Styx & Stone (4 page)

The detective’s face flushed, and I could see I’d unnerved him again. “Well, through a window off the fire escape. We found it wide open.”

I nodded. “But there was no open window at my father’s place,” I said. “And no forced entry.”

By noon, I was on the Saw Mill River Parkway, rolling toward Irvington and the cemetery where my brother was buried. Elijah had skidded on the slick pavement of Route 9A after a June rain two and a half years earlier, and his motorcycle careened over the shoulder and plunged down a steep hill. He was dead on the scene, a quiet woodland in Westchester County. My parents decided that he should be laid to rest where he died, so he was buried in Irvington.

The caretaker was embarrassed by the desecration. He apologized a little too insistently, explaining that the vandals, probably local juvenile delinquents, had broken into the cemetery late at night and made no noise.

“It’s such a big cemetery,” he said, as we walked over the cold ground toward Elijah’s grave. “I couldn’t have heard them if they’d thrown a party.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Dibb,” I said, touching the gaunt man’s elbow. “I understand these things happen all the time.”

“Oh, no, miss,” he said, looking straight ahead and not at me. “We haven’t had a desecration here since ’52, and that was an act of personal vengeance.”

“You mean no one has kicked over a headstone since then? It happens all the time where I live. Mostly troubled teenagers.”

Mr. Dibb’s concave chest swelled, his gray, stubbly chin thrust upward in self-satisfaction. “I keep an eye on things.” Then, perhaps remembering the reason for my visit, his pride flagged, and his chest deflated. “Of course you can’t be everywhere at once. Especially in a big place like this.”

My brother’s grave was indeed far from the caretaker’s house. Secluded in a low-lying glen behind a hill, it was often sodden from settling rain and decaying leaves. Yet it was a beautiful place, somber to be sure, but serene and bucolic. A huge, black oak stood nearby, its trunk and branches twisted, as if by grief for the dead at its feet. Elijah’s granite marker had been pushed over, cracked in half by a heavy blow, and smeared with three black swastikas in acrylic paint. I pulled my Leica from my oversized purse and shot a few frames to examine later on; I couldn’t stand to look at the grave one more minute, and not because some idiot had scrawled a couple of swastikas on the stone. As Dibb walked me back to my Plymouth, I turned my head until the tears had dried from my cheeks. He wasn’t looking at me anyway.

At 110th Street, a swath of flinty green slices through Harlem. Running north for thirteen blocks, Morningside Park cordons off Columbia University to the west from the flats of Harlem to the east. Columbia, or more precisely Barnard, was my alma mater, daytime home for four years of studies and many hours besides of visiting my father at the office: Hamilton Hall, where the Italian Department conjugated its verbs and deconstructed its texts. My father kept his office on the sixth floor, overlooking Hamilton’s statue and the John Jay Building to the south. I studied history at Barnard and spent countless hours at Fayerweather Hall, but with my father’s lukewarm support, I was submatriculated into the School of Journalism my junior and senior years. That put me in the Journalism Building most days, just opposite Hamilton Hall on the other side of South Field. I often met him at his office for lunch or to ride the subway home together in the evening.

The last time I had visited Morningside Heights was on a June day two and a half years earlier—just a week before Elijah died—when I took my degree. Now I was returning under less auspicious circumstances to ask my father’s colleagues a few questions about a young man who had been seen with him the night of the attack.

The pall over the office was darker than I had expected, even for a Monday. When I introduced myself to the secretary, a handsome woman in her late thirties named Joan Little—according to the engraved Bakelite strip on her desk—I noticed her red eyes and raw nose.

“You’re Professor Stone’s daughter?” she asked, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “What do the doctors say about your father?”

I explained the vague prognosis, that the doctors weren’t sure if he would pull through, or how much brain damage might remain. Joan Little listened with a pained expression, embarrassing me with her
poor
dear
gaze.

“It’s been an awful few days,” she said. “I saw your father on Friday. He was so upset about your brother’s . . .” she balked at the word
grave
. “The horrible thing those vandals did.”

“How did he react?”

Miss Little shook her head and swallowed some watery build-up in her throat. “He didn’t say a word, but his temples were throbbing. He usually gets that way when he’s furious, but Friday it was different; he was seething. That was raw sorrow, inconsolable loss, and fiery wrath. He was spitting mad.” She buried her face in the handkerchief. Once she had composed herself, she continued: “Then Dr. Chalmers called Saturday afternoon to tell me about the assault on your father. Then Ruggero Ercolano.” Again the tears in the handkerchief, this time a gusher.

I knew Victor Chalmers, the department chairman and a needle-nosed iceman, but Ercolano was new.

“Who’s this Ercolano?” I asked. “And how did he know about my father?”

Miss Little looked up from her handkerchief and sniffled. “No, I didn’t mean Dr. Ercolano called me about your father. I meant he’s dead.”

Ruggero Ercolano, thirty-three-year-old assistant professor, was discovered dead in his bathtub after midnight on Saturday by Professor Chalmers. Ercolano was turned on his side, half-submerged in the tub with an electric radio for company in the water.

“Oh, my,” I said. “How did the radio get into the tub?”

Miss Little shrugged her shoulders. “The police think he placed it on a stool next to the tub, then upset it by accident.”

“That’s a terrible story,” I said. “How was it Dr. Chalmers was in Ercolano’s apartment after twelve on a Saturday night?”

“I didn’t think to ask,” she said. “But it is strange.”

“Is he around?”

She shook her head. “He left about an hour ago. He was sending wires and making overseas calls all morning to Dr. Ercolano’s family in Italy, and now he’s gone to the funeral parlor to arrange transportation of the body.” She paused, overcome by tears again. “Such a tragedy. But of course you have your own troubles just now. Is there anything we can do for you or Professor Stone?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “I’m looking for the young man who accompanied my father home the night of the attack.”

“And you think he’s here?”

“The doorman said he worked with my father. Maybe a student?”

“That must have been me,” came a voice from over my shoulder. I turned to see a tall young man with curly dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses. “I’m Bernard Sanger,” he said, extending a hand.

“I’m Ellie Stone.”

“Nice to meet you finally,” he said. “Your father and I were very close.”

“Were?” I asked. “He was still alive when I saw him this morning.”

“Of course,” he stammered, withdrawing his hand before I’d shaken it. “I meant we were working closely together before this happened.”

“What time did you leave him Friday?”

Sanger thought carefully for a moment, seemed to be organizing the order of events in his head, then answered: “Ten fifteen. The elevator operator should be able to corroborate that; he buzzed your father as I was leaving. I had forgotten something, you see.”

“Yes, he told me,” I said. “What was it, by the way?”

“His manuscript,
Daughters of Eve: Women in Dante
,” he said. “We agreed he’d bring it to me today instead. Of course, as things turned out, he didn’t.”

“Why was he giving you the manuscript?”

“I was helping him edit it. If you look at the acknowledgments, you’ll find my name figures prominently.”

“Can’t wait to check. Did you notice anyone in the hallway, stairs, or elevator?” I asked, steering him back to the subject.

“No, the building was quiet.”

“Was my father expecting anyone? Did he seem preoccupied?”

“Not at all,” said Sanger. “He told me he had some mail to read before turning in. That was all. He didn’t mention anyone.”

“Do you visit my father’s apartment often?”

“At least once a week, and we often had dinner together.”

Just then, Miss Little blew her nose again, and Sanger suggested we move to the lounge across the hall.

“No need to discuss this publicly,” he said, glancing around.

The lounge was outfitted with modern, institutional furniture: some tables, several cushioned chairs, a couch, and a long pair of stockings, crossed and resting on the floor at a forty-five-degree angle. My eyes climbed the sleek legs, over the navy mohair skirt, slender waist, and silk blouse, through which one could discern the hint of a lace brassiere—just visible through the fabric, and intentionally so. At the top, a striking, fair-skinned beauty with black hair looked up from her book and smiled at us. She had big, green eyes.

“Let’s talk somewhere else,” said Sanger, and he tried to draw me out of the room by my elbow.

“Don’t run off because of me, Bernie,” said the young lady. Her offer put Sanger on the spot, so we pulled up two chairs.

“Where I come from, it’s customary to make introductions,” she said, sitting forward, the silk of her stockings brushing a soft whisper somewhere on her legs.

“Hildy Jaspers, Ellie Stone,” said Sanger to get it over with. I took her hand.

“Not Professor Stone’s daughter?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Hildy is a doctoral candidate here in the department,” said Bernie, trying to wedge himself between Miss Jaspers and me. “But she’s a modernist, so she doesn’t have much occasion to work with your father.”

“
Au contraire, Bernard
,” she cooed. Then to me: “I worked with Professor Stone last year on the curriculum committee, and he helped me prepare for my Latin exams.”

“Hildy is writing a dissertation on Pirandello,” said Sanger, as if to insult her. “The noted Italian dramatist . . .” he added for my benefit, positively succeeding in insulting me. “I’m writing on Dante, of course.”

“I just love the theater, don’t you?” she asked. “Experimental theater, especially.”

Sanger stifled a snort. “Like your avant-garde troupe on the West Side?” Then to me: “They call it alternative theater, but the only thing alternative about it is the clothing.”

Hildy blushed. “Really, Bernie,” she said. “You’re as outdated as your dusty, old Dante when it comes to art. And besides, there was only that one scene.”

“It was
Our Town
,” said Bernie. “There’s no nudity in Wilder.”

“Is there any news of your father?” Hildy asked, ignoring him.

I mumbled something about too early to tell, and thanked her for her concern.

“If there’s any way I can help, please let me know,” she said, gathering her books to leave. “I think the world of your father. And I do hope he becomes chairman.”

I’d bet he thought a lot of her, too, and often.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” I asked to no effect. Bernie didn’t hear me. His eyes were fixed on the gentle swing of Hildy’s hips as she left the room, and she knew he was watching.