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Authors: Michael Craft

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“In fact,” I told her, “the investigation is in its early stages, but Coroner Formhals thinks Gillian died accidentally—a fall from a ladder.”
“What a shame.” Glee's inflection was so ambiguous, I couldn't tell whether she regretted that Gillian had fallen or she regretted that Gillian hadn't been pushed.
Suspecting the latter, I said, “Forgive me, Glee, but I must say, you don't seem very upset by this news. I can understand that you feel a measure of relief, knowing you can now explain to our readers that the Sunday feature has been cancelled in light of an unexpected turn of events, but—”
“No, Mark”—she wagged a finger—“that's not it at all. It may be coldhearted of me, but I'm not the least upset by your news of Gillian's ‘accident' or whatever it was.” Glee stood. “Let's not mince words. I'm glad she's dead.”
I stood as well, offering a weak smile. “I know you too well, Glee, to think you're coldhearted. I simply hadn't understood the depth of the pain Gillian caused you.”
Glee sighed. “I hadn't either, Mark.”
We stepped to each other and embraced for a moment. Then Glee picked up her purse from the floor, telling me, “I'd better check with Lucy. We'll need to come up with a new Sunday feature. I have a few ‘anytime' stories on file.”
I gave her a wink. “I'm sure you do.”
Glee returned the wink. “I'll get right on it.” She started out the door to the newsroom, then stopped, turning back to me. “I just thought—with Gillian gone, does this foul up the merger? I'm sorry, Mark. I know how hard you've been working on it.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I suppose these things happen for a reason. Let's hope it's for the best.”
She nodded, thinking a moment before echoing, “Let's hope.” And she left.
As I watched her retreat toward the far end of the newsroom, I was mulling something I'd just said. When I'd told Glee that “these things happen for a reason,” I was speaking in the broad, metaphysical sense of fate or destiny. But my words also had a literal meaning, suggesting that I already believed there had been a
reason
for Gillian's death, a
motive
that was possibly linked to the merger.
These thoughts were nipped by the ring of my phone—my desk phone, the one with a cord. Moving to my inner office, I lifted the receiver and answered, “Yes, Connie?”
“It's Sheriff Pierce, Mr. Manning.” And she connected us.
I said, “Hi, Doug. Any news?”
“No, Mark, nothing on the autopsy, not yet. I was wondering if you know how to reach Esmond Reece. We need to notify him of his wife's death, but don't know where he is. Do you happen to know where he works?”
“He
doesn't
work, doesn't need to.”
“Ah, the perks of having a rich wife, I guess.”
“Truth is, he made his own fortune quite a while ago. In recent years, he's occupied his time with yoga and other Eastern studies. I'm pretty sure where you can find him.” I was about to tell Doug the details, but instead, I offered, “Want me to take you there?”
He laughed; my tagalong ploys had become transparent. “Sure,” he said, “if you have time.”
“I always have time to help.” While my civic-mindedness was doubtless admirable, we both understood that I was angling to be an eyewitness to a developing story.
“Tell you what. I'm in the car right now, so I can swing by and pick you up in about two minutes. Meet me in front of the building?”
“Great. I'll be there. Two minutes.” I was about to hang up when I remembered something. “Oh, Doug. By the way. I have a cell phone now.”
“I'm stunned. Welcome to the twenty—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Do you want the number?”
A
bout two minutes later, an unmarked tan cruiser rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the Register building. Sheriff Douglas Pierce leaned to open the passenger door, and I hopped in. We greeted each other as I secured the seat belt across my chest. Then Doug asked, “Where are we headed?”
“West, just outside of town. Take First Avenue to the highway.”
As he roared away, the souped-up cop's engine plastered my back against the seat. Doug, accustomed to his car's ferocious acceleration, didn't notice my blanched knuckles gripping the edge of the armrest. He casually glanced over to ask, “You said something about yoga?”
I nodded. “Back in Harper, Esmond Reece took up yoga with an instructor named Tamra Thaine. When Gillian decided to move the corporate headquarters of Ashton Mills to Dumont, Esmond didn't want to make the move, so they struck a deal. Gillian agreed to endow a nonprofit venture that Tamra wanted to establish here, an institute for Eastern studies.”
“You told me earlier that Gillian slapped Tamra at the house this morning.”
“Right. Gillian was backing out of her promised funding. Esmond brought Tamra to the house, and together they confronted Gillian, who didn't budge. In fact, she became so verbally abusive, I was
tempted to slap her myself.” As an afterthought, it seemed prudent to add, “But of course I didn't.”
A question pinched Doug's features as he watched the road. “You also told me Esmond had made a fortune and didn't need to work. Why doesn't
he
bankroll the institute? Why go begging to Gillian?”
I explained how Esmond's cell-phone circuit had made him a wealthy man. “But since he had no head for business, he transferred control of his assets to his accounting-savvy wife. It's a bizarre setup, at best.”
Doug corrected me, “It
was
a bizarre setup.”
As we neared the edge of town, the road curved out to the highway. Doug gripped the wheel, taking the turn without braking. Swaying toward the center of the car, I glimpsed the speedometer. Though the driving conditions were perfect and there wasn't another car in sight, I couldn't resist noting, “You're ten miles over the limit, Sheriff.”
He looked at me as if I'd just suggested he should wear high-button shoes. “Yeah? So?” He grinned.
I myself never appreciated backseat drivers, so I understood his reaction. Still, I did feel that he was driving too fast, and since he was sworn to enforce the law, he should be the first to observe it.
“Well,” I said, joking, “it's a minor infraction. I'll let you off this time.”
He shook his head, laughing. I could almost hear his thoughts: I was hopelessly square.
Sometimes, I realized, my thinking was indeed too rigid and inflexible. During private moments, Neil had occasionally cautioned me against being “priggish.” Coming from anyone else, that word would have been insulting, but coming from Neil, it was said, I knew, in the earnest belief that I was sometimes too exacting for my own good.
Though I trusted Neil's judgment, which sprang from love, not from a desire to be critical, I still found it hard to buy into the notion that my life would be in any sense better or more joyful if I were to abandon certain standards of thinking and behavior that had served me so well in the past. My attention to detail, my commitment to play by the rules, my scrupulous nature, had allowed me to excel in school when I was young and, later, to establish a successful career, first as an investigative
reporter in Chicago and now as a publisher and businessman in Wisconsin.
I reasoned that if I occasionally erred on the side of fastidiousness—even priggishness—I had done no harm, and in fact, I had demonstrated integrity to my own principles. Was I really to chuck my long-established code of personal ethics just to satisfy those who might feel I could afford to loosen up?
“How far?” asked Doug, bringing me back to the moment.
“Just beyond that next stretch of trees.” Offhandedly, I added, “You'll barely recognize the place.”
As my meaning sank in, Doug turned to me with a blank expression. “Don't tell me—Miriam Westerman's old property?”
“The same.”
“Whatever happened to that nutcase?”
“She joined a new coven in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Good riddance.” With a chortle, Doug added, “What a loon.”
I didn't say anything, but to my way of thinking, the jury was still out on whether the property's old loon had been replaced by a new one.
The twiggy sign came into view: DUMONT INSTITUTE FOR EASTERN STUDIES. I told Doug, “Same driveway, through that first clearing.”
He slowed the car and turned onto the gravel drive, following it through the woods to the parking area at the middle of the compound. As during my visit of the previous afternoon, we found only two vehicles parked there—Esmond's car and Tamra's SUV, both white, near the entrance of the main building, also white.
Getting out of Doug's car, we both took care not to slam its doors. We instinctively lowered our voices while walking to the building, as if entering hallowed ground. Not that Doug or I placed much credence in the holism and cosmology that was once preached there—and apparently still would be. Rather, it was precisely because of our skepticism that we felt uncomfortable and out of our element in such surroundings.
As I gently opened the building's front door, music wafted from a distant hall. The twangy, mystical strains of a sitar, punctuated by the beat of a tabla, suggested Tamra was giving Esmond another lesson. I
told Doug, barely above a whisper, “They must be in the same studio where I found them yesterday.”
“A music studio?”
“No, a yoga studio. The music's for mood, I guess.” As I led him through the hallways, I noticed paint cans and tarps along the way; the efforts to spruce up the place had progressed since a day ago. A lingering scent of turpentine hung in the air, blending with the woozy music. The mixture seemed oddly appropriate, as the pungent smell of paint thinner took on the character of incense. “They should be in here,” I told Doug, indicating the doorway from which the music flowed.
Quietly, Doug and I approached the door along the adjacent wall; we actually tiptoed, which lent a sinister, though cartoonish, quality to our escapade. Peeping around the jamb, we saw Tamra and Esmond inside, engaged in a lesson, as predicted. It looked for all the world as if she was trying to teach him to wrap his ankles behind his head, following up on Gillian's earlier suggestion, but they were having a rough time of it, as he just wasn't that limber.
My inclination, as on the day before, was to wait quietly until they finished, but Doug felt constrained by no such protocol. Rapping on the doorjamb, he cleared his throat. “Uh, Mr. Reece? Excuse me.”
Esmond's legs snapped back to the mat on the floor as Tamra bolted to her feet and crossed the room in a fluster to switch off the boom box. “Ah, Mark!” said Esmond, struggling to stand (his legs were doubtless feeling a tad rubbery). “Welcome back.”
Stepping into the studio, I told both him and Tamra, “We're sorry for the intrusion, but I'm afraid this is important. Have you met Sheriff Pierce?” I was sure they hadn't. My mention of the sheriff underscored the gravity of our visit, and accordingly, both Esmond and Tamra moved forward, sober-faced, as I introduced them to Doug.
Tentatively, Tamra began, “I hope there's not a problem with our renovations, Sheriff. We made a point of securing all the permits before beginning our work on the facility. Our first students haven't enrolled yet, but if safety is an issue—”
“Don't worry, Miss Thaine,” said Doug. “It's nothing like that. I'm
sure everything's in order.” He turned to Esmond. “I'm here because of an unfortunate accident that occurred this morning. It's most disturbing.”
Esmond's complexion, pale at best, turned whiter. “Good God, Sheriff, what's happened?” He reached for Tamra; she came to his side and grasped his hand.
“You may want to sit down,” Doug began, but then realized there was no furniture in the room, so he continued, “or just brace yourself for some very bad news. Mr. Reece, I regret to inform you that your wife, Gillian, died this morning of an apparent accident at your new home. It seems she fell from a ladder. Allow me to offer my sincere condolences.”
Esmond and Tamra turned to look at each other, their faces conveying no emotion other than mild surprise, as if Doug had just told them we were in for a hard frost that night. Esmond returned his gaze to Doug. “You're kidding.”
“I assure you, Mr. Reece, I wouldn't kid about such a subject.”
“It's true,” I added. “My editor and I went over to the house around noon, and that's when we found Gillian—on the living-room floor, at the foot of one of the library ladders.”
Esmond shook his head, repeating, “You're kidding.”
Tamra asked Doug, “Are you sure someone didn't
push
her?” Her tone carried no dismay that Gillian was dead, only incredulity regarding the manner of her death. What's more, Tamra had raised the very question that I myself kept asking.
Doug told her, “At the moment, we have no reason to suspect foul play, but the coroner's findings could change the course of our investigation.”
“Coroner?” asked Esmond. “Investigation?” His voice at last conveyed concern.
“A death from any unnatural cause, including accidental causes, will always trigger an investigation.”
“Maybe we
should
sit down,” said Tamra. “Let's go to my office.”
With a wordless nod, Esmond followed her out of the studio and into the hallway, as did Doug and I. Tamra's and Esmond's bare feet
gently slapped the vinyl floor as we made our way past the cans of paint and filed into a room near the front door, the same room I remembered as the headmistress's office during the kooky, tyrannical reign of Miriam Westerman. But Miriam was gone, and so were all her trappings.
The room was now white, of course—blindingly so in the afternoon sunlight that slid through the bare windows in broad, hot shafts. Tamra's desk was a simple plank of white laminate suspended over two file cabinets, also white. The only other furniture in the room consisted of several director's chairs, all with slings of natural-colored canvas. One of the chairs was behind the desk; the others were clustered in front of it. “Gentlemen?” said Tamra, suggesting we sit as she seated herself at her desk.
Esmond sat toward the end of the desk, nearest Tamra. Doug and I sat side by side, loosely facing the other two. I instinctively removed my notepad from my jacket pocket and unscrewed the cap of my pen.
Esmond heaved a sigh, as if clearing his thoughts. “Now, then,” he said to Doug, “perhaps you could describe what happened. Back in the studio, you took me unawares. I'm afraid nothing registered.” He now looked flushed instead of pale; beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. Had the news of his wife's death finally made an impact, I wondered, or was he simply reacting to the heat of the sun-filled room?
“Of course,” said Doug. He reviewed the events of that morning—the presumed time of death around eleven, the discovery around noon, and the coroner's initial theory of the fall, which did not imply foul play. Having established this timeline, he then asked Esmond, “You and Miss Thaine were at the house this morning, correct?”
“Yes. It was most distressing. We had words. Gillian was on particularly bad behavior today—on a rampage, one might say. She was horrible; she slapped Tamra. Then I behaved badly; I slapped Gillian.”
“What time was that?”
“I'm at a loss to say. It was earlier rather than later.”
Tamra said, “It was around nine, Sheriff. A newscast was starting on the car radio when we drove away.”
“And where did you go?”
“We drove directly here to the institute.”
Esmond added, “We've been here all day, working—painting and such.”
I asked, “Has anyone else been here?” My meaning was transparent enough; I was asking if they'd had witnesses who could verify their whereabouts.
Esmond replied, “No, unfortunately, we were alone the whole time—not much of an alibi.”
“Who said anything about alibis?” asked Doug. “I'm assuming Gillian's death was accidental.”
Tamra folded her hands in front of herself on the desk. “To be perfectly frank,” she said, “if Gillian's death was accidental, there was an element of serendipity to it—kismet, if you will.” She turned to Esmond, telling him, “I'm sorry. I mean no disrespect for the spirit of one who has passed, one you have loved, but in the case of Gillian, it's difficult to take a charitable view of her ‘divine consciousness.' Her meanness of spirit was coupled with a propensity toward physical aggression, a combination altogether at odds with the cosmic energy that creates and maintains the universe.”

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