Down the platform in Stamford, Arnie was waving at me. We shook hands, and I thanked him profusely for seeing me on such short notice. “We’re in luck,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Palmer Randolph is joining us for lunch. He’s a partner at Loeb, Sims, and Whiteside, a conservative bond fund, but he has his finger on the pulse of everything and everyone in Stamford. He’s meeting us at the Downtown Club.”
The Stamford Downtown Club was on the top floor of one of the office buildings that dot the city center. When you get off the elevator, you leave behind the chrome, glass, and stainless steel of the floors below and enter the world of a men’s business club, based, no doubt, on English models but found throughout corporate America: leather chairs with brass studs, prints on the walls, a bar well-stocked with single malt Scotch, and a view of the city below. I quickly discovered there was a club crest or coat of arms with SDC embossed on a shield above crossed, old-fashioned wooden golf clubs. It was emblazoned not only on the waiters’ white jackets but also on the fancy paper napkins at each place at the table.
Palmer turned out to be on the short side, about five feet seven, with a round face, a reddish nose, and jowly cheeks. Bald on top, he made up for it with bushy hair sticking out on the sides, thick eyebrows, and a nice bristly crop of hair protruding from each ear. He and I were introduced, and the three of us were shown to a table by a window, fortunately out of earshot of nearby tables. Once we were seated, one of those white-coated waiters appeared and took our drink order. Arnie ordered a glass of Pinot Noir, Palmer had a glass of iced tea, and I asked for a nonalcoholic beer.
After Palmer expressed his shock and sadness about Dorothy, I explained to him briefly my involvement with Warren and how I had invested in the Joshua Fund, which was when I had gotten to know both Warren and Dorothy. I added that I had done quite well with Warren’s fund but had gotten out a few years back because I wanted to invest in other things. “You were lucky,” Palmer said.
“In hindsight,” I said, “very lucky. But after that I lost touch with Warren. Dorothy, of course, I saw a lot of because of our common interest in the theatre. But Warren I haven’t spoken to in I don’t know how long, and I wanted to get caught up on what’s been happening to him.”
“It’s not been good, I’m afraid,” Palmer said. He explained that, somewhere along the line, just before the 2008–09 crash, Warren’s fund began to falter. Eventually he cashed out his funds—at a loss to most of his investors—but still he himself came out in reasonably good shape, with perhaps $70 million, Palmer estimated.
But then Warren began to invest in things he knew very little about, a couple of small start-up companies and other things. “The most bizarre item,” Palmer said, “was mice.”
“Mice?”
“Specially bred for the pharmaceutical industry that replicate some kind of desirable DNA drug companies are looking for and cost $30,000 apiece.”
“Thirty thousand dollars for one mouse?” Arnie asked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I wish I were,” said Palmer. “In any case, none of this really panned out, and a few months ago Warren was in a bad way: he still had a few million, but for him that was pennies on the dollar.”
While talking, we had ordered and eaten our lunch, and by this point, had finished. The waiter arrived, picked up our plates, and asked if we cared for dessert. I demurred, saying I would just have a decaf coffee, but Arnie spoke up: “They have a great rum raisin ice cream—homemade.” I’m a sucker for ice cream and reluctantly agreed to try it. Arnie ordered a bowl of fruit and Palmer a slice of cheesecake, and the waiter left.
“On the subject of Warren,” I asked Arnie, “do you know anything about this new enterprise with a young man from St. Louis?”
“I’ve heard something about it. It seems that the boy’s father remembers Warren from the old days when he made money with him, but knows very little about his recent history. He has staked Warren and his son to a new venture. A couple of the young associates in our law firm tell me they know the boy. They’ve seen him at parties and at a local watering hole.”
The waiter brought our desserts, and I dug in. Meanwhile, around a mouthful of cheesecake, Palmer said, “From what I hear, Warren is not in good shape these days: distracted, having mood swings. Anyway, given all that, to my mind he couldn’t possibly be the one who did this to Dorothy: put this whole scheme together, even if he decided to take such drastic measures.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Palmer, and I’m glad you said something.”
“He appears to have become flakier and flakier,” Arnie said. “Ebullient and over the top one moment, eerily silent the next. Reggie Butler, who has been in the same golf foursome with Warren for years, says that a couple of months ago Warren became so erratic, forgetting tee times, seeming distant and out of it, that they had to ask him to drop out of the group for a while.”
“What’s this about Warren living in a carriage house?”
“He’d already sold the house—into a down market, by the way—and had taken an apartment, but there was some problem there, so Aubrey Nichols threw him a lifeline: lent him his carriage house on Round Hill Road.”
“Which Warren gratefully accepted.”
“Exactly.”
It was time to leave. Arnie and Palmer didn’t need a check because you never do at these places; the waiters know whom to charge the lunch to. Downstairs, I thanked Palmer profusely for being so generous with his time and providing me with so much helpful information.
As Arnie and I were saying goodbye, I asked him, “About this young partner, Stuart Ross.”
“As I said, quite outgoing, I understand.”
“If you could ask the young men you know what Stuart was doing last Monday night, I would really appreciate it.”
“I’ll do what I can. It’s a long shot, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right?”
“Right.”
• • •
After I arrived at Grand Central, I headed to the loft. The phone was blinking: a message from Monaghan. I called him.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Stamford, Connecticut, as I mentioned to you earlier.”
“Learn anything?”
“Warren has been acting strangely. I’ll tell you about it. Anything from you?”
“Ever hear of someone named Troy Hildebrand?”
“Let me think. He’s in Minneapolis, right?”
“Was in Minneapolis. Last Monday night he was at your theatre.”
“You mean the night that Dorothy …?”
“Exactly.”
“Wait a minute, Monaghan, I’m putting this on the speakerphone. I have to change my clothes. I’m due at the theatre for an early rehearsal.”
Troy Hildebrand was an offbeat but talented director. When he directed a play in a straightforward way, as often as not it would be brilliant. But he was a great experimenter who could let his imagination run wild. He might, for instance, move The Three Sisters from Russia to a small town in the Midwest, with the sisters desperate to get to Chicago, or present Hamlet entirely from within a series of nets like the safety nets put under trapeze artists in the circus—the hero as a man caught in a net or spider web. When this sort of thing worked, it could be a revelation, but more often than not, it missed the mark entirely or appeared self-indulgent.
The Centre Theatre Group, the company producing our play, was originally Troy’s brainchild, but what made the theatre successful was his teaming up with Ardith. Gradually, however, Ardith edged him out. One of her great talents was ingratiating herself with the members of her Board of Directors. Quietly but persistently, she convinced most of the directors that Troy was too erratic and unreliable to be an artistic director. Finally, one of his productions went way over budget, and the Board ousted him, making her the sole artistic director.
I turned on the speakerphone. “The last I heard of Troy, he was head of a well-regarded theatre in Minneapolis.”
“Apparently he lost his job. It seems he and the woman who headed the board out there had a falling–out. When we went back to the cast and crew of your production to ask about third parties that may have wandered in Monday night, the sound man, Ollie Simpson, says this Troy fellow was there, in the light booth with Samantha whatever her name is.”
“Samantha Orenstein,” I said.
It was clear that Monaghan was pleased that his hunch that someone besides cast and crew might have been around Monday night. “I gather,” he continued, “that Troy and Samantha are buddies. Anyway, the Simpson guy seems to be the nosy type, interested in everyone’s business. He says the rumor is that the head of the board in Minnesota is a good friend of your Ardith: a college roommate, or something. So Troy believes that Ardith had something to do with his dismissal, and the sound-man says it had happened before. So the assumption is that Troy has it in for her.”
“What does this have to do with Dorothy?”
“Maybe nothing, but it seems weird that he would show up on the night all this went down. We’ve checked with the light character.”
“Samantha.”
“At first she denied that Troy was with her, and, when we made it clear we knew otherwise, she reversed herself and said not only was he there, he was with her the whole time, never left the booth. But at this point her testimony is thoroughly suspect.”
“I would say so. Look, Monaghan, you should definitely pursue this. In the meantime, I really have to get to the theatre.”
• • •
On Thursday night, arriving home from rehearsal, I wanted to grab as much sleep as possible, so I had turned off my house and cell phones. I set the alarm for 9 a.m. Friday morning, at which point it went off—louder, I thought, than usual. I took my time making a pot of coffee. Finally I turned on the phone. It rang almost instantly.
“Where the hell have you been?” demanded an angry voice.
“Who is this?” I asked. “Otto? Is it you, Otto?”
“Of course it’s me,” said Otto, a scene designer who was also the town crier. “I’ve been calling since 7:30.”
“I’m in a show. Remember?”
“Show be damned. Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?”
“Nasty’s latest.”
“Otto, I just this second woke up. I haven’t even shaved or had breakfast.”
“You do take the daily rag, don’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. I find it goes better with a second cup of coffee down at Anton’s.”
“Put on your bathrobe and rush out now.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Nasty.”
Nasty, I should explain, is Nat Pomeroy, who writes a theatre gossip column for what Otto referred to as the daily rag. Called “Nasty” by everyone, Nat specializes in dishing the dirt about the theatre community. No rumor is too remote, no innuendo too inconsequential, no accusation too outrageous, no snide suggestion too implausible for Nasty. He attempts to give himself cover by using such phrases as “reliable sources report …” or “it is alleged that …” or “it is widely believed that …”—caveats that supposedly protect him from libel suits. The truth is, however, that if you put Nasty’s words through a sieve of accuracy, there would be only a few drops at the bottom; the bulk of his writing would be the sludgy dregs at the top.
“I don’t need to go out in my bathrobe. I’ll get it online.”
“Call me the minute you’ve read it.”
I looked at my cell phone. There were eleven calls since early morning. I was certain they were all about the same thing, so, without actually checking, I headed for the computer to find the already infamous column.
FEYDEAU IN THE MIDST OF TRAGEDY
This week the New York theatre community has been in shock, mourning the loss of producer Dorothy Tremayne. Her death was all the more poignant because it occurred in the confines of a theatre, and during a rehearsal. No one in Manhattan’s theatre world was more respected or more admired than she, and it is generally agreed that this is the most heartrending loss the profession has suffered in many years. “Her taste, her integrity, her enthusiasm are irreplaceable,” said Ardith Wainwright, head of CTG.
Ironically, it is against this backdrop of tragedy that another story has unfolded, a story that by contrast can best be described as a British sex farce or a bedroom comedy à la Feydeau. One of the persons interviewed by police in connection with the crime was Sybil Conway, a former partner of Ms. Tremayne’s. Detective Kevin Monaghan, head of the investigation, pointed out that Conway is not a suspect or even “a person of interest,” but that the police are speaking to everyone who knew the victim well.
When asked where she was on Monday night, Conway said she was at a performance of Mamma Maybe and when asked to provide a witness, she named Wilfred Covington, a Texas tycoon who has recently teamed with Ms. Conway in backing Broadway musicals. When Covington was asked, however, if he was at the theatre with Conway, he quickly said no, erasing her alibi.
It turns out that Covington’s wife, Lorinda, is an avid bridge player; some have even described her as a fanatic. On frequent occasions she uses her husband’s jet to carry bridge-playing friends and professionals to tournaments around the country. She is also a jealous wife. Aware of this, Covington, even with his wife out of town on one of her jaunts, last Monday did not want to be seen entering the theatre with Conway. Originally, she sat toward the back of the theatre, but when the lights were lowered, moved to the front to join Covington.
When a detective called Covington to ask if he was with Conway that evening, he immediately assumed that this was a private detective hired by his wife, and his emphatic response was “no.” This, of course, blew Conway’s alibi out of the water. When she was confronted by detectives, she put in a desperate call to Covington explaining that he had made her a prime suspect. At that point, realizing he had no choice, Covington did the honorable thing and contacted Detective Monaghan to tell him the truth, explaining that the two of them were, in fact, at the theatre together.
What effect this confession has had on the domestic situation at the Covington home, we have not been told. We can only assume that the drama is still unfolding. Stay tuned.
Sybil had her alibi, but at a considerable price in publicity.