Emerald Aisle (11 page)
NANCY BEATTY, IN THE FINAL semester of her senior year, was taking a directed reading course with Roger Knight on the novels of Barbey d'Aureville. They met in the Knight apartment to save him the trouble of going to his campus office. That is why Nancy was there when Phil called to say that he had run into Larry Morton in Minneapolis.
“Is he still there,” Roger said.
“His new firm asked him to stay a few days. It gives him a chance to check with realtors about housing.” Nancy hesitated. “And he thinks we might still have our wedding at Sacred Heart Basilica.”
“I thought that was settled.”
“It's a long story.”
Nancy tried to put the best possible face on the story that her fiancé had been engaged before and had arranged to be married in the campus church.
“How long ago was that?”
“Years ago. Six years ago at least.”
“And the Basilica didn't hold the reservation?”
“Oh, that was never the problem. Now there seems to be some difficulty with the other wedding.”
“She is conceding the reservation?”
“She has no more claim to the reservation than Larry.”
“And vice versa.”
“I suppose.”
“So what's the resolution?”
“Larry thinks she may call off her wedding.”
An e-mail from Phil and then a call from Larry suggested why such a resolution might be at hand.
Dear Roger
Told you I saw Larry Morton when I was on my way to call on Dudley Fyte. When I told Larry where I was going, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. Turns out he knows Dudley. Or has met him. And hates his guts. The darndest thing. You know that Larry got engaged as an undergraduate and he and the girl made an appointment at the Basilica for years later and then drifted apart and forgot about the reservation. The other girl claimed it, intending to marry Dudley Fyte. I think Larry was angrier with Dudley than with the girlâher name is Dolores Torre. I didn't tell him that Dudley had been mixed up with Bianca Primero. My point in talking with Dudley was to figure out whether I should tell Swenson about him. Now that he is engaged to marry Nancy, it would almost be a favor to Larry to turn suspicion on Dudley so he can claim the reservation. That may happen anyway. The police will learn of Dudley from the young woman who manages the condominium in which Bianca lived. Or from Primero himself. After our little talk I felt like throwing Dudley to the wolves as a personal favor to myself. He came out into the reception area to talk to me, no offer to sit down, just stood there, feet apart, arms folded, and told me to make it quick, he was a busy man. So I told him I had news about Bianca Primero. Before I could go on, he demanded to know who I was and I told him and then he just turned on his heel and went into his office and closed the door. I followed him and knocked on the door, then opened it. Fortunately he hadn't locked it. I said, “You didn't give me a chance to tell you about Bianca Primero.” He told me to get the
hell out of his office. He picked up the phone and asked for security. I said: “She's dead, Mr Fyte. She was found dead in her apartment, strangled.” He asked why I was telling him this. I turned to leave. Parting shot: “Think of it as a little warning before the police get here.”
hell out of his office. He picked up the phone and asked for security. I said: “She's dead, Mr Fyte. She was found dead in her apartment, strangled.” He asked why I was telling him this. I turned to leave. Parting shot: “Think of it as a little warning before the police get here.”
Larry Morton was waiting for me when I left Dudley, wanted to know what it was all about so I told him. I think he is worried about the girl Dudley is engaged to marry.
Larry's call to Nancy was made to the Knight apartment when he did not find her at home. He had talked with Phil about the death of Bianca Primero.
“The man Dolores is supposed to marry was apparently mixed up with her,” Larry said.
“Mixed up?”
“I don't know the details.”
Nancy found it easy to share Larry's concern about Dolores, having met her in the Morris Inn. It was one thing to know that there had been someone else long ago, but now the woman became more real and Nancy imagined how awful it must be to learn that the man you were going to marry was, well, mixed up with an older married woman.
“I can't believe she would fall for such a nerd,” Larry said.
“Be careful. She may want you back.”
“Ha.”
After Nancy had hung up, Roger found her pensive and not in a mood to talk about
Le prêtre marié
of 'Aureville so he chattered on about the conservative Catholics who had deplored the French RevolutionâDe Maistre, Bonald. But after a time he realized he was talking to himself.
Le prêtre marié
of 'Aureville so he chattered on about the conservative Catholics who had deplored the French RevolutionâDe Maistre, Bonald. But after a time he realized he was talking to himself.
“When is Larry coming back?”
“He didn't say.”
“Has he found a place?”
Bad question. Apparently that had not come up. Of course Larry would be working in Minneapolis and would be kept busy by people at the firm that had hired him.
They did not go the full hour and little of that had been spent on the topic at hand. Roger watched Nancy go out to her car and felt foreboding. She drove off and he shuffled back to his computer, hoping for another message from Phil, not a realistic expectation. Nancy had not known Bianca Primero so the woman's death did not fully register with her. There was no message from Phil but there was one from Greg Whelan.
WENDY, THE HEAD ARCHIVIST, was excited about the arrival of the materials from the Primero Collection that Greg Whelan had placed carefully on her desk. The arrangement had been an unusual one, Primero's collection entered by Greg into the Archives database but not yet in possession. The university had offered to underwrite the purchase of additional items, but Primero had refused. He would add to his promised gift himself.
“We may have to send that stuff back,” Greg said.
The head archivist frowned at the suggestion. “I was thinking of a display in the library concourse. A foretaste of the treasures coming our way.”
“But these things were stolen from his collection. He didn't send them.”
“Then who did?”
“Apparently the one who stole them.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“I know.”
It made more sense when he and Roger Knight talked about it over great bowls of spaghetti prepared by the massive Huneker Chair of Catholic Studies. Greg had received a warmer than usual welcome when he showed up at the Knight apartment. Roger obviously missed his brother.
“How long will he stay in Minneapolis?”
“There's been a murder, Greg. Mrs. Primero.”
“Good Lord! There goes one suspect.”
“How do you mean?”
“She couldn't have stolen the things that were sent here.”
“Why not?”
“The return address on the FedEx box? Just Primero, but an address in Saint Paul. Not
his
address.”
his
address.”
“That doesn't mean she didn't steal what she sent.”
“Do you think she did?”
“I don't think she didn't.”
Roger poured another glass of Chianti for Greg and more ice water for himself. The professor's account of the troubled Primero marriage invited gratitude for the single state he and Roger had been wise enough to chooseâif it had been a choice. Marital strife was apparently more widespread than one would have thought, however mysterious that must seem to two bachelors. The story became more complicated when Roger went on to speak of Mrs. Primero's affair with a younger man.
“The man who is to marry Larry Morton's fiancée.”
“Nancy Beatty?”
“No, no. This is another girl, someone he went with as an undergraduate. They thought they were in love; they planned to marry. They actually made a reservation at Sacred Heart. It was when Larry went to the Basilica to claim the reservation that he found his old girlfriend already had claimed it in order to marry this fellow Dudley Fyte.”
“Who was having an affair with Mrs. Primero.”
“It is an odd situation.”
“And now it is hooked up with Notre Dame.”
Roger didn't contest this, of course, but Whelan felt called upon to qualify his remark. “Quite accidentally, of course.”
“Yes,” Roger said, and his mind seemed to drift off.
Later, still feeling the glow of the Chianti, Greg sat up late and tried to sort out all of the strange information Roger had passed on to him. Two Notre Dame undergraduates precipitously make a reservation to marry some years after they graduate, but they drift apart, find other mates, and then both want to make use of the reservation arranged so long ago but with another spouse in mind. Larry had flown off to Minneapolis to straighten it out with the other girl, Dolores Torre. And Minneapolis is where the Knight brothers had gone to investigate a theft from a priceless collection that was destined for Notre Dame. While they were gone, some of the stolen items arrived at the Notre Dame Archives. Apparently the theft had been meant to make a statement rather than to take possession of the stolen items. If Mrs. Primero had taken the things, for whatever reason, and had sent only some lettersâbut such lettersâto the Archives, other missing things should be in her home.
No one knew better than Greg Whelan what the value of the complete Primero Collection was. The stolen items were invaluable, there was little doubt of that, but they formed a small part of a vast number of things that Joseph Primero had purchased over the years. The wealthy businessman had a singular eye for rare books, and the portion of his collection devoted to nineteenth-century Catholicism, while large, was but a fraction of the whole. Greg Whelan could not help envying Waldo Hermes who spent his days with the Primero Collection.
Like other archivists and curators, Greg Whelan had developed a proprietary attitude toward the things entrusted to him. He was but an associate directorâhe had no ambition for promotion even if his speech impediment had not stood in his wayâbut that was rank enough to feel a kind of ownership toward the marvels in the Notre Dame Archives. He already salivated in anticipation of the arrival of the Primero Collection at Notre Dame. Imagine what it must be
for Hermes to have it presently at his fingertips. And imagine how he must feel about the theft of things that had been placed in his care.
for Hermes to have it presently at his fingertips. And imagine how he must feel about the theft of things that had been placed in his care.
He felt suddenly virtuous for having finally turned over the Newman letters to Wendy. He had of course made photocopies for himself.
TO SAY THAT DUDLEY FYTE was ready when the police came to talk to him about the death of Bianca Primero would have been an understatement. His reaction to the private detective showing up at the office had been all wrong. And it had drawn unnecessary attention to the visit. Amy had avoided his eyes, banging away on her computer keyboard, pretending not to have noticed. Since then he had been rehearsing what he would say when the police asked him about Bianca.
“She was a dear friend.”
But they would know she had been more than that by the time they called on him.
“I loved her like an aunt.”
“She undertook to tutor me in the arts.”
It was difficult to say any of these with a straight face. How could he rehearse without knowing what the questions would be? But finally Detective Swenson came and all the rehearsing seemed idiotic.
“I want your help in investigating the death of Bianca Primero, Mr. Fyte. There are a few odds and ends that have to be cleared up.”
“Of course I'll help.”
“I guess you knew her as well as anyone.”
“I knew her very well.”
“I'm glad you're not going to beat around the bush. Norma, the
superintendent of the building in which the death occurred, gives a very vivid description of you.”
superintendent of the building in which the death occurred, gives a very vivid description of you.”
Norma? That would be the boyish young woman who thought she could watch others through her fingers and not be noticed. She had been a little joke between Bianca and Dudley. “If she keeps a diary, we're in it.”
Remembering Bianca's remark now, Dudley thought that Norma would not need a diary to recall things harmful to him.
“Bianca and I had been intimate. I guess there's no point in denying that. She was older than I. That was part of the attraction. But it had ended amicably. I am now engaged to be married.”
“Mrs. Primero knew that?”
“It was the reason for the alteration in our relations. I told her of course.”
“What was her reaction?”
“She took it very well. Almost too well. Not very flattering. She took my fiancée to lunch and made us the gift of a very valuable painting.”
“She didn't seem suicidal?”
Dudley gave it some thought. “She had a very volatile temperament, ups and downs. I don't know. Maybe.”
“How did you first learn of her death?”
“One of your colleagues. Knight?”
“He's a private detective, hired by Mr. Primero.”
“He made a bit of a scene at my office.”
“The reason I said suicidal, I wondered if she was depressed after you dropped her. Anyway, there was no note.”
Dudley leaned back in his chair. Swenson looked at him, as if expecting a response, then said, “Do you know what drugs she took?”
“Drugs!”
“Sedatives, uppers, downers, Prozac?”
“I believe she sometimes took sleeping pills.”
“While you were there?”
Dudley took umbrage at this. Swenson was too damned interested in his relationship with Bianca. “That's not a damned bit funny.” He shook his head. “I can't believe she's dead.”
“There were several bottles of sleeping pills at the scene.”
Dudley thought of people going through Bianca's apartment, opening drawers, snooping around.
“Mr. Fyte, I want you to give the matter some thought. Anything you might remember that would help this investigation I want to know. If something occurs to you, call this number.”
He handed Dudley his card. The two men rose. After he had let Swenson out, Dudley closed the door carefully. He walked slowly back to his living room and sat once more where he had been sitting when Swenson mentioned suicide. Was this how a condemned man feels when the reprieve from the governor comes through?
But Dudley's thoughts had gone on to how he might now speak of all this with Dolores.
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