Father's Day Murder (23 page)

So our walk was satisfying and refreshing, the scent of grass almost overwhelming, the quiet blissful. The college semester had ended and the students were gone. It was the way I liked it best.

Joseph’s main concern was the dearth of future nuns. The convent was down to a few novices, one of whom she had doubts about. I could not imagine this wonderful place closing forever as a convent although I knew of other convents that had merged or dissolved. Joseph was hoping to avoid either fate, and I could not have wished her better if I tried.

Back at the shady side of the Mother House, I found my little son still fast asleep; the nun in the chair beside him had fallen asleep herself. When she awakened, I took the stroller and walked to the Villa to say hello to the elderly women who lived there and thank them for the sumptuous lunch. They whispered to let Eddie sleep, and then we walked away and chatted in normal tones. A nun I had known since I was fifteen had died during the past year, and a tree had been planted in her memory. We walked outside to admire it, to feel her presence in the strong green leaves.

And then it was time to go. Eddie stirred as I lifted him into his seat, but he went back to sleep after a whimper. Angela came out for a last hug and Joseph came to see us off.

The last thing she said to me was, “Remember it was Father’s Day.”

Eddie woke up cranky while I was still driving. I gave him a pretzel which ended up thrown on the front seat beside me, but the second time I offered it he thought better of it and took it. When we got home, I marinated some beef cubes for shish kebab and then, taking Eddie with me, went out to the backyard to pull some weeds. My vegetable garden was starting to look good; the little seedlings I had nurtured through the cool spring were now a darker green with buds promising flowers and fruits. I may not do well in the kitchen, but I have managed to become an estimable vegetable gardener. I was hoping that this year Eddie would grow to love cherry tomatoes off the vine as I did.

Today was Jack’s last day at the precinct he had worked at for many years, and I knew he would be in a precarious state when he got home. I was pretty sure the detectives would throw him a party this afternoon so I didn’t call. We could talk about everything later.

I gave Eddie his dinner and his bath and read him a story. He was in blue summer pajamas that his grandparents had given him, and he looked as adorable as they had intended. I was about to put him to bed when I heard Jack’s car drive up. I said, “Here comes Daddy.”

Eddie ran to the window overlooking the driveway and stood there smiling till Jack got out of the car, looked up
and saw him, and waved. When Jack came upstairs, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small box, which he handed to me. Then he went over to Eddie and picked him up.

I opened the box. In a soft, suedelike pouch was something made of metal. I pulled it out and gasped. It was a gold key ring with a gold disk that had a raised scales of justice hanging from it. Engraved on the back was his name, rank, and the date. He was a lawyer all right. Even his colleagues had acknowledged it.

“Did you know they were giving me a party?” We were eating a melon whose name I have forgotten, sweet and small, while the shish was grilling.

“Nobody told me but I guessed they would. Who was there?”

“Everyone in the house who could avoid work. It was at O’Boyle’s down the street. That’s some gift, isn’t it?”

I had teared up when I looked at it. “It’s wonderful, Jack. And all your keys will fit on it.”

“I think I’ll save it for a while.”

“Nothing doing,” I said with more insistence than I usually projected. “You will pass these exams in the fall, and you’re not waiting for that to happen to use this beautiful gift from your friends. You’re starting a new job Monday as a lawyer, and you’re going to have that in your pocket when you leave the house.”

“Well, that’s reading me the riot act.”

I grinned. I was very happy and I felt I was right. I wanted him to enjoy everything that was there for him.

We started eating—the marinade was Mel’s and the cooking courtesy of a great barbecue, leaving little to my
ability to massacre a meal—and talking first about his day and then about mine.

“You were up at St. Stephen’s today, weren’t you,” he asked, as though he had just remembered it, “seeing my favorite people?”

“And talking about the Arthur Wien murder.”

“Sister Joseph pull it out for you?”

“Not exactly. What she did was tell me I have to call a number of people back and ask every embarrassing question that I was afraid to ask the first time around.”

“Like ‘did you go to jail for something you did or were you covering for somebody?’ ”

“You knew I’d have to ask him, didn’t you?”

“Hey, for all you know, that guy — what’s his name?”

“Bruce Kaplan, and he’s a very nice person.”

“Bruce Kaplan, and maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. For all you know, he took money that didn’t belong to him to lend to Arthur Wien and he never forgave him for it. Maybe Wien didn’t pay it back in time and an audit found it missing.”

“I think I’m going into early retirement,” I said, not entirely facetiously.

“Nobody likes to ask questions like those,” Jack said sympathetically. “Nobody gets a kick out of humiliating another person. Do your usual best. He’ll know you’re not doing this for fun.”

I went through the rest of Joseph’s comments, all of which I had taken down, some legibly, some in an almost unreadable scribble that I would never have accepted from a student. He agreed that almost everything she suggested was relevant and therefore necessary, except calling the Bellers. I asked why not.

“Fred Beller didn’t like Arthur Wien. That was clear
early on. When you found out that Wien had taken Beller’s girlfriend away, that said it all. Beller didn’t want anything to do with Wien, whether he was in Minnesota or New York or anywhere else. I don’t blame him. But make the call. Sister Joseph is better at these things than I am.”

So I made that call first. Mrs. Beller answered and listened to my request.

“You’re making a mountain out of a nothing event,” she said, happily mixing metaphors. “Art was very busy when he came to Minneapolis. They wined and dined him. That’s all it was.”

I didn’t believe her. “Do you remember when Mr. Wien made that trip to Minneapolis?”

“I’d have to think about that. It was after our trip to California because that’s where we ran into him the first time. We took that trip—let me see—” She said “Mm” a couple of times while I waited. “I think it’s three years since California so it’s less than that, maybe two and a half?” She said it as though I could give her the answer.

“OK,” I said, writing it down. “Mrs. Beller, if you decide to tell me what really happened when Arthur Wien came to Minneapolis, I’d appreciate your calling me.”

“I’ve told you.” She sounded almost plaintive.

I had thought about letting her know that I knew she had been at the restaurant the night of the murder, but I couldn’t bring myself to threaten her. “Please,” I said. “Whether you liked him or not, he didn’t deserve to die.”

“I’ll talk to my husband,” she said and hung up.

That struck me as progress. Then, just to see if I could come up with some answers through the back door, I dialed Cindy Wien.

“Do you have something?” she asked almost eagerly.

“I have a couple of questions. How long were you married to Mr. Wien?”

“We were together a long time.”

“About how long?”

“Seven years, maybe a little longer.”

It occurred to me that she might have been in her twenties when they started going out. “And when were you married?”

“Two years ago. We just had our second anniversary.”

“Were you with your husband when he visited Minneapolis?”

“To publicize his book? No, I stayed in California. He said those were dreadful trips, being whisked from one place to another with hardly enough time to grab a sandwich.”

“Did he mention to you that he might see the Bellers there?”

“Fred and his wife? You know, he did. He had bumped into them in California and they had invited him to visit if he ever got to Minneapolis.”

“Do you know what happened when he got there?”

There was some silence. “He didn’t see them, I know that. He said they pulled out at the last minute.”

“They pulled out?”

“Yes. He was going to take them to dinner. They said something else had come up unexpectedly and they couldn’t make it. I’m sure of that. He told me when he came home.”

I thought about it after I hung up. Another lie by Arthur Wien? Or had the Bellers decided they really didn’t want to spend an evening with him? Among the living, only Fred and Marge knew the truth.

* * *

I saved the call to Bruce Kaplan until after Jack and I had had coffee and the wonderful cookies I had carried home from St. Stephen’s. To say they were a success is to downplay his reaction by decibels. There were so many in the bag, I didn’t need to remind him to leave some for Eddie for tomorrow. They were loaded with chocolate chips and were absolutely huge. The bag they had given me had contained half a dozen biscuits as well, and we had eaten them for dinner.

Finally, having put it off long enough, I called Bruce Kaplan. Arlene answered, and I thanked her for the book, of which I had already read three-quarters. We chatted for a few minutes as though I had called merely to exchange literary opinions. Finally I asked to speak to her husband.

“Yes,” he said when he came to the phone. “Got some more questions?”

“Mr. Kaplan, I’m feeling very uneasy asking you this, but I’ve heard that you were convicted of a crime. Would you tell me about it?”

He let his breath out as though he had to prepare himself for an ordeal, which he probably did. “It was a very simple thing. I took money that didn’t belong to me, money I intended to pay back to the company, and it was discovered before I had a chance to repay it. I went to trial and ended up serving what you might consider a short sentence but that was the longest sentence of my life.”

“When did this happen?”

“It’s over twenty years, twenty-five. I’ve put it behind me. I did something I shouldn’t have, I paid the price, and I’ve moved on.”

Twenty-five years. It seemed a long time to carry a grudge, if that was what it was. “I’ve heard someone else actually took the money and you paid the price for it.”

“There are people who find it hard to believe that someone they’ve known since childhood could commit a felony, and they spin tales to make the situation look better. I was solely responsible for what happened.”

That seemed as definitive a confession as one could find. “Did you lend any part of that money to Arthur Wien?” I asked.

There was total silence. “Did I—” In the background, I could hear his wife’s voice. “No, I didn’t. What would make you—”

“I heard he borrowed from friends.”

“He may have.”

“Did he borrow from you?”

“An inconsequential amount.”

“Did he pay you back?”

“I believe so.”

“When did he borrow from you?”

“I couldn’t tell you within a ten-year period. It was very casual and it wasn’t a lot of money.”

“Did you ever borrow from him?”

After a pause he laughed. “From Artie? You were lucky if he’d pick up his half of a dinner check. Artie was a classic cheapskate. Doesn’t mean I didn’t like and admire him, but he’d be the last man in the world I’d go to if I needed money.”

I was about to finish the conversation when I decided to ask one more embarrassing question. “The money you took, can you tell me what you used it for?”

“I used it for something personal. I didn’t gamble it away; I didn’t drink it or shoot it up my arm. I used it for something that meant a lot to me.”

I knew there was nothing more I could ask.

* * *

Jack had walked outside for a breath of fresh air while I was on the phone. I followed him through the door in the family room. It was dark now, a week after the longest day of the year. Jack had turned on the outdoor lights that theoretically allowed us to give parties and entertain in our backyard on summer nights but in practice we had never used. The lawn looked very green and healthy in the glow, our plantings stronger and taller than a year ago. I had fought myself for every dollar we had spent, worrying that we were overdoing it, that some catastrophe would render us impoverished. Jack had known that we could afford both the addition to the house and the landscaping that followed, that we, and especially I, would enjoy both the extra rooms and the shrubs and flowers that beautified our property and enhanced our life. The great thing about marriage is that our individual strengths and weaknesses lie in different areas, and we had learned to support each other and to accept that support.

“I called him,” I said, moving to his side and putting an arm around his waist.

“I know. That’s why I came outside. How’d it go?”

“He didn’t do it, Jack. He was my first suspect, because he was convicted of a felony and I was ready to accept that a thief could be a murderer. He’s a good man. They’re all good men. I don’t think any of them did it, and if one did, I don’t even want to know who.”

“And the wives?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to think about it. “These are nice people, good people. I don’t have a motive and everyone at the party had opportunity. I looked over the photographs taken at the Father’s Day dinner. The women’s purses are lying on the table. Most of them are small evening
bags. Any one of them could have carried an ice pick in her purse.”

“With a cork to keep it from sticking through the fabric.”

“Right.”

“And no motive.”

“Mrs. Beller is lying to me. She said at first that Wien had canceled their meeting because he had so much to do. When I pressed her, she said she would talk to her husband.”

“So there is something there.”

“There’s something. I can’t make her tell me, Jack.”

“You know something about them they don’t know you know.”