Later that Wednesday morning, just before noon, I arrived at the New York Times building to meet Fleming and Considine. Why, I wondered, had the two of them gotten in touch with me? I guessed that someone had told them I had known Dorothy and Warren for some time before Dorothy was killed, and they were hoping to get some background information. For my part, I welcomed the opportunity to learn what they knew about the Metropolitan Museum murder as well as Dorothy’s. Besides, it would be interesting to learn what these two were like.
The new Times building stretches from 40th to 41st Streets on Eighth Avenue. A high-tech affair, especially compared to their old quarters just off Times Square, it is a fifty-two-story steel-framed building with New-Age ceramic horizontal bars from the street level to the top. The bars, by the way, proved to be an irresistible temptation for daredevil climbers, not a few of whom have scaled the building all the way up.
Dean & Deluca occupies the corner of 40th and Eighth Avenue. I was perusing pastries in a glass case when someone behind me said, “Mr. Johanssen?” I turned, and there they were, Fleming and Considine: a striking visual contrast if ever there was one. Fleming was petite, about five feet four, with short, dark hair cut in a bob across her forehead with square sides that formed a perfect frame for her round, Kewpie-doll face. Riding on her pug nose, and covering much of her face, was a pair of the largest round glasses with black frames I’d ever seen.
Considine, on the other hand, was tall and angular, about six feet two or three, with arms akimbo and legs with a life of their own. On top was a thatch of straw-colored hair that wanted to go in several directions at once. With sunken cheeks and a sharp, thin nose, he had the air of a walking scarecrow.
“It’s Georgina and Andrew—correct?” I said to them.
“Actually, it’s Gina and Drew,” she said.
“Both of you are enders.”
“What do you mean?” asked Drew.
“Your names. One would think it might be Georgie and Andy, but with you two it’s not the start of the names but the end.” A joke that fell flat.
Gina changed the subject: “Why don’t we get a sandwich or something and head up to a conference room?”
I chose a Black Forest ham and brie on dark bread and a cappuccino in a paper cup; Gina got a salad and Drew a chicken sandwich. The main doors of Dean & Deluca are on 40th and Eighth, but a side door opens directly into the Times building lobby. That door is ordinarily locked, but Gina and Drew had arranged for it to be open, so I was ushered through and whisked past security to the elevator.
We alighted on the third floor and walked briskly to a small conference room. Inside was a table with six chairs grouped around one end where we sat, with me in the middle at the head. As we began eating our lunch, Gina spoke: “Peter Patch, the theatre writer, told us three things about you.”
“Oh?”
“First, he said you were a reliable, solid actor.”
“Not exciting or mesmerizing?”
“I’m quoting directly.”
“Good thing Peter is a theatre reporter and not a critic.”
“Two, that you have a reputation as a clever amateur detective. And three, that you inherited a great deal of money and have an independent income.”
“Sorry, but Peter has just blown it as a reporter.”
“No independent income?” asked Drew.
“When I was in my late twenties, I received two modest inheritances: one from a grandmother on one side, one from a grandfather on the other. Neither of a size you could live on.”
“But you do have the reputation of being well-off.”
“When I decided to go into the theatre, I was focused on one thing: becoming a stage actor in New York, not film or television. That meant I had to have some reliable source of income to see me through when I was ‘between engagements.’ Early on, I began to teach myself about investing and, fortunately, found I had a knack for it.”
“It takes more than that, and you know it,” remarked Drew.
“Agreed. I studied assiduously, not just the markets and various funds, but the psychology of those who invested. I discovered that if you are inquisitive and alert enough, as well as detached and skeptical enough, you can do all right. In any case, within fifteen or twenty years I had enough capital so that I could get by on the income. Then, when my father died, I did inherit more money. Not a great deal, but enough to put my toe in the water with a hedge fund. That’s when I crossed paths with Warren and Dorothy.”
“And that worked out well?” Drew asked.
“In those days Warren was a whiz—not an overnight wonder, but a man who researched everything within an inch of its life. He would go to Idaho to visit a company with a new process for making plastic pipe, or to Silicon Valley to visit promising start-up tech firms. He was all over the place: infinitely perceptive and sharp, but also careful. His minimum investment was $500,000, and the inheritance from my father had given me just enough to join. Over the next six years, I increased my stake at a rate of nearly 20 percent a year. Every year Warren had a black-tie event for his investors, at the Frick, the Temple of Dendur, or some such place. It was at those affairs that I got to know Dorothy. Even then, she was interested in theatre, and several times she arranged for us to sit next to each other at dinner so she could talk about plays, actors, and producing.
“After I had been with the fund for about six years, I decided it was time to cash out. Nothing startling that I could point to, but I had the sense that Warren wasn’t on top of things the way he had been, and that funds like his might be in for a reversal. So, following my cautious approach, I got out. Warren couldn’t understand why. I told him it was because I was buying a loft on Broome Street. It was shortly after I pulled out that Warren divorced Dorothy. The other woman wasn’t his secretary or some twenty-eight-year-old trophy wife, but a research analyst at his firm, a purposeful-looking gal, with dark hair, an upturned nose, and a firm chin. She wore rimless glasses that made her look like a serious academic, though I’m sure she looked a good deal less serious when she was alone with Warren and took the glasses off.
“Being the savvy person she was, Dorothy walked away with $28 million and the New York apartment. Moreover, she made certain that none of the money was invested with Warren’s fund. She joined up with Charlie Winthrop, a top-of-the-line financial advisor to a select group of well-to-do clients. Devilishly astute but levelheaded and cautious, he husbanded his clients’ assets while making them grow impressively. As someone said, he ‘made rich people that much richer,’ which is what he did for Dorothy. Warren was not so lucky. Two years later his fund went belly-up, even before the 2008 meltdown. I don’t know what happened to his dark-haired research analyst.”
“So, where is he today?”
“I don’t know, but I mean to find out. I’m seeing some people tomorrow who may be able to help.”
“And will you let us know what you learn?” Gina asked.
“About him or anyone else connected to this case,” Drew added.
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you about Warren—and Dorothy—if you will tell me all you are allowed to about Mulholland.”
“We can’t promise …”
“I know. But I’m not interested in a one-sided affair.”
“Understood,” Drew assured me.
“I did want to thank you for making a sharp distinction between Mulholland and Dorothy. She was no dilettante, no one who bought her way in. She knew the difference, if anyone did, between the original and the synthetic.”
“You admired her?”
“Enormously. But tell me, where do things stand with the Mulholland deal?”
“Precious little on the case itself.”
“There must be something, some small clue: a discarded glove, a fingerprint, something.”
“So far, not the slightest break at the museum itself.”
“It can’t be that airtight.”
“The police say they’ve never seen one more so.”
“People keep saying that it was a professional job, but they can’t mean professional in the usual sense. This was not a mob operation, some hit man from New Jersey or a Russian assassin from Brooklyn.”
They looked at each other. “We’ve reached the same conclusion,” said Gina.
“Yes,” Drew agreed, “there’s something weird about all this. You’ve got this not-too-well-known trustee, this outrageously symbolic murder, and this airtight crime.”
“True,” I said. “So far the pieces don’t add up.” I added, “What about Mulholland the man?”
“Before we get to that, do you know someone,” Gina looked at a note pad, “named Lucius Beaufort?”
“Sonny?”
“I think it’s the same person.”
“Absolutely. He was two years behind me at Princeton. We knew each other in the Triangle Club. Why do you ask? No one’s trying to connect him with this, are they?”
“It came up that he has been concerned with financial fat cats and Johnny-come-latelies buying their way into arts establishments.”
“So?”
“You can see why his name surfaced.”
“No, I can’t. And neither could anyone else who knows Sonny.”
“It’s helpful to have your input on this.”
“Now what about Mulholland?”
The two looked at each other. “Ah,” Gina said.
“You’re onto something there?” I asked.
“Let’s just say he seems to be two different men: the one before Chicago and the one after Chicago,” said Drew.
“And you’re learning about the one before?”
“We have a long way to go, but it’s already very interesting.”
“When will the rest of us hear about this?”
“We’re working on an article that will be out Friday or Saturday.”
“Not sooner?”
“A few more stones we have to turn over—also, the legal department wants to vet the material.”
“Intriguing, to say the least.”
“Sorry we can’t say more.”
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to be on my way.” We exchanged cell phone numbers and promised to be in touch.
It had been raining off and on all Wednesday morning, the day of the visitation. The rain stopped a half-hour before I arrived at Dorothy’s apartment, but the sky was still overcast. Her apartment, in the East 70s between Park and Madison, was a spacious, extremely tasteful space with a couple of Aubusson carpets, lovely draperies, and a nice mix of antique and modern furniture. The library was especially inviting, the scene of a number of play readings I had attended. Bookshelves covered two walls, with an impressive collection not only of theatre volumes but also modern classics. On a third wall was a small, wood-burning fireplace framed by two leather armchairs on one side and a short sofa on the other. On the wall opposite the fireplace was an antique table desk, with a computer to the side—obviously Dorothy’s office at home.
When I arrived, someone took my raincoat and umbrella, and I signed the visitors’ book. Moving into the living room, I thought to myself that only in a place like Manhattan would you find the variety of people assembled here: upscale couples from the suburbs; people from high finance in the city; and a mixture of actors, designers, directors, and writers from the theatre. It was relatively easy to spot the types even if you didn’t know them individually. Old friends from Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien—predominantly WASPs, well-groomed, in appropriately somber outfits. Then there were the Manhattanites, the business types—lawyers, bankers, advertising executives—with their wives, a few of whom were slightly more colorful in their dress. Added to that were the younger ones, friends of Annie, Curtis, and Danny, the men in their tailored suits from Paul Stuart or Peter Elliot, and the women in subdued designer dresses from shops on Madison Avenue. The theatre folk came in two categories: those in the producing or business side, mostly dressed like the business types but often with a slightly flamboyant touch—a handkerchief spilling out of a jacket pocket, a wide-striped shirt, a more adventurous tie, even the occasional boutonniere—and the other theatre category, the artists. They, of course, were more unconventional: a tweed jacket over a turtleneck, a black shirt with a black tie under a checked jacket, a purple shirt and yellow bow tie, even one instance of a pair of baggy corduroy trousers below a loose-fitting, shapeless jacket.
Despite the rainbow coalition in dress, the entire group was bound together in its disbelief and dismay that this could have happened, that Dorothy, so universally loved and admired, could have been killed in the prime of life, and that the killing was so brutal. I made my way through the group, nodding here and there, but anxious to speak first to Annie, Curtis, and Danny. I found them in the back corner of the living room, surrounded by several young people their age. I went to Annie first and embraced her. Neither of us was anxious to speak, so for a moment we simply held one another.
Finally, I said, “Annie, I can’t tell you.”
“I know.”
“I know this is hard for you—all of you.” I included Curtis and Danny in the words. “I don’t know whether it’s harder being alone or surrounded by a crowd like this.”
“It’s not easy either way,” said Annie.
In a moment, I broke from Annie and shook hands with Curtis and Danny. I suspected that Annie had taken a tranquilizer, and it was obvious from his subdued state that the excitable Danny had taken more than one. Despite that, he made it clear he wanted to talk to me.
“Can we go back to the bedroom for a moment?” he asked.
“Danny, you have to stay here and see people.”
“When can we talk?”
“I have a run-through tonight.”
“After that?”
“All right.”
“At your loft?”
“I’ll check with the stage manager to learn when we finish and let you know the time.”
“Thanks.”
I went back to Annie and Curtis and spoke to her. “Annie, if there’s anything I can do …”
“Thanks, Matt. I think everything’s in hand. People are being very kind. There is one thing, though.”
“Which is?”
“Solving this thing.”
“I’m working on it night and day, believe me. In my own way, of course.”
“Any leads?” asked Curtis.
“A few, but so far nothing definite.”
“Anyway, we all feel better with you involved.”
Others were anxious to talk to the three of them, so I moved on, speaking briefly to the people I knew: Paul and Marge Morehead, the parents of Roger, the one who had threatened Dorothy in her office; Lance Middlecoff and others I recognized from the Joshua Fund days. Many of the theatre people spoke not only of how terrible it was, but how it must be particularly difficult for those, like me, about to open in a show she was involved in.
Sybil and Artemis showed up separately but not that far apart, which made me think they had probably come together but didn’t want people to know it. Sybil was unusually subdued, wearing a gray-striped outfit over a white blouse and a minimum of jewelry. Artemis wore a blazer, blue shirt, and striped tie—extremely straight-arrow for him. I spoke to both of them; it was a decidedly formal greeting on their part, bordering on chilly—behavior that was not unexpected.
It was getting late. A number of people had come and gone, and I was beginning my exit, when Warren, Dorothy’s ex-husband, appeared. I felt he should have come earlier, but better late than never, I thought. Then I noticed it: something about his manner was a shade off. Nothing you could put your finger on, but he seemed strangely detached, not quite connecting with the occasion or the people around him. He and I spoke, and if anything he was overly cordial. I decided he had either been drinking or was on some kind of medication. Watching him, I decided it was probably the latter. After bidding farewell to him and a few others, I made my exit.
• • •
I went home to change before going to the theatre for the run-through. In the meantime I called Seymour Pascall. Seymour worked at the coroner’s office, and I first met him when he was much younger and we were filming a scene from Law & Order. I was playing the part of an older brother asked to identify the body. When we were about to shoot the scene, the actor playing the pathologist suddenly became quite ill—a case of food poisoning, it turned out. The director was about to cancel the shoot when I intervened and said that, rather than wasting valuable time, we should try to use the actual pathologist. “I’ve been talking to him,” I said, “and I’m sure he can handle it. We can take care of the union details later.”
And that’s what we did, with the result that Seymour appeared on national TV. We remained in fairly close touch, partly because I liked him, but also because I thought it was a good idea to have a friend in the coroner’s office.
“Seymour,” I said. “I would really like to know what they found with the autopsy on Dorothy Tremayne.”
“The producer?”
“Yes.”
“Are you connected to the show she was producing?”
“I’m in it. I was there when it happened.”
“Oh, my God.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“You know asking this is highly irregular.”
“We both know that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I appreciate it more than I can say.”