The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man

by Alfred Alcorn

  Contributed to what? I wondered but did not ask.

  Like all of us, Alphus is tormented from time to time by the larger questions of existence. Why are we here? Where are we going? One evening, over snifters of single-malt for him and a decent brandy for me, he asked me, “What exactly is the soul?”

  I held my cognac up to the light and stared into its pale depths. “The soul,” I said, trying for a bon mot, “is something we may or may not have but can definitely lose.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Okay, call it our inner essence, our moral core. Christians, a lot of Christians, believe it survives death and lives forever.”

  “Forever?”

  “Forever.”

  “Sounds hellish.”

  So that, by degrees, we got onto the subject of religion. “I don’t know about God or any of that,” he said without preamble, “but I do sense wonder all around me. I remember feeling that all life is sacred even before the procedure that opened my mind to real thoughts.”

  I nodded in agreement. “I’ve often thought in agreement with Father O’Gould, whom you should meet, that there are degrees of divinity in everything, even inert matter.”

  Alphus nodded dubiously. “I’ve been reading up on the ‘great’ religions,” he signed with a world-weary tone to his movements. It was then that he stated why Islam didn’t interest him. For that declaration he had to teach me the signing for “Islam.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “It’s too total. Too intense. And I’m not interested in virgins.”

  I didn’t respond as I could tell he was on the point of another observation. Instead, he asked me, “Why are you a Christian?”

  “I was brought up to be one,” I said, knowing that wouldn’t satisfy him. “Why? Have you thought of it yourself?”

  He sipped his malt and put it down. He nodded. “I have thought a lot about it. Christianity has many marvelous things about it. The music alone …” He spelled out Bach, Handel, Rutter.

  “Rutter?” I questioned.

  “He’s contemporary. Someone played his Christmas music at Sign House. Then there’s the art and the architecture. I would love very much to see Hagia Sophia. To think it was built in the sixth century.” He paused and looked at me with that face of his.

  “But,” I provided.

  “But I’m not particularly reassured by a creed one of the central metaphors of which is that of a shepherd and his flock.”

  “Really?”

  “Not when you consider what happens to most sheep.”

  “Hmmm,” I hummed, unable to think of a telling rebuttal. “It certainly puts Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze in a new perspective.” I sipped from my own drink and came up with the predictable, “Have you considered Buddhism?”

  “Very seriously. Mudras—” He stopped to spell it out for me. “—are, after all a form of nonverbal communication.” He got off the sofa where he had been sitting and sat on the carpet with his legs folded in front of him, his posture erect, his right hand turned up on his lap, fingers together, and his left hand palm up with the fingers extended. “This is called the Varada Mudra. It symbolizes charity, compassion, and boon granting.”

  I was impressed. “Then why not become a Buddhist?” I said as he resumed his seat on the sofa and picked up his drink.

  After a moment he freed his hands. “To be honest, I don’t like the kind of people Buddhism attracts. Mostly the kind of white people, that is.”

  “Hinduism?”

  “Too many deities.”

  “Okay, then what about Judaism?” I asked, more or less to complete the catalog of major faiths.

  He shook his head. “Jews worship themselves. And I am not a Jew.”

  The tone of his gestures made me glance at him sharply. Did I have an anti-Semitic ape on my hands?

  “You mean that they are devoted to their history, their traditions, their prophets, their laws …”

  “No. I mean they worship themselves. But in that they are merely exemplary of humankind as a whole, humankind with its deep, unquestioned, and doting self-love.”

  Food for thought does not always taste good, however nourishing it may prove. I chewed over Alphus’s observations, thinking I could come up with a different recipe (to work this trope into the ground), but found myself stymied. How to explain religion to a member of another species without sounding absurd or disingenuous?

  “But,” I started.

  He waved me aside. “Do you actually believe in any of this stuff?”

  I am generally reluctant to talk about my personal beliefs in final things, mostly because I find it difficult to separate the eschatological from a species of the scatological, as used in a figurative sense. But in this case I thought it incumbent upon me to defend the Judeo-Christian legacy of which I consider myself a beneficiary.

  Speaking slowly and deliberately, I said, “Unlike many of my contemporaries, Alphus, I do not have any difficulty in believing in God. Rather, I fear that God does not believe in us. If we are indeed made in the image and likeness of the Almighty, as the Good Book tells us, we may well be something of a disappointment. I wonder at times if we and the world, in the grand scheme of things, may be little more than a petri dish gone bad.”

  Alphus nodded. “Certainly for the rest of life on the planet.” Then, “Yet still you pray?”

  His incredulity, as expressed in the emphatic way he moved his hands, daunted me. I nodded as though admitting to some embarrassing personal habit.

  “What do you pray for?”

  I took a moment to cast back to the last time I had been in church. I had been half sitting, half kneeling toward the back of St. Cecilia’s on that Sunday. I go there for solace and to dwell on the larger imponderables of life and because I take pleasure in the restrained, High Church grandeur of the stained-glass windows that surmount and light the altar beneath the vaulting web of age-darkened beams.

  On that occasion I’d had much to pray for. I asked the Lord to keep Diantha and Elsie safe, healthy, and happy. Dear God, I had prayed, grant me the grace to forgive Heinie von Grümh whom I continue to despise, even in death. I know I should hate the sin and not the sinner, but I’m afraid I’ve gotten it backward. Please let me know with moral certainty that I did not murder that wretch, that poor excuse for … Forgive me. And help me forgive all who may have trespassed against me.

  I said to Alphus, “I prayed for the power of forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness,” he signed and shook his head. “That is too human for me.”

  9

  Little has changed at work, except for Feidhlimidh de Buitliér, who has begun to act like he’s about to take over. The man, always tireless in his committee work, especially on the Council of Curators, has just been elected the Executive Moderator of that body for a second term. I will admit he has the courage of his small ambitions. No peak is too insignificant for him to climb.

  It’s an evolving situation. I exist in a fog of rumors, most of them about me, about the Board of Governors, about moves Wainscott might make. It’s true I’m still the boss. But you can tell, in a dozen subtle ways, who is for you and who against.

  It was certainly that way at the meeting of the Oversight Committee, which I felt compelled to attend, if only to defend myself. Indeed there seemed to be surprise that I should deign to show up at all in my fallen state.

  Chair Brattle lost little time in making her own view known regarding my legal status. She had scarcely gaveled the meeting to order when she said, “I mean this in no way personally, Mr. de Ratour, but I wonder, under the circumstances, just how appropriate your presence here is at this time.”

  I asked, “Are you suggesting I leave?”

  “I think that may be best for all concerned.”

  Izzy Landes, the dear man, stood up, his face flushed with anger. “If Norman is made to leave, I will leave as well. And I won’t come back. Indeed, I will start a committee to investigate this committ
ee. And put it out of business.”

  Father O’Gould also rose to signify his agreement. Then the Reverend Lopes and Corny Chard. Then Bertha Schanke, who said in an aside, “Let’s face it, half of Wainscott’s big benefactors are under indictment. Or should be.”

  The chair withdrew her suggestion.

  But I was utterly unprepared for an attack from an entirely different quarter. The new member, Laluna Jackson, chair of the Victim Studies Department, presented a report, as she called it, about the Museum of Man. Her voice emphatic in the style of African Americans, her cornrows tied with things that clacked as she gestured with her head, she read, “Not long ago, I conducted a lengthy examination of the Museum of Man and its exhibits with one of our visiting professors. And I must say that the scales fell from my eyes.

  “As my colleague pointed out to me, that institution could just as well be called the Museum of White Male Victimization. Everywhere you look you see the detritus of the white male scourge that has made the planet such a living hell for all other peoples. That museum is a catalog of victimization. Everywhere you look there is nothing but the loot of imperialism. In the most brazen manner, it unapologetically documents how the world peoples had their cultures stolen from them lock, stock, and barrel.”

  In listening to this poisonous nonsense, it occurred to me that I remain a member of the committee to remind myself, if reminders were necessary, why I do not want the museum to become an integral part of the university.

  I let the woman spew on in this vein until she appeared to have exhausted her venom. Into an uncomfortable silence, I said, “I’m assuming that, even though a white male, I might be allowed to respond.”

  Amazingly, Chair Brattle appeared to consider my request as though on its merits. Until, coming to her senses, she said, “Of course. You’re still a member of the committee in good standing.”

  “Ex officio, to be exact,” I said. “As you have all heard me say before, this is a Wainscott body and I attend its meetings in order to continue the mutually enriching relations that exist between the two institutions. Among other reasons.”

  I turned directly to the dean. “Tell me, Professor Jackson, how long have you been at Wainscott?”

  She feigned puzzlement at the question. “Nearly seven years in one capacity or another. What relevance has this?”

  “And was this the first time you visited the Museum of Man?”

  “Well, yes. What does this …?”

  “Let us say that I find your lack of curiosity of a piece with your narrow, ignorant, and mean-spirited view of my museum …”

  “Mr. Ratour …,” she began.

  “Please. Allow me to respond to the pile of rubbish you have dumped on the table.”

  “Here, here,” said the Reverend Lopes, voicing what I hoped to be the general sentiment of the committee members.

  I took a breath and calmed down. “I won’t try to rebut the statements of Professor Jackson as they are too absurd to be taken seriously. But I would like to say, as I have on other occasions, that the Museum of Man has and will continue to show the public that human beings everywhere and at all times, through their art and artifacts, are not mere creatures, but creators and as such partake of the godliness that is our common legacy. The exhibits you label as trophies are nothing less than solid testimony that beauty is innate to our species whatever level of formal technology or material culture we happen to occupy.”

  “Amen,” said Izzy Landes. “I couldn’t have put it better myself, Norman.”

  The chair rapped her gavel. “We need to move on to some pressing matters …”

  I subsided into my seat, but continued to fume inwardly. This was what civilized discourse had descended to — cultural correctness gone amok and certified fools elevated to positions of authority. Of course there’s been victimization. The Romans overran the Gauls who became French, who helped overrun the Chinese who stayed Chinese and overran the Tibetans who, given half a chance … Man hands on misery to man …

  At the same time, her remarks struck a nerve. Conquest always involves inventory, be it appreciative or dismissive. Papuans do not collect Rembrandts, not yet, anyway. We judge and select because we are, for the nonce, more powerful whether we want to admit it or not.

  I slowly calmed down and retreated into my own thoughts as the committee pondered with gravity one absurdity or another. I had much to think about. Mostly, I realized, I was anxious to help the investigation into the murder of von Grümh. To this end, sitting there, feigning attendance, I let my mind run through a maze of conjectures with all of their dead ends. I am desperate to find who killed the man in large part to eliminate the possibility that I am the one who did it.

  On the notepad of my mind, I wrote: All of the suspects had motives. All of us had the opportunity. And Heinie, it would seem, had provided them with the means. What I couldn’t shake was the notion that someone had shot him with his consent. And that could have been any number of people. Merissa. Col Saunders. Max Shofar. Myself. Even a bad Samaritan in the guise of a passing pedestrian. Because murder is, after all, murder.

  Someone on the committee was about to make a motion. I glanced at my watch, stood up, and said, “I’m afraid I have a prior engagement. With my PO.”

  There were puzzled glances. “His probation officer,” Bertha said, and laughed to let the frowning ones in on the joke.

  Back in my office I put in a call to Lieutenant Tracy and left a message regarding my suspicions about von Grümh’s boat and the possible location of the real collection. No response. I suppose I should accept it. I have been charged with accessory to murder, after all. I am out on bail. I could go to prison. I am not someone the lieutenant can relate to except as a suspect.

  I was at a very low point when I came home to find a message from Diantha asking me to call her at the cottage. Her voice sounded friendly and enticing, which surprised and elated me as we hadn’t spoken since I told her that Alphus was staying at the house.

  “How are you, Norman,” she asked when I returned the call. “Elsie misses you.”

  “I miss her very much.” We both knew that we were using Elsie as a kind of proxy for our own feelings, our love for her being unconditional.

  “What I want to tell you, Norman, has to do with Heinie’s murder and may be of some help.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I don’t want to talk on the telephone.”

  “I see.”

  “Can we meet?”

  “We can. Do you have a sitter?”

  “Bella’s here.”

  As Ridley was already at the house to keep an eye on Alphus, though, frankly, I’m not sure who keeps an eye on whom with those two, I said yes and mentioned a roadhouse with dinky little cabins about halfway between the cottage on the lake and Seaboard. We agreed to have dinner there together.

  I showered and shaved my already smooth face. I fussed with what to wear, making myself sporty in a short-sleeved button-down oxford, a pair of Levi’s she had given me, a chino safari jacket with shoulder tabs, and loafers with no socks. I wanted to look the part.

  Diantha was there when I arrived, sitting at the bar with a glass of pale wine. She wore one of those thin summery dresses that cling just a little, along with a light green sweater that she draped on her shoulders like a cape.

  Our greeting kiss lingered. She put a hand on my thigh as I sat on the barstool next to hers and ordered a Jack Daniel’s and soda, no ice, and easy on the soda. Though a decent if ramshackle kind of restaurant, I didn’t trust them to make an acceptable martini.

  So we cooed tête-à-tête over our drinks until a waitress with a knowing eye, real lovers these two, led us to a table off by ourselves. We ordered a bottle of vin not entirely ordinaire and two of the steaks being grilled on the barbecue outside.

  Diantha leaned toward me and turned serious. “Okay, here’s what Merissa told me a couple of nights ago. She drove out to the cottage and we had a few drinks. And when Merissa has a few
drinks, well, she likes to talk.”

  Diantha hesitated. I reached across the table and took her hand, as though that might steady and encourage her. She took in a breath. “Merissa told me that Max talked about getting rid of Heinie. I mean she didn’t actually use the word murder, but that’s what she meant. With Heinie gone, she would not only be free, but very wealthy.”

  “When did she say all this?”

  “A couple of weeks before he was found dead.”

  “Are you sure it was Max who initiated the idea?”

  She lifted the glass of wine to her lips and paused. “That’s a good question. It could have been her. She was the one who brought it up in our conversation. At first, I thought she was joking, but now I’m not sure.”

  I remembered the strange look of excitement and surprise, the double take, when the lieutenant and I had driven out to tell her about Heinie’s murder. How she had said, “He wouldn’t.”

  “How was it supposed to happen?”

  “Oh, they had several scenarios …”

  “They?”

  “Oh, yes, Merissa was in on it, too.”

  “Go on.”

  “Anyway, Heinie drank a lot, and they thought they could doctor a bottle of whiskey on his boat so that he would pass out and fall overboard when he was out sailing. Merissa said they talked about how she would sneak Max on board and how after she got Heinie drunk, they would dump him overboard and say it was an accident.”

  “And what other way?”

  “She was going to get him drunk and drugged at home and Max would have someone burn the house down.”

  “Nice. Real nice.”

  “But, you see, she treated this whole thing as though it were a joke.”

  “What about using a gun?”

  “Oh, that was their favorite. They thought of having Max shoot him … Max has lots of guns. Or he knows how to get them. His father used to own that pawnshop. And making it look like a suicide. Or self-defense.”