To Play the Fool (7 page)

The waitress knew them, too, and automatically brought two mugs of
coffee along with the menus. Erasmus paused in the act of sitting down
and rose up again to his full height. After she had put down the coffee
and distributed menus, he reached out, took hold of her heavily ringed
hand, and, looking into her eyes, black with makeup, declaimed in full
rotundity of voice, "The sweet small clumsy feet of April came
into the ragged meadow of my soul."

The waitress blushed scarlet up into the roots of her emerald
colored hair and began to giggle uncontrollably. She managed to find
out from Kate that yes, coffee would be fine, then took her giggles off
to the kitchen.

The dean looked sideways at Kate. "Her name is April," he said, more as an apology than an explanation.

Kate let them study their menus. The dean did so perfunctorily, then
dropped it onto the table. Brother Erasmus read through it thoroughly,
as if to memorize it and recite it at a later time, although when April
returned with a third mug, he did not recite. When the dean had given
his order, Erasmus placed his finger on the menu and April looked over
his shoulder, wrote it down on her pad, and looked to Kate for her
order. Kate shook her head, and the woman left. No question: The man
could communicate when he wanted to. Let's see how much he wants
to, she said to herself.

"They call you Erasmus, I understand," she said to him.
He looked at her with his gentle dark, eyes but said nothing. "Is
that your real name?"

"Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name," he said, after a brief pause.

"That's a quote?" she said.

"From Genesis," contributed the dean. "Er, the Bible."

"Fine, I'll call you Erasmus if you like, but I do need to know your real name."

"That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

"Shakespeare," murmured the dean.

"Right. Okay. We'll come back to names later. You saw
the article this morning that one of the homeless men who lives around
Golden Gate Park died and that some of his friends there attempted to
cremate him. I think the article said his name, as well?"

"He was not the Light," said Erasmus with a nod.

"You told me that before."

"Er, Inspector? That phrase is used in the New Testament about
John the Baptist," said the dean. "Was this man's
name John?"

"It was. Did you know John?" she asked Erasmus. Again,
there was a short delay before he answered, as if he needed to consult
some inner oracle.

"A fellow of infinite jest," he said dryly.

"Would you take it that means yes?" she asked the dean.

"Probably."

"This is going to be such a fun report to write up," she
grumbled, and took the mug of coffee from the waitress, poured cream in
it, and took a sip. "Sir, can you tell me where you were on
Tuesday morning?"

Erasmus smiled at her patiently, tore open a packet of sugar, and stirred it into his own cup.

"Does that mean you don't remember, or you won't tell me?"

He put the cup to his lips.

"It may simply mean that he can't think of a quote that
fits the answer," suggested the dean. Erasmus smiled at him with
an air of approval.

"Did you know the man they called John?" she persisted.

"I knew him, Horatio," he said clearly and without hesitation.

Thank God, one answer anyway, thought Kate. I'll just have to choose my questions to fit a classical tag line.

"Do you know his last name?"

Erasmus thought for a moment, then resumed his drinking. With a regretful air?

"Do you know where he came from?"

Erasmus began to hum some vaguely familiar tune.

"Do you know where he stayed?" There was no answer. "What he did? Who his close friends were?"

Erasmus looked at his cup.

"Why do you do this?" Kate threw her spoon down in
irritation. "You're perfectly capable of answering my
questions."

Erasmus raised his eyes and studied her. His eyes were remarkably
eloquent, compassionate now, but Kate could make no use of that kind of
answer. Suddenly he leaned forward, held his hand out in an attitude of
pleading, and began to speak.

"I am a fool," he pronounced. "And thus I clothe
my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ, and seem
a saint when most I play the devil. Vanity of vanities, saith the
Preacher, all is vanity. A man's pride shall bring him
low," he said forcefully, and his eyes searched her
face--for what? Understanding? Judgment? Whatever it was, he did
not find it, and he turned to the dean. "A man's
pride," he said pleading, "shall bring him low," but
the dean gave him no more satisfaction than Kate had. He turned back to
her, the muscles of his face rigid with some powerful but
unidentifiable emotion. He swallowed and his voice went husky.
"Then David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him
as his own soul. Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my
son. Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? A fool's mouth
is his destruction." Seeing nothing but confusion in his
audience, he sat back with a thump and forced a weak smile of apology.
"I am a very foolish fond old man, forescore and upward, not an
hour more or less, and to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect
mind."

While we're talking quotations, thought Kate, how about
"crazy like a fox"? They were interrupted by the waitress
bringing two plates, and Kate instantly regretted not ordering
something to eat. She half-expected Erasmus to say a prayer, or at
least bow his head over his food, but instead he calmly spread his
napkin onto his lap and began to eat.

"So," she said, "you cannot tell me anything about
the man John?" She did not hold out much hope for an answer, but
he surprised her.

"A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper," he said promptly,
his face going hard. "The words of his mouth were smoother than
butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet
they were drawn swords." He took a forkful of food and chewed it
thoughtfully for a moment, then added, "Choked with ambition of
the meaner sort. His heart is as firm as a stone, yea--as hard as
a piece of nether millstone." He returned to his omelette.

"You don't say. Your friend Beatrice would certainly agree with that."

Erasmus's stern features relaxed. "Her voice was ever
soft, gentle, and low--an excellent thing in a woman."

"Do you know how John died?"

He paused briefly.

"Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?" He began to butter a piece of toast.
"Mors ultima ratio."

"
'Death is the final accounting,""
translated the dean sotto voce, around a mouthful of eggs and cheese
and chili peppers.

"And John had much to account for?" Kate suggested. She
did not know whether or not to take the first part of his statement as
an assertion that John had actually died by fire--something to be
explored later.

"Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. Close up his eyes
and draw the curtain close, and let us all to meditation."

"That's fine for some," answered Kate.
"However, it's my job to find how he died and if someone
hurried him on his way. Even an obnoxious sinner has a right to die in
his own time."

Erasmus surprised her again, by smiling hugely.

"O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!"
he boomed into the startled restaurant. The dean stifled a laugh, but
Kate refused to be distracted. She looked him in the eye and bit off
her words.

"Do you know anything about John's death?"

The seriousness of her questions, what they meant for the man on the
pyre and all involved with him, seemed suddenly to reach the figure in
the cassock. Erasmus studied the food on his plate as if searching for
an answer there, and when he did not find it, he brought his left hand
up and laid it flat on the table, studying the worn gold ring that
encircled one finger. Gradually his mobile features took on the same
appearance they had shown when he had knelt on the ground to declare
his abject inadequacies. He was not far from tears. "The voice of
your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground," he
whispered finally. The dean choked on a piece of food, shot a brief
glance at Kate, and then, despite the half-full plate in front of him,
he looked at his watch and began to make a business of catching
April's attention. Kate ignored him, staring at Erasmus, who
seemed mesmerized by the gold on his hand.

"Erasmus, do you know how he died?" she said quietly.

The man took a long breath, exhaled, and then looked up at her. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The dean stood up so rapidly, his chair nearly went over. He looked
from Kate to Erasmus helplessly, and when the bill was placed in his
hand by the passing waitress, he could only throw up his arms and go
pay it.

"Erasmus," Kate began evenly, "you have the right to remain silent."

He was, among other things, emphatically what we call a character.

Kate closed the back door of the departmental car and turned to the unhappy man standing beside her on the sidewalk.

"Is this really necessary?" he said, more as a plea than a protest.

"You heard what he said back there. Even I know the Bible well
enough to remember that 'Am I my brother's keeper?"
is how Cain answers the accusation that he killed Abel. Which, if I
remember rightly, he did. That comes very near to being a confession,
the way Brother Erasmus talks. You can't argue with that,"
she pointed out, though in fact he was not.

"The man's mixed up, but he's not violent, never harmful.

You can't arrest him on the basis of biblical passages."

Kate was not about to go into the technicalities of precisely what
constitutes an arrest, particularly in a fuzzy situation like this one.
Still, she had to tell him something. "I haven't actually
arrested him. I read him his rights because at that point he changed
status, from being a witness to being a potential suspect. He is not in
handcuffs,- he is with me voluntarily."

"What will you do with him?"

"As you heard me tell him, I'll take him back to the
City, interview him, and then we'll either let him go or, if
information received during the interview demands, we'll arrest
him. Personally, I doubt that will happen, at least not today."

"I'd like to be informed," he said with authority.

"Certainly." Kate retrieved a card from her shoulder bag
and handed it to him. "I have a few questions I need to ask, if
you don't mind."

"I did promise to take this seminar."

"Ten minutes," said Kate, knowing that if he'd
eaten the abandoned breakfast, he would have taken at least that.
"How long have you known Brother Erasmus?"

"He's been coming here for a little over a year now."

"And you didn't know him before?"

"No."

"Have you any idea what his real name might be?"

"No, I don't. It might actually be Erasmus, have you considered that?"

Kate ignored the dean's sarcasm. She was used to that reaction
to police questions. "What about where he might have come
from?"

"I'm sorry, Inspector, but no. I don't know anything about him."

"Can you narrow it down, when he first appeared?"

"Let's see," said the dean. He stood thinking for
a while, oblivious of the curious looks they were receiving from young
passersby with backpacks and books. "I was on sabbatical two
years ago, and I came back in August, eighteen months ago. Erasmus
appeared in the middle of that term--say October. He's come
regularly as clockwork ever since--during term time, I mean. Last
summer and during breaks and intercession, he shows up from time to
time."

"How does he get here?"

"The last few months, one of our students who lives in San Francisco has brought him."

"I'd like the student's name, address, and phone number."

"I suppose I could give that information to you. I'll have to check and see if there's a problem."

"This is an official murder investigation," said Kate
sternly, hoping the postmortem hadn't found a heart attack or
liver failure.

"I know that. I'll call you with the information."

"I'd appreciate that, sir. What can you tell me about
his movements here? When does he come,- when does he go, where does he
sleep,- does he have any particular friends here?"

"Well, he sleeps in one of the guest rooms."

"That's very... generous of you," commented Kate, wondering how the other guests felt about it.

"It's only been for the last few weeks." The dean
seemed suddenly to become aware that the subject of their conversation
was sitting practically at their feet, albeit behind the car window,
and he moved away across the sidewalk and lowered his voice.
"Back in the first part of November, he showed up one Tuesday in
bad shape. He looked to me like he'd been beaten up--his lip
was swollen and split,- one eye was puffy,- he had a bandage on his
ear--a real mess, and, well, shocking, seeing that kind of damage,
especially to an old man. It wasn't fresh, probably three or four
days old, though he was obviously in some pain, but he was still just
carrying on. However, he was in no condition to sleep out, so we got
together and put him into a hotel for the next three nights."

"We?"

"Some of the other professors and I passed the hat. The next
week, he was better, but it was raining, so we did it again, and then
the third week he seemed to have made other arrangements. It
wasn't until the fourth week that we discovered the dorm had
formed a conspiracy and had him sleeping in their rooms the nights he
was here."

"Which nights are those?"

"Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, usually."

"So you just gave him a room?"

"Not exactly. I mean, we did, but only after a tremendous
number of meetings and discussions, and student petitions. The students
themselves did it, pointing out gently but firmly that to collect funds
for Thanksgiving meals and preach Christmas sermons on the theme
'no room at the inn' and then to lock the gates against an
individual who by that time was a part of the community was perhaps not
operating on Christian principles. They did it very well, too. Not once
did they even use the word
hypocrisy,
which I thought was
very mature of them--have you ever noticed how students love that
word? Anyway, to make a long story short, we presented the case to the
board and they agreed to a trial period of two months. That's
nearly at an end now, and I expect it'll be renewed."