Compromising Positions (2 page)

“Thanks,” he said, stepping inside. “And how was your day today?” He leaned forward, aiming his lips toward my cheek for their usual greeting, but I must have moved slightly, because he kissed my right eye. He didn’t seem to notice. “Boy,” he breathed, “did I have a bitch of a day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I replied. I reached into the closet and took his present from the top shelf, a book, complete with maps and illustrations, on life in medieval France.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll open it after dinner. Look, Judith, I didn’t have a chance to get you anything, and I really don’t know what you need. Go out tomorrow and buy yourself something nice. Okay? Jesus,” he added, “am I exhausted.”

“Well, you look great.” He did. Bob had just enough character in his face for him to be judged as good-looking, rather than handsome. A tall, slender man, slightly over six feet, with curly light brown hair, a long straight nose, and crinkly laugh lines in the outer corners of his pale blue eyes—which actually came from squinting—he rarely looked fatigued. His shoulders might slump a bit, his beard might appear a little scratchy, but he always looked scrubbed, fresh, healthy. Clear, bright American looks, like a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes ad, contrasted to my darkness, a face in the crowd in a documentary called “New York City: Melting Pot.” When his ancestors chose exogamy, they obviously went in for Aryans. “Anyway,” I asked, “what happened this afternoon that was so hideous?”

“Nothing. A meeting with some new clients. A toy company. I don’t even want to talk about it.” Bob is vice-president of his family’s public relations firm. When we met, eleven years before, he was about to begin his doctoral dissertation in comparative literature. A year later, about two months after our wedding, he opted for Singer Associates.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Steak,” I said, hanging up his heavy blue overcoat. Why did I do that? “Let me just turn it.”

“It’s not ready yet?”

“No.”

“All right. I might as well go upstairs and wash up.”

We sat at the long, oval dining room table a few minutes later, he at the head of the table, me on his left, facing a large painting his mother had given us, a pink and mauve and gray arrangement of rectangles painted by an artist friend of hers. It was still recognizable as the standard Manhattan skyline.

I offered him a baked potato. “Did you hear about it?”

“About what?” he asked, shaking his head, refusing the potato.

“Remember when I was pregnant with Joey, I went to a periodontist, Dr. Fleckstein?” He nodded. “Well, he was murdered.”

“Jesus, a dentist. Who’d want to kill a dentist?”

I gave him my synopsis of the radio report and repeated Nancy’s theory that the murderer was one of the women he had been sleeping with. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he replied. This from a man once equally comfortable speaking French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian, a man who had once possessed a reading knowledge of Latin, ancient Greek, and Hebrew. He leaned back in his chair, a signal that he was ready for coffee. As I walked into the kitchen, he called after me: “You know, I heard something about Fleckstein recently.”

I did a rapid about-face. “What?”

“I’ll think while you get the coffee.” I returned and poured the coffee, watching him as he twisted the lobe of his ear between his fingers. “I know,” he finally responded. “I had lunch with Clay last week, and he said one of his partners had a neighbor of ours for a client.” Claymore Katz, who had been Bob’s roommate at Columbia, was a criminal lawyer who specialized in white-collar crime—securities fraud, tax evasion, bribery.

“Was it a criminal thing? Did Claymore say what it was about?”

“It must have been something criminal, but he didn’t go into detail. Look, it had to be something interesting if he bothered to mention it to me. I’m sure he was trying to see if I knew anything about the guy.” He pushed his coffee cup back an inch and stood up. “I’ll meet you upstairs,” he said, giving me his knowing look. “Hurry up with the dishes.”

I worked slowly, patiently scraping the gristle and the remaining green beans into the garbage, carefully rinsing the dishes before stacking them in the dishwasher. Why should a suburban dentist need a high-priced criminal lawyer? Some sort of Medicaid fraud? Not likely. Fleckstein’s patients were drawn from the Shorehaven community, and the community could pay its own way.

“Judith,” Bob called in a hoarse whisper from the top of the stairs. “I’m waiting for you.” I finished hurriedly, leaving the broiling pan to soak overnight. He was indeed waiting, I saw, as I passed through the hallway to the stairs. His Valentine present lay on the shelf where he had left it, unopened. I walked up the stairs to him. “Hi,” he said softly, standing slim and naked and erect. He didn’t like to waste time. “Ready?” He asked me that three nights a week.

“Bob, could you call Claymore tomorrow and try to find out some more information? Please?”

“Come on, Judith. Who cares?”

“I care. It’s interesting.”

“Clay probably doesn’t know anything.”

“But maybe he does. Or he could speak to his lawyer friend.”

“How would that look?” he demanded.

“It would look like you’re curious. Tell him I asked you to find out what’s going on. Clay likes me. He’d do it for me.”

“I don’t have to bring you into it,” he snapped. “Come on, Judith, it’s getting late and I want to get to the office early.” I stepped toward him and ran my hands over his chest and stomach, firm from his daily prelunch workout, hairy and warm. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s do it in bed. Okay?”

We did, finishing neatly in our usual twenty minutes. It was fine; one hundred watts of sexual incandescence discharged, a baked potato’s worth of calories consumed, a faint aura of warmth and friendliness established that lasted through the night and into the first few minutes of the morning.

At seven-thirty the next day I even smiled, then glanced out the living room window and noticed the
Times
on my driveway, practically pulsating with what I knew to be a major story on the Fleckstein case. But my path was blocked by Kate and Joey, having their first skirmish of the day.

“Dumbhead.” Her dark brown eyes narrowed.

“Chicken-doody-faggot,” he retaliated.

Then Bob came downstairs, wondering aloud why I couldn’t find two extra minutes to roll his socks into nice little balls instead of stuffing them all into his drawer. By nine o’clock, they were finally dispatched to their respective first grade, nursery school, and office.

Pulling a sheepskin jacket over my bathrobe, I scurried down the front path toward the driveway to retrieve the newspaper. The air was warmer than I had expected, the deceptive hint of spring before the end of February and the whole of March dump their final icy insults. Nothing in the index about the murder, I noted, reading as I walked back into the house. But I found a short squib on the third page of the second section, “Dentist Found Slain,” datelined Shorehaven.

The body of Marvin Bruce Fleckstein, 42, a periodontist, was discovered in his office last evening in this affluent community on Long Island’s North Shore. According to a police spokesman, death was probably caused by a wound in the base of the skull. Investigators in charge of the case refused further comment, although they said a report from the Nassau County Medical Examiner’s office was due in a day or two.

The
Times
had failed me. During elections, monetary crises, Congressional scandals, it had always come through. Throughout Watergate, there was always something to wallow in with my second cup of coffee, something enough even for me, a once-promising doctoral candidate in American political history. But today there was nothing to mull over. Not a blonde hair twirled around a button of Fleckstein’s jacket, not even a medicine cabinet tampered with. No mention, of course, that M. Bruce had found other orifices to probe. I sat slumped on a straight-backed kitchen chair, debating who would be the most fascinating person to call and discuss the case with. Nancy would be unavailable; a free-lance writer, she works from nine to one every day and takes her phone off the hook. Well, I thought, I could call...And the doorbell rang.

I dashed out of the kitchen and yanked open the door with sheer joy at having human contact. But it was a strange man. I took him in at one glance: average height, bushy eyebrows, a small smile on his wide mouth. Quickly, I pushed the door shut so it was left open just a crack. He could be the Shorehaven Slayer and I was his next victim, selected with insane randomness.

“Mrs. Singer? I’m Sergeant Ramirez of the Nassau County Police.” He held up an identification card to the glass of the storm door. It had his picture and a raised seal. It was official. “I’m investigating the murder of Dr. M. Bruce Fleckstein. Would it be all right for me to ask you a few questions?”

I grinned and held the door wide open.

“Did you hear about the murder?” he inquired as he stepped into the hallway. He glanced away from me, his eyes darting about the hallway toward the kitchen, into the living room, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps in the mild hope that he might find a blood-stained weapon lying casually on an armchair.

“I heard about it on the radio last night. Awful. Absolutely awful.” His eyes were focused on the far end of the living room, examining the empty log basket by the fireplace. I stepped into his line of vision. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No. Don’t bother.”

“No trouble. It’s already made.”

“All right. Light, two sugars.”

I strolled into the kitchen, fixed two mugs of coffee, and returned, offering
him
one. “We can sit in the living room,” I suggested. He followed me and perched on the edge of a wing chair. I sat a couple of feet away on the couch. Peering at the coffee, a bit suspiciously I thought, he pursed his lips and took a delicate sip. I smiled, trying to appear sincere and cooperative.

“Did you happen to notice what time your neighbor, Mrs. Tuccio, came in last night?”

“Why do you ask?” Now that we were friends, drinking coffee together, I could afford to revert to my usual perverseness.

“Well, it’s nothing serious,” he said crisply. Ramirez had assimilated with high honors. No trace of an accent, demeanor as open, as briskly friendly, as a WASP car salesman. “It’s just that Mrs. Tuccio was his last patient yesterday, probably the last person to see Dr. Fleckstein alive.”

“Except for the murderer.”

“Oh. Right. Anyway, did you happen to notice what time she came home last evening?”

“Is Marilyn Tuccio a suspect?” Is the Pope an atheist?

“We just have to check every possible fact, Mrs. Singer.” Ramirez, despite my excellent coffee, seemed mildly annoyed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice. I was busy with the children and getting dinner ready.”

“I see,” he said slowly. “Do you know Mrs. Tuccio well?”

“We’re friendly.”

“Did she ever happen to mention anything to you about Dr. Fleckstein?”

“No.”

“Well, thanks anyway. If you remember anything, give me a call. I’ll jot down the number.” He took a pen from his coat pocket and extracted a small green-covered notebook from his jacket. He wrote down the number and tore out the page. “Here,” he offered it to me. “And thanks for the coffee. It was strong, but I like it that way.”

I escorted him to the front door, waved goodbye, and plodded back inside. Could they suspect Marilyn Tuccio of anything? The Saint of Oaktree Street? Absurd. Then why was Ramirez checking? And if he was so interested, why hadn’t he asked any probing questions about her? Was she stable? Any homicidal tendencies? Did she keep any dangerous weapons in her bread box, between the oatmeal cookies and the home-made cracked wheat rolls?

With an explosion of energy that is rarely visited upon me before noon, I jammed the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, ran upstairs and made the beds, then quickly drew on a pair of jeans and my favorite blue denim work shirt. Finally, lifting the receiver of a beige Princess phone that I had ordered in a long-forgotten moment of frivolity, I called Marilyn.

“Marilyn? It’s me, Judith. Can I come over for a few minutes?”

“Judith, I’m a little busy now...”

“Look, the police were just here asking questions about you.”

“Oh. What did they say?”

“Marilyn, I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. Anyway, you sound as though you could use some company.” Actually, she sounded as though she were aching for solitude.

“Well, sure. Come right over. Would you like coffee?”

“Always. See you.”

Marilyn O’Connor Tuccio is one of those wispy Irish redheads who look as though they were born to be taken advantage of: tiny, delicate, you could imagine her exhaustedly carrying an enormous pot of stew to the parish house “for Father Sweeny, Mrs. Mallory” or lugging home cases of beer for a beefy, veiny-nosed husband who made certain she was pregnant every year. Fragile and petite, with pale blue veins shimmering under the lightly freckled white skin of her hands, she should, according to stereotype, whisper hello to you and then lower those long, pale eyelashes, astonished at her own brazenness. Instead, she is unfailingly assertive, competent, and almost violently energetic, the only housewife I know who doesn’t, even secretly, feel she got shafted. Marilyn sews all the clothes for herself and her four children, cans all her fruits and vegetables, drives endless car pools and, in her spare time, is president of the junior high PTA and a Republican County Committeewoman.

I trotted across the street and, when I got to the door, noticed that she had taken down her Valentine wreath and put up her Presidents decoration, a crewel-work double portrait of Lincoln and Washington, simply framed with flowers she had dried herself. Next month there would be an adorable stuffed lion and lamb hanging from the door, and for April, I recalled, a fluffy crocheted Easter bunny clutching a bouquet of crepe-paper daffodils.

I rang the bell and Marilyn called out: “The door’s open.” I stepped into a massive room that took up the entire first floor of her house, a combination kitchen, dining room, living room, and playroom, paneled in a light wood and dominated by a large brick fireplace. A room for a family, she had called it two years before, when she ran across the street to show me her architect’s drawings.