by Peter Quinn
She poured herself more tea, added a drop of cream, stirred. “And then he … he asked me to marry him.” Bowing her head and lifting her apron to her face, she let out three anguished, muffled sobs.
It took her several minutes to compose herself. Finally, she wiped her eyes and had several sips of tea. “I’m sorry to be so emotional.”
“Please, don’t apologize. I can imagine how difficult this is for you.”
“It was all so absurd. A simple man who’d been affected by the war, Fred was so unlike Joe. That’s why I was touched. It was the kindest gesture of support I’d received. Silly, of course, but deeply caring.”
“How’d he take your refusal?”
“It was a gesture, Mr. Dunne. Fred was already married. I believe he had a daughter. He never expected me to say yes. He felt sorry for me, that’s all. I told him how grateful I was, but even if I never saw Joe again, he’d always be my husband. Fred understood. He said that if I ever needed anything, I should call. I’ve no idea what happened to him after that. I hope he had a happy life and, if he’s still alive, enjoying the company of his daughter and her children. He deserved to be happy.”
She began to clear the dishes. “I’m afraid that’s all I have time for. I can’t imagine I’ve been much help.”
“Let me do this,” Dunne said.
“Thank you. Just put them in the sink. I’m going to freshen up.”
“One more thing. That detective who visited you in Lake Belvedere.”
“What about him?”
“The police were skeptical.”
“Skeptical? I wouldn’t have minded them being skeptical. Demeaning, insulting, condescending is more like it. Not satisfied to attack the notion that the person who visited me was a real detective, they spread the word that I was out of my mind, a wounded wife driven over the edge by the pressures put upon her by her husband’s disappearance. I must have been under the influence of alcohol and sedatives, a hysteric lost in her own ‘deluded fantasies.’”
“I was impressed with how vividly you remembered his visit.”
“It was burned into my mind. It still is.”
“But the police could find no corroborating evidence?”
“They didn’t try.”
“Did they ask you to look at photographs of detectives?”
“They threw some random photos on the table, and when I couldn’t identify any of them, they were done. They never had any intention of pursuing the matter seriously. It cut too close to the bone. They knew, I suspect, that the detective was acting on behalf of the political higher-ups, trying to get me to be the scapegoat and put an end to the whole affair. They probably thought it would be easy. But I wouldn’t go along. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready. I don’t want to be late for work.”
She went into the bathroom. He cleared the dishes and rinsed them in the sink, emptied and washed the teapot. What if Fred Kipps’s marriage proposal was no mere gesture? Then he had a motive for wanting her husband off the scene. But it was a big leap to believe he put together a scheme that he carried out alone, flawlessly, disposing of a body and a cab by himself. And if his desire for Stella Crater had been the motive, why would he walk away so readily, without a murmur, when the woman he committed murder in order to possess rejected him?
Exiting the bathroom, she pulled a chair to the hall closet, stood on it, and rummaged through the linens on the top shelf. She extracted a small wooden box with a hinged lid.
“Can I give you a hand?” Dunne said.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She carefully stepped off and returned the chair to its place.
He removed his coat and hat from an oak stand that looked as though it might have stood in Joe’s chambers. “I’ll walk back with you, if that’s all right.”
“That’s fine.” She held the box in her cupped hands. “You read everything I wrote?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I left one detail out.”
“What’s that?”
“It happened a good deal later, when I’d sold the cabin and was gathering our old clothes, Joe’s and mine, to donate to the thrift store run by the Methodist church. Going through the pockets, I extracted raffle tickets, matchbooks and the like, small mementos of the life we’d shared. The last item of clothing was the dress I’d worn the day of the detective’s visit. Sickened by its associations, I was surprised I hadn’t already given it away or thrown it on the fire. Hurriedly, I went through the pockets, and I found this.”
She laid the box on the table and removed what looked like a handkerchief wrapped in cellophane. “At first I didn’t realize what it was. I almost threw it away.” She peeled away the cellophane: it was a handkerchief. She placed it in her palm. “Remember?”
“Remember what?”
“I was crying. He offered me his handkerchief. I didn’t take it.”
“He offered it again?”
“I accepted.”
“And he forgot to ask for it back?”
“Here it is. I forgot at first I even had it.” She moved her hand up and down, as though it was a weighing pan. “Once I realized what it was, I felt a great relief. They’d almost convinced me I was mad, delusional. Now, I had proof I wasn’t.”
Joe’s Steeplechase-Jack smile loomed directly behind her head. Although she clung to her view of Joe as a modern-day Sir Galahad, at some level she had to know the truth of the allegations against him. Small, spare, immaculately clean, the room testified to all she’d lost: husband, wealth, summer cottage, chauffeur, certainty of growing old with a man she loved and trusted. Everything had been stripped away. She cradled the plain, white handkerchief in her hands as if it were a sacred relic, a holy piece of cloth, like Veronica’s veil, that could heal the ache of all that had been taken from her.
Instead of pointing out that such a nondescript handkerchief proved nothing, that it might have belonged to anyone, he said, “How’d the police react when you showed it to them?”
“Show it to them? So they could destroy or lose it? Or more likely, claim that I got it from someone else and it proved nothing more than my capacity to cling to fantasies?” She started sobbing again, exposing the raw pain that time hadn’t healed or even lessened. “It’s mine.” Gulping air, she spoke through her tears. “Proof of who is sane, who delusional.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Crater. Put it away. It’s yours. No one can take it from you.”
“Mine.” The sobs grew louder. She extended her hands and transferred the handkerchief from left to right, flipping it over. “Proof.”
At the upper edge of the handkerchief, stitched in blue thread, were the initials A.I.M.
By the time he left her apartment, it was nearly 3:30 p.m. He’d sat with her until she ran out of tears. Face drained and sickly pale, she accepted his advice to call work and say she was ill and needed to take the afternoon off. She went into the windowless bedroom and lay atop the quilt, carefully tucking the box with the handkerchief beneath her pillow.
“I’ll show myself out.” He tiptoed into the kitchen, opened the window and lit a cigarette, careful to exhale into the cold, deepening gloom outside. A network of clothes lines was strung across the barren yard of crumbling concrete below. On the other side, from within a shroud of casement light, a pair of bony arms emerged, pulled a squeaking wire and reeled in a solitary sheet, pure as snow. Cleanliness is next to loneliness.
He stood outside her bedroom and listened to the soft but certain hum and buzz of her breathing. She was asleep. He put on his coat and hat, and gently shut the door behind him.
He stopped at police headquarters, but Crow wasn’t in his office. The surly, moon-faced sergeant at the front desk said he was off on a job. Couldn’t (more likely, wouldn’t) say where. “Be back in the morning” was all he offered. Hoping Robert Emmet Murphy might have some idea of who A.I.M. might be, Dunne went to a bar on Broome Street and called him. The woman who answered said she was his niece. Murphy had taken his mother b
ack to Ireland for a visit. She wasn’t sure when they’re return.
The bar was in an afternoon lull. It would change, he knew, when the shifts changed at police headquarters. For now, he was the only customer. The bartender left him alone. He enjoyed the quiet. Dunne had another beer before he remembered the ticket for the fights. If someone besides Pully had sent it, he’d cancel. At least there was time for a shower and nap before he had to be at Madison Square Garden. He caught a taxi back to the hotel. The driver had a bent ear. His left.
The head desk clerk accosted him in the lobby. “Mr. Dunne, please, may I have a moment with you?”
“Sure.” Dunne stepped away from the elevator. “There a problem?”
“Not a problem, sir. A guest. You have a guest waiting for you.” Like his clothes—striped trousers, black swallow-tailed coat and pearl gray vest—the studied formality of his face gave him the air of a diplomat or banker.
“What guest?” Dunne glanced around. There were no likely candidates in the immediate vicinity. “Where?”
“Over there.” He motioned discreetly with his head toward the front lobby, which was shielded from the elevators by a row of palms in elegant Chinese pots. “Her name is”—he glanced down at a paper slip in his hand—“Miss Caroline Mueller.”
“Don’t recognize the name.”
“I informed her you were unavailable and invited her to leave a message. But she insisted on waiting. She’s been sitting there a good forty-five minutes. If you wish, I’ll tell her you’ve called to say you’re elsewhere and will not be reachable for some time.”
“I’ll take care of it. What’s she look like?”
“She’s a nurse, I believe, or some kind of medical assistant or hygienist.”
“A nurse?”
The head clerk’s thin lips and nose constricted slightly, as if a mildly unpleasant odor had just reached him. “So I gather from the white outfit she’s wearing.” Obviously not his type, or the hotel’s, which no doubt preferred a front lobby filled with visitors who looked as though they’d been outfitted at Bergdorf’s, across Grand Army Plaza. “She’s camped out in the front lobby, by the window, reading the Herald Tribune.”
As soon as he got to the other side of the palm plants, Dunne recognized her as the head nurse at the Melancthon Manor. She put down the paper and stood, draping her coat over her arm. “Mr. Dunne, I hope you don’t mind me intruding like this. I don’t mean to be a bother.”
“Please, Miss Mueller, have a seat. It’s no bother at all. Would you like a drink?” He sat catty-corner.
“No, thanks. I’m on my way home from work. I live in Ridgewood, Queens. They told me at the front desk you were out. I thought I might as well take a breather. Such nice surroundings.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news. Mr. Kipps is dead.”
“When?”
“An attendant discovered him yesterday morning.”
“He died in his sleep?”
“Yes, sometime in the night.”
“Alone?”
“They usually do.” She leaned over and touched his sleeve. “I know it’s always hard to lose a friend. But Mr. Kipps was so lonely these past few years. His daughter never came. His friends were either dead or moved away. No one ever visited, except you, and your visit meant a great deal to him. He seemed more alert and animated after you left.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“He was the sweetest man, so gentle and considerate. Some of our residents are quite the opposite. From the moment he moved in, Mr. Kipps was always trying to brighten the day with a kind word or generous gesture. But then, slowly at first, his condition worsened until he was reduced to the person you saw the other day.”
“Is there something you’d like me to do?”
“I thought perhaps you might alert his acquaintances in the police department.”
“Sure. A friend of mine is head of Missing Persons. He’ll know who to contact. Are there funeral arrangements?”
“His daughter is having the body shipped to Florida. She made the arrangements by phone. It’s terrible the way children nowadays treat their parents. I see it all the time, and it’s only getting worse.”
“Can I help in any other way?”
“No, that’s sweet of you, but that’s not why I’m here. I just wanted you to have this.” She reached in her coat pocket, took out an envelope and handed it to him. “We’re shipping everything else to his daughter, but this was so special to him. He stared at it everyday, like it was a holy card. I want you, as an old and faithful friend, to have it.”
Inside, worn at the edges, was a faded black-and-white photograph: woman in slacks and a blouse on a dock; a lake stretched out behind her to a backdrop of tall pine trees. She looked to be in her thirties, slim, pretty, smile too wide to be posed. On the back, in flowing, feminine script, was written Lake Belvedere, June 1, 1930.
“It was obvious how much he loved his wife. And how much he missed her, too. Though she died twenty or so years ago, he found it too painful to talk about her. If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I’m sure he’s with her now. Did you ever meet her in person?”
“Yes, once.” Whoever poor Fred was with now, it wasn’t this woman, photographed enjoying one of the last happy moments of her life. Wounded and hurt, Stella Crater was still very much alive. The mention of the crushed tip of Crater’s right index finger as noted in the police circular came back to Dunne. It had been a careless mistake on Fred’s part, closing the car door without checking before. And that’s how Crater had apparently regarded it. But maybe it hadn’t been a mistake. Maybe at some level, Fred was giving vent to his rising anger at Crater. Anger at the constant betrayal of the woman in this photograph, a woman for whom Fred felt adoration, affection and something more.
“What did Fred die of, Miss Mueller?”
“Heart failure was what the doctor wrote down.”
“Is there going to be an autopsy?”
“No need. He’s been dying in stages. It was only a matter of time.”
“I understand.” A twofold understanding, one beyond doubt, the other highly probable: Fred Kipps had been made an accomplice in the disappearance of Judge Crater by a person or persons who knew his feelings for Mrs. Crater and convinced him he was acting in her best interests by helping get rid of a man utterly unworthy of her love; and, sick and broken though he was, Fred Kipps had probably been murdered.
Miss Mueller stood and put on her coat. As he walked her to the entrance, the head desk clerk swept by with two bell boys in tow and through the revolving door.
“It’s a long subway ride to Ridgewood, Miss Mueller. Let me pay for a cab.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. But I’m used to it.”
A knot of reporters and photographers pressed close around the Cadillac limousine that had just pulled up. The head clerk flailed his arms and ordered the doormen to push them back. When the two passengers exited, they surged forward again. Flash bulbs popped. A crowd gathered.
Shielded by a phalanx of doormen and hefty porters, the clerk escorted a tall, regal blonde in a long silver-fox coat and her aged husband/lover/patron into the hotel as the bell boys and doormen piled two carts with leather luggage.
“How exciting!” Miss Mueller said. “That’s Eva Buttenheim, the Austrian film star. I was reading about her in the paper not five minutes ago.”
“Dr. Goebbels’s favorite actress.”
“She says she was young and naïve. Never joined the Nazi Party. They forced her to act in their films.”
“With champagne and roses. A real reign of terror. It’s a miracle she survived.”
Intent on following the entourage as the head clerk led it across the lobby, she paid no attention to his remark. “And that’s her husband, the industrialist William Cook. He unloaded his stake in the American Steel Corporation for $50 million. Now he says he’s devoting himself to helping her restart
her career in Hollywood. Isn’t that romantic?”
“Given her history, $50 million might not be enough.”
The couple had reached the front desk. The head clerk regained his air of impassivity. Dunne shook her hand. “Appreciate your stopping by like this.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It was a pleasure to meet you.” Turning to leave, she hesitated a moment. “You know, when I was sitting there waiting, I thought about how when Mr. Kipps got morose, he’d say he deserved to be alone and sick. It was punishment for his ‘terrible sins.’ But I never believed that. He was too good a man to have done anything truly terrible, and though I’m not sure what if anything comes after death, I know in this life, just as often as not, it’s the bad people who prosper and the good who suffer.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” Dunne said.
After showering, he laid down. He hadn’t planned on falling asleep but he did, and awoke suddenly, after only twenty minutes. He’d been in the middle of a demented dream involving Roberta, Felipe Calderon and Fred Kipps. Couldn’t remember the details, didn’t care to try.
Dinner was a turkey sandwich and a glass of milk delivered by room service. Already a half-hour late, he got into a cab that inched its way through the snarl of midtown traffic. He got out a block east of the Garden, at the corner of Seventh Avenue. Faster to walk.
The crowd out front wasn’t the buzzing mass that congregated before a big event, but the Eastern quarter-finals of the Golden Gloves wasn’t exactly the same as a title bout between Carmine Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson. He hadn’t examined the ticket to see where he’d be sitting, but presumed that it would be ringside or close. Instead, he found himself climbing to the upper balcony.
From the top step of the balcony’s steeply pitched stairs, he surveyed rows of empty seats. Far below, beneath a faint milky film of smoke, the ring floated like a stationary raft in a pool of white, unsparing light, suitable for fights and autopsies. The trio of referee and fighters moved in a lazy, ungraceful circle, oblivious to desultory shouts, boos, and catcalls.