The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man (7 page)

The lights came back on. The chair, speaking from a prepared statement, said, “This and similar scenes appeared both on a Web site called Different Strokes and on the university’s site. So we have before the committee not merely the issue of invasion of privacy and that of animal rights in general, but the spectacle of animal pornography appearing on Wainscott’s window to the world, cybernetically speaking.”

Corny Chard started in with little ceremony. “If people are getting their jollies watching that kind of stuff, they must be pretty desperate. But I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

“I disagree with you,” said Professor Athol flatly. “It is not the kind of thing you want broadcast, not when the public is starting to take a critical look at universities and their culture.”

“Not to mention their expense,” Professor Pilty added.

“Why are cameras there in the first place?” Attorney Dearth asked me in a hostile tone.

“Security,” I answered. I avoided looking at him because to look at him is never a pleasant experience. “In the wake of the Bert and Betti incident we equipped each cage with monitors. But, also, a graduate student was conducting research on the sex life of chimpanzees in captivity.”

“And any number of people have access to these visual records?”

“I presume so.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“I don’t know for certain.”

It was an answer that appeared to puzzle the learned counsel. In the lapse, Izzy Landes said, “I think the university has to be aware of its reputation. I mean if the best Wainscott can do for
pornography is a couple of copulating apes, we are sure to get a bad name.”

“That remark smacks of speciesism,” the chair sniffed with a significant glance around the table.

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Professor Athol asked of Izzy.

Professor Landes beetled his brows in feigned seriousness. “I think we could ask the students and the junior faculty to come up with something better. Something arousing and yet tasteful. Perhaps we could get the Visual Arts Department involved.”

“The real question,” said Corny Chard, who is always ready for silliness, “is whether the students would get course credits.”

Keeping my voice deadpan, I kept up the badinage with, “You mean give courses?”

“Yes. Something like
An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Pornography.”

Izzy demurred. “No, no. Let’s keep it dignified. More like,
The Theory and Practice of the Erotic Arts
. Then,
Advanced Erotic Technique in Film. The History of Erotica. The Erotic Imagination: A Survey Course.”

“But not a degree?”

“Not at first. More like a specialty in graphic arts.”

“Lots of workshops …”

“With hands-on instruction?”

“Absolutely.”

“A graded course or just pass–fail.”

“Lots of passes.”

Chair Brattle bit heavily into the facetiousness. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for either the student body or the junior faculty to get involved in production of pornography.”

Corny shrugged. “It would prepare them for the real world.”

Professor Jackson shook her head. “I take very strong exception
to this kind of attitude. Pornography in any form constitutes victimization.”

“Of whom?” Bertha Schanke asked.

“Of those participating in it. Of those who watch and encourage it. Of everyone.”

“Even if they’re consenting adults?”

“I think we should agree that we need to question the whole concept of consent. Consent is a fiction used by the power elites to maintain their control over all of us.”

Professor Athol said, “Well, these two chimpanzees certainly did not consent to have their … intimacy broadcast to the world.”

“They didn’t complain.”

“Do they even know?”

Professor Jackson held up both of her hands. “We don’t know if they knew. Nor do we know what it might have done to their self-esteem. It is always safe to assume suffering.”

I felt like a stiff drink by the time I sat down in the sanctuary of my office, the more so to find Lieutenant Tracy there waiting for me.

“We’ll have to fetch our coffee,” I said, prematurely cheery, you might say. “Doreen won’t be in until later.”

The officer, in a light, well-pressed chino suit and plaid tie, nodded noncommitally. “Let’s go down and get some.” He added, in a tone that took me aback, “We need to talk, Norman.”

I do not shrug very easily, but tried to indicate the moral equivalent thereof. In fact, his demeanor made me quite nervous, and I grew talkative as we wended our way down through the exhibits.

“As you can see, our Greco-Roman Collection is really quite
small,” I pointed out. We were on the fifth floor, not far from my office and just under the delicately ribbed, domed skylight that crowns the atrium around which the collections are arranged both on the overhanging balconies and in the adjoining rooms. Most of the time I am soothed and reassured by the precious and beautiful objects on display from far and near, from recent and ancient times. And I remain proud of how we transformed Neanderthal Hall, the ground floor, into the Diorama of Neanderthal Life.

None of which availed me as we went down the marble, open stairway at a businesslike pace. I feared the worst — that he would confront me with what I had not been frank about.

The somewhat stark cafeteria, which is open to staffers and the public, was nearly empty and thus provided us with a privacy for which, under the circumstances, I was grateful.

For hardly had we sat down with our coffees, when the lieutenant launched right into it, saying, “Norman, we have it on good authority that you were in a bar with von Grümh not long before he was murdered.” He let that register. “We received an anonymous tip, which we followed up on. Both the bartender and the waiter who served you recognized photographs we have of you and the victim.”

I nodded and avoided his eyes. “Yes. I should have told you.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

I sighed deeply. I said, “Around seven fifteen on that evening, I met by arrangement with Heinie, Mr. von Grümh, at the Pink Shamrock. It’s the gay pub down on Belmont Avenue. That venue signifies nothing. It was handy to the office and I was working late when he called.”

“What were you meeting about?”

I hesitated, embarrassed. When I spoke, I felt like I was making an official statement. “About a year and a half ago, Heinie … 
von Grümh had an affair with Diantha, my wife. Di called it a fling, a weekend thing. In any event, it didn’t last long and in the meanwhile we have patched things back together.” I was gratified to see he was not taking notes but just listening very intently and with what might have been sympathy.

“But lately Heinie had taken to calling Diantha. At first it was just friendly calls, looking for advice and sympathy.”

“Regarding what?”

“I don’t know all the details. I think his wife, Merissa, Merissa Bonne, was having an affair. In fact I know Merissa was having an affair, and it was driving Heinie mad.”

“Do you know who the person was? The one she was having an affair with?”

I hesitated a moment. Then I said, “Max Shofar.”

The detective took out his notebook. “Anything to old Abe Shofar?”

“His son. He’s a coin dealer. In fact, he was von Grümh’s principal locator.”

“He found coins for him?”

“Yes.”

“Including the collection von Grümh gave to the museum?”

“Some of them. Most of them, I think.”

“So von Grümh started to call your wife?”

“He did. It turned compulsive. He kept asking her to meet him for coffee. It became a kind of stalking.”

“So you arranged to meet with him instead?”

“Yes. We were supposed to have a cup of coffee, but he wanted a drink. So we went to the Shamrock.”

“Had you been there together before?”

I resented the possible insinuation in his question. I said, flatly, “No. We went there because it was handy. I had a glass of ale. He had whiskey and soda. Several in fact.”

“And you talked?”

“It was quite civilized actually. I told him he could not continue to call Diantha, that she was not interested in him or in resuming her liaison with him.”

“How did he take that?”

“Surprisingly well. He apologized profusely. You know, one of those apologies that become embarrassing. It was all I could do to resist apologizing for making him apologize. And then …”

The detective waited patiently.

“Well, it was then that he began to complain to me about Merissa’s affair with Max Shofar, and I could tell that he was shifting the burden he had imposed on Diantha onto me.”

“What did he tell you about Max Shofar and his wife?”

“Oh, the usual things. He couldn’t see what she saw in him. He said he was little more than a petty playboy, a shallow character who would go broke if it weren’t for the help and business that he, Heinie, threw his way.”

“Is any of that true?”

“The playboy part, maybe. But Max actually does a large mail-order business.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really. He repeated himself
ad nauseam
, variations on the same theme. He said he was at his wits’ end. That life had lost its meaning for him.”

The lieutenant waited, his patience apparent as I paused to catch my inner breath. I went on. “He also said that it shouldn’t have bothered him as he didn’t care about Merissa anymore. That he had decided to divorce her.”

“But he was still strung out about it?”

“It seemed that way.”

“At what time did you leave the pub?”

“Not long after eight. Ten past maybe.”

“And did you part company then?”

“No. He drove me back to the museum.”

“Where he dropped you off?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I took a walk. To clear my head.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure. Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“Where did you walk?”

“Over to the Arboretum. There’s a well-lit path along the edge.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I returned to my office.”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

I thought for a moment. I had checked my e-mails but I had not answered any. Then I remembered our new security system. “I had to swipe my museum card to get in after hours …”

“Is there any way we can verify that time?”

“Indeed there is. The mechanism at the door is wired to a computer that records the card and time of any employee coming in or going out after hours.”

The lieutenant noticed my reaction. “That will help, Norman, but the time of death could have been before that.” He sighed. “I wish you had told me this earlier.”

I nodded an apology. “But you see, Lieutenant, when one is innocent, and I am innocent, these kinds of coincidences seem irrelevant.”

It took me a while to recover from this interview. If not a suspect, I had become a “person of interest” in the case. Had that been all, I might have been able to shake off the queasy feeling of
having been less than frank with a trusted colleague. Sometimes a walk around the exhibits helps. Or a call to Diantha for a chat or to arrange lunch. Not this time. What a tangled web we weave and all that.

What I did do finally was make my way over to the Genetics Lab and the facility that houses the electron microscope. It has a verification capacity that the curators use from time to time for objects in the collections to ascertain their authenticity. The facility is impressive in its own way, with clean-room equipment and what seemed like, to me at any rate, an array of futuristic-looking devices. Of course, people of my generation tend to forget that what used to be the future has already arrived and in some cases gone hurtling by.

Perhaps I should have called first, but right then, in the wake of the lieutenant’s visit, I needed to do something, to act.

Robin Sylphan was not in, I was told by her assistant, a young woman with close-cropped hair and hostile, suspicious eyes.

“When do you expect her back?” I asked.

“Tomorrow. She’s taking a personal day.”

I was about to quip that I thought all days were personal days, but thought better of it. Instead, I said, “My name is Norman de Ratour. I’m the museum’s director …”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’m here about the work Ms.…”

“Doctor …”

“Doctor Sylphan is doing on coins from our collections.”

“You’ll have to speak to her directly about that.”

I did not have the moral stamina to persist. People think being director gives one power. But institutions like the Museum of Man comprise little fiefdoms defended in depth by thickets of procedures, precedents, and prerogatives. So I glanced around,
gritted my teeth, and kept myself from speculating aloud about just how essential to the museum was this particular facility.

At the same time, I knew myself well enough to know that I was desperate to find any scrap of evidence, however tangential to the case, that I could give to Lieutenant Tracy. If only to appease him.

All things considered, I was not unreasonably happy when, in pajamas and slippers, steaming cup of coffee in hand, I went out into our bird-loud front garden to pick up the plastic-sheathed
Bugle. It
looked to be another jewel of a late-spring day. Not only that, but warmth, rain, and no doubt high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had conspired to produce a plush of green vegetation seldom seen before.

Diantha and I had just returned from two marvelous days together in Boston, where we had gone to visit some friends, attend a concert, and take in an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, a sterling place. We stayed at one of those small, boutique hotels where we took the honeymoon suite and indulged ourselves to sybaritic excess. Not that we both weren’t anxious to get back to Elsie, whom we left in the care of Millicent Mulally from Sign House and Bella, her nanny.

My not unreasonable happiness dissolved into a nasty chagrin when, in the silent kitchen, I unfolded the paper to read the headline, “Museum Collection of Rare Coins Found to Be Fakes.”