One Coffee With (19 page)

“The one nearest you?” asked Tillie.

“I guess.” Quinn had been on his high horse, he told them; and Nauman was just as rude, acting like he had nothing to do with getting him canned out of the graduate program.

“Jeez! Two years just down the
drain,
and what I’m going to do now—”

“You’ll come into the business with your brother and me as you should’ve done six years ago,” said Mr. Harris.

“But my art—”

“You can paint at night if you want.
Or on Sundays.
Look at Churchill. Look at Ike. Both of ’em decent painters, but did it stop ’em from winning the war or from running their countries and earning a good living?”

“They were hacks.”

“And you’re Michelangelo?”

It was evidently an old battle, and Sigrid stepped into it long enough to extract Harley’s promise that he’d let them know if he remembered anything else.

When the Harrises,
p
è
re et fils
, departed, they were separated by more than a foot of open air; yet Sigrid was left with the distinct impression that Mr. Harris was pulling his son along by the ear.

Tillie rubbed his round chin and admitted that Harley Harris was probably out of it. “That makes it one down and seven to go.”

“Seven? Oh, yes, Mike Szabo,” Sigrid said dubiously. She had shared with Tillie the background information on Szabo that Nauman had furnished the night before. “He probably had access to the poison closet, but I really don’t see how he could have known which of those four cups was for Quinn.”

“Still . . .” said Tillie, who hated to leave even the smallest pebble unturned.

Sigrid agreed that it probably wouldn’t hurt for him to chase Mike Szabo down and get his statement on the record. “For all we know someone else could have been standing by the bookcase when he brought the tray in and left it.”

“If that’s the case, I bet I can tell you who it was.”

“Who?
David Wade?”

Tillie looked deflated that she’d thought of that angle, too, but he pressed on. “That Keppler girl looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but I bet she’d lie for Wade without blinking those baby blue eyes.”

“When you’ve finished with Szabo, you might stop by Vanderlyn and ask Keppler where David Wade was yesterday morning; see what her reaction is. And while you’re at it,” Sigrid added, “better see the dean of —” She had to search through her notes to find the right title; Tillie nodded thoughtfully as she explained what she wanted to know.

F
or the next couple of hours
Sigrid worked steadily at the accumulation of reports on her desk. Gradually the pile dwindled, disappeared; all except for a media query, which she carried to Captain McKinnon.

“Do I have to keep doing these interviews?” she asked sourly, remembering Andrea Ross’s gibe about being the Police Department’s showcase model.

McKinnon looked at the innocuously worded request. It was from a women’s magazine, one slanted toward a readership of women who, if they held jobs, worked more to supplement the family’s income than to carve out careers of their own. He tossed it back to her.

“What’s wrong, Harald? You ashamed to talk about police work?”

“Of course not!
If that’s what they’d ask me about,” Sigrid said tightly, “but they won’t. They’ll ask about my personal life—you know, does-my-husband-mind-my-being-a-policewoman sort of thing—and they’ll probably think it a waste of time when they find out I haven’t got a husband. Anyway, aren’t there enough women police officers around that we’re not a novelty any longer?”

“Apparently not,” McKinnon said heartlessly. “I don’t see the problem, Harald. You’ve conducted enough interviews to know how to steer one.”

He held up his hand to forestall further protest. “Look upon it as building up Brownie points for the department.
Public relations.
The commissioner appreciates good public relations.”

Sigrid marched back to her small office grimly and telephoned the magazine. Upon being connected with the junior editor who’d requested the interview, she summoned a cordial tone to her voice and expressed her willingness to talk. “Unfortunately my only free time is tomorrow morning at eight A.M.

Silence from the editor, then timidly, “What about lunch, Lieutenant?
On us, of course.”

“Sorry,” Sigrid said. “I have a previous engagement.”

“Well, we’re not in that big a hurry. What about day after tomorrow. We could meet—”

“I’m afraid I’m booked rather solid,” Sigrid said firmly. “Perhaps you’d have better luck with someone in a different department. Now Sergeant Louella Dickerson over in Missing Persons . . .”

“Oh, no, Lieutenant.
We’re all so intrigued with the idea of a woman chasing down murderers, almost a female Kojak. Eight o’clock? I’ll certainly be there.”

She sounds like a gusher, Sigrid thought pessimistically. She glanced at her watch. Ten-forty and she
was
due in court at eleven.

It was an appearance connected with a case completed two months before.
Routine, but timeconsuming.
Despite the district attorney’s previous promise, she wasn’t called to testify until after lunch. She wasn’t on the stand very long. The defense lawyer had come up against her before, so he didn’t try the court’s patience by attempting to confuse her in cross-examination. The last time he’d tried that, her cool dignity and unruffled professionalism had convinced a teetering jury of his client’s guilt.

She was free a little after two and decided against going back to the office just then. Somehow facing another round of reports seemed unbearably dreary, though she would have denied any touch of spring fever.

Last night’s rain had scoured sky, air and pavements, and in the afternoon sunlight the sky looked bluer than usual, buildings seemed more sharply edged, and Central Park’s spring foliage shone greener. These things Sigrid barely noticed as she drove uptown.
A short while later she parked by a fire hydrant almost in front of Riley Quinn’s brownstone and flipped down her sun visor to reveal a discreet notice that she was on official police business.
As she stepped from her car, what her practical mind did appreciate about last night’s rain was that it had washed the sidewalks so clean that one didn’t have to watch where one was putting every step—a true boon considering the city’s canine population.

She crossed the street, lightly dodging a chauffeured limousine. There was a spray of white carnations tied with black satin ribbons on the gleaming oak door, a homely old-fashioned symbol that Sigrid hadn’t expected of Riley Quinn’s wife.

The woman who answered the doorbell was short and stout with iron gray hair, which ballooned improbably around a plain face made even plainer by tear-blotched skin and swollen red eyes. Hers was the first sign of real grief for Quinn’s death that Sigrid had seen.

The woman seemed to assume that Sigrid had called to offer condolences. “I’m Millie Minton,” she said, taking Sigrid’s hand in hers and pressing it sadly as she drew Sigrid across the threshold, “Riley’s sister. It’s so good of you to come.”

As tactfully as possible Sigrid retrieved her hand and identified
herself
.

“Police!”
Mrs. Minton’s eyes widened,
then
flooded with fresh tears.
“Oh, poor Riley!
How could anyone have killed him? It’s just so dreadful. What a horrible way to die!”

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Sigrid said uncomfortably, “but if I might speak to Mrs. Quinn?”

“Yes, of course, Lieutenant.” She blew her nose again with a sodden handkerchief and smoothed her black dress down over well-corseted hips as she turned.

Beyond the grieving woman the living room was crowded with earlier callers who had lapsed into discreet conversation. It needed only the tinkle of ice against glass to be mistaken for a well-bred cocktail gathering, though none of last night’s bottles and glasses
were
visible this afternoon. Yet there was soft laughter from one group, which quickly hushed when Mrs. Minton led Sigrid past the open archway. Sigrid found
herself
scanning the gathering for a tall white-haired figure and was annoyed with herself when she realized what she was doing.

Across the room Jake Saxer flushed and turned away as the full force of her scowl fell on him. Sigrid had been unaware of him until his movement of withdrawal, and her eyes narrowed. Why was he afraid to meet her gaze, she wondered, unconscious of her formidable
frown.

Mrs. Minton opened the door to Quinn’s study at the end of the wide entrance hall. “I’ll tell Doris you’re here,” she said.

Left alone, Sigrid circled the leather-bound study with interest. Riley Quinn’s domain was more or less what she would have expected—pretentiously academic, almost a stage set, yet showing signs of serious work in that rear wall of counters and files. Some still partially open file drawers struck a jarring note in the otherwise precisely ordered room. Had Quinn removed a folder hurriedly on his way to Vanderlyn yesterday morning? And what had he used that crowbar for? Surely it was an odd tool to find standing in the corner of a scholar’s study? Visions of monumentally stuck drawers were put aside for the time being, however, as the door opened and Doris Quinn entered.

She was followed by her uncle, courtly and dapper in a gray silk suit and dark red tie. J. Duncan Sylvester was completely bald and had small pointed ears and thick white eyebrows, which he used for emphasis. He looked like an intelligent, wizened elf, and he raised one tufted eyebrow in surprise now. Riley’s sister had merely said that a police officer wished to see Doris; she hadn’t specified that the lieutenant was female. The publisher of
The Loaded Brush
was a thoroughgoing chauvinist where his niece was concerned, and he’d accompanied her to keep some hard-nosed male officer from bullying her. Fleetingly he wondered if he might not be superfluous in this interview.

A second look at Lieutenant Harald’s cool gray eyes made him decide he should stay after all. Sylvester doted on his niece, but he had no illusions about her mental stature, and this severe-faced young woman looked quite capable of making mincemeat of Doris. He introduced himself, clearly intending to guide the interview.

Sigrid responded politely, but her fullest attention was on Quinn’s widow.

If Doris Quinn had shed any tears that morning, no traces of them were visible now. Her leaf green eyes were clear, her skin creamy perfection. She wore an oatmeal-colored dress whose simple cut enhanced her own generous lines and made Sigrid feel stick shaped and ill clothed. She knew, too, that Doris Quinn had sensed her discomfort, for the blonde had visibly relaxed as if she held a secret weapon that made her invulnerable.

Oh, no, you don’t,
thought
Sigrid. She was stung into murmuring coldly, “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better this morning, Mrs. Quinn.”

Unfazed, Doris smiled sweetly. Long ago she had learned that the best defense is no defense at all—polite apologies and no explanations. “I’m sorry I couldn’t speak with you last night, Lieutenant Harald.
So inconvenient for you, having to come back twice.”

“Not at all,” Sigrid said, ashamed of her flash of cattiness now that she had herself back under control.

Unaware of the undercurrents, Sylvester knitted his thick white eyebrows at her. “How close are you to discovering who did this terrible thing, Lieutenant?”

“That’s difficult to say, sir. I was hoping Mrs. Quinn might be able to help us.”

“Me?
How?”

“Were you aware of any conflicts your husband might have been having lately? Did he mention anyone who might have hated him enough to want him dead?”

“No, of course not,” said Doris, but her eyes sought her uncle’s counsel.

“Marc Humphries was furious about Riley’s review last month,” Sylvester said after brief concentration, “but I know for a fact that he’s been in Japan since last week. What about Karoly’s nephew?”

“That funny little Hungarian?” asked Doris. “Riley fussed about him being at the college, but they weren’t actually fighting still. Not lately.”

Sigrid heard the dubious tone in her voice. “There was someone more recent, wasn’t there?”

“We-ell. . . . Oh, but I’m
sure
it didn’t mean anything.”

Sigrid persisted until Doris finally said, “He and Jake Saxer had a fight the night before last.” She described what she’d overheard between the two men, and Sigrid had the impression that she was repeating words she’d spoken before—though not to her uncle. Sylvester’s keen blue eyes darted attentively back and forth between the two women.

“Arguments are almost inevitable between collaborators,” he interposed smoothly, “especially when a book is taking its final shape, and one has to be ruthless about what’s included and what must—by the exigencies of space—be omitted. Each tends to play devil’s advocate for every example the other wishes to exclude.”

Sigrid let that pass undebated. “And you can think of no one else, Mrs. Quinn? Did he ever mention conflicts with students or colleagues?”