Body Language (11 page)

Pierce answered not Roxanne, but me. Stepping past her, he grasped my upper arm. “I know that. I don’t believe for a minute that you’re guilty of this crime. However, Harley Kaiser might.”

In unison, we asked, “Who?”

“He’s district attorney of Dumont County. Pressure will be intense to solve this case fast and win a conviction. I’ll feel it, too, of course, but Kaiser is up for election this spring, and he’s shrewd enough to understand that any perception of laxity in solving the Quatrain murder will very likely cost him his job.”

Suddenly in sync with Pierce, Roxanne told him, “I’ve dealt with enough DAs to understand that they fall into two categories. This Harley Kaiser, is he a just and competent prosecutor—or a hot dog?”

Pierce grinned. “The latter, I’m afraid. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Roxanne nodded confidentially.

Pierce continued. “It goes without saying that the Quatrain murder is, to date, the biggest case of Kaiser’s career—mine as well. The difference is, he’ll be pressuring me for an arrest based on expediency and public relations rather than the solid police work that this case demands. I’ve decided to head up the investigation myself, and you needn’t worry, Miss Exner—I’m not hotdogging—I rose through the ranks of the department as a detective, and a good one.”

“Do forgive me, Sheriff,” she told him with absolute charm, “if I gave any impression of skepticism.”

I told Pierce, “Thank you, Doug, for attending to this. I have every confidence in your ability to see that justice is served.”

He laughed. “Truth is, I’m clueless. You have a reputation, Mark, as a reporter who knows how to dig. You’ll rarely hear this from a cop, but I encourage you to bring your own investigative talents to the fore—if only in your own defense. Extenuating circumstances aside, you’re a strong suspect. You were found with the body, and you’ve profited from the victim’s death. Help me prove otherwise.”

Parker Trent stepped into the conversation. “Not so fast. You’re forgetting, Sheriff, that there were
two
major beneficiaries to Suzanne’s will, Mark and Thad.”

“True,” Pierce conceded, “but there’s nothing unusual in an only child’s inheritance. And while the kid has a weird streak, I know of nothing in this case that would cast suspicion on him.”

“Neither do I,” I quickly volunteered, sensing where Parker was leading me, but preferring not to go there.

Neil and Roxanne nodded that they, too, knew of nothing that would incriminate Thad, but Parker beaded me with a stare. “Mark?”

I didn’t answer. There was an awkward pause.

Watching this exchange, Pierce frowned. “Mark”—his tone was soothing—“what aren’t you telling me?”

I hesitated, but Parker was right. This needed to be said. I told Pierce, “As you know, when I found Suzanne, she was on the verge of death, but still conscious. What I didn’t tell you is that she spoke to me.”

Pierce, Neil, and Roxanne looked from me to each other with surprise. Pierce flipped his notebook open and began to write. He asked me, “What did she say?”

“She mustered the will to say one word before dying. That word was ‘Thad.’”

Neil gasped audibly. Roxanne merely raised her hand to her mouth. Pierce looked up from his note taking.

I added, “My impression is that Suzanne was expressing a mother’s dying wish for her son’s future welfare, spoken to the man who had consented to be the boy’s guardian. At the same time, I’m well aware that others might conclude that she was naming her killer, and that’s why I’ve been reluctant to divulge this.”

Pierce nodded. “This could be important, Mark. We need to consider it. And it takes some of the heat off you.”

“I know.” But I wasn’t happy with this turn.

“It would be even better for you,” Pierce told me, “if there’d been a witness to this exchange. But you were alone with Suzanne at that time, correct?”

“Correct.”

“No,” Parker butted in, “I was nearing the top of the stairs when it happened. I heard her voice clearly. She said, ‘Thad.’”

I found this improbable, as Suzanne barely had sufficient strength to speak the word into my ear. Was Parker making good on his promise to “say anything” to help me? In any event, this was Parker’s claim, not mine, and I saw no point in contradicting him. Maybe he did hear Suzanne—it would certainly help my case.

While I pondered this, Neil and Roxanne voiced their relief and Sheriff Pierce updated his notes. Then Parker caught my eye. He winked at me.

Minutes later, we all emerged from my office and found the rest of the household in the dining room, where Hazel had rearranged our untouched Christmas dinner as a cold buffet. Carl Creighton picked without enthusiasm at the platter of already dry turkey, smothering a few slices with cranberry sauce in hopes of rehydrating it. Joey sat sniffling over a plate heaped with Christmas cookies and cold yams. Thad dug angrily at a dish of Neapolitan ice cream.

Sheriff Pierce and I had agreed that the first order of business was to talk to Thad and determine whether he was aware that his mother had appointed me as his legal guardian. Needless to say, I was dreading this encounter, half hoping that the boy’s strident homophobia would serve to convince everyone that I was simply not the man to raise him. Seeing the food, I lamely proposed to the den crowd, “Why don’t we all eat something?” Yes, I was hungry—starved by then, in fact—but the underlying motive that spurred my suggestion was to postpone, if only for a few more minutes, the discussion with Thad.

It was not to be, however. I had just picked up an empty plate when Thad asked anyone, “What’d the old gasbag want?”

I gave him a moment’s cold stare before answering, “Mr. Coop, who is not a gasbag but your mother’s trusted attorney, deserving of your respect, was good enough to bring to our attention some important provisions of your mother’s will. Do you understand what a ‘will’ is, Thad?”

“Yeah,” he said through a mouthful of ice cream. “What’d I get?”

Truly appalled by his callousness, I glanced at the other faces in the room before telling him point-blank, “For starters, you got
me
—as your legal guardian.”

“No way,” he grunted, tossing his spoon over his shoulder, whipping a strand of ice cream against the wall. “No fucking fag is gonna tell me what to do. Me and Joey can live together.”

I slammed my plate and spun toward him. “
What
did you say?” Enraged as I was by his use of both
f
-words, I was all the more disturbed by his abuse of the objective case. No kid of
mine
would start a sentence with “me” and not hear about it.

I yanked him up from his chair and jabbed a finger at his chest. “Me plenty pissed,” I spat at him. “You get this straight, young man: You’re well past the age of confusing ‘me’ and ‘I,’ and I don’t ever want to hear it again. If you honestly don’t know the difference”—I started calming down—“I’ll get you a book.”

That was a gamble, I admit. He might have dismissed me as a ranting psychopath, or, worse, a prissy schoolmarm. But I had a hunch that he’d find my reaction so unexpected and bizarre, he just might listen to me.

And he did. To the surprise of everyone in the room, he straightened his shirt, picked his spoon off the floor, and sat again. In a civil tone, he told me, “Joey and I can live together. Better?”

“Much better,” I told him. “And it might not be a bad idea.”

“Uh, Mark”—Pierce stepped toward me and took me aside—“I’m afraid that
is
a bad idea. Joey needs almost as much supervision as Thad does. They’re in no position to take care of each other. That’s why Suzanne asked you to consent to the guardianship in the first place.”

While trying to spin an argument for some way out of this, I was distracted by the ring of the doorbell. Hazel had been boohooing by the sideboard, but stalwartly tucked her hankie in her sleeve and marched down the hall to the door. A moment later, she returned to the dining room with another woman in tow. She announced dryly, “An unexpected guest.”

Whisking a heavy woolen cape from her shoulders, the new arrival struck a pose, framed by the portal to the hall. Middle-aged and lanky, with straight, graying hair, she wore a long crinkly skirt, primitive jewelry, and no makeup. “‘Visionary!’” she declaimed, quoting from a source unknown to me. “‘Thy paradise would soon be violated by the entrance of some unexpected guest.’”

Roxanne perked up. Recognizing the passage, she continued, “‘Like Milton’s it would only contain angels…’”

“‘… or men sunk below,’” the other woman added. Then she and Roxanne laughed like old friends reviving a long-dead joke.

Roxanne cited the passage: “Mary Wollstonecraft,
The Rights of Woman,
1792.”

“
Brava!
” shouted the unexpected guest, rolling the r, applauding with such gusto, her beads rattled.

Uncertain how to react to this performance, the rest of us watched in silence. Finally Sheriff Pierce addressed her, “Merry Christmas, Miriam. What brings you here, of all places, this afternoon, of all times?”

Uh-oh. It was Miriam Westerman, founder of Fem-Snach.

She told Pierce, “I had to dash right over as soon as I heard the
tragic news
.” Her tone was far from grieving—it was almost euphoric. “I’ve come to console Ariel”—she rushed to Thad—“you poor, motherless angel!”

He recoiled from her touch. “My name’s not Ariel. I’m Thad.”

“No, dear, no,” she explained. “On the day you were born, the Society celebrated your birth and called you Ariel, our child of the mists.”

“That sounds like a
girl’s
name,” he said, his voice heavy with revulsion. “Mom would never do that to me.”

“Your name is Ariel, my child.” Her tone was now firm. “Get used to it.”

“Get over it,” he shot back, and I realized that his spunk had a certain appeal.

Pierce asked, “What’s this about, Miriam? I don’t think your presence is much appreciated in this house, especially after that letter-writing campaign, which you obviously instigated. Shame on you.”

She sailed right past the reference to the hate mail. “I’ve come to take Ariel, of course. It was Suzanne’s wish that I serve as his foster mother in the unlikely event of her own untimely passing. Little did we know, alas, how prophetic that conversation would prove to be.”

Huh? It was news to me, and it was promising—was I really to be let off the hook so easily?

Pierce questioned her, “When was this? There’s been bad blood between you and Suzanne for years, and everyone knows it. What’s more, Suzanne’s will stipulated that her son’s guardian was to be her cousin, Mark Manning. By the way, have you met?”

I mumbled some formula courtesy at her, but she stood rigid and silent, glaring down her shiny nose at me.

When she spoke, she would not address me, but replied to Pierce, “It was mere weeks ago when dear Suzanne and I had a complete rapprochement. We met to discuss plans for a project we had first formulated during our much younger years, the building of a school. During Suzanne’s active years with FSNACH, she set up an irrevocable trust that would, upon her death, endow the Society with sufficient funds to build a school as part of the group’s growing complex—the first holistic/environmentalist/paganic school in Dumont—or in Wisconsin, for that matter.”

I heard Roxanne mutter, “Or in the world, for that matter.”

“Then,” said Miriam, “our conversation turned to Ariel…”

“Mom
never
called me that.”

“Don’t interrupt, dear. Our conversation turned to Ariel, and she expressed concern over his recent phase of belligerent behavior. I, of course, recommended that she place him on a steady course of Saint-John’s-wort brownies. She asked me for the recipe, which I happily provided.”

Thad rolled his eyes, meeting mine. I grinned. As for the others in the room, Pierce was taking notes again; Joey was paying no attention, busy with his cold yams; Neil, Roxanne, Carl, and Parker listened in gaping disbelief; and Hazel had retreated to the kitchen to indulge in another crying jag.

Miriam continued. “It was then that Suzanne revealed to me that she had displayed the poor judgment some years ago to name her cousin as her son’s guardian. That was well before certain changes occurred in her cousin’s life, before he became a revolting, flagrant penis-cultist.” She sniffed.

“Let me remind you,” I told her, “that you happen to be in my home. You were not expected, and now you are not welcome. Please leave.”

“Come along, Ariel.” She held out her hand.

Thad laughed at her.

She told Pierce, “Sheriff, do your duty. Carry him to my car.”

He answered, “Frankly, Miriam, I don’t believe a word you’ve said. Show me some documentation of these claims.”

“When we discussed Thad’s future, Suzanne was perfectly healthy and saw no immediate need to fiddle with the paperwork, but her intentions were perfectly clear, and I intend to honor them. As for the trust fund”—she pulled an envelope from the folds of her cape—“I believe you’ll find everything in order. This document dates back a bit, prior to Ariel’s birth, but counsel has assured me that its terms are still binding. Construction of my new school will begin as soon as this claim is probated.”

She handed the envelope to Pierce, who opened it, offering me a look. I motioned for Roxanne and Carl to join us in perusing it. It was dated nearly eighteen years ago and specified a sum that, compounding interest over that period, would now allow construction of a school.

Roxanne said to Pierce, “This is a cursory opinion, of course, but it appears to be a well-drawn trust.” She looked to Carl, who nodded his agreement.

Pierce said, “Suzanne’s signature appears genuine. Elliot Coop should be able to verify this—it was drawn up by a former partner in his office, who’s now dead.”

Miriam snatched it back. “I’ll be visiting Coop as soon as his office reopens after the holiday. Meanwhile, I’m prepared to discharge my motherly duties at once. Ariel,” she demanded with a finger snap. “Come.”

“I’d rather starve on the streets, you old witch.”

I was grateful that Thad had restrained himself from calling Miriam a bitch, but, in truth, either word applied.