Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence (15 page)

•

I
f you think that it’s easy for people like me to come up with, a plan to kill somebody, all I can say to you is, “Think again.” Indeed, having spent the first two weeks of September exploring the subject, I was full of admiration for your ordinary citizen who has managed to commit the perfect crime. Most of my research was done at home in front of the VCR, with rentals from Potomac Video. Watching and taking notes on films like
Black Widow, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice,
and
Body Heat,
I was sobered by the fact that only Kathleen Turner gets away with murder.

Perhaps Theresa Russell, the black widow of
Black Widow
(“she mates and she kills”), might have been just as successful as Kathleen if only she’d had the good sense to refrain from murder after husband number three. But smart as she was, she failed to grasp a fundamental concept—enough is enough—and Debra Winger nailed her in the end.

Yet in spite of Theresa’s errors, I felt she had used the best technique—a poison injected by hypodermic needle into an unopened bottle of brandy. I also felt,
considering the risks involved in having a partner in crime, that she’d used the best judgment by doing her dire deeds solo.

I mean, even devoted lovers like Lana Turner and John Garfield came close to betraying one another in
Postman,
And in
Body Heat,
Kathleen Turner—having conspired with William Hurt to kill her husband—set him up to take the rap alone. As for Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, the death-dealing duo of
Double Indemnity,
they wound up treating each other quite abominably. The moral was clear: Either do it yourself, or else run the risk of exposing yourself to snitches, blackmailers, double-crossers, double agents, or unreliable bedmates.

(And you can’t even count on your woman friends—see Demi Moore and Glenne Headly in
Mortal Thoughts,
where, sharing some ugly secrets about the untimely death of Bruce Willis, they give each other up to the police.)

“When two people are involved,” Edward G. Robinson warned Fred MacMurray in
Double Indemnity,
“they’re stuck with each other and they have to ride all the way to the end of the line.” Unfortunately, the end of the line, said Edward, making Fred (and me) very nervous, may be the . . . cemetery.

Anyway, having given much time and attention to the matter, I wound up firmly rejecting the notion of letting others in on my murder plans. I also rejected guns and knives, explosives and ropes, and shovings off of cliffs—anything that involved hands-on violence or blood. My weapon of choice was the poison that Cary Grant was plotting to purchase in
Suspicion,
a poison
not only untraceable and easily obtainable but also guaranteed to produce “a most pleasant death.”

I waited, pencil eagerly poised, for Cary to let me know the name of the poison. He didn’t.

Furthermore, in spite of several calls to the Poison Center, I could learn nothing about this promising potion. Indeed, as the days went on and my inquiries into the matter grew more insistent, and the people I spoke with began saying things like “Excuse me, what did you say your name was again?” I started to fear that I was about to become the star of a film called
Suspicion 2.
Putting my poison search on hold, I reviewed my movie notes and was struck by a line from
The Postman Always Rings Twice,
a line that referred to the fact that most serious accidents happen at home—in our own bathtubs.

At home. In our own bathtubs. In
his
bathtub. I sat quietly, staring into the middle distance. And all of a sudden, I knew what I could do.

What can I say? I was Bernard Castro inventing the Castro convertible, the Earl of Sandwich conceptualizing the sandwich, Jonas Salk discovering the polio vaccine, and whoever that genius was who thought up Velcro. I was peerless Cole Porter figuring out that “Fred Astaire” could rhyme with “Camembert,” that “Inferno’s Dante” could rhyme with “the Great Durante,” and that (if you had the vision, the moral courage, the sheer audacity to
do it)
“the steppes of Russia” could rhyme with “a Roxy usher.”

In other words, inspiration had struck, the creative juices were flowing, Newton’s apple had bopped me on the head. In other words, having given free rein to my
fantasies. I’d devised, a way to commit the perfect crime.

•  •  •

During these same two weeks, I also talked with Tara Tessler’s mother and father and, at a deeply disappointing breakfast at the McDonald’s near her apartment, with Mrs. Malone. (Actually the breakfast itself wasn’t bad. It was Mrs. Malone who was deeply disappointing.)

“I’m here because you said you thought we could settle this suit out of court,” said Mrs. Malone, a homely-attractive Jamie Lee Curtis type with a mannish haircut, a fabulous body, and a wary expression in her pale-blue eyes.

“Woman to woman,” I corrected her. “I said I thought we could settle this woman to woman.”

“Whatever,” said Mrs. Malone, as she methodically chewed her way through an Egg McMuffin, “So how much is the doctor willing to settle for?”

“I can see you must be wonderful at your work. So crisp and efficient. You work . . . where?”

“At the
Post.
In classified ads. Where we’re used to very short messages. How about giving me yours, so I can get going.”

I put down my cup of coffee and smiled warmly at her. “Won’t you let me see a snapshot of Kenny?”

“Then you’ll show me pictures of
your
kids, and then we’ll ooh and we’ll ahh? I don’t have time for this. I’m walking to the office, and if I’m not out of here in two minutes, I’ll be late.”

I decided I’d better deliver my message fast. “I’m not a typical doctor’s wife, Mrs. Malone. I don’t think they’re gods. I don’t think they’re infallible. Here, I
brought you some columns of mine”—I offered my folder of clips, but she put up her hand in a way that said hold it right there—“that will show you how deeply I share your reservations about the medical profession.” I set the rejected folder next to her plate.

“Good. That’s very good,” said Mrs. Malone, wiping her mouth and applying fresh lipstick. “And when you translate your reservations into dollars you get—what?”

“This isn’t about money.” I leaned forward and gazed into her narrowed eyes. “I really don’t think that money should be an issue here.”

Mrs. Malone stood up and slung her purse briskly over her shoulder. “I was afraid of that. End of conversation, Mrs. Kovner.”

Without another word Mrs. Malone was out the door. I grabbed my purse and folder and hurried after her. She was speed-walking down Seventeenth Street with her arms pumping back and forth, her eyes straight ahead.

“I’ll just walk with you a little way,” I murmured, trying to match my stride to hers.

“I don’t own the sidewalk,” she said, “but you’re wasting your breath.” She speeded up. I speeded up. She doubled her pace. I did too. But she wore serious walking shoes and I wore my end-of-the-summer-sale patent pumps. I knew, as she once more increased her pace, that I wouldn’t be keeping up with her much longer.

“Could I just say a couple of things about humanity and gratitude and justice?” When you’re sweating and gasping, it’s difficult to sound eloquent, but I gave it my absolute all.

Mrs. Malone stopped short. “We’re pursuing this suit, so I’ll see you in court, assuming you plan to
accompapy Dr. Kovner. But if I see you before that. I’ll sign a complaint—against, you
and
your husband—for harassment.”

As she sped off, I leaned against a tree and did something irrational. I prayed. “Please, God,” I prayed, despite the fact that I think of myself as a deeply committed atheist, “whatever you do, don’t let Jake find out about this.”

•  •  •

My encounter with the Tesslers, though far more cordial than breakfast-and-walking with Mrs. Malone, turned out to be every, bit as unrewarding. I drove to their modest Silver Spring house early one evening, while Jake was out at a dinner meeting, and met what seemed to be a pair of twins. Both Mr. and Mrs. were freckled, snub-nosed, and sandy-haired. Both had a gap between their two front teeth. And both wore green cotton-knit pants and matching green-and-white-striped shirts on their interchangeably hipless, flat-bellied bodies. Tara, an adorable miniature clone of Ray and Felice, as they urged me to call them, played quietly, with her dolls while the grownups conversed. What with the homey atmosphere and all of us on this friendly first-name basis, I felt sure I could dissuade them from their malpractice suit.

Unlike Mrs. Malone, they were quite impressed with my critical attitudes toward medicine, cheerfully assenting when I offered to read them passages from S
TAND
U
P TO
Y
OUR
D
OCTOR
and some of my other columns. “I think you’ll see,” I concluded, “that though I am married to a surgeon. I’m quite objective. I’m the kind of person who, if I believed he deserved to be sued, would tell you to go for it.”

“And we appreciate that,” said Ray.

“Really,” said Felice.

“However,” I said, and I launched into a brilliant discussion of malrotation volvulus, followed by a moving defense of Jake, without whom, I softly reminded them, “this beautiful child would not be alive today.”

“You could be right,” said Ray.

“Definitely,” said Felice.

“You make some very good points,” said Ray.

Felice supportively bobbed her head up and down.

“Maybe,” said Ray, shrugging his-shoulders and turning up his palms in a who-knows gesture, “the court will agree with you. So why don’t we just let the court decide?’ He poured me a glass of iced tea and added, with a gap-toothed smile, “Don’t think we aren’t grateful to your husband.”

“Truly,” said Felice.

I was starting to feel as if I was being pummeled by large, soft pillows. I shook my head clear and inquired, “Then why sue?”

“Because,” Ray answered, “it’s the American way.”

“James Frommer of Hartford, Connecticut, tripped and broke his leg in a restaurant parking lot where he was trying to mug a departing customer. He is currently suing the restaurant for failing to keep the parking lot properly lit.” One-word Felice was speaking, her hands clasped together, her eyes litigiously aglow.

“Viola Petrushansky, whose telepathic powers were so extensive that she could make long-distance phone calls without the phone, lost ninety percent of those powers after a double root canal in Bangor, Maine. Last year she brought suit against her endodontist.”

I cleared my throat and tried to speak, but Felice had not yet completed her oral argument.

“Five women in Akron, Ohio, started a class-action suit against a local department store for causing traumatic stress by opening up their private sale to the general public and letting them get away with all the best markdowns. William Jones of New York, New York, whose plastic surgeon had promised him that he’d come out looking just like Sylvester Stallone, is suing his plastic surgeon because he came out looking more like Kevin Costner. The Wygands of Butte, Montana, whose five-year-old son started wetting his bed after he saw Bambi’s mother get killed in
Bambi,
are suing . . .”

“Just one moment, please,” I said, loudly enough to interrupt the flow. “Are you saying that these are meritorious suits?”

“It’s not for us to say,” Ray replied. “It’s for the courts to say.”

“Unquestionably,” said Felice.

I moved into perilous waters. “But going to court is so expensive. If you’ve got a dubious lawsuit, does it make sense for people—for you—to be throwing all that money away on lawyers?” I waited to see if the Tesslers would mention the help that they were receiving from Mr. Monti.

Felice and Ray looked at each other, conferred without saying a word, and then turned to me.

“It’s decent of you to worry about our legal expenses,” said Ray.

Felice said, “Very.”

“But people,” said Ray, “have to do what they have to do.”

He stood up. “It’s time to put Tara to bed, so we’ll
need to say good night. But be sure to give Dr. Jake our best regards.”

“Positively,” Felice said . . .

Positively not, I said to myself.

•  •  •

I know there might be those who would see my Tessler Malone discussions as a defeat. But scorning such negativity, I preferred to call them a temporary setback. Another temporary setback, I was forced to admit, were my efforts to help Jo and Wally with their life plans. I had many useful suggestions for instance about when they should get married (no earlier than next June, after she was finished with college and he was finished with graduate school and they both—God willing—were gainfully employed) and who should marry them (Rabbi Emmanuel Silverman, scholar and humanist) and what major problems Josephine ought to be focusing on in her therapy (just in case she’d forgotten one or two).

As I said, I had many suggestions, which I tried very hard to offer to Wally and Josephine, who—mid afternoon on September 13—had finally returned from Rehoboth Beach. It was time. With Wally no longer afraid he’d be charged with theft, and with Jo—so it seemed—no longer afraid of her father, they hadn’t any reason for continuing to hide out, particularly since their classes at Catholic U had been in session since late August.

But hiding out was not the reason that Wally and Jo had remained so long at the beach. They had stayed in order for Josephine to continue her therapy sessions with Dr. X, who had taken her into treatment and was willing to see her regularly
even though she—Dr. X—was on vacation!
And since Dr. X had decided to
stay at Rehoboth till the Sunday after Labor Day, so did Josephine. And so did Wally. Who was standing by his woman because, as I may have already mentioned, he happens be a truly lovely person—caring, supportive, loyal, understanding, devoted, empathic, compassionate, etc. As I also may have mentioned, Jo wasn’t exactly my first choice to be the object of all this wonderfulness, but I hoped that with Dr. X’s help (supplemented by mine) she would shape up.