by Anna Porter
“Yes.”
“I guess I didn’t,” she said. “Do you know what he meant?”
“I believe,” Brenda said, “he was forgiving himself for all the things he had left undone.” She put her head down, closed her eyes, and went very still.
Judith figured the interview was over. “I was wondering,” she said, talking to Masters, but watching Brenda for a reaction, “if you came across a Mr. Singer among Mr. Zimmerman’s acquaintances?”
“Singer?” Philip pondered. “Singer...was that the man in the music business, went public last year? Gerald, I think... bought that radio station...”
“No,” Judith said. “A man in the rag trade in New York.”
“No idea, I’m afraid. Did you say an associate of Paul’s?”
“Perhaps.”
Philip shook his head thoughtfully. “Sorry.”
Brenda hadn’t moved at all when she mentioned Singer. Judith pounced on the blue towel, wrapped it around herself, and went to change. All the way, she was aware of Philip Masters’s eyes gazing at her rump.
When she was ready to leave, he escorted her to the door. Brenda was still lying immobile by the pool. “I’ll see you in Toronto,” Philip said huskily.
“More than likely,” Judith concurred.
Geoff was waiting in the driveway beside the green Cadillac. He was as disappointed as Judith over not having the XJ-S.
“Had to take it in for repairs, ma’am,” he told Judith mournfully. “Windows got all smashed on the way over. Damn tranthport never learned how to take care of fine cars.”
Fifteen
DOCTOR MEISNER’S waiting room was purely functional. It paid no heed to newfangled theories about creature comforts or stress alleviation for patients. The color was basic green, the furniture, army-issue straight-backed chairs, with no distracting pictures on the wall.
There were four other patients in the waiting room. Two wore business suits cut from the same widely spaced pinstriped material, one had overalls. The fourth was a pregnant woman, circa eight months and closing quickly; in deference to the invigorating cool air in the waiting room, she kept on her black mink overcoat, which had clearly been bought just months ago. She had left her black lace-up boots on the plastic mat next to the entrance and was rubbing her toes gently against one another to restore circulation. Those toes brought back memories Judith had thought buried under mountains of emotional rubble: images of James cradling her frozen feet against his warm stomach as they lay in their cramped double bed above the noisy surgery, their hands on her belly, waiting for Anne’s next aggressive kick at her confinement. They had felt truly important then. Becoming parents was such a momentous event. They had married because that was what everyone expected them to do. There might have been some fumbling moments of love years before, some excitement in the car on the way home from college dances, groping on his parents’ faded chintz couch the odd times they could be alone, but all that had palled with their hopelessly inept attempts at sex once they survived their formal wedding night. Her pregnancy lent some meaning to the marriage and, for a while, spared them further efforts in bed. James’s relief at not having to keep up the pretense made him cheerful, concerned, and openly affectionate.
Once Anne was born, they both retreated into their separate, cautious selves.
“Mrs. Hayes.” The nurse’s sharp voice entered Anne’s freshly painted nursery. “If you wouldn’t mind...” She was pointing at the door to her left. Judging by her tone, she’d been trying to attract Judith’s attention for some time. “Doctor’s waiting,” she added grimly.
Once Judith had done a story about the hours two doctors kept their patients waiting in the course of a week and what those hours were worth for the patients involved. There had been stormy protest from the medical profession, insulted by her temerity in putting them on the same scales as other people.
Doctor Meisner sat at his desk, facing the window. He had a long, thin neck and was completely bald. Judith made it to the middle of the room before he acknowledged her presence. Then he stretched out one arm and made quick waving motions toward her. This she interpreted as an invitation to sit, and she did so, moving the low-slung green plastic-covered chair so she wouldn’t see the bed with the nasty steel stirrups at the end.
When Doctor Meisner finally swiveled toward her, he was still looking in the file he had been reading. He wore horn-rimmed half-moon glasses. “Not much I can add to your story, Mrs. Hayes,” he said in his best palliative voice. “Mr. Zimmerman was suffering from a condition known as IHSS. It’s a familial, or inherited, heart disease. It was diagnosed in early February. The prognosis for this type of ailment is, generally, fair in the short term. But it is unpredictable. If he followed the regimen I laid out for him, he had every expectation of living a full and happy life.”
“For how long?” Judith asked.
“That, Mrs. Hayes, is not within the province of medical science to predict. Anywhere from one month to five years.”
“Is that what you told him?”
“At first.” Doctor Meisner now glanced up at Judith and smiled. “But that’s not the sort of response Paul would find satisfactory. He was a man of action. He had been a patient of mine for 20 years and I knew him well. So I told him that, if I were a betting man, I would guess he had a couple of good years left, and then, who knows?”
“Were you surprised when he died so suddenly?” Judith asked.
Doctor Meisner shrugged. “Not especially. Though...I did wonder why the disease had speeded up at such a rate. IHSS is a deformation. It’s known to be slow. He was starting to keep it under control with the drugs and physically, he had always been strong. Yes, I suppose you could say I was somewhat surprised.”
“Were you the first physician to examine him after the attack?”
“You mean after he died? No. I was called, but by the time I arrived he had been taken to the Wellesley by ambulance. Doctor Jenning was in attendance. One of the best young men in the field. Paul was dead on arrival.” He shook his head. “Nothing could be done. And they did try everything. He must have been terribly disappointed to go so soon. He still had plans, things to complete, you know.”
Judith confessed she didn’t know. She was thinking what she’d want to complete in such circumstances. Her life insurance policy payments, for one. Perhaps she’d do that will. “His will, you mean?” she asked.
It was an inspired guess. “Yes. He did want to change his will. Must have told you about that, did he? Odd. He was such a secretive fellow. But you’re right. He’d been feeling rather badly about Arthur of late. Only son he had, after all, though Arthur wasn’t much of a prize, what with his—” Meisner cleared his throat “— his sexual preferences. But he’s such a talented boy, and there were so many bridges to mend. Paul knew,” he sighed. “Paul knew.”
“And Eva, was he going to include Eva?” Judith prompted.
Doctor Meisner raised his eyebrows to further the cause of a knowledgeable nod. “Ah yes, poor Eva. I had so hoped for a reconciliation once. But she wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t come back to him. She said it was because of the boy. I never figured out what happened between those two. They had been happy once. Edna and I knew them then, and Edna...well, she and Eva had become friends. Coffee, lunch, I think they had a bridge club. You know, women’s stuff.”
Oh yeah, hold on to your knitting, lady, this is no place to fight the good fight. “Sure,” Judith said between gritted teeth.
“Then one day, poof—” Meisner’s hands shot up to show he held nothing but air “—she was gone. Never a word to Edna. Nothing. Paul didn’t even know where she’d gone until he had a letter from her lawyer. Crazy female.”
Well, at least that checked with Brenda’s and Philip’s versions. “He wasn’t going to include her, then?”
“If he was, he never told me,” Doctor Meisner said. “He only talked about Arthur...and—I guess it won’t do any harm to tell—about spending some time with h
imself. Recovering his past, he called it. But that’s understandable. Sort of stuff most people want to do when they know they’re dying.”
“Did he talk to you much about his past?”
“No. About his father, when I asked if there had been a history of heart disease in the family. He died when Paul was very young. So had his grandfather.”
“How old was Paul when his father died?”
“Seven. No, eight.”
“Before the war, then?”
“Sure, ’36 or so.” He returned the file folder to his desk. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Hayes, I have another patient waiting...”
Judith lingered in the doorway for one more question. “I was sitting next to him when he had the attack. He’d been drinking out of a water glass. Some kind of amber liquid. Could that have been his medication?”
“Possibly. Why?”
“I wondered,” Judith said with a reassuring gaze, “if he might have been poisoned.”
For a moment Meisner stared back at her, stiff, curious, then he shook his head. “Come on, now, that’s ridiculous. Why would anyone want to kill Paul?” He waved Judith out dismissively. “Please tell Mrs. Gordon to send in the next.”
***
When she arrived home, Stevie was sitting in the kitchen drinking sherry, feeling dejected because David had suggested she might have imagined the intruder into Judith’s home. She wore her revolutionary headband and black leather boots to show her outrage. There was no point asking how she had got in. She had brought a gift of a melancholy Japanese tea plant that should never have been left out in the cold.
There was a message on the tape from Jimmy that everything was cool on the mountain, which was just as well, considering the 18-below temperatures. No need for the snow-making machines. Anne had progressed to five, whatever that meant, and there was some guy from University of Toronto Schools trying to make an impression on her. They’d be on the hill till the evening, then call again.
The tape registered several clicks and buzzes, then Finance International came on, in the person of perfectionist Giles, and announced they didn’t think much of Judith’s lead. “Death of a Titan” wouldn’t have worked even for Theodore Dreiser, and Finance International wasn’t known for melodramatic leads. Giles was sure Judith would come up with something better, and if she didn’t, that was all right too, there were people on staff who could. She should get down to the human interest material, now that she’d finished the investments profile.
“Human interest, indeed,” Stevie said, going for more sherry. “What do they know about that? I could give them a human interest story that’d set their ears on fire, and never leave this street,” she threatened.
“Charles Griffiths will be in his office between 2 and 3 this afternoon, would talk to Mrs. Hayes,” was the last of the messages. It was delivered by a jolly female voice.
Quarter past 2. Still time to reach Dundas Street before 3 if she hurried. She pulled on her aged winter coat, wrapped her head in a woolen scarf, and offered to let Stevie out.
“I don’t believe you made it up,” she told Stevie, reassuringly. “And I don’t believe Jimmy’s on drugs. But right now I haven’t the time to get to the bottom of it. When I’m finished with Zimmerman, we’ll drink the rest of the sherry and figure it out. Okay?”
It wasn’t, but Stevie let it go with a sigh. She didn’t want to be a burden.
***
Loyal Trust was one of the brightest stars in Zimmerman’s corporate firmament. It had been much in the news after the government’s deregulation of the financial industries, as had its brilliant CEO, Chuck Griffiths, former corporate lawyer, partner with Philip Masters in Masters, Goldberg, Griffiths. Judith had already collected Loyal’s corporate profile, annual reports, and brief history of recent acquisitions from the PR department. Unlike many companies, Loyal Trust had an open-door policy. It was proud of its results. In the lobby there were photographs of the top sales group’s recent trip to the Bahamas, the elevator displayed multicolored graphs of the year’s gains, the second floor sported a portrait gallery of smiling directors. There was a Girl Guide eagerness about the receptionist and about Griffiths’s chubby secretary. The only long face in the building belonged to Chuck Griffiths himself.
“I have a 3 o’clock meeting, Mrs. Hayes,” he told her. “I do like to cooperate with the press, and particularly Finance International, but you have to appreciate...” He shrugged.
Judith checked her watch and promised to keep it short.
“I hope you’ve had all the cooperation you need from the staff,” Griffiths continued. “It’s been a spectacular year for us. Best in our history. New branches in the Bahamas, Secure Trust in Great Britain, the growth of our American companies... A great pity that Paul won’t be here to share the best with us. Tea, coffee?” He had ushered her away from the formality of the desk, into a deep brown armchair in the corner of his office, where he had arranged a small sitting room complete with couch and liquor cabinet.
“They’ve been wonderful,” Judith said about the staff. “I have enough material for a second story, when this one’s finished,” she gazed earnestly. “In fact, that’s a very good idea. The Loyal Trust story.” Not much chance he’d fall for that old trick, but always worth a try.
He didn’t. He continued to look glum, while he poured coffee from a silver pot and arranged himself facing Judith.
“It’s Paul Zimmerman I’ve come to talk to you about,” Judith continued, “and what happened between him and Philip Masters.”
Griffiths crossed his knees, stirred his coffee, and registered no reaction.
Judith pressed on. “I assume you know about the parting of ways between them. You were, after all, close to them both. It was Masters’s relationship with Zimmerman that propelled you into Loyal, I understand.”
Well, that got a rise out of him at last. “Did Philip tell you that?” he asked, his voice rasping.
Judith stirred her coffee, though she hadn’t put anything into it. She was hoping her preoccupation could be interpreted as agreement and that Griffiths would go on. Which is exactly what he did.
“Must be his notorious sense of humor again,” Griffiths said, but he wasn’t smiling. “Fact is, I’ve known Paul Zimmerman for almost as long as Philip has. We were both interested in land deals, Paul and I. When we met, and I was still a student at McCarthy’s then, I had already put a bit of money into a piece of Trois-Rivières. Paul was working on some deal in Ste-Agathe, so I gave him a bunch of free advice. Not to diminish the help he paid for from Philip, but that was all legal help. Paul and I were friends long before I joined Masters and Goldberg.” He brushed a bit of lint off his dark suit. “Hell, we used to take holidays, Paul and Eva, Zelda and I—Zelda was my first wife. We were each other’s best men at our second weddings. Nothing to do with Philip that I ended up at Loyal. Paul acquired it through Monarch in ’74. It was a deadbeat, tired old firm, a bit of a gentlemen’s club. Paul needed someone to shake it up, turn it around. Seemed like a challenge, so I took it. I can tell you, it sure beats hell out of corporate law.”
“Who will run Monarch now that Zimmerman is gone?”
Griffiths shrugged. “Still to be determined,” he said. There was a hint of a smile on his face.
“Do you know why Masters and Zimmerman quarreled?” Judith asked.
“You should ask Philip that question, Mrs. Hayes. It’s nothing to do with me and I make a point of not interfering in other people’s battles unless they directly affect my business. All I can say is it was a long time coming. Philip’s been empire-building for too damn long and he couldn’t expect Paul to turn a blind eye forever. Lawyers get paid for a service, even ones as elevated as Masters.”
“What did Philip want?”
“A coronation, I think. He still does. For his old age, he decided he wants to be in the Senate. And nothing—and I mean nothing at all—is going to come between that gilt-edged seat and his aging arse.”
&n
bsp; “And that’s why he left Paul Zimmerman?” Judith inquired with wide-eyed innocence.
Griffiths stood up to confirm her time was over. He began to look over some papers on his desk. “Well, that’s all I’m going to tell you about it.”
She changed the subject. “Did you agree you’d be Rabbi Jonas’s caller at the United Jewish Appeal fundraiser?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” he said distractedly.
“There was that little exchange between Brenda Zimmerman and you at the party—can you tell me what that was about?” Judith pressed on.
“I don’t recall any exchange.” Griffiths rose, checked his oversize gold watch. “And I’m afraid I have a meeting now.”
“About your not fitting Paul Zimmerman’s shoes,” Judith persisted, “and something about your wife.”
Griffiths strode to the door and opened it wide. “I do hope you can find your way out,” he said, his lips tight. “Goodbye, Mrs. Hayes.”
He closed the door behind her.
***
As soon as she got home, Judith asked the operator to place a person-to-person to Mrs. Eva Zimmerman at the Hotel Meurice, Paris, France. Eva had already sent her calling card, and for human interest it would be hard to beat a crazy ex-wife, holed up in the most palatial hotel in Paris, dispatching dire warnings that her former husband was murdered. After a series of hollow clicks and bangs, and a plethora of “Allo”s, a male voice inquired, “À part de qui?” The operator said, “Judith Hayes,” which reverberated across the Atlantic and corrected itself into a long whine, and finally a gravelly female voice said, “Yes, Mrs. Hayes. What took you so long?”
“I’m sorry...?”
“I was expecting your call on Wednesday. Did you not receive my telegram?” She pronounced each syllable and placed equal emphasis on all of them. A perfect Zsa Zsa Gabor Hungarian accent.
“Yes, I did,” said Judith, “but I’m afraid I was in Bermuda yesterday.” Why the hell was she apologizing for not responding immediately to an utterly preposterous telegram?