Murder Takes a Partner

by Haughton Murphy

  Frost’s calls were perfunctory; he was getting hungry, and this was not a time to hear the Board members’ theories about the future direction of NatBallet. He did tell each of those he called that he proposed to place Arne Petersen in acting charge of the Company, and all he talked to concurred. After another call to Howard to make sure he had not found any opposition to Petersen, Frost rang up the Assistant Artistic Director at home to inform him of the decision. The young man seemed to want to talk, so Frost finally asked him to come for dinner. Petersen declined, but said that he would like to come over afterward if that would not be too late. Frost assured him that it would not.

  Dinner was ready by the time Reuben had finished his calls, so he and Cynthia took their places in the dining room. It was a large room, its centerpiece an enormous slate-gray marble table. The table seated fourteen easily—one of Reuben’s business friends called the setting the “boardroom.” But Cynthia and Reuben, as was their custom, sat side by side at one end. They did not eat in the dining room out of any sense of formal propriety; their kitchen was quite small, and eating there was simply not very comfortable.

  “Well,” Cynthia said, once she had placed the food on the table and sat down. “Just like the old days at Chase & Ward. Work until all hours and then eat and go to bed.”

  “My dear, your memory really is failing you,” Reuben replied. “You might just recall that most of the nights when we ate late and went immediately to bed were due to your performances, not my work. My work schedule was always a model of calm and certitude, as compared with yours.”

  “Not my recollection, dear; but let’s talk about Clifton. Tell me exactly what happened. The news report on television wasn’t very clear.”

  Frost did so, telling her of the alleyway stabbing, the chase of the attacker by a resident of the next-door apartment building, the capture of Jimmy Wilson and the death of Clifton Holt on the Tyler Hospital operating table.

  “We’re sure this Jimmy Wilson did it?”

  “I don’t think there’s any question about it. Luis Bautista called the precinct house. The kid is twenty, a heroin addict with a record of violence. Just one of those awful, fateful meetings.”

  “But why Clifton? And why at the stage door? There are robberies around that theatre all the time, but I’ve never heard of a robbery—let alone a murder—in the stage-door alley. It’s a cul-de-sac. And Clifton, of all people. He never carried anything valuable. He never even wore a watch, always asking the people around him for the time. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “How was his assailant to know that Holt was a cheapskate?” Frost asked. “Since Clifton wasn’t carrying any money, the kid was probably so enraged that he stabbed him.”

  “Probably so. But what a horrible mess. Though maybe …”

  “Maybe what, Cynthia?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that Clifton had become so difficult lately. Look at the ballet he was working on when he died. Chávez Concerto! Utterly impossible, yet no one could tell Clifton that. His body of work is marvelous, Reuben, but there hasn’t been anything really good since that little Mozart piece three years ago,”

  “You’re right. Though I liked his Aaron Copland ballet last year better than you did,” Reuben said.

  “Fiddlesticks. But back to Clifton. I’m sure he had not been happy in recent years. He was always a very reserved man—I don’t mean just a reserve about women, but a reserve about human beings in general—which meant you never really could be close friends with him. But lately, not only had he been withdrawn, but he had developed some real hatreds—Andrea Turnbull is understandable, but Gerald Hazard and Arne Petersen—why did he dislike them so? Why was he trying to stand in the way of their advancement?”

  “I hate to think, Cynthia. Could it be as simple as the fact that Gerald and Arne are straight and Clifton was not?”

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “Clifton’s sex life was certainly confused and went off in all directions, but I never once thought it interfered with his work. But maybe it did.”

  “And what about Jack Navikoff? He seemed to be the only person close to Clifton at all in recent months,” Reuben said. “He was at the hospital, by the way. Looking and acting, with that suntan of his, like a terra cotta sphinx. No emotion at all. Just there, taking everything in but saying nothing.”

  “I’ve never figured him out. I’ve just assumed Clifton and Jack were lovers; I don’t have a complete sixth sense about such things, but I’m sure those two were.”

  “I agree.”

  “But it was more than that. Clifton and Jack were business partners, after all—and very successful ones, Clifton directing and choreographing those movies that Navikoff produced,” Cynthia said. “They got very rich, the two of them. Speaking of which, who gets Clifton’s money?”

  “Funny you should ask. I am Clifton’s executor, if you remember,” Reuben said.

  “That’s why I asked.”

  “As far as I know, Teresa gets everything, except for the rights to some of the ballets and a specific bequest to Navikoff. I say ‘as far as I know’ because that’s what the will he sent me ten years ago said. He may well have changed it—something I’ll have to find out from Melvin Lincoln tomorrow. He never discussed anything personal with me from the time he first asked me to be his executor.”

  “Why do you think he asked you, anyway?”

  “I’ve never been sure. But he did know us—you longer and better than me—and I think trusted us. And we’re older and outside the orbit of his agent, his show-biz lawyers, his publicist and all those other hangers-on—including Navikoff—from his Hollywood days. I think I was meant to be the respectable WASP lawyer who would keep the parasites from dissipating his estate. Do you have a better idea?”

  “No,” Cynthia said. “I think you’re exactly right. It’s one thing to leave Navikoff money in the will, but quite another to let him control the estate and Clifton’s ballets.”

  “The one subsequent conversation I ever had with Clifton was about his ballets and who should tend to the licensing of them—a job I really am quite incapable of doing. He said I should do it—consulting with you.”

  “Good heavens. We’ll have to answer all those wonderful letters: ‘Dear Mr. Frost, we are a new ballet company in Highland Falls, Montana. While we have only been in existence for three months, we would like very much to perform Mr. Clifton Holt’s ballet Paganini Variations for our spring concert’…”

  “No, I don’t think so. Clifton’s agent, Morris Brooks, will take care of letters like that. The real problem will come when perfectly sound companies want to do works that are not suited for their dancers or their capabilities. But try to tell that to some of the egomaniacs out there,” Frost said, motioning in the general direction of the Hudson River.

  The doorbell rang as Frost was talking.

  “That must be Arne,” Frost said, as he went downstairs to open the door. He returned in a moment with Arne Petersen.

  Petersen had become a good friend of the Frosts almost from the time of his arrival from Denmark. A product of the Royal Danish Ballet, he was a dancer of the Bournonville school and had been imported by NatBallet for that reason. Blond and handsome but a trifle on the short side, he had been a very good, but never truly outstanding, dancer. His true forte had turned out to be coaching the small but interesting Bournonville repertory danced by NatBallet. Gradually—no dancer really ever wants to quit outright—he had stopped dancing in favor of coaching, and as his natural skills as a coach developed, he had been appointed Assistant Artistic Director under Clifton Holt.

  Petersen sat down at the Frost dinner table and accepted a cup of coffee. Reuben now reminded him of their early meetings when Petersen had first arrived in the United States and, indeed, had stayed with the Frosts.

  “Arne, as I told you on the phone, the directors are unanimous in wanting you to take over as the acting head of NatBallet,” Frost said.

  “Reuben, that’s very kind. Very kind
indeed. And I should be honored and flattered to do so. On the other hand, I should be realistic. You really don’t have any choice, do you?”

  Frost was silent for a minute. “You’re right, we don’t. But I was trying to convey to you, old friend, the confidence the Board has in you.”

  “Excellent. And how long will it last? Next you’ll be appointing a search committee to find a permanent Director—oh, yes, I’ll be on the short list as the hometown favorite. But then there will be the marvelous director of a ballet school over a Rite-Aid Drugstore in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Never ran a ballet company, mind you, and never lived in New York City. But he is simply darling and must receive our attention. I can see it now.…”

  “That’s awfully cynical, Arne,” Cynthia said.

  “… Or the wonderful fellow who’s the terrific fund-raiser. Doesn’t know too much about the ballet—there’s even one rumor that he’s never seen one—but is he ever good with the blue-hairs and the fat cats.”

  “What on earth makes you think our Board would act that way?” Frost asked indignantly.

  “Because I’ve seen it, Reuben. I’ve seen these search committees and whom they’ve picked. And whom they didn’t pick—myself included.”

  “Arne, I had no idea. Have others been looking you over?” Cynthia asked.

  “Sure. I’m an obvious target. Moderately successful (though not so successful that I cost too much), nice foreign and New York credentials. And growing ever more restless in the shadow of Clifton Holt.”

  “Arne, we’ve known you for a very long time,” Frost said.

  “Going back to when I couldn’t even tale Engelsk,” Petersen added.

  “That’s right. And I don’t think either of us had any idea you were looking around at other companies,” Frost said.

  “I wasn’t looking around. People came to me. Naturally I never said anything about it. Why should I? Whatever competition I was in, the fund-raising smarties or those with artistic pretensions would win. No point in talking about leaving until there’s a real alternative.”

  “But you went to these interviews?”

  “Hell, yes. Questions by the hour. Questions by the yard. ‘Mr. Petersen, now that you have left Denmark, how do you really feel about the Royal Danish Ballet?’ ‘Do you know Peter Martins?’ ‘Do you know him well?’ Which I always took to be a way of asking whether Peter could help me in getting the rights to perform Balanchine ballets. Or, before he retired as a dancer, whether I could entice him to East Jesus to be the guest artist—for one night—in the Christmas Nutcracker.”

  “And this was all unsolicited?” Frost asked, somewhat incredulously. (He was aware of “headhunters” and high-class employment agencies and, God knows, search committees, but he had not associated such hyper-powered operations with the selection of ballet directors; as Petersen told his tale, he realized that the flesh market operated in this field as in any other.)

  “Yes, always. Cynthia, you know what NatBallet means to me. I never would have considered leaving it. Except …”

  “Except, Arne?” Cynthia prompted.

  “Except Clifton had become so difficult. He took charge of everything—casting, programming, coaching, you name it. I didn’t have a say in anything. And for over a year at least I’ve been completely frozen out. Sure, when Clifton went off to Morocco on vacation, I was in charge. Managing the Company for two weeks in the dog days of the season—half the company injured, the other half exhausted. A great chance to put one’s stamp on the Company. I don’t know why Clifton took a dislike to me. He had been my mentor as a ballet master and as an administrator; then he started to freeze me out—and kept me frozen out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cynthia said. “I suppose I should have known.”

  “I was ready for a new search committee—Tucson, Butte, Buffalo, Myrtle Beach—you name it, I was ready.”

  “But now you have a chance for real development,” Frost said.

  “Reuben, you’ve said that. And I’m grateful. All I can hope is that your search committee agrees. But we’ll see what we see.”

  Petersen sprang from the table, kissed both Cynthia and Reuben on the cheek and disappeared. Having once lived in the house, he knew the way out.

  Reuben and Cynthia cleared the dishes off the marble dining-room table, then paused for a short while in the living room before going to bed.

  “It’s been a long day,” Reuben said, as he sank down into the living-room sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table (a practice his wife disapproved of, but was resigned to after forty years of marriage).

  “And a sad one,” Cynthia answered.

  “Yes. Very sad. Clifton was an S.O.B., Cynthia, in many, many ways. But a genius nonetheless.”

  “Absolutely correct,” Cynthia replied, then fell silent for a minute or two. Reuben did nothing to break her reverie. Then she spoke again:

  “You know, Reuben, if Clifton had to die—had to be killed—it’s just as well that it was a street-corner hoodlum who did it. Can you imagine the mess if he had died ‘under suspicious circumstances,’ as they say in murder mysteries? The number of suspects would be almost as large as the Company’s corps de ballet.”

  “Well, like who, Cynthia?” Frost asked, knowing full well that his wife was right but trying to conceal it.

  “Like the young man who just left, Arne Petersen. Willing to consider going to Tucson, for heaven’s sake, to get away from Clifton Holt. Or Holt’s put-upon wife, betrayed once a night and twice on matinee days. Or your psychotic friend Andrea Turnbull. Or Veronica Maywood, rejected in bed and about to be humiliated by Clifton professionally as well. And I’m sure we’ve just scratched the surface.”

  “You’re right, as usual,” Frost replied, as he drained his glass and got up to head for bed. “But there’s no itch, so don’t scratch.”

  “Yes, dear. But all I can say is this Jimmy Wilson prevented an absolute outbreak of the hives.”

  6

  SEARCHING AROUND

  Reuben Frost, despite the exertions of the previous day, was up early Tuesday morning. Over his long legal career he had assumed a variety of roles: director, trustee, arbitrator, even guardian in the case of the minor children of a young colleague who had died suddenly. But as best he could recall, he had never before served as the executor of an estate.

  The normal practice, as he had always understood it from his trusts-and-estates partners at Chase & Ward, was to appoint a member of one’s family (as Reuben had appointed Cynthia in the case of his own estate) as the executor. Or, failing that, one might name a bank, a close friend or, quite frequently, a member of the law firm that had drawn up the will.

  Clifton Holt, with his usual defiance of convention, had not followed the customary course. Given their cold relationship, it was not surprising that he had bypassed his wife, Teresa. But it was odd that he had not named Melvin Lincoln, his personal lawyer at Lincoln & Gold, the entertainment law firm that represented him on a regular basis, especially since Lincoln had prepared the will. Instead he had named Reuben, which he had announced by sending Frost a copy of his will with a curt handwritten message saying that Frost should note that he was named in it as Holt’s executor. Frost had subsequently tried to discuss the matter with Holt, but had never had a truly satisfactory conversation on the subject.

  “Reuben, if you’re willing to serve, I would be pleased,” Holt had said. “I know you’ll do whatever’s necessary.” That was it. No special instructions or requests at all.

  Having never heard to the contrary, he assumed that his appointment was still in effect. This he confirmed by calling Melvin Lincoln, whom he arranged to meet later that morning.

  After breakfast Frost took a taxi to West Fifty-seventh Street, where the offices of Lincoln & Gold were located. He had never been there before and was startled, as he entered the offices on the forty-fifth floor of a new office building, at the breathtaking view of Central Park from the reception-area windows—and the extraordinar
y garishness of the interior walls. He guessed that they were painted in “Nancy Reagan red,” or something very close to it.

  Melvin Lincoln came out to greet his visitor personally. Frost had come to know Lincoln slightly over the years, having encountered him at numerous benefits and cultural events and, more than once, at parties at Holt’s duplex apartment. A tall man, he was always immensely cheerful in a gruff, street-smart way.

  The two men did, however, have different strategies for confronting advancing age. Frost did it head-on and au naturel (helped in this regard by a full head of gray hair)—he used no unguents, sprays or preservatives. Melvin Lincoln, by contrast, seemed determined to use every man-made helper possible to stay the hand of nature—reddish hair dye, the sunlamp and (Frost was pretty sure) the ministrations of a plastic surgeon. The ironic result was to make Lincoln, at sixty-six, appear older than Frost at seventy-five.

  Lincoln and Frost shook hands cordially in the lobby and Lincoln guided his guest to a corner suite, where the view encompassed not only Central Park but the Hudson River as well.

  “Quite a panorama you have, Melvin,” Frost remarked.

  “Nice, eh?” Lincoln said. “Have a seat, Reuben.”

  Frost and Lincoln sat down on opposite sides of a coffee table at one end of the spacious office.

  “What an awful thing about Clifton,” Lincoln said. “Sometimes I think the crazies have taken over in this town.”

  “I know. It’s true.”

  “Did the papers have the right story—murdered by a junkie?”

  “Yes, that’s it. A black named Jimmy Wilson.”

  “Terrible. Have you talked to Teresa?”

  “Yes. She’s in California. Sausalito. But I got in touch with her last night. She’s flying back today.”

  “What a goddamn morass.”

  “How do you mean?” Frost asked.

  “I’ll explain it to you as we go along,” Lincoln said. He picked up a file from the coffee table and pulled out a blue-backed copy of Holt’s will. “Here’s the will,” he said, handing the copy to Frost.