Cat by Any Other Name (9781101597729) (11 page)

But enough of feeling sorry for myself, I thought. It was time to get back to basics. It was time to return to the scene of the crime—that party. It was time to confess to one and all that I believed Barbara had been pushed to her death by one of her friends. It was time to put away childish things . . . strange loves . . . tales of vengeance . . . It was time to become a professional. It was time to interrogate suspects. And Renee would come first.

Chapter 19

Renee Lupo lived in a loft building on Twenty-Seventh, just off Eighth Avenue. It was part factory, part residence. Its major distinguishing feature was a remarkably old and well-preserved fire escape, which circled the structure like some huge chastity belt.

I'd been in the apartment only once before and remembered being struck during that visit by the fact that there were no books to be seen. I knew Renee to be very well read. And she had written several bestselling young adult books about problem girls who had straightened out. I remembered thinking that she must keep her books in the closets.

Her place hadn't changed. It was one enormous room, and a room where everything seemed to have been elevated: the bed, the television, and so on. Even the kitchen was up a little flight of stairs. Everything, that is, but her low-slung neutered cat, Judy, who was black as coal except for one white ear and one white hind leg.

Renee served the coffee on an old wooden milk crate. From the moment she'd opened the door for me, she'd begun crying. Because of Tim Roman, of course. I gave my condolences to her, while trying to imply by my tone that I understood her grief for Tim had to be different from that of the others, more intense.

But Renee waved off my sympathy. No, she said, it wasn't just Tim's death that was making her weep.

“So much death,” she said. “All around us. I'm almost numb to it. . . . Do you really want to see why I'm crying, Alice? I'd like to show it to you. Maybe you'd understand.”

I told her that I wanted to see anything she wished to show me. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and fished out a crumpled piece of paper. She pushed it toward me, saying, “Here. Read it.”

The paper contained a handwritten list of book titles.

Dubin's Lives. Levels of the Game. Notes of a Native Son. Artists in Crime. Collected Stories of Paul Bowles. A Murder of Quality. Brighton Rock. Let It Come Down. The Good Soldier. Down There.
Auprès de ma Blonde
.
Love in Amsterdam. Watcher in the Shadows. Love for Lydia. All Shot Up. The Gallery. The Zoot Suit Murders. A Bend in the River. Arabian Sands. Akenfield. Death of an Expert Witness.

Some of the titles sounded familiar, but most of them I'd never heard of. I looked up at her in puzzlement.

Renee took the list back. “Don't you see? I'm crying over something I wrote ten years ago. A stupid list of the books I read while I was sick in bed over a period of time in 1980. Every one of those books meant something to me. But now I don't even recognize most of the titles. I barely recognize the titles of things
I
wrote. And these days I don't read much of anything outside of gardening manuals. It just all seems so futile. Do you know what I mean?”

If she was saying something about the passing of time—lost time—time invested in ideas or tied to objects that you can't even remember anymore—then, yes, I did understand. But Renee didn't seem to care about my answer. She sat holding her coffee cup, in a kind of trance.

I had to bring her back to the present. After all, I was there with her so that I could start to ask questions I should have asked right after Barbara died. No more elliptical side trips. Straight ahead.

She must have seen the look of determination in my face, because she dried her eyes and sat up in her chair, looking directly at me. “What did you want to say, Alice?”

“That I believe Barbara was pushed to her death that night. That she did not take her own life. I want to find out who did it.”

She looked at me with a startled face, then a frightened one, as if she were sitting across from a madwoman.

“Oh really, Alice! What are you talking about? It's Tim who was murdered. But not Barbara! It's impossible! Barbara was the sweetest person in the world. Why, even her enemies would have to admit that.”

“I didn't know she had any enemies.”

“Well, you know what I mean. Everyone makes
some
enemies. Barbara was very principled and very strong. If absolutely everyone loved her, it would demean those of us who truly loved her. Understand?”

“Not really,” I replied. “But for now it doesn't matter. What I need now is your help in reconstructing the night she died. I want you to tell me everything you remember about that night in Ava's apartment—before Barbara was murdered.”

She shot out of her seat, in a rage. “I want you to stop this delusional nonsense right now! Barbara was
not
murdered! She committed suicide for reasons none of us understand. I won't have you going around making these insane charges! If you
need
to believe she was murdered, just so you can give yourself some private-eye kind of business, you are sick!”

Renee's outburst had alerted Judy the cat, who moved with liquid grace toward the sound of her voice. Nothing looks so fearsomely dramatic as a black cat slinking along a white wall. The sight sent a delicious shiver down my spine.

Renee's rage was spent. “I apologize for that fit,” she said. “But I just don't think I can take much more.” She looked at me grimly and began to play with the big fabric-covered buttons on her tomato-red silk blouse. The color seemed to lend endless highlights to her lively, dark face and satiny hair. She looked like a beautiful gypsy. If Tim had gone after her, it wasn't hard to tell why. But I couldn't help wondering if she knew about Tim and me.

“What is it you want me to remember?” she asked, sounding both tired and somewhat patronizing.

“Anything. Tell me the first memory that comes into your head.”

Judy was on the retreat now, ears back, tail lowered. I was smitten with her—love at first sight. I neither loved nor trusted her owner, however.

“First off,” Renee said, “I remember talking to you. I know we were having a discussion, and you had all kinds of things in your hands—coffee cups or something. And then I heard all the cars honking their horns below. And then someone went out to the terrace to check.”

“All right. Go back, a little before that. Barbara was with us, wasn't she?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And then she gave you her cup.”

“No, a brandy glass.”

“Right. A brandy glass. And then she said something about getting some air.”

Renee paused and then said it again: “Something about having to get some air . . .” Then she closed her eyes and shuddered.

“Did you know that she meant she was going out onto the terrace?”

“Of course.”

“Did you see her walk out there?”

“No. Did you?”

I ignored the question. “Did you see anyone else go to the terrace?”

“No. I wasn't looking. I was talking to you.”

“Can you place where the others were at the moment Barbara left to get some air?”

“‘Place' them? Like candlesticks, you mean? No. I told you.”

I decided to change my tone, make the questions a bit less specific. “Tell me something else you recall about the evening. Anything at all.”

Renee was clearing off the milk and coffee cups from the crate. “I'm going to have a glass of wine,” she announced. “Would you like some?”

I said I certainly would.

“When I think of that night and that party,” she said a few minutes later, regarding me from above the rim of her red wine, “I think of it—except for the horror of what happened to Barbara, I mean—with great fondness. The lovely food and the talk and the friendship. Yes, what I remember about it was the warmth and closeness and the lack of pretense. And I have to hold it in my heart and my memory forever, because we'll never again have such a night.”

“You recall the meal?”

“Umm . . . Yes and no. Was it orange duck?—or orange chicken? I remember a wonderful lemon dessert. And how beautiful the table looked when we sat down.”

“What were you wearing?”

“I . . . You know, I don't recall.”

“And me? What did I have on?”

She just shrugged. I finished my Beaujolais and set the glass down on the crate, plumb out of questions. I looked at Judy, who was napping up on the ledge of one of the oversized windows. Renee had not shown me the door, like Father Baer, but I knew this would be my last visit to her loft. We were not destined to be buddies, no matter how the murder investigation turned out.

My eyes rested for a moment on the wineglass I had just abandoned. It was obvious I had not been thorough—there was still some Beaujolais left. I picked up the glass, drained it this time to the last drop, and replaced it once again on the crate.

When I straightened up, Renee was standing. She had a strange look on her face, and her finger was pressed against her lips.

It was obvious she was signaling me that I must remain quiet.

Slowly, silently, she moved to a small chest and opened a drawer. I saw her remove a small silvery object and put it in the palm of one hand.

To be honest, this sudden eruption of strange behavior frightened me. What was the matter with her? What was that object in her hand?

She moved stealthily away from me, toward the far window. So quietly, so smoothly, that it seemed as if I were watching a silent movie. Had she seen an intruder through the window? Did she want me to help?

Suddenly she leaped forward, and I saw the silver object in her hand flash.

Judy, her cat, woke up from her nap on the window ledge, arched her back threateningly, and glared malevolently at Renee—who just stared innocently at the ceiling.

I burst out laughing, finally realizing what had happened. Renee had merely snuck up on her cat in order to clip one of her nails while she was asleep.

When Renee sat back down, she said, smiling: “I can only get one foot at a time, but sooner or later I get all four. The problem is that Judy naps at different times. You have to catch her in a deep nap.”

“I really didn't know what you were doing at first. I thought you had gone around the bend.”

“You must admit, I move quickly when I have to.”

“Yes, you do, Renee.”

“Maybe” she added, “if you need someone to cover one of your cat-sitting assignments, you can give out my number. I mean, you just saw my proficiency.”

“Cat-sitters don't have to cut their charges' nails.”

“Oh, Alice! I thought you were a
super
cat sitter! I thought you did
everything.
”

I stared at her. The tone she had used was sarcastic and distinctly unfriendly. Had she resented my questions about the night Barbara was murdered? I didn't acknowledge her comment. It was time for me to go.

But Renee was not finished.

“Why
do
you cat-sit, anyway?” She asked.

“I like cats, and I need the money,” I replied.

“I never could understand, Alice, why you aren't rich and famous. I mean, everyone says you're a great actress. Everyone says you're beautiful and talented and dedicated. I mean, what else does a person need?” Her conversation had started to drip with a peculiar kind of hostility and censure.

“Bad attitude,” I explained, humorously, trying to defuse the hostility.

“You mean toward the theater in general?”

“Yes.”

“But if you've been in the theater for more than twenty years, and you still have a bad attitude, isn't it time you just gave it up?”

“No, Renee. I like the struggle.”

“You don't look like one of those women who enjoy pain.”

“Who do I look like, Renee?”

She thought for a moment, then declined to continue, switching to a new topic of conversation. She asked: “What about men? Do you also have a bad attitude toward men?”

A wave of enlightenment suddenly hit me. So
that
was it. She was telling me that she had suspicions about Tim and me. Had Tim told her before he died?

“I like men,” I replied.

“That's not what Barbara told me.”

It was an ugly, dishonest way to try to infuriate me. I knew that Barbara would never betray any confidence. Renee's bitchiness was getting out of control. I was seeing a wholly new side of her, and it made me feel impotent. How could I ask the right questions if I had no idea what sort of person I was questioning? It was definitely time to go.

“Would you like to hear another random memory?” Renee said as I was leaving. “When all is said and done, my clearest memory of that night is that the peppermint tea was awful.”

Chapter 20

Sylvia and Pauly Graff's apartment on lower Fifth Avenue was cavernous and heavy: old New York, Henry James with a vengeance. Isn't it interesting how one understands the term “old money” the very first time one hears it? All my encounters with the real thing had made me decide that it smells a little like furniture polish, and this encounter confirmed that impression.

The furniture was dark and looming. Virginia, the Graffs' cat, was about what I had expected: a bored and imperious seal-point Himalayan.

Sylvia, looking rather distracted and blowsy, greeted me warmly enough. She offered me, oddly enough, hot cocoa—a drink I don't associate with muggy summer afternoons. But I accepted the steaming froth, which was presented in an exquisite Limoge cup and saucer.

Pauly was shambling around the apartment. He had been at the door to greet me as well, but I had the impression that he didn't quite know who I was. I knew he was an alcoholic—a drunk, as Gram succinctly would have put it—but this was the first time I'd seen him in the full flower of drunkenness.

“Tim's murder hit him much harder than Barbara's suicide,” Sylvia said by way of explanation.

Ordinarily I might have just sipped my cocoa and accepted her comment. But my interview with Renee had been so awkward and roundabout that I decided to take the bull by the horns on this one.

So I said immediately, “Sylvia, Barbara was not a suicide. She was murdered. Just as Tim was.”

At that moment Pauly banged into an ornate chest and cried out in pain. Sylvia, though she loved him dearly, did not go over to him. Instead she called over her shoulder, “You okay?” We heard him grunt as he refilled his tall glass with rum and orange juice.

Sylvia turned back to me. “Yes,” she said archly. “Renee has told me about your sleuthing on that front. But I don't believe a word of it, my dear. And furthermore, I disapprove of this silly behavior just as much as Renee does.”

Her patronizing manner quickly brought my temper to the boiling point, and I was tempted to ask her if she thought her own behavior—clawing through the trunk in my bedroom—had been any less silly. But I held my anger in check.

“I am telling you that Barbara was pushed off that terrace, Sylvia. And,” I added in a conspiratorial tone, “I am not the only one who believes it. I happen to know that another investigation is being conducted at this very moment.”

That bit of mendacity, vague as it was, caught her attention.
What
investigation? she demanded to know. But I was “unable to discuss” that at the moment, I said.

I could hear Pauly's halting footsteps somewhere in the back of the apartment—like those of a heavy blind man groping about.

“Since the eight of us were the only ones present that night, Alice, you are accusing one of us—one of Barbara's dearest friends—of murder.”

“That is correct.”

“Did
I
push her?” she said huffily. “Or Pauly? And for what reason? It's ridiculous! Someone would have seen the person who did it.”

“That's what I'm counting on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that someone must have seen something.”

“Well, it wasn't I. I saw nothing.”

“That can't be literally true, Sylvia. Think—where were you just before it happened?”

“Before what happened? That's just the point, isn't it? No one knew what was happening. There was a lot of noise from the horns below. Someone said it must be a backup on the drive. Les called out something to Ava. I was with Pauly, and you and Renee were across the room talking about something. And the next thing I knew Ava was screaming.”

“Did you see Barbara walk out there onto the terrace?”

“No.”

“Did you notice her talking to Renee and me?”

“Maybe—I don't recall.”

Pauly was back with us. “Anybody else hungry?” he asked, grinning.

Neither of us answered.

“Come on,” he chided. “I'll make us a seven-egg omelet. My specialty.”

“Be serious, will you, Pauly?” Sylvia said, barely audible.

He exploded in sudden fury then. “Damn you! I
am
serious! Why do you always try to cut me down? I
am
serious!”

But then, as quickly as it had flared, his anger subsided, and he walked over to Sylvia and picked up her hand and kissed it. The two of us watched him move slowly out of the room, a fresh drink in hand.

“I guess it must be difficult sometimes,” I said after he was out of earshot. I was trying to be consoling.

Sylvia flashed me a look that was so vituperative I felt it in my solar plexus. It was worse than the withering glance of a veteran director at a young actor who's decided to improvise. I realized that I'd made the kind of statement that only Barbara could have made meaningful, and only from her would it have been accepted. Compassion was her forte. Coming from my lips the words probably sounded quite false, so perhaps Sylvia had been justified in taking me up.

“If we can continue now . . . ?” I queried. “Please tell me more of what you remember about that evening.”

“Friends eating and drinking and talking together,” she said.

“Yes. I know that. But that's not quite what I'm after. Tell me some little things. Insignificant, even. Maybe a conversation that you heard.”

“I heard a dozen conversations. Everyone was talking, just as we always did when we were together. Maybe the garden was our central concern that night, but only because of the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?”

“The tea. The bogus Japanese tea ceremony. We were all worked up over the peppermint tea.”

“Oh. I suppose we all were a little carried away,” I agreed.

Suddenly Sylvia cocked her head and held up one hand. It put me in mind of Renee's temporarily inexplicable behavior at my last meeting with her.

“You remember something. What is it?” I pressed.

“I was just thinking of something that was said after that anticlimactic tea. Renee said, ‘Well, that peppermint was definitely not plucked from the Garden of Love.'” Sylvia smiled ruefully.

I had no idea what she was talking about, and asked her to explain the reference.

“Oh,” she said airily, “little bookworm Renee was referring to a poem by William Blake.”

At that moment the air seemed to split in two with a hideous crash.

When we reached the kitchen, Pauly was standing near the stove. On the floor next to the table was a large pan, which he had obviously overturned in his effort to fill it with beaten eggs. All around us were scattered broken shells. The room looked like a trampled bird's nest.

“The tobasco sauce threw me,” he said, wiping yolk from his fingers. “I was doing just fine until I realized I should have had the tobasco handy before I put the pan . . . the . . . the . . . What did I say, Sylvia—was it seven eggs or eight?”

Ignoring him, Sylvia reached over and snapped off the high flame on the stove top. She then proceeded to wipe up the mess with paper towels. Pauly stared fixedly at her as she worked.

“Sometimes,” he said, looking at me and flexing his fingers, “sometimes I have complete control. And then suddenly I'm holding something, and it falls right out of my hand. But then, sometimes I have a very delicate touch indeed. Like a clock maker.” Pauly bent down near Sylvia. “I'll help you with that, darling.” But she pushed his arm away gently.

“Things just fall . . . just fall away, don't they?” he said to me. “Like Barbara, that beautiful girl. And my friend Tim. You'll have to forgive us,” he addressed me very formally now. “You see, we've recently lost two dear friends.”

“Yes, Alice,” Sylvia said when she stood up. “I'm afraid you
will
have to forgive us just now.”

I took my cue and let myself out.

Traffic was very light, so the bus trip home took only twenty minutes.

After making myself a little lunch I rummaged through my overstuffed bookcase. Someday I'd have to sort through all those scripts—I had enough to float a national theater. I found an edition of Brecht's poems that Basillio had given me. An anthology of twentieth-century American poetry. A paperback Wallace Stevens collection I'm sure someone left here years ago. There was even a collection of “choruses” called
Mexico City Blues
, by Jack Kerouac. But nothing by William Blake.

On the way to a cat-tending assignment in Chelsea later in the day, I stopped at the public library on Twenty-Third Street.

I had no trouble locating the poem.

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be;

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Perhaps “our little bookworm” Renee had cited this poem as an erudite way of confessing to a murder?
Collected Poems of William Blake
had not appeared on that crazy list she'd shown me. I had no idea what to make of this clue, if it was one.

Maybe I had turned into a loon, as Basillio had charged. But if that was so, I was in damn good company. I was mixed up with a group of murderous, catnip-growing, substance-abusing, overeducated, peppermint-tea-drinking, upper-middle-class loons.