Emerald Aisle (12 page)
WHEN ROGER TOLD HIM OF the return address on the package in which the Newman letters had come to the Notre Dame Archives, Phil checked out the package mailers in the vicinity of Bianca Primero's apartment. Roger had faxed him a photocopy of the FedEx receipt that had come with the box. The nearest package mailer was on Highland Parkway, in the shadow of the water tower, at least late in the afternoon, and Phil had to wait in line. Others were lined up behind him when he got to the counter. He showed the harried young woman the photocopy. She just stared at him.
“Was this sent from here?”
“A piece of paper?” She let her mouth hang open.
“This is a copy of the form attached to a FedEx package ⦔
“Can I help you?”
It was the manager, a thin man with bulging eyes and a neck that emerged from the too large collar of his starched white shirt as from a noose before the trapdoor is opened. He was more anxious to stop Phil from blocking traffic to the counter than to help him.
“Do you keep records of packages sent from here?”
The manager's glasses were perched on top of his head. He peered at the photocopy. “Who's asking?”
“I'm a private investigator.” Phil opened his wallet. The manager leaned forward and his glasses slid off his head and onto his nose, which he wrinkled to keep them from sliding farther.
“I've never seen one of those before.” He pushed his glasses back atop his head. “We have carbons of all transactions.”
He sat behind a desk, both hands dropped and simultaneously two drawers were pulled open. He looked at Phil. “That saves the back. Yank with just one hand and ⦔ He twisted in his chair. “What was the date?”
The carbon Phil was shown didn't help. On it, too, PRIMERO was printed. “I don't suppose anyone would remember a transaction on that date.”
One side of the manager's mouth went up, his lips parted. The smile was more like a snarl. “Do you know how many transactions have taken place at that counter since you came in?”
“Good point.”
Going out to his car, he recalled a cardinal rule of his trade. Even disappointment is a kind of discovery. He had hoped to see Bianca Primero's handwriting, thus confirming that she had indeed sent the Newman letters to Notre Dame. Her printed name neither proved nor disproved that, whereas her handwriting would have settled it.
The officer at Bianca Primero's apartment was less welcoming than Norma at the gatehouse.
“Can't let you in. The place is not secure yet.”
“Would you mind checking with Swenson?”
“Checking what?”
“Tell him Det. Philip Knight requests admission to see Bianca Primero's apartment.”
The officer's expression changed. “You from Minneapolis?”
“I don't blame you for being careful about detectives from strange cities.”
The officer stepped aside. “Go on in.”
Phil didn't move. “I'd feel better if you checked with Swenson.”
They went into the apartment together so the cop could use the phone. “I'm going to use the bathroom,” Phil said.
It was when he passed the room in which the body of Bianca was found that his angle of vision picked out the pink wastebasket beside her vanity table. Phil picked it up and took it into the bathroom. Among the Kleenex was a wad of paper that was not tissue. One glance at it after he unfolded it caused Phil to stuff it in his shirt pocket. He left the wastebasket in the bathroom. He flushed the toilet and headed for the kitchen. The cop met him halfway.
“He said, âHell no'”
“I thought he might. Well, it was worth a try.”
“He said you were a private investigator.” Curiosity, contempt, simple wonder? It was hard to say.
“I flunked out of public school.”
He stopped and talked with Norma on the way to his car. “Still knocking 'em dead.”
“Be careful, you may be next.”
In his car he was about to examine the slip of paper, but caution gripped him. He drove off, stopped at a bar, ordered a beer, and then, in the dim light, got out the slip of paper he had found in Bianca's wastebasket. It was a list: a list of Newman items. Phil put the slip carefully in his wallet then sipped his beer in a meditative mood. The certainty he had hoped to gain from the visit to the package mailer was provided by this slip of paper. The items on it were written in Bianca's hand, he was sure of it. And the items were those missing from the Primero Collection. So much for facts. He would hold off trying to find a meaning in them until he talked to Roger. He glanced at his watch. Give it an hour.
“Read them again, will you, Phil?”
Phil did, pronouncing carefully. Roger repeated them as if there was an echo on the line.
THE PRESENT HAD SIGNIFICANCE for Waldo Hermes insofar as it affected the past that was his passionâor at least the artifacts and achievements of the past. The constant ongoing flux was difficult to assess, but once frozen in the past it had a permanent value. He had never liked Bianca and vice versa. It was his arrival in the house on Lake of the Isles that had eventually provided her with an excuse to leave. She professed to find him physically loathsome, a disturbing presence in the house. Such claims baffled Waldo, but doubtless they were simply the rationalizations of a fed-up wife.
“She hates my books,” Primero had told him.
“That's impossible.”
Primero smiled indulgently. Of course he understood Waldo's reaction, but women are different from men. Waldo required no instruction on that score; from adolescence, females had frightened and unnerved him.
“I'll keep out of her way.”
“Just do your job.”
Waldo's admiration for Primero was of course based primarily on the collection. As he became more and more familiar with the treasures Primero had amassed, he could only salute the man who had had the taste, as well as the money, to bring these things together. Primero's enormous wealth meant little to him: He was proud of what he had accomplished and he appreciated the items he bought for his collection, but he did not think of himself as the owner.
“You are the curator and custodian, Waldo, but that is all I am too. Collecting is a rescuing operation, in large part just making sure that things are not lost. But once they have been gathered, they cannot really be possessed by any one person. Hence, the art galleries of the world. The private collector is a way station on the road to public ownership.”
“Then I will enjoy the way station.”
Primero's altruism seemed sincere enough. Despite his small stature he became a moral giant to Waldo. But the curator never understood Primero's continued love for his wife despite her flamboyant infidelities. When he ventured to say something about this, Primero's reaction surprised him.
“It has been said that to understand everything is to forgive everything. Not true, of course. But the inability to forgive is worse when it concerns oneself. Bianca was a mother once, Waldo. That is the key.”
But there were no children. Waldo did not understand.
“Not any longer.”
So it was that he learned of the dead child and knew the significance of the photograph on the table behind Primero's desk chair. Shared grief draws people together. Sometimes. The Primeros were the exception, the couple that is driven asunder by a loss that could have sealed their love forever. The lost child made Joseph a more sympathetic figure, but for Bianca Waldo felt almost contempt. What did she gain from making a fool of herself and shredding her husband's heart at the same time?
Waldo took refuge in the past. In his work he was able to forget the troubles of his employer. And after Bianca left the house and took an apartment, something like peace seemed to descend upon the house on Lake of the Isles. Several weeks ago Waldo began to
get glimpses of a familiar-looking Jaguar. He'd tried to dismiss his anxiety. Jaguars are not rare animals in the Lake of the Isles area. But he was on the
qui vive
for its return, if it was indeed Bianca cruising past the home she had left. It was Bianca. Once she was alone at the wheel, another time she was in the passenger seat with a young man at the wheel. On another occasion, which he was about to dismiss as a false alarm, he amended the judgment. The young man behind the wheel and alone in the car was the one who had driven by with Bianca. A week later the robbery occurred.
get glimpses of a familiar-looking Jaguar. He'd tried to dismiss his anxiety. Jaguars are not rare animals in the Lake of the Isles area. But he was on the
qui vive
for its return, if it was indeed Bianca cruising past the home she had left. It was Bianca. Once she was alone at the wheel, another time she was in the passenger seat with a young man at the wheel. On another occasion, which he was about to dismiss as a false alarm, he amended the judgment. The young man behind the wheel and alone in the car was the one who had driven by with Bianca. A week later the robbery occurred.
What to do? There was no need to say anything in order to cause Joseph Primero to suspect his wife of the theft. Of course Primero suspected Bianca, but he didn't want to. He both embraced and rejected the idea.
“She could have,” Primero said, in an agony of loss. “She might have. But I simply cannot imagine her walking into this house and taking those items.”
“Did she keep her key?”
Primero looked as if the question surprised him. “This is her house. She is welcome to return here whenever she wants.”
What a doormat the man was. It must be a disease, and do not tell me it is love, Waldo cautioned himself. Do not quote Shakespeare: “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,” a sentiment seldom verified. A man might take much abuse from a woman if it functioned as a kind of foreplay, but the Primeros had long since stopped being spouses to one another. It was not her favors that gave Bianca the weapon she wielded against her docile husband. No, it was the child again. Bianca was not the wife of Joseph so much as the mother of the sainted child. She had a permanent and indissoluble hold on Joseph Primero.
No wonder Waldo felt that he himself had come under suspicion.
Joseph wanted to review again and again the circumstances of the theft, inspect again the places occupied by the missing items, ask one more time when Waldo had last seen them, touched them,
Joseph wanted to review again and again the circumstances of the theft, inspect again the places occupied by the missing items, ask one more time when Waldo had last seen them, touched them,
“We cannot assume that the discovery of the theft coincides with the time the theft occurred. How long might they have been missing?”
This question went to the heart of Waldo's reliability. As if anything in the collection could be missing for a day without his noticing it. He had acquired an intuitive sense of the presence of his charges. That is how he had verified the theft. An odd pang as he passed an alcove, a quick glance, and he had known the
Apologia
was missing. An inference swifter than logic led him to the cabinet where the pamphlet version of the work was kept. Its absence turned him to the Newman letters. Nothing was missing there. Thus, in a glance, he had become aware both of the fact and the extent of the theft.
Apologia
was missing. An inference swifter than logic led him to the cabinet where the pamphlet version of the work was kept. Its absence turned him to the Newman letters. Nothing was missing there. Thus, in a glance, he had become aware both of the fact and the extent of the theft.
Joseph's unwillingness to report the theft to the police led to the hiring of Philip Knight, the main advantage of which, so far as Waldo was concerned, was that it enabled him to renew face-to-face acquaintance with Roger, the man who referred to himself as Notre Dame's permanent Goodyear Blimp. He had heard much of Roger from Greg Whelan.
“There was no forced entry?”
“No.”
Roger hummed as he looked around Waldo's domain. “So the thief had a key?”
“Yes.”
“Who might it be?”
“It might be me, of course. Or Mr. Primero.”
“Or Mrs. Primero.”
Waldo nodded. “Or Mrs. Primero.”
It was because his wife was the obvious suspect that Primero ensured the failure of the Knight investigation. Only with the greatest reluctance did he okay their visit to Bianca.
“You mustn't make her think that I suspect her of anything.”
When the brothers returned, it seemed clear to Waldo that Bianca was their candidate. It was equally clear that Joseph Primero would never accept thisâor the consequences of accepting it. But the point did not depend upon Primero's acceptance. Waldo carefully selected some Newman letters and FedExed them to the Notre Dame Archives. The return address was Primero, the address was Bianca's in Highland Village. He sent the package off from a place near her apartment.
He knew that Bianca, through her protégé Dudley Fyte, had robbed the Primero Collection. The FedEx to the Notre Dame Archives should lead to the recovery of the stolen items from Bianca. But they had not yet been recovered when Bianca Primero was found dead in her apartment.
NORMA SMOKED CIGARILLOS and inhaled the smoke so deeply it should have affected her feet. Exhaled, it made a thin cloud, but thick enough for Norma to look enigmatically through it at Philip Knight.
“How do you become a private detective?”
“You have to flunk a test.”
“You need a license, don't you?”
“Norm, it is not as glamorous as it seems.”
“What is? Friends of mine envy me this job, just loll around all day and not pay any rent for the privilege. I don't see those friends much anymore. Try to get away from this place. It's like baby-sitting a building.”
“So what do you do all day?”
“Try to stay awake.”
They were in Norma's office, one wall of which was filled with the monitors that brought in images from various points around the condominium complex.
“What do you do if something happens, call the police?”
There was a revolver on the desk, but it was difficult imagining the 110-pound tomboy being very effective with it.
“I can handle myself. Karate? I can split a block of wood with one movement of my hand.” She narrowed her eyes. “Provided I have a hatchet in it, that is. Bianca is the first trouble there's been since I got here.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Not even a murder in the building helps much.”
“You mentioned young friends.”
“Oh, you mean Mrs. Primero's young friends. Plural is pushing it. I only saw the one guy. My predecessor made it sound as if there would be a steady stream going up to her place.”
“Is this the man?”
Phil took out the picture of Dudley Fyte and showed it to her.
“That's him. You think he's the murderer?”
“When did you last see him around?”
“If you're really serious, you could look at the tapes.”
“Tapes?”
She nodded at the monitors. “Everything they see is taped. And kept here for a month.”
“Let's see what you have for the week before Bianca's death?”
The tapes could have won an award for avant garde film. By and large, nothing happened. Andy Warhol's brick wall was as exciting. From time to time a car came or went. Norma had nicknames for the drivers, depending on the way they greeted her when they went past her post: Fix-o-dent, the Big Bad Wolf, Betty Boop.
“What did you call Bianca?”
“I didn't call them these names out loud.”
“What name did you give Bianca?”
“The Mummy's Smile.”
There was a sequence of Dudley talking with Norma. He was Mr. Personality. “If only I were older and richer,” she said, but without much interest in her voice.
“When was that?”
“Two days before.”
More inactivity. Even fast-forwarded, the security system seemed a massive waste of tape.
“We reuse it.”
“How do you tape over nothing with nothing?”
“Get a load of this guy,” Norma said, and there was the hairy face of Waldo Hermes peering up at Norma from his car. “Imagine reading his lips.”
“Imagine his lips. Turn it up.”
“She's expecting me,” Hermes was saying.
“She left no word with me.”
“Can you call her?”
Norma handed him a cell phone, and Hermes went out of sight in his car.
“Can you get more volume?” Phil asked.
“You wouldn't be able to hear him. I tried at the time.”
“Did he get in?”
But even as he asked, Waldo was handing Norma the cell phone. Then he backed out of view.
“When was that?”
“It's on the tape, there at the bottom.”
The date was the day Bianca was found dead.
Roger phoned with the puzzling news that the Newman letters that had arrived at the Notre Dame Archives were not on the list Phil had found in Bianca's wastebasket.
“What do you make of it?”
“The list itself is the first problem. Why would a woman who was going to take things from her husband's collection make a list of them?”
“You go first.”
“One possibility is that someone dictated the list, and she wrote it down. Who could have given her such specific information?”
“Waldo?”
“Or Joseph Primero.”
“Neither of them makes any sense, Roger. Why would Primero give his wife a list of things to steal from his collection? Why would Waldo? Roger, he hated Bianca's guts.”
“The question is, are the other missing items in her apartment? What you found out about the FedEx package suggests someone was trying to bring Bianca under suspicion for the thefts from the Primero Collection.”
“A frame-up.”
“To cover the tracks of the real thief.”
Even over five hundred miles, the two brothers communicated more than they said. Phil said, “I'll go see Waldo.”
“Keep me posted.”
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