by Lois Winston
Another possibility was that the trigger signal fired correctly, and the actual measurement really was low, indicating no metal was present, but the team misread it at first, then had to cover it up. Or maybe they didn’t misread it, but decided to cover up the low reading. I added a note to check the printout for some numbers that could support any or all of these admittedly wild guesses.
I felt better having accomplished two things: I had a way to explain the significance of the conductivity measurements to Matt and I had at least some leads on what to look for in the printout.
At about six-thirty, Rose called from downstairs and offered to bring up a box of cannoli from Luberto’s if I’d make some coffee. She knew I’d never say no to a deal like that. A Luberto’s cannoli, with its special creamy custard filling enclosed in a delicate pastry shell, lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar, was my favorite dessert. I wished I hadn’t eaten grocery store birthday cake that afternoon, but it was too late for regrets.
Rose was in a blue-gray dress that nearly matched the color of my sofa. She wore pearls and black pumps, and had tiny onyx studs in her ears. Her mourning outfit. She usually visited with me during wakes when Martha was unavailable to be on call in case office support was needed. This was the first time I’d be attending the wake myself.
“Are you making any progress,” she asked.
I pointed to the papers spread out on my kitchen table, making it unavailable for a pastry session.
“Not a lot,” I said, “I’m just getting to the printout.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Rose said. “I’m talking about your love life.”
I blew a long sigh into the air above me and considered for a minute telling her that Matt and I had spent the night together and then eloped. I settled on the truth.
“I have no love life,” I said, “and I thought you were going to lay off until the case was closed.”
“Just asking.”
We were seated side by side on the sofa. Rose seemed to have lost her train of thought as she held the cannoli far away from her funeral director outfit. She licked flakes of pastry from her fingers, and I knew I was off the hook.
~*~
Rose and I left the apartment together and walked down to the main parlor a little after seven o’clock.
Walking into the room where Eric was laid out was like walking into the night. I remembered the last few funeral services I’d been to—mostly Protestant ones, where the decor was bright and the spirit was one of new life and resurrection. Was it only Catholics, I wondered, who treated death as a nasty secret, hushed and bleak? Or was it just Galigani’s holding onto an old tradition? The piped-in organ music was slow and dreary, as heavy as the scent of many different flowers placed close together in an airless room.
A few more baskets and vases of flowers had arrived since I’d stopped in that afternoon, and Janice was looking through the cards attached to them. When she saw Rose, she walked over to her, holding the white satin-covered guest book between her thumb and index finger as if it needed dusting for fingerprints.
“Do you have another style?” she asked, dropping the book into Rose’s open hands. “This seems a little frilly, maybe it’s for a woman. I’d prefer something more subtle for a man.” Janice was wearing a short black crepe skirt with a matching jacket, topped off by a large chiffon scarf with a black and white floral design.
I moved to the side to let Rose handle the crisis.
Straight-backed dark oak chairs with shiny brown and gold fabric seat covers were arranged two deep along the two side walls of the room, creating a wide center aisle in front of the casket. Eric’s parents were sitting in two more comfortable-looking armchairs in the front row to the right of their son’s body. They looked much older and smaller than I remembered from the afternoon, and sat holding hands across the arms of their chairs, their shoulders hunched, their mouths in thin lines across deeply wrinkled faces.
I was about to introduce myself, but Janice had finished with Rose, at least for the moment, and met me as I crossed the carpet.
“This is Gloria Lamerino,” she said, without looking directly at the couple. “She knew Eric in California.”
“These are Eric’s parents,” she said to me, waving in their direction.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to them, with the awkwardness I always feel on such occasions.
“How nice of you to come,” Eric’s mother said. His father nodded and motioned for me to sit next to him on the one other soft chair in the room as Janice walked away.
Earlier in the day, I’d thought of a few questions I wanted to ask Eric’s parents, but once I was in their presence, I lost any inclination to disturb their grief with an interrogation. Instead, I sat next to Mr. Bensen and chatted about how beautiful the flower arrangements were, how Mr. Galigani’s men were picking up Eric’s grandmother in a brand new Cadillac, and how Father Tucci was due any minute. Mrs. Bensen sat silently through our conversation, staring in the direction of her son’s body and looking old enough herself to be his grandmother.
“Look how far Eric got,” Mr. Bensen said. “We had him very late, you know, after we’d practically given up. I’m just a shoemaker, but Eric was always good in school. Even as a little boy he was always doing extra homework.”
“Where do you work?” I asked, happy to have a new direction to take the conversation.
“I have a shop on Beach Street, but I’m going to retire now. Eric is my only child, and now he’s gone.”
I could sense that he had lost interest in life, and before I knew it, I’d asked a question I knew to be inappropriate in such a setting.
“Who would want to kill him?” I asked.
Mr. Bensen turned to me, then looked at Janice who was across the room with other visitors.
“Her,” he said.
My eyes must have widened considerably, because Mr. Bensen quickly took my hand.
“Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just an old man babbling.”
I forgave him, but I also wanted to know more. I tried to sound casual as I picked up the thread of his accusation.
“How long were they married?” I asked.
“Eight years. They never should have got together in the first place.”
I ran the numbers through my head. Eric was thirty-one when he was murdered. That meant he’d married Janice at twenty-three, probably after graduating from college. I knew Eric had been a graduate student for six years, including his year in California, so there were about two years during which he was married to Janice, but not in graduate school.
“Did Eric go to work after college?” I asked Mr. Bensen, keeping my voice low. I thought I might be imposing on Eric’s father, but I dismissed the idea as he rambled on. He seemed to be relieved to be able to talk about his son.
“Janice wanted him to work for her father, in the insurance business. Eric tried it but it wasn’t for him. I knew that. But Janice pushed him. She thought he could make a lot of money right away like her father.”
“So Eric left the company and went back to school?”
“Old man Miller died. And Eric just took the chance to get out. Janice had a fit, but Eric was determined to go back to school. He ...”
Mr. Bensen started to break down in tears, and I felt an obligation to change the subject. The conversation had proved to be a dead end, anyway, in a manner of speaking. If there was a murder every time a married couple didn’t get along, I reminded myself, or one spouse pushed the other into taking a job he or she didn’t want, the world would need a lot more homicide detectives.
Several other groups of people were arriving at that moment, and I took advantage of the distraction. I said goodbye to the Bensens and searched the small group of newcomers for a familiar face. Finding none, I took a seat on the opposite side of the room and let my mind wander over Mr. Bensen’s insinuation that Janice murdered Eric. I convinced myself that he was aware of the strained relationship between his son and daughter-in-law an
d was merely angry at the thought that Eric might not have died a happily married man.
Sitting in front of Eric’s remains, in the presence of his infinitely sad parents, it seemed more crucial than ever to find his murderer and I resolved to give it my all over the weekend.
In the next half hour I was joined by Connie, Jim, Andrea, and Leder, arriving at different times. They were all wearing black somewhere on their person, and so far, with my gray and white suit and pewter jewelry, I had the cheeriest outfit in the room. I noticed the guest book in its place on a small wooden stand by the door and wondered how Rose solved Janice Bensen’s problem.
There was still no sign of Matt as we sat through a rosary by Father Tucci, the pastor of Saint Anthony’s. Jim was the only live person besides the priest who held an actual rosary, with dark brown beads and a silver crucifix. I hadn’t had a rosary in my hands since I was a child praying for the conversion of Russia, for the souls in purgatory and for pagan babies. I wondered what happened to my childhood faith. I hadn’t consciously abandoned the religion I grew up with, just drifted away from it as I headed west.
As the closing time for the wake approached, I started to think about how to get all the principals together for conversation, but Leder took over.
“You live upstairs, don’t you Gloria?” he asked. As he stood over me, I caught a whiff of an elaborate cologne, reminding me of Peter.
“Yes, it’s a wonderful arrangement for now,” I said. “My friends own the building and the business.”
“Well, why don’t we send Jim here to get us a bottle or two, and we can have a fine reunion,” he said, taking several bills from his wallet. To my astonishment, I realized he was inviting us all up to my apartment. What possible motive can he have, I wondered, dismissing the thought that he was acting out of innocent, if slightly rude, sociability.
Leder stood behind Connie and put his hands on her shoulders.
“See if you can find a bottle of Mondavi for Connie, or anything from one of those Napa Valley wineries,” he said, leaning into her ear. Connie rolled her eyes and moved away.
“Maybe we shouldn’t invite ourselves,” Jim said, still fingering his rosary, part of which hung out of his jacket pocket. He hadn’t taken the money Leder was holding out. Connie and Andrea seemed to be echoing Jim’s sentiment by giving me questioning looks.
As for me, my second thought after the one about Leder’s impure intentions was that my apartment was a mess. I thought about the whole day’s worth of dishes in the sink and the books and papers spread out on the table. A voice in my head that sounded like Josephine’s told me to ask everyone to wait while I ran up and straightened out. The new voice I was trying to cultivate said no one who matters will judge me by what kind of housekeeper I am.
I looked at the group and smiled. “What a great idea,” I said. “It’s just up the stairs.”
FOURTEEN
Jim approached me as if I were his mother and he needed the car keys for the prom.
“I think we should invite Janice and Eric’s parents, too, don’t you?” he asked.
Evidently Jim felt that an all-inclusive imposition on me was better than one that excluded part of the population. I agreed, grateful that he didn’t make a general announcement to the more than two dozen assembled mourners.
Eric’s parents declined with grace and Janice accepted with “I could use a drink.” Andrea then bowed out, but not before pulling me aside in the foyer.
“I’m not sure I should tell you this,” she said. “But I overheard Doctor Leder on the phone with his wife yesterday. He was arguing with her and I know it was about his alibi for the time of Eric’s murder.”
“What makes you think that?” I whispered, imitating the low volume of Andrea’s words.
“I heard him say something like, ‘why the hell did you have to tell them about the sleeping pills?’ She’s his alibi, isn’t she?”
“It doesn’t mean he killed Eric.”
“No, but it sounded fishy to me. He’d been angry with Eric ever since they came back here. And I know he wanted his wife to lie. He kept saying how she should call the police back and tell them she remembered not taking a pill.”
“Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”
“It happened way after you and the detective left. It was late and Doctor Leder probably thought no one else was in the building, but I was in the library right next to his office. The building was so empty the sound carried and before I knew it, I heard the whole conversation.”
Andrea shuffled her feet as she talked, occasionally looking down at the floor as if there were a TelePrompTer on the carpet. Unlike the day of her interview with Matt, her speech came out smoothly, like a dramatic performance given in a stage whisper.
“I thought maybe you could tell the police for me,” she said, “since you’re helping them.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Andrea,” I said, conscious of people not far from us in the parlor, including Leder himself. It might have been my imagination, but I thought he was watching us and lip-reading, and I wasn’t anxious to receive another late night warning call. “I’m not the police. If you’re sure what you heard and think it’s important, you should call Sergeant Gennaro and tell him yourself.”
Andrea didn’t look convinced, but it was impossible to continue the discussion as Connie, Leder, and Janice closed in on us. Andrea said goodnight, and I had no idea if she planned to call Matt, nor even if she was telling the truth in the first place.
A few minutes later, Jim returned from doing his mentor’s errand and five of us climbed the stairs and entered my apartment together. I noted without surprise that Jim had included sparkling cider in his selection of drinks, most likely remembering that I don’t drink alcohol.
Four people constituted more company than I’d ever had at one time in my apartment, and I made a mental note to have a dinner party soon with guests of my own choosing.
One look at my cluttered kitchen table was enough to tell even the least observant person what I’d been doing. Evidence of my high-tech snooping was in plain sight: the printout of the gas gun data with red-penciled question marks in the margins, a notebook with my calculations, and the world-famous handbook of physical and chemical measurements, open to the pages on conductivity.
I couldn’t have been more embarrassed if all my underwire bras were strung on a clothesline across the room. Leder’s long legs got him to the table before I could get there and clear the trail.
“You’ve been busy,” he said, standing over the table, his hands on his hips where a gun might be holstered if we were in an old western movie. “What’s it going to take for you to mind your business, Gloria?”
I wondered how Leder’s face could simultaneously support a wide, grinning mouth and pinched, angry eyes. I heard a general shuffling of feet behind us and found myself in the familiar territory of young researchers covering up the unacceptable behavior of their mentor.
“Nice collection of photographs,” Jim said.
“Mind if I put on a CD?” Connie asked, and pretty soon Wynton Marsalis was filling the awkward spaces between unconnected bits of conversation.
I’d started to answer Leder with an evasive comment, but changed my mind when I realized that his remarks could be turned into exactly what I’d wanted— a conversation about the gas gun data with at least some of the suspects.
“As a matter of fact this is my business,” I said. “I’ve been looking at your printout. One of the things I’m getting paid to do.”
Leder’s eyes remained pinched together and his nose joined the other angry features of his face, his nostrils growing wider by the second.
“The police said there was no sign of activity on the computer that night,” Connie said, before he could collect himself to speak.
“Eventually they were able to pull this up with a lost and found utility,” I said, pointing to the stack of green and white pages.
“So the killer d
eleted a file that was on the screen when Eric was murdered?” Jim asked.
“Evidently,” I said.
By now everyone had gathered around the table and Leder had recovered enough to make one last pitch at putting me in my place.
“Do you really understand our data, Gloria?” he asked.
Coming from Leder, my name sounded like a little girl’s nickname and his question had the lilt of “can you say your ABC’s?”
“I have no problem understanding the data,” I said, stretching the truth longer than your average rubber band, “except for these characters at the end.” I ran my index finger back and forth under the three mathematical symbols.
“They’re nothing I recognize,” Connie said.
“Is it some code for the end of the run?” I asked.
“No, I’d have seen it before if it were,” she said, while Jim and Leder uttered no’s and shook their heads in apparent agreement. “Besides,” Connie continued, “this may be the last page of the printout, but it’s not the end of the program. Eric was somewhere in the middle of the program when he typed these characters.”
“So clearly he was interrupted at his keyboard,” I said.
If anyone was about to give the matter further thought or make a comment, it was swallowed up by Janice’s voice.
“Do we have to make this a technical meeting?” she asked, nearly shouting at us. “I was under the impression that I was invited to relax with a glass of wine.”
Janice’s voice was hoarse and shaky. None of us seemed to have noticed that she’d left the table and taken a place on the sofa. Her chin was in her right hand and she was close to tears.
Connie and Leder appeared stunned. Jim went over and sat next to Janice, and I mentally gave myself the award for the hostess most insensitive to widows.