaccented American speech. Whatever tendencies Deuteronomy had toward a Downeast accent were drilled out of him.

  He was now a widower and had a daughter who lived half a continent away. He rarely saw her. He didn’t see much of Elektra either, who had been his housekeeper for many years and lived in the house. In fact he saw little of anyone. Since his wife Edwina’s death about a decade earlier, he had gone out less and less. It was more a matter of disinterest than depression.

  In the last few years he emerged only at night, usually in the summer, to take midnight boat rides. Otherwise, unless it was essential, he saw no one and spoke to no one. He relied on Elektra to manage all the practical elements of the household and his life. When communication was necessary, he often used postcards. There was no particular rationale for this idiosyncrasy. It was just what he did.

  Deuteronomy had inherited the house, a large Victorian, from his mother. Her grandfather, a sea captain, had built the house in 1848. The sea captain had been wealthy, and the house reflected this. It had many large rooms on three floors plus a full attic, with a grand staircase in the middle ornately carved from Maine maple. Unfortunately, the sea captain’s descendants were not wealthy, and they had struggled to provide the maintenance that such a house required. The home was still grand but had long since become shabby.