Jury selection begins Monday in crucial test of county’s smut law
by CHARLES OAKLAND
Staff Reporter, Dumont Daily Register
SEPT. 23, DUMONT WI—DUMONT COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY HARLEY KAISER ANNOUNCED IN A PREPARED STATEMENT LATE FRIDAY THAT JURY SELECTION WILL BEGIN MONDAY IN A CONTROVERSIAL OBSCENITY CASE THAT IS SEEN BY MANY AS A “MUST-WIN” TEST OF THE COUNTY’S LOCAL OBSCENITY ORDINANCE. IN PREVIOUS CASES PROSECUTED BY KAISER, JURIES STUNNED MORALISTS BY FINDING ADULT BOOKSTORES ON THE EDGE OF TOWN “NOT GUILTY” OF VIOLATING THE COUNTY ORDINANCE, WHICH IS PATTERNED AFTER STATE LAW.
When Kaiser first attempted to shut down the porn shops some two years ago, he told the press, “Our county board put limits on this kind of expression because some expressions are intrinsically harmful to society and they should be banned.”
After viewing Rectal Rampage, a tape procured by sheriff’s deputies at a county bookstore, a local jury surprised pundits by finding the video not obscene. Responding to this first of several defeats, Kaiser told reporters, “Maybe I should have spent more time explaining to the jury that normal sex could be displayed in a patently offensive way.”
The new case seeks to convict Star-Spangled Video, another county porn shop, of pandering to prurient interests through the sale of such tapes. Dogged by civil-liberties groups claiming that both the local ordinance and the state law violate First Amendment freedoms, the prosecutor has recruited a series of expert witnesses to bolster his case. They represent the interests of feminist and Religious Right groups.
In yesterday’s statement, Kaiser averred, “This time, we’re prepared. Dumont County will at last score a resounding victory for family values.”
Dr. Benjamin Tenelli, a retired obstetrician and new ally of the district attorney in his campaign to rid Dumont of smut, cautioned the public, “Our county stands at a crossroads. Nothing less than our prospects for future development are at stake.”
PORNOGRAPHY HAD BEEN ON my mind for over a week—in more ways than one. On a philosophical level, smut was an issue that had raised virulent community debate, pitting free-speech advocates, such as Carrol Cantrell and me, against self-appointed defenders of public morals, such as Harley Kaiser and Miriam Westerman. On a prurient level, however, smut was simply smut, and for several days, its erotic power had taken hold of my imagination, producing rich fantasies that were fired by discussion and memories of a fallen gay-porn hero, Rascal Tyner.
It came as no surprise, then, that pornography—as both a political issue and an erotic escape—worked its way into my subconscious and surfaced in another dream.
I’m in a large barnlike room, which is dark, except for an area at one end that is flooded with light. There’s a buzz of activity near the light, with perhaps a dozen men fussing with various tasks. The tone is fast-paced and businesslike. Approaching the activity, I see that the bright light comes from overhead fixtures that are focused on a group of furniture—it looks like a living room. But there’s also equipment scattered about that doesn’t belong in a living room. Thick black cables connect all this gear. They are video cameras. The room containing all this is a soundstage, and the crew is preparing to tape a pornographic video.
A tall figure silhouetted against the light claps his hands, silencing the others. “Let’s get going,” he calls. “Where’s Rascal?”
“Here,” says a voice. “All set.” And Rascal Tyner himself emerges from the shadows. He’s fully dressed—shorts, knit shirt, and those white leather running shoes. The scene will begin with some semblance of a plot, a setup that will quickly motivate Rascal to lose his clothes. He’s ready, picture-perfect, primped and buffed. The crew is hushed and still, starstruck by his presence.
This will be one of Rascal’s legendary solo scenes—no man on film has ever found his own heated company more gratifying. The scene has never been rehearsed. Everyone already knows how it will end, but getting there, that’s the fun. Rascal asks to review a script, so the tall guy, the man in charge, steps into the light and offers Rascal a look at his clipboard. The star says, “Thanks, Carrol.”
And I realize that Carrol Cantrell has been present throughout—he’s alive and well. Hot Head Video is his own production company, and he’s here to direct the young discovery who shot to stardom, taking the studio with him. Carrol Cantrell, the man behind the scenes, and Rascal Tyner, the porn god, owe their success to each other. I wonder if Rascal is Carrol’s lover. Then I recall that Rascal is straight, acting a role. This is business, nothing more.
“There’s music throughout,” explains Carrol, “but we’ll dub it in later. In the early part of the scene, we’ll be recording your half of the phone call, so keep it all in character. Once you’ve got your clothes off, though, only the dubbed music will be heard on the finished tape. During the jackoff, I’ll give you directions, and you be sure to tell us when you’re ready to come, so we can zoom in for it…”
As Carrol reviews this plan, I’m getting aroused just hearing about it. Stepping closer, I get a better look at Rascal. His subtly pumped physique shows just enough edge to remind us that he’s not a boy anymore. Otherwise, he projects a softness suggesting he has not lost touch with his youthful vulnerability. He’s a boyman, a living apparition of a best-of-both-worlds ideal, a dream come true.
Without hesitation, I slip out of my clothes and stroke myself to full erection. Then I notice that I’m not the only one inclined to get comfortable. Most everyone on the crew has kicked out of his clothes. Some wear jockstraps. Some wear biker’s boots or other bits of leather. But most are totally naked, all fully aroused.
All, that is, except Rascal and Carrol. Rascal is still clothed because the script begins that way. Carrol remains clothed by choice. He wears a beautiful gray silk suit (probably Armani) with a T-shirt (very California), similar to the outfit he wore on the morning when he arrived in Dumont. In a pair of soft leather loafers (no socks), he glides about the set, adjusting furniture, tidying props.
“There!” he says, surveying his work. “Places, everyone.” Rascal leaves the set and stands outside the door to the fake living room. The crew members take their positions. Backing off the set, Carrol says, “Whenever we’re ready—action.”
The onstage phone rings. A key rattles in the lock, the door flings open, and Rascal bounds into the room. Cameras swing to focus on him. He drops a stack of books on the coffee table and stretches across the sofa to grab the phone. “Hello?” Banal, perhaps, but the mere sight of the guy sets an intensely erotic mood.
Rascal converses with his imagined phone buddy. “Hi, Aaron. Just got in from class. Glad I caught your call.” Pause. “I’ve been thinking about you too!” With a laugh, he slips out of his shirt, managing not to tangle it with the phone cord.
He continues to talk, but I don’t hear his words. I’m focused instead on the sight of him, chest bared. Idly, he traces a finger across the ridge of his pectorals, plays with a nipple. I mimic his actions, imagining that my hands are his. Moving closer to the set for a better view, I park next to a console where a naked but jackbooted technician sits on a stool, watching a set of meters. I name him Jack.
By now, Rascal has stepped out of his shorts—the shoes will stay on. With one foot on the coffee table, he continues to yack on the phone while using his free hand to tickle his testicles. He watches, amused by the bobbing of his penis.
Mesmerized by this, I haven’t noticed Jack, who’s stepped over from the console and now brushes up behind me. He traces a fingertip down my spine, slipping it between the crack of my buttocks. “Squat,” he commands quietly.
Eyes on Rascal, I obey Jack’s order. He hunkers down with me, squeaking his boots. Feeling my anus, he taps the perimeter, teasing with the threat of entry. “Not yet,” I tell him. I’m masturbating in earnest, enjoying the ride.
Ditto for Rascal. “There’s something I need to take care of,” he tells Aaron, hanging up the phone, spreading himself on the sofa. With both hands free now, he can really go at it, fingering himself from behind while pumping.
Carrol calls over the action, “Take it home, Rascal. The scene’s all yours now. Somebody, give him some music—he needs to hear the beat.”
One of the stagehands clicks on a tinny boom box, which blasts some cheesy disco hit, all percussion and brass. This isn’t the music that will be heard on the finished tape—it’s only being played to give Rascal a background thump for his jackoff finale. He captures the beat with fervor.
“Other hand,” Carrol calls to him. “Everyone wants to see that, Rascal.”
Lying there, grooving, Rascal laughs with abandon, switching hands.
Rascal’s not the only one working his way toward orgasm. Jack has slid beneath me on the floor to slurp at my groin. Other stagehands are grinding away as well, alone or in pairs. Everyone’s getting into it. Everyone’s getting close. Everyone, that is, except Carrol Cantrell, who continues to coach Rascal, asking him to prolong the frenzy for another minute—just another minute. And the beat goes on.
Pound-pound-pound-pound-POUND.
What was that? It wasn’t the disco tape—same rhythm, but out of sync, way louder, from the far side of the room. Rascal heard it too. Distracted, he’s lost the beat. Muttering an apology, he redoubles his efforts and attempts to save the scene—without a good come shot, the whole day’s work is lost.
Pound-pound-pound-pound-POUND.
“Jee-sus Christ!” shrills Carrol. “What the hell’s going on?”
“There’s someone at the door, Mr. Cantrell,” a stagehand shouts to him.
“Fuck! Keep shooting. Rascal, keep it up—bring it home. Let’s get this wrapped!” Carrol bounds away from the set to the other end of the soundstage, where the pounding reverberates from a huge metal door. He yells, “We’re working!”
Muffled voices bellow something from the other side. The whole crew has turned to watch this encounter as Rascal dutifully tries to regain his momentum.
“Not now!” Carrol howls to the intruders. “Go away!”
“Mr. Cantrell!” cries Jack, who has returned to his console. Tapping one of the meters, he announces, “Rascal has lost his erection!”
There’s a collective gasp from the crew. (Do they have the kid’s dick wired?)
Carrol roars, “What!?” Pacing a few steps in front of the door, he tells everyone, “That’s fabulous—simply peachy. Well, damn it all, where’s Rascal’s fluffer?”
All heads turn to me. Jack grins. “You’re on, Mark. Have fun, buddy.”
Huh? “Carrol,” I call across the room, “I was just visiting. Really, I don’t—”
“This is no time to quibble—Rascal lost his hard-on. Get busy!”
The music is still thumping, the door is still pounding, but the room seems to fall silent for a moment. I turn from Carrol at the door to Rascal on the set. Sprawled on the sofa, legs spread wide, he glances at his crotch. “Actually,” he tells me, chagrined, “I could use some help with this.”
Duty calls. Without further protest, I stride onto the set. Kneeling at the feet of the porn god, I tell him, “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll sure as hell try.”
And I do—to the applause of the crew. Carrol has resumed his shouting match at the door, but I’m not listening. I’m focused on the job of fluffing Rascal Tyner. His problem seems to warrant oral stimulation, so I attempt that remedy first (it goes without saying that I myself need no fluffing whatever). Then the shouting grows louder. The door rolls open on its track, admitting a blast of daylight.
There’s a shriek from the crew—“It’s a raid!”
Rascal goes limp in my mouth as I glance to the open door to see two figures hustling toward the set, followed by Carrol. He tells anyone, “Turn off that damn music.” The disco throb is squelched mid-measure. Carrol yammers, “I know my rights. You’ve exceeded your authority. You have no warrant—”
“We don’t need a warrant,” barks one of the intruders. “We have a law.” And who should prance into the light of the fake living room but Harley Kaiser, intrepid prosecutor, poodle on a leash, walking on all fours. “Our county board put limits on this kind of expression because some expressions are intrinsically harmful to society and they should be banned.”
“Heel!” bleats his cloaked companion, snapping the leash like a whip. It is his antiporn cohort, Miriam Westerman. She’s on a mission, and she’s mad. Rattling her necklace of bones, she stomps onto the set, telling the world, “This is perverted. This is disgusting. Pack a room full of penis cultists, and this is what—”
“Hello, Miriam,” I tell her innocently, rising from my task.
She eyes me aghast, her hateful gaze drifting from my face to my still bloated penis. I wag it at her. She recoils, lifting crossed arms.
Harley yips at Carrol, “You’ll answer to the law for this!”
Carrol tells him dryly, “You’ll need to convince a jury first.” Laughing, Carrol adds, “Your record’s abysmal.”
Kaiser crouches on his haunches, whimpering, “Maybe I should have spent more time explaining to those juries that normal sex could be displayed in a patently offensive way.” He rests his snout on the floor.
“There now,” Westerman consoles Kaiser. Squatting, she pats his fluffy head and unhooks his leash. Rising again, she confronts Carrol. “This is your doing.” Menacingly, she loops the leash around her fist. “You should be disciplined.”
Carrol laughs. “Hey, lady, don’t blame me.” He reminds her, “I’m dead.”
Stepping forward, I tell her, “And there’s a good chance, Mizz Westerman, that he’d still be alive if someone hadn’t laced his cake with nuts.”
Spinning toward me, cloak furling, she raises her fist and snaps the leather leash at my groin. “I’ll lace your nuts!” she cackles.
As the whip smacks its target, I scream.
And I awoke.
Normally the weekend breakfast scene in the house on Prairie Street was relaxed and unstructured, but this Saturday morning was hardly the start of a normal weekend. Neil and Thad were busy setting out the boxes and bags that would provide our “continental” breakfast. Doug Pierce had already arrived, fresh from the health club, hair still wet. Also present were my two editors, Lucille Haring and Glee Savage—I’d asked them to come over that morning so we could have a brainstorming session there in the kitchen.
The pressure was on. Toxicology results and the coroner’s final report were due by the following morning. If the tests provided no new evidence that Carrol Cantrell had died from an allergic reaction to nuts, Sheriff Pierce would in all probability be unjustly accused of the crime. He stood to lose everything—freedom, career, dignity. As a friend (and also as a journalist on the scent of a great story), I’d agreed to help him solve the mystery of Cantrell’s death. During the early days of our behind-the-scenes investigation, the puzzle had gripped me as an intellectual challenge. Now, with only a day remaining to prove Pierce’s innocence, the same challenge took on an urgency that was deeply emotional—was I up to the task?
Thad was buttering toast, piling it on a plate. When he finished, he took two or three slices for himself and spread a thick layer of peanut butter over the transparent sheen of the melted butter. Clanging his knife in the jar, he said, “We need more peanut butter.”
“Already?” I asked. Neil had bought some a week ago.
“It’s on the list,” Neil told Thad.
I mentioned, “As long as we’re taking inventory, put Chee-Zees on the list.”
The room fell dead silent. “What?” asked Neil, who’d never seen me eat such a thing—and clearly didn’t approve.
“Actually,” I tried to explain, “they’re not bad.”
“They’re pretty good,” agreed Glee.
Lucy shook her head, unwilling to admit her own acquired taste for them.
Pierce broke into laughter.
Thad brought the plate of toast and a glass of milk to the table, pulling up a chair, wedging himself between Pierce and me. The table was designed for four, but all six of us had now managed to crowd around it. Coffee and juice were already poured. On his way from the gym, Pierce had picked up a chocolate-slathered kringle—a large horseshoe-shaped pastry, something of a Wisconsin specialty (so much for Pierce’s workout). Glee had brought doughnuts; Lucy, a bag of beautiful cantaloupes and honeydews. All this bounty was spread before us, combined with the usual cereals and pastry from our own cupboard, creating an impressive selection for a household not prone to cook breakfast.
The table was further ladened with newspapers—there were at least four copies of that morning’s edition of the Register with its front-page story about jury selection for the obscenity trial, a story that carried the Charles Oakland byline. Also displayed there was Glee’s follow-up on the miniatures show, due to open that morning. The remainder of the front page was devoted to the murder.
Swallowing half a wedge of toast, Thad asked, “So the guy who got strangled—he might have been poisoned?” His eager tone suggested that this development was way beyond cool.
It made me uncomfortable that he seemed to dwell on the murder, though who could blame him? I’d assembled a mob in our home for breakfast, and our purpose was obvious—we hoped to snare a killer. Still, I didn’t want to discuss our hunches in unvarnished detail in front of Thad. So I shifted the topic, saying to everyone, “Speaking of poisoning, does everyone know that Thad landed a role in his school play?”
Lucy leaned to ask me under her breath, “What’s that got to do with poison?”
I laughed, acknowledging my non sequitur. “Sorry. The play is Arsenic and Old Lace. It’s about little old ladies who—”
“—who poison little old men,” Lucy finished my sentence with a chuckle, remembering the play. “Which role, Thad?”
“Dr. Einstein, the plastic surgeon who drinks a lot.” Then Thad hammed a line or two, demonstrating the accent Neil had taught him.
“Congratulations,” Glee and Lucy told him. “That’s marvelous.” Lucy had been in my office with Pierce on Thursday afternoon when Thad called with the news, but Pierce and I were just then rushing out to visit the coroner, so she never got the full story.
Thad told us, “We’re having a read-through of the script tonight. Mrs. Osborne says it’s very important—it’s the first time the whole cast gets to hear the whole play.” He slurped some milk.
“That’s right,” Neil told him, having nibbled a bit of kringle. “Once rehearsals start, you won’t get to hear the whole play again till weeks later. The read-through is lots of fun—you get to know the rest of the cast, and there isn’t much pressure yet.” Neil must have liked the pastry because he now sliced off a palm-size chunk of it and slid it onto his plate.
Thad quavered, “I am a little nervous about learning all the lines, though. I’ve never done it before.”
“Here’s a tip,” said Neil, after swallowing. “Count the pages on which you have lines to learn, then count the days you have till lines are due. Divide the pages by the days, and you’ll know exactly how much you need to learn each day—every day, without fail. Then you know you’ll be ready.”
“Yeah…” Thad seemed surprised by the simplicity of this surefire plan. “Thanks, Neil. I’ll get to work right after breakfast.”
“When you get further along,” Neil offered, “I’ll help you run your lines.”
The discussion continued in this vein for a while, all of us encouraging Thad and predicting that he’d be great in the role. Though our intention was to calm his nerves and to assure him there was no need to worry, our words revved him up even further. Not that he seemed frightened by the uncertain prospects of the production—on the contrary, he was chomping at the bit, barely able to remain seated. You’d have thought that that evening’s read-through was not a first rehearsal, but opening night.
After managing to down several pieces of toast, half a melon, and a quart of milk, he excused himself from the table, took his dishes to the sink, and darted from the kitchen, telling us, “I’ll be in my room working on lines.”
We couldn’t help laughing as he left. Pierce told me, “If you were worried that he needed some ‘involvement,’ I think he’s found it! He’s a great kid, Mark.”
“Thanks, Doug.” Responding to this compliment, I was surprised to realize that the emotion I felt was pride—parental pride. I realized too that I’d done little that seemed worthy of credit. For less than a year, I’d sheltered the kid, encouraged him, tried to understand his problems and to nurture his interests. Was that, in essence, the nature of parenting? Was it really that simple?
“Meanwhile,” said Lucy, ending my wistful thoughts, “who killed Carrol Cantrell?” Her four-word question brought abrupt focus to our purpose that morning. Stacking a few dishes aside, she pulled a folder from the briefcase propped near her chair and opened it on the table. “I’ve done a bit of research on succinylcholine, the drug that Coroner Formhals told us about yesterday.”
Glee shivered, stabbing a piece of melon with her fork, slicing it from the rind. “Such a gruesome prospect—to think that the mere prick of a needle could fell someone so robust as Carrol Cantrell without leaving a trace of evidence.”
“Any evidence would be indirect then, right?” asked Neil. The night before, I’d told him all about Dr. Formhals’s experience with succinyl during his residency at an Eastern hospital in a dangerous neighborhood.
“Right,” answered Pierce. “It’s a long shot at best, but if Carrol was injected with a lethal dose of succinyl, the drug itself would be fully metabolized and therefore undetectable. To make the case for this scenario, we’d have to establish credible circumstantial evidence. In short, we’d need to show that someone with a motive to kill Carrol had access to the drug and an opportunity to use it.”
I turned to Lucy. “What have you learned about the drug?”
She leaned over her notes. “Succinylcholine is technically classified as a depolarizing neuromuscular blocker. Its fast onset and short duration make it a drug of choice for such procedures as terminating laryngospasm, endotracheal intubation, and electroconvulsive shock therapy…”
“Meaning,” I said, “it’s essentially a surgical anesthetic.”
“Essentially, yes. Sux has been widely used in anesthesia for some fifty years. It’s very stable, with an indefinitely long shelf life under refrigeration. It has its share of adverse reactions, including hypotension and allergic reaction. Its contraindications and drug interactions include…” Lucy prattled on, teaching us more than we wanted to learn about the history and uses of succinylcholine.
In the midst of all this numbing detail, a thought managed to grab me. “Wait a minute,” I stopped Lucy. “The drug has been around forever and it’ll keep forever—if refrigerated.”
“Yes.” She sat back, taking a breather from her notes. “So?”
“This may sound nutty, but during the course of this story, which began a week ago Thursday, I’ve encountered no less than three suspicious refrigerators.”
Neil grinned. “What, pray tell, is a ‘suspicious refrigerator’?”
I also grinned, aware that my statement sounded absurd. Pushing my chair back a few inches, I explained to everyone, “On the day Cantrell arrived, Glee and I helped Grace Lord move some things from the coach house to the garage below. Among all the stuff stored there, mostly remnants of the Lord’s Rexall store, was a refrigerator, an old Kelvinator, with a padlock on its handle. Grace said she kept it locked ‘so little kids won’t play in it,’ shuddering at the thought.
“Then, a few days later, this past Tuesday, Doug took me over to Dr. Tenelli’s house and introduced us. When the doctor went to the basement to fetch us some imported beer, his wife Mary mentioned that he never let her near that downstairs refrigerator, claiming it contained ‘his own private stash.’
“Finally, yesterday morning, Glee and I visited Miriam Westerman at her goofy New Age School. In the kitchen was a glass-doored refrigerator containing, among other things, a strongbox hidden under a bunch of vegetables. Miriam told us it held her ‘secret recipes.’”
Without further comment, I crossed my arms, allowing my listeners to consider this tale of three suspicious refrigerators.
“Mark,” blurted Neil, suppressing a laugh, “there are thousands of refrigerators in Dumont, any one of which could be used to store succinylcholine.”
From the side of her mouth, Glee told me, “He’s got a point, boss.”
I was feeling a bit deflated when Pierce said, “Now hold on. Remember our formula for suspicion: motive, means, and opportunity. All three of Mark’s refrigerators relate well to this formula. Unfortunately, there isn’t one of them that fits all the criteria.”
The rest of us glanced at each other, confused—Pierce was a step ahead of us in analyzing the riddle of the three refrigerators.
Leaning forward, he elaborated, “First, consider Grace Lord’s locked Kelvinator. She was trained as a pharmacist, so we can assume she has knowledge of succinyl and its uses. The fridge is there in the garage with lots of other stuff from the Rexall store, so it could conceivably be used to store drugs. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that Grace had access to both succinyl and hypodermics, then she had the means to kill Carrol.”
Neil nodded. “And by the same line of reasoning, she also had the opportunity.”
“Right,” said Lucy, starting to draw the familiar grid on her notepad, “Grace had constant access to the coach house.”
“However”—Glee raised a finger—“what she did not have was a motive.”
We all weighed this statement for a moment, then nodded our agreement. I spoke what we were all thinking: “Grace had no reason to want Cantrell dead. She stood to gain nothing from it. To the contrary, she had every reason to want him alive today for the opening of her show. That’s why she invited him here—for professional esteem. If anything, his death has blackened her reputation among the miniatures crowd.”
“On top of which,” added Neil with a tone of heavy understatement, “Grace doesn’t quite fit the homicidal profile.”
Lucy wryly pointed out, “Neither did the sweet aunties in Thad’s play.”
We all shared a good laugh, needing to lighten the moment.
“Refrigerator number two,” said Pierce, refocusing our conversation. “Ben Tenelli is a retired doctor, so he certainly had knowledge of succinyl and access to it. Yes, he could have stored it with the Chinese beer in his basement. Like Grace, then, he may have had the means to kill Carrol. But while Grace had ample opportunity, I have no reason to think that the good doctor ever had access to the victim at the coach house.”
I reminded Pierce, “People came and went for three days. Cantrell had many visitors, and Grace was often busy in the exhibit hall—she didn’t see everyone. Tenelli could easily have slipped up there.”
“All right,” Pierce conceded, “that’s arguable. But we’re still left with the fact that Dr. Tenelli had no motive to kill Carrol. They didn’t even know each other.”
I corrected Pierce’s statement: “Tenelli had no known motive to kill Carrol. But I’m still not convinced that Tenelli’s hands are clean. I still suspect some sort of conspiracy between him and the DA with regard to the obscenity case, so it’s very likely that both Tenelli and Kaiser viewed the victim as an enemy.” Turning to Lucy, I asked, “Were you able to dig up any background on the doctor?”
“Sorry”—she shook her head, tapping her notes—“still nothing. I expect to be at the office all weekend. I’ll keep digging.”
Pierce chuckled. He told both Lucy and me, “You’re not going to find anything, but go ahead, satisfy your curiosity. You’re wasting your time though.”
I reminded him, “We’re doing this for you, Doug.”
He smiled. “I know that. And believe me, I’m grateful. So then: door number three, Miriam Westerman’s refrigerator.”
Under my breath, I told the group, “Here’s a suspect we’d all like to nail.” I crossed my legs—the memory of my dream was still achingly vivid.
“Absolutely,” agreed Glee, stabbing another piece of melon. “That woman is capable of anything—her snap mood-shifts are downright frightening. Even if she didn’t commit the murder, she has no business working with children, running a school. One way or the other, we ought to run her out of town.” With fork and knife, she delicately butchered the fruit on her plate.
Neil said, “Clearly, the woman had a motive to want Cantrell dead—he was a threat to her feminist porn battle. And yes, she kept a locked box in her fridge, which could be used to store succinyl. But the rest doesn’t fit. Where would she get the succinyl? How would she even know about it? She has no medical background.”
I tossed my palms in the air, conceding that Neil’s questions were hard to answer. Summing up, I told them, “What we’re left with, then, is this: Grace Lord and Ben Tenelli both had access to the drug, but neither had an apparent motive. Miriam, on the other hand, had a motive, but no apparent access to the drug.”
The five of us fell silent—we were stumped. What’s more, I reminded myself, the succinyl theory was little more than a far-fetched hunch. Were we merely “grasping at straws,” as Harley Kaiser had said? Was I merely fishing for any feasible explanation of Cantrell’s death that would offer an alternative to the case being built against Pierce? Had friendship clouded my objectivity? Might Pierce have in fact strangled his paramour to silence him? Such a conclusion was unthinkable, but then, our other theories (succinyl poisoning or a lethal reaction to nuts) simply were not panning out. Our Saturday-morning brainstorming session had raised more questions than answers.
“All right, then,” I told my two editors, exhaling a frustrated sigh, “I know you both need to be going. Sorry to take so much of your time on a weekend.”
“No problem,” said Lucy, rising, gathering her notes. “I’d planned to spend the day on research anyway.”
“I’m on duty too,” said Glee, also rising. “The miniatures convention opens later this morning—I’ve got to be there.”
“I’d nearly forgotten about that,” I told her, wagging my head. “With everything else going on…”
Standing, Neil told Glee, “We’ll see you later at The Nook. Mark and I both want to check out the action. Our friend Roxanne will be with us.”
“God,” I said, rising with the others, “I forgot about that too.”
Neil reminded me, “She’s coming up for the weekend.” Checking his watch, he added, “She’s on the road even as we speak.”
Pierce, last to rise from the table, told Glee and Lucy, “Thanks, gals. I appreciate all your efforts.”
Hefting her big flat purse, Glee assured him, “We’re on your side, Doug. I only hope we can help.” She pinched her oily red lower lip between her teeth.
Lucy, the less effusive, more pragmatic of the two, told us, “We’d better be going. My computer terminal awaits.”
I thanked them again, and we said our good-byes. Having parked in the driveway next to the house, both women left the kitchen by the back door.
Pierce said, “Let me help you clear the table.”
Gazing down at our breakfast debris, I wondered aloud, “How’d we make such a mess? Sure, Doug, we’d appreciate a hand.” Then he, Neil, and I set about cleaning the table, rinsing dishes, bagging uneaten pastry. “Don’t clear the coffee,” I suggested. “I haven’t had a chance to look at the paper yet.”
So a few minutes later, we were seated again with our coffee and the pile of newspapers. Tapping the front page with a finger, Neil said, “This obscenity business is really heating up. Kaiser is sounding awfully aggressive: ‘Dumont County will at last score a resounding victory for family values.’ What a flake.”
I laughed at Neil’s tame epithet for Kaiser—I’d have been far less charitable.
Neil continued, “It’s a pretty good article though. Well written.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “Charlie did a good job with it. It’s a complicated story—the history of the dispute, the legal angles—difficult to report concisely, on deadline.” I raised my coffee mug to my mouth, hiding a grin.
Neil lifted the paper and peered at the byline. “Just who is Charles Oakland?”
I reached to refill his coffee, asking, “Back in college, in the dorm, didn’t you ever play that name game? It was good for a laugh or two at dinner.”
He stared at me blankly, as though I’d lost it.
I turned to Pierce and filled his cup. “How about you, Doug—remember?”
He watched the coffee swirling in his cup, then his head bobbed up as he asked, “Something to do with your mom’s maiden name?”
“That’s it. You’d ask someone his middle name, then his mother’s maiden name. Put those two together, and you’d invented that person’s new pen name. Sometimes, the results were pretty funny, but most of the time, you’d end up with something sounding credibly ‘literary.’”
Pierce laughed. “I do remember that. If I myself should ever attempt to scribe the great American novel, I’ll write it as Lewis Swan.”
“‘Lewis Swan’”—I roared with laughter—“I love it. How about you, Neil?” I knew his middle name, naturally, but he’d never told me much about his mother’s family. Both parents had died before we met.
He thought a moment, grinned. “I’d be Michael Ellison.”
“That works,” I told him. “I like it.”
Pierce said, “How about you, Mark?”
I hesitated. Neil chuckled, asking, “That doesn’t quite make it, does it?”
“No.” I explained to Pierce, “Mom was a Quatrain, so I was named Mark Quatrain Manning, which I’ve always liked. As a nom de plume, though, Quatrain Quatrain just wouldn’t fly.” We all laughed.
Pierce thought of something. Scratching his head, he asked, “Wasn’t there a second part to the name game?”
“You bet—and that’s where it gets truly interesting. After everyone’s decided on their pen names, you move on to stage names.”
“Of course,” said Pierce, pounding the table. “Pets!”
“Right. First you ask someone the name of a childhood pet, then you ask the name of the street where he grew up. Put those together, and you usually end up with something that sounds like a stage name.”
“Or a stripper,” said Pierce, again on the verge of laughter. “Girls with cats were especially prone to embarrassing monikers, like Boots Astor or Fluffy Center.”
“There was a demure young lady in our crowd,” I remembered, “who had a dog. Her unfortunate new handle: Gypsy Jupiter. She never lived it down.”
Pierce told Neil, “If you get enough people around a table, you’re bound to come up with some doozies. Of course, if a person’s hometown streets were numbered, the game’s out the window.”
We continued to amuse ourselves by concocting more ridiculous examples (the gals all sounded like hookers, the guys like brainless beefcake), when Neil stopped short. “Hey,” he asked me, “what’s your stage name?”
“Well, I had a cat named Charlie—”
“Yeah!” Pierce interrupted. “Charlie the cat. You told me about him.”
“And I grew up on Oakland Avenue.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I’ll be damned,” said Pierce. “Charles Oakland.”
Neil asked me, “You’re Charles Oakland?”
“Yup. You see, when I bought the Register a year ago, I knew I’d never be content to settle into the role of an administrator, writing a few editorials. Reporting is in my blood, and I saw no reason to resist the occasional lure of a strong story. Unfortunately, there’s always a certain amount of prejudice that runs against a paper’s publisher, especially in small towns. I felt that readers here might question my objectivity as a reporter, since I also own the paper. So I needed another name. Turning to the old name game, I knew that the pen-name formula wouldn’t work. Not only would Quatrain Quatrain look ridiculous in print, but also, I wanted anonymity, and the Quatrain name is too well known here because of Quatro Press. I turned, therefore, to the stage-name formula and have been writing contentedly as Charles Oakland ever since.” I paused, then grinned, offering, “More coffee?”
Pierce stood. “Not for me, thanks. I need to put in some time down at the department—watching for that toxicology report—and hoping for a lucky break.”
We stood with him. Tentatively, Neil asked, “Have you done any…contingency planning?”
Pierce frowned. “Like what?” He stepped toward the door.
Neil was reluctant to say it, so I did: “Maybe you should talk to a lawyer.”
“Roxanne will be here soon,” said Neil. “I’m sure she’d help.”
Pierce rubbed his neck. “Think so?”
“Sure,” I told him. “She likes you. And she’s one of the best.”
With his hand on the doorknob, Pierce nodded. “Could you ask her to phone me when she gets here? I’ll be at the office.”
And he left.
Later that morning, Roxanne roared into town from Chicago, intending to stay till her Monday meeting with Neil and some Quatro bigwigs—they had routine legal matters to discuss regarding the massive expansion of the printing plant. Though she’d be staying at the house for only two nights, she brought enough luggage for a week. This came as no surprise, as Neil and I were accustomed to her visits, which we always enjoyed. So we happily unloaded her car and got her settled in the upstairs guest room. The jolly mood surrounding her arrival was tempered, though, by our concern for Doug Pierce and the impending toxicology report. We explained the worsening situation to her as she unpacked.
“The bottom line,” I told her, lolling on the bed with Neil, “is that Doug may need a good defense attorney. By this time tomorrow, he may be under arrest, booked for murder.”
She turned from the closet, where she was hanging some things from a garment bag. “Good Lord,” she said, “things have certainly deteriorated since our lunch last Monday. We shared a table with Doug and Harley Kaiser—there was no hint then that Doug himself was under suspicion. When did that develop?”
“Right after lunch that day.” I told her about the extortion note found by Doug’s deputy, Dan Kerr, on Carrol Cantrell’s laptop. I voiced my varied suspicions of Kerr, Kaiser, Westerman, and Dr. Tenelli. I brought her up-to-date on everything—the nut theory, the succinylcholine theory, and my persistent hunch that Tenelli’s involvement in the obscenity issue ran deeper than we understood. “He’d be my prime suspect,” I concluded, “if I could just pin him with a clear motive.”
Roxanne zipped up the empty garment bag, asking, “If Tenelli’s not your prime suspect, who is?”
I exchanged an uncertain glance with Neil before answering, “Miriam Westerman. The woman’s insane; she’s capable of anything. I recognize that it’s difficult for me to deal with her impartially—she’s the one suspect I’d enjoy nailing. Unfortunately, all the pieces don’t fit.”
Roxanne paced the bedroom. “Last time we talked, your prime suspect was the Frenchman. What happened to him?”
“We’ve sort of lost interest in Bruno. Though he has no airtight proof of his whereabouts at the exact time of the murder, there’s ample evidence that he went to Milwaukee that weekend. We’d have a tough time proving that he slipped into and out of Dumont to do the deed on Sunday morning—and the burden of proof would rest, of course, with the prosecution.”
“Toxicology is due when—tomorrow?”
Neil got up from the bed, confirming, “The results could be issued anytime between now and tomorrow morning. It’s a waiting game, Rox.”
Standing, I added, “Kaiser was blunt—unless the tests conclude that Cantrell had ingested tree nuts, Doug will be charged with the murder.”
“Where’s Doug now?”
“At his office downtown.”
“Do you know his number?”
“Of course.”
Roxanne spoke to Pierce, reviewing his situation, concluding there was nothing to be done until toxicology results were known—in Neil’s words, it was a “waiting game.” She further assured Pierce that she’d defend him if she was needed. Trying to lighten the conversation, she added, “I don’t think it’ll come to that, but if it does, I can stay on in Dumont awhile—I brought a few extra things.”
I was now glad that she had not traveled light. My instincts told me that her two-night stay at the house would be considerably extended.
After Roxanne hung up with Pierce, Neil said, “If there’s nothing we can do for Doug right now, why don’t we head over to The Nook? The convention began this morning, and the exhibits should be open to the public by now. It might be run.”
“Good idea,” I told him. “Glee is covering the opening, but I’d like to see it for myself. Besides, I’m sure Grace would be glad to see us. This has to be a difficult day for her, with Carrol Cantrell so conspicuously absent. If nothing else, we can offer a bit of moral support.”
“Fine,” said Roxanne. “How does one dress?”
Despite our assurances that there was no particular dress code for the miniatures show, Roxanne fussed with a new outfit before leaving the house. As always, she looked spectacular, choosing a tweedy gray suit with pants, perfect for the crisp fall morning. Slinging the gold chain of a large, handsome purse over her shoulder, she announced, “I’m ready now.”
As it was only a few blocks to The Nook, we decided to walk, enjoying the weather as we strolled down Prairie Street together. Turning onto Park, it became apparent that our decision not to drive was wise—the side streets were clogged with parked cars. “Wow,” said Neil. “I had no idea the show would draw such a crowd. Grace will be thrilled.”
Several minutes later, we were waiting in line in front of The Nook, preparing to buy tickets. Over the past week, I’d learned that the world of miniatures had many enthusiasts and that these shows were always well attended. But the scene in front of The Nook that morning was downright chaotic. The publicity surrounding Carrol Cantrell’s death had undoubtedly heightened the interest in this convention. An esoteric hobby had been spiced by murder, drawing the curious as well as the committed.
While paying a lady at the door a few dollars for our tickets, I noticed a sign posted there: KEEP ALL RECEIPTS. BAGS SUBJECT TO SEARCH WHEN LEAVING. The lady selling the tickets saw me read this, apologizing, “We hate to make our guests feel like criminals, but with such expensive merchandise, and all of it so small…”
Neil eyed Roxanne’s big purse.
With unconcerned innocence, she told us, “I’ve nothing to hide,” patting the purse. Then, feeling something inside, she frowned. Opening the purse, she looked within and laughed. “Actually, I do have something to hide.” And she whisked out a videocassette, holding it high—it was Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits. She explained to Neil, “I stopped at the loft last night, as requested.”
“For God’s sake,” I told her, grabbing the tape out of her hand. The cassette label featured a large color photo of the porn idol in his aroused, naked glory, wearing only those running shoes that had become my secret fixation. Several people waiting nearby in the crowd were staring at the video, aghast. Roxanne’s tearful laughter drew all the more gapes. I rumbled to hide the tape, sliding it into one of my blazer’s patch pockets. The pocket wasn’t quite big enough to conceal the cassette entirely, and Rascal’s shoes peaked up over the flap. “Now behave yourself,” I whispered loudly, grasping her elbow and yanking her inside the shop.
If the scene outdoors was chaotic, the scene within was mayhem. Roxanne, Neil, and I could barely move. Any notion of browsing or shopping was out of the question. Our best bet was to reach the rear doorway that connected to the exhibit hall, hoping the larger space beyond would be less jammed. “This way,” I told them while sidling through the crowd.
My hunch proved correct. The exhibit hall in the converted drugstore was considerably more welcoming; though crowded, there was at least room to move. Neil had visited the hall with me on Tuesday afternoon, when Grace showed us her finished roombox, so the exhibits held few surprises for him. Roxanne, on the other hand, was setting foot in the convention hall for the first time. What’s more, she was entering with no background knowledge of the miniatures world; she surely felt the same skepticism I had felt, nine days prior, when reading the announcement that the Midwest Miniatures Society was preparing to convene in Dumont. So Neil and I both did our best to fill her in, giving her a crash course that included such topics as room-boxes, one-twelfth scale, and celebrity artisans within the field.
As we strolled the aisles, Roxanne came to feel more at home in this strange little world, and predictably, her interest grew. Her comments lost their cynical edge, and her questions revealed an underlying appreciation for the exhibitors’ passion for perfection. Glancing up from a tiny set of barware that she was examining at one of the booths, she noticed a buzz of activity at the far end of the hall and wondered aloud, “What’s going on?”
“Let’s find out,” I said, and the three of us jostled toward the end of the aisle, where a clump of onlookers had gathered in the competition area. A set of television lights blinked on, adding to the excitement.
Approaching the crowd, I realized that a press conference was in progress. At the center of the action was Grace Lord with Bruno Hérisson, fielding questions from several reporters. Glee Savage was among them, with a Register photographer. There were other reporters from out-of-town papers and the trade press, including Nutshell Digest, and I recognized the crew from a Green Bay television station.
Grace was saying, “…and I’m told that this morning’s attendance has broken all first-day records for any convention of the Midwest Miniatures Society.” She beamed proudly into the TV lights. “It’s so very gratifying, in spite of the tragic circumstances.”
“I’m sure,” said the toothy airhead from Green Bay—he looked like an aging frat boy in a bad suit. Swinging his microphone to Bruno, he said, “Those same ‘tragic circumstances’ have left you, Mr. Harrison, in the winner’s circle.” Big fake smile. “From the scoop I’ve heard around the hall, you are now the reigning king of miniatures. What’s it feel like, Mr. Harrison?”
Bruno looked utterly bewildered by the reporter, his manner, and his question. He answered tentatively, “Very nice, I suppose.”
“I suppose!” echoed the reporter, slapping Bruno’s back.
Glee Savage butted in, “Mr. Hérisson?” She pronounced it correctly, of course. “You’ve not yet commented publicly on the death of Carrol Cantrell. It’s widely known within the miniatures world that the two of you developed something of a bitter rivalry over the years. Is there anything you’d care to say regarding Mr. Cantrell’s passing?”
“Chère Glee,” he answered, “I mourn his passing. I shall deeply miss Cantrell as a lost friend. Thank you for allowing me to express my sympathies to all those who loved him.”
What was that all about? Bruno’s kind words went beyond shallow diplomacy—their delivery had the ring of sincere grief. In the week since Cantrell’s murder, had his archrival’s attitudes mellowed so markedly that he now felt moved to deliver spot eulogies to the press? Or was Bruno merely acting, playing the role that would serve his business best? Perhaps he was cunning enough to fear that his ascension to Cantrell’s throne could backfire if his new subjects came to see him as a usurper.
As I pondered this, the interviews continued, and I realized that the focus of this attention was the roombox competition. Bruno had stepped in for his fallen rival as celebrity judge, and Grace was introducing him to the press as he prepared to announce the winners and award the ribbons. One of the reporters asked Grace about her own entry, the miniature reproduction of Lord’s Rexall. Blushing as the cameras swung to her roombox, she told the history of the family drugstore and explained some of the intricacies of building the miniature, but emphasized that this entry was for exhibition only. She concluded, “I built it for the joy of doing it, as a tribute to the Lord family and their contributions to life here in Dumont. That’s reward enough—I don’t expect any ribbons.” And all present applauded her.
It was a sentimental moment as Roxanne, Neil, and I paused with the others, clapping, honoring the woman whose efforts had! mounted this event. Against all odds, she’d succeeded in bringing the world of miniatures to our little town in central Wisconsin. Most who applauded Grace didn’t even know her; they were miniaturists from afar who were simply expressing their gratitude for a job well done. Others who applauded Grace had known her for years; they were the locals who cherished the nostalgia of Lord’s Rexall and had grown up with the family that once filled the big clapboard house next door. As I myself applauded, I realized that I fit neither of these two groups. Yes, I did know Grace, but I had not grown up with her family in Dumont.
Thinking of the Lord family, I allowed my mind to drift once more to the image of Grace’s nephew. Ward Lord, whom I’d glimpsed but once in the old photograph that I’d carried down the stairs from the coach house, romped again with his collie on the rolling lawn behind the Lord family home. He flashed his perfect smile, flexed his perfect body, and was gone.
My doting was interrupted by the jab of Neil’s elbow. “Hey,” he told me, “Grace is waving at you—she’s trying to catch your eye.”
Sure enough, she’d spotted me in the crowd and waved happily, looking at least a foot taller than the prim little lady who’d struggled through such difficult times of late. Her tight silver curls were again beauty-parlor fresh, her features looked relaxed and radiant, and her smart autumn outfit required no self-effacing apologies—no jeans today. I waved back, then shot her a thumbs-up, offering silent congratulations on the whole affair. She returned my thumbs-up, sharing my assessment of the morning, then turned her attention to a photographer from Nutshell Digest, who snapped a picture of her with Bruno.
I would have liked to spend some time talking with Grace, but she was busy and the logistics of the crowd were difficult, so I decided not to try—our chitchat could wait. I told Neil and Roxanne, “There are some workshop sessions at the other end of the hall that might be interesting. Care to have a look?”
“Sure,” they agreed. “Why not?” And we retreated from the crowd.
Three or four workshops were in session along the far wall, where eager students gleaned “tricks that click” from the masters. More than lectures, these were hands-on classes, working on actual projects with real materials. Advance enrollment, prepaid, was required for these sessions, which filled quickly. Still, anyone could watch, and a milling crowd of curious spectators observed the participants, who labored at tables.
One of these workshops, dedicated to techniques of curtain-making (in miniature, of course), caught Neil’s attention, so Roxanne and I waited in the aisle with him as he craned over shoulders to observe the action. The basic tool used by the class was a ridged rubber form. The parallel ridges, perhaps a pencil-width apart, served to align the folds of draw drapes being constructed. The fabric or paper, chosen for both its pattern and its pliability, was forced into the form and set with polymer, shellac, or just plain steam or water, depending on the material used and the effect desired. The result was a stiff set of drapes with perfect pleats that could then be installed as part of a larger roombox project. Even this small detail, which would doubtless go unnoticed by a casual observer of the finished room, required time, patience, and the acquired skill of the miniaturist.
The students, both men and women, all middle-aged, worked quietly under the tutelage of the expert, a plump older woman in a jumpsuit who leaned in close to demonstrate technique or to offer words of advice. Those of us watching barely spoke, as the intensity of the workshop seemed to demand silence. Collectively, we tuned out the bustle of the hall behind us, reducing the distant hubbub to a muffled din.
Placing my hands on my hips, attempting to lean closer for a better look, I knocked the Rascal Tyner video out of my jacket pocket. The plastic cassette clattered loudly as it hit the tile floor, evoking a group gasp from the entire workshop. “Sorry,” I muttered lamely as I stooped to retrieve the video. The disturbance I’d created was now compounded by Roxanne’s laughter, which she attempted—unsuccessfully—to stifle. Neil inched a step or two away from us, pretending not to know us.
Down on the floor, I glanced at the cassette label, pausing for a moment to enjoy the sight of Rascal Tyner in his running shoes. With a sigh of longing, I returned the tape to my blazer’s patch pocket. Just as I was about to stand, my field of vision was filled with someone else’s shoes—a pair of clogs—and my lusty little fantasy was instantly washed over by sheer revulsion.
“I thought I’d find you here,” yapped Miriam Westerman. Her voice was loud enough to draw the attention of several bystanders.
As I rose to my feet, my eyes passed her wrinkled green tights, her wicked-witch cloak, her necklace of carnage. Meeting her face-to-face, I told her dryly, “Brightest blessings, Miriam.”
“You scurvy penis cultist!” she blared at me, drawing the attention of everyone else within earshot. “I’ll teach you to defame my character—I’ll sue your sorry cock-whipped ass!”
Before I could think of a response, both Neil and Roxanne had closed ranks on either side of me. Shocked by the woman’s outburst, Roxanne told her, “Watch it, babe.” Her tone was strictly business. “Unless you’re prepared to tangle with me in a court of law, you’d better shut your mouth.”
Westerman puffed herself up and literally hissed—like a big snake with hair. “Ssssisters shouldn’t turn on sisterssss,” she warned Roxanne.
Now Roxanne was speechless, which took some doing.
But Neil was undaunted. “What’s this about, Miriam? This is hardly the—”
She hollered, “This is about the death of Carrol Cantrell. This is about the slanderous accusations that I was in any way involved in that crime.”
Now at least I understood the point of this confrontation. Obviously, Harley Kaiser had tattled to Westerman the suspicions we had clumsily voiced in his presence at my office the previous afternoon. Obviously, she’d figured out that the Register’s only interest in visiting her loony school was to sniff her out as a murder suspect. With a small army of wide-eyed witnesses now hanging on every word of this unorthodox debate, I told her, “You’ve been accused of nothing, Miriam. We’d be remiss in our investigation if we failed to follow up on suspicious circumstances.”
Seething, she snapped back, “The only ‘suspicious circumstance’ in this crime is that our homosexual sheriff happened to sodomize the victim mere hours before his strangled body was discovered. I also find it suspicious that you, Mr. Manning, have spared no effort to convince the public that our homosexual sheriff’s scandalous behavior is irrelevant to both the murder and the election. Could it be that your prurient interest in a fellow sodomite has tainted your precious objectivity?” She glared at me in silence, raising an inquisitive brow.
I’d managed to control my emotions throughout this assault, but now she’d pushed too far. It was time to lash back—not with a temperamental outburst, but with the one question that could truly hurt her. “Miriam,” I asked point-blank before the scores of onlookers, “why would anyone lace a cake with peanut butter, then feed it to a man who was known to be severely allergic to nuts?”
I wasn’t sure what sort of reaction to expect from her, but I was not prepared for what followed. She became suddenly calm, as though she had expected my question and had wanted me to ask it. Her cracked lips parted, forming a smirk. A whiff of her warm, foul breath hung between us. A look of victory flashed in her eyes as she told me dryly, rotely, “The peanut is a legume, Mr. Manning, not a nut. What’s your point?”
Her comeback produced its intended effect—it left me wordless.
With an air of triumph, she spun on one clog, twirling her cape. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I’d swear she cackled—wickedly, of course—as she clomped down the aisle, headed for the exit.
Crowds parted, letting her pass.
They gave her wide berth.
Was Miriam Westerman aware of the distinction between peanuts and tree nuts when she laced Cantrell’s cake with peanut butter? I would never know the answer to this question—Harley Kaiser had tipped her off regarding things that were said during our Friday-afternoon meeting with the coroner. She had learned that I suspected her of the murder, and she had learned of the coroner’s contention that peanuts are not necessarily deadly to someone with a nut allergy.
I couldn’t prove, of course, that Kaiser had armed her with this information. More important, I could now never prove that her intent was murderous when she laced the cake. In the exhibit hall that morning, before a throng of witnesses, she had proved her knowledge that peanuts are legumes, implying that this is common knowledge rather than botanical trivia. If the toxicology tests proved that Cantrell had indeed died from peanuts, Westerman now had a plausible defense—she had known only of his allergy to “nuts” and assumed peanuts were harmless to him. Alternately, if the tests proved that Cantrell did not die from an allergic reaction, Westerman would be off the hook entirely—and Douglas Pierce would find himself charged with the murder of his flamboyant gay sex partner.
These were the thoughts, the circular worries, that nettled me all day Saturday. Returning from the miniatures show, Neil, Roxanne, and I had a casual lunch at the house on Prairie Street, attempting to limit our banter to the convention’s various curiosities, but we invariably digressed, rehashing irksome details of the murder mystery—the allergy, the needle marks, the extortion note, the silk scarf. Each of these clues pointed the investigation in a different direction, arousing new suspicions, but none of these clues had led us to name Cantrell’s unknown killer.
Frustrated, we went our separate ways that afternoon. I went to the Register to check on Lucy and her research of Dr. Tenelli (no promising leads). Roxanne went to visit Pierce at the sheriff’s department to review details of his involvement with Cantrell. Neil went grocery shopping. And Thad stayed home memorizing his role.
Converging back at the house, no one felt sufficiently motivated to cook, and we again voiced our growing need to replace Hazel, the Quatrain family’s retired housekeeper. So we decided to go out—an early dinner at First Avenue Grill might lighten our spirits, and Thad would be finished in time to rush off to his first rehearsal, the read-through of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Thad was so psyched about the play, it dominated our conversation at table that evening—a welcome breather from our obsessive analysis of clues and suspects. It was the first time Roxanne had heard details of Thad’s budding interest in theater, and sure enough, “I was in that play!” she told us.
“I never knew that,” said Neil, laughing.
It was the first I’d heard of it too. “You weren’t one of the kindly old aunties, were you?” I recalled that the large cast had few female roles, and I couldn’t quite envision Roxanne hobbling around in black bombazine and a mourning veil.
“No,” she assured us. “I was Elaine, the ingenue from next door.”
“The minister’s daughter?” cracked Neil. “Not exactly typecasting, was it?”
“It was high school,” she reminded us. “I was innocent—once.”
Thad loved hearing about all this, and by seven o’clock, he excused himself, offering a round of hugs before tearing out of the restaurant with his script.
Neil, Roxanne, and I lingered over dessert and coffee awhile, but soon it was time for us to leave as well. It was Saturday evening, and it was still early, but there was really nothing to “do,” so the three of us returned to the house. In truth, we weren’t in the mood for a night out. We knew that with each passing hour, Doug Pierce’s waiting game with the coroner was drawing to a close. By morning, Vernon Formhals would have Cantrell’s toxicology report. For all we knew, Pierce’s fate was already sealed—in an envelope headed for Dumont by express messenger.
“Anything on TV?” asked Neil as we entered the house, switching on lights.
“Is there ever?” I replied with a sarcastic edge, having no taste for those second-run action movies that dominate the tube on Saturday night.
Roxanne said, “You have a VCR, don’t you?” Her tone had a wry, suggestive quality that puzzled me. Then she explained glibly, “The kid’s out of the house for the evening. Why don’t we take a look at that old tape you had me deliver?”
Her suggestion caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure how to react to it. On the one hand, I’d been yearning for days to get another look at the video of Rascal Tyner that had made such an erotic impression on me years earlier during my closeted past. On the other hand, the images on that tape depicted so many of my private fantasies, I was uncomfortable with the notion of viewing it again in Neil’s presence—let alone Roxanne’s.
But the two of them had no qualms at all. “Do you realize,” Neil asked Roxanne, “that this is the same tape you bought for me back in college?”
Laughing, she reminisced, “It seems I’ve always been procuring for you.” She didn’t need to explain that she still took credit for introducing me to Neil.
He turned, asking, “How about it, Mark? Up for a bit of historic eroticism?”
“I don’t care,” I lied. “Whatever.”
“Then it’s show time,” said Roxanne, rubbing her hands gleefully.
Laughing, I asked her, “What’s your interest in gay pornography?”
She paused, eyeing me skeptically. “Mark, I’m a mature heterosexual woman. I enjoy watching horny naked men as much as you do. Kicks is kicks.”
Duly chastised for my lack of insight, I felt compelled to ask, “We won’t have to lock you in your room tonight, will we?”
“I’ll behave. Promise.”
Neil was already setting up for our evening of video nostalgia, deciding on the television in the cozy confines of my den, plumping pillows on the leather sofa, asking me, “Where’s the tape?”
“In my desk, top drawer.” Getting into the spirit of things, I offered, “Drinks, everyone?”
“Sure,” they answered. Neil added, “I picked up a bag of those orange things for you. They’re in the cupboard with the cereal.”
Chee-Zees? This evening was shaping up better than anticipated. Retreating to the kitchen, I found the snacks, opened the bag, and dumped them into a big yellow Fiesta bowl. Then I poured a round of drinks—I didn’t need to ask the specifics. Neil and I would have our usual vodka on ice, while Roxanne, three years on the wagon, would indulge in nothing stronger than mineral water. With the three glasses garnished, I loaded them on a tray with the Chee-Zees and met the others in the den.
Neil hunkered near the fireplace, opening a cabinet that housed the VCR, loading the cassette. Roxanne flitted from lamp to lamp, dimming lights. In the semidarkened room, a shaft of light from the porch angled in through the front window and zigzagged across my desk to the floor. Setting my tray on the coffee table, I sat in the middle of the love seat. Neil and Roxanne joined me, squeezing in on either side. They had already removed their shoes, and I now kicked mine off as well. On an unspoken but mutually understood cue, we reached for our drinks, removing them from the tray.
“To the future,” said Roxanne, lifting her glass.
“To the present,” I said, skoaling both of my companions.
“To the past,” said Neil, saluting the blank TV screen. With his finger poised over the remote control, he added, “To Rascal Tyner.” And he pushed the button.
As we sipped from our glasses, the screen flickered to life. Neil zapped through the dead leader, the obligatory “FBI Warning,” the scrolling text about free speech, the glittering Hot Head Video logo, then finally the main title: Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits. As Neil removed his finger from the button, the tape began playing at normal speed, and we now heard the sound—the same dated, nameless disco hit that had thumped into my dreams.
And then, there he was. Rascal Tyner appeared on the screen, dancing naked to the disco beat. The program was clearly old—its technical finesse seemed ancient—but it had been shot directly on videotape, not film, so the moving image of the dead porn idol had an uncanny immediacy. The close shots of his face made it instantly apparent why he’d captured such an adoring audience. Roxanne growled hungrily. Neil squeezed my thigh. I felt the warm lump of arousal in my pants and wondered if this group viewing was such a good idea—things could get embarrassing. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. The camera drifted over various sections of Rascal’s body as he danced, while the superimposed title paraded past in a continuous ribbon: Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…
At last the camera showed his entire body. Yes! He wore those shoes, those same white leather running shoes that had captured my imagination, fueled my fantasies, and spiced my dreams. The title continued to roll past the screen, flashing psychedelic colors to the disco beat: Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…
The music continued, but now the image of Rascal’s dancing body was interrupted by stills from the various “solo” scenes to be featured on the tape. We got quick peeks, teasers, of the hunky porn star masturbating—on a pool table, in the shower, in an open field, on a bulldozer—each scene progressively more fevered. Throughout, the main title continued to roll: Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…
I was getting every bit as aroused as the man I saw on the screen, and I’d ceased to care whether Neil or Roxanne noticed. After all, this was their idea—if the video produced its intended effect on me, so what? We were all of age. We were well within the bounds of propriety. We were enjoying a bit of adult entertainment in the privacy of our own home.
Dingdong.
Huh? Roxanne, Neil, and I froze guiltily where we sat, then wagged our heads at each other, asking silently, Was that the doorbell? Now?
Dingdong.
“Jeez,” I muttered. “Can you see who that is, Neil?”
He was on the end of the sofa nearest the window, where a shadow now fell from the porch light. He stepped over to the curtain and glimpsed out. “Hey, Mark, it’s your editor, Lucille Haring.”
I stood reluctantly (I’d lost my fearless attitude about my erection more quickly than I was able to lose the erection itself), telling them, “This could be important.” Stepping out of the den into the front hall, I called back to Roxanne, “Can you take care of that, please?” meaning, Turn off the television.
When the disco stopped thumping, I opened the front door. Lucy rushed in, telling me, “Mark, I found something.” Not normally one to show much emotion, tonight she was effusive, explaining, “I had to tell you to your face.” She grinned.
By now Neil and Roxanne had emerged from the den, their curiosity piqued. When Lucy saw them, she acknowledged them offhandedly. Since she normally went gaga at the sight of Roxanne, I knew she must have found something big.
She told me, “You said you needed a piece of the puzzle to link Dr. Tenelli to the obscenity trial. I think I’ve dug it up.”
I smiled broadly. “Oh, really?” Stepping closer to Lucy in the front hall, I saw through the den doorway that Roxanne had not turned off the television, but had merely paused the VCR. There was Rascal Tyner, frozen in the middle of a dance step, strutting his manhood in those sexy shoes—I could just see the tops of them. His ankles were barely covered by sagging white athletic socks.
Focus, I ordered myself. “Let’s have it, Lucy. What did you find?” Though I would hang on her every word, I could not prevent my gaze from drifting back to the image on the screen as she spoke.
“I’ve been at it all day, and I was coming up dry. I checked out everything we have on Tenelli—the Register’s morgue has bulging files on the guy—he’s been such a conspicuous figure in Dumont all these years. But there was nothing to arouse the slightest suspicion. So then I got busy with public documents, logging into court records to see if there was anything fishy with regard to malpractice—but nothing. Then I retraced my earlier research of the county assessor’s office, and there was nothing with regard to taxes, real estate, or any other business dealings that would even raise an eyebrow—nothing overdue, nothing contested, nothing audited.” She paused for a breath.
I laughed. “Very thorough, Lucy. But what’s the point?” Having asked the question, I allowed my gaze to return to the television, where it lingered on the electronic image of Rascal frozen in a midair leap, flashing that perfect smile, flexing that perfect body. The title was still emblazoned across the screen: Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…
“The point,” said Lucy, “is that Ben Tenelli’s tax and real-estate records show no impropriety whatever. They did, however, get me curious about Tenelli’s family history, which in turn sheds light on…everything. Are you aware that Tenelli grew up on a farm?”
“Yeah. He mentioned that. Lots of people around here grew up on farms. His family moved into town when he entered high school. That was fifty-some years ago.” I was beginning to think that Lucy’s research had led her down a dead-end path. At that moment, the image on the screen was far more intriguing—Rascal Tyner, frozen in time.
“Eventually,” continued Lucy, “when the parents were growing older, they put the property in a trust that was set up by a Milwaukee bank. For several years, a succession of tenant farmers leased the land, with the bank handling all payments, taxes, and any other bookwork. When the parents died, Ben inherited the farm, which is out along the highway, near the interstate. Long ago, he was approached by a business that wanted to set up shop on the property, but before granting the lease, Ben created a shell corporation in Minnesota. Privately held, its sole stockholder was Ben himself, and its sole purpose was to hold the new lease and to transfer payments back into the trust at the Wisconsin bank.”
Neil shook his head. “Is it just me? I can’t follow that.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Roxanne noted, “and even I find the setup confusing.”
“It was meant to be confusing,” Lucy assured us. “With the various tenant farmers, the trust in Milwaukee, and finally the shell corporation in Minnesota, Ben created the illusion that the property had changed hands several times over the years—but he still owns that farm. The barn is now painted pink. It’s Star-Spangled Video.”
“What?” Neil, Roxanne, and I asked in unison.
Needing to verify what I’d heard, I asked, “Tenelli owns Star-Spangled Video?” As I spoke, I turned again to glimpse the video image of Rascal Tyner in the next room.
“The land,” confirmed Lucy, “not the business. In fact, the business itself changed hands some years ago, bought out by a larger outfit based in New York. The new owners assumed the cheap, ironclad long-term lease from the Minnesota corporation. They had no way of knowing who the actual owner of the land was, and Tenelli had no way of knowing that there were any serious prospects of development along the highway. Now, everything’s changed, and the land would be worth a fortune if he could get rid of the porn shop.”
“Suddenly,” said Roxanne, “it seems that the revered Dr. Tenelli had a very strong motive indeed for making sure that Carrol Cantrell would not defend the First Amendment at the upcoming obscenity trial.”
“Amazing,” said Neil, shaking his head. “This really explains a lot. Mark saw Tenelli’s car parked at the porn shop this week. I wonder what game he’s playing.”
Was a game being played? Thinking through Lucy’s revelations, following them to their logical conclusion, I again drank in the sight of the beautiful young man frozen, leaping, on the screen. Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits…
Then I gasped. “My God, that’s it!”
“Well, duh,” said Roxanne. “Of course ‘that’s it.’”
“What now?” asked Lucy, ready for action.
I thought quickly. “I need to tell Doug. Then he can call Tenelli and ask him to meet us on some pretext—anything. Does Glee happen to be at the office?”
Lucy answered, “That’s where I left her. She was working late on her report of the opening of the miniatures convention.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Swing back and get her—and ask her to phone Grace Lord. She can open the coach house for us. That’s where I want all of us to meet, there at the crime scene.”
“Let me guess,” Roxanne said playfully. “We’re all going to try to establish whether Dr. Tenelli had the opportunity to visit Carrol Cantrell on the morning of his murder.”
I paused, smiled. “Perhaps.”
Minutes later, I pulled into Grace Lord’s driveway. Getting out of the car with Neil and Roxanne, I noticed that Sheriff Pierce had already arrived. He stood near the back door of the house, talking with Grace under the porch light.
“Wait here,” I suggested to Neil and Roxanne as I stepped from the driveway up to the porch.
Pierce turned from his conversation with Grace to tell me, “Dr. Tenelli was just finishing dinner. I asked him to meet us ‘at the crime scene,’ as you asked, and he said he’d come right over.” Pierce’s words were weighted with the exhaustion of the past week. Though I’d speculated on the phone that this evening’s meeting would exonerate Pierce, he was still skeptical that the good doctor could have any involvement with the crime, and he was clearly bothered that I’d asked him to summon Tenelli.
“What is it?” Grace asked either of us, her voice wrought with confusion. “Why is Dr. Tenelli coming over?” She too looked exhausted. With the opening day of the convention behind her, she’d obviously planned on a quiet evening at home alone, kicking back—she was wearing jeans again, with a heavy flannel shirt to ward off the evening chill. She told us, “I’ll be happy to unlock the coach house for you, but why tonight?”
For Pierce’s benefit as well as Grace’s, I answered, “Because we now know who killed Carrol Cantrell.” My statement was unequivocal—no speculating, no waffling—and the surety of my words registered on both of their faces.
Grace studied me for a moment, glanced at Pierce, then turned back to tell me, “I just can’t believe that Ben would…” She left the thought unfinished, drew a hefty breath of night air, then said, her tone resolved, “Come what may, we have to get to the bottom of this. We have to know. I’ve got my key—let’s go.” And she led us from the porch.
The cool night air was still and dry. A fat orange moon, not quite full, hung low in a clear sky peppered with stars—beyond them gaped a blackened universe. Silhouetted by moonlight, trees drifted like tall ships with billowing sails on the rolling waves of the expansive lawn behind the house.
Walking from the driveway to the coach house, we were joined by Roxanne and Neil, who greeted Pierce and Grace in subdued tones, everyone aware of the gravity of our visit. As we spoke, a pair of headlights pulled in next to the house—it was Lucille Haring and Glee Savage, arrived from the Register. They too knew the purpose of our assembly, joining the group with mumbled good-evenings.
With the seven of us gathered at the foot of the stairs, I told the others, “Everyone’s here but Tenelli. Why don’t we go on up? He’ll find us.”
Roxanne leaned and whispered into my ear, “I’m sure he knows the way.”
Grace took the lead, pinching the key in her fingers as she started up the stairs. We filed behind her in twos—Pierce and I, Roxanne and Neil, Glee and Lucy. Our quiet procession rose tread by tread with the grim stateliness of a funeral march. As we turned the stairway’s landing, I peered out across the lawn to the tree that sheltered a grave. There lay the collie that once romped with Ward Lord, the nephew Grace doted on. The pointed shaft of the dog’s stone obelisk was dappled with moonbeams filtered by leaves.
Arriving on the covered porch, we clustered behind Grace as she fiddled with the key in the lock. “I haven’t been up here since the police left,” she told us. “You’ll have to excuse my housekeeping if things aren’t quite up to snuff.”
With a soft laugh, I assured her that there would be no white-glove test.
She swung the door open, switched on a light, and led us inside. The guest quarters had been closed up for a few days, smelling stale, feeling warm. We left the door open, Grace raised a window on the far wall, and fresh air swept through the room. Otherwise, everything appeared normal and neat—nothing suggested that a murder had been committed here.
We settled into the room, Pierce and I at the table, Grace in a comfortable maple rocker. Lucy and Glee pulled chairs to the cramped writing desk, spreading out their notes. Roxanne and Neil, who had never before set foot in the coach house, perched on the edge of the bed, where the rest of us had seen Cantrell’s body sprawled. Silence fell over us. The chatter of crickets drifted in on the night air.
Pierce cleared his throat. “Well, Mark? You called this meeting.”
Self-consciously I stood, feeling a bit professorial. I began, “I think you all know Lucille Haring, my managing editor.” (I was fully aware that everyone in the room was by now well acquainted, but I needed to open with something, and the statement had a preambular ring.) “Lucy has spent the day doing some background research on Dr. Benjamin Tenelli, and her digging has yielded some troubling information. It seems that Dr. Tenelli has some real-estate holdings that point to a vested interest in the outcome of next week’s obscenity trial.”
A car could be heard pulling into the driveway and parking behind the others. As the driver cut the engine and opened the door, I raised a finger to my lips, commanding silence. We listened as the car door closed. Shoes ground the gravel, walking in our direction. The walking slowed, hesitated, then stopped. After a few moments, we heard the feet climbing stairs—only three. The new arrival was on the back porch of the house. A fist rapped at the screen door. “Grace? Douglas?” called Tenelli’s voice. He laughed. “Where is everyone?”
I stepped out to the porch of the coach house and leaned on the banister. “Ben!” I called to him. “Mark Manning—up here.”
He looked up at me, shielding his eyes from the glare of the porch light. “Evening, Mark. Where’s the party?”
“Up here,” I repeated. Clearly, he had no idea why Pierce had phoned him. Also, it seemed, he had no idea how to get up to the porch where I stood. I explained, “The stairway is along the side of the garage. Careful—it’s not well lit.”
Peering into the moon shadows behind the house, Tenelli acknowledged that he now saw the stairs. Leaving the house, he crossed the path toward the garage, gripped the green railing, and started up. “Sorry to keep everyone waiting,” he told me as he climbed. For a man of seventy, he was remarkably vigorous—the steep stairway didn’t daunt him in the least. Arriving at the top, he asked, “What’s up? Douglas certainly sounded mysterious on the phone.” He laughed with gusto.
I simply told him, “Come on in, Ben. Glad you could make it.”
Swinging the door open for him, I followed him inside and quickly introduced him to Neil, Roxanne, and Lucy. No introductions were needed for Pierce, Grace, or Glee—they’d known Tenelli all their lives. I suggested that he take the chair in which I’d been sitting, at the table with Pierce. As the doctor settled in, everyone fell mum. In a jocular tone, he asked, “What on earth’s the matter?”
“Ben,” Grace said flatly, trying not to protract this encounter, “Mark has just told us that you own some real estate that relates’ to the obscenity trial. What’s he talking about?”
Tenelli’s smile fell. He hawed, “I own quite a bit of property, Grace. There’s no safer investment than land, and I’ve been lucky.”
“Specifically,” I butted in, “we’ve learned that you own Star-Spangled Video.”
“Huh?” said Pierce.
Grace gasped so forcefully, her rocker shook.
Tenelli sputtered defensively.
I qualified my statement, “You don’t own the business, just the land—and the hot-pink barn. But now you have a vested interest in getting the porn shop off your property. Due to your civic-minded efforts on the County Plan Commission, that land is now worth a fortune.”
“Ben,” said Pierce, crestfallen, “is any of this true?”
Tenelli paused. Then he admitted, “Yes, all of it.” He knew there was no point in denying these facts, as they were a matter of public record—if anyone bothered digging deep enough. “How’d you figure it out, Mark?”
I gestured toward Lucy. “My managing editor’s research savvy reaped the particulars just this evening, but my suspicions were first aroused last Monday morning, when Doug and I spotted a car like mine out at Star-Spangled. The next afternoon, we learned that it was yours. You said you had picked it up on Monday.”
With a slow, frustrated shake of his head, he explained, “The Commission’s study had raised some technical questions regarding zoning setbacks, and I wanted to confirm the exact property line with my own eyes. So I went out there to nose around for the original surveyor’s stakes—I presumed the new car was a perfect cover.” He sighed. “Guess not…”
Pierce raised a stickier issue. “Harley Kaiser claims that you’ve been pressuring him to speed up his obscenity prosecutions.”
“Gentlemen,” Tenelli told us matter-of-factly, “that’s the way of the world. That’s business.”
“That’s hypocrisy,” Grace corrected him, rising from the rocker and confronting him nose to nose. “I’m ashamed of you, Ben—collecting rent from those filthy smut peddlers all these years, then turning on them when it suits your needs.”
“Sorry, Grace. I never claimed to be a saint.”
Everyone else had claimed the doctor was a saint, though, and I felt calmly vindicated for my skepticism. Hoping this point was not lost on Pierce, I reminded him, “I had a theory all along, Doug, that Dr. Tenelli’s interest in the porn issue was less than altruistic.” Pointedly, I added, “Now we know that he also had an interest in silencing Carrol Cantrell, whose true purpose in Dumont was to scuttle next week’s porn trial.”
Grace looked confused. “What are you talking about, Mark? Carrol came here to judge the roombox competition—at my invitation.”
Before I could respond, Tenelli piped in, “Now see here, Manning, if you’re implying that I had anything to do with that man’s murder, I…I’ll…”
“Look, Mark,” said Pierce, rising, placing a hand on my shoulder, “these developments are troublesome, I admit. Yes, I think Ben has some explaining to do regarding his chairmanship of County Plan, but I don’t think he’s connected to the murder. Remember, you instructed me to phone him tonight and ask him to meet us ‘at the crime scene.’ When he arrived, we all heard him—he didn’t know where we were, and you had to direct him to the stairs.”
From the writing desk, Glee concurred, “He’s right, boss.” It was the first time Glee, Lucy, Neil, or Roxanne had spoken since Tenelli’s arrival. All heads turned, surprised by the sound from the perimeter of the room. Glee responded with a sheepish shrug.
I smiled. “I know, Glee. Doug is correct. Dr. Tenelli’s interest in the pornography issue had nothing to do with Cantrell’s murder. The murder, however, had everything to do with pornography.”
I paused, letting this riddle settle on the ears of my listeners. Everyone turned to one another, whispering, twisting their features. Everyone wondered what I meant. Everyone, that is, except Grace Lord, who stood near me in the middle of the room.
Turning to her, I said, “The murder was about pornography, wasn’t it, Grace?”
She shook her head, as if clearing her thoughts, as if she didn’t hear me.
I told her, “The porn star Rascal Tyner, who died of AIDS in the early years of the epidemic, was your nephew, Ward Lord.”
“What…?” She looked at me with a dull lack of comprehension, searching for words. Then her legs went limp, and she looked as if she might collapse. Pierce and I grabbed her by the arms and walked her to the rocker. As she sat, everyone else rose, forming a circle around the chair. The faces surrounding her bore expressions ranging from concern to astonishment. She swallowed, then told me weakly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mark.”
Standing directly in front of her, I explained, “The morning I met you, the Thursday morning when you were preparing for Cantrell’s arrival, Glee and I helped you move some things out of the coach house. I carried a picture of a young man playing with a dog, a collie. You told me, ‘That’s Ward and Rascal.’”
Neil mumbled, “Oh, my God,” raising a hand to his mouth.
I continued, “A few days later, on Sunday morning, just before we found Cantrell’s body, I asked you about that obelisk under the tree, and you told me, ‘That’s Rascal’s grave,’ referring to Ward’s collie.”
Roxanne leaned to Neil, asking, “So what? I don’t get it.”
I told everyone, “There was a name game we used to play in college. You’d combine the name of a childhood pet with the name of the street where you grew up, and that would become your new stage name. Ward Lord had a collie named Rascal, and he grew up right here on Tyner Avenue.”
Grace sat speechless as the others voiced expressions of dismay. I silently chided myself for not having earlier decoded the porn star’s name. After all, Grace had told me the collie’s name at least twice. As for Tyner Avenue, I saw the street sign every day, driving from home to the office and back. The street was specifically mentioned in Glee’s article announcing Cantrell’s “royal” visit. When I drove Glee to The Nook that morning to meet Cantrell, I needed directions, and she pointed out the turn. Subsequently, I drove there myself, often noting the street. But it wasn’t until that very evening, minutes earlier, when Lucy had interrupted our video-viewing at the house, that I finally recognized the freeze-frame image of Rascal Tyner leaping in midair. He flashed a perfect smile, flexed a perfect body, exactly as Ward Lord had done in the old snapshot. And superimposed over that image was the name Rascal Tyner.
“Mark,” said Grace, mustering some energy, “I loved Ward like a son, but after he went away to college in California, I didn’t see him much. I haven’t heard from him in many years.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
Dr. Tenelli told us softly, “My God, I haven’t thought about Ward Lord in ages. What a beautiful baby he was—I delivered him some forty years ago, during the early years of my practice.”
I dropped to one knee, resting an arm on Grace’s chair, looking into her face. “Now, Grace,” I told her, “I’ve seen Ward’s picture—he looked like Rascal Tyner. And we can easily find out what Rascal Tyner’s real name was—it’s a matter of simple research. But that’s not necessary. We know that Ward and Rascal were the same person, don’t we, Grace?”
Leaning back her head, she glimpsed the circle of faces looking down at her. Then, with just a trace of defensiveness, she asked me, “What if they were the same person? What does that prove?”
It had to be said: “It proves that you killed Carrol Cantrell.”
“Mark! What? I…I,” she sputtered.
Pierce quietly cautioned me, “Hey, Mark. Easy now.”
Roxanne asked me, “That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?”
“No,” I told everyone, “it isn’t a leap. It’s a logical conclusion. Everything else fits.” Rising, I stepped away from the group around Grace’s chair, gathering my thoughts. From the middle of the room, I told them, “Consider this scenario:
“Grace doted on her nephew. She never married or had her own kids, and she just now told us that she loved Ward like a son. He went away to college in California, where his astounding good looks led to a career as porn star Rascal Tyner. Grace did not lose touch with Ward, but knew exactly what he was doing and expressed her disapproval. Their conversations revealed that a man named Carrol Cantrell was responsible for Ward’s unseemly video career.
“Then Grace’s worst fears were realized: Ward died of AIDS contracted from the unsafe sex practices he performed in Cantrell’s videos. Grace held Cantrell responsible for the death of her beloved nephew. Vengeance was an appealing notion, but she knew the possibility was remote, since she and the porn producer moved in such different circles, two thousand miles apart.
“Years passed. Grace’s career plans changed from pharmacy to miniatures, and she eventually discovered that a man named Carrol Cantrell had established himself as a big name in her little world. Along the way, she had gotten computer literate; she mentioned to Glee and me that she used the Internet to locate the inventory of miniature products for her Rexall roombox. Tapping this research knowledge, she easily determined that Carrol Cantrell was the same man who had produced Ward’s videos, and she further learned that Cantrell had become something of a free-speech crusader in pornography battles—the very same sort of legal battle that was shaping up here in Dumont. So she hatched a plan.
“She decided to host a convention of the Midwest Miniatures Society at The Nook, inviting Cantrell to judge the roombox competition—she even offered to lodge him here in the coach house. Her letter of invitation, which was found among Cantrell’s things, made specific mention of the porn trial that was looming. She guessed correctly that this ‘coincidence’ would lure him to Dumont. Once he was here, under her own roof, the rest was easy.” Needing a breather, I paused.
Grace had listened silently, shaking her head lamely, sniffling. The others heard my scenario with less emotion, judging its plausibility. Tenelli, who had not been privy to the many turns of the investigation, told the group, “This is all just speculation. I’ve heard little that would actually link Grace to the crime.” He patted her shoulder.
I explained to him, “The known facts of the case fit together with unerring precision. We have, I’m afraid, ample evidence to accuse Grace of murder.”
Her sniffling mushroomed into a single loud sob, then subsided.
“Let’s review the rest of it,” I told the group. “Last Sunday morning, in this room, we found Carrol Cantrell’s body, apparently strangled. His extremities were blue; his neck was marked with abrasion wounds. A wrinkled silk scarf, the apparent murder weapon, was found snagged on the wooden banister outside. This pointed to Bruno Hérisson as the obvious suspect.
“Then, on Monday, a file was discovered on the victim’s laptop, an extortion note intended to cast suspicion on Doug Pierce. Since Doug knew that he didn’t kill Cantrell, we could assume the note was bogus—somebody planted it there. This development led us to suspect both Dan Kerr and Harley Kaiser.
“On Thursday, the coroner raised a new possibility—the victim may not have died from strangulation, but from anaphylactic shock triggered by an allergic reaction to nuts. Miriam Westerman shot to the top of our list.
“Finally, on Friday, the coroner raised the further possibility of poisoning by succinylcholine, which raised my suspicions of you, Dr. Tenelli.”
“Me?” said the doctor, astounded. “You’ve gone goofy, Manning. You’re running in circles like a dog chasing its tail.”
“Sorry, Ben. Not to cast aspersions on you, but everything fit. What’s more, the only other person we knew of who might have access to the drug was Grace, but we assumed she had no motive to kill Cantrell. Now we know otherwise. She was bent on avenging the death of her nephew. And here’s how she did it:
“A trained pharmacist, Grace was devastated decades ago when her family-owned drugstore succumbed to competition from the Walgreens chain and closed its doors. She helped oversee the dismantling of Lord’s Rexall, storing a garageful of paraphernalia directly beneath this room, where there’s a locked refrigerator, an old Kelvinator. Stowed within it, I’m sure, is a supply of succinyl, kept potent all these years.
“Enter Carrol Cantrell. His days were numbered when he arrived in Dumont on that Thursday morning. Within three days, Grace had had ample time to observe her intended victim and to fabricate an intricate web of confusion that would mask his true cause of death.
“So on Sunday morning, she entered the coach house on some pretext—perhaps to tidy up her guest’s room—and in the process, she pricked his thigh with a syringe she had loaded with a deadly dose of succinyl, downing him within seconds. When he was debilitated, helpless, and dying, she garroted him with a silk scarf from his collection, recognizing the scarf as a gift from his business rival, Bruno Hérisson. Producing Cantrell’s neck wounds when he was at the point of death, she created a set of symptoms that convincingly suggested strangulation.
“But Grace wasn’t through. She then injected him with his own EpiPen, casting double confusion on the cause of death and leading the investigation on another stray tangent.
“Finally, creating a third red herring, she called upon her computer skills to add a bogus extortion note to the files on Cantrell’s laptop, implicating Doug, whom she’d seen at the coach house several times. The document was oddly worded, referring to a ‘dalliance’ between Doug and the victim, a term that struck us as highly peculiar. I knew I’d recently heard someone use it, or a variant of it, and now I recall the incident vividly. On the Thursday morning when I first met Grace, she told Glee and me about the miniature drugstore she was building, and we asked to see it. ‘There’s no time to dally, not now,’ she told us, because Cantrell was due to arrive any minute.
“Even though we concluded from the beginning that the extortion note was a fake, a plant, it accomplished its purpose, deflecting suspicion from the real killer by attempting to frame Doug. More important, it wrenched the investigation itself, as Doug felt obligated to withdraw from it.”
I fell silent, having stated my case exhaustively and, to my mind, conclusively. While I spoke, the group of listeners had drifted from the rocking chair, seating themselves about the room, pondering the facts. Only Ben Tenelli remained with Grace, whose tears had dried on an expressionless face. Tenelli told her, “Don’t worry, Grace. Manning tells a good story, but remember, he’s a writer. He may have crafted a clever plot, but what he still lacks is evidence. He has nothing to link you to this crime.”
Stepping toward them, I said flatly, “Doug can obtain a warrant—tonight—to examine the contents of the locked refrigerator downstairs in the garage. If that search reveals possession of succinylcholine, any featherweight prosecutor could build a winning case on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence.”
Grace looked at me, then at Tenelli, then her gaze fell to her lap. Tenelli retreated from the rocking chair, flumping into a seat at the table.
Again I dropped to one knee, leaning in close to her. She looked especially tiny and shrunken, surrounded by the maple spindles of the rocker. Taking her hands in mine, I said, “It might have worked, Grace, if we’d failed to fathom your motive. You hid your pain well all these years. Maybe it was just dumb luck that I crossed paths again with Rascal Tyner this week, but even if I hadn’t, the connection would have clicked eventually.”
She raised her head and asked, with genuine curiosity, “Why?”
“Something has been troubling me for days, and I just now figured it out. On the morning I met you, you were cleaning some things out of the coach house, getting ready for Cantrell’s visit. You explained that you didn’t think the king of miniatures would be interested in pondering ‘the Lord family’s sentimental old bric-a-brac’ So Glee and I helped you carry these things down to the garage—I carried the photo of Ward. Otherwise, though, the boxes contained what I’d call ‘junk,’ nothing of sentimental value.
“Two days later, when I visited Cantrell up here with Miriam Westerman and Harley Kaiser, I noticed the dresser—that one.” I pointed. Everyone in the room turned to look as I continued, “I noticed right away that something seemed to be missing, something that had been hanging on the wall above it. Naturally, I presumed that it was the photo of Ward that was gone. Still, the whole tableau bothered me, and now I know why.
“First, the dresser is cluttered with knickknacks, snapshots, and other memorabilia—stuff that certainly qualifies as ‘sentimental old bric-a-brac,’ which would have been removed if you’d been speaking truthfully on Thursday. In fact, though, the only item of sentimental value that had been taken from the room was the enlarged picture of Ward—because Cantrell would have recognized it.
“Second, the missing photo of Ward had hung there between candles, as if enshrined on an altar. It should have struck me then and there that your devotion to the boy had a passionate edge. And I’ll tell you this, Grace: though what you’ve done is wrong, I most certainly understand your passion.”
In the silence of the room, I smiled, trying to coax one in return.
Grace sniffled, flicking the crust of a dried tear from her lashes. “Thank you, Mark,” she told me, patting my hand, returning the smile. “All right,” she added with a wan little chuckle, “you got me.”
Roxanne rolled her eyes.
I stood. My knees were killing me.
As for Grace, the crisis had passed, and she now appeared serene—shot, but serenely so. She told everyone, “Yes, Mark got it right, the whole dismal story. I did indeed love Ward. I still do. With a passion—I guess that’s the right word. When Ward moved to California with my brother’s family, I grieved that I’d lost him. Little did I know how prophetic that grief would prove to be. Losing Ward was the worst chapter of my life, far worse than losing the drugstore. Because of the circumstances of Ward’s death—the AIDS, the pornography—the whole tragedy was never acknowledged by the family. My God, there wasn’t even a funeral. The wound just festered. There was no ‘closure.’ Well, there’s certainly ‘closure’ now—I killed Carrol Cantrell with an injection of succinylcholine, just as Mark said. I went too far. I know that. But what’s done is done.” She paused, then added, “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Both of my editors, Lucy and Glee, were engaged in some frantic note-taking at the desk, preparing tomorrow’s headline story.
Neil sat with Roxanne on the edge of the bed, his comforting arm slung over her shoulder as they listened to Grace’s confession.
Tenelli remained seated at the table, shaking his head in somber disbelief.
I reminded the little woman in the rocking chair, “You’ve cast suspicion on a number of people, Grace. But the person you’ve truly hurt is Doug.”
“Mark”—Pierce stepped toward me—“don’t.”
“No, Mark is right,” said Grace, rising from the chair, stepping a single pace toward us. “Douglas, I am so very sorry. I’ve always been fond of you, and I was reluctant to implicate you in the crime, but I needed someone to be the object of the extortion note I planted, and well, I’d actually seen you visit the coach house at night. But believe me, Doug, I had no idea that you and Carrol were in fact having a dalliance. I assumed you would easily clear yourself, but instead, it seems I’ve actually hurt your chances in the election. I didn’t mean to—what?—push you out of the closet. I didn’t even know you were in a closet.” She covered her mouth with her fingertips.
“Grace,” said Pierce, heaving a sigh, “you may have done me a favor. I can handle the ‘outing’—not that I appreciate being accused of murder.”
Stepping toward him, she said, “Well, Douglas—do your duty.”
He hesitated. “Grace, I can’t tell you how difficult—”
“Posh now. You know what needs to be done, Sheriff. How does it go? ‘You have the right to remain silent’?”
Roxanne rolled her eyes again.
And Pierce recited Grace’s rights.