Bloodied Ivy (25 page)

“I want to see that letter,” Hobson gruffed. “When did you get it, Mrs. Moreau? And why weren’t we told about it?”

Elena twisted in her chair to face the back of the room. “It was in my departmental box this afternoon and I only got around to looking at it while I was having dinner at home just before we left to come here.”

“Were you and this Frazier girl good friends?” Cramer demanded.

“No. I’d only met her two or three times, although I knew she and Hale were…close. I doubt if we’d spoken more than a few sentences to each other.”

“Is this her writing?” Hobson grabbed the letter from me. When he checked later, those fingerprints on it other than Gretchen’s would be his, plus one smudged print from Elena.

“I don’t know,” Elena said, shaking her head. “I assume so, but I just don’t know.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

“Mr. Hobson, it will be simple enough to determine the handwriting,” Wolfe said, averting his eyes from the sobbing woman. “If you happen to be a betting man and doubt that Gretchen Frazier was the author of that missive, I suggest that you might wish to propose a wager to Mr. Goodwin, who enjoys such things.”

Hobson looked like he wanted to either pop Wolfe or cut loose with a string of those words that can’t be used on television. But bless him, he showed admirable restraint by gritting his teeth, getting up, and storming out of the office. Lieutenant Powers, looking just as grim, was right on his heels, and I was only too happy to follow them both down the hall and hold the front door open. After all, in the brownstone we have certain standards where the social graces are concerned.

T
HE WALL CLOCK READ ELEVEN-SIXTEEN
. Wolfe and I were alone in the office, nursing beer and milk, respectively. After our guests had filed out, I helped Fritz straighten up, putting chairs back where they belonged, taking glasses to the kitchen, and otherwise giving the place a semi-presentable look that Fritz would improve upon in the morning.

“Well, you managed to make just about everybody unhappy tonight,” I told Wolfe.

“Oh?” He set his beer glass down and raised his eyebrows.

“Sure. First there’s our client, who paid up all right, which is the good news,” I said, holding the check for twenty-five thousand dollars that Cortland had somewhat grudgingly written as his second and final installment just before he left. “But he’s sore at you because you made his hero look like a dirty old man—which of course he was. Then there’s Prescott’s top cop, who’s mad because you solved his case for him and didn’t even leave him anybody to arrest. To say nothing of Cramer and Stebbins, who probably felt like they wasted their evening. You know how Purley likes to give his handcuffs a workout. And we have Schmidt and Greenbaum, the Frick and Frack of the Prescott faculty, who were hoping Markham had either committed suicide or fallen accidentally. Now they’re afraid that despite his lecherous leanings he’ll look like a martyr and will end up being deified. And I’ve still got to call Lon, who’s sure to be grouchy because he won’t get the kind of story he was hoping for. After all, the headline
PRIVATE GUMSHOE SAYS PRESCOTT COED KILLED PROF THEN SELF BUT POLICE ARE SEEKING PROOF
isn’t exactly a newsstand grabber. He was expecting you to finger somebody who’s living so the
Gazette
could somehow wangle an exclusive interview with the suspect. As for Elena, she had to sit there and listen while you speculated on the amorous exploits of the man she felt she had some claim on.”

“Mr. Markham’s exploits, as you refer to them, surely came as no surprise to her,” Wolfe remarked.

“I know. Still, it’s got to be hard hearing about them, especially in front of a crowd that includes some of your coworkers. But you sent at least one person home happy—Potter. Now that there’s nothing stopping him from latching on to that dough of Bach’s, he’s free to keep on building his empire up the Hudson. No doubt Prescott will have a Bach Library, a Bach Field House, and a Bach Science Center before it’s over.

“There’s one thing that still puzzles me, though,” I said. “You’d be the first one to admit you’re not much for reading fiction; how in hell did you know that all three of those books on Markham’s list had something to do with May-and-September romances?”

The folds in Wolfe’s cheeks deepened. “I was wondering when that would occur to you,” he said, pouring beer and watching the foam settle. “While you are correct that my reading tastes run to nonfiction, you know that I make it a point to read
about
books. In one source or another, I probably have read reviews of ten thousand novels over the years, including of the three titles to which you refer. And as you also know, I
remember
what I read.”

Okay, that sounds like bragging—and it is. But as far as I’m concerned, he can brag like that every time he fills our coffers with fifty thousand simoleons.

I
WAS RIGHT ABOUT LON
, of course. He’d been counting on a living, breathing culprit, but nonetheless he made do and whipped together a colorful story, complete with quotes from Wolfe, Hobson, and Potter (“I’m just glad this horror is behind us and that we at Prescott can turn our attention back toward our mission as educators.”). Wolfe’s picture got in, too, although mine didn’t make it. “Space considerations” was how Lon explained it to me later.

The handwriting on the note to Elena checked out as Gretchen Frazier’s, of course, and based on this plus further investigation that included a lengthy phone conversation with Wolfe, the Orange County medical examiner up in Goshen amended the death certificates to read homicide for Markham and death by manner of suicide for Gretchen.

The
Gazette
and the other New York dailies had another piece on Prescott a few months later. They each covered a press conference on the campus in which plans were unveiled for the hundred million dollar Leander Bach Center for Science and Technology, a “state-of-the-art complex” for which ground would be broken sometime in the spring. They all carried the same photo—Potter and Bach grinning and standing on either side of an easel with an architect’s rendering of the buildings.

And oh, yes—I finally did get my long October weekend with Lily at her hideaway in Dutchess County, where we had three wonderful days doing as much of nothing as possible. On Monday, when I asked if she wanted to ride back to the city with me in the Mercedes, she said thanks anyway, but she wasn’t quite ready to trade the fall colors for the concrete and carbon monoxide just yet.

That meant I was alone driving south, with the option of detouring across the river to Prescott on the chance that a certain auburn-haired receptionist might be free for lunch.

I did, and she was.

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copyright © 1988 by Robert Goldsborough

introduction © 1988 by Bantam Books

cover design by Kelly Parr

978-1-4532-6606-9

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