Emerald Aisle (13 page)
THE EVENTUAL SYSTEMATIC search of Bianca's apartment by the police turned up nothing helpful. That the items missing from her husband's collection were not found in the apartment struck different people in different ways. Joseph Primero, affecting to think that it was absurd to imagine Bianca could have done such a thing, nonetheless looked relieved. Waldo Hermes looked incredulous when Phil passed the information on to him.
“Nothing? But that's impossible. I know she was behind the thefts.”
“Know as in are certain?”
Waldo told Phil about the cruising Jaguar and the man who had sometimes accompanied Bianca in her drive-bys, and sometimes had gone by alone in the car.
“Have you told Swenson?”
“I didn't think I'd have to. Once suspicion turned to her ⦠.”
“Because of the Newman letters you sent to Notre Dame?”
Waldo looked at Phil. “How do you know that?”
“It's true, isn't it?”
“That was meant to lead to a search of Bianca's apartment.”
“They found nothing, Waldo.”
“I can't believe it.”
Waldo did not seem to realize that he had indicated where the missing items would be found. Bianca had an accomplice. The
accomplice was almost certainly Dudley Fyte. If the missing items were not in Bianca's apartment, Fyte must still have them.
accomplice was almost certainly Dudley Fyte. If the missing items were not in Bianca's apartment, Fyte must still have them.
Phil had been hired to find the things stolen from Joseph Primero's collection, not to find whoever had killed his wife. He seemed to be doing both. But the investigation of Bianca's death was in the presumably able hands of the police.
“Two birds with one stone?” Roger said over the telephone from South Bend. “I'm not so sure.”
“I told you what Waldo said.”
“Oh, I believe that. Bianca sent Dudley for those things on the list you found, and he entered the house and took them,”
“Waldo tried to bring about a search of her apartment.”
“By sending those letters here.”
“Doesn't that surprise you?”
“Phil, Greg found some packages in which Waldo had sent things to the Archives before. The printing on those was like the putative one from Bianca.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't have to, did I?”
“Roger, I still have not done what we were hired to do.”
“Have you told Joseph Primero everything?”
Roger had been fascinated by the news that entries and exits to the condo in which Bianca had her apartment were taped. He called it a parody of omniscience. Why do we think what we do not see is more interesting than what we do? Surveillance cameras were a tribute to Bishop Berkeley.
“Roger, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.”
“Esse est percipi.”
“No kidding.” And he loved the nicknames Norma devised. Phil told him all those he remembered, including Captain Midnight.
“Captain Midnight!”
Captain Midnight, the resident so called by Norma, always wore a crushed captain's cap and huge dark glasses, a pencil thin mustache, and a winning smile, flashed briefly as the tinted glass slid down and then quickly slid up again.
“I figure he's wearing a leather flying jacket,” Norma said, “and a white silk scarf.”
“What's his name?”
“Queedam. He has the penthouse.”
When Philip talked to Joseph Primero and mentioned the likelihood that his wife had removed the missing items from the collection in the house on Lake of the Isles, Primero shook his head. “She didn't do it.”
“You sound as if you know who did.”
Primero looked at Phil with an agonized expression. “I don't want to get him in trouble.”
“Him?”
“Waldo.” Primero actually whispered the name.
Phil took him out onto the sunporch, where dozens of plants and flowers flourished. Then Primero told him of seeing the
Apologia
in Waldo's room. “It is an ironclad rule that nothing is to be taken from the library. Nothing. By anybody.”
Apologia
in Waldo's room. “It is an ironclad rule that nothing is to be taken from the library. Nothing. By anybody.”
Phil found it hard to share Primero's sense of the seriousness of Waldo's offense.
“When he reported the theft, I was dumbstruck. The fact is I didn't believe it had happened ⦔
“You thought he might report items missing when they weren't?”
“Oh, they would be missing.”
“But taken by Waldo?”
“I felt like a sneak going into his room. I told myself that he was just absentminded, that he had forgotten he had taken things to his room. That was when I saw the
Apologia
.”
Apologia
.”
“Hidden.”
“If being put into a bookcase is being hidden.”
“What about the other things?”
“That is the puzzle. The
Apologia
is gone. Waldo tells me he returned it to its place in the libraryâ”
Apologia
is gone. Waldo tells me he returned it to its place in the libraryâ”
Roger reminded him by E-mail that Waldo was the single source of the claim that Bianca and her boyfriend had been casing the joint. Roger loved to lapse into such clichés, and they were obviously italicized when he spoke them; but he did not know how to create italics in E-mail messages.
“Good point,” Phil replied.
Mulling it over and thinking of what Primero had told him led eventually to the following message.
Dear Roger.
Try this. Waldo steals everything that's missing and, to throw suspicion on Bianca, ships off a few letters to Notre Dame as if from her. The assumption will be that she and Dudley Fyte stole the other things, and even if they were never found they will always be suspected of doing it. The tape Norma showed me of Waldo's attempted visit to Bianca's apartment just before her death suggests that he
was going to plant other items there to clinch her guilt. That means he knows where the rest of the stuff is. Anyway, that's the way it looks. And I admit I don't like it. Waldo seems a pretty decent guy.
was going to plant other items there to clinch her guilt. That means he knows where the rest of the stuff is. Anyway, that's the way it looks. And I admit I don't like it. Waldo seems a pretty decent guy.
Phil
Minutes later the reply came.
Phil
Your explanation makes no sense. He had already ensured that Bianca would be thought to be the thief. I don't think you're going to be able to separate the theft from Bianca's death. Has there been a verdict on how she died?
Roger
Waldo already thought he was under suspicion.
“Of course I am. I would suspect myself if I weren't me.” He snorted through his unlit pipe.
“Do you ever smoke that thing?”
“I quit.”
“You should clean it. Or get a new one.”
“It wouldn't be the same.”
Phil had another E-mail from Roger late that night.
Phil
What if Primero put the Newman materials in Waldo's room? Of course you'll ask why.
Roger
Roger
Why?
P.
Phil
I don't know. I'm thinking about it.
Roger
The question gave Phil a sleepless night. The following day he passed on to Swenson what Primero had told him of finding the Newman materials in Waldo's room.
“So what? Weren't they all in his charge?”
“He had reported this one missing, along with other things.”
Swenson groaned. “Still that damned theft. Knight, it's not in my jurisdiction. Tell the Minneapolis police. The death occurred in Saint Paul. That's all I'm interested in.”
Swenson was riding a hobby horse of his own, the possibility of death by strangulation. “But it's not a clear case.”
“Why not?”
“The coroner says that if she hadn't been strangled, she would have been done in by the amount of sleeping pills in her.”
“MOTHER. IT'S ALL OVER.”
Dolores had reached her mother as she came off the fourth green in Tempe and wanted to talk about the birdie she had just missed making.
“There was something on the green that diverted my ball. Bird dirt or something. Otherwise ⦔
“Mother, I am not going to marry Dudley Fyte.”
Maternal attention had been gained in Tempe. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Silence. The faint twitter of birds, busy perhaps assuring the diversion of future putts.
“I'll call you back. Are you at work?”
“In my apartment.”
“At this time of day?”
“Mother ⦔
“Stay put. I'll call.”
But not before she finished nine holes, and changed, and was on her way home, cussing her way through Arizona traffic.
“Now what is this all about?”
“The wedding is off.”
A humming pause. “Well, we'll lose the deposit at The Morris Inn.”
“Don't you want to know why?”
“I'm not sure.” Mrs. Torre felt that she had earned the relative tranquillity of her widowed years. Troubles sufficient she had known, but she had outlived or outgrown them all and now wanted to head into the sunset untroubled by the slings and arrows of others' outrageous fortune, even her daughter's. She had risen to the mandatory level of excitement at the prospect of planning the wedding. Whatever her disappointment, she would not brood.
“First, I learned that he'd had an affair with a married woman, an older woman, a woman almost your age.”
A philosophical sigh accompanied by car horns. “Men,” Mrs. Torre said. It might have been the beginning of a long disquisition but pronounced as she pronounced it it already said everything. “You must not expect perfection, Dolores.”
“I wouldn't call
not
having an affair with an older woman perfection, Mother.”
not
having an affair with an older woman perfection, Mother.”
“
My
age?”
My
age?”
“More or less. She was rebuilt several times. But now she's dead. Murdered. And Dudley is a suspect.”
“My God. Of course you can't marry him. Did he do it?”
“Even if he didn't ⦔
“Of course not. I will call The Morris Inn as soon as I get home. I'm late for lunch.”
Dolores had imagined a very different conversation. But it was rare that she had her mother's complete attention. Did anyone ever have anyone's full attention? Life is a pattern of interruptions: bird dirt on the putting green of life.
Dolores was staying away from the office because she could not bear to watch Dudley putting a brave face on his ambiguous situation. She could bear even less the realization that everyone at Kunert and Skye seemed to have known about Dudley and Bianca.
What a fool they must have taken her for. What a fool Dudley had taken her for. Could she have gotten through this if Larry weren't in Minneapolis? He was so bright and good and naive; how could she have preferred Dudley to him?
What a fool they must have taken her for. What a fool Dudley had taken her for. Could she have gotten through this if Larry weren't in Minneapolis? He was so bright and good and naive; how could she have preferred Dudley to him?
Now, in the light of what had happened to Bianca, in the light of the fact that Dudley was being questioned by the police about Bianca, the death, her engagement to him had become impossible. Not that she could imagine him doing harm to Bianca.
From her front window, she had a distant view of Lake Harriet, surrounded by trees so thick they seemed to form a wreathe. I am twenty-five years old, she told herself. I am young and at the beginning of my career. She felt like crying. Her triumph of the other day when she had presented the new database to the firm seemed hollow in her present mood. At the time Dudley had stood by, her patron and protector, certainly her number-one cheerleader in the firm. But the other junior partners had been sincerely grateful for her presentation. Why could she derive so little confidence from the memory? Is that what her life would be? Ups and downs at the office until she faded into retirement? She thought of her engagement to Larry and then she did cry. Sweet tears, sad tears, tears for yesteryear and youth. How young they had been. Imagine, showing up at Sacred Heart and making a reservation for a wedding six years in the future.
Now Larry and his fiancée could claim the date, the little wrinkle in their plans smoothed over because Dolores Torre had broken another engagement.
She hadn't told Dudley yet, but he could hardly be surprised. She had been stupid to let him charm away her suspicions when the painting from Bianca arrived in his office and she and Amy had opened it. Bianca had made it clear that it was not just a painting. It
turned out that it commemorated the day she and Dudley had met, and she expected Dudley to hang it on his wall?
turned out that it commemorated the day she and Dudley had met, and she expected Dudley to hang it on his wall?
Would Dudley be able to survive the difficulties into which he had fallen? For a member of Kunert and Skye to be suspected of murder was fatal to a career, certainly it would be if he were actually indicted. Would that jeopardize his law licence? Involuntarily, she felt a pang of sympathy for him. The poor silly fool. He should have seen what kind of woman Bianca was, but of course men don't see, or, if they do, act foolishly anyway. No doubt Dudley thought he could play with fire and then withdraw when he wished, but he had reckoned without Bianca's desperation. After all, how many other such men could she have hoped to attract?
That Dudley was attractiveâphysically, professionallyâthere was little doubt. It was his character that was deficient. He was self-centered, essentially egoistic, but then few men are not. Where had she picked up such lore? It had the flavor of her mother's outlook. Dolores almost regretted having made the call to Tempe. Her mother would cancel the preparations at Notre Dame. Should she stop her?
But she sat as if without will or purpose. Larry had gone back to South Bend. She felt so alone. When the phone rang, she just stared at it, counting the rings. It would be her mother. She would call again. But then the prospect of a sympathetic voice caused her to lunge for the phone.
“Hello, Mom.”
“Dolores, this is Dudley.”
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