Compromising Positions (4 page)

“Maybe. But what’s so important about this? He’s dead.”

“I don’t know. It’s not so nice to kill. It offends me.”

“People are starving to death in Africa and you don’t ask me to make phone calls.”

“That’s unfair. And I sent a check to CARE. It’s just that this is close to home.”

“Not close to my home,” he declared. “Now, look, you know he was involved in a nasty business, and people who get involved in nasty businesses get into trouble. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I have to run now. I’ll see you for dinner.”

At least he hadn’t told me not to worry my pretty little head about other people’s dirty laundry. Although in reality that’s exactly what he had said. Bob only wanted me to worry about his dirty laundry. And his dinner. And to make sure his children were carefully tended. It’s not that he wanted a robot, a smiling automaton to make his bed and giggle on cue; he enjoyed what he called my “intellect.” I could comprehend his business problems, appreciate his latest press release, savor with him the courtship of a new client. And I could be trotted out to dinner with a wide range of business contacts and never make an ass of myself. During political conventions, I could remind him who were the two vice-presidential candidates in 1956. In short, a pleasure to have around, a housekeeper of reasonably pleasing countenance guaranteed not to steal, an accomplished lover with hips as fast as lightning.

“Mommy, the doorbell.” Joey tugged the leg of my jeans.

“Coming,” I called, and strolled to the door. Kate wasn’t due home for another fifteen minutes.

“Mrs. Judith Singer?” the man on my doorstep asked. I gripped the knob and peered at him. Blue-eyed, about my age, with crisply cut short hair. He smiled with a mouth full of bright, white teeth. Very good-looking. Totally unappealing.

“Yes, I’m Judith Singer.”

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we’re investigating the murder of Bruce Fleckstein. Dr. Fleckstein. I know Sergeant Ramirez spoke to you, but there are just a couple of things we’d like cleared up.” He showed me his ID: Detective Steven Christopher Smith. “I’d like to ask you a few questions. Is this a convenient time for you?”

“Of course. Please come in.”

Smith stepped into the house. “Do you happen to know where Mrs. Tuccio does her shopping?” His voice was gentle, soothing, like a doctor on a TV show about to give the family some sad news about their loved one.

“Shopping?”

“For groceries, ma’am.”

“I don’t know. I guess Waldbaum’s or the A&P. They’re the closest.”

“Mrs. Tuccio never mentioned where she shops?”

My relationship with Marilyn was obviously less intimate than the police had assumed. “No, she never did.”

“I see. Well, ma’am, would you happen to know the time of day Mrs. Tuccio went shopping?”

“No.” I paused, concentrating on Smith’s plump, pink cheeks. “Are you trying to establish some sort of alibi?”

“I really can’t say, Mrs. Singer.”

“Look, this is silly. Marilyn Tuccio wouldn’t be interested in a man like Dr. Fleckstein. It was a professional relationship. I went to see him a few years ago and all he was interested in was my gums. I’m sure it was the same with Marilyn.”

“We’re just going through his patient file. Could I ask you a few more questions, now that I’m here?” I nodded. “During your visits, did you ever see Dr. Fleckstein in angry conversation with anyone?”

“No,” I said apologetically. I wished I could help him.

“Well, do you recall seeing him answering the telephone and becoming upset?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything significant to you?”

“He told me to use unwaxed dental floss.”

“I see,” Smith said. “Mrs. Singer, when we investigate a murder, we have to look at all aspects of the deceased’s life. Do you have any reason to believe that Dr. Fleckstein was keeping company with other women?” I must have looked startled, because he explained: “It’s just a routine question, but it’s important.”

I stepped back a few inches and cleared my throat. “Well, I’ve heard some rumors about him.”

“Would you mind going into detail, ma’am?”

“I can’t. I just heard he was quite a ladies’ man.”

“Ma’am, I want to assure you that this is a confidential investigation. We just want to get to the bottom of this.” He was wearing a navy peacoat, and a thin line of perspiration had appeared on his upper lip.

“Would you like to take your coat off?”

“No, thank you. Did you happen to hear who Dr. Fleckstein was having an affair with?”

“I don’t like to spread rumors.”

“We’ll check everything out very discreetly, ma’am. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

“I heard he was carrying on with his nurse, Lorna Lewis. But it’s pure, unadulterated gossip and I have no way of knowing if it’s true.” Not a flicker of interest; his blond eyelashes didn’t even blink. “I see you’ve already heard that,” I observed.

The perspiration moved up to his forehead. “I can’t really comment on that, Mrs. Singer.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“To the best of your recollection, have you heard any other information about Dr. Fleckstein or his associates or family?”

I pondered that for a minute, debating whether to mention Fleckstein’s Mafia link. But the police must have known, and it would be in
Newsday
the next morning. “No, I can’t think of anything. As I said, I saw him years ago, and only for one visit.”

Smith thanked me. I went to open the door for him and noticed Joey, leaning against the wall, observing us both.

“Do you want to be a policeman when you grow up?” Smith asked.

“No,” Joey snapped back. “No way.”

“Joey,” I said aghast. “What kind of way is that to talk?”

“That’s all right, ma’am,” Smith said softly. “Goodbye,” he said to me. “Goodbye, son.” Joey turned his back and stomped up the stairs.

Kate came in a few minutes later, her overalls covered with green paint, traces of it on her nose and cheeks. “I was painting today,” she explained.

“I see that.”

“It’s really a mess,” she observed cheerfully. “Where’s Joey?”

“In his room, playing records.” She considered that for a moment, entwining a stubby, green-tipped finger in her smooth, dark braid. “Would you like a glass of milk?” I asked.

“No. I’ll see if Joey wants some company. Thanks anyway.”

I smiled as she pranced upstairs, hoping that they could spend the afternoon together in relative peace. Two minutes passed without any screams of protest, no sound of toys or bodies being hurled against the door. I walked into the living room and curled up on the couch, and tried to put things in order.

The police would be interviewing hundreds of puffy-gummed people. A few of the women would say that Fleckstein propositioned them. A few of the men might say he liked the Jets or that he seemed fascinated by wheat futures. But I couldn’t imagine any patient having solid information on Fleckstein. He was one of those professionals clever enough to make small conversation with a patient, so you’d feel comfortable enough to return instead of going elsewhere to have your gums deflated. But my instincts were that he had no depth, no substance, the type who could play tennis with a man for eight years and never ask where the man grew up.

“Great stuff, honey,” he’d say to a woman he’d just slept with; he’d call her “honey” because he couldn’t quite remember whether her name was Joan or Jean or Jane. And he didn’t want to offend. Fleckstein wanted her to feel comfortable enough to come back again.

But there had to be more to Marvin Bruce than this, because men just like him live until seventy-six and keel over on the fourteenth hole of a Florida golf course. Even though I had barely known him, he didn’t seem the sort to get involved enough with someone so that she would care enough to kill him. A forty-two-year-old man still slim enough to wear tight, streaky, French-cut jean suits and a gold ID bracelet on a hairy wrist would normally grow old gracefully, metamorphosing into khaki leisure outfits and ultimately into navy blazers with silk ascots to hide his crepey neck.

The more I considered, the more certain I became that Fleckstein had a secret life. Not a hot little blond number tucked away in an apartment in Queens. Certainly not a cool, secret connection with the CIA or FBI. Men like Fleckstein, bourgeois to the soul, lack moral and physical courage; their patriotism extends to standing for “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a baseball game.

But from what Bob had gleaned from Claymore Katz, Fleckstein had become involved in a very dirty business with some very dirty people. A normal suburbanite will take certain risks, especially for money. But why would a man like Fleckstein find himself so deeply enmeshed? Why would a dentist with a practice good for over a hundred thousand a year find himself, on the verge of a criminal indictment, with a fatal wound in the base of his skull?

He seemed so ordinary, just another thread in the community fabric. We ate at the same restaurants, sent our children to the same schools, probably used the same plumber. But he was dead.

Bathing Joey: Did Fleckstein die for his sins? The moment he felt the murder weapon piercing the soft skin covering his medulla, did he regret trying to become a mogul of the porno pix biz? Bathing Kate: Did he see who killed him? Was it one of his women? Did he have one last pang that somehow he hadn’t satisfied her completely? Making dinner: Had it hurt? At the table: trying to discuss my musings with Bob.

“Judith, can we please change the subject?”

“Why? This is interesting.”

“The children are here.”

I looked at them, Kate peering at Bob and me, intent on our conversation, Joey rummaging through the fruit bowl, a large bunch of grapes on his plate, untouched. “Don’t you want to watch television? Maybe
I Love Lucy
is on?” Joey bolted and ran for the den. Kate looked at me quizzically, knowing that I must be truly desperate to allow them this boon.

“But, Mommy, you said that
I Love Lucy
rots your mind.”

“Only if you watch it all the time. Once a month is okay.” She clutched her half-eaten pear and shuffled out of the dining room.

A great tactical coup, but now the enemy was on the alert. There would be no way, short of swinging a machete near his groin, that I could get Bob to discuss the Fleckstein case with me. I had been too animated. I hadn’t asked him about his day. I hadn’t told him about mine, about wallowing in the joys of hearth and home.

“Enough about this murder business. You don’t mind that I sent the children downstairs? I just wanted some time alone together.”

He gave me his cute little self-effacing smile, where he cocks his head to one side and lowers his eyes. He always smiles like that when caught in the midst of a triumph, like when he told his parents that the Turner Ammunition and Armaments account just fell into his lap, or when he informed me that the thousand dollars I hadn’t wanted him to invest in Vitachill Cryonics was, at that very moment, worth five thousand.

“Tell me about your day,” he said graciously.

“Oh. It was nice.” I smiled at him. “Marilyn Tuccio has a great new recipe for apple crisp.”

He nodded and squeezed a section of the orange he was eating. A pit slid out onto his plate. “That’s nice.” We smiled warmly at each other. Bob said: “A wonderful dinner—as always.” He’d eat pigeon droppings if they were surrounded by watercress and served with a dry white wine. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he said wearily. “It’s probably for me.” He stood and sauntered into the kitchen. “Hello,” he said. “Oh, fine. Great. How are you doing? Yes. Judith’s right here. Nice speaking with you.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and made a sour face. “It’s Malice.”

Mary Alice Mahoney is the most excruciatingly boring human being I know. One of those dormitory acquaintances whom you forget within minutes of graduation, she had moved to Shorehaven two years before. It took her only a month to discover that Nancy and I were living in town. “Nancy! Judith!” she squealed across the high school auditorium during a particularly vituperative meeting over a proposed sewage disposal bond. “You live here!”

We nodded wearily and watched as she squeezed past a row of rigid knees and dashed up the aisle to greet us. Her thin, boyish body and blond pixie haircut had not changed since 1963. Only her clothing had altered, from knee socks and pleated skirts to the suburban alphabet potpourri—entwined Gs on her handbag, Ys on the vamps of her shoes, double Bs on her sweater. She offered a cheek for each of us to kiss. “Old friends are the best friends. Right? Right, Judith? Right, Nancy?”

Mary Alice thought nothing of arriving uninvited for a “little chat.” She would ring my doorbell on the average of once every two weeks and invariably ask the same question: “Busy?” Unlike Nancy, I never had the courage to say yes.

She had the gift of reducing every subject to its tritest common denominator. Once, Nancy and I were discussing a mutual college friend, a woman who had left her husband and was now living in Manhattan with another woman; she had made the transition from Wisconsin farm girl to faculty wife to radical lesbian with what appeared to be extreme ease, and Nancy and I were wondering if this could possibly be so.

“Lucy Anderson is a lesbian?” Mary Alice asked. We nodded. “Well, homosexuality is not an evil.” We agreed. “They just can’t help themselves.” Before we had a chance to moan with boredom, we received a fervent defense of Mary Alice’s hairdresser, whom we’d never even dreamed of attacking, a list of Gay People in the Seven Lively Arts, plus the collected experiences of her three sisters, Mary Elizabeth, Mary Therese, and Mary Jeanne, and their dealings with gays. When Nancy delicately pointed out that her sisters, saints though they may be, were not germane to the subject being discussed, Mary Alice smiled a small, sad smile and said: “I think you’re being very judgmental. My sisters are relevant to me.”

Bob, who generally likes my friends in direct proportion to their resemblance to the Platonic ideal of the happy homemaker, had detested her within five minutes. This was because when he offered to shake hands with her, she asked: “Are you doing this as one human being to another or because you think it’s what I, as a liberated woman, expect?” He handed me the phone as if a moist, green fungus had sprouted on the receiver.