Final Edit

by Robert A Carter

  “Just be good, darling. I intend to stay in the spare room while I’m here. And I’m not sure I trust you even there.”

  The newspapers carried a mention of a memorial service for Susan at a funeral home in Bronxville, where Susan’s parents lived and where she had grown up. I wasn’t in any condition to attend, though I would have wanted to; I sent flowers and a condolence card, which I knew was an inadequate gesture in the circumstances, but it was all I could do. Poor Susan; what rotten luck I’d brought her. I thought that I ought to call her parents and tell them how bad I felt…

  A man answered the phone. “Mr. Markham?” I said.

  “Who’s this?” His voice was gruff, a bit daunting.

  “Nicholas Barlow.” A longish silence followed. “Mr. Markham? I want you to know—”

  “I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Barlow.”

  “Perhaps if I spoke with Mrs. Markham—”

  “That will not be possible, sir.”

  “But—”

  The phone went dead. So much for good intentions. Oh well, I can’t say I blamed them. Not only was their daughter murdered, she was found in flagrante delicto. Hell of a situation.

  That was the first day. On the second day Scanlon called with the Bad News.

  “The police checked out Susan Markham’s apartment,” he said. “But they were too late.”

  “How so?”

  “Susan’s housecleaner had been there first. She got rid of the bottle and the cork—”

  “Oh no.”

  “But for some unaccountable reason, maybe because she hadn’t heard the news, and thought Susan might be coming back to finish it off, she left the two wineglasses. One, Susan’s, we presume, was empty. The other, yours, was almost full.”

  “She got rid of the bottle, Joe?”

  “From the looks of things, it fell, or was dropped, by you or Susan, and broke on the floor. So she cleaned it up.”

  “And the poison?”

  “Potassium chlorate was found in your wineglass, and traces of it in Susan’s glass. The wonder is that the maid didn’t destroy that evidence, too.”

  “So why don’t they arrest me?”

  “So far,” Scanlon said, “they can’t find a motive, although they’re doing their best to tie it to Parker Foxcroft’s murder somehow. And you’re a solid citizen, Nick. A personage, if I may put it that way. They’re not going to fuck around with you, unless they’ve got a steel-belted case against you.”

  “I see. Well, they’re going to have one hell of a time finding a motive. I feel rotten about this, Joe, and worst of all because I think I might have inadvertently been responsible for Susan’s death.”

  “Watch that conscience of yours, Nick. It’s gotten you into trouble before, you know.”

  “We’ve got to do something about this mess, Joe.”

  “Stick to publishing, Nick. Writers like me need guys like you to get their books out. Leave the detecting to the pros.”

  I knew what he was saying and why, yet I was still determined to do something. But what?

  It was Margo who came up with the idea. When I bemoaned my lack of progress in what I liked to think of as “my murder investigation,” a slipshod, amateurish affair at best (but no less successful, apparently, than the official one), Margo reminded me of Mohonk.

  “Remember our Mystery Weekend at Mohonk?” she said.

  I did indeed. A few years back, a large band of us putative crime-solvers gathered for a long weekend at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. It’s an annual affair, and great fun, though Margo and I only made it there once. At the beginning of the weekend, the attendees are assigned to various groups of twelve to fifteen people, each group with an identifying name, and they then watch a video of a fictional murder committed in one locale or another—it was an English manor house the year we attended. During the following few days, the groups have the opportunity to question various suspects, all of them mystery writers costumed as the characters they play. The year Margo and I went, Ed McBain, Simon Brett, and Mary Higgins Clark were among the authors present. After the questioning periods, and another simulated murder or two, each group huddles in one of the myriad nooks and crannies with which Mohonk Mountain House, a rambling castle of a hotel perched on a mountainside, is amply supplied.

  “When the group we were in met to compare notes and devise a solution to the mystery,” Margo said, “you remember what we did, Nick?”

  “Sure. We used a blackboard—no, actually, it was a large pad on an easel—”

  “And we divided the top sheet into three categories: motive, opportunity, and alibi, I believe it was—”

  “And then proceeded to list the various suspects,” I concluded, “according to those categories.”

  “After which,” Margo said triumphantly, “we decided who the likeliest suspect was, and then we wrote a five-minute skit exposing our chosen murderer.”

  And got it all wrong. However, it was still a lot of fun.

  “What I’m suggesting now, darling,” Margo continued, “is that we get together in Connecticut the first weekend that’s available—”

  “This one’s out,” I reminded her. Thanks to Lieutenant Hatcher.

  “—and form a group, just as we did at Mohonk, and go through the same procedure. Let’s see. There’ll be you, me, Tim, and Joe Scanlon, if he’ll come—”

  “I suppose we’d better include my mother,” I said, “and Herbert Poole.”

  “Poole by all means, and Gertrude if she’s game.”

  “She’ll be game, all right,” I muttered. Aloud: “It’s a brilliant idea, Margo.”

  She beamed. “I thought you’d like it.”

  On the third day of Margo’s stay with me, I made all the arrangements. Phone calls to Joe Scanlon, who said he’d always wanted to see where a wealthy publisher spent his weekends, and to Herbert Poole, who was willing to give up Fire Island for one weekend in order to play detective. My family was more than willing to cooperate, as was Margo.

  That third night, I awoke in the middle of the night, screaming and moaning, to find Margo lying on the bed, her arms around me, saying, “There, there, Nicky—it’s all right, I’m here,” and wiping the perspiration from my forehead with the edge of the sheet.

  “I must have had a nightmare,” I said, “though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was… oh my God, I only know it was awful.”

  “It’s all right now, darling,” said Margo, and kissed me on the lips, as she had on several occasions since we left the hospital, but always lightly, to let me know that she had no serious intentions whatsoever.

  This time, however, the kiss was more intense, and she did not take her arms from around me, but nestled closer. I could feel the warmth and comforting fullness and strength of her splendid body through the thin silk nightgown she was wearing. I sighed, kissed her back, and took her into my arms.

  She did not leave my bed for the rest of the night. And the next morning, there was no mention of her returning to her own apartment.

  She did, however, bring up the subject of Susan Markham, while we were having breakfast, and I was rather relieved she did, because I didn’t want anything from the recent past to cloud our new beginning, as I looked upon it.

  “Darling,” she said, “I suppose it’s insecurity on my part to ask this, but—she was younger than I am, of course, but were you—well, were you in love with her? You know what I mean, Nick.”

  Yes, I knew what Margo meant. She wanted to know if I found Susan better than I found her.

  “No, I don’t think I was in love with her,” I said. “There wasn’t time for that. We didn’t share a life together, as you and I did. I was infatuated with her, certainly. I found her different—in the way that every woman is different from every other woman. ‘Comparison,’ as Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ‘is the source of all unhappiness.’”

  That answer seemed to satisfy her. I have often considered that it is the “difference” bet
ween one woman and another that makes sexual fidelity—monogamy, if you will—so hard for some men to achieve. It’s the difference that attracts. If all women looked exactly alike, dressed in the same drab clothing (as the women in Red China did for so long, in those unattractive blue jackets and pants), how easy it would be to be faithful to one woman all one’s life!

  Still, one makes every effort—especially if the woman in question is Margo Richmond.

  Chapter 28

  The following weekend included the Fourth of July, which meant the usual round of pomp and ceremony: parades, patriotic oratory, grand firework displays, and all the trimmings—as unavoidable in Connecticut as anywhere else in America. I can’t say I find any of this foofaraw thrilling enough to clear away all the blemishes on our national escutcheon—but it’s relatively harmless, and almost certain to bring out the small boy in more than one otherwise mature male.

  Margo, Herbert Poole, Joe Scanlon, and I rode out to Weston in the Mercedes, with Oscar at the wheel. We didn’t talk much on the way out—groused a bit about the weather; the thermometer had reached 98 degrees by noon that Saturday, with enough humidity to turn the entire tri-state area into the country’s largest tropical rain forest. For the most part, we settled back in air-conditioned comfort and listened to Mozart on the stereo; the Piano Concerto Number 26 (”Coronation”), and the Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in D Major, both played by Murray Perahia with the English Chamber Orchestra. Nobody complained about that, although I did notice that Scanlon fidgeted a bit at the beginning. However, he ultimately succumbed to Mozart’s celestial genius, and was nodding his head in tempo with the rest of us. Afterward, he said the Rondo reminded him “of the movie Hopscotch.”

  “Quite right, Joe,” I said. “That was the movie’s score.”

  When we arrived at the Kellogg Hill Road house, Mother was waiting for us in the conservatory, busy watering her plants and flowers. She pulled off her work gloves and the floppy straw hat she wore whenever attending to her gardening chores, and patted her coils of faintly blue hair back in place. She was especially pleased to see Margo. I knew she would be; Margo was a particular favorite.

  “How good to see you two children together again,” she said, embracing us both in word and gesture. With Scanlon and Poole she was her regal self: gracious and imposing, with just a touch of coquettishness for Scanlon (”Lieutenant, I’ve wanted Nicholas to bring you out to the country for the longest time.” Untrue, but I wasn’t about to correct her.), and properly respectful of Poole, who was, after all, a Bestselling Author. To Mother, in retirement as well as in the days when she played an active role in Barlow & Company, authors were privileged beings.

  I remembered how much she enjoyed playing a card game called Authors with Father, Tim, and me. It was the only card game my father ever played. He thought bridge was a game for idlers and poker a pastime for the dissolute, but Authors he enjoyed. I can still remember the pleasure both he and Mother took in matching up mustachioed Robert Louis Stevenson and Nathaniel Hawthorne with their four respective books. And there was Dickens with his chin whiskers, Thackeray with his tiny round spectacles, and, of course, James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving— and the token female author, Louisa May Alcott. All the old masters that nobody reads anymore unless compelled to do so by a school teacher. Today, if we were to re-create the game for the 1990s, it would have to include rock stars, serial killers, minor statesmen and stateswomen, unindicted coconspirators, and aged movie icons. Still, to Mother, Herbert Poole was the Real Thing.

  “How shall we go about this sleuthing game of ours?” Margo asked when we had all gathered in the living room. Though none of us had forgotten the purpose of our trip to Connecticut, it had after all been her suggestion, and I had pretty well decided to let her play the leading role in our mystery weekend.

  “I suggest,” I said, “that we enjoy our cocktails and dinner without taxing our little gray cells, get a good night’s sleep, and then, when our brains are revved up, that we tackle ‘The Case of the Fair-Haired Editor.’

  “I second the motion,” said Tim. He was always ready for a good game of Trivial Pursuit, Clue, or 22 IB Baker Street.

  The rest of the party murmured their agreement to my proposal—and the evening passed in a pleasant flow of food, drink, and conversation.

  When bedtime rolled around, Margo and I headed for the room we had always occupied during our married life. Mother had made no objection to this, and had, in fact, arranged it before we even arrived. In matters of this kind, she was quite Catholic in her opinions. Once married, always married—in her eyes, as well as God’s.

  Nothing arouses my amorous inclinations more than the cool night air of Connecticut, which did not let us down that night, I’m happy to say. When we had reached that point where smokers light up their cigarettes, and nonsmokers roll over and sink into their pillows, we decided to get out of bed and go out on our balcony. There, hand in hand, we watched a vivid display of heat lightning overhead, vast yellow flashes which made their own lovely works of fire in the cavernous sky. We were happy just to stand there and breathe in the perfume of a New England summer in full bloom.

  “We’re getting to be a habit again, aren’t we,” said Margo. “That’s not in any way a complaint, darling.”

  “Have you thought at all,” I said, “that perhaps it’s our destiny?”

  “Destiny.” She considered this for a moment or two. “That’s a rather large word, isn’t it?”

  “Well, we do seem to be Elected Affinities, don’t we?”

  “Elected Affinities. Whose term is that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It just… floated into my mind. It’s from one philosopher or another, but damned if I can remember which one just now.”

  “For my part,” said Margo, “I’m just going to take it day by day, see what happens. You understand, Nick?”

  “Of course,” I said. “It’s the only way to live.” That’s one thing, I thought, that Alcoholics Anonymous got absolutely right.

  “And you won’t rush me, will you?”

  “Certainly not. I shall backpedal my way straight into your heart.”

  “Idiot,” she said, and after giving me a kiss that awakened any lust I might have sacrificed to the night air, she steered me back into the bedroom.

  Before we had all separated the night before, I’d laid down one inflexible rule: “No work without nourishment first.” When we gathered downstairs again next morning, we found the buffet table laden with platters of cold ham and turkey; both of them I’d smoked myself on my last visit to Connecticut (a minor talent, but one I take pride in). The sauce was a mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. Alongside the meats was a huge serving of pasta e pesto on a bed of romaine, and a bowl of mixed fruit on ice. Bottles of Taittinger champagne, and pitchers of fresh orange juice—for anyone who wanted a mimosa—completed the feast. I stuck to straight champagne myself, as did most of the others. Poole alone drank only the juice.

  “The champagne might make it hard for me to concentrate,” he said, “and I’m really looking forward to—what’d you call it, Margo—the sleuthing game?”

  “That’s right.”

  It took Joe Scanlon to remind us that “murder was a serious business. Not a game,” he said. “And there are two murders here, or aren’t we planning to tackle the second one?”

  “Wouldn’t you all agree,” Tim interjected, “that the two are connected—that the second one is simply a sequel to the first—committed by the original murderer to cover up the first crime in some way?”

  As the fortunate survivor of what might have been a double murder (thank God I can’t abide pink wine), I could only agree. Susan must have known something—or the murderer thought she knew something, that would somehow be incriminating.

  “Shall we begin?” said Margo.

  We had finished our brunch and were now in the solarium, like the conservatory, banked with so many of Mother’s flowers and plants that it suggest
ed southern Florida. But it was cool, with all that oxygen pumped into the air, and with stone tile underfoot, and comfortable wicker furniture.

  Margo stood at the entrance to the room with an easel and a large pad of white paper; the rest of us sat in a semicircle around her. Each time she finished filling out a sheet, she tore it from the pad and fixed it to the back wall with scotch tape. In the end the wall was festooned with sheets, each one a suspect.

  “We’re looking for motive, opportunity, and alibi,” she announced. “Facts first, from whoever has them, and then speculations. Our first suspect…”

  She turned to me, leaving me no choice but to splutter “But… but…” and rise half out of my chair. Then I fell back. Of course Margo was right. Didn’t the police still have me on their shortlist?

  “Nick,” said Margo, “you can tell us what your motive might have been.”

  I could hardly refuse to play along. “Well, I wanted to get rid of Parker, but I didn’t want to buy out his contract. I’m a well-known tightwad, you see.” If I’d hoped to provoke a laugh with this line, or even a titter, I was disappointed. “Also,” I added, “Parker was a disruptive force in my company. People were quitting, or threatening to quit, because of his antics.”

  “Opportunity,” said Margo. “You found the body.”

  “He was already dead when I did,” I pointed out.

  “If you’d killed him, it would have been natural for you to pretend you’d just found the body,” said Tim.

  My own brother, for Christ’s sake. “Whose side are you on?” I muttered, too softly to be heard.

  “But I saw someone leaving the office, someone who almost knocked me down,” I protested.

  “You’re the only one who did see anyone else—and,” said Margo, scribbling furiously on the pad with a magic marker, “you have no alibi. You were also the last one to talk to Parker.”

  “The phone call I got at The Players was from Parker, but the calls I made to him in the office—well, the voice could have been anyone’s, even a woman.”

  “Don’t you think we’ve taken this one far enough?” It was Joe Scanlon. Thanks, Joe, heartfelt thanks.