Corpus Christmas

“Of course.”

She turned to Rick Evans. “You said you had an impression that someone else was there in the passageway when you came out of the bedroom. Who did you think it was?”

Rick shook his head. “I didn’t think. I just heard-like footsteps or something. And then I felt a draft from the open door and heard it close.”

“Did you go down and look through the door window?” asked Lowry.

“I didn’t see anyone,” Evans said.

They asked Pascal Grant to explain once more why there was blood on his softball bat if he hadn’t hit Shambley with it.

“I didn’t!” Pascal said.

“He’s telling the pure truth,” said Rick in his soft Southern voice. “I was the one carrying that bat. The whole time. I didn’t want to touch Dr. Shambley at first. I thought he was dead. He looked dead and I just sort of poked him to make sure he really was.”

The weakest part of their story was the reason they gave for moving the body and not calling the police. No matter how many times the police detectives returned to that point, the story remained that they were afraid to have Shambley’s body found so close to Pascal Grant’s door. Period.

While Jim Lowry and Elaine Albee pressed the two youths for stronger reasons, Sigrid leaned back in her chair trying to decide whether or not to charge one or the other or both with the murder. They’d had a weapon, an opportunity, and probably a motive if that lawyer’s reluctance to let Grant discuss his distaste for Shambley meant anything.

On the other hand, Grant said he hadn’t heard a doorbell, yet that Beardsley woman claimed she’d seen Thorvaldsen there at midnight.

And what was Rick Evans holding back? That he and Grant were sleeping together. Was that all?

She was almost grateful when a uniformed officer opened the door, peered in, and signaled that she had an important phone call.

“Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant,” he said when she came out into the hall and closed the door to the interrogation room, “but Dr. Cohen said you’d probably want to know right away.”

The assistant medical examiner was as laid-back over the telephone as in person. “You know that softball bat you people just sent over? Forget it. Too big. You’re looking for a rod, not a club.”

“A rod?” Sigrid was surprised. “With a wound that messy?”

“I told you there was something odd about that head.”

Cohen reminded her. “He had a big skull, but it was paper thin. Want the Latin for it?”

“Put it in your report,” she said. “What do you mean by a rod? Like a curtain rod?”

“One of those solid brass ones, maybe. Or a broom handle.”

“What about that mop handle?”

“Not thin enough. We’re talking something no thicker than my thumb. A cane, maybe, or a poker or the handle of an umbrella even. Anyhow, as thin as his skull was, it wouldn’t have taken much force whatever they used.”

Back in the interrogation room, Sigrid told the two lawyers that as soon as a statement could be typed up and signed, their clients would be free to leave.

Rick Evans gave an involuntary sigh of relief and smiled at Pascal Grant. His smile faded though when she added, “Of course, there will probably be further questions in the next few days, so we expect you not to leave town.”

“I won’t,” Pascal Grant said earnestly.

“No easy solutions,” Sigrid told Elaine Albee and Jim Lowry when Grant and Evans had signed their statements and departed. The younger officers were disappointed to learn that the blow which killed Shambley could have been delivered by either a man or a woman, or possibly even a determined child.

“Did any of those people last night carry a walking stick?” asked Albee.

“Not that I noticed,” said Sigrid. “The wife of one of the trustees, Mrs. Reinicke, walked with a slight limp, but I didn’t see her with a cane.” She described the animosity she’d witnessed between Shambley and Reinicke, then checked the time. “I’ll take Thorvaldsen and Lady Francesca Leeds; you two can split the trustees-the Reinickes, the David Hymans and Mr. and Mrs. Herzog.”

Sigrid’s voice was cool and her face perfectly serious as she told Lowry, “Mrs. Herzog was a Babcock, you know.”

“Huh?” said Lowry.

Later, he and Albee stood on a chilly IRT platform, surrounded by Christmas shoppers with brightly wrapped packages, and debated whether or not the lieutenant’s last remark was meant to be humorous.

As the Lexington Avenue train squealed to a stop, they decided it probably wasn’t.

In a cab headed uptown, Hester Kohn and Caryn DiFranco discussed the pros and cons of contact lenses while Rick Evans sat sandwiched between them on the rear seat with his feet drawn up on the transmission hump.

The furry hood of Ms. DiFranco’s parka brushed Rick’s nose as the lawyer leaned over for a closer look at the lenses in Hester Kohn’s eyes.

“I just can’t wear mine,” she sighed. “I looked absolutely gorgeous in them, but I can’t see a damn thing. Besides, I’ve decided glasses are who I am. People expect me to look like this. I expect me to look like this.”

The round gold frames of her gra

“I know what you mean,” said Hester Kohn. “I wore glasses for almost twenty-five years. They were such a part of me I felt naked the first few times I went out without them.”

Caryn DiFranco peered into Rick’s brown eyes. “Do you wear contacts, Rick?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Ma’am? Omigod! That makes me sound like I’m eighty years old.”

Rick flushed. “Sorry. I keep forgetting people don’t say that up here.”

“It’s okay, kid. You’ll be as rude as the rest of as soon enough.” She caught a glimpse of passing street signs and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Let me out at Macy’s, okay?”

The driver grunted.

“I’ve got to buy and mail presents to half of Michigan,” she complained to Hester Kohn. “Be grateful you’re Jewish.”

“I frequently am,” Hester said dryly.

As the taxi double-parked in a no-parking zone and Caryn DiFranco opened her door, Hester added, “Thanks for coming down, Caryn.”

“Don’t thank me. You’ll get the bill. Speaking of which, do we bill that MCP partner of yours or the gallery?”

“The gallery.”

“Right. Stay out of mischief, Rick, and don’t talk to any strange cops.”

“Thanks, Miss DiFranco,” he said.

She rolled her eyes, slammed the door and disappeared among the crowds of Christmas shoppers.

The cold air that rushed in when Caryn DiFranco got out had briefly dispersed Hester Kohn’s gardenia perfume, but as the cab swerved back into the flow of traffic, the sweet scent again filled the space between them even though Rick had moved to the far side of the seat. For him, it was a disorienting smell, one co

Dusk was falling and rush hour had begun in earnest. All lanes were clogged at Forty-second Street.

Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, another snarl in front of Radio City Music Hall.

Hester Kohn smoothed her dark hair and loosened the top button of her red wool coat. “Want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

“Nothing. ” Without a camera to shield himself from her quizzical face, he unconsciously sank deeper into his corner and kept his eyes on the neon-lit stores and buildings they were now creeping past.

A complex blend of affection and irritation and a few stray tendrils of pity as well swept over Hester as she remembered Rick’s first few weeks at the gallery.