Tips for Living

by Renee Shafransky

  Grace’s interviewing style is effective. In the way Barbara Walters gets people to cry, Grace gets them to say things they normally wouldn’t. She has qualities that make people open up to her: she’s a great enthusiast, a flatterer and an empathic listener. Before they know it, guests have let down their guard and spilled a secret or expressed an opinion they regret. Grace could go national, she was so adept at this. But ambition is not Grace’s thing. “My porridge is just right in Pequod,” she’d said when we’d discussed whether she would pursue an opening at NPR in DC.

  I stood outside her small, soundproof studio, watching her through the glass as she prepped for her show. She sat in one of two metal chairs at a long wooden table with her MacBook, pad and pen, two table mikes and two sets of headphones in front of her. The empty chair hosted a pink pillow that said, “Grace is a gift from God” in red stitching. I realized I was reluctant to go in. It was time to tell Grace everything, including the fact that my sleepwalking problem had returned. I dreaded doing it. Telling Grace meant admitting I’d lied to her. Without Grace trusting me, going through all this would be intolerable.

  I stepped inside. Her studio was quiet as a confessional—Grace had switched the station speakers off. I set the mugs on the table, along with the thermos of coffee I’d brought. Then I sat on the pillow and dug into my Yoplait.

  “Monty just cheered me on like I’m about to run a triathlon,” I said, still avoiding the difficult subject. “I appreciated it. I need the boost.”

  Grace adjusted the mikes and her MacBook unnecessarily. She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Grace?”

  “He thinks you’ve come in to be interviewed about Hugh.”

  I stopped eating and set down the spoon.

  “I wanted to tell you before at the bowling alley. Monty asked me to do a show on Hugh today. He wants me to interview you as the main event. He said: ‘It’s called Talk of the Townies, and she’s what the townies are talking about.’”

  “And you said yes?”

  Maybe not so loyal.

  “I said ‘absolutely not’ regarding you, but I did set up phoners with the art contingency—Abbas Masout and Davis Kimmerle, the critic. It’s hard for me to avoid the topic altogether. I figured you might not mind so much since Hugh is, you know . . . dead. But say the word and I’ll pull the plug.”

  I looked into Grace’s clear blue eyes and saw that she meant it. She’d ditch the show if I told her to. I had no right to object to her doing her job; Hugh was a major cultural figure who lived in the area. “I can’t participate. But of course, you should go ahead with your other guests. Do what you need to do,” I said.

  Grace touched my arm. “Thanks, Nor.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, my turn for confessing. And please don’t ask questions until I’m done.”

  It was difficult for Grace not to interrogate me, but she managed to let me speak. It all poured out in a rush. I told her about Ben and Gubbins both subscribing to the theory that I’d been framed. The slashed painting, the posed bodies.

  “What the fuck?”

  I told her about Hugh’s damning divorce diary that documented my attack on the very same painting.

  “He was collecting evidence on you for the divorce? That’s rich.”

  “You promised not to interrupt.”

  I gave her my list of possible suspects: an angry drug dealer, a jilted lover of Hugh’s and, finally, Stokes. I made the strongest case for him, positing him as a serial killer whose trigger was humiliation. “His in-laws demeaned him. He asphyxiated them and managed to get his hands on their money. Then Helene and Hugh humiliated him, and there was a sexual mortification this time. He took his revenge.”

  Grace tapped her pen. “I don’t know. I can’t see Stokes Diekmann having the bandwidth to orchestrate the framing scenario.”

  “He’s a very angry guy. He’s scary, believe me. It’s good Kelly is staying with you. Now please stop interrupting. There’s more.”

  Then I told her about sleeping with Ben. “Well, not sleeping, except for an hour.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve finally met someone, and it’s Ben fucking Wickstein. Wow. How was it?”

  “Wait. I’m not finished.”

  “Nor, come on.”

  “It was great. But kind of overwhelming . . .”

  “Of course, it’s been a while. But that’s wonderful. I’m thrilled for you. For both of you.”

  “Please don’t make too much of it. It was probably a one-night thing.”

  Grace frowned. “What makes you think so?”

  I glanced at the clock on Grace’s wall. Almost 9:45 a.m. Ben would be at the Courier’s weekly staff meeting, where I should be. How could I have walked out on him? I felt lousy about it. Cowardly. Small. But I still cringed when I thought of telling him about my sleepwalking. I took another deep breath.

  “Grace. I’ve been sleepwalking again.”

  “What?” She stiffened. “I asked you. You told me you weren’t.”

  “I wasn’t sure. Then it happened last night at Ben’s. And maybe before that, too, I think.” I paused. I wasn’t going to hedge with her now. “No. I know I was sleepwalking before.”

  Grace stared at me, her expression growing more concerned by the second. What was going through her mind?

  “The morning of the murders . . . Nora, you had all that crud in your hair. And the scratch on your face. You said you went for a walk and you fell. Was that a lie? Had you been sleepwalking?”

  “I’m pretty sure. I just don’t know where I went.”

  “Holy shit. You must be terrified,” she said. I could hear the stress in her voice.

  She rolled her chair back slightly and angled her body away. It was subtle, but I knew what it meant. My heart sank. I’d never seen a graver look on Grace’s face. I began wringing my hands, anguished.

  “You think I did it.”

  Grace flinched.

  “You think I killed Hugh and Helene.”

  I crumpled into the chair, crushed.

  “Stop the crazy talk.” Grace stood up and shook her head adamantly.

  “I know you. You couldn’t do something like that. No way in hell. You are not that person.”

  “It’s just . . . there are so many things that line up,” I said. “How can you be sure? Remember Axel? Nora Scissorhands?”

  “That was a sweatshirt. These are human beings. It’s completely impossible. Never in a million years. You understand? Never.” She grabbed both my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Repeat after me. Never.”

  It felt like I’d just been yanked back from the precipice.

  “Never.”

  “Good. What does Ben have to say about it?”

  I averted my eyes. “I didn’t tell him.”

  “You need to.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  I looked at Grace again, pleading. “What if it makes him think I killed them?”

  “Then he’s not the man for you. You’ve got to tell him.”

  “No.” I stiffened and crossed my arms. As empathic as she was, Grace had no idea what this was like. How exposed and defenseless I felt.

  “You’re stubborn,” she said sternly.

  “You’re bossy.”

  She flipped her hair back with her hand and sat back down. We eyed each other, unblinking.

  “We’ll revisit this,” Grace said. “Meanwhile, I think you should find a sleep clinic. You haven’t tried that.”

  “The police are watching. They don’t have those clinics out here. Gubbins said if I leave the county, they’d be sure to track me. I can’t have them finding out about my sleepwalking. A sleep clinic isn’t an option right now.”

  “Okay. Then we’ve got to figure out a way to reduce your stress. I bet that’s triggering the episodes.”

  “Finding the killer and getting me off the suspect list would help with the stress, believe me.”

  “Right.”

/>   Grace picked up her pen and began making notes. “As for who committed the murders, we can discount two people right off the bat.”

  “Who?”

  “First, the pissed-off drug dealer. If Hugh and Helene were using drugs, it would’ve come out in the autopsy report. Ben’s source at the DA didn’t mention drugs, did he?”

  “No,” I said, chagrined. Why didn’t I think of that?

  “And second, like I said, I don’t believe Stokes came up with this plan to frame you. He spends half his life bowling. He’s kind of a lug.”

  “You’re kind of a snob. Just because Stokes is obsessed with bowling doesn’t make him stupid. That’s classist. He’s playing dumb. He’s plenty smart. And diabolical. Helene would have certainly told him I’d been married to Hugh, but he acted like he didn’t know. Like I was the creep at the crime scene . . .”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “Maybe. And maybe Kelly killed them. What if she knew about the affair, and she’s pretending she just found out? Maybe she Googled Helene and read about your history. She realized you’d be the perfect suspect.” She gasped. “Oh shit. She’s in my house with Mac right now.”

  “No. No. No. Forget it. It’s not Kelly.” I was disappointed that Grace wasn’t buying the Stokes theory. “She might’ve whipped them with her ponytail, but shoot them? And why would she kill Hugh? Her grudge was against Helene.”

  Grace pondered this for a moment and relaxed. “Good point. And she really is a sweet person.”

  “It’s Stokes,” I insisted. “Stokes hated both of them.”

  “Could be . . .” She started doodling. “But what if . . .” She appeared to be sketching a pair of crossed eyes.

  “But what if what?” I asked impatiently.

  “What if Hugh was messing around again? He might have slept with some nutjob. A pathologically jealous type. ‘Bang bang’ Hugh and Helene. ‘Slash slash’ the painting.” She scribbled out the eyes. “Then again, maybe it is Stokes.”

  I began massaging my temples, overwhelmed by the possibilities.

  Grace continued. “Isn’t it odd that Helene was attracted to Stokes? He’s so not her type—a bowler from Catskill?”

  “There you go again. Classist.”

  “But Stokes doesn’t have all those millions, like Hugh.”

  Grace doodled a dollar sign. I glanced at it. Looked away and looked back again. My brain started pinging and flashing like a pinball machine. How could I—how could both of us have missed this? I popped out of my chair and tapped the pad repeatedly as I tried to harness my racing thoughts. Grace looked alarmed.

  “What?”

  “Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,” I said.

  Grace dropped the pen and we both chanted it together: “Follow the money.”

  My words tumbled out. “Callie is the money. She’ll be Hugh’s heir. His paintings are worth even more now that he’s dead. A fortune, in fact. Fifteen million? More? She’s just a child. Someone has to take charge of her, become her legal guardian.”

  “You’re right,” Grace agreed.

  “That person will have a lot of influence over what happens to her millions during the next few years. And what she does with her money when she’s grown. Want to bet it’s going to be Uncle Tobias and his wife, Ruth, who petition the court to be Callie’s guardians?”

  Grace cupped her chin, thinking it over. “I didn’t know Tobias was into material things.”

  “Remember I told you he started that religious foundation? He hit Hugh up for large donations a couple of times, invited us down to fund-raisers in Virginia that we never went to. Hugh thought the foundation promoted ‘Christian fascism’ and never gave him a cent.” I sat down again and circled the dollar sign with Grace’s pen. “What if Tobias did it for the money?” I pointed to Grace’s MacBook. “Can I use this?”

  “Please.”

  “Did you know Tobias was in New York for a ‘Save the Family’ conference on the weekend of the murders?” I asked, logging on to my e-mail.

  “Now, that is a suspicious coincidence,” Grace said.

  “He also knew that Callie was staying with Helene’s sister and wouldn’t be at home. He told Wolf Blitzer. He was alone and within striking distance of Hugh and Helene. There was no one to keep track of him. He could have rented a car, driven out to Pequod from the city late that night and shot them before driving back to his hotel in the city. No one would have any idea he’d left. And Tobias would know how to set the scene to make it look like I’d done it.”

  “The police must suspect him. They must be looking into it.”

  “I think the police are too busy with me.”

  Grace peered over my shoulder as I reopened Tobias’s e-mail.

  “He invited you to the funeral?”

  “It would be the Christian thing to do, no? He’s reinforcing his saintly image.”

  Grace paused for a moment, then narrowed her eyes. “Tell him I’m grieving and want to come with you,” she said.

  From the Pequod Courier

  Obituaries, cont’d from page 11

  Nora Glasser, on staff at the Courier, was Hugh Walker’s first wife and introduced the artist to this area. Both of the deceased moved to Pequod Point earlier this year. Hugh Walker’s brother, Tobias Walker of Lynchburg, VA, survives him. Helene Walker’s mother, Dinah Westing, and her sister, Margaret Westing, survive her. The Walkers’ daughter, Callie, survives both of them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was on a mission. I left WPQD for Reynolds Discount Electronics in Massamat. It was time to shop for a disposable phone, or “burner,” in crime-show lingo. I intended to call rental car agencies and try to find out whether Tobias booked a car last Saturday night. If he had, there would be mileage records. With any luck, if the rental car hadn’t been cleaned thoroughly, the police might still find traces of Pequod Point’s soil on the floor mats or tires. Or carpet fibers on the upholstery. Or even blood. Buying a cheap laptop would also be a good idea for checking e-mails and finishing “Canines for Heroes.” I’m no shirker. Despite everything that was going on, I’d fulfill my work obligations.

  I thought of work, and a flicker of doubt returned about Ben. Had I done the right thing in pushing him away? In not giving him the opportunity to respond to my situation? I had to shake off this relentless self-questioning and refocus on the plan.

  As I drove, I reviewed what Grace and I had discussed. There were two prime suspects now. Stokes had a strong motive, but so did Tobias. He was Cain to Hugh’s Abel. He had to be envious of his little brother. Hugh’s talent had brought millions, public adulation and a hot blonde. Tobias earned a modest teacher’s salary and lived with a frump. If Hugh had donated even one painting to his brother’s foundation, it would probably fetch more money than Tobias could hope to raise in his entire lifetime. Behind all the godliness and concern, Tobias must’ve harbored massive resentment. If Nathan Glasser were alive, he’d lay odds that Tobias had devised a way to kill the Walkers, blame me and enrich himself and his cause.

  Grace and I hatched a plan. I’d already e-mailed Tobias from her computer accepting his invitation and requesting that he let Grace pay her respects. Bless Grace, she’d taken it on herself to make it less awkward for everyone at my wedding by giving Tobias and his wife some quality attention, so I doubted he’d refuse her. She’d approach him at the funeral as the caring mother she was and try to suss out his intentions regarding Callie. Grace had also suggested one more possibility.

  “We can’t dismiss the idea that Hugh had a jealous lover. Along with pedophiles, cheaters have a high level of recidivism. There’s a chance that lover could show up at the funeral.”

  “As a stranger, she’d draw too much attention,” I objected. “She would be foolish to risk gloating over her victims in person. And how would she find out about the service, anyway? Tobias isn’t advertising it.”

  “What if she’s not a stranger? What if she’s one of the people Tobias invited? A friend.”


  I contemplated this for a moment and someone came to mind.

  “Sue Mickelson, the neighbor. She was the first at the scene after the housekeeper. She’s very attractive. I wonder . . .”

  “I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule out that possibility.”

  We agreed that if we uncovered any useful information, we’d tell Gubbins immediately.

  By the time I paid for the phone and computer at Reynolds Electronics and returned to my car, Talk of the Townies was almost over. I’d missed the entire Abbas interview. Grace was finishing up with Davis Kimmerle of the New York Journal.

  “And then there’s Walker’s brilliant self-portrait with his ex-wife as a distorted, half-bestial figure hovering over him as he sleeps. The portrait evokes both the raw and the sophisticated. It’s contemporary yet grounded in classical traditions across many cultures. This is why Hugh Walker will remain profoundly influential. In fact, he has single-handedly paved the way for a revisioning of neo-primitivism.”

  “That’s fascinating, Davis. Your understanding of Walker’s vision is very impressive,” Grace said. “You really have to write a book.”

  “Thank you. I admit, I’ve been thinking about doing just that.”

  “Oh, you must. Fantastic. Promise me you’ll come on the show to talk about it when the book comes out.”

  “I’m there.”

  “Again, thank you for speaking with us today and explaining the significance of Walker’s paintings so eloquently. Now that he’s gone, it’s so sad we won’t be able to see more of his work and hear your take on it.”

  “A shame, I know. But you will be able to see a number of his previously unexhibited paintings soon. I’d be happy to come back on the show and talk about them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. The Abbas Masout Gallery had already planned a comprehensive retrospective for this spring before any of this . . . Oh God, I’m sorry, Grace. I just betrayed a confidence. It’s not public knowledge yet. Can you edit that out?”

  “I’m afraid this is a live show, Davis.”

  That’s exactly what I meant about Grace eliciting information. It seemed to work with everyone.