Extreme Unction: A Lupa Schwartz Mystery

by J. David Core

  “I knew that Beverly had lost one when we’d first come to Pittsburgh, and she found it a few months ago in a trap when we were fixing the kitchen sink. It was terribly corroded, but she insisted on keeping it in her jewelry box. I asked if I could borrow it, and she gave it to me, but I had to promise to get it back for her when I’d finished with it.”

  “Well then you lied to me when you told me it was evidence,” Corwin said.

  “I never told you that. I simply asked you to examine it for traces of Chlordane. If it’s any consolation, I also asked you to check the soil sample, which for all I knew would show signs of Chlordane. It didn’t, but it may well have, so it is — or was — evidence in that sense.”

  “I don’t like being played for a fool, Mr. Schwartz,” Corwin said.

  “I don’t think you’re a fool,” Schwartz said.

  “But you did at the time,” Corwin said. “You played on the fact that I had feelings for you to dupe me into using my office for you to play a trick on the police.”

  “I think you’re taking this the wrong way,” Schwartz said.

  “I think you should leave,” Corwin said, a thin tear causing yet another flaw in her makeup.

  Chapter 29

  I’d been responsible for putting the kibosh on burgeoning love affairs before, but they were usually my own relationships that I was sabotaging. I knew I should probably have felt guilty about throwing the cold water on those two cats, but the truth is I was torn between feelings of satisfaction and relief. I’m sure the universe was thanking me. Can you imagine the offspring of two people with such hyper-active egos? The head size alone would have been enough to give a geneticist nervous fits.

  Still, I did feel a kind of sadness over having burst such a lovely bubble. It had been the happiest I’d seen Schwartz since having met him. “Come on,” I said interrupting a sustained irritated silence as we drove to the Star-Herald. “It’s not that big a deal. She was a pious fop.”

  “Nobody uses the word ‘fop’ anymore,” Schwartz said.

  “No,” I agreed, “but the kinds of words that people do use to describe people like her today aren’t printable in a family magazine, and I want to be able to use our dialogue verbatim.”

  “She is a very intellectually stimulating young woman,” Schwartz insisted.

  “Oh, come on,” I retorted, “she’s a fake. So she’s writing an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita with Americanized names. All she has to do is transcribe somebody else’s translation and insert names like Fred for the Hindu names. I’ll bet she doesn’t even speak Hindi herself.”

  “Urdu,” Schwartz corrected me, “but that’s not the point.”

  “Listen,” I said, “forget this nonsense about finding a woman with the same anti-theology as you. Love isn’t about ideology. It’s about — well — I have no idea what it’s about, but I know it’s not about that.”

  “That’s exactly the point,” Schwartz said. “You have no idea what love is about. You’ve decided that you are infatuated with Trevor Johns over little more than the fact that you find his clarinet playing seductive.”

  “‘Sall you know,” I said feigning childish indignation. “I like him ‘cause he’s cool and he drives his own car.”

  Schwartz tried not to smile, but he’s a perfect sucker for a well-played gag. He grinned broadly, and then said, “She was a little snooty, wasn’t she?”

  “A little,” I said. “You can do better. What you need is a woman who appreciates your intellect and your sensitive side.”

  “Would you like for me to tell you why I offered to let you cover this story?” Schwartz said coming more out of the blue than a newborn robin. I told him I would, and he explained. “From the time that I first learned that you were a working writer, I wanted for you to chronicle my cases. I followed your career hoping that eventually you’d contact me about covering a case with me. However, I also knew that it was more likely that you’d want to just write a profile of me. If we started off that way, it would define our dynamic differently from what I wanted. So when the chance came, I forced you to trick me into a meeting. That way, I could affect indignation and make whatever demands I wished for allowing you to report on a case. My intention was to call you later at your hotel, and make just such an offer when a case should present itself. However, at that moment, fate imposed a solution, and Detective Johns arrived with his offer to give me the Coneely case.”

  “Wait,” I said, “so you’re saying that you wanted me to be the Watson to your Holmes all along? Then why did you turn Fr. Coneely down when he first presented with the case?”

  “I wasn’t lying when I said I had no desire to take him on as a client. At the time, I had no way to know that he was, in fact, innocent. I strongly dislike representing killers. It’s difficult to collect a fee from someone you’ve just proved guilty. I was willing to wait for a more suitable case, even if it meant that I would have to call you after you’d returned to Cleveland.”

  “So why are you telling me this now?” I asked.

  “It was the best opportunity. You were so concerned over having spoiled my chances with Dr. Corwin that you had forgotten to be upset over my having used you to mislead Detective Johns. I told you this, because it will probably further insulate me against your womanly wrath when you again come back to considering how you were duped.” I was considering what I’d just heard, when Schwartz pulled the car over and said, “However, that will have to wait, because we have arrived at our destination.”

  ***

  We asked for and were given directions to the newsroom, and once there asked to speak with Vic Jenkins. We were told that he was on assignment, but if we’d care to wait, he should be returning shortly. We sat at the desk in his cubicle, and I was about to begin needling Schwartz about how he’d suckered me into misleading the police when I heard a familiar voice from behind. “Hey,” Mother Foyer said, “I know you. What brings you to these slums?”

  “Hello, Mr. Foyer,” I said. “Have you met Mr. Schwartz?”

  Schwartz wasn’t in the music or publishing business, so he held little fascination for Foyer. The music critic simply waved and returned his attentions to me. “Have you sent that article off to your publisher yet?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “It went in the mail on Tuesday.”

  “That’s swell,” he said in what I suppose he believed to be his impish manner. “Did you talk with FdP after the article ran?”

  “Who is FdP?” Schwartz asked.

  “The band we saw at the club the other night; the kids. It stands for something in Italian that means Sons of the Police.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Foyer said. “It’s Italian all right, but Putanna isn’t the word for police.”

  “Putanna?” Schwartz said as he started to laugh.

  “What’s Putanna?” I asked naively, though I was already beginning to realize that I didn’t want to know. Schwartz then informed me, “You don’t want to know.”

  After he and Schwartz shared a lengthy laugh at my expense, Foyer left us, and Schwartz was still cackling when a young reporter with a quarter-inch of thick mud on his shoes greeted us at the desk. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Victor Jenkins. You wanted to speak with me?”

  “Yes,” Schwartz said, “about the Hanson case, specifically about the photos you took during the press conference a few weeks ago.”

  The grinning reporter had taken a pair of clean shoes from his bottom drawer and was changing into them as he said, “Oh, sure. Yeah, I took a bunch of stuff. The paper can burn anything that ran onto a disk for you.”

  “Well,” Schwartz said, “I was hoping that I could get all of the pictures.”

  “Oh,” the reporter said, his smile falling off for a look of earnest contemplation. “I’m not supposed to do that. Our editorial policy is that … or is it our legal policy … anyway, if it’s run in the paper, that’s one thing, but some pictures are withheld from the paper for complicated ethical or legal reasons, so
pictures that haven’t run are not available to the public.”

  “I understand that,” Schwartz said. “But I’m investigating a murder.”

  “Then you should come back with a warrant,” the reporter said as he pounded his dirt crusted shoes together over a waste basket. “We’ll give them to you happily once we’re legally absolved.”

  “I don’t have access to the courts,” Schwartz admitted.

  “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Jenkins lamented.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Schwartz said. “Why did you have all of that mud on your shoes?”

  “I had to make a tour of the new mall out near the airport for a story on the progress of the construction. The ground is still a sloppy mess from the rain the other night because of runoff.”

  “I see,” Schwartz said, and then he turned to me. “Ms. Hoskin, did you ever have to do those kinds of stories when you were first starting out as a reporter? Ms. Hoskin here works for Gamut Magazine,” he told Jenkins.

  “Well,” I said, “no.”

  “You’re the one who’s getting Foyer’s article looked at by the magazine muckety-mucks, aren’t you?” Jenkins asked demonstrating that my reputation preceded me. I nodded.

  “Is this mall construction story a fair example of the kinds of stories you are assigned?” Schwartz asked. “I mean, it seems kind of boring compared to a murder story. Even the news conference at the Hanson’s started out as trivial. The TV didn’t even consider it worth covering.”

  “It was a good story,” Jenkins insisted.

  “No, it became a good story, but it was a bland assignment. They didn’t even assign a photographer to accompany you. Do all of the reporters have to take their own pictures?”

  “Well, no, not all,” Jenkins said.

  “Did you have to take your own pictures on this mall story?” Schwartz asked, and — though Jenkins didn’t answer — that was in itself an answer. “I can help you. We were going to offer you pictures of the … well, never mind. You said you can’t help.”

  “I’m listening,” Jenkins said, and by the time we left the cub reporter had made a deal to email Schwartz the whole file of pix he’d shot that night in exchange for the right to be there in a choice location covering the event Schwartz had planned for Thursday night.

  ***

  “You have an odd email address,” I said to Schwartz as we drove back to his house.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “The address you gave to Jenkins, it seemed like a strange address for you. I mean, I could see something like privatedick-at or car-man-at or jokester-at, but how do you get an email address that begins Hanson-house-at?” I asked.

  “The address was created specifically to receive those pictures.” Schwartz explained. “I created the address, but I’m not the only one who can access the photos. A friend of mine who does stage design also has the password, and he will be examining the photos as well from his own remote location. Tomorrow you will understand why.”

  I folded my arms across my chest as it dawned on me that I was supposed to be piqued with him. “If I’m even there, that is,” I said.

  “Of course you’ll be there. It’s the culmination of your article. Why wouldn’t you be there?”

  “Well, for one thing, you just gave Jenkins some of my exclusivity,” I said.

  “Posh!” Schwartz said. “He’ll be outside with a specific task. You’ll be inside for the entire revelation. Some facts will only be available to him after you have published your article.”

  “Also,” I said with strong emphasis, “I’m still a little perturbed with you.”

  “The one with whom you ought to be perturbed is yourself,” Schwartz insisted.

  “Myself?” I said a little too loudly. “Why would I be perturbed with myself?”

  “Can we use the word ‘upset’ from this point on?” Schwartz asked. “I hate the word ‘perturb.’ It sounds foolish.”

  “Why would I be perturbed with myself?” I asked again jutting my head forward and rocking it for emphasis as I used the offending word again.

  “Because of the fact that you missed such an obvious spoof. It should have been manifestly clear that I had planted that medal from the moment you met the monk Devlin.”

  I didn’t get him. “What?” I asked.

  “Devlin was an acquaintance of mine. I met him through a quarterly conversation group of which I am a member. He realized that I was trying to persuade you that we had never met, when I introduced myself to him as though I didn’t know him. That’s the only reason that I was able to gain access to the hall without being watched by a member of the clergy.”

  “Well, how could I have known that?” I asked.

  “If that wasn’t enough clue, you might have realized it when I asked Devlin to furnish the history of the St. Christopher’s medal. You might have known that I was fully aware of everything he was telling me, and that I had staged his revelations for your benefit.”

  “How would I know you’d already know that stuff?”

  “Because you know my character, my reputation, and my family history. But there was also the fact that I found such a perfect piece of evidence in exactly the place that I chose to look for it, which should have seemed a little serendipitous.”

  “You explained it all so logically,” I began, and there I fumbled.

  “Thank you. That’s very gracious considering how I played you.”

  “Well,” I said, “I still don’t understand why you wanted Trevor to believe that you had established that there’d been no Chlordane in the soil around the church hall for the past twenty-some odd years.”

  “For that, you will have to wait until tomorrow night,” Schwartz said with a maniacal grin. Shortly we would arrive back at his house, and already I had forgotten once again to be angry with him.

  As we entered the garage, Mia approached the car. “Hey, boss,” she said casually, “that chick with the Fiero was here a little bit ago. She said she’d be back again tomorrow morning. She says she wants to take you up on your offer to buy. Beverly’s been chewing her lip all afternoon.”

  Schwartz had shrunk an inch in stature as he relaxed his posture when Mia approached. “Thank you, Mia,” he said, and I swear I heard him giggle out an embarrassed-schoolboy sigh. When she’d walked away (or rather, after he’d finished watching her walk away,) he said to me, “Ms. Hoskin, would you call and arrange for Detective Johns to be here tomorrow morning? Perhaps you can think of a way to convince him to examine under the Fiero’s carriage. Who knows what he might find there.”

  He went upstairs to prepare for dinner after I’d said I’d agree to call Trevor. First, however, I wanted to talk with Mia about the three of us ladies having one last girls’ night before I had to go back to Cleveland.

  Chapter 30

  One of my favorite summertime meals has always been garden-fresh green-beans with ham, but I’d never tasted it prepared the way that Beverly did. She served it up in a large soup crock in which the meat and beans swam with poached potatoes in a buttery wine-colored vinegar sauce. Schwartz rambled on during the meal about how mankind seemed to innately understand the value of serving beans with grains, since so many separate civilizations had independently come up with traditional dishes that combined the two food forms; succotash, red-beans-and-rice, humus with pita, pasta fazoule. Of course, my pointing out the fact that potatoes aren’t really a grain didn’t seem to deter him from his ramble. He merely tipped his beer glass at me.

  After eating, we prepared for the back porch for that one last time, expecting Schwartz to excuse himself to his room; but instead, he took a set of keys from the peg board and headed out for a night on the town.

  When we’d gotten our drinks (this time, I was enjoying a bourbon and water rocks with a twist that I myself had mixed to my specifications rather than a milk-based chocolate drink,) we made our way out to the yard. I sat on the glider, and Beverly and Mia sat across from me on the
swing. We synchronized our lazy undulations so that I was in my forward momentum as they pulsed away, and Beverly spoke the first pensive words. “I’m glad he’s gotten to this point with the investigation. It will be sad to see you leave, Cat, but I just hate it when he gets so frustrated with a case.”

  “He was frustrated by this case?” I asked. “He didn’t seem to lose any sleep over it.”

  “Oh, yes he did,” Mia said.

  “You mean even in the garage?” Beverly asked, and Mia nodded.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “He’s been going to bed every night by ten p.m. like clockwork.”

  “He’s been going to his room,” Beverly said, “but he hasn’t been sleeping. He’s been reading. He has a large library in his room. He spends hours reading every night. He reads books, magazines, newspapers, everything. Sometimes he does research on the Internet. He never sleeps at night more than a few hours.”

  “That’s why he insists on the garage time,” Mia said. “He takes cat-naps in the cars twice a day.”

  “Also,” Beverly picked up, “he usually goes out to at least two movies a week, a comedy and something else. This is the first time he’s been out since almost two weeks ago.”

  “You mean he’s at the movies alone?” I asked.

  Beverly nodded again and said, “So you didn’t know that he had a library in the house? How else did you think he got his knowledge?”

  “I never thought about it,” I admitted. “All I saw were comedy movies and books and records in his study.”

  Beverly lifted her shoulders and said, "He’s private about the library he keeps. He wants people to think of him as a clown, but he’s very thoughtful and introspective."

  "Yeah," I said, "he’s a regular Pagliacci. Hey, by the way, what's this he tells me about some conversation group that meets every three months?"

  "Oh," Mia said, "you must mean the Five Freakers."

  "The what?" I asked as Beverly looked reproachfully at Mia.

  "She means the Five Seekers. Lupa is one of the members. They meet at one or the others' homes every three months to discuss philosophy, metaphysics, theology, spirituality or ethics depending on at which house they meet," Beverly explained.

  "How do they choose their topics?" I asked.