The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man

by Alfred Alcorn

  At that moment, Diantha and Elsie came through the door, the former carrying a bag of groceries, the latter running toward me, signing ecstatically something about Momma getting frozen pops. Behind the kitchen door Decker barked.

  I picked the little one up and held her close to me, as though it were she and not I who was in jeopardy.

  “Diantha,” I said, before greetings or explanations were offered, “do you know what happened to my revolver?”

  Had she dropped the bag of groceries, it would have been utterly congruent with the expression of surprise, guilt, and an ineffectual attempt to dissemble both that brought color to her face. But she tried, convincingly enough for the two detectives.

  “Your gun?” she said, her actor’s training coming to the fore.

  “My revolver. I kept it in the trunk.”

  “Norman, I don’t …” But my dear wife did not have the capacity to be blatantly dishonest. She turned to the policemen. “I want to talk to my husband … alone.”

  The sergeant looked doubtful. Lieutenant Tracy said, “Of course.”

  We took Elsie and went into the sun-struck kitchen, its new fixtures gleaming now with a kind of mockery. Diantha took out a Popsicle to placate Elsie and a cookie for the dog. She looked me in the eye and said, “I loaned your revolver to Heinie.”

  “Good Jesus,” I said, and sat down. “When? Why?”

  “He was here … back in April.”

  “When? What date?”

  “Early, mid-April. It was still chilly. He told me he needed a handgun for his boat. He said it had valuables on board and that he was thinking of sailing to the Bahamas.”

  “I didn’t realize you were seeing him again.”

  “I wasn’t. He came over here. I couldn’t get him to leave …”

  “Diantha …”

  “Norman, I gave it to him to get rid of him more than anything else. I know I should have told you.”

  “No,” I said coldly. “You should have asked me.”

  “Why is it so important?”

  “The bullet that killed Heinie came from my gun.”

  “Oh, Norman, I am so sorry.”

  We rejoined the police in the living room. I cleared my throat. “Diantha tells me, and I believe her, that she loaned my revolver to Mr. von Grümh when he was here last.”

  “When was that?”

  “Sometime in early to mid-April,” I answered for her.

  Almost gently, Lieutenant Tracy asked Diantha, “What did Mr. von Grümh tell you he needed the gun for?”

  “Heinie said he wanted to keep it on his boat. He said he had valuables on board and that he would be sailing near the Bahamas.”

  Lemure made one of those facial gestures. “Sounds to me like something you both just cooked up.”

  “Why didn’t he just get one of his own?” the lieutenant pressed.

  Diantha said, “He told me he had had a scrape with the law. He had a wild time between his first and second marriages. He got involved with some druggie types. Anyway, he got a police record out of it.”

  Elsie dropped her Popsicle and Decker started licking it. She sniffled and tears started down her face.

  “Just a minute, honey, I’ll get you another one,” Diantha soothed her. She excused herself to rustle in the grocery bag.

  “Did anyone else know you gave the gun to Mr. von Grümh?” the lieutenant asked.

  “No.”

  “Nothing like a receipt maybe? An acknowledgment? Correspondence?”

  Diantha said, “I had e-mails from him. But I erased them. I don’t think there was any mention of the gun in them. But maybe.”

  “So nothing?” The sergeant shook his head.

  To one side, Elsie slurped on her pop. She held it up for me to see and with her other hand signed “orange.”

  The lieutenant gave a most human sigh. “I’m sorry, Norman, we’re going to have to take you in.”

  The sergeant read me my rights with an edge of malice. Amazing how accusatory they sound. The right to remain silent.

  I listened respectfully and then turned to Diantha. “Would you call Felix for me and tell him what’s happened.”

  She nodded numbly and then erupted in tears and put her arms around me. “Oh, Norman. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  The sergeant took out a pair of handcuffs.

  “They won’t be necessary.”

  “I know. Just kidding.” He turned to me, “But don’t try anything stupid.”

  So I was not handcuffed except perhaps morally as they led me out to their unmarked car and ushered me into the backseat, Sergeant Lemure putting his hand on the top of my head to keep me from bumping it, a gesture I have seen in crime movies when the culprit is taken away.

  Even good writers resort to the expression of “going into a daze.” And that’s exactly how it felt. Nothing seemed quite real, as though what was happening was happening to this other person, this other Norman Abbott de Ratour, who was to be charged with murder in the first degree.

  The suspect docilely rolled his fingers in ink. He emptied the contents of his pockets — wallet, spare change, pen, small notebook, handkerchief — into a sealable plastic bag. He added his belt and shoes. He held up his trousers as he stood next to the vertical ruler marked in inches to have front and side shots of his sad, fazed face. He waited for a while in a holding cell with other suspects, a pathetic collection of defeated souls. He was finally shown into an individual cell, which had a fold-down bunk and a toilet and sink in the corner.

  He paced around the enclosure like the trapped animal he was. There was no high, barred window through which he could glimpse the sky or natural light of any kind. No books or magazines, which, however dated and irrelevant, one finds while waiting for the doctor or the dentist. His plight closed around him. He sat on the hard cot and covered his face with his hands.

  To be imprisoned is to experience a humiliation like no other. The bars and solid walls enclosing you are symbol and substance of your existence at that moment. You are caged. A chain around your neck welded to an eyebolt embedded in a cement wall could not be more definitive. You have no freedom. You are on display like a live exhibit. You are presumed dangerous. But, unlike you, the animals in a zoo are considered innocent, even those that might kill and devour a saint.

  Not long afterward, Lieutenant Tracy dropped by and asked if I would be willing to answer some questions. He said I could wait for an attorney to be present. I demurred and we walked to an interrogation room smelling of futility and guilt and Sergeant Lemure. I sat down in the chair indicated. They asked if I wanted coffee. I nodded, thinking an honest cup of bad coffee might help. It was brought in. They started.

  “Do you want to tell us what really happened on the night of Heinie Grümh’s death?”

  I sighed. My shoulders slumped and my bones felt weak. A kind of hopelessness had begun to settle in.

  “You’re right, Lieutenant, I did leave out something. It’s true that we left the pub on good terms, though I must say he was still in an agitated state. He mentioned at least twice that he had to meet someone. He kept looking at his watch.”

  They both waited impassively.

  “When he offered me a lift back to the museum, I accepted.”

  “What time was that?” the sergeant asked.

  “As I told you, just after eight, ten, fifteen past.”

  “Did you go to the museum’s parking lot?” the lieutenant asked.

  “No. He pulled into the drive that swings in front of the main doors. There’s a basement entrance to one side.”

  “On Belmont?”

  “Yes.”

  Again they waited, the lieutenant’s eyes neutral, the sergeant’s heavy face hostile with triumph.

  “So what happened then?”

  “He said he wanted to talk, and I told him I had to go. I could tell from his face that he was huffy, but I had had enough. I went for my walk in the arboretum.”

  “So how lo
ng did you walk in the arboretum?” the sergeant asked.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “And then?”

  “When I came back, I started for my car in the parking lot. I hadn’t gone very far when it occurred to me that I needed to close up the office. It was then that I noticed Heinie’s car. I didn’t recognize it and wouldn’t have given it much thought, but the interior light went on and I saw who it was. I would have avoided him except that he saw me and called for me to come over to him.”

  “That must have been what, eight thirty?” the lieutenant said.

  “I would think so.”

  “What happened at that point?”

  “He opened the door for me to get in and began apologizing for burdening me with his problems. Which he continued to do, going on and on about Merissa Bonne and her affair with Max Shofar. But then he did say something that didn’t make sense until later on.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “He said that de Buitliér, you know, the curator of our Greco-Roman Collection, had been messing with him.”

  “Messing with him? What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. I asked him, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Go on.”

  “When I began to open the door, he said he had something to show me. I watched as he reached over to the glove compartment. I was naturally alarmed to see that he had a revolver in his hand and was pointing it at my heart. ‘I could shoot you, Norman,’ he said. ‘I could make it look like a suicide. No one would know.’

  “I was amazed and scared, of course. ‘Whatever for?’ I asked. ‘What have I ever done to you?’ His face had a wild expression. He cocked the gun and said, ‘You’re out to ruin me. You and all the rest of them.’ I was afraid he really would shoot me. I said to him, ‘Heinie, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’ Then he brought up de Buitliér again. ‘Sure you do. You and de Buitliér are in on this together.’ I shook my head. ‘Heinie,’ I said, ‘don’t do anything foolish.’ Or words to that effect. ‘Don’t destroy everything you have.’ ” I paused then in my narrative, trying to recall anything else that happened.

  “So he obviously didn’t shoot you,” the sergeant remarked as though it were some kind of quip.

  I ignored him and kept my eyes on the lieutenant. “Right then he just laughed. He said, ‘You don’t know, do you?’ And I said, ‘Don’t know what?’ But he just laughed again. I think I know now what he was referring to.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The fact he had my gun.”

  “You didn’t recognize it?”

  “No. One revolver of that type looks pretty much like every other.” I paused. “Or, he could have been referring to the coins, the fact that they were forgeries.”

  “Yeah,” the sergeant said dismissively. “Then what happened?”

  I took a sip of coffee. “He grew even more … deranged. He told me he wanted to murder someone. When I asked him whom he wanted to murder, he interrupted me and said he wanted someone to murder him. He pushed the cocked weapon right into my ribs and, really, I thought that was it. I wouldn’t even hear the shot.”

  “But obviously he didn’t?” The sergeant again sounded snide.

  I gave him as dismissive a glance as I could muster and said to the lieutenant, “He then turned the gun on himself, first at his heart and then at the side of his head. He said, ‘Please help me do this.’ ”

  “But you didn’t?”

  My face froze in a frown of confusion. Of course I didn’t. But a venomous vapor of self-doubt clouded my mind. I couldn’t tell them the truth: I had wanted, in my fear and loathing of the man — he had just threatened my life, after all — to hold the revolver to his head and fire it. “I couldn’t have,” I said weakly.

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “You shot him because he was doing your wife,” the sergeant snarled.

  I looked beseechingly at the lieutenant. He shrugged. “What did you do then?”

  “I told him to go home and get some help. I pushed open the door and turned my back on him. At least if he shot me then, I thought, he couldn’t make it look like suicide.”

  “And that was the last time you saw him alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you went back to your office?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Perhaps an hour.”

  “You know what I think happened?” the sergeant started in, leaning toward me until I could clearly see the pores on his thick nose. “I think you arranged to meet von Grümh in the parking lot. Maybe you only wanted to scare him off because you thought he would start up something again with your wife. Maybe you knew already about the fake coins. Whatever. You took your revolver along. You took it out and pointed it at him. Maybe he laughed at you. Maybe he said, Sure, go ahead, you can make it look like suicide. And you got mad because he was taunting you, making you feel like a wimp. So you put the gun up against his temple and pulled the trigger.”

  “No. No! I couldn’t have.”

  “But you could have.”

  I took a moment. I collected myself. I said, “So why didn’t I try to make it look like suicide?”

  “But you couldn’t have.” The sergeant smirked at me. “It’s your gun. You would have to explain how he got it.”

  “My wife will testify …”

  “That’s not good enough, Norman.” The lieutenant spoke with a heavy sadness in his voice. “We have enough to take this to the DA and talk to him about a plea bargain.”

  “Richard, I swear, I didn’t do it. I had no reason … Diantha was finished with him.”

  “How do you know?” the sergeant asked.

  “I just know, that’s all. I just know.”

  “Think it over, Norman. About the DA. This doesn’t look good for you.”

  “Can I ask a question?”

  The lieutenant nodded.

  “Are you sure, absolutely sure, there were no powder burns on von Grümh’s hands?”

  With evident satisfaction, the sergeant shook his head slowly. “No way. I double-checked it. The GSR came up negative. Not a trace.”

  The lieutenant looked puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because he was suicidal.”

  “I think you’ve got suicide on the brain,” the sergeant said with a sneer. “It was murder, pure and simple.”

  Later I spoke on a phone through a barrier of reinforced glass to an attorney, a colleague of Felix Skinnerman. She was a brisk young woman in a business suit with an air of impersonality who told me she had arranged for a bail hearing that afternoon.

  I was not interested in the lunch of chicken salad, potato salad, green salad, and ice cream. I was not interested in anything really, until, in a void deep enough to make me scream, I asked for paper and pencil, the original word processor, and wrote the following.

  I feel in the wake of these admissions that I owe my readers an apology. In the relative privacy of this journal, I should have been completely candid. I really have no defense. I scarcely have an explanation. I did fear, I have to admit, that, were this document ever to be subpoenaed and placed in evidence, it and anything else I wrote could be used against me in court.

  The truth will make you free. I understand and believe in that dictum. But the truth is not always self-evident. As it involves me in this matter, I am not entirely sure what the truth is. The fact is, I had fantasized more than once about murdering Heinie von Grümh. I had enacted on the stage of my mind precisely what happened to him in that car. I held my revolver to the side of his head, and, while he begged for his life, I taunted him.

  Of course I would rouse myself from these dark dreams with an acute self-shame and a determination not to indulge them henceforth. But, once you’ve killed a man, as I have, it’s not difficult to conceive of doing it again, to feel in your hand the heft of the weapon, to trigger the jolt of deadly power, to watch someone disappear in
to death.

  Thus does imagination conflate with and confuse memory. In the syntax of what may or may not have happened, I cannot parse what I did from what I dreamed of doing. But, I tell myself, I did not kill my wife’s lover. I’m sure of it. Until doubt, as right now, begins to seep in like a cold, deadly fog. Because, like Hamlet, I could accuse myself of such things it were better my mother had not borne me.

  In brief, as I had the motive, the occasion, and the capacity to murder Heinie von Grümh, I must consider myself a suspect in this case until the murderer is found.

  It pains me to realize that I have completely vitiated, through my lack of frankness, my friendship with Lieutenant Tracy. I fear I will also forfeit the trust the board has had in me as director. And while Diantha will no doubt continue to voice her support of me, I don’t blame her if she is having second thoughts.

  As, no doubt, are you, my reader and, next to God, who probably doesn’t care, my final judge. Am I a reliable narrator? I am certainly not an omniscient one. Mostly, I fear that I have given you little basis to believe what I write in this account or, anywhere else, for that matter. To paraphrase a wordsmith far superior to me, if you don’t believe me, I won’t exist.

  I would fain entreat you to consider me, at the very least, a naive narrator, one, that is, who doesn’t have all the facts or know what to do with the ones he has. But in my own defense, would it not have been a more egregious naïveté to reveal in this journal everything I knew about the circumstances of Heinie’s murder?

  And was it really naive that I didn’t know that my young wife, in the confused aftermath of her liaison with this man, would be so foolish as to lend him my revolver? (And I’ll leave to those thus inclined to ponder the symbolistic implications therein.)

  Even if the police believe Diantha’s story, and I’m not sure they will, it’s still my gun that killed the man. There is nothing I or any sort of defense witness can do to alter that fact. I am, to lapse into the argot, not so much an unreliable narrator as a screwed one. I am the naive, the unreliable, the shortsighted, the cuckolded, the venal, even the pompous narrator. But I swear on everything I hold holy that I am not an evil narrator.