Mortal Sins

by Anna Porter

  She had no notion of anyone carrying a grudge against Paul, at any rate no one who would want to murder him.

  ***

  Staff Sergeant Graham called on the Zimmermans’ cook, Mrs. Stoner. She was a cheerful, overweight woman from Jamaica whose nine children had all stayed behind in Kingston. Although she frequently sent them money for “little extras,” she was fairly proud that they had made their own way. The youngest was 20 and married, with children of her own. Mrs. Stoner had been with the Zimmermans since ’78, came with letters of recommendation from the Kingston Hilton.

  “Herself a most unlikely suspect,” concluded Graham, “and too busy the night of the party to notice much outside her immediate priorities, preparing a complicated menu.”

  No one came into the kitchen, except the waiters and the hostess, for a last-minute check. The sole observation of an unusual nature that Mrs. Stoner had to contribute was that Martha Griffiths had tears in her eyes when she came out of the downstairs bathroom across from the kitchen doors.

  ***

  Rabbi Jonas had sat next to Jane Masters. For now, David had no further questions for him. Mrs. Jonas had been in England, visiting family; she could not return for the party.

  Martha Griffiths had sat between the rabbi and Adrian Parker. David went to see her at her club, where, according to Jane Masters, she spent Wednesday mornings. He waited in the lounge while they took a message to her in the swimming pool.

  When Martha emerged from the elevator, David immediately understood why Zimmerman would have risked Brenda’s wrath. She was much more beautiful than anyone would have guessed from the small photograph in Paul’s pocket. (Forever and ever. Your Martha.) She was almost willowy with long fragile arms, frail childlike wrists, rich olive skin, her wet red hair curling around her shoulders in thick rivulets. An embarrassed smile lingered on her face as she held her terry-cloth robe together, hiding her lanky bare legs. When she said hello, her lower lip trembled.

  David told her why he was there and she began to cry softly. She said she really didn’t understand—and David believed her. Murder, sometimes even for the perpetrator, was difficult to understand.

  She admitted readily she had fallen in love with Zimmerman. He was the most attentive man she had ever met. He sent her flowers, small gifts from Birks, he’d call every day even when he was out of town. She was sure he had loved her. He might have left Brenda, had he lived. She wasn’t going to deny her plans included leaving Chuck Griffiths.

  There had been a lot of talk. “You know how it is,” she said, gazing soulfully into Parr’s eyes, or for a moment he fancied that she had. “We live in a world where not much of consequence ever happens. People like to gossip.” She curled up in one of the ocher-colored chairs and tucked her legs under her. The terry-cloth robe opened slightly, revealing a flash of olive thigh.

  “Mr. Griffiths must have been quite upset.”

  “No,” Martha said with a sigh. “For quite a while I don’t think he took it seriously. He’s been rather busy with Loyal for the past four years. When Chuck went there from the law firm, it was a lazy gentlemen’s club. Paul wanted him to bring it into the 21st century. Chuck’s really good at that. And he still had the properties to manage...”

  “When did he start taking it seriously?”

  “About a week ago.” Martha smiled mysteriously. “I moved out of the house. I doubt if Chuck realized I would, after Paul died. He thought it was a passing romantic impulse. And Paul, as you’ll have heard, had quite a reputation for romantic interludes, no-account affairs, you know...”

  David nodded wisely. Like Deidre Thomas, for example, but when he asked Martha about Deidre, he felt terribly uncomfortable—and somehow disloyal.

  “Exactly,” Martha said. “Deidre was another of his casual affairs. Paul was a man with a lot of libido. I had no problem with that. Once we were married, all that would have changed.”

  “How did Mrs. Zimmerman take it?”

  “Brenda?” Martha brushed the wet hair from her face with a nervous movement. “As you would expect.”

  “Did Mr. Zimmerman inform her of his intention to marry you?”

  She didn’t reply, she just sighed. She was gazing at the maroon floor.

  “Did he?” David persisted, he thought, boorishly.

  “Not in so many words, I don’t think. But I think he was going to do it the night he died. He told us all when he invited us to his house that he had an announcement to make.”

  “So you don’t think he told her the night of February 26th?”

  “Why February 26th?” Martha seemed surprised.

  “That was the evening they went to your place for dinner. Brenda left early.”

  “Such a dreadful evening.” Martha sighed. “Chuck had a few things to go over with Paul about the reorganization of a financial corporation Loyal had just bought. That’s all they talked about, the four of them: Paul, Chuck, Adrian Parker, and Jack Goodman. The women were bored out of their minds. I think that’s why Brenda left early. She has a low boredom threshold. A bit spoiled, you know. Franny, Alice, and I didn’t interfere. We made conversation on the side.”

  “Do you remember what time Paul Zimmerman left?”

  “Not exactly.” Tears had formed into droplets on her cheeks. “Seems so long ago now,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine Paul dead yet. I haven’t... I can’t...think about it... And now you say he was murdered... I...I...that someone would...” She excused herself and fluttered out of the room, drawing her robe tightly around her hips.

  David waited for several minutes, with what seemed even to him to be astounding patience. He reread his notes, reviewed the lengthening list of potential murderers. Then a barefoot woman in black form-fitting exercise pants and multicolored headband informed him that Mrs. Griffiths was too indisposed to continue the interview now. If he had further questions, she could be reached at the Goodmans’.

  ***

  Susanne Bonnier had sat next to Adrian Parker, facing Martha Griffiths. She and her husband Eddie lived in Mississauga near the lake. It was a sprawling ranch-like house on several levels. The garden swept down to the lake in several formal terraced layers. It must be beautiful in summer, Parr thought.

  Mrs. Bonnier was a large, buoyant woman with a cheerful manner and an almost infectious affection for her husband. He was sole owner of Bonnier and Prinz, textile manufacturers, having bought Prinz out. He was about the same shape as his wife; a well-matched pair.

  They were both there when Parr came to call.

  “I figured sooner or later you’d want to see me anyhow, so why not get us both over with all at once?” Eddie Bonnier told Parr. “We were at the same party. She sat at Paul’s table, I sat next to Brenda. Shocking about poor Paul. Bad enough when he died, but then we find out it wasn’t of natural causes, as they say. Now who’d have wanted to murder him, I ask myself. Right, Susanne?” He wore a sport shirt and corduroy trousers that bagged around the knees.

  “Can I get you something to eat, Officer?” Susanne asked Parr. “A little strudel? Perhaps some lemon pie? I made it myself...”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bonnier, perhaps some pie,” David asked. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon and his stomach was starting to make rattling noises. Even if the Bonniers had poisoned Zimmerman, which he was sure they hadn’t, they were unlikely to take a run at a police officer on duty.

  The pie was delicious.

  The Bonniers had been friends of the Zimmermans since the early ’60s. They met him first at a fund-raising for some cause neither of them could recall now. Susanne had become very fond of Brenda. The two of them enjoyed shopping together, went on golfing trips to Florida, once to the Azores, frequently to the Zimmermans’ Bermuda house, to New York. They liked each other’s company.

  “She is a super girl,” Susanne gushed. “Must be simply awful for her with this investigation and all. She was upset enough that Paul was—” she hesitated, then went on genteelly, “no longer with us
. She has been frightfully upset about the...whatever it is you’ve done, Officer? Digging up, you know. I suppose it was necessary, it turns out, because if you hadn’t you wouldn’t know he was murdered, now, would you? And that’s what I told her when she called. But I do think I ought to go spend a few days with her, if Eddie doesn’t mind too terribly much.” She patted his hand as it rested on the couch between them.

  “She’ll be right lonely, I think,” Eddie said, and asked how they could be of help to the law.

  He remembered they had been asked to the party late Friday night, must have been the 27th of February. They had been out at another dinner, came home late, and there was an urgent message from Brenda: Paul wanted them to come for some big occasion he was planning for the following Sunday night.

  The Bonniers had made other plans for the evening of March 1st. Susanne didn’t mind telling Parr that she wished they hadn’t allowed themselves to be bullied into going to the Zimmermans’. She’d never forget the scene of Paul’s head in the plate, with the blood oozing about—she’d never eat Beef Wellington again and that was for sure.

  “What do you mean, bullied into it?” David asked.

  “Ah well, one doesn’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but it was a bit like that with Paul, once he made up his mind what he wanted no one could gainsay him. He was used to getting his own way. ‘A latter-day Caesar’ is what Philip Masters called him—all in good humor, mind you, all in very good humor.” From time to time, as she spoke, she glanced at her husband for support or encouragement and got it. “He said that whatever the other thing was it would have to wait, we must cancel it. His dinner would not wait. It was the most important occasion in his life in four decades and he wanted us to be there. When Eddie protested, he said it was a matter of life and death.”

  “And it was...,” Eddie said sadly.

  “You don’t think it was suicide?” Susanne asked. “I’m thinking about the way Paul insisted we all show up for this. Perhaps he wanted some company for his passing. Didn’t that sort of stuff use to be fashionable in Roman times? People would invite all their friends and serve a buffet and lots of entertainment, then somewhere in the middle they’d drink some kind of lethal potion or get an asp...”

  “Come on, Suse, that’s silly,” Eddie opined, but Parr could see he was thinking about it.

  The only person they remembered leaving the table was Jack Goodman, no doubt on his way to the bathroom.

  ***

  Jack Goodman had sat between Judith Hayes and Susanne Bonnier. Goodman ran Domcor, one of Zimmerman’s longest-held companies, constant star in the Fortune Top 500. He’d been in the business pages three weeks ago buying some big communications conglomerate in Chicago. Some wit at Business Week had asked him whether he’d now take up raiding. David couldn’t remember his answer. Business Week also inquired if he was next in line to run Monarch itself. Goodman had said he was very happy with Domcor. Not a bad answer, but it begged the question.

  Goodman had moved his corporate headquarters from New York to Chicago in the wake of the Zimmerman takeover in 1986, but he maintained a small pied-à-terre in Toronto, in deference to Zimmerman’s habit of holding corporate meetings of the group in the Monarch Building’s boardroom. Goodman himself was New York born and bred, a relative upstart from ITT, where he had risen from the obscurity of the sales department to marketing director in seven brief months, then to president in seven more.

  All that, David had read in Judith’s voluminous notes on the Zimmerman holdings and its stars. Half or more of Judith’s notes were quite incomprehensible to him, for which he was profoundly grateful. There was no sense in developing a head for business terminology at such a late stage of one’s development.

  The Goodmans’ pied-à-terre was a vast condominium atop Zimmerman’s harborside development—almost adjacent to Domcor’s branch offices. They were in Toronto for the weekend anyway, Saturday being the night of the Brazilian Ball.

  They were both in their late 50s, tanned, nervously energetic, sporty-looking. Both wore tailored slacks, soft woolen jackets, and topsiders.

  They received David in the sunken living room, whose long horizontal lines along the walls in contrasting aquamarine and blue proclaimed a sense of happy, expensive design.

  Neither Goodman had ever heard of Harvey Singer. They found it difficult to believe that Masters and Zimmerman would have gotten into a serious fight, since the two of them were so close.

  Martha Griffiths was living in their designer apartment—what are friends for? The Goodmans were very emphatic in their belief that Martha and Chuck were going to get back together again.

  “They had been in difficulties before, you see,” Alice said. “Paul was merely in the right place at the right time. Martha needed a boost to her pride, some warm, loving relationship to restore her self-confidence.” She gave her own husband a long flat look, then busied herself with rearranging the glass flowers on the big square table.

  Jack Goodman examined his polished nails and said nothing.

  “A marriage needs nurturing,” Alice continued. “You can’t take it for granted, and I’m afraid Chuck’s been too preoccupied with the business for the past few years. Isn’t that right, darling?” She wasn’t about to let Goodman off the hook.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said at last. “You’re not actually suspecting Chuck, are you?” he asked Parr. “I wouldn’t have thought he was the murderous kind—at least, not outside of a boardroom.” He laughed loudly.

  Alice didn’t join in the fun. “Brenda’s to pick Paul’s successor, you know,” she told David. “Since he never could choose between the two of them, she’ll have to decide if it’s Jack or Chuck.”

  ***

  Extensive questioning of the Ferndale Catering Service waiters revealed that they remembered little about the Zimmermans’ dinner party—until the host’s demise. Both had been at the Zimmerman home on previous occasions. Mrs. Zimmerman had made a point of asking for them by name, because they were familiar with the household already. The waiter assigned to Paul Zimmerman’s table did not recall pouring him a glass of ginger ale, but he did say that Mr. Zimmerman had barely touched his wines that night; he had just drunk from his own glass, placed beside the others.

  Neither waiter had a criminal record. One was a sociology student in the daytime, the other worked at the Hudson’s Bay. They made extra money waitering.

  The hors d’oeuvres for the cocktail reception had been supplied by Paul’s Fine Foods.

  ***

  Doctor Meisner hadn’t been able to attend the dinner at the Zimmermans’ on March 1st. He had been in Israel with his father, whose health, at 85, was suddenly beginning to fail. Edna Meisner, though, had gone that evening and sat between Philip Masters and Chuck Griffiths. Last week, she had followed her husband when he went back to Israel.

  ***

  At first Father O’Shea was reluctant to see Judith, as he had been reluctant to see David. He had nothing to add to her story or to David’s investigation. He had barely known Paul Zimmerman. But when Judith expressed an interest in the 19th-century organ, he relented and agreed to spare her a few minutes in the church where she could see and photograph it for her readers.

  The organ was on the balcony over the entrance, facing the altar. It was, indeed, something to behold. It had 60 bronze pipes, a massive ivory-inlaid keyboard, and a complicated series of pedals and levers, all contained in a carved oak frame that reached the full width of the balcony.

  “It’s quite an unusual piece,” Father O’Shea told Judith. He was sitting on the organ’s carved oak stool running his hands affectionately over the keyboard. “It was originally built for the Roman Catholic Church in Dresden, around 1840. One of the first organs to provide the complete pedal board of two and a half octaves. The pneumatic lever was added later by Willis, an English builder. It’s fortunate we got it before the Allies demolished the city; it would have been a great loss.”

  “Beautiful,” Judith gushed
. “Paul Zimmerman must have had a great interest in organs...?”

  “Indeed he did. It’s what brought us together.” Father O’Shea didn’t continue.

  “How was it you met in the first place?” Judith tried.

  “Last year at a meeting of Canadian Aid to Refugees. We were both directors, though Paul Zimmerman rarely had the time to come to meetings. But he was generous with his money. The aid program needs money more than meetings.” He stopped patting the keys and faced Judith. He was a handsome man in his mid-50s, thin gray hair, pale complexion, his priest’s collar incongruous above a fisherman-knit sweater and beige pants. “Now, what was it you wanted to know, Mrs. Hayes?”

  “I was wondering when he decided to...donate the funds for the restoration.” She was going to ask when Zimmerman became a Catholic but thought better of it. Too soon to get into that sensitive topic, which the good father had refused to talk about on the telephone.

  “I’ve no idea. We only found out after he died. The church was named in the will. I first mentioned the organ to him after that refugee-aid meeting. Then he came by a few weeks ago to look at it.”

  “And when would that have been?”

  “Let’s see... It was soon after Candlemas...”

  “January?”

  “No. February 2nd, Candlemas. Around the 5th or 6th, I think. I showed him the organ and what kind of work it needed. We already had a master craftsman from London under contract to start the restoration. We were short a few thousand dollars. The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he added with a smile.

  “Is that when he converted, then?” Judith asked quickly.

  “Converted?”

  “To Catholicism.”

  “What makes you think he converted?” the priest asked.

  “The funeral was here...”

  Father O’Shea stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hayes, but I did warn you I had a prior engagement. We have run out of time.” He offered to shake her hand before he descended the staircase.