Spur of the Moment

by David Linzee

  “A fan?” Mike grinned at her.

  “I’ll have you know I’m approached by an appreciative opera-goer from time to time. Say, once every couple of years. Usually they’re little old ladies.”

  “This is a young guy. And not bad looking,” said Hannah.

  “A reporter, obviously,” said Renata. “Trying to get something indiscreet from me. Well, if he’s going to be sneaky with me, I needn’t be polite to him. Let him sit there till he decides to go away.”

  She and Mike went upstairs and into his office. He closed the door and offered her a chair. “Why do you want to speak to Barb?”

  “Don just called from jail. He has an idea.” As Renata explained it, she reflected that though it sounded far-fetched, Don’s logic was sound. The killer’s name might very well be on the guest list.

  Mike was unimpressed. He listened somberly, then said, “I’m afraid Barb won’t cooperate with you. Orders have come down from Congreve: you are not to be assisted in anything but singing.”

  “Bugger.” Renata slumped in her chair. She didn’t know why she was even surprised. “Well, maybe I can log in remotely. I know Don’s username, and I can probably guess his password. He always uses kings of England.”

  “The passwords have been changed. I’m afraid you don’t get it yet, Renata. With the media hot on this Don Giovanni thing and the season starting today, we’re walking on eggs around here. You saw how nervous Phil is.”

  Renata nodded. But there was nothing to think about. She took a deep breath and straightened up. “Right. I’ll go see Barb.”

  Mike narrowed his eyes, puzzled. “Renata, she won’t give you that list. Her job is on the line.”

  “I don’t expect her to. But I have to demand it. My brother in jail has asked me to do this for him, and I can’t not do it. I’m afraid I shall have to make a scene. Shouting and accusing, effing and blinding. I’m sorry for Barb, but there it is.”

  “You do remember, a few hours ago Phil tried to ease you out.”

  “Yes. And in about fifteen minutes he’ll sack me. Without hesitation. But that’s the point, you see. When I tell Don what happened, he may finally be convinced that he’s no longer part of the SLO family, and he’ll hire a lawyer of his own, who will give you lot a great deal of trouble, which I’m afraid is what’s going to be necessary to defend him properly.”

  “But Renata—”

  She stood up. “I’m sorry about not being there tonight. I hope Iris can cover Mercédès.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Give her the good news. I’m glad someone is moving up today.”

  She turned and went out. She could feel Mike’s gaze on her back, but he didn’t speak. There was nothing more to say, really. She walked down the corridor and descended the stairs. Don’s office was on the ground floor.

  A man was sitting in one of the row of chairs next to the parking lot entrance. He was looking at her. He stood and walked toward her. He had thick, reddish-brown hair and gold-framed spectacles, and he was smiling. They met at the foot of the stairs.

  He said, “Hello, Renata. My name is Peter Lombardo.”

  Chapter 37

  Funny how as soon as he saw her left foot on the top step, he knew it was Renata.

  The staircase was one of those minimalist jobs, just descending faux-marble slabs and a handrail on steel poles, affording Peter an excellent view: first the feet clad in flat-heeled sandals, then calves shapely and rather pale by St. Louis summertime standards, disappearing into a long flowing skirt of light-blue cotton. Next a deep-red blouse, the sleeves rolled below the elbows. Finally—my, she was tall—her head. He’d seen the thick black hair tumbling to her shoulders in her interview, but since then he had gotten used to her Cherubino wig. Her profile looked austere and purposeful. She was altogether rather forbidding, and when they met he did not put out his hand, and she did not smile.

  “You’re the one claiming to be my fan. But you’re a reporter, aren’t you?”

  “Well … yes. But not in the bad sense,” he answered carefully. He was trying not to stare at her black eye. He figured everybody else who had spoken to her today must have asked about it, so he wasn’t going to. “I work at Adams U Medical PR. I was flack to the late Dr. Stromberg-Brand.”

  “Oh.” In British, the word had two syllables, and sounded very skeptical. “Well, what do you want with me? I’m afraid I’m rather busy.”

  “Of course you are. It’s opening night tonight.” He was hoping this would elicit a smile from her, but oddly it did not. He felt intimidated standing before her. For one thing, she was taller than he. Better plunge right in. “I heard you on television yesterday, saying you believed your brother was innocent. Well, I do, too.”

  Her brows drew together, furrowing her pale forehead. “Do you know Don?”

  “No. But I have an idea who did kill Dr. Stromberg-Brand.”

  The blue eyes widened. She reached out and grasped his biceps. “Come sit down and talk to me, Mister Peter Lombardo.”

  They sat side by side in chairs under the big windows. Despite the chill of the air conditioning, he could feel the sun on his shoulders and the back of his head. Only now did Renata release her grip on him. “You’re quite sure you’re not a reporter? Trying to make me say something stupid?”

  He handed her his Adams U identification. She bent her head to examine it. He noticed a shaved spot and staples at the back of her head. The sight disturbed him, but it was not the right moment to ask questions.

  “Is the person you suspect at the medical school?”

  “In the same department as Stromberg-Brand. His name is Ransome Chase. Six years ago, she beat him out for a named professorship.”

  “Do people at the med school kill for that sort of thing?”

  “It isn’t just prestige. A named professorship gives you an income separate from the department budget. So you aren’t dependent on your department chair. It can make the difference between success and failure in reaching your research goal.”

  “And did it in this case?”

  “Well, Stromberg-Brand you know about. Chase has been researching Chagas Disease. He hasn’t published any world-shaking results.”

  “Chagas Disease? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “A parasite-born infection. We don’t have it here. In equatorial countries it kills tens of thousands every year.”

  “And you think he killed Helen out of sour grapes?”

  “There was a postdoc in Helen’s lab named Patel. She filed a sexual harassment complaint against him at the worst possible time.”

  “You think Helen put her up to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Chase know that? Because if he didn’t, he’d blame this Patel person, not Helen, wouldn’t he?”

  “I’m not sure. We’d have to ask Patel.”

  “What sort of person is Chase?”

  “I have a picture.” He reached in his coat pocket and handed over the head and shoulders photo he had downloaded last night of Ransome Chase, with his out-of-control beard and hair and oversize glasses.

  Renata stared hard at it. “Oh my God. I’ve seen this man. Unless … no, it’s him. I’m sure. He was there.”

  “Where?”

  “At Carmen’s Cornucopia.”

  “What?”

  “The donor party here, Saturday night. I didn’t speak to him, but I saw him. I’m sure.”

  “It’s a face you don’t forget.”

  She let the hand holding the photo fall to her lap. For a moment she was silent, thinking. “This fits Don’s theory. It couldn’t be coincidence, that Helen’s murderer just happened to come along right after he left her house. He said the murderer must have been at the party. Helen stood up and told her husband not to come home, that she wanted the house to herself. And the murderer heard.”

  “Someone who’d been waiting for years for the chance to kill Helen, and here it was. Yes, Chase fits the bill.”

  S
he slumped back, shaking her head. “But Peter, what am I to do? If I take this to the police, they’ll say it’s not evidence. It’s not even a motive, really, because we can’t say for sure that Chase knew Helen had done the dirty to him with this Patel person.”

  “I have an appointment with Patel in,” Peter glanced at his watch, “just under an hour.”

  “You made an appointment?”

  “Under false pretences, of course.”

  “But you’d get in trouble, wouldn’t you? No, I should do this on my own.”

  “I’m going with you,” he said.

  “Peter—”

  He was really getting to like the way she said his name. Pee-tah. “My car’s outside. Let’s go. “

  “Just a minute.” Taking out her cellphone, she tapped in a text message. Waiting, he noticed her scent: not floral but a mild, sweet spice. Something like cardamom. “I’m notifying our production head that I’ll be in the show tonight after all.” She glanced up at him. “It’s odd. I was on the way to attempt a bit of detective work that was going to cost me my job. Instead I’m going to cost you yours.”

  “Don’t worry, they won’t fire me for this,” said Peter, though he was far from sure. It all depended on what sort of person Anisha Patel turned out to be. And, of course, on whether Ransome Chase had murdered Helen Stromberg-Brand.

  Chapter 38

  It was a good thing that Peter Lombardo had volunteered to come with her. On her own, she would never have found Dr. Patel’s lab.

  “Granger Hospital, main floor,” said a recorded voice as the doors of the lift that had brought them up from the underground garage opened. They stepped into a scene that reminded her of Heathrow Airport at Christmastime. Here was something to remember—something banal but important. Though her life was unsatisfactory in many ways, she had her health. So many did not. This vast lobby was packed, a cistern into which people flowed from all directions, eddying, swirling, draining down one corridor or another. It sounded like an airport, too: the general roar of footfalls and talk, the announcements over the PA, the curlew-like cheeps of people-moving electric carts, the mysterious tones and chimes.

  Peter set off and she followed him. She passed a young man in shorts, with a bandaged face and stricken expression, an old woman leaning on a walker and wincing with each step, a mother holding a baby on one arm and a toddler by the hand. They all shuffled along, eyes lifted to the overhead signs: to radiology, to obstetrics, to oncology. It was the faces that reminded her most of an airport, Renata thought: the expressions of mingled boredom, hope, and anxiety. The sick, like travelers, were shorn of home and routine, aware that though their immediate fate was to walk down corridors and sit in waiting rooms, beyond this banality, they were on a journey. They did not know what would happen to them and whether or not they would return.

  They took another lift and crossed a glass-enclosed footbridge over a street to a much quieter building. Its corridors were painted light green and smelled of chemicals.

  “Welcome to the forefront of biomedical research.”

  “Rather a letdown.”

  “Well, most of the exciting stuff is going on at the molecular level.”

  She glanced sideways at this unlikely would-be savior. Peter had one of those flat, middle-American voices that told you nothing about his background. So far, all she knew was something he had let drop in the car, that he’d worked for a newspaper once and wished he still did. She could believe that. He reminded her of other print journalists she’d met. There was the usual naff turn-out: pinstripe shirt, plaid jacket, paisley tie, and baggy, wrinkled trousers. They looked like he’d slept in them, after swimming the Channel in them. He also had the occupational knack of putting a stranger at ease. In the car he had chatted pleasantly, as if he was happy to be with her, as if inviting strangers down to the medical center to investigate a murder was routine for him. He seemed to know a bit about opera, and about her.

  They entered a lab. Two women in white coats and blue jeans were standing over a stainless-steel drum with a lot of dials on it. The taller one was almost Renata’s height but very slim, with short black hair and dark-brown skin. This must be Anisha Patel. She was explaining the machine to the younger woman. She had the same sort of middle-American voice as Peter.

  Glancing up, she said, “Peter from PR? Right on time. Let’s go to my office.” She didn’t notice Renata behind him. They went into a small room and she stepped around a cluttered metal desk and turned to face them. Seeing Renata, she looked a question at Peter.

  He said, “In fact, Dr. Patel, I’m not here to interview you about your latest NIH grant.”

  “So what is this about?”

  “Your sexual harassment complaint against Dr. Chase.”

  Patel hesitated, caught between amusement and outrage.

  “Let me get this straight. I called you yesterday, concerned that Chase might be quoted in Helen’s obit, and your response was to go digging around in the past for the reason?”

  “Yes. By the way, Doctor, if you thought there was any chance of Chase being quoted in the obit, you don’t know how my department works.”

  “I wonder if you know how your department works, Peter from PR. Suppose I call your boss—what’s his name, Roger? And tell him what you’re trying to pull?”

  “You’d be perfectly justified. But the quickest and most painless way to get rid of us is to answer our questions.”

  Patel’s eyes met hers. “Who are you?”

  “Renata Radleigh.”

  “Radleigh?”

  “Yes. His sister.”

  “So you’re trying to help him with his case. Dig up some old scandal to confuse the issues and make Helen look bad.”

  “No. I believe in my brother’s innocence.”

  “Ah. I see. Well, I suppose if it was my brother, I would be making a fool of myself, too.”

  Patel shut her eyes and gave two vigorous shakes of her head. “This is amazing. I have to admit I’m curious. All right, Peter from PR. I’m not promising to answer all your questions. And I’m not promising I won’t call Roger. But you can sit down. You too, Ms Radleigh.”

  They sat in metal chairs in front of the desk. Patel sat too and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “Let me make this clear. The sexual harassment complaint was between Dr. Chase and me. Helen had nothing to do with it.”

  Peter smiled. “I like the way you stand up for your late boss, Dr. Patel. It shows real class. Which is consistent with what I’ve heard about you.”

  “Oh, you’ve been asking around? How gratifying.”

  “I’m kind of surprised that someone like you would file a complaint like that. The remarks you cited—”

  “You’ve read the complaint? But it’s supposed to be sealed. How—”

  “Dr. Chase says you’re irritable, you must be in purdah. Or he thinks you’re tired, and he says you must have been through at least one hundred eighty-seven positions from the Kama Sutra with your boyfriend—”

  “These are racist and sexist remarks under the faculty code. And I had witnesses.”

  “You could have let it go.”

  “I had a right to protect myself.”

  “Okay. Then why didn’t you file the complaint right away?”

  “I was hoping it would stop.”

  “It did stop, Dr. Patel. All the incidents you complained about were old. The most recent was eight months before you filed the complaint.”

  “There was no statute of limitations problem. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “Just that you filed the complaint at the time Chase was under consideration for the Blix professorship.”

  “It was entirely relevant for the Dean’s committee to consider.”

  “Okay. But the truth is, Chase stopped making these dumb jokes, and you were going to let the matter drop, until Helen talked you into filing a complaint. For her own purposes.”

  Renata was expecting an angry retort, but Pat
el’s expression changed. She gazed at Peter in silence for a long moment. “Oh my God. You think Chase killed Helen. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Yep,” said Peter. “What do you think?”

  Another long moment of reflection, and she surfaced to say, “You’re wrong. You’ve got to be wrong.”

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  “Chase is a madman. But murder—”

  “He bears a grudge about losing the professorship.”

  “Helen got the professorship because she deserved it. Her research was looking so promising. And now, of course, it’s paid off. Chase’s was going nowhere. That’s why he was always running off to do clinical in South America. He wanted to get out of his lab because nothing was happening there.”

  Peter nodded and waited. He was very good at silences that encouraged the other person to speak, Renata noted. Another trick of the reporter’s trade.

  “I kept telling her, you’re a sure shot. You don’t need this harassment thing.”

  “But she insisted.”

  “Helen was wonderful to me. Nobody could have had a better mentor. But there was this side to her … she pushed too hard. She said, ‘If I lose the professorship, I don’t want to look back and think I left something undone.’ ”

  “You thought she was making a big mistake.”

  “I wouldn’t say that Chase is popular around here. But his supporters love him. They’re fanatically loyal. And his patients adore him. He’s the crusty old-fashioned doc who shoots from the hip. And no matter how many times he shoots himself in the foot, there’s always someone there to help him limp away.”

  “You weren’t really threatened by his racist and sexist remarks. You’ve tolerated a lot worse.”

  “I have, as a matter of fact. You’re a shrewd guy, Peter from PR. Chase actually liked me. In his Neanderthal brain, these jokes were just some kind of hazing ritual. He was treating me like one of the boys.”

  “And since the complaint—”

  “He hates me. His feelings are as raw as they were six years ago. I always take the stairs in this building. Walk up seven flights. People think I’m a fitness nut, but the truth is I don’t want to meet Chase in the elevator.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s one thing if you’re Helen. Confident and strong like her. But for somebody like me, it’s tough being hated.”