GENEROUS DEATH

BY

PICKARD, NANCY
 Books by Nancy Pickard

 Generous Death
 No Body

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 GENEROUS DEATH 

 PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK
 This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
 are either the product of the author's imagination or are used
 fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
 living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 The author sincerely hopes the Testered Bed With Alcove in the superlative
 Oriental Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,
 Missouri will never have to endure the rigors to which its fictional
 counterpart is put in this novel. On the other hand, who knows what
 mysteries it hides from centuries
 past ... ?

 ag~
      POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
      1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

 Copyright 0 1984 by Nancy Pickard
 Cover artwork copyright 0 1987 Richard Bober

 Published by arrangement with the author
 Ubrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-91197

 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
 portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Fbr information address Pocket
 Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

 ISBN: 0-671-64614-1

 First Pocket Books printing December 1987

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 POCKET and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 Printed in the U.S.A.
To ALicE,
WHO TOLD ME SO.
                                      Prologue

 The Martha Paul Frederick Museum of Fine Art is housed in a, well, house.
 There's really no way around that bald and, to some locals, mortifying
 fact. You may call the house quaint and charming, or you may call it ugly
 and drafty, depending on your grasp of reality and your affection for
 truth. But adjectives, even when careftdly chosen by our Chamber of Com-
 merce, will never disguise the basic, humble nature of the Martha Paul
 Frederick Museum of-Fine Art. It is no grand, granite edifice built by
 kings to honor avarice and art.
  It's just a house-a rambling, crumbling four-story monster of a mansion
  of brick and wood, built in 1768 to shelter the piratical ambitions of
  the Paul family, those infamous builders of ships for smugglers and
  slavers. For the last thirty-five years, it has served as our municipal
  museum, the gift to the city from said Martha Paul, that legendary
  benefactress to the

                I
          GENEROUS DEATH

 arts-or, rather, art. With her death and no more Pauls to leave her
 fortune to, childless Martha managed in one fell swoop to buy her family's
 way back into respectability. Unfortunately, when she bequeathed all that
 money for the purchase of art, she also demanded that it be forever
 displayed in her home. So we've been stuck with it until time and nature
 tear it down. (The Town Council staged a successfid and ironic fight a few
 years ago to keep the house from being included in the National Register
 of Historic Buildings. They knew if it ever got on that list, we'd never
 be able to get rid of it!)
  Now it's all very well to point to other "museum houses," like the
  Phillips in Washington, D.C., and then demand to know what it is we're
  complaining about-as though to say that if a house is good enough for the
  Phillips, it should be good enough for little old Port Frederick,
  Massachusetts. But in so doing, the critic fails to consider that
  Washington has one or two other cultural landmarks to which it can point
  with chauvinistic pride. They can afford a little cold, drafty charm. In
  this town, however, the Martha Paul is all we've got. Culturally
  speaking-and not many of us do that very often-that's it. Philharmonics
  have we none, nor ballets do we see outside of touring companies; and the
  local Women's Theatre Guild for Tiny Tots has been, until recently, the
  closest we've come to repertory.
  In other words, all our cultural marbles are rolling around the
  cavernous, dank hallways of Martha Paul's ancestral home. But what
  marblesl What astoundingly exquisite works of art we've cornered up here
  in Poor Fred, sufficient to inspire pilgrimages to these hinterlands by
  culture mavens from all over the 2
          GENEROUS DEATH

 world. "My God," they groan when they get their first glimpse of the
 building; and "my God, " they whisper when they see what's inside.
  You might say the excellence of the art collection at the Martha Paul has
  been both our blessing and our curse: blessing because any museum would
  feel blessed to claim these masterworks as its own; curse because the
  collection is so good we've all become slaves to it. With few other
  outlets for cultural good works, the town pours most of its time, money,
  enthusiasm and volunteer efforts into our one claim to worldwide fame.
  Port Frederick is definitely a one-horse town. But that one horse (though
  stabled in a miserable barn) is a thoroughbred Triple Crown winner if
  there ever was one.
  All this is by way of explaining why Mrs. Francie Daniel, an otherwise
  intelligent woman, was spending Thesday morning, February 12, conducting
  grade school children on a tour of the Martha Paul.

 I

                    3
 Chapter 1

 Francieknew it was going to be a bad day as soon as she saw the skinny
 wrist. The little hand attached to it was just reaching out to stick used
 bubble gum inside the rim of the seventh-century Tang dynasty jar when
 Francie grabbed it in the nick of time. At the same instant, she spied the
 cherubic blond twins bringing up the rear of the grade school art
 procession.
  "Girls!" she called out with a practiced blend of sugar and steel, "don't
  kick the legs of the tables, please. They've already survived five
  hundred years; I don't think we need to test their endurance further."
  Francie cast an admonishing glare at the accompanying fourth grade
  teacher from the Greaves, Country Day School. The teacher, a good twenty
  years younger than Francie, managed somehow always to be looking the
  other way.
 One of the fourth graders flicked a dirty fingernail

                4
          GENEROUS DEATH

 against a priceless ivory Buddhist sculpture. He seemed pleased with the
 resulting soft thud.
  At that point, Francie decided this was going to be one of those tours for
  which she'd better walk backward all the way if she wanted the revered
  Oriental galleries to resemble anything other than the path of a peculiarly
  sticky tornado.
  "Children! Please don't pull the loose threads out of the silk wall
  hangings!"
  Few of the grade school classes Francie guided through the museum were like
  this one. Most were sufficiently intimidated to be pleasingly docile. But
  now and then in her ten years as a volunteer docent at the museum, Francie
  encountered a classful of Holy Terrors. She remembered with horror one
  class in particular that she had shuffled through the Native American Wing
  (converted, servants' quarters). Three years after the fact, the curator of
  Native American art still had not forgiven her for the missing eagle
  feathers in the eight-foot Sioux headdress.
  Francie had a sinking feeling that this day's fourth grade class was going
  to be a legendary Holy Terror, perhaps even one that docents in years to
  come would speak of in hushed, almost reverent tones.
  Backward, she rounded the comer of one gallery of Oriental treasures and
  led the way toward another. Her gum sole shoes-wom for comfort, not beauty-
  trod silently, but the old hardwood floors creaked and moaned piteously as
  if begging people to stop walking on them. Francie's eyes swept the
  children like those of a soldier searching for land mines. The analogy was
  not altogether farfetched.
"Now children," she announced in her best clear, 5
          GENEROUS DEATH

 pleasant docent voice, "we are entering the gallery of Chinese furniture
 . . ."
  "I wanna sit down," whined a little girl-a bad omen considering the t6ur
  had started only five minutes earlier. They didn't usually begin to droop
  until the tour reached the collection of Early American cooking utensils.
  Francie always considered that room one of the challenges of the tour
  since she not only had to revive small and weary spirits, but also some-
  how had to find a way to describe pots and pans without talking about
  food. At that point, the children were hungry and thirsty as well as
  pooped.
  "You'll get a chance to sit on the floor in a moment," Francie said
  brightly, and prayed for the well-being of the exquisite, sturdily
  constructed but admittedly ancient chairs in the Chinese furniture
  collection.
 She backed through the doorway.
  The guard, knowing how to interpret the fearsome signal of a docent
  striding backward, stiffened into wary, watchful life. Despite his
  advanced years and creaky joints, he was fast enough to catch the class
  track and field star in mid-leap as she tried to hurdle the two-foot-high
  sculpted lions that graced the entrance to the gallery. Her tennis shoe
  nicked the edge of the porcelain and set it wobbling for a breathtaking
  moment. The lion and the old guard's heart settled back into place in the
  same instant.
  "Most of the beautiful furniture in this room has been given to the
  museum in recent years by one of our great philanthropists," Francie was
  saying, while she stared in hypnotized horror at the offending tennis
  shoe. She jerked her eyes away but didn't blink. She was afraid to blink.
  Centuries could fall in ruin 6
          GENEROUS DEATH

 before a determined fourth grade class in the wink of an errant eye. She
 inquired doggedly, with no great hope, "Do any of you know what a
 philanthropist is?"
  A fat little boy took his finger out of his nose, where he had been keeping
  it warm on this cold day. He paused in his business long enough to say,
  "It's somebody who gives things away to other people."
  Francie said later that that was when she felt the first tickle of sheer
  terror tease her stomach. If there is anything more frightening than a
  classful of little monsters, it is a classful of intelligent ones.
  "Yeah, so they can get a tax deduction." This from a budding CPA.
  Francie remembered stroking the arm of a PinYang chair and feeling as one
  with its fragile vulnerability. "I was," she said later, "only a
  middle-aged woman alone against the gathering storm." She and the old guard
  eyed each other like the officers in Hamlet having seen the Ghost. Horatio,
  she thought wildly, you tremble and look pale.
  "Good now, sit down," she said aloud, unconsciously further quoting the
  Bard. "Sit around me in a half circle on the floor and I'll tell you about
  this magnificent Chinese bed behind me."
 Giggles from the children.
  "Well," she told us later, "that I was used to. Giggles I could handle." So
  she relaxed a bit, tucked a loose end of her blouse into her skirt and
  began her spiel about the most important, verily almost sacred, object in
  the Chinese collection.
  "This is a Testered Bed With an Alcove," she told them, "and a very rare
  sight to see. .
 More giggles and some pointing.
the word tester refers to the canopy, or roof, 7
          GENEROUS DEATH

 that shelters the bed and the alcove. If you had been born into a wealthy
 Chinese family many years ago, you could have entertained a friend in the
 alcove, or curled up for a little nap on the bed ... i,
  Downright peals of laughter, and even the teacher was smiling.
  ". . . It's a beautiful piece of furniture, isn't it? And it looks
  comfortable, too, don't you agree?"
  Absolute hysteria. Tears running down chubby little cheeks.
  "Children, please!" Francie felt insulted and torn. Insulted because the
  bed was her favorite piece in the whole museum; she'd never heard anyone,
  not even previous Holy Terrors, actually laugh at it. And torn because
  she was afraid to turn around and see what could possibly be so funny.
  She wished the guard would look her way, but he was practically deaf and
  blind, and anyway, he was still busily shaking an arthritic finger at the
  erstwhile hurdler.
 She frowned and raised her voice over the hilarity.
  "This wonderful bed comes to us through the generosity of Mr. Arnold P.
  Culverson, one of our major benefactors. He has provided the funds to
  purchase most of the important pieces in our Chinese collection. But this
  is his favorite gift, as it is mine. In fact, Mr. Arnold Culverson loves
  this bed so muchthat he often stops by the museum just to see it."
  Francie smiled in prelude to Arnie Culverson's favorite jest. "He says
  he wishes he could bring over a pillow and sleep here!"
  Pandemonium. Little fists pounding the floor, small bodies rolling about
  in helpless fits of giggles.
Francie could stand it no longer. 8
          GENEROUS DEATH

  She turned to look at the Testered Bed With an Alcove.
 It was occupied.
  "Mr. Culverson!" Francie cried, and began to laugh too. She hadn't thought
  the famous philanthropist had a reputation as a practical joker, but one
  never knew.
  Francie walked to the bed and stepped carefully up onto the lovely wood
  floor of the alcove so she could peer down at Arnold Culverson on the bed.
  He really did look quite funny lying there with his eyes closed and his
  mouth curved in a sweet little smile. A soft pillow cradled his bald head;
  a baby blue comforter, pulled up under his double chins, furthered the
  comical effect.
  "Okay, Mr. Culverson," Francie said, goodhumoredly going along with the
  rather eccentric joke. "It's time to get up now!"
  She reached forward to give the old man a gentle shake, causing the
  children to scream with delight again. Her hand brushed the soft bluish
  skin of Mr. Culverson's face. It was deadly cold.
  In the moment she stood there, frozen over the body in the ancient bed,
  Francie felt as if she had reached, horribly, through the present into a
  dead past. Her left hand reached out to grasp one of the wooden supports of
  the bed; her right hand rested heavily on its knuckles on the modem blue
  comforter. Steadied thus between two times and cultures, Francie Daniel
  smelled death.
  Somehow, she managed to raise herself to a standing position again. She
  turned around and calmly smiled down at the children.

                9
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Okay, kids." Her voice did not tremble. "Mr. Culverson says he wants to
  sleep a little longer." She paused for squeals and giggles. "So let's
  tiptoe out of here and go into the next gallery."
  Caught up in what they perceived as fun and mischief, the Holy Terrors
  obeyed. When they were safely ensconced in the Persian Gallery, Francie
  abandoned them-for once in her career as a docent heedless of any harm
  they might wreak-and stumbled frantically down the long dim corridors to
  the office of the museum director.
  It was a long time afterward before Francie could admit that she was
  rather grateful to Mr. Arnold P. Culverson for having brought an abrupt
  and early halt to the fearsome and rampaging march of the Greaves fourth
  graders.

 10
 Chapter 2

 Arnie Culverson's death-and the peculiar manner of its discovery-caused
 quite a stir in our offices. For one thing, the coroner called it suicide
 and no one had expected that of Arnie. His body was loaded with a lethal
 combination of liquor and the pills he took for hypertension and migraines.
 It might have been an accidental overdose but for the rather eccentric fact
 of his having crawled up on that beloved bed to die. Two pill bottles were
 found on him-one of them empty, the other nearly so. There was absolutely no
 sign of foul play. Neither was there a suicide note, but we all expected one
 to show up.
  His death also stirred the waters because he was one of the few truly
  wealthy people in town. And like many of that elite group, he filtered his
  philanthropy through our foundation. I say our not because any of the money
  is mine, but because I administer the

               I I
          GENEROUS DEATH

 disposition of the millions of dollars of revenue it generates.
  Everybody calls it The Foundation as if there were no other. In truth,
  of course, there are thousands of charitable foundations scattered across
  the country. But there's only one whose sole function is "to protect and
  promote the well-being; the cultural, spiritual and mental development
  and the superior achievement of all kinds of the citizens of Port
  Frederick, Massachusetts." That pretty well covers the waterfront, I'd
  say, which is exactly what the founders wanted. "If we state the
  objectives of The Foundation in bland and general terms, we can do
  whatever we damn well please with the money," they might also have said,
  and probably did behind closed doors.
  Officially, legally, it's the Port Frederick, Massachusetts, Civic
  Foundation. It was established in 1968 by a family who, to paraphrase the
  rhyme about the old lady in the shoe, had so much money they didn't know
  what to do. So, having done well, they did good. Still more to their
  credit, they encouraged their rich friends to bequeath all or part of
  their estates to The Foundation, thus compounding not only its net worth
  and yearly income but also its potential for charitable grants.
  Before Arnie Culverson died, the assets of The Foundation had a current
  market value of $12 million. That sounds like a lot of money, I know, but
  the $12 million itself wasn't ours to spend. That was the principal; we
  could only spend the income it generated from interest, dividends and
  rents.
  Because of a sluggish economy, that yearly income had been declining
  every year for several. years. And 12
          GENEROUS DEATH

 thanks to inflation, the money we earned didn't buy nearly as much as it
 used to. We could no longer support the town's charities in the style they
 deserved. And we weren't the sort of town to ask for more government help
 than necessary.
  So we needed more private money for The Foundation-a lot of it, soon.
  When I heard about Arnie's death, I knew The Foundation's net worth would
  jump to about $20 million because he was leaving all his money to us.
  Bless his heart. Under the terms of his bequest, most of the money would
  be channeled through The Foundation to the Martha Paul; the rest we could
  spread around to other charities that desperately needed help.
  Arnie's money meant a lot more than nice little improvements to nice
  little do-gooders. To the museum and to some other nonprofit
  organizations, it meant survival.
  But Arnold P. Culverson was not only a very rich man, he was also a nice
  old guy of whom I was quite fond. So I attended the visitation at the
  funeral home the night after he died as a friend as well as the
  representative of the beneficiary. It helped me feel less like a vulture
  hovering over the spoils, though I was sure I wasn't going to look less
  like one to Arnie's relatives. The truth is that The Foundation was get-
  ting all his money not only because he loved the town, but also because
  he hated his relatives. They, in turn, hated The Foundation, and I wasn't
  all too sure how they felt about me, its executive director. If I hadn't
  really liked Arnie, I don't think I would have gone.
That night as I crunched over the snow and gravel 13
          GENEROUS DEATH

 in the parking lot at the Harbor Lights Funeral Home (an unfortunate name
 for a mortuary, if you consider the popular old song, "I see the harbor
 lights, they only tell me that you're leaving. . ."), I was thinking
 fondly of Arnie's shiny bald head. I'm fairly tall for a woman and Arnie
 kept getting shorter as he got older. He liked to ask me if I could see
 my reflection in his pate. "Your boyfriends only brush their hair so
 they'll look nice for you," he'd tease with that gentle smile that barely
 raised the comers of his wide mouth. "But me, I get a wax and polish. Did
 I miss any places, Jenny? Do you see any dull spots?"
  There weren't any dull spots in Arnie's whole being. He vibrated with
  good humor and life. He never walked but always raced about with short
  little steps that made it appear as if his knees were perpetually bent
  and his feet in constant motion. "Aren't I a paradox?" he mused one time
  when we were discussing what The Foundation would do with the funds he
  was leaving us. "Here I am, this hyperactive old fart who can't sit
  still, and yet I have a passion for Chinese furniture. Me, I like
  something that represents all that is cool and calm and meditative! Can
  you beat human nature, Jenny?"
  No, I couldn't beat it, but I was going to miss his highly
  individualistic and lovably human nature. I walked slowly up the wide
  stone steps to the front door of the funeral home, stamping snow off my
  boots as I went.
  "Hi, Jenny." It was Stan Pittman, the son of the owner of Harbor Lights.
  He stood just inside the door to welcome visitors and help them with
  their coats and galoshes. "Coming to the Culverson visitation?" 14
          GENEROUS DEATH

 he asked me, a little shyly, and I felt sorry for him. Stan's not really cut
 out for the funeral business, but that's just going to be his tough luck, I
 suppose, since he's the only heir to seven generations of undertakers. Like
 most New England towns, this one is lousy with descendants of "fine old"
 families. Most of them, however, have inherited only their distinguished
 names, and that won't pay the rent.
  "Hello, Stanley." I patted down the collar of my acceptably conservative
  camel's hair coat. Like a banker or a funeral director, I have to dress to
  fit other people's image of my role. Given my druthers, I'd trade in all
  the beige and gray for red and purple. "Which room is it?"
  "The Chapel of Quiet Blessings," he said and blushed furiously, as would I
  if I had to say things like that. He stuck out a friendly but awkward hand.
  I think we were both surprised to discover that the cold fingers I placed
  in his palm were trembling. He was too well trained and basically sweet to
  comment, but I'm sure he noticed the tears that had sprung to my eyes.
  I wasn't crying over Stan's inherited problems. I was sentimentally hoping
  that in the years to come I would spend Arnie Culverson's money well, in
  ways that would have pleased and amused him when he was alive.
  "Damn it," I said to Stan, making him acutely uncomfortable. "Why did he
  have to go and commit suicide? It makes me feel so sad, as if I d.dn't
  really know him at all."
  "I know what you mean," said a whispery male voice behind me. It was Edwin
  Ottilini, senior surviv15
          GENEROUS DEATH

 ing partner of Owens, Owens & Ottilini, and attorney to anybody who was
 anybody in Port Frederick. He reached out to help me with my coat. For a
 crazy moment, I thought he and Stan were going to fight for it; I felt
 like the rope in a tug-of-war.
  "Thank you, gentlemen." I stepped safely away from them during an instant
  when they paused to regroup their combative forces. Quickly, defensively,
  I slipped out of my trusty camel's hair and draped it over my arm. Even
  then, a spirit of competitiveness reigned, as both men grabbed for it.
  Stan, obviously desperate to maintain his firm's reputation for gracious
  hospitality, finally won the battle with a decisive jerk that tested the
  fabric and my shoulder socket.
  "Sorry, Jenny," he said miserably, and trotted away with his prize to
  hang it up for me.
  Edwin Ottilini, that ancient and tough old lawyer, winked at me and
  allowed as how there might be something to be said for women's
  liberation. We walked together toward the Chapel of Quiet Blessings.
  "Are you going to open the door for me?" I asked him. He threw me a
  sharp, curious look.
  "Of course. It's reflexive with my generation, like going to war and
  saving money. Why?"
  "Because if you are, let's get it over with before Stan gets back and the
  two of you kill me with more courtesy."
  He laughed quietly, appreciatively. Everything about him was quiet, from
  the dry, wry humor to the gray pinstripes on the fine black suits he
  habitually wore. He was a modulated man; if there was any Italian fire
  left in his thin blood, it did not often flame in public. His power, too,
  was quiet. Like many great

               16
          GENEROUS DEATH

 lawyers, he gave the impression of knowing everything, telling nothing.
 Edwin Ottilini was, of course, Arnie's attorney.
  We paused before the closed double doors of the Chapel of Q.B. He didn't
  say why he suddenly seemed loath to enter it, but I knew why I was. I
  didn't want to face that comforting room with its cheerful lamps shining in
  the gray, drained, made-up face of death. I didn't feel like smiling and
  being tactful; rather, I felt an atavistic urge to keen.
 "I liked him, Mr. Ottilini."
 "I liked him, too, Miss Cain."
  "I suppose everybody's saying it, but I really can't believe he killed
  himself. I know his heart was bad; I know his doctors didn't give him long.
  But suicide? Arnie never took the easy way out of anything!"
 "Maybe for him this was not the easy way."
  "I suppose. But think of all his plans for the museum and The Foundation.
  . ."
 The old lawyer cleared his throat.
  "Mr. Ottilini," I said, "before we go in there, I want to ask you
  something." His silence was full of waiting. "Have you set the date for the
  reading of the will? I'll want to put it on my calendar."
  He gazed at me for a long, steady and rather unfathomable moment. I
  thought, as I often do in my frequent dealings with lawyers, how cautious
  they are in all things.
  "Miss Cain, there is no need for a representative of The Foundation to
  attend the reading of the will."
 "It's no bother."
  "You misunderstand, my dear," he said patiently. "There is, I'm afraid, a
  new will of which you are evidently not cognizant. Under the terms of this
  latest 17
          GENEROUS DEATH
 document, it is Mr. Culverson's daughter who win receive the entire
 bequest. There will be nothing for The Foundation."
  "What!" He must have considered it a rhetorical question, because he
  didn't volunteer further information.
  It was just as well that he opened the door for me. I no longer had
  the strength to open it for myselE

 18
 Chapter 3

 Once within, Mr. Ottilini favored me with an inscrutable if rather sad smile
 and glided silently off across the plush carpet to greet the other mourners.
 The Chapel of Q.B.-which was really just a big sitting room-looked like a
 convention of his clients and my potential donors. The rich and powerftd of
 Port Frederick always turn out in force to pay last respects to one of their
 own. Arnie lay-still for once-in an open and opulent casket at the far end
 of the room. I said a silent hello to him but didn'tcouldn't-move that way
 yet.
  I stood by the door, weak kneed and wishing I could fade into the tasteful
  floral wallpaper while I digested the horrid implications of the lawyer's
  bombshell. Instead, I was faced immediately with the two people I least
  wanted to see at that moment.
 "Mother, it's Jennifer Cain." The forty-two-year-
               19
          GENEROUS DEATH

 old son that Arnie called "that worthless-good-fornothing" turned his mean
 little smile on me. It was hard to imagine short, squat Arnie as his
 father, but the resemblance to his elegantly thin mother was unmistakable,
 right down to their matching smiles. My assistant director claimed they
 could pass for brother and sister-with the face (and other) lifts that
 makes Mrs. Culverson look so much younger and with the general air of
 dissipation that makes Franklin look so much older, they meet in the
 middle somewhere around fifty-three.
  "Ah, Jennifer, dear, so nice of you to come to the visitation," cooed
  Marvalene Culverson. "Could it be that you were truly fond of Arnold? Or
  maybe you don't know about the new will?"
  Having already been struck dumb by Mr. Ottilini, I just looked at her.
  There's really no answer to that kind of nastiness anyway, except perhaps
  "up yours," and my position does not permit me such gratifying liberties.
  "I think she knows, Mother. That's why she looks so pale and wan. Feeling
  pale and wan, Jenny? Really, I wouldn't if I were you; it doesn't go well
  with your makeup."
 I gathered what little was left of my wits.
  "I liked your father very much, Franklin. I'm sorry he's dead."
  "Oh, so are we, dear." Mrs. Culverson reached out a sleek claw to pat my
  arm. "Particularly since he chose such an embarrassing way to do the
  deed. We're just awfully sorry he's dead. At least while he was alive we
  had some access to his money. You know, of course, who he left it to?"
"Your daughter, I understand." 20
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Then you understand more than I do." With which cryptic and angry remark
  she turned her back on me and stomped off to charm her other guests,
  leaving me alone with Franklin. Marvalene has family money of her own on
  which I knew she could probably support herself, Franklin and one or two
  topname designers. My heart did not bleed for her.
  "My sister's here," Franklin informed me. I couldn't tell if his cold tone
  was intended for her or me. Not even bothering with the pretense of
  courtesy, he pointed a long finger at a woman about my age seated near the
  open casket. Even though Ginger Culverson's head was lowered so I couldn't
  see her face, it was obvious that she'd been the child who had inherited
  Arnie's genes. I'd never seen her before. She'd been sent to boarding
  schools as a child and later she dropped out of Radcliffe to join a Marxist
  commune someplace in Idaho. Arnie rarely mentioned her, and then only with
  bitterness. He called her "the kid who ran away from everything."
  But I was beginning to see that beneath that parental anger had been
  undying love. Or why else would he so impulsively have left all his money
  to her? It was impulsive, wasn't it? Surely he didn't string us along,
  knowing all the while he would leave it to her? I couldn't believe I was
  that wrong about him.
 "I'd like to meet her."
  "Really? My, you are the polite one, Jenny. But then I suppose you have to
  think of the future of The Foundation, don't you? Maybe if you insinuate
  yourself with her, my sister will leave you everything my father didn't."
  He glanced with malicious pleasure from my aghast expression to his
  sister's downcast head. "I don't know though, she looks goddamn

               21
          GENEROUS DEATH

 healthy to me. You may have to wait a while for her to kick off. We'll all
 have to wait a while longer, I fear."
 He swiveled his thin face back to me.
  "You think I'm despicable, don't you, darling, now tell the truth." He
  was playing the brittle sophisticate to a degree that set my teeth on
  edge. But Franklin didn't anger or shock me as his mother did; he only
  filled me with pity. I've known him all my life; there's a lot about
  Franklin to feel sorry for.
  "My opinion of you is no lower than your opinion of yourself," I said.
  He gave me a furious, terrified look before he quickly controlled his
  expression.
  "I believe we've come to what is known as a conversational lull," he said
  stiffly. "I suppose it was nice of you to come," he added by way of
  farewell as he glided off after his mother.
  I swallowed the bad taste left in my mouth by my own self-righteousness.
  Franklin might well be a mess, but who was I to tell him so?
  My scowl lifted at the welcome sight of an approaching friend.
  "Hi, Swede," said Michael Laurence, using the obvious nickname based on
  my ancestry and appearance. Sometimes he called me Sweedy-but only in
  private, thank God. He stood in front of me and said, "This may be a
  stupid question, considering the circumstances, but why the long face?"
 We kissed, circumspectly.
 "I was thinking about power, Michael."
 "Its uses or abuses?"
  "The way it abuses the person who holds it, if you let it. It seduces you
  into thinking you have the right-even the duty-to pronounce judgment on
  22
          GENEROUS DEATH

 everything and everybody." His eyes said he was seriously listening, a
 great compliment from a man to a woman. Those eyes are so incongruous-
 sympathetic puppy dog brown irises set in that patrician face. My
 secretary says those eyes confuse her, she doesn't know whether to curtsey
 to Michael or to scratch behind his ears. I said, "Michael, do you think
 I'm smug or bossyr'
  "No. I think you're relatively young to wield the power you do and you're
  not completely comfortable with it yet."
 I must have grimaced.
  "Don't grimace like that," he laughed. "You know you wield power in this
  town. With all that money at your disposal through The FDundation of
  course you do, everybody knows you do."
  "Um," I said, meaning to be wry, "you may have noticed how many more
  friends I have since I took the job."
  "Oh come on, Jen. That goes with the territory and you know it. Of course
  people cozy up to you! If The Foundation can do them some good, they'd
  be crazy not to. You may call it cynical, but I call it human nature and
  I don't see anything so terrible about it. You'd do the same if you were
  they, and so would L"
 "You'd never use anybody, Michael."
  "Oh, Swede." The gentle eyes were sad and serious. "I don't know where
  you got this notion of my sainthood, but I wish you'd drop it. I'm just
  an ordinary man who happens to be in love with an extraordinary woman."
  "You only love me for my power," I teased, trying to keep the mood light
  and the topic away from that familiar, painful one.

                23
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "No." As usual, when it came to talking about his feelings for me, he
  refused to play games. "I love you because you're the smartest, nicest
  woman I know. Also the sexiest."
 "Oh, Michael."
  "Oh, Michael." Even his mocking was gentle. "Why don't you ever say, Oh
  Michael, yes I'll marry you. I'll throw away Port Frederick and The
  Foundation and run away to your little chAteau in the Loire."
 "I hate it when you make fun of yourself."
  "Ah! You admit I have a fault! Well, that's progress, I guess." There was
  self-pity in his voice, an unattractive tone I'd only recently begun to
  hear. We'd dated off and on for a couple of years, always on my terms.
  Except for a briefly sexy interlude near the beginning, those terms had
  never got beyond the fondly platonic. The problem was not that I thought
  of him as saintly, but that he seemed more like a brother than a loverand
  therefore untouchable. Still, he persevered with good humor and patience.
  My secretary thought I was crazy not to love him; she thought he was
  crazy to keep loving me.
  "You favor the underdog, don't you, Jenny?" he said. "Well, has it ever
  occurred to you that I'm the underdog in the fight for your affection?"
  He tried to make a joke of it, but the joke didn't come off. He only
  managed to sound melodramatic. I felt embarrassed for him, and
  uncomfortable. I hoped no one could hear us.
  "Look at me, Jen! Just once, I wish you'd see the man I am instead of
  your sainted image of me!"
  When he was done emoting, he looked as surprised as 1. Suddenly, his grin
  was self-effacing, and real.
 "Tune in tomorrow," he said, making me laugh.

               24
          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Will Jennifer love Michael? Will Michael make an ass of himself? Will
 Jennifer still go out with Michael on Friday night?"
  "Of course." It had been a long day and I was suddenly exhausted. "You
  know, maybe I'm not so smart after all. And maybe I'm not such a great
  judge of character." I decided to share with him the news about the will.
  "I sure missed the boat with Arnie . . ."
 But I never got to finish the thought.
  We were abruptly interrupted by a small, noisy, elderly mob. Three of my
  favorite Foundation clients had converged upon us.
  "'Hello, children!" chirped Minnie "HaHa" Mimbs.
  Hands were shaken, cheeks were kissed and greetings were exchanged all
  around. With Minnie were her old pals, Moshe Cohen and Mrs. Charles Withers
  Hatch. Not one of the three was younger than eighty and none of them stood
  any higher than Michael's shoulder or my chin.
  The blue-gray of Minnie's hair perfectly matched the blue-gray of her
  Chanel suit, which I personally knew to have been designed by Coco
  herself-many years ago. Seeing her thus, I knew Minnie had dressed
  conservatively in deference to the solemnity of the occasion. Minnie likes
  to dye her hair to match her clothes, and since her favorite colors are
  orange and green, she looks pretty wonderful sometimes. She can get away
  with it, of course; the old can do as they damn well please if they have
  the money. Minnie had it in spades and real estate, and what she damn well
  pleased to do with it was give it away. I knew that when she died she'd be
  leaving half a million to her

               25
          GENEROUS DEATH

 Episcopal church and another half to The Foundation, mainly for the
 benefit of the Martha Paul.
 She smiled gaily at us.
  "Isn't this nice?" she said. "Arnie would be so pleased to see everybody
  here, give or take a wife, perhaps. I do just adore weddings and
  funerals."
  "And christenings!" This from Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch, who was of the
  old school and always used her husband's name. Mrs. Hatch always told me
  that if I were a "good girl" she'd leave "a little something" to The
  Foundation, though I knew her first love was the Welcome Home for Girls.
  I had to promise, she said, to put the money to "good Christian use."
  Being of a handy ecumenical bent, I could easily agree to the terms. Just
  as I could agree to promise Moshe Cohen that most of the money he gave
  to The Foundation would be channeled to the Jewish causes he so pas-
  sionately supported. He was also the financial force behind our sparkling
  new civic theater, due to open Friday night.
  Moshe made himself known from beside Michael's left shoulder, or rather,
  below his shoulder. "Veddings, christenings," he said disdainfully to the
  ladies. "Give me a good bar mitzvah any time!" He'd never worked up the
  nerve for the big trip to Israel, so at eighty-two years of age, he had
  settled for an ersatz Yiddish accent. It drove his old friends crazy.
  "What do you know from bar mitzvah, you old fool?" demanded Minnie. She
  and Moshe had dated back in the '20's and she felt she had a proprietary
  right to treat him with affectionate contempt. "You haven't seen the
  inside of a synagogue since the Six Day War."
 "So maybe I pray at home and vear a skullcap to

               26
          GENEROUS DEATH

 bed, so how should you know about Jewish?" He winked at Michael and me.
 "They try to convert me, these two. For more years than I care to tell you,
 they try. They think maybe I should lead the local Jews for Jesus? I tell
 them, I say, Minnie HaHa and Mrs. Charles Vithers Hatch, vonce a Jew, always
 a Jew."
  "Oy vey," said the very Protestant Mrs. Hatch. "Take us home, please,
  Moshe."
  "Goodbye, children," chirped Minnie, with a wave of both of her gloved
  hands. "You look lovely, my dears."
  And so, without Michael or me having contributed more than "hello" to their
  slightly hysterical conversation, off they went in search of Moshe's
  chauffeur.
 Michael and I grinned at each other.
  "Do you want to go to the cocktail party at the club before the opening?"
  he asked, speaking of the gala premiere of Moshe's new theater.
  "Not particularly. You go without me if you want to, all right?"
  "I think I will. Then I'll drive by and pick you up on the way to the
  theater."
  "Fine, I'll see you Friday night then. Right now, I think I'd better go
  introduce myself to Arnie's daughter.9'
 "I met her a few minutes ago."
 "And?"
 "She likes me."
  I laughed-absently, probably-and turned toward the end of the room I'd been
  avoiding. There they waited: Arnie and the daughter for whom he had
  betrayed his promises to The Foundation and the Martha Paul.
As I worked my way along the edge of the quiet 27
          GENEROUS DEATH

 crowd,_ I purposely avoided the eager glances that Simon Church directed my
 way. Simon, the director of the museum, would want to discuss Arnie's plans
 for the Chinese galleries. I couldn't bear to tell him there weren't going
 to be any plans.
  Ginger Culverson glanced up when I offered my name to her. She looked as if
  it had rung a bell whose tune she couldn't quite recall.
  "Who are you?" she said, but it wasn't rude, not like the same question
  would have sounded coming from her mother or brother, who would have itali-
  cized the are.
  "I was a friend of your father's." The going was awkward from there. "I'm
  the director of The Port Frederick Civic Foundation, which is involved in
  some charitable activities that your dad was interested in. He and I worked
  together on some, uh, projects," I finished lamely. Did she know that her
  inheritance had scuttled those "projects" supposedly so dear to her daddy's
  heart?
  The intelligent eyes she had inherited from him lit up her sad round face.
  "Oh yes, The Foundation. Jennifer Cain. Yes, I've heard a lot about you."
  And then she giggled. The laughter escaped from her mouth like a burp and
  she put up a hand to cover it. But it was too late. Behind her hand, the
  wide mouth like her father's curled up in the familiar and sweet little
  smile.
 I grinned back at her.
  "I'll bet you have." I made a quick decision. "You wouldn't want to go get
  a drink with me, would you? Or a cup of coffee? It's been a long day and I
  don't know about you, but I've had it."
She gathered her purse and used tissues and stood. 28
          GENEROUS DEATH

 The top of her head came just to the bottom of my nose, as her father's had.
 "Let's get the hell out of Dodge," she said.

  We settled into a cozy table at the Buoy and wrapped our hands around
  toasty glasses of hot buttered rum. As usual, the ancient bar was packed
  with a mixed crowd. In the darkest comer were the local fishermen, drinking
  late because the weather was too foul for work. Upright and chic at the
  long bar were the urban mariners in their immaculate pea coats and pipes,
  hustling the women who hustled them. I waved to a few local shopkeepers and
  smiled encouragingly at the few tourists who were bold enough to brave our
  February.
  Like an English pub, the Buoy is everybody's favorite haunt, young and old,
  and has been for more than a century. The latest generation of owners stood
  behind the bar, mixing drinks and jokes and goodwill, just as their
  great-great-great-grandparents had.
  Ginger had remembered the Buoy from her childhood and requested it. I was
  glad to oblige.
  "I should have known I'd like you," she said and smiled, "just from all the
  nasty things my family had to say about you and that Foundation. I do
  remember that much about them-they're perfect judges of character in
  reverse."
 "I didn't think I'd like you either."
  "Because of how my father described me? I was the ungrateful brat, right?
  The kid who had everything and threw it all away."
 "Is it true? Were you?"
  "Sure. There was much to be ungrateful for and a lot of baggage to throw
  away. But I'll tell you some-
  
               29
          GENEROUS DEATH

 thing, Jenny, I'm a pack rat. I'd never throw away anything that was worth
 a damn."
  Including your father? I didn't voice the question, but it hung in the
  air between us.
  "My father . . ." The brown eyes like his did not fill with tears or
  regret. "My father just didn't have time to raise millions and kids,
  too."
 "Evidently he loved you."
  "Love or remorse, it looks that way, doesn't it? I'm told he was a
  lovable man, but I don't remember that quality about him. Actually, I
  don't remember much about him at all. He only seemed very important.
  Busy. Stem."
  I could understand how he might have appeared thus to a child. His world
  revolved around profits and losses, taxes and capital gains. They taught
  his language at Pennsylvania where I got my M.B.A., but not at nursery
  school.
  I ventured the hesitant opinion that she might have grown to like him
  once she became an adult.
  "You think so? Have you ever known a child who forgave his parents for
  failing him? Children are an unforgiving lot, I think. I know I am." She
  said it with cold finality. "And no amount of money will change that. You
  probably won't believe this, but I don't even want it."
  I didn't believe it. But I could see that Amie's final "buy" was a loser.
  He wasn't going to get back a return of love on his investment of $8
  million. I had a mean, irreverent moment of thinking how much he could
  have bought with that money if he'd left his original will alone:
  fabulous, rare pieces for the Chinese galleries; funds to exhibit and
  maintain them forever; an assistant museum director to relieve 30
          GENEROUS DEATH

 Simon Church of too much responsibility; and more. Only a few of us knew
 just how much more had been promised under the old and now useless will.
  I looked at Ginger Culverson and realized how incredibly rich she was very
  shortly going to be.
  "Ginger," I said impulsively, "how do you feel about ancient Chinese
  furniture?"
  She looked bewildered for a moment. Then the light dawned and she began to
  laugh that rich, infectious laugh of her father's.
  "Oh, Jenny," she said, and finally there were tears, but tears of
  sympathetic laughter. "Oh God, Jenny, I'm just sorry as hell."
  I was laughing too by that time. And damn near crying.

 31
 Chapter 4

 I broke the news to my staff the next morning, the day of Arnie's funeral.
 They were not stoic.
  "Arnie did what?" said Marv Lastelic, the controller.
  "How could he promise us everything and give us nothing?" cried Faye
  Basil, my secretary.
  "Well, I'll be damned," said Derek Jones, my assistant director. "What
  a lowdown miserable thing to do."
  I let them get it out of their systems. After all, they'd been working
  hard on Arnie's plans; he'd led them down the same fantastical garden
  path that had ended in a brick wall for me. They were disappointed,
  flabbergasted, angry. It was important for them to say so, and to me.
  "Didn't you have a clue?" they finally asked suspiciously.

               32
          GENEROUS DEATH

 "No." I threw it back at them. "Did you?"
 They admitted to complete surprise.
  "Although," Derek mused, "he was sure acting funny the last couple of days.
  Maybe he had a guilty conscience, huh? Maybe he didn't have the courage to
  give us the bad news."
  "Well, you'd have thought he'd at least leave us a note!" Faye said
  indignantly. "Suicides are supposed to leave notes, for heaven's sake."
  "My gosh, all those financial statements and meetings and . . ." Marvin was
  pale at the memory of the hours he'd devoted to Arnie's army of lawyers and
  accountants. "Jenny, do you realize what this does to our projections? Do
  you know what it will do to the museum budget? Do you realize how it will
  affect our net worth and earnings?"
 "I know." Dear God, how well I knew.
  "So when are you going to break the news to the trustees?" Derek murmured,
  going straight to the most intimidating point of all. "And how?"
  "Today," I said weakly. "I've called an emergency meeting for lunch." But
  I didn't have an answer to Derek's second question. I didn't know how I
  would tell the five trustees of The Foundation that the $8 million feast
  over which they'd been licking their lips had just been cooked and served
  to another customer.
  "Well." Derek gazed appraisingly at my conservative gray business suit. "I
  suggest a change of clothing for that meeting. Sackcloth and ashes."

  My meeting an hour later at the museum with Simon Church was even worse
  than my staff meeting.
 I walked into his closet of an office unannounced.

               33
          GENEROUS DEATH

 He looked up impatiently from his overflowing desk, but his harried frown
 turned to leering welcome.
 "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!"
  Simon puts the lie to the stereotype of the effete artist: He looks like
  a lumberjack, with the ribald personality of a truck driver.
  "Jenny, my love," he said, "if I could get you alone in the European
  painting collection, I'd show you an Old Master! How are you this
  gorgeous morning, my darling? Come to sit on Simon's lap and tease him
  with visions of new galleries of Chinese furniture? My God, Jenny, I did
  like the old fart, but if he had to go, wasn't it nice of him to leave
  it all to us?"
 I looked at him and felt rotten.
  "'Jenny?" He misunderstood my serious silence. "Oh shit, I'm sorry. I'm
  so damned tactless."
 "We're not getting the money, Simon."
 Sudden silence.
  "Excuse me, Jenny. I thought you just said we're not getting the money."
  "We're not. He changed his mind. I don't know when or why. There's a new
  will and we're not in it. He left all his money to his daughter."
  "Did you say there's a new will that bequeaths all the money to his
  daughter?"
 "That's what I said."
 "You don't mean all of it."
 "Yes, I do."'
  Simon rose and turned slowly away from me. His massive shoulders blocked
  the light from the small, single window. The cubicle was instantly dark
  and uncomfortable.
 "I didn't know, Simon."
 No answer.

               34
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Please, Simon, I feel as terrible about this as you do."'
 No answer.
  I left him staring at the death of his grandest dreams.

  But the worst was yet to come-in the persons of five men, pillars of what
  passes for an establishment in Port Frederick, staunch defenders of the
  faith of capitalism, cautious and cagey doers of good.
  They were my bosses, the trustees of The Foundation, appointed for life to
  oversee the accrual, investment and expenditure of the funds.
  And they were waiting for me, twiddling their salad forks and swirling
  their martinis, at the Bosun Club downtown. After lunch, we'd all be
  adjourning to the Harbor Lights Funeral Home for one last meeting with
  Arnie.
  From the tight smiles on their faces when they looked up to greet me, I
  guessed that Edwin Ottilini had already passed the bad word to his fellow
  trustees. He was one of the five.
  "Good morning, Jennifer," said Jack Fenton, the seventy-seven-year-old
  chairman of the board of First City Bank. "Well, here we are in plenary
  session."
  "I've saved you a chair by me." This command from Pete Falwell, retired
  president of Port Frederick Fisheries, the town's major employer.
  "Good morning," I said in my most confident directoes voice. Dealing with
  them on anywhere near an equal basis requires a bit of bluff at the best of
  times; this lunch was going to win me an Oscar. I -took hold of the
  conversational lead before they could wrest it from me.

               35
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "It looks as if you already know about the Culverson bequest," I began
  cautiously, with a glance at Edwin Ottilini.
  "What Culverson bequest?" Roy Leland, the rotund chairman emeritus of
  United Grocers, closed in quickly. "One day we've got $8 million, the
  next day we've got nothing."
  Jack Fenton snorted. "Iet that be a lesson to us," he said. "Never count
  your inheritances until they're hatched."
  "Well, how did we screw up?" Roy demanded. He's stubborn and arrogant,
  but those qualities are mitigated by the good common sense that helped
  him rise from fish skinner to company president. "Did we offend the old
  buzzard? Did we make him mad at us? Disappoint him somehow? What the hell
  happened is what I want to know." He and Arnie were good friends; I
  sensed Roy was feeling personally betrayed.
  "I'm not convinced we did anything wrong," I said. 4'It's just possible
  he had a simple change of heart."
  "I think that's it," Pete Falwell said. "People do, you know, when
  mortality starts closing in. Why, my father didn't speak to his brothers
  for thirty-seven years and then on the day he died he insisted we call
  every one of 'em up so he could make amends."
  "But we didn't have a clue," Roy insisted. "You'd of thought he'd of told
  somebody." That was a broad hint for Mr. Ottilini, whom they all knew to
  have been Arnie's attorney. He took it.
 . "He told me," he said and five faces, one of them mine, turned to stare
 accusingly at him. A wisp of a smile creased his wrinkles. "He called me
 the week before he died and told me what he planned to do

               36
          GENEROUS DEATH

 about the will. And yes, it was a change of heart, simple as that. He
 loved his daughter very much when she was a child; lately, he said, he'd
 begun to feel an overwhelming guilt for having neglected her and possibly
 driven her away."
  "You knew a whole week agoT' Roy expressed my own vexation. "And you
  didn't tell Jennifer or any of us?"
  "Of course not," the lawyer said primly. "He was my client and he asked
  me not to. He very definitely said he would tell you himself. He meant
  to do so quite soon. He understood that anything less would be quite
  unfair."
  ' Well, why didn't he?" Roy again. Sometimes it's nice to have a buzzsaw
  in a group, to hack through the niceties to the brutal truth.
  "He was having a hard time working up the courage." That wisp of a smile
  appeared again. "You know, he stopped by my office that last day to pick
  up his copy of the new will. He confessed then that he still hadn't found
  the nerve to tell Jennifer or Simon, or any of you, for that matter. He
  was quite in a dither."
  "Well, I should hope," Jack said indignantly, but we were all relaxing
  a little now that some of it was beginning to make sense. Then he looked
  shocked. "You don't think, do you, that he killed himselfjust to get out
  of telling us?"
  "Don't be ridiculous," Roy said, and that settled that.
  "Why did he commit suicide, Mr. OttiliniTI I said. "And why didn't he
  leave us a note?"
But this time the wise old eyes held no smile or 37
          GENEROUS DEATH

 wisdom for me. "I do not know," he said tiredly. "I simply do not know."
  A few minutes of unhappy silence passed while we considered that mystery
  and the waitress delivered our salads.
  "If it's any comfort," Mr. Ottilini said when the waitress was gone,
  "Arnie's plan was to work with us to see if he couldn't help us come up
  with alternate financing for the museum."
  "Big of him," Roy said, but I thought he was somewhat mollified. His old
  friend had nottotally let him down.
  "Well, that's all very nice," Jack Fenton said, a shade irritably, "but
  that doesn't help much now, does it? I swear, if he weren't already dead,
  I could happily kill the son of a bitch, excuse me, Jenny."
  I swallowed my smile. They're not quite used to equal opportunity
  employment. Sometimes they treat me like their generation's idea of a
  lady; sometimes I'm one of the boys. I don't care. I give them credit for
  hiring me at all.
 I decided it was time to earn my keep.
  "Jack's right," I said. "The point is, he did it. And now we have to pick
  up the pieces. I have already told Simon Church..."
 "Oh lordy," Pete murmured.
  ". . . and this morning I put my staff to work on contingency plans and
  financial projections. In the meantime, you might wish to consider what
  this means, in the long and short run, for The Foundation and for the
  Martha Paul . .
  Finally we heard from the fifth and youngest member of the board of
  trustees. As befits the lowest in seniority among such a group of
  powerhouses, he'd 38
          GENEROUS DEATH

 been thoughtfully quiet up to that point. But now he spoke up clearly.
  "That's easy, Jenny," said my friend Michael Laurence, fifth
  generation president of the Laurence Construction Company. His spaniel
  eyes expressed sympathy and worry. "It means disaster."

 39
 Chapter S

 YOU were a big help," I said to Michael when he arrived the next night to
 take me to the theater opening. He was late. "The word disaster is one I
 could have lived without, thank you very much."
 "You look gorgeous in that whateveritis color."
 "Peach."
  "Soft and fuzzy. Like that whatchamacallit material."
 "Cashmere. 99
  "Umm." He grinned gooffly at me; I could smell a Scotch hint of the
  cocktail party. "You look so cuddly. The hell with the theater. Let's just
  stand here and nuzzle all night." He shook his head so drops of melting
  snow flew off his hair, completely my secretary's image of him as a soulful
  puppy. Puppy was sloshed.
  "Don't come near me," I said irritably. "You're cold and wet and you've had
  too much to drink and

               40
          GENEROUS DEATH

 I'm ready to go and I can't stand people who arrive late at the theater."
 That focused him.
  "All in all," he said, enunciating carefully, "you're not very pleased
  with me."
 And then, oddly enough, he smiled.
  I slipped on my camel's hair and a peach beret to match my dress and then
  turned off the lights in the hallway of my parents' home. Or, rather,
  make that singular possessive, parent's-since it was Mother who got it
  in the divorce. I'd been living there by myself in the years since I'd
  moved back to Port Frederick. Keeping it clean and warm for Mom, you
  might say, until they let her out of the hospital.
  Michael and I paced carefully down the front walk that I had not
  shoveled. I didn't take the elbow he offered; if I'm going to slip and
  fall I don't want to take anybody else down with me. Besides, I just feel
  more secure standing alone on my own two feet, which is an obvious
  metaphor for my whole personality.
  "I said, Jennifer, that you're not happy with me." He was walking even
  more carefully than 1.
  "Sorry, I can't talk and walk on ice at the same time. I'll drive," I
  said firmly. I slid onto the cold leather seat of his Jaguar and waited
  for him to climb into the passenger's side. Damn it, I didn't want to
  drive.
  "I hate to drive on ice," I said and started the engine.
  "I'm sorry," he mumbled, but he didn't look very contrite.
 I mercilessly ground the gears.
 That got him.

               41
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I'm sorry," he said clearly. I backed out of the drive. "Don't be so mad
  at me, Swede. I don't do this very often, you know."
  "I know." I slid the gears smoothly from reverse to first and pulled into
  the street. My anger disappeared, but a knot of tension at the back of
  my neck did not. "Anyway, you only told the truth. It is a disaster,
  unless we contest the will and get some of the money back."
 "Nasty proposition."
  "Yes, it is." I thought of Ginger Culverson who had claimed she did not
  want the inheritance. Well, there was nothing like a contested will to
  test brave statements like that. But we had to do it; for the sake of the
  Martha Paul, we had to go after the money we had thought would be ours.
  Arnie had led us to count on that money for all sorts of things this town
  needed badly-including a brand new Martha Paul Frederick Museum of Fine
  Art. With his bequest, we'd finally have the money we needed to wage a
  court fight to break the original terms of Martha Paul's will. If we
  could convince the court that the priceless works of art were in physical
  danger in that old house, we could get a judgment permitting us to tear
  it down and build a new museum. Arnie's bequest was to have been the seed
  money for that grand construction project, too,
 Disaster?
  That's exactly what loomed if we didn't rescue those works of art from
  that collapsible stick house. One more hurricane, one good fire, and down
  she would tumble-and millions of dollars' worth of irreplaceable and
  beloved treasures with her.
 The world would never forgive us.

               42
          GENEROUS DEATH

  It gave us nightmares thinking about the potential for loss; it had Simon
  Church reaching for the Maalox every hour on the hour.
  We had to contest the will. We owed it to Rembrandt and van Gogh, to
  Caravaggio and Rodin and to all the other artists whose masterpieces were
  endangered by that cold, damp, rotting mansion.
  "I don't want to talk about it anymore," I said irrationally. "Let's talk
  about something else. You, for instance. Why'd you get loaded tonight? I'm
  not mad, just curious."
 "In two words, my father."
 "Ah, the light dawns."
  "But not the one at the end of the tunnel," he said. He slouched further
  into his coat and the bucket seat. "My father, according to reputable
  sources, is supposed to be retired. Now you tell me: If he's retired, how
  come he flies in from Tucson every couple of weeks to tell me how I'm going
  to be the first of five generations to run the company into bankruptcy?
  Retired, my foot."
 "What does your mother say?"
  "My mother is tired, Jenny. She's worn out from mediating between her son
  and her husband. So she doesn't want to hear about it anymore. Talk to your
  father, she says, and please don't upset him as you always do. Mother, I
  say, you know me fairly wellam I an unreasonable guy? A stupid jerk? A
  stubborn SOB? I don't wish to hear it, she says, and don't malign your
  father, he's worked hard all his life and now he wants some rest. No he
  doesn't, I tell her, but gently; he doesn't want to rest at all and that's
  the problem. He can't let go of the business, but I can't

               43
          GENEROUS DEATH

 run it and cope with his interference, too. I'm not twenty years old, I
 say; I've been in this business all my life, too. He's got to trust me or
 somebody, sometime. Or else let go. Or else come back, take it over again
 and let me go my own way. And my mother says, I'm tired, Michael, let's
 have a drink, how's that nice Jenny Cain?"
  "Poor Michael," I lifted a gloved hand off the gearshift knob and patted
  his knee.
 "Damn right."
  I applied the brakes, cautiously, to avoid a skidding van in front of us.
  When I could take my eyes off the road for a second, I glanced at him.
  In the pale light from the dash, his well-bred features were drawn; the
  gentle eyes were surrounded by shadows and fine lines, more deeply etched
  than I had ever noticed before. My heart, such as it was, went out to
  this kind man whose love I could not seem to return. "If you'd marry me,
  I wouldn't just be getting a beautiftd woman," he had once teased. "I'd
  be getting an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Finance. Why together we
  could wrest the Laurence Construction Company from the snapping jaws of
  my creditors."
  The Jag straightened itself out of a skid. Trust, I decided then and
  there, is a man allowing a woman to drive his beloved and costly sports
  car on icy roads. Marriages have survived on less faith than that.
  "I'm thinking of selling my house, Jen, and moving into a smaller place."
 "Oh dear, surely it can't be that bad, not yet. .
  "It is. According to dear old Dad, of course, it's all my fault. It seems
  to have escaped his notice that when I took over, housing starts were at
  an all-time 44
          GENEROUS DEATH

 low, mortgages were impossible to get, nobody was building or buying, and
 labor and material costs were sky-high, which they still are, I might add.
 He ran the company during the boom years. Hell, you had to be an idiot not
 to get rich then. But since then, a man's had to be a genius just to keep
 from going bust."
  On that happy note we pulled up to the circle drive of the freshly built,
  gaily lighted Moshe Cohen Theater for the Dramatic Arts.
 "Where is everybody?" Michael said.
  I could hardly believe there were no crowds at the entrance. A few patrons
  seemed to be coming out, not going in. The lone car in the drive was
  Moshe's silver stretch limo, with no chauffeur in sight. I checked the
  clock on the dash.
  "Oh, Michael, we have missed the curtain. Damn it! I guess that accounts
  for it; everybody's inside."
  But still, something felt wrong. I had one of those absurd moments of
  paranoia that everyone gets at one time or another before a big party.
 "This is the right night, isn't it?" I said.
 "Of course it is, look at the marquee."
 I looked.
  "Port Frederick Premiere!" it bragged. "Fiddler on the Roof, Starring. . ."
  And it named the famous Broadway actor for whom Moshe had paid a king's
  ransom for this first proud week. Of course it would be Fiddler. Opening
  night had been sold out for weeks. Moshe's premiere was to be a grand
  social event, the only one Poor Fred had seen in some time. It was not, as
  they said in the beauty shops, to be missed.
"So where is everybody?" I demanded. A funny 45
          GENEROUS DEATH

 feeling in my stomach told me something had gone awry, but oh, I hoped
 not. For Moshe's sake, I hoped not.
  I drove slowly around the building and into the parking lot on the west
  side.
  "There's your crowd," Michael said quietly. And soberly.
  An eerie scene lay before us, as on an outdoor stage. Small clumps of
  people stood about in their overcoats like bit actors in a crowd scene;
  the principals moved with sure and purposeful strides across the icy
  pavement like stars who know their lines, having practiced this same
  scene many times before. Over it all was cast a luminous red glow-a
  reflection in the snow of the swirling lights of the police cars that had
  gathered at the side door.
  With my heart in my mouth, I parked and we climbed out. Distraught voices
  carried to us over the crisp air. "It's not fair!" we heard a woman wail.
  "It's not fair!"
  It was Francie Daniel and just as we recognized her, she spotted us.
 "Jennifer!"
  Her voice had a desperate edge that unnerved me. Quickly, I trotted to
  her side. I didn't know Francie all that well because she's of my
  mother's generation, but she's one of the few who'd stuck by Mom all
  those years. I was fond of her, and grateful. When I reached her side,
  she clung to my right arm with both of her hands.
  "Moshe's dead," she said to my horror. "It's not fair! It's not fair!"
"We rode over withMoshe from the cocktail 46
          GENEROUS DEATH

 party," Francie's husband said. Stanley Daniel's face, like his wife's,
 was pale with shock and his eyes were red-rimmed. Michael placed a
 comforting hand on his shoulder and I wrapped an arm around Francie.
  "Moshe?" I said weakly. Neither Michael nor I seemed able to find our
  voices; they were lost in a fog of shock and dismay. But I remember
  thinking, Not Moshe, not dear funny Moshe ...
 Stanley was explaining to the police.
  "He had too much to drink at the pre-party, Mo ' she did, and we noticed
  he was a little wobbly. And we wanted to make sure he'd be okay, so we
  rode over here with him."
  "Jenny," Francie whispered, "he was almost passed out when we got here,
  but he wouldn't let us take him home. He just insisted on going in . .
  ."
  "So we sat him down in one of the seats in the theater," Stanley
  continued, "and Francie went to call his doctor because we were really
  worried about him and I went for a glass of water for him . . ."
  "And when we got back to him, he was-oh, Jennifer, he was. .
 Dead.
  It wasn't fair. Not fair for Moshe Cohen to have died on the biggest
  night of his life. Not fair for poor Francie to come upon the death of
  a friend twice in one week.
  They thought he'd had a heart attack. So did the stagehands who came
  running to help., So did the director and the great actor from Broadway.
  And so, when they accompanied the ambulance just to be helpful on this
  night of bad traffic and slick streets, did the police. Until, that is,
  they went through the 47
          GENEROUS DEATH

 pockets of Moshe's tuxedo and found the odd little poem.
  It had a nasty anonymous tone to it, just like the poem found earlier
  that day in a crack of the Testered Bed With an Alcove at the Martha
  Paul Frederick Museum of Fine Art.

 48
 Chapter 6

 They were mean, smirking lines of doggerel. I didn't see them until later,
 of course, since they were evidence the police did not choose to share
 with us the night Moshe died.
  In fact, I didn't know of their existence until the next morning when two
  policemen stopped by the office. Derek and I were there alone, sharing
  coffee and memories of Moshe. It being Saturday, I'd allowed myself the
  informality of wearing jeans and a red sweater that prompted Derek to
  recommend a bodyguard; he would, he said, be glad to volunteer for the
  job. There was a time, when I first hired him, that Derek made it plain
  he'd like to see me as more than a boss. I made it equally clear that I
  might sometimes mix business with pleasure, but not with my employees.
  He might have been a pleasure, too. Though younger and shorter than 1,
  he's an appealing imp

               49
          GENEROUS DEATH

 with his curly blond hair and elfin smile. He's also a smart, ambitious
 man and, as he loves to point out, one sexy little devil. Being nobody's
 fool, however, he proceeded to maintain a respectful if amused distance.
 The Foundation could only afford to pay him a fraction of his worth; I
 knew he would move on when he got a better offer. Meanwhile, I appreciated
 and trusted him.
  I was more surprised than he when the two visitors in overcoats and
  business suits presented their badges to us.
  "Geof Bushfield?" I hesitated before I held out my hand to the tall cop
  I thought I recognized. If he was who I thought he was, I wasn't sure I
  was glad to see him again.
  "Hello, Jenny." He returned my handshake with a firm grip and a lopsided
  grin. "You look surprised to see me.l~
  "Well, I am," I said, taken aback. Then I realized how rude that might
  sound, so I added quickly, "I mean, it's been years and years-since high
  school, I guess.91
  "Is that it?" Now his grin seemed to mock me a little and himself a lot.
  "Is that why you're so surprised to see me? And here I thought maybe it
  was because I'm the last person on this earth you ever thought would turn
  out to be a cop."
  His younger partner looked startled. Derek looked intrigued.
 "Well . . ." I shrugged. "You said it, not L"
  "Thought I'd be on the other side of the bars, didn't you?" He removed
  his overcoat-I wondered how he could afford a Burberry-slung it over the
  back of a chair and sat down. He grinned. It was an incredibly 50
          GENEROUS DEATH

 infectious grin, impossible not to return. He waved his partner to a
 chair. "I know you'll feel safer now, Jenny, knowing that little Geoffrey
 Bushfield is the guardian of your public streets and morality."
 "Have a seat," I said, "won't you?"
  "Thank you," he said, straight-faced. "These days, I know that only means
  sit down. It doesn't mean I should take a chair home with me."
  "Good," I said, equally poker-faced. "We can't afford to buy new chairs."
  Then I couldn't stand it anymore. "My God, Geof, you're a cop!"
  "Yes, maam." He smiled. His voice had the slow, calm drawl of somebody
  who takes his own sweet time. It matched the sense of, not arrogance
  exactly, but confidence that he exuded and which seemed to emanate from
  some core of him. "And you, Jenny-it looks to me as if you're still the
  girl most likely to succeed. I'm glad to see you doing so well, although
  everybody always knew you would."
  I felt oddly flustered. Irrelevantly, I thought of a poster I'd seen: "I
  know I'm efficient," it said, "tell me I'm beautiful."
  "Thank you." I fiddled with the papers on my desk, then made my hands lie
  flat and still on the arms of my chair. I looked across my desk at him.
  The Geof Bushfield I remembered from high school was a wickedly
  good-looking kid who was, however, a shade too wild and rebellious to be
  popular, even for those loose days when we were growing up. I was a
  freshman when he was a senior, and, like most of the girls, I'd been a
  little scared and scornful of "that crazy Bushfield." He'd been a misfit
  who ran with a tight, defensive crowd of other kids who didn't quite fit
  in. Now I saw that in the thousand years since then, he'd 51
          GENEROUS DEATH

 grown up to be not only tall and a cop, but also a disturbingly attractive
 man with the lean look that spoke of good health and the outdoors
 and-though surely it couldn't be-character. It was extremely irritating
 to discover that little Geoffrey Bushfield still made me nervous.
 "Why are you here?" I said.
  The cool, intelligent eyes registered my every nervous twitch, but didn't
  seem to be laughing at me.
  "You wouldn't have some more of that coffee, would you?" he said
  casually. While Derek played Stepin Fetchit, we belatedly made
  introductions all around. The other cop's name was Ailey Mason; I got the
  impression he was only tagging along to see how the big boys did things.
  He was young-maybe twenty-three-but he looked impressed with himself
  anyway. He moved stiffly, as if he couldn't unbend. He seemed to approve
  when Geoffrey the Cop finally got down to business with Jennifer the
  Executive Director.
  "Jenny," Geof began, "I understand that Arnold Culverson was here the day
  he died . . ."
  "Oh dear." I interrupted him. "Are you trying to find out why he killed
  himself'? I'd like to know the answer to that myself"
 I should have noticed that he ignored my question.
  "How'd he seem to you?" Geof sounded only mildly curious. "Worried about
  anything? Frightened?"
 I thought frightened was an odd word to use.
  "I don't know about frightened," I said doubtfully. "Unless maybe of
  dying in general. Of course you know he suffered from high blood pressure
  and terrible migraine headaches. I think both his father and 52
          GENEROUS DEATH

 one of his grandfathers were killed by strokes, and Arnie was convinced
 that's the way he'd go, too." I turned to Derek. "But do you think he was
 worried about anything else in particular?"
  "Well, he'd been acting funny all week," Derek said. "You know. We'd
  start to talk about the museum and he'd jump like a pogo stick."
  "Because of the new will," I said. "We know that n6w.9-0
  "Yes," Geof said easily. I lifted inquisitive eyebrows at him. He
  explained that they'd just come from a thorough explanation at Edwin
  Ottilini's home.
  "What were his plans for the rest of the day?" Mason demanded, managing
  to sound as pompous as he looked, which was no mean feat.
  "Oh . . ." I glanced at my assistant again. "Well, I think he said he was
  going by Mr. Ottilini's office and, I don't know, I suppose to the
  museum?"
  "Yeah," Derek agreed, "and he usually ate dinner at the club."
  "Why?" Geof's question came quick and sharp enough to nudge a vague
  suspicion in my mind.
  This time, Derek looked to me to supply the answer to the delicate
  question.
  "Arnie didn't get along with his family," I said in as matter-offact a
  voice as possible. I saw no reason not to be straightforward. "He always
  said he'd rather eat alone than face Marvalene's ... uh.. ."
  "Marvalene's what?" Again, the fast, sharp follow through.
  ,6... poison," I finished weakly, feeling miserable for having to say it,
  but not quite sure why I felt so bad. I added quickly, "She's a lousy
  cook, I hear, but 53
          GENEROUS DEATH

 fancies herself a gourmet, so she won't hire anybody else to fix the meals."
 For some reason, I didn't want to divulge another of Arnie's favorite
 jests-the one about how it was a good thing he wasn't leaving Marvalene any
 money, because she'd probably poison him to get it. They had led separate
 lives, but had never divorced. "Bad habits are the hardest to break," was
 how Arnie explained it.
  Then, oh so casually, Geof tossed the next unnerving query at me.
  "I wonder," he said, "if Culverson got along with other people better than
  he did with his family. Would you know if he had any enemies?"
  "Enemies?" Derek repeated the melodramatic word as if it were some
  astonishing and distasteful object he had picked up by accident. My
  formless suspicions began to roll themselves into a definite and malevolent
  shape.
 "Why?" It was my turn for the hard fast ball.
  Geof parried my thrust by the simple expedient of ignoring it. He said,
  "Were you surprised that he changed his mind about the will?"
  "No," I snapped. I was tired of dropping live questions into dead space. "I
  was not surprised. I was dumbfounded, stunned, stupefied. The word sur-
  prised does not even begin to express my feelings."
 "And resentful?" That from Mason.
  "What?" I resented his unfriendly attitude, that's for sure.
  "Did you resent his leaving his money to someone else?" Mason said.
 "Well, in the first place, he wasn't leaving it to me,
 I said with exaggerated and, I hoped, insulting patience. "He was leaving it
 to The Foundation. But yes, 54
          GENEROUS DEATH

 of course, I felt some resentment. He promised the moon and we got
 eclipsed."
 Geof's mouth twitched.
  "We?" Mason again. He seemed to have a talent for picking up on all the
  irrelevant points. "You're taking this very personally, Ms. Cain."
  If he thought he could irritate me with the exaggerated emphasis on Ms., he
  was wrong, it's what I prefer to be called. My marital status is nobody's
  business. What he did manage to do was amuse me.
 I smiled openly at him and just shook my head.
  "How about you, Mr. Jones?" Mason turned his impassive face toward Derek.
  "Were you pretty disappointed when you heard you weren't going to get the
  money?"
  '7 was never going to get the money," Derek said. His voice sounded amused,
  but his blue eyes glinted cold and angry. I wondered how long Geof would
  wait before he called off his idiot. "I think Jennifer has made it very
  clear that it was The Foundation that was promised the money. We were,
  naturally, ticked off to discover that all our work was wasted. But I think
  you can safely assume that neither Jennifer nor I nor any member of her
  staff had the slightest intention of going out and buying a new car with
  the money. Or fur coats. Or houses. Or tickets to Rio."
  Mason forced a smile out of a face that wasn't used to the exercise. He
  said, infuriatingly, "Why are you so angry, Mr. Jones? I didn't imply. .
 "Yes," I said, "you did."
  Geof finally broke up the tension with his even, pleasant voice. He said,
  "Why do you suppose Culverson changed his mind? About the will, I mean?"
"Beats the hell out of me," I said. "And it also beats 55
          GENEROUS DEATH

 the hell out of me why you're asking these questions but won't answer any
 of ours."
  "I'm sorry, Jenny." He was as calm as ever. "Tell me your question
  again."
 I went straight to the heart of my fear.
  "Arnie was my friend," I said, enunciating every syllable to be sure he
  got the message. "And the two of you are scaring me very badly. What are
  you getting at? Did he commit suicide or did he not?"
 "No," Geof said, "it doesn't look that way."
 "Well, how does it look?"
 "It looks like murder."
  In the suddenly silent room, Geof reached into a pocket and pulled out
  two scraps of paper. He handed them to me. His eyes were full of
  searching and purpose.
  "Look at these, Jenny," he said, "and tell me if you've ever seen them
  before."
  They were about the size of postcards and they'd been neatly cut from a
  heavy weight of good bond typing paper. I read the first one twice. Each
  time the pounding of my heart got a little louder in my ears.
 It said:

      Now I lay me down to sleep, Devil take my soul to keep; Cross my
      heart and hope to die, If I tell another lie.

  The second piece of doggerel took my breath away because of the
  unexpected evil it implied:

       If all the world's a stage,
       My script is at the final page;
                   56
          GENEROUS DEATH

       This play is done because ... Shylock's dead. Applause.

  "Moshe," I said, heartsick. Geof nodded. I passed the rhymes to Derek.
  "I've never seen them before. Do you mind telling us where you found them?"
  "A maintenance man at the museum found the first one yesterday. He was
  dusting the bed where Culverson's body was found. That poem was stuck down
  in one of the cracks. The janitor took it to Simon Church and Church called
  us."
 Derek had read the ditties by that time.
 "And the second one?" he asked quietly.
  "In the pocket of Moshe Cohen's tuxedo," Geof said. He -added, "He died of
  a combination of wine and hypertension medicine, like Culverson."
  "But Moshe didn't have high blood pressure," I said. "Did he?"
  "No. And elderly people are known to react badly even to standard doses of
  that medicine, if they're not used to it. Alcohol increases the effects. It
  slows down the heart, leads to stupor, coma . .
 "Death," Derek said.
  "But rhymes?" I could hardly believe the absurdity of it; the classic,
  sinister, silly absurdity of it. "It seems so ridiculous, so egotistical.
  . ."
  "So obvious," Geof said, and those cool eyes looked into my frightened
  ones. "Somebody definitely wants us to know the two men were murdered."
  The four of us sat silently for a long moment. We sipped our coffee. We
  each looked speculatively at the other three.

               57
                         I

 Chapter 7

 After Geof and his partner left, Derek and I faced the fact that we
 weren't going to be able to concentrate on corporate bonds and market
 shares. So we locked up and waved each other off to our respective homes.
 It was a crisp, sunny day, which showed a definite lapse of good taste on
 God's part, I thought. A barometer reading of my mood would have indicated
 gray, wet and ugly.
  At home, my answer phone greeted me with messages to call Ginger
  Culverson, Michael, Edwin Ottilini and my sister. There were also three
  hang-ups and a giggling teenager telling me that if I had Prince Albert
  in the can I'd better let him out. I decided to allow myself to
  procrastinate for once and return the most difficult call last.
 First:
 "Hi, Ginger, it's Jenny Cain."

               58
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Jenny. Hi. Have you heard what the police are saying about my father's
  death?"
 "Yes. I'm sorry."
  "Strangely enough, so am 1. But that's not really what I called to talk
  to you about. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your company
  the other night . . ."
 "Me too yours."
  "Interesting sentence structure. And I want to know if you can arrange
  for me to meet Simon Church. . ."
 Oh golly, I thought.
  ". . . because I want to tell him personally how sorry I am about how the
  museum got screwed by my father . . ."
 Oh yes, I thought.
  ". . . and, well, Jenny, I don't want to raise anybody's hopes, but I
  would like to at least hear about my father's plans. I mean, maybe I can
  help . .
 Yes, please, I thought.
    if I get interested, that is. I mean, please don't say anything to Mr.
    Church that would even hint what I'm considering. I'd hate to bounce
    him back to earth
   VT
 again.
 Oh you nice lady, I thought.
 "How about Sunday brunch at the club?" I said.
 "I'd love it."
  "Great. I'll fix it up with Simon. And Ginger-I think your father
  would be very grateful."
 "For whatever that's worth."
  "See you tomorrow. I'll pick you up at your mother's house, at
  eleven-thirty."
 One call down, four to go.

               59
          GENEROUS DEATH

  I got a reluctant Simon to agree to brunch. He said he'd had enough of the
  Culversons to last him a lifetime; and why should the police grill him
  about the night Arnie died when it was Ginger who got the money?
  Then I called Michael at the Laurence Construction Company general office.
 "Michael. 'Tis L"
  "Well, that's at least one good thing in this rotten, miserable day."
 "Your father's at the office."
  "You got it in one. Are you driving up to see your mother tomorrow?"
 "Yes, in the afternoon." As usual. As always.
  "May I drive with you? I need to get out of town for a few hours. And I'd
  like to see you."
 "Oh Michael, I'm sorry, but I don't think so."
 Silence.
  "Michael? Please understand. You know these aren't pleasure drives for me.
  I wouldn't be good company.99
  "You don't want to have to deal with her problems and mine too."
  I hated to hear him say it, but I couldn't deny it. Maybe love can be
  measured by how much of the other person's misery you're willing to share.
  Fairweather friends need not apply. I was beginning to see that I was just
  that sort of friend to Michael. I cared about him, certainly; but I didn't
  love him enough to take him, misery and all.
 "I'm sorry," I said again.
 "Don't you ever get tired of saying that to me?"
 I didn't like this new, self-pitying Michael very well.

               60
          GENEROUS DEATH

 As I hung up, I realized that I preferred the "saint" who persevered,
 smiling, through all my rejections of him. It wasn't fair of me, of
 course, but there it was.
  "Good morning, Mr. Ottilini," I said next. "This is Jennifer Cain
  returning your call."
  He said he understood the police had been to visit me; he assumed I knew
  that Arnie and Moshe had been murdered. I said yes to all of the above.
  "Well, my dear," came the dry, whispery voice, "that gives us all the
  more reason to contest Arnie's will. It is very obvious that someone had
  much to gain from his death."
  Ginger. Oh, I didn't like that implication at all. And I said so.
  "We must be objective, Miss Cain," he said with his calm counsel. "As you
  so often remind our more emotional trustees when they bring their pet
  projects to YOU."
 Touchd, I thought.
  "There is one other thing," he said. I always worry when lawyers say
  things like that. "I have heard rumors that the Cohen family plans to
  contest the will."
  "Oh no." Moshe's will split his large estate between his family and The
  Foundation. Our half would help support his Jewish causes and the new
  theater, with a little left over for other charities. "Why?"
  "They want all the money, my dear." Of course. Ask a stupid question, get
  an obvious answer. "And Miss Cain, I think we should be prepared for the
  possibility of other rumors . .
 "YesTs
 "It's common knowledge that The Foundation has

               61
          GENEROUS DEATH

 been rather desperately hurt by Arnie's will. And now, you see, a second
 philanthropist has died-one who has left a generous bequest to The
 Foundation."
  "So people will think we killed Moshe?" I would have laughed at the
  absurd notion if I hadn't heard the suspicion in Ailey Mason's voice that
  morning. "Who? Jack Fenton? You? Me? Faye Basil? That's the most
  ridiculous thing I ever heard."
 "Let us hope that everyone agrees with you.'s
  "Well, whether they do or not, this is all just marvelous publicity for
  The Foundation, isn't it," I said dryly. "Other donors will race to give
  us money now.91
  "Oh, they're just dying to give us money," he said grimly.
 I was a little shocked.
 After we hung up, I called my sister.
 No one was home, so I didn't have to talk to her.
 Now that was good news.

 62
 Chapter 8

 Moshe and Arnie. Murdered.
  I focused my tired eyes on the screen of my home computer and realized
  with a shock that I had actually written the words. My fingers moved
  restlessly on the keyboard, seemingly of their own volition without
  conscious signals from my weary brain.
  WHO? the fingers tapped and the angry capital letters glowed in the
  little screen.
 WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY?
 And finally, HOW?
  I thought I had sat down at my favorite toy just to play around and relax
  on Saturday night. I had even inserted a video game, but when the machine
  beat me four out of four at Star Warriors, I knew I didn't have my mind
  on the game.
  I love that computer; it appeals to my sense of logic and order. Already
  I had it programmed to balance my checking accounts, track my bills and
  budgets,

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 remind me of birthdays and chart my mothees medical history. Also stored
 in its gray discs were five chapters of the book I was writing in what I
 laughingly referred to as my spare time: a book about how to play the big
 league grants and foundations game. It is a game, as competitive and
 fierce as Space Battle with the big fast players remorselessly gobbling
 up the small slow players in the contest for big bucks from governmental
 and private sources. With Moshe and Arnie dead, and their bequests to The
 Foundation in question, I felt like the little orange space cadet who'd
 been blasted off the screen by the big purple monster from outer
 galactica. Pow, blooey, kabamm.
 Who, what, when, where, why and how.
  The classic five W's and H ofjournalism school and criminology. I had the
  questions all right, as evidenced on the little green screen, but neither
  the computer nor I had the answers.
  I lifted my restless fingers from the keyboard and turned off the
  computer. Its screen glowed for a moment before it went dark, leaving the
  den unlighted except for the fire I had built in the old stone fireplace.
  The logs, still wet from snow, crackled and popped merrily.
  I stared at the darkened screen, then turned around and stared at the
  fire. I got up and replenished my glass of dry red wine and stood by one
  of the four long, narrow windows. And stared.
  Outside, Mother Nature was putting an exclamation point on the weather
  bureau's announcement that this was our worst winter in ten years. We
  hadn't seen thirty-three degrees in six weeks or the ground in five. It's
  about this time of year that I begin to feel claustrophobic, locked into
  the narrow paths of win64
           GENEROUS DEATH

 ter life by the rising drifts of snow and the forbidding cold.
  I indulged in a moment of longing for Fort Lauderdale, Martinique,
  Acapulco, a warm bed, a warm body, Geof Bushfield. What? Where had that
  come from? More to the point, where did I want it to go?
  I thought I had wanted to spend my Saturday night alone. I found I was
  glad when the doorbell rang.
 "Michael! You look like a snowman!"
  "Abominable or otherwise?" He grinned at me, those eyes the only warm
  part of him. Everything else, starting at the top of his ski cap and
  working down through his red ski jacket, snug blue jeans and waffle
  stompers, was white and icy.
  "Otherwise." I helped him take off the top layers of clothing and reached
  up to warm his blue lips with a quick kiss. "Why are you covered with
  snow? Did you walk over here?"
  "I am covered with snow because some people never shovel their
  sidewalks."
  "Oh, Michael. You didn't fall down out there, did you? I'm so sorry!"
  "There you go being sorry again. I swear, you are the sorriest person I
  know." His good humor was back, and with it his considerable charm. "I'd
  much rather you skipped the apologies and went straight to the drink."
 "Whiskey?"
 "Hot and Irish, please."
  "You are a lot of trouble." I smiled at him over my shoulder as we walked
  toward the kitchen.
 "But I'm worth it, or so the other ladies say."
  "Yes, you are, and I'm delighted to hear you say SO. 92

               65
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "No lectures, Swede. I'm here to charm and delight you, not alarm and
  affright you."
 I groaned. "You're a poet, do you know itr'
 "Of course, I'm a poet. All great lovers are 13mts."
  In the kitchen, I pulled out a stainless steel bowl in which to whip the
  cream for his Irish coffee. I glanced at him as he perched on one of the
  stools at the counter. . . and experienced one of those jolting moments
  that had occurred occasionally in our friendship when I saw clearly what it
  was about him that left my secretary limp. Careful, I warned myselt You are
  merely horny; don't use the nice man.
  "So you think you're a great lover." I tried to keep up the light,
  bantering tone. But I knew he'd caught that instant of awareness in my
  eyes.
  He grinned at me. There was nothing even remotely platonic in his
  expression. "So they say, Jenny, or was it you who said that? Was it you,
  Jenny?"
  Absurdly, I blushed. I felt a little incestuous about those few times we'd
  slipped out of friendship into something else.
  "I may have mentioned something to that effect," I mumbled. I opened the
  refrigerator to get the cream and hid my pink face among the shelves.
 "You have a terrific ass," he said.
  "Michael!" I nearly bumped my headl,,when I turned around to laugh at him.
  "I can't believe you said that; that didn't sound like you at all."
  He sighed to the ceiling. "Oh that's right," he said, "saints don't have
  sex lives. Just cold showers."
 He was laughing, too, by then.
  "Fix my whiskey, woman!" he shouted and slammed a fist down on the counter
  top. He grinned

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 wickedly, almost irresistibly. "I'll be in the den. Contemplating my
 saintly navel."
  He walked out of the kitchen, leaving me collapsed in giggles and
  blasphemous thoughts about saintsdefinitely blasphemous, not to mention
  obscene.
  Well, he had certainly taken my mind off the murders.
  I felt compelled, however, to tell him about them when I joined him in
  the den. And that took his mind off me.
  "But why would the killer want the police to suspect murder?" Michael
  said. "If they hadn't found that verse in the bed at the museum, they
  might never have suspected that Arnie was killed."
  "Maybe the killer wants to be caught," I said doubtfully.
  "Not that hoary old chestnut," Michael objected, but he couldn't come up
  with any better ideas, and shortly thereafter I kissed him goodnight in
  a sisterly fashion and ushered him back out into the snow and the dark.
  I tidied up the den, turned down the thermostat and went to bed
  reflecting upon the fact that mature and responsible behavior is small
  comfort on a cold night.

 67
 Chapter 9

 Hills and trees, your dog has fleas. Snow and ice, don't think twice. My
 thoughts flipped themselves into crazy rhymes the next afternoon as I
 drove the winding, two-lane blacktop to the Hampshire Psychiatric
 Hospital. Our crackerjack road crews had already cleared away last night's
 snowfall, so I drove as absentmindedly as I usually did on those Sunday
 trips, allowing my mind to wander over figurative hills and dales just as
 my car hummed over literal ones. I kept a corner of my consciousness alert
 for icy patches.
  Red and yellow, catch a fellow. I was glad to be alone, even though
  Michael's mood had lifted so that he was an entertaining companion once
  againmaybe too entertaining. I didn't need any more confusion in my life
  than the week had already presented to me.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  A jeep and a VW Rabbit whizzed by going the other way. I was not whizzing
  along. In the vintage Plymouth sedan in front of me, a very old and tiny
  driver pursued the minimum speed but couldn't seem to push the needle up
  quite that far. If he had a wife beside him she was too short to be seen
  over the car seat. Sunday drivers. Sometimes I think that ministers
  release their elderly flocks from church with the admonition: "Go ye
  forth this day and drivel"
 Actually, I didn't mind.
  Brown and gold, catch a cold. I should have enjoyed the scenery,
  beautiful as it is in all four seasons, but the recurring nightmare of
  my family's life waited at the end of the road. If a tree fell in the
  surrounding forest,.I didn't hear it; if the pines were lovely with their
  heavy wet snow, I didn't see. My only identifiable emotion was tension,
  and that came from hoping that this day might bring a minimum of pain for
  my mother and me.
  Mao Tse-tung, who'll get hung. The brunch with Simon and Ginger had been
  a great success. She loved his bawdy sense of humor-, he liked her money.
  No, that wasn't fair, I chided myself. He'd probably have liked her even
  before she was rich. They had similar natures, Ginger and Simon-blunt,
  bright and damnyour-eyes. All I'd had to do was make the introductions,
  then sit back and enjoy their banter while I polished off scrambled eggs,
  hash browns, link sausages and whole wheat toast. My car was not the only
  thing that I fueled with plenty of energy before my Sunday drives.
  At brunch, we had tiptoed around the subject of murder. Simon merely
  expressed his distress, Ginger

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 accepted it, I seconded the motion and off we raced to other topics. What
 could we have said to each other: Did you do it? No, did you?
  The great stone gates of the Hampshire Hospital frowned at me under heavy
  eyebrows of snow. I'd like to be able to use a more original figure of
  speech to describe them, but that is how they look. I frowned back and
  turned into the hospital grounds. As it always did, that quotation from
  Dante nudged its creepy way into my mind: "Abandon all hope ye who enter
  here." Yes, if one were writhing through the gates of hell; yes, for
  prisoners at the Tower of London. But not here, please God, not here.
  My mother was waiting for me where she always waited for me-where the
  attendants deposited her in the big oak rocking chair in a private corner
  of the Recreation Hall. Some recreation: rocking, rocking, rocking.
  "Mother." I smiled at her and bent down to kiss her cheek. The softness
  of her skin broke my heart, as usual. Unfortunately, as I raised up, she
  rocked forward, so the top of my head hit one of the hard back slats of
  the chair. She looked confused at the change in my expression from
  pleasure to pain.
 It was going to be a long afternoon.
 "Mom, you look so pretty."
  I pulled a straight-backed armless chair close to her and sat down. I
  don't know, I suppose that unconsciously I thought that if I got as
  physically close to her as possible someday I might also penetrate the
  spaces of her mind.
  She raised her lovely blue eyes to mine and tried to focus on my face and
  the question. I got my Scandinavian coloring from her side of the family.
  A dribble of 70
          GENEROUS DEATH

 spittle appeared at the comer of her mouth. I wiped it away with one of
 the tissues I always tried to remember to bring; the hospital tissues are
 so rough. She'd never notice the spit dribbling down her chin. It was I
 who couldn't stand it.
 "Sherry, dear," she managed, finally.
  "No, Mom, it's Jenny." Sometimes I let her think I was my sister, Sherry,
  so she'd think her other daughter had finally come to see her.
 She nodded the long wise nod of the mentally ill.
  I began to talk to her quietly, in one long continuous sentence that
  weaved in and out of the lives of people she might remember and places
  she had been. Sometimes she repeated a word I had said, and then I paused
  to say, Yes, Mom, yes, that's right. But mostly she just rocked, letting
  my voice flow over and around her like the familiar music from the
  symphonies she loved.
  I murmured to her for an hour, until her eyes focused a bit more and she
  suddenly looked more aware.
 "I have to go to the bathroom," my mother said.
  I roused an attendant. While he and my mother shuffled off to perform one
  of the few of life's functions to which she still paid attention, I sat.
  If my chair could have rocked, I would have rocked in it.
  I wanted to take a deep breath, but didn't dare for fear I'd swallow a
  great gulp of the smell of the place-that peculiar smell of the sick and
  the senile, that odor of the humiliation of human beings who don't know
  who they ate.
  "There now," my mother said when she was returned to me and resettled in
  her rocker. "There now.$,

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  A patient shuffled by-a boy about twenty. The shirttail of his regulation
  blue pajamas hung out. They all shuffle, all these strange lonely
  children of God, these mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands
  and wives whose noisy aberrations are safely muffled now by drugs. They
  are safe now from the wild and fearsome rampages of their hallucinating
  minds, and all the rest of us are safe from them. But where there used
  to be too many voices in their heads, now there are none. In my mother's
  house and in her head, there was nobody home. She'd gone away, perhaps
  for good.
  I sang my solo to her for a while longer, my monologue of gossip and
  memories, and then I stroked her hands and kissed her cheek and left.
  There was no use seeing the doctor; there was nothing to say. And what
  was said a few years ago had been said too late.
  "Your mother is not an alcoholic," the doctors had told Sherry and me.
  "She suffers from a rather common chemical imbalance that just makes her
  act like one."
  Too late. Too late to save Sherry from the humiliation of an adolescence
  spent with a stumbling, mumbling mother. Too late for the handsome
  husband whose strength was in his body, not his heart. Too late for the
  friends who watched her descent into aberrant behavior and sidled,
  shamefaced, out of the door.
  "We might have been able to help your mother a great deal," the doctor
  had said, "if only medicine had discovered this chemical imbalance years
  ago when she was young."
 If only. But they hadn't.
 And so my mother joined the ironic fraternity of

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 children who caught polio before the Salk vaccine, of women who died in
 childbirth before surgeons learned to wash their hands, of all the
 victims of "if only we had known," the disease that is caused by being
 born too soon.
  I pushed open the big glass doors of the hospital. It was snowing
  again; the roads would be hazardous. It would be a long drive home.

 73
 Chapter 10

 The murders finally made the papers on Monday morning. Read all about it,
 as the boys used to yell on street corners. Read it and weep, as we used
 to say about our report cards in high school.
  I sat in the breakfast nook, reading fast and gulping coffee. The impact
  of the story stole my appetite, which was just as well since I didn't
  have time for bacon and eggs. I knew I'd better hie myself to the office
  because this story would create a rumpus among my staff and clients.
  I pulled open my mother's yellow curtains and let the thin, sharp winter
  sunshine puddle on the tabletop. It's the sort of cozy breakfast nook
  that deserves a calico cat. I wished I had one to talk things over with.
  Cats are such good listeners, better than dogs because cats don't take
  personally everything you say. Dogs take your tone of voice to heart even
  when you're not

               74
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 talking about them; cats listen judiciously, without comment.
  Good sense triumphed over my moment of anthropomorphic whimsey. I scatted
  my imaginary cat away and rinsed my cup in the sink. I would have loved to
  have a pet, but my schedule didn't have the cracks of time required for a
  cat or dog-or gerbil. I can't think of a pet as just a warm piece of
  furniture to leave casually behind me every day; if I ever own a Spot or a
  Tiger, I want time enough to love it.
  I had learned a few things from the newspaper story. I considered them as
  I bundled up in brown leather boots, camel's hair coat, tan mohair scarf
  and the tan felt number that Derek calls my lady executive hat. A quick
  check with the hall mirror verified my qualifications for the Most Boringly
  Dressed List. Pat Nixon in her good Republican cloth coat had nothing on
  me. I looked professional, frugal and trustworthy; I could out-bland
  oatmeal. Little did the world know that my undies were red silk. Hah.
  According to the paper, Arnie had gone to the museum that Monday night
  about eight-thirty after dinner at the club. He'd used the staff entrance
  at the South Wing; the guard remembered watching him sign in. He had that
  blue comforter and the pillow in a big sack under his arm; he said he'd
  brought them as "little gifts" for the women's staff lounge where there was
  a cot so the women could nap during lunch. Somebody had complained of the
  chill factor and voilA! sugar daddy to the rescue. How like him, I thought
  fondly, how wonderfully like him.
  Simon Church reported having seen him, too, but only long enough to share
  a couple of drinks from a 75
          GENEROUS DEATH

 bottle of red wine that Simon kept in his desk drawer -for the chill
 factor. He wasn't drunk, Simon said; or at least he didn't act it. Arnie
 was still sipping the wine when he left the office, Simon said; the police
 had, in fact, found the wine glass where it had rolled under the testered
 bed.
  Simon said that Arnie left his office about ninethirty. The old man did
  not mention the change of wills, but Simon thought he had seemed fidgety
  and nervous. Several times Simon thought Arnie was about to tell him
  something, but each time Arnie opened his mouth he shut it again.
  And that's the last time anybody admitted to having seen Arnie Culverson
  alive.
  He had not signed out, but unfortunately the guard had not thought
  anything of it at the time. Frequent visitors to the museum often
  neglected to sip out, and he simply thought Arnie had left while the
  guard made his rounds of the building. With the guard gone from his post
  at the staff entrance, people inside the museum could still get out, but
  nobody outside could get in-unless, of course, Arnie or Simon had let
  them in.
  If there was anybody else in the museum that night, neither the guard nor
  Simon knew of it, they said. And that didn't make things look too good
  for them. But Arnie could easily have let somebody in while the guard was
  out. And that somebody could have killed him and then waited to sneak out
  when the guard made his next rounds.
  Ginger Culverson, the paper said, spent the night of her father's death
  watching TV in Idaho, but her only witness was a parakeet. Her mother and
  brother said 76
          GENEROUS DEATH

 they'd played canasta until midnight. No, they hadn't worried when their
 husband and father didn't come home, they said. Why should they care, they
 didn't say.
  The police had no explanation to offer-at least publicly-for why they had
  not found the verse in the bed at the museum any sooner than they did.
  And of course, it wasn't really they who found it, but a janitor. I
  thought that delayed discovery was mighty curious. The testered bed is
  an exquisitely, elegantly simple piece of work; nasty poems on bright
  white paper ought to have stuck out like a Picasso head on a Vermeer
  lady.
  As for Moshe, he'd been drinking too much wine the evening he died, in
  celebration of the theater premiere. He'd had those drinks with crowds
  of people at the cocktail party at the country club, the one to which
  Michael went and I didn't. Everybody, as they say, was there. Which meant
  that anybody could have doped his wine. The hypertension medicine that
  killed him-Soronal, the paper said-was what killed Arnie, too. It came
  in capsules, which could easily be opened and their powdered contents
  quickly dissolved in liquid. In sweet wine, the taste would not be
  apparent. The coroner was quoted as saying it probably took about nine
  capsules to kill Arnie because he was used to the drug and had developed
  some tolerance for it, but it took considerably less to kill Moshe. The
  murderer could have dissolved the medicine in a single glass of wine all
  at once, or spaced his poison out over several drinks. Easy and effective
  either way.
The newspaper article listed the beneficiaries of the 77
          GENEROUS DEATH

 two men. The Foundation was mentioned twice. I can happily do without that
 sort of publicity, thank you very much.
  I knocked snow off my boots as I got into my car. Then I slammed the
  door, started the engine and waited a bit for it to warm up.
  I backed out of my parent's driveway. My radial tires crunched noisily
  into the crusty old snow that lay beneath the two inches of fresh. When
  I reached the edge of the street, I gave the car a little gas to get me
  over a hump of snow the plow had thrown.
 I got over the hump all right.
  And applied just enough brakes to throw me into a skid that twirled me
  deep into a snowbank in my own front yard.
 So much for rushing to the office.
  I left the car in the snowbank (well, it was my front yard and the car
  was in nobody's way) and got Derek on the phone just before he left his
  apartment.
  "If you know what's good for you," I said as I stepped into his snappy
  red Toyota, "you will not mention that hunk of metal resting in the snow
  in front of the house." I closed the door and he accelerated carefully.
  "You mean that interesting piece of modem sculpture?" He was trying not
  to laugh at his boss. "Wouldn't dream of saying a thing." But he couldn't
  resist. "Although ... I might call Simon Church later and tell him how
  much I admire this new practice of placing large works of art around the
  community. What's this one called?"
 "The sculpture, you mean?"
 "Yeah."'

                78
          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Car in the Yard."
  He laughed and shook his head sympathetically. We followed the local
  (miniscule) variety of rush hour traffic in compatible silence for a
  while. The building which housed our office loomed ahead; at six stories,
  it's the town skyscraper.
  "Interesting paper this morning," Derek said quietly.
 "Um.
  "To paraphrase a certain well-known book and movie, Somebody Is Killing
  the Great Philanthropists of Port Frederick."
  I told him about the rumors that Mr. Ottilini had whispered to me over
  the phone. He wasn't surprised that the Cohens might contest the will.
  "But I can't believe that people will suspect anyone connected to The
  Foundation!" he said. "That's crazy, is what that is. Why would any of
  us do it?"
  "You and I know that none of us would," I said. "But consider it from the
  point of view of the general public. Or Ailey Mason, for that matter .
  .
 "Speaking of limited points of view . . ."
 "First, one of our major donors is killed . .
  "But he did not leave us any money," Derek objected. "You'll notice the
  operative word is not. So where's our motive?"
 I thought out loud, playing devil's advocate.
  "Well," I mused, "maybe we killed him because we thought we'd get the
  money. Then when we found out the truth about the new will, we got
  desperate for funds to support the museum and so we killed Moshe for his
  money."
 "But that won't help the museum, Jen, or at least

               79
          GENEROUS DEATH

 not directly. We're supposed to use his dough to support the theater. And
 B'nai Brith, etcetera, etcetera. 99
 He signaled for a left turn into the parking lot.
  "Yes," I said, "but I don't think the general public will understand
  those fine points. They'll just see that The Foundation gets the money,
  period."
 He grunted, unconvinced, as he made the turn.
  "With all due respect, boss lady, may I just say bull roar. You don't
  really believe people will believe something like that, do you?"
  "Probably not anyone who understands how The Foundation operates, no. But
  Derek, if a rich person gets murdered ... who comes under suspicion
  first?"
  "The beneficiaries," he said grudgingly. He skidded over a patch of ice
  into an empty parking space. I held my breath as we missed the fender of
  a new Mercedes by a quarter inch. I yearned for spring, for dry streets,
  warm weather, green leaves. Derek said, "But we're not the only ones to
  inherit. How about Ginger Culverson? How about Moshe Cohen's family?"
 It was my turn to look disbelieving.
  "Oh come on, Derek. What do you think, that it's a conspiracy between
  those two families? I think I'd believe you did it before I'd buy that!"
  He switched off the ignition. But instead of opening his door, he leaned
  his back against it, slung his left arm over the steering wheel and his
  right arm over the back of the seat and faced me.
  "Jenny . . ." he said, with the tentative air of someone with a pregnant
  idea.
  "Now don't get settled in for a long winter's chat, Derek. This car'll
  get cold fast."

                80
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I know, but listen, okay? So far, all we've really considered is the
  crazy idea that someone connected with The Foundation has murdered two
  people in order to help us."
 "That is crazy, you're right. So?"
  "So. . ." He looked embarrassed. "Oh hell, this is going to sound nuttier
  than pecan pie." He turned back around in his seat and reached for his
  door handle. "Never mind, it's a dumb idea."
 "Wait, Derek! What's your idea?"
  "Oh hell, I'll just say it," he said. "What if somebody killed the
  philanthropists in order to harm The Foundation?"
  The absurd notion hung in the frosty air between US.
 I decided it was time to calm the troops.
  "I don't think we ought to jump to any dramatic conclusions one way or
  the other," I said carefully, not wanting to put him down. "I know it
  sometimes seems as if the whole world revolves around The Foundation, but
  we're not that important. I'll grant you we've been seriously affected
  by the murders, but we're hardly the only ones. Whole families have been
  disrupted. The theater, the museum, other charities have suffered.
  Besides, if someone wanted to ruin The Foundation, surely he wouldn't
  have to kill two people to do it."
  Derek's grin was shamefaced as if to say he knew he'd overreacted. "I
  knew it was a dumb idea," he said. "Let's go inside before we freeze."
  As we walked over the snowy sidewalk, he said, "I notice they quoted your
  old high school buddy in the story about the murders in the paper this
  morning. 1

               81
          GENEROUS DEATH

 don't believe I'd want him chasing me." He threw me a sly, sidelong
 glance. "'Unless I were female, of course.19
  I hardly heard him. I was thinking, instead, about the advice I had just
  given him. I believed what I had said, of course I did. It was absurd to
  imagine some anonymous fiend wished to destroy The Foundation and would
  commit murder to accomplish that end.
 I reached the door first and held it open for Derek.
  Absurd, I repeated to myself as he punched the button on the elevator.
  The murders don't have anything to do with The Foundation, I told myself,
  at least not in the way of a motive. It was sheer coincidence that by
  killing two major donors in one week, someone had just happened to
  demoralize my staff, wreck our projected growth, devastate our plans for
  the museum, force us into court fights we couldn't afford, frighten
  prospective donors, infuriate our trustees, disquiet our bankers, cast
  suspicion on all of us and generally disrupt business as usual. I felt
  like a winning quarterback who'd just been viciously sacked for a big
  loss, and it hurt.
  I put a reassuring smile on my face as Derek and I walked into the
  office.
 Still, I thought, absurd.
  I continued to think that all morning, up until ten-thirty when Edwin
  Ottilini called to tell me that Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch had not
  appeared for a scheduled meeting with him that morning. He wondered if
  she might have called or stopped by The Foundation.
  "No," I said, "we haven't seen her and she hasn't called. Did you try her
  home?"
"Of course. I'm afraid I frightened the maid. She 82
          GENEROUS DEATH

 said that Mrs. Hatch went to a meeting last night and told her husband not
 to wait up, that she'd probably be late. Evidently Charles left for the
 office this morning without having seen her-I guess they keep separate
 bedrooms." He cleared his throat with embarrassment at that little bit of
 confidentiality. "By the time I called, Mrs. Hatch had not yet been down
 to breakfast. The maid went up to get her, and found that her bed had not
 been slept in. I told the maid to call Charles and see if he knows where
 his wife might be."
 I thought of Derek's play on words ...
 Somebody Is Killing the ...
  Arnie had died at his favorite charity and Moshe at his. Mrs. Hatch might
  support the museum with small gifts now and then; she might donate funds
  to build a civic memorial or plant a garden. But her deepest concern lay
  with the Welcome Home for Girls. It was her pet project, the prototype
  of several other homes for juveniles that she hinted The Foundation might
  be able to finance with the generous bequest she might leave us. If she
  ever got around to making a will, which so far, to my knowledge, she had
  not.
  I suggested that Mr. Ottilini might wish to meet me at the Welcome Home.
  I didn't offer a logical, rational reason and he didn't ask for one. He
  just said it would take him five minutes to rearrange his schedule.
  Derek lent me his car keys when I asked for them. He also gave me a look
  of intense curiosity.
  I walked calmly out of the office, gently closed the door and ran like
  hell for the elevator as if something possessed me.
 It did-terrible, intuitive, gut-wrenching fear.

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 Chapter 11

 I feel like a fool," I whispered to Mr. Ottilini. We sat on a dilapidated
 couch in the living room of the Welcome Home.
  "I, too," he whispered back. "But if you don't tell anyone, I won't. Then
  they'll never know."
  We traded sheepish grins. I'm not sure what hideous thing we expected to
  find there-Mrs. Hatch chopped up in little pieces and filed under "H,"
  perhaps-but we hadn't. On the pretext of making a surprise inspection for
  The Foundation, we'd managed to examine every nook and broom closet, not to
  mention all six bedrooms, the kitchen, living room, dining room, staff
  offices, recreation room, sleeping porch and basement. The worst thing we
  found was an unmade bed.
  "She undoubtedly forgot our appointment," Mr. Ottilini said, hardly any
  doubt in his voice by that time. "I will admit that is out of character for
  her, but

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 God help us if we can't be unpredictable now and then."
 "Even you, Mr. Ottilini?" I dared.
  "Even I," he said with more than a hint of a twinkle. He's the only
  trustee I called mister, but just because he was formal didn't mean he
  wasn't human.
  "But how do you account for the fact that her bed wasn't slept in?" I
  persisted.
  "As we age, we sleep less well, my dear." He patted the air above my
  hand. "I expect she dozed off on a sofa instead, and then got dressed and
  left this moming before the rest of the household was up and about."
  "Well, I'm sure you're right," I sighed. I wished I could forsake this
  wild goose chase and return to my office. But we had to wait-to our
  mutual embarrassment-for the director of the home to bring the coffee
  she'd insisted we needed. After putting her to so much trouble, we could
  hardly refuse. Besides, I knew it was important to the director, Allison
  Parker, to make a favorable impression on the controllers of the
  charitable purse strings in town.
  She rounded the comer from the kitchen, treading carefully on the wom
  carpet. With both hands, she carried a plastic tray-left over from
  Christmas, judging by the holly pattern around the rim-on which were
  balanced three cups full of coffee and napkins and spoons.
  "What a tea service!" she laughed as she set it on a coffee table and
  then lowered herself into a lumpy armchair. "But you know how it
  is-everything we have is secondhand and cracked." She smiled brightly.
  "Not that we don't appreciate it, goodness knows what we'd do without
  secondhand and cracked! But I

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 will admit, it's not quite the tea service my dear mother dreamed of for
 me!"
  Allison spoke in exclamation points and dealt in guilt. She knew how to
  shovel it out in thick, rich piles so the more fortunate among us would
  ante up for her girls. She was just barely five feet tall with round blue
  eyes and curly red hair, and she looked more like one of the girls than
  the director of the program. Contrary to the appearance of sweetness and
  light that she tried to present, however, I knew her to be a tough
  twentyfive-year-old with sufficient steel in her backbone to discipline
  hard cases and a master's degree in social work to qualify her
  academically for the job. The mother she had spoken of had died when
  Allison was thirteen years old; I knew that much from the soap opera life
  story she'd told me soon after she was hired. The only thing she didn't
  say was what became of her father, though I gathered that he either had
  not been able to or had not wanted to take care of Allison and her two
  brothers. So they were placed by the state in juvenile detention
  centers-hard, tough places where they didn't deserve to be-of the very
  sort the Welcome Home was meant to replace. "I know what it's like to be
  one of these kids," Allison said in a rare moment of grim candor when she
  was hired, "I belong here." Still, she was young and probably immature
  for the load of responsibility she carried. But we had to hire young,
  cheap staff since the home budget did not allow for the luxury of more
  experienced and costly employees.
  And yet somehow Allison managed. On a pittance of state aid and private
  donations, she managed to feed, clothe, educate, entertain and provide
  counseling for twelve girls. Most of what little private money 86
          GENEROUS DEATH

 there was came from Mrs. Hatch's pocketbook, which was irregularly and
 unpredictably opened now and then to the home. I knew that Allison was
 also going to have to learn how to wheedle donations out of the community
 at large, a community that didn't even like to admit it had poor or abused
 children, or, God forbid, both.
  "I hope you don't take sugar," she said, just as Mr. Ottilini was, I
  guessed, opening his mouth to request that very thing. "Our government
  commodities are late this month, so we're making do with leftovers. And
  I'm sorry to say, there's no sugar left over." Her face brightened like
  a child's at Christmas. "Ohl But there's brown sugar, would that do?"
  Mr. Ottilini bravely swallowed a gulp of the tepid, bitter instant coffee
  and said, No, he didn't need a thing, thank you.
  "I'm fine, too, Allison," I said to the questioning expression on her
  round face. "Can you, even spare this coffee?"
  "Absolutely!" she fluted. "There's at least enough for the houseparents
  tonight. I can do without, quite easily."
  As usual, I fell for her guilt games. I told her I'd drop off a pound of
  coffee and a box of sugar later that day.
  "You're such a dear, Jenny!" she exclamationpointed at me. "I don't know
  what this old house would do without friends like you and Mr. Ottilini!"
  We generous ones shifted uncomfortably on the lumpy couch, thinking of
  our own plush furniture and the wasted coffee we'd poured down our sinks
  that morning. Allison did that to people-made them feel inadequate and
  guilt-ridden even whil6 she gushed 87
          GENEROUS DEATH

 compliments upon them-and I found it a most unlikable trait. But I admired
 her dedication, so I just endured her like everyone else, and smiled
 fatuously back at her and gritted my teeth. And, of course, I handed down
 to her the secondhand and cracked of all my belongings.
  "Well!" she said with the bright smile that the professional of any field
  uses to put laypeople in their places. You don't know beans, that smile
  says, but I'll condescend to pretend you do. "Well! How does our little
  house look to you good people this morning? I'm awfully sorry about that
  unmade bed. But of course, if we had known you were coming. . . "
 She was all smiles and regret and helpfulness.
  Mr. Ottilini apologized, on cue, for our having barged in.
  I indulged in a delicious moment of fantasy in which Allison suddenly
  leaped to her feet, tired eyes blazing, and told us to go jump. In my
  fantasy, she yelled, "How dare you drop in here like you own the place,
  even if you practically do! Would you surprise your fancy friends early
  in the morning before they've had a chance to make their beds? Would you
  barge into an office without an appointment? Don't we deserve such simple
  courtesy, too? Out, both of you! My rug is not swept, my bathtub has
  rings and you can just get the bell out!"
  "What's so funny, Jenny?" Allison turned her Little Orphan Annie eyes on
  me.
  "Was I smiling? I didn't mean to smile," I said inanely. Then realizing
  how stupid that sounded, I really did laugh. She and Mr. Ottilini gazed
  at me with the tolerance usually reserved by the sane for the 88
          GENEROUS DEATH

 looney. I tried to get my face under control. I said, "I'm sorry. It's
 been a long week."
 "But Miss Cain," said Mr. 0, "it's only Monday."
 "Oh God," I said, "only Monday."
  "Oooonly Mon-day!" Allison chirped in an absurdly cheerful singsong that
  very nearly undid me. I had to slurp coffee to keep from chirping back
  at her, "Tra la! Tra la!"
  One of the girls who lived at the house saved me by appearing in the
  living room.
 "Telephone, Allison!" she yelled.
 "Who is it, do you know, dear?"
  "Beats the fuck out of me," said the little girl. She popped her gum and
  walked out again.
  A frozen silence descended on the adults in the living room. I prayed for
  deliverance from hysterics. Allison located her most sincere smile once
  more, pasted it on her face and turned toward Mr. Ottilini. It must have
  taken some courage; I gave her full credit for that. The old lawyer's
  face was scarlet, though I detected that twinkle again.
  "Well!" Allison said brightly. "If they. were little angels they wouldn't
  be here, would they?"
  She excused herself, rather quickly I thought, and went out of the room,
  either to answer the phone or to pin one teenager up against the wall.
  Mr. 0 pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his bony nose.
 "I think we may safely go now, Miss Cain."
  "I'm sorry I suggested this." I stood and searched in the pockets of my
  suit for Derek's car keys.
  "No," he demurred, "I would have come anyway. Better to err on the side
  of caution, as we lawyers 89
          GENEROUS DEATH

 would have you believe. And speaking of caution, I suggest we depart by
 the back door. With any luck, we shall escape unscathed by further coffee
 or guilt."
  He led the way along the narrow hallway with its peeling wallpaper to the
  back door with its broken storm window. Everywhere I looked, the Welcome
  Home for Girls cried out for massive infusions of money-the kind that a
  generous bequest from Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch would mean.
  Mr. Ottilini, old-fashioned gentleman to the core, held open the door for
  me against the cold stiff wind that was huffing down from Canada. We
  walked down the neatly shoveled back steps, causing my guilt to rise
  again as I thought of my own hazardous steps that I still hadn't
  shoveled. And that reminded me of the modem sculpture in my front yard.
  I had not had time yet that morning to call the Standard station and ask
  them to haul it out for me.
 I reached out a hand to the lawyer.
  "Thank you for coming, Mr. Ottilini. I suppose it didn't hurt to tour the
  place."
  "No, it's good for us, I think. Reminds us of how much there is to do for
  it. And how much The Foundation could help if only we had the money." He
  didn't shake my hand, but took it in a fatherly fashion between the two
  of his. "Let's don't tell Mrs. Hatch how foolishly we worried about her,
  all right?"
  "Fine." As I returned his smile, I glanced over his shoulder. Snow was
  sliding in a small pointed avalanche off the roof of the garage. He
  turned to follow my glance.
  "I forgot about the garage," he said casually, apologetically. "You don't
  suppose we ought to look inside, do you? Just to set our minds completely
  at ease?"

                90
          GENEROUS DEATH

  6'Well, you know what lawyers would have us believe," I said and I
  started to wade through the foot of snow in the back yard to the detached
  garage that was used for storage instead of cars. "Better to err on the
  side of caution."
 I heard his dry, whispery laugh behind me.
  God, I felt stupid, plowing through the snow to open a frigid garage to
  see if Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch was among the items stored there. Of
  course, she was not.
  We closed the garage door and exchanged those sheepish grins again. We
  were getting good at it. If Mrs. Hatch only knew, she'd die, I thought.
  And then I took one last look around the property-this time around a
  corner of the garage-and saw the secondhand badly cracked refrigerator.
  It was one that Mrs. Hatch had given to the home last year, obviously,
  it had not lasted long. It stood white and solitary in the snow under a
  low-hanging branch of a maple tree. Its aluminum shelves were propped
  against it; they sparkled in the cold sunlight.
  "An abandoned icebox!" I was suddenly, fiercely furious. "They should not
  leave that out there! A child could lock himself in it!"
  I didn't know why my heart was pounding so horribly. I only knew I was
  already in tears by the time I flung open the door of the empty
  refrigerator. Only, like the Testered Bed With an Alcove, it wasn't
  empty.
  It was stuffed to the brim with Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch.

  "She didn't suffer, Jenny." Geof Bushfield took time off from his
  unpleasant chores to walk over to

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 where Mr. Ottilini and I waited in a forlorn and freezing huddle on the
 back steps. We had ignored Geof's advice to go inside. Inside held Allison
 and a houseful of frightened staff and nearly hysterical youngsters.
  Geof's eyes were distracted, but kind. He said, "She was already dead or
  unconscious when she was, uh, put in there."
  "How do you know?" I desperately wanted to believe he wasn't just saying
  that to make us feel better.
  "Because I've seen what abandoned refrigerators look like when someone
  has been locked in them alive." His eyes held memories of unspeakable
  things. "There would be blood. There would be sips of a struggle to get
  out, to breathe . . ."
  "How did she die?" Mr. Ottilini asked. Geof had to bend down to hear him.
  In the last hour, the old man had shrunk inside his expensive overcoat;
  the long lines of dignity and power in his face had drooped into furrows
  of grief. With the loss of this thirdN)ld friend and client, something
  vital had seeped oufof Mr. Ottilini. I was nearly as worried about him,
  standing frail and shivering beside me, as I was about the murders.
  "I don't know, sir, and we probably won't know until we get the coroner's
  report." Geof scanned the lawyer's face, then glanced at me and then back
  at Mr. Orttilini. Geof chewed his lower lip. Our breaths turned the air
  to white fog. He said, "I'll tell you what, sir, we'll notify the family
  and. . ."
  "No." But there was no spirit to Mr. Ottilini's objection. "I should do
  that. I will do that."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Actually, sir," Geof interrupted smoothly, "it would be better for us
  to do it because we'll have to, uh, interview them anyway." He didn't
  pause long enough for the older man to get a word in. "You can call on
  them later today if you wish, how's that?"
  Mr. Ottilini nodded his head as if at a dismal fate. "I'll be at my
  office," he whispered to the snow at our feet. He turned to leave,
  glancing back only once to attempt a smile at me and to stare with
  obvious pain at the white refrigerator in the snow.
  I fought back the urge to weep. I looked up into Geof's concerned eyes.
  "There's a note, isn't there?" I asked him. "A verse, like the other
  two."
 He hesitated only briefly before answering me.
  "Yes, there was a verse. Stuffed in her pocketbook. Do you want to see
  it?"
  I took a deep breath. It burned the inside of my nose and throat. "Yes,
  please," I said.
  He pulled a clear plastic bag out of his inside coat pocket and held it
  so that I could read the typewritten words through the transparent
  plastic without touching the note.
 It said:

    Depositor in many banks, Giving only where there's thanks, Now
    you're stuffed all dead and cold, Like a freshly frozen soul.

  I swallowed my horror and disgust. With a deep feeling of regret, I said,
  "It's somebody who knew her."
 "Why?" He slid the envelope back into the pocket.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 I took in another breath of stinging air.
  "Because Mrs. Hatch was a wonderful, generous woman, but..."
 "But ... 11

  ". . . but she liked to feel appreciated. More than most volunteers or
  donors, I mean. If she gave you something, you'd better say thank you
  until your tongue got tired. She'd drop you like a hot coal if you
  weren't grateful enough to please her."
 "Had she dropped anybody lately9l,
  I realized how important my answer could be, so I thought before I said,
  "I don't know, Geof, but I don't think so."
 He nodded.
  "Go home, Jenny," he said, and I was surprised by the gentleness in his
  voice. "We'll call you into the station or drop by your house to get a
  formal statement. You still live at your parents' house right?"
  I supposed he knew that fact from his investigations of the murders.
  "I can't go home," I said. "I've got to go back to the office. Call me
  there, okay? And yes, I'm at my parents'." I added giddily, "They're not.
  But I am."
 "How's your mom?"
  Amazing how much he'd learned from his investigation; of course,
  everybody in town knew about Mom.
  "The same," I said. "No, maybe worse. I don't know."
 "I think you ought to go home. Don't be brave."
  "I'm not being brave, I'm being stubborn." I shoved my handswhose
  fingertips were numb, into my coat pockets. "I'll be at The Foundation,
  Geof. Call me there, or come by, if you want to."

               94
          GENEROUS DEATH

  He shrugged and shook his head the way people do when they see I'm
  determined to have my way. His smile was tired and crooked.
  "You never let the football team give up either," he said unexpectedly.
  "You were the cheerleader who kept yelling 'push 'em back' clear down to
  the last play.
  "My gosh, is that true? How did you remember that?" I babbled.
  Cheerleader! How foolish it sounded in contrast to this serious,
  competent man standing in front of me. I felt suddenly embarrassed,
  inconsequential, naive, all those things I most hate to feel.
  "I remember because you were so young to be a varsity cheerleader," he
  said, "and I thought you were the prettiest girl I'd ever seen."
  That knocked me speechless, at least in part because the Geoffrey
  Bushfield I remembered had not been noted for his interest in varsity
  anything, though I remembered a snide joke about his having "lettered in
  hell-raising." I did manage to say, "Well, that was a long time ago."
  His lips, which were slightly chapped, formed a smile that carried to his
  eyes with a message I couldn't decipher. Then he was gone, back to his
  men and the refrigerator.
 I drove Derek's car back to the office.
 I had a little breaking of bad news to do myself

 95
 Chapter 12

 After I told my staff about Mrs. Hatch, not much work got done. Marvin and
 Faye were too upset to concentrate on their normal routines-as if there
 were a normal routine to follow anymore. Derek, however, came into my
 office and closed the door behind him.
  "You have to go to New York, Jenny," he said. I stared at him in
  disbelief.
 "Tell me another joke," I said.
  "I know." He sat down across from my desk. "It sounds crazy at a time
  like this, but you'll want to go when I tell you the why and the
  wherefore."
 I waited for yet more bad news.
  Only it wasn't bad. It was very nice. It seems a phone call had come for
  me while I was at the Welcome Home, a call from a lawyer in New York.
  Derek took the message. It amounted to the delightful fact that an old
  man from Manhattan, who had

               96
          GENEROUS DEATH

 visited Poor Fred only once in his life had, on that trip, fallen in love
 with a certain distinguished painting by Degas which was displayed at the
 Martha Paul. And he just happened to have made a point of obtaining a second
 painting that the famous Impressionist had done of the same dancer. It
 further seemed that the old man had recently died-of natural causes, Derek
 said thankfully-and left us the second Degas!
  "Why didn't he will it directly to the Martha Paul?" I wanted to know.
  "That's what you're supposed to go to New York and find out." He tucked a
  forefinger in the neck of his navy blue turtleneck and tugged. "Seems
  there's a contingency clause to the will."
  "Ah ha. The catch. The ever-popular, well-known catch."
  "And the attorneys for the old guy have respectfully requested the presence
  of the executive directorthat's you-in their offices tomorrow."
 "Tomorrow."
 "Yep. Nine o'clock and I do not mean at night."
 "Do you realize how early I'll have to get upT9
  "Early to bed, early to rise; that's the song of the boss who flies."
  "Ugh. Have Faye get me on the best flight she can, okay? Preferably one
  that serves decent coffee. And ask her to get me a hotel reservation just
  in case I have to stay over. Anywhere as long as it's Central Park South.
  I'll pay the excess over the expense allowance. And have her arrange for a
  cab to pick me up at my house an hour before my flight, just in case my
  car's still in the ditch. Will you do all that for me, Derek?"
"Already done, done and done. Plus, I called the 97
          GENEROUS DEATH

 Standard station and asked them to dig the modem sculpture out of the snow."
  "You're a fine employee and I think I'll keep you. Now then, what was the
  old gentleman's name and what do you know about him?"
  We talked business for the next hour. It was an effective defense mechanism
  that dammed the tide of my feelings. I couldn't afford to indulge my
  sadness or shock; I had to be a calm, reassuring source of support for the
  staff.
  Somehow, the rest of the workday passed. When everyone else had gone-I told
  Derek I'd take a cab home-I remained at my desk. I took advantage of the
  chance to be alone to consider the frightening implications of certain
  questions that had occurred to me: Did Mrs. Hatch leave a will? If so, did
  she leave any of her money to The Foundation as she always hinted she
  would? If both answers were yes, did somebody kill her in order to cast
  more suspicion on us? If either answer was no, did somebody kill her to
  make sure her money stayed out of our grasp?
 Either way, we lost.
  I placed a fast, nervous call to Mr. Ottilini's office and caught him just
  before he left to visit the Hatch home.
  Yes, he said, she left a will. She had, in fact, signed the thing last
  week, having been prompted to finally take action because of the death of
  her friend, Arnie Culverson.
  "That's what it often requires, you know," he said dejectedly, "to motivate
  a person to write a will. When a friend dies, it occurs to us that the same
  thing might some day happen to us, too."
 And yes, he also said, she left about $350,000 to

               98
          GENEROUS DEATH

 The Foundation for the purpose of founding residential treatment centers for
 adolescents. She also left $150,000 directly to the Welcome Home. The rest
 of the estate went to her family.
 As to my other questions ...
  "I would not want to jump to any paranoid conclusions, Miss Cain," was how
  he carefully put it, "but I think that under the circumstances, we must
  consider the possibility that someone does not wish The Foundation well."
  "Or," I said, and a shiver crawled down my spine, "someone wishes us all
  too well, in a rather misguided sort of way."
  "Moshe's funeral was this afternoon," he noted. It had been a private
  service for immediate family members only.
  "Yes." There was nothing else to say. So we said goodnight and hung up.
  On my way out the door, I lifted a bag of drip coffee and a box of
  granulated sugar from the tray by the office coffee machine. I'd drop them
  by the Welcome Home and chalk it up as a donation from The Foundation.
  Coward that I am, I jumped out of the cab when it pulled up in the driveway
  of the girls' home, stuck my head in the front door and tossed the coffee
  and sugar to the nearest resident. "Got to run," I tied, "give these to
  Allison, will you please?"
  But I was foiled by the sudden appearance of the lady herself. When I
  looked into Allison's saucer eyes, I felt my own grief reflected back at
  me.
  "Jenny!" she cried and reached out with her small hands to grasp my larger
  ones. "Oh, Jenny, how could anyone do this terrible thing to that wonderful

               99
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 woman! What will we do without her? She was the best friend this house
 ever had, Jenny, she was just the most wonderful, generous person!"
  Gushers make me dry up like a prune that's been out in the sun too long.
  I felt my face go stiff and my voice go arid. "I know, Allison." I meant
  to sound sympathetic, but all I heard in my own voice was distaste. I
  tried harder. "I feel awful for you and the girls, just awful."
  "Oh, the girls are so sad," she intoned mournfully. I doubted it; excited
  yes, maybe even scared, but not sad. For all her good works, Florence
  Hatch had not been a woman to whom a poor and troubled teenage girl would
  have been likely to get emotionally attached.
  "I've got a cab waiting, Allison," I said rudely and tugged my hands out
  of her grasp.
  "Oh, forgive me!" She was so contrite I could have kicked her. "I didn't
  mean to hold you up, Jenny, I'm so sorry!"
  "Don't be sorry," I said, a little too loud and firm. A flicker of
  surprise showed in her eyes, but it disappeared as I stuttered my way out
  the door, saying, "I mean, it's okay, Allison, don't worry about it, call
  me if you need anything, good night."
  But I remembered something important that would please her and I turned
  back to tell her.
  "Do you know about the will?" I said, completely and unforgivably out of
  school. She looked blank, so I explained. "I understand that Mrs. Hatch
  left a generous bequest to this house."
  "Oh!" she started to spout, but I fled back to the cab before the gushing
  cataract of her gratitude could 100
          GENEROUS DEATH

 drown me. It occurred to me as I waved goodbye to her that Mrs. Hatch's
 bequest not only ensured the future of the home, but also meant Allison
 might stop begging and fawning.
  It seemed to me that was one definite if small blessing to arise from the
  greater tragedy.

  The cab dropped me off at home a few minutes later.
  Ginger Culverson was parked in her mother's Seville in the driveway,
  which made it fairly crowded since the local traffic also included a tow
  truck from the Standard station, my sister's BMW and Michael's Jaguar.
  I'm too tired for this, I moaned to myself. I think I'll tell them all
  to go away and leave me alone.
  "Hi, everyone," I called instead, of course. I threw Michael the keys to
  the house. "Let the ladies in, will you, while I talk to a man about a
  car."
  Michael performed the chores of a host while I stood in the cold that was
  getting colder and listened to the man from the garage hypothesize about
  how I could possibly have got my car in such a fix.
  "Your own front yard, too," he said wonderingly. The calculator in my
  mind deducted a dollar from his tip. "You really got 'er stuck as a buck
  in the muck, ain't you?"
  That made me laugh, so I mentally added his dollar back. I said, "Can you
  get it out, please? I'll be in the house if you need me."
  "Havin' a nice warm cup of tea, I suppose," he said bitterly. "While I'm
  out here freezin' my butt off, isn't that the way?"

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I guess it is." I wondered if he took guilt trip lessons from Allison
  Parker. I left him with his tip hanging precariously in the balance.
  I walked gratefully into the cozy warmth the tow truck driver envied and
  closed the door decisively on him and his cold twilight. I peeled off
  coat, hat, gloves, muffler and suit coat and hung everything that was
  hangable on the brass coat tree in the hall, the one toward which my
  father used to toss his hat and usually miss so it landed on the floor
  for my mother to pick up later. So tired that even my face ached, I
  wished I could hang myself up by the scruff of my neck and dangle, limp
  and sleepy. I groaned just loud enough to let my guests in the living
  room'know my feelings about the world at that moment. I unzippered and
  stepped out of my wet boots and-feeling put upon-padded barefoot in to
  greet them.
  Michael had fulfilled the role of host to the extent of pouring drinks
  and hauling out the cheese and crackers. I wondered-but didn't much
  care-how my sister felt about being treated like a guest in what used to
  be her home. Michael had a Manhattan waiting for me in the hand that
  didn't hold his own Scotch and water.
  "I can never get used to your drinking these things," he said and smiled
  as he handed it to me. I tasted it. Bless him, it was just the way I like
  it-up and "perfect," that is, a smooth-as-silk blend of bourbon and sweet
  and dry vermouth. He said, "It seems such an old-fashioned drink, like
  something out of the '20's."
  "I'm an old-fashioned girl," I smirked. My sister snorted, thus making
  her opinion and her presence known.

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  "Hello, Sherry," I said lightly. "Did you have any trouble finding the
  place? Have to stop and get a map from a filling station?"
  Ginger, who didn't know Michael or Sherry and barely knew me, looked
  startled. Maybe she was, surprised to find that families other than her
  own also indulged in open animosity.
  "No, Sis, I didn't have any problems finding it at all," Sherry snapped
  back at me. "I just followed all the sips that said 'dutiful daughter'
  and pointed this way. I$
  Michael threw me a look that said "behave yourself," so I swallowed the
  supremely clever comeback that was on the tip of my bitter tongue. I
  turned to Ginger and put welcome in my smile.
  "I would have called first," she said quickly. "In fact, I did call
  first. But your office lines have been busy all afternoon. So I just came
  on over. Hope you don't mind."
  "Of course not." It was only a white lie; I may have been exhausted, but
  I was glad to see her open, friendly face. It offered such a pleasant
  contrast to my sisteesclosed, suspicious expression. I said to Ginger,
  "Have you met my sister Sherry, and Michael?"
  "Yes, we've introduced ourselves." A hint of mischievous amusement lit
  her brown eyes. "I would have guessed the two of you are sisters, anyway,
  even without being told. You look remarkably alike."
  I glanced at my sister's pale blond hair, her peachesand-cream skin, her
  delicate features and tall slim body, and supposed I should have felt
  complimented by the comparison. "We are remarkably alike," I said
  wearily, "which is probably part of the problem."
 Sherry's blue eyes-same light shade as our moth-
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 er's and mine-looked startled, as if I'd caught her off guard. Then the
 perfectly made-up eyelids with their exquisitely drawn lines and shadows
 closed down again to shutter her thoughts. Everything about her was
 exquisite and expensive, from the cloud of shimmering hair to the Gucci
 belt and shoes and the Hermes handbag. It was as if she thought that by
 maintaining a facade of irreproachable respectability and class, she could
 rise above the town's memory of our mother as she had become in those last
 years before she was diagnosed and committed. Our lovely, sparkling mother
 had given up on everything including baths, deodorant, clean clothes,
 hairbrushes and toothpaste-and hope. Most of all, of course, she gave up
 on hope.
  I've been told I'm no slouch myself when I really want to put myself
  together with clothes and makeup, but I was a slob compared to Sherry.
  She was as gorgeous as a trust fund, a well-to-do husband and the spur
  of shame could make her.
  I came out of my reverie to hear Michael say that he, too, had been
  defeated by busy signals.
  "I heard the news about Mrs. Hatch and wanted to make sure you knew," he
  said tentatively, gently, as people do when they're not sure if you know
  your dog is dead. "You do know, don't you?"
 "I was the one who found her."
  That got their attention, even Sherry's. I avoided Michael's sympathetic
  eyes and my sister's cool ones and told my horrifying story to Ginger.
  .
  "Oh God," she said at the end of it, "it's tied to my father's death,
  isn't it? And the murder of Mr. Cohen?"
 "Oh Swede, how awful for you," Michael said and

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          GENERGUS DEATH

 wrapped a warm and comforting arm around my shoulders.
  "Quite the center of attention, weren't you?" my sister said, arched
  eyebrow and all. "Aren't you. Always."
  I leaned into Michael's side and absorbed his affection into my wounded
  spirit while he and Ginger stood by looking awkward and uncomfortable.
  I wished I were six years old again and could stick out my tongue at my
  bratty little sister. I knew, however, that what I should do was ignore
  her because that was the best of all possible ways to aggravate her. It
  was attention she craved as an alcoholic craves drink; but like the
  fed-up-to-here family of an alcoholic, I knew I shouldn't indulge her
  insatiable need. "Stop being her patsy,9' a psychologist had advised me.
  "Don't allow her to make you pay for the failings of your parents. Does
  she think it was easy on you? Stop being so sweet and patient with
  her-give her back some of her own and see how she likes it. She has to
  learn to accept the natural consequences of her actions; and it is not
  natural for you to swallow your hurt and fury when she abuses you. She
  knows you don't mean it, anyway, and that only makes her despise you
  more. Jenny, the past is not your fault. Your sister has to get on with
  her life as it exists today, without demanding payment from you for
  yesterday."
  He didn't tell me I would enjoy giving it back to her, it was a shocking
  and humbling experience to learn that. We had both, my sister and 1, a
  long way to go toward forgiving.
  "Stuff it," I said angrily, without a hint of wit or self-control or good
  nature. I even raised my voice. "I didn't ask you to visit me, Sherry,
  but if you can't 105
          GENEROUS DEATH

 control your snide tongue in front of my friends, I will ask you to leave.
 Make up your mind."
  I could feel Michael's intake of breath; Ginger looked at me as if she
  really didn't know me at all. As for my sister, she couldn't have looked
  more shocked if I had hit her. She looked so surprised it was funny. So,
  true to the psychologist's advice to let my natural feelings show, I
  laughed.
  "I'm sorry, Ginger and Michael," I said briskly and moved across the room
  to take a seat in my father's armchair. "It's no fun to witness family
  squabbles, I know. Are you leaving or staying, Sherry?"
 Her blue-eyed glare was vivid with hate.
  "Leaving. But not before I tell you why I came. Not before I have the
  pleasure of telling you the hospital called me today-because of the busy
  signal on your popular phone, I presume."
  I stiffened and prayed she wouldn't indulge her considerable capacity for
  cruelty. My prayers went begging.
  "Mother's gone catatonic again," she said as if she took it as a personal
  affront, which of course she did. Then she twisted the corkscrew further
  into my heart. "It happened last night after your visit with her. You
  don't suppose there's a connection, do you?"
  I looked away from her, unable to cope with her venom and my pain at the
  same time. When she saw she wasn't going to get a response-or maybe had
  already got the response she sought-she raised her perfect little chin
  in the air and marched elegantly out of the house. My only satisfaction
  lay in knowing how much she would later regret having shown her worst
  side to strangers. My God, we were hideous to each 106
          GENEROUS DEATH

 other, my God, how we needed each other and how sadly that need cried in
 vain.
  "Jennifer, I'm so sorry." Michael's voice was as gentle as his eyes.
  "I'll come back later if that would be better." Ginger spread her plump
  hands in a gesture of helpless embarrassment.
  "No." I stood and tried on a smile for size. It seemed to fit, if a little
  raggedly, so I kept it there. "Just let me make a quick phone call and then
  I hope you'll both stay for supper. I'd be grateful for your company. Will
  you?"
 They would.
  I shut myself in the den and called the doctors. I got about as much
  response out of them as they were getting from my mother. "Wait," they
  said. "Be patient. She's come out of it before. She'll come out of it
  again."
  But I didn't believe them, not this time. My mother didn't have a reason to
  come out of it this time, except possibly for the sake of life itself, and
  that held no rhyme or reason for her anymore. No reason at all.

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 Chapter 13

 I paid the man from the garage when he came huffing and puffing to the
 front door.
 "You ought to shovel your walk," he said.
  "You ought to shove off," I said, but with a smile and a tip. One mustn't
  alienate one's service person. Or one will be, someday, stuck as a buck
  in the muck with nobody to bail out one's ass.
  He stuck the extra money in his wallet and nodded complacently as if it
  were only just. He didn't say thank you.
  "Better shovel this before you get sued," he said in farewell.
  I made a classic Italian gesture of disrespect behind his back.
  I shut the door on the cold night and turned back into the house to
  organize the troops for dinner.
 While Ginger poured the wine and Michael washed

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 the lettuce, I alternated between the oven and the phone. Simon Church
 called to say that he, too, had received a summons to appear in New York
 the next day. He sounded aggrieved that the bequest of the Degas was being
 routed through The Foundation; I told him truthfully that I didn't have
 the vaguest notion why.
  "I hear you found Mrs. Hatch," he said in his blunt way, but not
  unkindly. His big voice boomed out into the kitchen for everyone to hear.
  "Uh, Jenny my love, would you happen to know if she left anything for the
  Martha Paul? You know she always hinted she might give us a little
  something."
  "Simon, Simon . . ." I looked over at Ginger to find her shaking her head
  and smiling. She'd heard him, too.
  "I know," he said cheerfully. "I know I'm a crass bastard, but I learned
  a long time ago that if you don't ask the question, you won't get the
  answer. So did sheT'
  "She left some money to The Foundation for the purpose of providing care
  for adolescents," I said, sounding rather like a will myself. "And she
  left some directly to the Welcome Home. So if you benefit at all, it will
  only be indirectly, Simon." (Sometimes a large bequest enables us to
  increase our overall purchasing power, so that we can invest in something
  that pays better interest or dividends. When that happens, there's a
  trickle-down effect that benefits all the charities we support-because
  whenever we earn more, we have more money to give away. As the old saying
  goes, it takes money to make money.)
The sound of his large, disappointed sigh filled the 109
          GENEROUS DEATH

 kitchen. "Jenny, Jenny," he complained, "Arnie promises the world and
 gives us zippitydoodah ... Moshe Cohen didn't give a rat's ass about us
 compared to his precious theater, or the goddamn Golan Heights, for Pete's
 sake! ... and Florence Hatch drops hints like an outfielder drops flies,
 but she doesn't leave us a pot to piss in! I'll tell you, Jen, people are
 so irresponsible."
  It was almost comical. For Simon, the axis upon which the world revolved
  was the Martha Paul; nothing happened that he couldn't connect in some
  way, for good or ill, to the museum.
  "Just think about that Degas, Simon," I said soothingly. "Just think
  about that lovely painting and how it's going to be all yours."
 "All yours, you mean," he said bitterly.
  "Simon," I said, suddenly beset by the trepidation born of experience,
  "you will be good tomorrow, won't you?" He was a superb museum director
  in many ways, but a lousy diplomat. I always held my breath during his
  dealings with donors; they have to be handled with kid gloves and he
  didn't have a pair to his name. I said nervously, "You won't get mad and
  do something I'll regret?"
 He laughed, a shade wildly, I thought.
  "Oh ye of little faith," he said, "you can count on Simple Simon. I'll
  be good as gold, Jenny love, I'll be ... 99

  "You'd better be," I threatened, "or maybe The Foundation will find some
  other museum in which to hang that Degas."
 That blackmail sobered him up.
 "I'll see you at the airport, Jennifer," he said,

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 reproof in his voice. Simon could dish it out, but he didn't easily
 tolerate jokes about his sacred cow.
  "Thanks for calling," I said, all business, and hung up just in time for
  the phone to ring again.
  "Jenny," a male voice said. "It's Geof ... Bushfield."
  "I know which Geof you are, Geof," I wondered if he could hear my smile.
  But then I stopped smiling. "Oh dear, I forgot you wanted to interview
  me today. I'm so beat. Can we do it tomorrow instead?"
  "Well, we need your statement," he said. "I'd suggest taking it first
  thing in the morning, but as it happens, I'm going to New York tomorrow,"
 "Me too."
 "No kidding? That early bird commuter flight?"
 "Yes, God help me, the one that cracks the dawn."
  "So am I," he said. "Okay then, how's this for a compromise? I'll take
  your statement on the flight down."
 "There won't be enough time, will there?"
  He laughed. "Why? Do you have a lot to say? Okay, here's a better idea.
  I'll get what I can on the flight, then I'll meet you later in the city
  and we'll finish the job."
 "Sold."
  "Thanks, Jenny." There was a pause. "Are you all right?"
  "Pretty well," I said. "Thank you. Uh, Geof, can you tell me what you've
  found out about Mrs. Hatch?"
  "Sure," he said calmly, "I don't see why not. We found her car for one
  thing. It was still in the parking lot at the hotel where she went to
  that meeting. The III
          GENEROUS DEATH

 guy on the switchboard at the hotel remembers getting a call for her, but
 he can't remember if it was from a man or woman. At any rate, he had her
 paged out of her meeting and that's the last anybody knows about her.
 Evidently she took the call on one of the house phones and then got her
 coat from the rack outside the meeting room. She may have left the hotel
 with somebody in another car, but nobody saw her, unfortunately."
  "Well, that hotel lobby's a busy place," I said. "I suppose there's no
  reason anybody would notice one old lady leaving. But didn't she go back
  to her meeting and tell them she was going?"
  "No," Geof said. "There were close to a hundred people there and she was
  only in the audience, so she could have just picked up her coat and left
  without anyone knowing."
  "So now you have to try to trace her movements from the time she took the
  telephone page to the time
 ... I ... 51
  "Right," he said quickly. "We've interviewed the girls and the staff at
  the Welcome Home, and their neighbors."
 46 And?"
  "And nada," he said with an air of frankness. "On Sunday night, the staff
  at the home always take the girls out to a movie, so the grounds were
  conveniently empty for at least two hours. And the neighbors say there's
  always so much activity at the house-people coming and going-that they've
  got so they don't pay attention anymore."
  "Somebody must have known those facts," I suggested. "The same person who
  knew Mrs. Hatch well enough to write that rhyme about her."

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  "That's what we think, too," he agreed. "If you get any ideas on the
  subject, will you let me know?"
 "Of course," I said. "See you in the morning."
  After I hung up, I switched on the telephone answering machine. Whatever
  else anybody had to tell me could just darn well wait until tomorrow.
  "Who was that?" Michael looked up from his work at the salad bowl. He'd
  created a crisp jumble of lettuce, radishes, sliced Jerusalem artichokes,
  cucumbers, red onions and Italian dressing. I pulled the rib eye steaks
  out of the broiler.
  "A cop," I said. I slit open the baked potatoes and slathered them with
  butter, sour cream and freshly snipped chives. "The one who's in charge
  of investigating the murders."
  "Sounds as if you know him pretty well," he said casually. I watched him
  carry the salad bowl to the table and I wondered what it was he had heard
  in my voice during the brief conversation. Ginger tactfully kept her head
  bent over the wine bottle as she poured the rest of it into an
  open-necked decanter to set on the table.
  I said, "Oh well, you know. Murder breeds familiarity."
  "And familiarity," he said, looking straight at me, "breeds contempt."
  Not tonight, Michael, I thought as I removed the pumpkin bread from the
  microwave. Please don't start on me again, not tonight.
  We were ready to eat at the-round oak table in my mother's dining room.
  'Vchaim." Ginger smiled and raised her crystal goblet of California
  burgundy. "To life."
 Too late, she realized that might not have been the

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 best toast for that particular day. There was an awkward moment in which
 we all glanced at each other with dread in our eyes. Then the instant
 broke apart into rueful, understanding smiles.
  "III have to remove my foot from my mouth before I can eat," she said.
  The comers of her mouth turned down in apology.
  "Don't worry about it," Michael said and rewarded her with his kindest
  smile, the one that left my secretary limp and speechless. "The way
  things are going in this town, there's hardly a subject that isn't
  uncomfortable to somebody." He munched on a bite of salad before adding,
  "I mean, we can't talk about business, because I'll get depressed. We
  can't talk about parents, or we'll all cry. We can't discuss money or
  wills. We can't mention sisters or brothers or dying or sickness or
  health. So what's left?"
  "The weather?" I suggested between mouthfuls of potato.
 "No!" Ginger said. "We're sick of it!"
 "Religion, politics?" I said.
  "Nope," Michael said. "Didn't your mother always tell you-oh boy, see
  what I mean? I'm sorry, Swede."
  I was, too, because the reminder of my mother took my appetite away. I
  put my fork down and smiledbravely, I thought-at him.
 "S'okay." I hoped the tears I felt were not visible.
  Ginger saved me by asking me to pass the salt and pepper-and then the
  butter and the sour creamand then the bowl of chive bits. Michael and I
  stared, fascinated, as she glopped her potato two inches high with
  fattening condiments.
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I haven't had a decent meal in a week!" she said defensively. "My mother
  has stopped cooking entirely, which I must say is a blessing. And she and
  Franklin eat at the club every night. I don't want to join-them, God
  forbid, so I batch at home on peanut butter and eggs."
  "Together?" Michael, whose tastes run to the gourmet, was horrified.
  "No," she laughed, "peanut butter one night, eggs the next. So this is
  Nirvana! I shall now proceed to make a pig of myself."
 We settled down to serious eating.
  After dinner, we formed an assembly line by which the dishes got removed
  from the table, scraped and placed in the dishwasher. Then, still in a mood
  of comfortable, satisfied companionship, we carried big mugs of
  decaffeinated coffee into the den.
  I made a fire while Michael and Ginger settled back
 into opposite ends of mother's big comfy chintz
 couch. I sat on the rag rug on the floor in front of them
 and leaned against the green leather library chair. It
 wa I s an odd mix of furniture, but it worked somehow.
 "This is nice," Ginger said softly.
  They watched the flames. I stared at the random patterns in the rug and
  thought of the now-useless hands of my mother that had woven it almost
  thirty years ago.
  "Well." Ginger lifted her shoulders in a sigh that said she was ready to
  talk. "I'll tell you why I came by this afternoon, but I hope it doesn't
  ruin this lovely mood. I heard The Foundation is going to contest my
  father's will."
 I gave her a direct look and a direct answer.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Yes," I said.
 And then she surprised me.
  "Well, I just want you to know that's all right," she said. "I told you I
  never wanted the money. Well, now that I'm within dreaming distance of it,
  I'm not so sure I was honest with myself about that. You know how it is,
  you get to thinking maybe you could do some good in the world. Pay for the
  money, so to speak. But I want you to know I understand your decision and
  I don't hold it against you. I'd do the same thing if I were in your
  position. I know it's nothing personal against me; it's for The Foundation
  and the museum. You're only doing your job."
  I winced at the phrase. Only doing my job: Damn the torpedoes and the
  consequences no matter who got hurt in the process? How badly would Ginger
  suffer if we won?
 "That's very good of you," I said.
  "However." She grinned wickedly. "I am going to fight you for it! Who
  knows? Maybe I could do as much good with the money as you and The Founda-
  tion could. And maybe I'd enjoy a little luxury that money could buy me.
  I've never had luxury since I so proudly left home. My jobs have been
  menial and my budget's been tight."
  I read amusement in her eyes, and challenge. She had her father's
  competitive spirit, all right; it just took a cause to galvanize it.
  "So be warned, my friend," she said and winked at Michael. "I'll give you
  a fight for your money-a fight for my money, that is!"
  "So be it." I raised my coffee mug to her. "And may the most cunning
  attorneys win."
 They stayed another half hour, chatting idly, avoid-
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 ing unhappy topics, before bundling up to face the frozen tundra outside.
 Ginger tactfully left first.
  "Thank you, Jenny," she said softly, just to me. "This is the second time
  now that you've provided an oasis during a rough time. It's meant a lot
  to me, just to get away from my near and dear for an evening and to talk
  about something besides death and taxes."
  "It's been nice for me, too," I said inadequately. "You were kind to
  stick around tonight"
  "Kind had nothing to do with it." She grinned and patted her stomach. "I
  figured I had to get a better meal here than I would at home."
  She closed the front door behind her, leaving Michael and me alone in the
  hallway. He pulled me in toward his puffy ski jacket.
 "Will you be all right, Jenny?"
  "Yes, fine." I had the feeling he was going to kiss me in something other
  than a brotherly fashion. I shoved my better judgment to one side, and
  let him.
  A few moments later, he said, "My father's coming back permanently to
  take over the business, Jen."
 "No!"
  "It's okay; in fact, it's a relief. It's what he needs to keep him happy
  and alive. And maybe now he'll finally see that our problems have not
  been entirely of MY doing."
 "What about you?"
  He chewed on the outer edge of his lower lip and gazed at me in an
  evaluative sort of way. I could imagine him looking just like that when
  he was estimating construction costs-and coming up with a price the
  client would not be willing to pay.
  "There's nothing in Poor Fred for me," he said, "at least not in
  business. I've decided to look for oppor-
  
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 tunities elsewhere. I've got a friend who has a construction business in
 Colorado and it's booming. He wants me to come in as partners with him and
 help him run it. It might be my chance to prove myself to myself. .
 And to your father, I thought, but didn't say it.
  "Come with me, Jenny," he said. My secretary would have dissolved, but
  then she reads Harlequin romances. I, on the other hand, reader of the
  Kiplinger Report and the Wall Street Journal, froze. Still, he managed
  not to look foolish as he said, "Come with me, and we'll make a new start
  together."
 I pulled away from him.
  "I don't need a new start, Michael. I have the job I want and the future
  I want right here."
 "You won't have me right here."
  "Can we talk about it later, Michael? Let's talk about it after I get
  back from New York."
  "That's what people say when the answer is no, isn't it?" he said
  bitterly. "They say we'll talk about it later. But later the answer is
  still no."
 "I don't know . .
 "Sure you do."
 He lifted his ski cap from the coat tree.
 "Good night, Swede."
  "Thank you for coming over." I tried to soften my tone. "It was sweet of
  you to be concerned about me. Believe me, I do appreciate the fact that
  you're so often there when I need someone."
  "You might consider returning the favor," he said and slammed the door
  behind him.
  I let the fire in the den die down and the room get cold before I
  stumbled to bed. I set the alarm early

               118
                                 -11%%

          GENEROUS DEATH

 enough to allow me time to pack the bag I might need if I stayed the
 night in New York.
  The bed-the four-poster I'd slept in all the years of my growing
  up-was soft and warm as my mother's hug. I went to sleep quickly, but
  woke in the middle of the night crying from a dream of loss and
  desolation.

 119
 pw--
 Chapter 14

 I read the morning paper in the cab on the way to the airport the next
 morning, having decided not to risk my car and neck on streets which had
 been freshly iced in the night.
  The cabbie heard me unfold the paper. He glanced back in the rearview
  mirror.
  "I don't buy that sensational crap," he declared. "A mass murderer in Poor
  Fred? Come on, what do they think we are, idiots?"
  I peered over the top of the News at the back of his big head of neatly
  trimmed gray hair. His cab was immaculate; he looked spiffy in black wool
  slacks, a red plaid Pendleton with a green turtleneck underneath, and a tan
  suede jacket with a matching billed cap. "It's My Cab," a sign on the visor
  announced, 46 and I'm Damn Proud of It. Wipe Your Feet. Don't Smoke."

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  "I don't know that I'd call three a mass," I said. "But what do you think
  happened, if it wasn't murder?"
  "They were old and they died, period, end of quote."
 "In an abandoned icebox!"
  "People get senile, they do weird things. I'm telling you, it's just the
  press making a murder out of a molehill, so to speak."
  It was rather comforting to know there was at least one person in Port,
  Frederick who hadn't panicked. From the tenor of the stories in the
  paper, it seemed everyone else had.
  "But what about finding the same medicine in all three victims?" I
  demanded of him. "Especially in the two who didn't have hypertension?"
  "So how do we know they didn't have high blood pressure?" he rebutted.
  "You get old, you get hypertension. Maybe nobody knew they had it."
 I sorted out the pronouns.
 "Not even their doctors?"
  "Maybe they only thought they had hypertension, the victims, I mean. You
  know, hypochondriacs. Listen, all it is, is it's a conspiracy to sell
  more newspapers and get more money out of the Town Council so's they can
  beef up the police force. You mark my words, now anytime some old coot
  kicks off, they'll say he was murdered! Well, my aunty's booties, that's
  all I can say. Which airline you want? The commuter flight, right? I'll
  drop ya at the gate."
  "Uh, yes, fine," I said and returned to reading the paper. Opening a cab
  door is like walking into an adventure; you never know what awaits you.

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  I tipped him well when he, unnecessarily, carried my overnight bag to the
  ticket counter. He smiled a benediction on my generosity.
  "See?" he said to the public at large. "Women tip just fine. Just treat
  them nice like they was human like everybody else, and they'll do you
  right. Thank you, ma'am, don't be scared of getting killed or anything,
  they're just selling newspapers."
  With a tidy tip of his suede cap he was gone, leavinga variety of bemused,
  amused and offended expressions on the faces of the people around me. I
  picked up my ticket-open seating-and checked through security to the gate.
  Simon and Geof were there already, separated from each other by a blue
  plastic seat and their respective raised newspapers. I supposed they knew
  each other, since Geof would have had to interview Simon about Arnie's
  murder at the museum.
  Simon saw me first. Slowly, like a striptease artist, he lowered his paper
  down past his nose, his mouth, his neck, the collar of his conservative
  white shirt that nicely complemented his conservative and proper dark blue
  suit with its thin red pinstripe, and ...
  "My God, Simon." I must have sounded strangled. "A cravat?"
  He grinned and stroked the red and silky thing. He crossed one leg over the
  other so that his matching red socks showed vividly at his ankles.
  "We are going among the Philistines, my dear," he said. "And they think all
  artists are strange; they expect artists to dress in a nonconformist
  manner. I shall not disappoint them! I shall epitomize the popular
  misconception of artist as fool."

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  Geof lowered his paper and looked bewildered. Simon does that to people.
  I set my briefcase and overnight bag on the seat between them and took
  the empty seat next to Geof. I leaned over him and glared suspiciously
  at Simon.
  "Simon," I said, "are you doing this to drive me crazy? Because if that's
  why you're doing it, I want you to know it won't work. I know you for the
  simpleminded practical joker you are, and I know perfectly well that you
  will remove those offensive objects and put on proper socks and a tie
  before we get to their offices."
 He looked as if I'd run over his tricycle.
  "You're no fun anymore, Jenny," he said lugubriously, "you haven't been
  any fun since I refused to sleep with you."
 "Simon!"
  Geof shifted uncomfortably in his already uncomfortable seat; other
  passengers looked away from Simon's purposely loud voice, hiding smiles.
  "We were lovers, you see," Simon lied straightfaced to Geof. "I don't
  suppose many people know that, but it's true. But she's so demanding,
  Detective Bushfield, such an insatiable woman, well I had to get my rest.
  . ."
 "Simon Church, you lying, rotten, lousy . .
  "You're sputtering, Jenny, it's getting all over your blouse. Disgusting
  habit, sputtering. Try to control yourself, my love, I don't want you
  embarrassing me in New York."
  He finished the process of folding his paper, which he had begun while
  we talked, and stood and placed it on the seat. Then, with an innocent
  smile, he strolled off toward the coffee machine across the hall.

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  "Infuriating man," I said to Geof, but loudly enough to amuse Simon as
  he walked away. "One of these days, I'll lose my sense of humor and my
  patience and I'll turn him over my knee and spank him."
 Simon heard that and quickly turned around.
 "Oh, promise!" he simpered, so that I had to laugh.
  Geof smiled and said quietly to me, "It seems to me that geniuses are
  often childish. I've never yet met one I'd care to live with. It's only
  after they're dead that they become lovable."
  "Well," I said, "I will grudgingly admit to his genius. I don't know if
  you know it or not, but Simon has an international reputation as an art
  historian and scholar. And he's really quite a talented artist in his own
  right, which I don't suppose many people know. Oils, pastels,
  photography, watercolor. Simon is one of those rare birds who can do as
  well as teach."
  I gazed at the artist in question, watching him pound the coffee machine
  when it failed to release the correct change.
  "But you're right about childish." I sighed the sigh of experience. "I've
  seen him throw temper tantrums that would shame a two-year-old-yelling,
  throwing things, the whole scene. And then sometimes a silly mood comes
  over him,, like today, and that's when I really watch out. He's totally
  unpredictable when he's in this mood."
  "Not much fun playing parent to a grown man," Geof said sympathetically.
  And on that bit of wisdom we stood, gathered our belongings and joined
  the line of passengers to board the plane for New York City.
  We found seats together in nonsmoking. Simon took his foul French
  cigarettes to the rear.

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  "Behave yourselves, children," he said as he squeezed past in the aisle.
  "Tell her to keep her hands to herself, Detective Bushfield."
  Absurdly, I blushed. Geof frowned in the exasperated way that people do
  around Simon. It reminded me of the way that our high school principal used
  to frown whenever he saw little Geoffrey Bushfield in the halls.
  By mutual unspoken accord, we waited until after lift-off and the passing
  out of coffee to talk about the murders.
  "Hold my coffee cup for me, will you, Jenny? Thanks." He lifted his black
  briefcase from under the seat in front of him and used a key to open the
  lock. As he removed a small tape recorder, I glimpsed several small
  packages in the same sort of plastic envelope in which he had placed the
  poem about Mrs. Hatch. He saw my glance.
  "That's why I'm going to New York," he said. "Their crime labs can do
  tricks we can't afford to do."
  "That's why they call us Poor Fred," I said lightly. I was nervous. I'd
  never been interviewed about a crime before. And I was having a hard time
  adjusting to the fact that the juvenile delinquent I used to know was the
  experienced cop sitting next to me.
  As if he read my insecurities, he gave me a reassuring smile. If the boy is
  the father of the man, I had certainly missed something back in the days
  when I had looked down my nose at Geof the teenager. I squirmed inwardly at
  the memory of my snobbishness and hoped he didn't remember me as well as I
  remembered him.
  He plugged a small microphone into the machine, slipped in a fresh cassette
  and turned the recorder to

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 On. Then he took back his coffee from me, leaned back in his seat and made
 me a thoughtful present of that same nice smile.
  "Interview with Miss Jennifer Cain," he said into the mike just loud
  enough for it and me to hear him. The noise of the twin props kept our
  conversation private. "Miss Cain is the executive director of the Port
  Frederick, Massachusetts, Civic Foundation, address. . ."
  He told the mike that he was asking me to explain my finding of the body
  of Mrs. Charles Withers Hatch.
  I did, closing my eyes now and then as I tried to recall accurately the
  horrifying details he wanted. He did not interrupt, but let me answer
  each question until I ran out of words. By the time I was through, the
  stewardess had announced preparations to land. Geof took the microphone
  back from my hands and put the recorder back into the briefcase and
  stuffed the thing back under the seat.
  "That was fine, Jenny," he said. The stewardess came by and reached
  across for our empty cups. She left behind a provocative, subtle wave of
  perfume. Geof sniffed appreciatively before he said, "Now, when and where
  can I meet you today to finish this business?"
  "What's to finish?" I pulled my seatback "to a full upright position"
  like a good little passenger.
  He smiled. "Well, if I'm doing my job right, one or two questions may
  occur to me. I'll want to get the answers while they're still fresh in
  your mind."
 "Okay, how about the Plaza for lunch?"
  He looked as if I'd just displayed a surprising lapse of good taste. "Uh,
  Jenny, my police department

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 expense account won't cover the Plaza. Schrafft's, maybe, but not the
 Plaza."
  "Neither will my expense account from The Foundation." I smiled winningly
  at him. "It's on me, please. I like to pamper myself when I'm in New York.
  You may as well take advantage of my selfindulgence."
  "Lunch at the Plaza." His eyes had a hungry, yearning look. "This couldn't
  be construed as bribing an officer of the law, could it?"
  "Absolutely not!" I said firmly. "It can't be a bribe, because there's
  nothing I want from you."
  "I'm sorry to hear that," he said lightly. We tightened our seat belts and
  the plane landed.

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 Chapter 15

 I love New York," I said to Simon in the back seat of our shared cab. Geof
 had departed in a different direction in the patrol car that picked him
 up at La Guardia.
  "Unoriginal, my love," Simon said. "It's already been done."
  I grinned at a Hare Krishna bicycling past; flimsy saffron fabric flowed
  from beneath his Salvation Army coat and draped the boots that rode the
  pedals. He threw a kiss at me. I said, "If I live to be a hundred. . ."
  ". . . which is getting harder to do in Poor Fred ... 19
  ". . . I will still love New York. It sizzles, Simon. And how many things
  still sizzle in this jaded world, I ask you."
 "Steak, bacon, eggs on a sidewalk on a hot day
 "Look at that!" I pointed as a girl whirred by on

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 roller skates; she was dressed in wool and warm raccoon-live warm raccoon.
 The creature-a young, small one-was snuggled into the front of her coat
 with only its bright-eyed, pointed head visible beneath her chin. They
 both looked as if they were enjoying the ride. We whisked past a street
 comer where two vendors argued territory. I heard one of them bellow:
 "I'll show you where to roast your chestnuts, buddy!"
 I leaned back, deeply satisfied.
  "Oh, Simon, New York makes me feel alive and electric! Port Frederick is
  so conservative it's barely breathing. Look at this! It's exciting, they
  live on the edge, they take risks, they . . ."
  "They pay exorbitant rent," he said. "They rob and mug and murder each
  other. On second thought, I guess they're not so different from us, are
  they, my love?"
  "Splat," I said. I turned away from the fascinating view to frown at him.
  "A little reality therapy, eh Simon? Thanks a lot. There goes my good
  mood."
  "Good." He didn't bother to look my way. "I hate to pout alone."
  He'd calmed down considerably since our departure from home, even
  loosening the cravat in what I fervently hoped was a first step toward
  removing it. But instead of settling into a congenial mood, he'd plunged
  straight down to sarcastic and depressed. I was worried about the
  impending meeting.
  I looked back out the window and tried to recapture the happy,
  anticipatory feeling. We passed the canopied doorway of an exclusive
  condominium where a uniformed doorman struggled to untangle the leashes
  of one Doberman, two Pekingese, a dachshund and a 129
          GENEROUS DEATH

 Brittany spaniel. The trees of Central Park emerged, bare and beautiful
 as a Japanese print, between the buildings ahead of us. I opened the
 window a crack to admit the crisp, invigorating air-an aromatic blend of
 espresso, fresh bread, Italian sausage and the smell of snow filled the
 cab.
 "I don't care," I said softly. "It makes me sizzle."
  "Well, don't splatter on me," Simon said, having the last grumpy word.

  Our meeting with the lawyers was quick and hard and to the point. Simon
  and I sat in orange leather chairs facing three gray attorneys across an
  intimidating expanse of walnut table in a conference room that smelled
  of lemon oil and money. Simon had, at the last possible minute, exchanged
  the crimson cravat and socks for the proper socks and tie he had stuffed
  in his briefcase.
  "Mr. Church," the youngest lawyer pronounced, 46are we correct in our
  understanding that under the terms of the will of Mrs. Martha Paul
  Frederick, all the art that has been purchased with funds from her estate
  must be displayed in her ancestral home?"
  Simon managed to follow the sentence and said, "Correct."
  "Mr. Church," the youngest lawyer then said, "are we further correct in
  our understanding that since the bulk of the collection consists of works
  of art that have been purchased by using the funds from her estate, there
  has never been a large enough collection of art that has been purchased
  through the beneficence of other sources to allow for the construction
  or locating of a second or other museum?"
 That one was tougher to track. Simon hesitated and

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 then said, "Right again. It's almost all stuff we bought with Martha's
 money, so we have to keep it in her house."
  The attorneys blinked at the use of the word stulto describe masterworks
  of the quality of the Degas they were empowered to protect. The eldest
  actually flinched when Simon called the redoubtable Mrs. Frederick by her
  first name.
  "Mr. Church," continued Junior, "is it also true that the house-the
  museum-is an eighteenthcentury structure that is rapidly deteriorating?
  And that the works of art are, themselves, in danger of deterioration
  because of inadequate temperature and humidity controls; fire hazards;
  danger from severe storms; inadequate maintenance, storage and protective
  displays and shortage of trained staff?" He said all that without once
  referring to his notes. I was impressed.
  Simon clenched his big red hands in his lap and looked defensive.
  "Correct," he said through a visibly stiff jaw.
  "Mr. Church." Really, the man was most irritating. I felt sorry for Simon
  and wondered when my turn for the inquisition would come. The lawyer
  said, "It has also come to our attention that you cannot hope to move the
  works of art to another, safer facility without an attempt through the
  courts to break the original terms of Mrs. Frederick's will." All three
  lawyers frowned at the mere thought of such temerity. The whippersnapper
  continued, "The museum, we understand, has no funds to finance such an
  attempt. We may, therefore, safely assume that the works of art will
  remain where they are-in clear and present danger-for some time to come."

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  Simon and I looked at each other, and the thought of Arnie Culverson's
  money and what it could accomplish passed between us. I felt Simon
  struggle with the question of whether to broach that delicate subject;
  I was relieved when he decided to leave it well enough alone.
 "That is correct," he finally said.
 My turn.
  "Miss Cain." The middle-aged lawyer took over. "Let us state a
  hypothetical situation. Let us suppose that an extremely valuable
  painting came into the possession of The Foundation. Let us further
  suppose that The Foundation chose to lend said painting to the Martha
  Paul Frederick Museum of Fine Art. Now, my question to you is this: If
  it became apparent that the painting was in danger of suffering damage
  because of adverse conditions at the museum, what would you do? Would The
  Foundation choose to leave the painting at the Martha Paul? Or would you
  have it removed to storage or to another museum where it could be kept
  in a safer fashion?"
  I froze, chilled by the sudden realization of why the painting had been
  left to The Foundation instead of bequeathed directly to the Martha Paul.
  This had never happened before; it was an ominous precedent for the
  museum. I couldn't bear to look at Simon, though I knew he was staring
  at me.
  "We would remove the painting from the Martha Paul," said 1, the traitor.
  "We would place it in another museum where it could be maintained in
  greater safety."
  The three lawyers were the only ones in the room who relaxed. They would
  need the assurance in writing from my trustees, they told me. And then
  the

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 young one smiled and became a person as well as an attorney.
  "You can see," he said, "why our client left the Degas to The
  Foundation." He smiled at Simon, innocent of the pain his words caused.
  "Our client had seen for himself how your museum is crumbling. He didn't
  want to risk keeping his beloved painting there past the time when it is
  safe to do so. You'll have the Degas for a while, Mr. Church, at least
  until The Foundation finds a better spot for it. Our client did wish it
  to be displayed with its sister painting, at least for a while. Perhaps
  you can lend your Degas to the museum that gets our Degas!" His bright,
  friendly smile faltered in the face of Simon's expression. He said,
  "Really, it is too bad about that will of Mrs. Frederick's. People can
  be so shortsighted in their last testaments. I'm sure you'll get other
  bequests routed through The Foundation, too, as the museum continues to
  deteriorate. Really, it is a shame, Mr. Church, and most unusual, but it
  can't be helped, can it?"
 They thanked us for our time.
 I took the papers they wanted my trustees to sign.
  They closed the heavy oak doors behind us and we took the elevator
  forty-eight floors down to the street.
 "Simon . . ." I looked up at his stricken face.
  "You'd really take that painting away from me?" he said wonderingly.
  "You'd do that to me, Jenny?"
  "Rather than see the painting harmed? Of course, Simon, how could I do
  otherwise?"
  "That goddamn house!" His large, handsome face twisted in anguish. "That
  goddamn house!"
  He stalked away from me, pushing against the flow of the early lunch
  crowd.
 "Simon!"

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  I wanted to remind him that we might successfully contest Arnie's will
  and be able to start the process that might lead to a new museum. But he
  didn't turn around.
  I stood in the cold for a moment, full of sympathy for Simon. But I
  didn't regret my answer. The lawyers' client-that smart old man who loved
  Degashad known what he was doing. So did 1.

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 Chapter 16

 The Plaza Hotel was within walking distance, so I did. Geof was waiting
 for me-looking remarkably at ease, I thought-on a chair in the lobby, his
 briefcase with its depressing reminders tucked unobtrusively behind his
 legs. His thick brown hair looked as if he'd recently combed it; his tweed
 sport coat, yellow shirt and brown wool slacks compared favorably with the
 designer and preppy attire strolling by. It occurred to me as I walked up
 to him that I didn't know much about his family or background. Plumbers,
 I seemed to remember, probably good ones.
  "Have any trouble finding the joint?" I asked him, and smiled.
  He looked amused. "No problem," he said. "I knew I was getting closer as
  the mink coats and limousines got longer-"
 I laughed and gazed around us at the opulent lobby

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 with its matching guests. "The wealth is astounding," I said. "It's hard
 to reconcile with the beggars and bag ladies outside."
  Geof bent to retrieve his briefcase and then put a surprising hand under
  my elbow. I felt a disconcerting flush go through my body at the nearness
  and maleness of him. He was saying, "Well, that's one good thing about
  your job, isn't it, Jenny? Through The Foundation you can reconcile some
  of the disparities of the world. You find ways for the rich to give to
  the poor, don't you?"
  "We try, God and the IRS willing." I looked up at him. "You seem to be
  leading me straight into the Palm Court. There are other restaurants in
  this hotel, you know. Would you rather try one of them?"
  That amused look crossed his face again. "No," he said, "there's a table
  waiting for us here. I hope you don't mind, but I went ahead and arranged
  it so we wouldn't have to compete with the lunch crowd."
  "I don't.mind at all; I think that's a fine idea." I did, too, though I
  was surprised at the aplomb with which he was handling this bastion of
  privilege. I mentally kicked myself and told myself not to be such a
  snob; even policemen and plumbers' sons have social graces.
  The maitre d' escorted us to a table for two, set beautifully with linen
  and crystal. Ah, the Plaza. I unfolded a yellow linen napkin and covered
  my lap with it.
 "How do you reconcile the disparities, Geor"
  "Cops only reconcile domestic disturbances," he said wryly, "and we're
  not even very good at that As for the poor and hungry and troubled of
  this world, I stopped trying to reconcile them with the idea of 136
          GENEROUS DEATH

 justice a long time ago. Goes with the territory, cop territory, where
 there is law but little justice."
  I fiddled with the heavy silver knife at my right hand.
  "So here we sit," I mused. "We will order caviar and wine. . ."
  "We will?" He looked delighted. "I'm glad to hear it.91
  ". . . and we will pay for it what a beggar collects in a week. . ."
  "Some beggars make $30,000 a year, I think you should know," he said.
  ". . . and why doesn't that knowledge ruin my appetite?"
 "What, that some beggars make good money?"
 "Come on, Geof, you know what I mean."
  He met my serious gaze with one of his own. How did we get in so deep so
  soon, I wondered.
  "Do you always get guilt spasms when you go to the Plaza?" he said. "I
  told you, Jenny, cops don't worry about inequities. We can't, I can't.
  I'll eat my caviar and drink my wine while the beggar whines, because I
  don't know what else to do and because there's always one more beggar.
  And after that, one more and one more. What? Shall I righteously refuse
  to dine here? Shall I insist on Schrafft's and dedicate my chili dog to
  the bag ladies of the world? Hell, they'd be glad to eat at Schrafft's,
  much less the Plaza! And my hot dog might be more than they'd get all
  day. So where do you draw the line, Jenny? At steaks or hot dogs or dog
  food? Maybe we should all starve to death; then we'd be equal for sure.
  "Look." Still his voice was low and calm. "I do what I can, as you
  certainly do. Sometimes we're 137
          GENEROUS DEATH

 selfish and sometimes we're generous; sometimes we screw up and sometimes
 we get it right. But mostly we're human. That's all I know. Do you mind
 if we order now? I'm starving."
 I stared at him.
  "It has been said, you know," I said, "that the real sinner is not the
  man who kicks the beggar, but the man who ignores him."
  All right," he said.
 "All right, what?"
 "All right, I agree, I'm a cynical bastard."
  I couldn't help but smile, I was so startled. And he couldn't seem to
  help but smile back at me. "You put on a good act," I said, and he
  laughed as though I'd told a marvelous joke. A couple of elegant heads
  turned. I was suddenly, ridiculously pleased to be seen with this
  contradictory, opinionated, intimidating, appealing, good-natured man.
  "Oh, Jenny," he started to say when a waiter materialized at our table.
  He stood at a tactful midway point between us. It used to be so easy for
  waiters to take the order from the male of the party and present the bill
  to him, too. Now, poor things, they don't know where to look first or
  whom to thank. I've had some who thanked my male dining companion after
  I signed the charge slip!
  Waiters at the Plaza, however, always know precisely what to do at all
  times in all situations. That's why they're waiters at the Plaza. I was
  irreverently tempted to ask this one to solve our philosophical
  conundrum. Instead, I ordered lunch for both of us. Thinking Geof might
  enjoy a sampling of the Plaza's most famous dishes, I ordered a veritable
  smorgasbord of delicacies.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 His smile was gratifyingly beatific.
  "I have died and gone to heaven," he said. I complimented myself for
  giving him a treat that so obviously delighted him. I hoped it would be
  a unique and special experience for an underpaid policeman. His eyes were
  dreamy as he said, "That's what my mother used to order for us kids when
  she'd bring us to town for Christmas shopping."
  "Your mother brought you here?" I'm afraid my voice rose on the last
  word.
  "Yep." His eyes were still dreamy with fond memories. "We had a favorite
  suite, too, with a separate bedroom for us kids. We'd stay and play with
  our nanny while Mother shopped."
 I swallowed some water and chagrin.
  "Geof," I tried to say casually, "your family's in the plumbing
  business-am I remembering right?".
 "Right, and hardware. Bushware, Inc., you know."
  Bushware, Inc., was the third or fourth largest hardware and plumbing
  supply company in the Northeast. I felt as dense and small as the drain
  in a stopped-up sink as I said weakly, "But you're not headquartered in
  Port Frederick, are you?"
  "I am," he said firmly, "at police headquarters. The rest of the family,
  you're right, has been stationed in Boston for years. That's why nobody
  in Poor Fred connects me with the firm, thank God."
  "Stationed?" Our wine arrived and the waiter, bless his correct little
  heart, presented the cork to me to sniff and the glass to me to sip and
  approve. I did, vigorously.
  "That's how I think of it." The comers of his mouth pulled down in
  disgust. "A family business is like the army, you know, at least ours is.
  You start in basic

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 training at the bottom and rise through the ranks to the top. And you're
 in for life unless you're willing to go AWOL and face the consequences."
 "Which are?"
  He grinned. "You are looking at the Bushfield black sheep. If you get too
  close, you'll find little tufts of black wool stuck to your clothes." He
  grinned even more hugely.
 "Baa," he said. "Baa, baa."
 He looked so silly and smug that I giggled.
  "Well, you make light of it now," I said, and thought of Michael, "but
  I'll bet it took some courage at the time."
  "Some," he said mildly. "But it's much easier to go your own way when you
  have enough money to grease the alternate path. I have the best of both
  worlds, Jenny-a profession I like as well as generous trust funds to
  compensate for the lousy pay." He paused and looked a little embarrassed.
  "Uh, back home I don't talk about my family much. I mean, you can see how
  the other cops mightresent my privileges. I don't blame them. Why should
  I be so lucky? But then, we've already decided life's not fair."
  "You decided," I said. "I still suspect it all works out somewhere along
  the line."
  "Well," he shrugged, "I guess you have to be an optimist in your line of
  work. You know, my father says I'm still in the plumbing business-only
  I can't fix the kind of sewers I walk in."
 On that appetizing note, lunch arrived.
  Just before the first bite, I finally asked the single question I'd been
  dying to ask.
 "Geof?"
He gave me that little mocking grin again. 140
          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Yes, Jenny?"
 "Why did you become a cop?"
  He laughed. "What you mean to say is, How in God's name did I ever become
  a cop, all things considered."
 "Okay," I laughed, "okay, that's what I mean."
  He raised his glass of red wine to me. "I'll tell you about it sometime
  if you're really interested." There was an unexpected seriousness about
  his gaze. "Are YOUTI
 "Yes," I said, and lifted my glass to his.
  By another of those unspoken accords into which we seemed to fall
  naturally and easily, we proceeded to avoid unpleasant subjects-like
  death and sewers -while we voraciously, unabashedly devoured every
  delectable morsel.
 Ah, the Plaza.

  The waiter cleared away the plates that we had all but licked clean. He
  wiped the tabletop of crumbs and spills. He supplied two cups of
  excellent coffee. I took a sip of mine and waited for the detective to
  take the conversational lead.
  "Jenny, you think the killer knew Mrs. Hatch personally, that he'd have
  to have known her to have written what he did."
 "Yes, or knew about her from other people."
  "Was that trait of hers-that need for gratitudewas it widely known?"
  "I wouldn't think so. It's the sort of thing you'd only recognize after
  you'd known somebody quite a while, don't you think? Her family probably
  recognized it, although you can never tell about families, and a few of
  us who'd worked with her on charitable causes knew about it."

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 6'Who?"
  I didn't like specific, incriminating questions like that. I tried to be
  fair in my incrimination by spreading it around town: "Oh, the director
  of the Welcome Home for Girls . . ."
  "Allison Parker. She had quite a bit to gain, didn't she? Now she has
  money to secure her job and the future of the home."
  ". . . and my staff." I didn't even argue with his comments on Allison;
  they were obviously such weak motives for murder. "Edwin Ottilini. My
  other trustees. And just about anybody else in the world to whom any of
  us had gossiped, I guess."
 "So we're back to widely known."
  I leaned my forehead on my hand and smiled apologetically. "Yes," I said,
  "sorry."
  "What about the other two verses?" He took copies of them out of his coat
  pocket and laid them on the table in front of me. "Do these make you
  think the killer also knew Culverson and Cohen?"
  Like graffiti on a chapel wall, they profaned the genteel atmosphere.
  They were simpering, leering slashes of malevolence. They infuriated and
  frightened me. I wrapped my hands around the warm coffee cup to hide my
  craven trembling as I read again:

      Now I lay me down to sleep, Devil take my soul to keep; Cross my
      heart and hope to die, If I tell another lie.

  "I don't know what lie Arnie might have told," I said, "or what lie he
  might have been perceived to have told.. ."

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  "That's an interesting, subtle point." He smiled at me approvingly.
  "You'd make a good detective, Jenny. 19
  I felt a pleasure in his approval that was all out of proportion to the
  event. I very nearly shuffled my feet and said aw shucks. He continued,
  oblivious of my inner wackiness: "But Culverson did lie to The Foundation
  and the museum, right? What about that?"
  "Well, he didn't so much lie as change his mind about who he would give
  his money to. And we didn't even know about that until after he was dead.
  I suppose the only person who knew was his lawyer."
 "Ottilini."
 "Yes. ts

  "Okay, so everyone else claims not to have known," he said, giving me
  pause and making me realize there was only one real detective in the
  crowd. "We'll leave it at that for now. What about the rhyme that was
  left on Moshe Cohen's body?"
 I reread it:

       If all the world's a stage, My script is at the final page-, This
       play is done because ... Shylock's dead. Applause.

 I shook my head in frustration.
  "It doesn't tell me anything," I said, "except maybe whoever wrote it was
  anti-Semitic."
 He put the notes away.
  "Geof, there is one thing, though," I said hesitantly. He paid me the
  compliment of looking interested. "All three of them were killed at their
  favorite charities. Arnie's passion was the museum-that bed in

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 particular-and that's where you found him; Moshe Cohen's passion was the
 theater; and Mrs. Hatch loved the Welcome Home."
 "Who else knows that?"
  "Oh lord, anybody who knew them and a lot of people who didn't. They were
  all prominent, public sorts of people."
  "Jenny, do you see any other connection between them that I might not see?
  Anything besides the facts that they were rich and given to doing good
  works?"
  "Well, there are some connections, but you've probably already considered
  them." I felt shy about asserting my thoughts in police territory.
  "Tell me anyway," he said encouragingly, "and we'll see if I missed one."
 Given as I am to making lists, it was easy to oblige.
  "They lived in the same neighborhood," I said. "Same lawyers, same
  accountants, same country club. They were likable, all of them, but
  demanding and accustomed to privilege. They went to the same parties, but
  then how can you help it in a town our size? They probably shopped at the
  same grocery stores and department stores. They knew the same people, at
  least socially. And they were all committed to or at least interested in
  The Foundation . . ."
  I stopped. I stared at the empty spot on the table where -the offensive
  notes had been.
  "Culverson, Cohen and Hatch," I muttered to myself. I was trying to snag a
  loose end that floated tantalizingly at the edge of my consciousness.
  "Hatch, Cohen and Culverson. Cohen, Culverson and. .
 "What?" Geof pounced on my hesitation.
  "No." I shook my head, dismayed. "No, it isn't, I don't believe it."

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 "What? Cohen, Culverson and ... what, Jenny?"
  I raised my hands to my lips as if they could keep the hideous idea
  safely buried in my head. But it spilled out of my mouth anyway.
  "It's the order, the alphabetical order," I said. My voice seemed to have
  disappeared; Geof leaned forward to hear me. "Cohen, Culverson and
  Hatch."
 I stopped again. My God, I didn't want to go on.
  "We, uh, keep lists at The Foundation, Geof, lists of potential donors.
  It's a common practice among fund raisers, no big deal. Well, we have
  long lists of the names of people and corporations from whom we plan to
  solicit grants and bequests. For instance, there's a list of Port
  Frederick people, and another of potential donors in the county, and
  there's a national list and even an international one, mostly of people
  who've expressed interest in the Martha Paul. And . . ."
 His eyes said keep going.
  "And there is one very short list of potential major donors. They're not
  necessarily the richest people in town, but they're the people who are
  most likely to contribute the largest amounts of money to The Foundation.
  They've either indicated a firm commitment or shown a strong interest.
  It's a very private list, you understand, and they might not like to know
  they were on it, though we don't mean any harm by it. . ."
 "How many people are on this list, Jenny?"
  "F-five. We call it the Big Five. Or at least we used to-several months
  ago, I told my staff to quit using that term because I was afraid one of
  the people on it might hear about it and be offended. I haven't used it
  myself in a long time-I suppose that's why I didn't

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 think of it until now." It was not only getting harder for me to talk, it
 was getting harder to breathe.
 Geof helped me out.
  "And Cohen, Culverson and Hatch were on the list?"
  "Yes, in alphabetical order, like that. It's almost a joke, a chant . .
 "What is?"
  "The names of the Big Five, the names in alphabetical order. We used to say
  them so often and so hopefully they became like a ritualistic chant. .
 "How does the complete chant go, Jenny?"
  I swallowed and saw that he was shocked at the look in my eyes when I
  finally raised them to meet his own.
  "Cohen, Culverson, Hatch and Mimbs," I singsonged. "Cohen, Culverson, Hatch
  and Mimbs."
  "But that's only four names, Jenny. What's the fifth?"
  I licked my very dry lips. I said, "The whole chant goes like this: Cain,
  Cohen, Culverson, Hatch and Mimbs. Cain . . ."
  Geof had become very still. The only part of him that moved was his mouth.
 "Which Cain?" he said stiffly.
 I pointed miserably at my own chest.
 "This one."
 "Oh Jesus," the detective said.

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 Chapter 17

 Mrs. Mimbs, please."
  "Speaking." Minnie held her free hand to the light and critically
  examined the pale grape polish on her nails. Yes, it was just the right
  shade for the lilac jersey dress. She patted her newly-lavendered hair.
  "Who's this?"
  "James Turner, ma'am, sorry to disturb you at home."
  "James?" The church custodian didn't sound at all like himself and she
  said so. "For heaven's sake, James, you must have the most awful cold.
  I hope you're not washing floors or doing anything cold and damp."
 "No ma'am." He coughed and excused himself.
  "What can I do for you, James?" she said briskly, helpfully. He never
  bothered her with anything less than important concerns; the Grand Old
  Man of Spic and Span he called himself, and she agreed.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "It's the roof, Mrs. Mimbs." His reedy voice had coarsened with the bad
  cold. "The snow load is too heavy; I think it's going to crack the roof,"
  "Oh my word!" She'd warned them about that roof; she'd even offered to
  pay for a new one. But oh no, we need the money for a new vestibule,
  they'd said, and then it was an addition to the Sunday School and then
  repaving the parking lot, thank you very much. There's nothing wrong with
  the roof, they'd said, as if prayers alone could mend the leaks and
  support the icy weight of Port Frederick winters.
  "I don't suppose you can get anybody else to listen to you," she said
  knowingly. Really, that young priest was a nice boy, but he didn't know
  a thing about capital improvements. She'd told the bishop they ought to
  teach architecture and economics at the seminary, but he'd only smiled
  that pious, patronizing smile and patted her hand.
  "That's right, ma'am." His voice was so weak and hoarse it sounded very
  near to laryngitis.
  "Well, you stay there, James," she said. "I'll be right over."
  "Uh, I'm sorry, ma'am, but my daughter wants to take me to the doctor
  this afternoon. Could you come over this evening, do you think?"
  "You don't think the roof will cave in between now and then, do you?" She
  wasn't joking.
 "No, ma'am." Neither was he.
  "Well then. I'll meet you at the chapel at seven o'clock. Now you take
  care of yourself, James, you do what the doctor says."
  "Yes, ma'am, thank you," he said. "You won't tell anyone, about my
  calling, will you Mrs. Mimbs? Not

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 just yet, I mean. I don't want to get into trouble, going over the
 reverend's head and all."
 She assured him she would be discreet.
  Funny what being sick will do to people, she thought as she hung up the
  phone. Makes them weak and subservient, even old James. Imagine him
  calling her Mrs. Mimbs and ma'am, when they'd been on a first-name basis
  for all the twenty-five years she'd been chairwoman of the House and
  Grounds Committee. The poor man must feel frightfully ill.
  Well, she'd inspect that roof and be quick about it so she could send him
  home to that nice daughter who took such good care of him.
  She looked at her watch, a fortieth anniversary present from her husband.
  Good. With five hours to go until seven, she had plenty of time to climb
  the stairs to her bedroom and lock the door and have a good cry.
  She needed it. She felt awful and bewildered about Arnie and sweet Moshe.
  And she missed Florence Hatch very much-they'd been friends for so many
  years, they'd had so very much in common.

  We walked north on Fifth Avenue-Goef and Iuntil the cold nagged us into
  hailing a horse and buggy. Then for an expensive half hour-his treat that
  time-we huddled under the gypsy red blanket in the carriage and murmured
  about murder.
  He recalled enough of my family history to save me from having to explain
  in boring detail how I happened to be the fifth of the Big Five. Most
  everybody in town knows how my great-grandfather got rich canning clams,
  how his son expanded the business 149
          GENEROUS DEATH

 and our wealth, and how my dad-in the grand, sad tradition of
 third-generation failures-mismanaged the business so it finally had to be
 closed. That happened when I was seventeen years old, too young to try to
 take it over myself and run it. At any rate, thanks to the foresight of
 my grandfather-or maybe to his disappointed understanding of his son's
 deficiencies-my sister and I had long ago been provided with hefty trust
 funds. So even after the closure, she and I could still afford to move
 among the country club set into which we'd been born. (Perhaps I should
 say here that I'd like to be able to claim that I won my job on the basis
 of my sterling qualifications alone, but the truth is that my upper crust
 connections didn't hurt me none, as they say in Texas.) Even my father had
 trust funds on which to support my mother and to enable him to live out
 the rest of his lazy days in California.
  Of course, the people he put out of work were not so lucky. It was they
  who suffered the most from the collapse of Cain Clams. I don't know if
  my father ever allowed himself to admit that fact-it isn't like him to
  take any blame for anything-but it shamed my sister and almost killed my
  already sick mother then and there. As for me, it was probably that
  incident as much as anything that propelled me toward this strange
  combination of high finance and social work. I guess I thought that
  through good deeds I might make partial payment toward the debt my family
  owes this town.
  Having said all that to Geof, I then said that I thought the idea of
  someone killing the Big Five was ridiculous.
He said he'd heard stranger things. 150
          GENEROUS DEATH

 I told him it was only coincidence.
  He asked me how I'd like to be the fourth coincidence.
  I said it made a nice theory, but there wasn't a motive behind it. Rhyme,
  yes, but no reason.
 He asked me if I only believed in things I could see.
  "Okay," I gave in temporarily, "suppose, just for the sake of not
  arguing, that it's true-what now?"
  He pulled up another dirty, gaudy blanket from the floor of the carriage
  and tucked it around us. We were, by that time, heavy with blanket.
  "I will continue to look for the connection that gives us the motive,"
  he said. His earlobes were red with cold; mine were numb. "You will take
  pains to be extraordinarily careful with your life."
  The horse's hooves clip-clopped in a steady, soothing rhythm; I heard the
  driver hail another driver in a passing carriage. I huddled and was
  still.
  "Jenny?" His voice was sharp and brisk as the wind. "What's your
  passion?"
 I looked at him, startled.
 "My what?"
  "If Culverson's passion was the museum and Cohen's was the theater, and
  Mrs. Hatch's was the home, what's yours?"
  I knew what he was getting at and I didn't want to go there.
  "The Foundation," I said reluctantly, "though I don't know that I'd call
  it a passion. Certainly, it's my overwhelming interest in life these
  days. But don't tell me to stay away from it, because I'm needed and I
  can't. it
 "Stay away from it."
 'No.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Just for a few days."
  "And what if you don't catch the killer in just a few days? There are
  other ways of giving up your fife, without dying. I'm not going to give
  mine up to fear."
  His legs shifted impatiently under the blankets. His calm seemed to have
  vanished; he looked cold, worried and aggravated. He said to my stubborn
  profile, "Then don't be alone in the- office. Not even with just one
  person. I want two people with you all the time while you're there. And
  I am not speaking as a friend you can shrug off; I am speaking as a cop
  who knows better than you do how to protect you."
 "Hmmph," I said, or something to that effect.
  "Listen, Jennifer, if I ever want to bequeath money to The Foundation,
  I'll come to you and ask your advice. You're the expert; I'll do as you
  say. Well, when it comes to murder and mayhem, I'm the resident expert.
  Please return the compliment and do as I say."
 A grin slipped out from beneath my fear and fury.
  "Think you might give us some money, humm?" I said. "Well, I just happen
  to have with me a little brochure that explains all the benefits and tax
  advantages that will accrue to you and your family if you ...
  He laughed and literally broke the ice by flicking an icicle off the edge
  of the carriage window. The driver turned his ruddy face around and
  smiled benevolently at the nice young couple who were crazy enough to pay
  him to ride around and freeze.
  "I have to go back tonight," Geof said. "For one thing, I want to talk
  to Mrs. Mimbs as soon as possible. . ."
 Minnie. I thought of that dear, funny lady and the

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 Episcopal church to which she was emotionally and financially devoted. I
 hoped God was as caring of her as she was of Him.
 Geof was still talking ...
  ". . . and I suppose I'd be wasting my breath if I asked you to stay over
  in New York for a few days."
  "'Actually, we're probably going home on the same plane," I said
  helpfully. He didn't look helped. Then for some mischievous reason that
  must have reached way back into my subconscious, I turned to face him and
  smiled.
 "What's your passion, Geof9"
 He looked at me for a very long moment.
  "I wish," he said, "that the weather would turn bad. I wish it'would turn
  so bad they'd have to close the airports. And then we'd have no choice
  but to spend the night."
  I let him get nervous for a moment, if indeed he ever got nervous about
  anything. Then I said, "Well, who knows-maybe the cab that takes us to
  my house will not be able to get back through the snow to yours. V)
  He did what any red-blooded boy is supposed to do when he's riding in a
  buggy in Central Park.
 He kissed the girl.

  "Where are you off to, Minnie Mae?" Her husband had never liked the
  nickname HaHa; he said it degraded her dignity; she said she didn't have
  any dignity and didn't want any, thank you, how boring; he said she had
  more than she knew, so he called her by her real name which she said
  wasn't any too dignified itself
 He smiled up at her from his invalid's bed. Or

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 rather, half his face smiled; the other half hung, useless and
 expressionless, from the strong bones of his face, paralyzed by stroke.
  "I'm off to church, my darling," she said and smiled fondly back at him.
  Really, people shouldn't tell her secrets they didn't want her sweetie
  to know. "James Turner called and he said the chapel roof is about to
  fall."
  "You told them, didn't you dear?" he said proudly. "They should have
  listened to my Minnie Mae."
 She sighed in put-upon agreement.
  "Well, just you be careful, dear," he said. "I don't want that old roof
  caving in on my girl."
  She blew him a kiss and promised to be home within the hour. His voice
  stopped her once more at the door of his bedroom.
  "You look mighty pretty, Minnie." He flopped his good arm at her. "I
  surely do like you in purple."

  Simon was cheerful again by the time we met him at La Guardia. He would
  have been talkative, too, if either of us had responded to him, but Geof
  buried himself in a police journal and I pretended to read a tourist
  guide to This Week in New York City.
  "Well, did she behave herself9" Simon boomed, so that every passenger
  within fifty yards looked up. "Did she manage to control her libidinal
  urges?"
  Geof withered him with a watch-it-buddy cop look and Simon slouched into
  a plastic seat across from us. He didn't see the twitch of a smile that
  Geof hid behind his magazine.
  "Well, hell," Simon complained to no one in particular and everyone in
  general. He lifted an abandoned 154
          GENEROUS DEATH

 newspaper from the floor and propped it ostentatiously between him and us.
  I read, or tried to. Every now and then a word identified itself to me
  as something I recognized. Bobby Short was playing at the Carlyle, I
  read, and saw myself there with a certain detective. Leonardo Print
  Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the magazine announced, and I
  imagined us strolling the vast halls. I read that the Museum of
  Holography was open from ten to five weekdays, and that the Frick was
  open on Sundays and I thought of Sunday mornings in bed. I was as
  sensitive to the feel of Geof's tweed arm against my wool one as though
  I wore a short sleeved summer dress and my arm was bare.
  Read the magazine, I commanded myself, but the voice sounded like
  Michael's and was aggrieved. An advertisement advised me to dine at the
  World Trade Center; I saw myself gazing over the rim of a glass of
  champagne at a man who was not Michael. Other ads invited me to stay at
  the St. Moritz, the Algonquin, the Hyatt ... comfortable suites, soft
  beds, soft lights, smooth skin, soft lips ...
  By the time they called our flight my fancy was taking heated flights of
  its own. Funny what the twilight hour will do to the human imagination.
  "So did you learn anything?" I asked Geof, and nodded my head at his
  magazine. "From the article?"
  "What article?" he said and smiled. He ran a hand along his chin and the
  side of his face. "I need a shave."
 "Yes," I said sweetly, "I'd appreciate that."
  He had to turn away quickly so Simon couldn't read the amused and
  intimate message in his eyes.

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 The snow was decoratively banked up to the bottom of the stained glass
 windows of the chapel, so the little church on the hill above the ocean
 looked like a New England picture postcard. Its steeple pointed out the
 right direction to heaven-bound Episcopalians. Its back yard was a rocky
 cliff which descended steeply and picturesquely to the de rigueur pounding
 waves below.
  Nfinnie viewed with favor the Chamber-ofCommerce, tourist-approved quaint
  scene. But it was the immaculately cleared sidewalks and steps that were,
  to her elderly perspective, far more beautiful. She preferred her traction
  under foot rather than in a hospital bed. As she walked safely up to the
  double doors, she offered a silent prayer of gratitude-not so much to God
  as to James Turner for his conscientious labor on the snow plow.
 The doors pushed open easily to her gloved hands.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 My heavens, it was cold inside, much too chilly to remove her mink coat
 or lavender knit hat. Then she remembered it was, of course, Tuesday, the
 one day of the week when no activities were scheduled in the church and
 the thermostat was turned down to save a few pennies on fuel.
  She and James would have the place to themselves. Good. Fewer
  interruptions meant greater efficiency.
  It was so still inside the chapel that she could hear the snow shift on
  the roof. She peered up into the darkness at the suspect ceiling,
  listening for creaks and looking for cracks. Well, she didn't hear or see
  any signs of impending disaster, but James would show her. And then she'd
  show that well-meaning young whippersnapper of a priest.
  She'd get some action, she would, or her name wasn't ...
 "Mrs. Mimbs."
  Her old heart jumped violently as the figure walked out of the shadows
  at the front of the chapel. She laughed a little in surprise and relief
  when she saw who it was.
  "Glory! You startled me," she said and sank into the hard seat of a
  walnut pew. "I didn't expect anyone but James Turner."
 "I'm waiting for him, too."
  "Oh, for heaven's sake. I can't imagine why James would bother you about
  our roof. I must say, it's nice of you to come over in this weather, at
  this time of night."
  "No bother. But it's freezing in here, don't you think? I've brought a
  thermos of coffee-here, I'll pour some for you."
 "I never drink coffee after six P.M.," she said

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 regretfully. "Oh, be careful, you've spilled some! You didn't bum
 yourself?"
  "No. Just got a little on the floor, I'm afraid. Actually, it's
  decaffeinated, if that's what you're worried about."
  "Oh, well in that case, I don't mind if I do." She reached out grateful
  hands for the steaming plastic cup. "If it's decaffeinated, I don't think
  I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight, do you?"
 "No, you'll sleep just fine."
  Minnie sipped. Goodness, the coffee tasted awfully sweet, but the warmth
  was wonderful. Where was that James TVmer?

 "You make wonderful coffee."
  I looked over at Geof who was seated on a stool at the counter of my
  mother's kitchen. He smiled at me over the rim of his steaming mug.
  "And you look like a commercial for Maxwell House," I laughed. "I feel
  as if I ought to know if you take cream or sugar, but I don't. Do you?"
  "No." He set the mug down and reached for the telephone. "I should have
  called Mrs. Mimbs from New York, or at least from the airport. For some
  reason, I can't seem to keep my mind on my job."
  "Do you know, I've been assuming you aren't married," I said in what was
  not entirely a nonsequitur. "You don't act married; you never mention a
  wife or girl friend. So?"
 "Divorced," he said. "Twice."
  "Oh." That gave me pause and he could see it. Well, I wasn't going to
  marry him after all, so what was I worried about?
"Better you should know," he said, some of the 158
          GENEROUS DEATH

 light edge gone from his voice.. "And better now than later."
  "Yes." So he was counting on a later, was he? I said, "Thanks for being
  honest," and meant it. I told him I had never married.
  "I know," he said gently. "It would be hard to bring someone into your
  family, wouldn't it?"
  His quick perception unnerved me. Here was a man who was capable of
  surprising and maybe even understanding me. Watch out, I warned myself,
  watch out.
 "Your phone call," I reminded him.
  While he dialed Minnie's house, I ambled into the den and switched on the
  answering machine to find out who'd called while I was gone.
 Michael. Four times.
  "Hi, Swede," he said the first time. "This is the bad loser calling. I want
  to apologize for last night. I'm sorry. Love, Michael."
  "Me again," he said the second time. "Will you be home tonight? I'd like to
  see you, okay? Maybe I'll just drop by when I leave the office. More love,
  Michael."
  "Surprise," said the third message. There was laughter in his voice. "I
  just called to tell you I'm crazy about you and I'm tired of being your
  friend. What this world needs is fewer friends and more lovers, that's what
  I say. And what do you say to that, my pretty?"
  By the last call, he'd switched from teasing back to glum. "Dear Ann
  Landers," he said, "my father is taking over my business and running it and
  me into the ground. I have an opportunity to chuck everything and run away
  to fame and fortune in Colorado. Only my best girl won't go. What should I
  do? Signed, Morose."

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  Dear Morose, I thought, your best girl doesn't love you in the way you want
  her to. Pack up and leave the ungrateful wench before she breaks your noble
  heart.
  I curled up in the green leather chair and wondered why two people so
  rarely fall in love with each other with the same intensity, in the same
  way, at the same time.
  "Jennifer." Geof appeared at the doorway, filling the frame of it. He
  looked pale and urgent. "Jennifer, get your car keys and come with me.
  Now."
  As we threw on our coats and hats and scarves and ran to my car, he told me
  why we were rushing. He slid into the passenger's side, I slid into the
  driver's side. And then three things happened at once.
  I turned the key in the ignition to find my car would not start.
 He found the poem propped up on my dashboard.
 Michael pulled up behind us in the driveway.

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 it was like Friday night at the theater, only this time there were three of
 us in the Jaguar and the flock of police cars was congregated at the church.
 As soon as Geof had learned that Minnie had been summoned to the chapel, he
 had phoned police headquarters to request assistance, pronto.
  I introduced Geof and Michael on the way over-, it was obvious from the
  expressions on their faces that the introduction raised more questions than
  it answered for them. Hunched in the vestigial back seat of the Jag, I felt
  tense and frightened; I wondered what had happened to the firm control I'd
  had over my life only a week ago. The rhyme still lay on the dashboard;
  there hadn't been time to read it. The thought of it there did not settle
  my nerves.
  "I don't know what we're doing," Michael said when we commandeered him and
  his car, "but when a

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 cop gives me permission to speed, I'm not going to miss my chance."
  He took full advantage of that opportunity, skidding around icy comers
  and sliding past slower cars as if someone's life depended on it. As, of
  course, it might.
  "Stay here, both of you." Geof unfolded himself from the sports car. Then
  he was gone, racing up the front walk to the church before we could
  protest.
 "I'm getting out," I said, and did.
  "So am I," Michael said. "What the hell's going on?"
  We hustled up the walk and I told him as much as I thought I should. Geof
  saw us approach and threw us an irritated look. We heard a uniformed
  policeman say, "We found a back door open, but there's nobody inside. No
  body, either."
 "Positive?" Geof looked as if he didn't believe it.
  "Yeah. This church is so small, it only took us a minute to search it."
  I should have felt relieved. Instead, tension continued to build inside
  me until I thought I'd burst with the gassy uncomfortableness of it.
  Geof's next question didn't help.
  "Jennifer," he said sharply, all business. "What is it in particular that
  Mrs. Mimbs loves about this church? Any special room or activity?"
  "I don't know . . ." I tried fiercely to recall things she had said in
  the past about her affection for the place.
  "Think, Jenny!" Michael's eyebrows shot up at the peremptory, familiar
  tone in Geof's voice.
I stared at the house of God as if He might suddenly 162
          GENEROUS DEATH

 step out the front door and provide the answer. Failing that, perhaps the
 solution might appear on the bulletin board, that announced next Sunday's
 sermon. Port Frederick ministers cannot resist seafaring metaphors of the
 Bible and evidently the young Episcopal priest was no exception. According
 to the bulletin board, next Sunday he would command his flock to be
 "Fishers of Men."
 My eyes lingered on the announcement.
  "That's it," I said. "The sea. She loves this church because of its
  setting by the sea. She says she loves the sound of the waves on the
  rocks at the bottom of the Cliff."
  I don't think Geof heard any more than my first four words. They were no
  sooner out of my mouth than he and the other policemen were gone, racing
  again, this time for the edge of the cliff.
  "But we already looked down there!" I heard a woman cop shout.
 "Look again!" was Geof's reply.
  It took them ten minutes-in the dark, stumbling down to the rocks-to
  reach the bottom. And that's where she was, terribly battered and bruised
  from her tumble down the rocks, and lying in the only soft patch of weeds
  and sand.
 She was alive.
  "But just barely," a panting Geof told us after he'd climbed back up the
  cliff face. "Her breath is shallow and her pulse is about as weak as it
  can be without quitting altogether."
  They put her in a body sling and used ropes and strong backs to push and
  pull her to the top. Paramedics took over from there. The last I saw of
  Minnie that 163
          GENEROUS DEATH

 night was a glimpse of her face-pale and slack-on a stretcher. She might
 not have been dead, but she looked it.
  "So what now?" Michael said. I was too stunned to speak.
  "You go home," Geof said, "and I stay here for a long night." His eyes
  told me he was sorry he wasn't going to be spending it in another place,
  in another way. He turned to Michael and held out a hand.
  "Thanks for the ride. You couldn't have come along at a better time."
  "Glad to help." Michael shook the hand. "Nice to meet you, Detective.
  When this thing's over, maybe Jenny and I can take you and your wife to
  dinner some night."
 "I'm not married."
  "Well, your lady friend, then." Michael's expression was all innocence.
  He smiled a little too charmingly, placed a possessive hand under my
  elbow and began to steer me back toward his car.
  1, angry at his presumption, shook off his hand and turned around to look
  at Geof.
 "Call me," I said, "if you want me."
  The message could not have been more clear if I had posted it on the
  church bulletin board.

  "A cop, Jenny?" Michael slammed the door on the driver's side and twisted
  his mouth in scorn. "Come on!"
 "You're a snob, Michael."
  "Oh? I thought I was a saint. Long-suffering, everloving Michael, the
  celibate saint."
 "Your halo has slipped down around. your ego."
 "How long have you known him? Five days?"
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  "About fifteen years." I let him stew over that one and I didn't explain.
  I felt mean and defensive.
  "I've never heard of him," Michael said accusingly. "You've never
  mentioned him."
 "Well, now you've heard of him."
 "Is he why you won't go to Colorado with me?"
  "Oh Christ, Michael! No! He is irrelevant to that issue. The fact that
  I won't go with you has nothing to do with him or any man. It has to do
  with me. Just me!"
 "And the goddamn Foundation."
 "And my life and my choices about it."
 "And the fact that you don't love me."
  "Yes," I said, but softly. I slumped back in the hard leather seat.
  "That, too."
  We rode in silence until we reached my parents' house.
 "Michael. . ." I turned toward him.
  "Jenny, sweet Jenny." He reached over awkwardly to hug me and we clung
  together in the front seat that was never constructed for such
  activities. "Don't cry, Jenny, don't cry."
 "I'm not crying, I'm sobbing."
  When we finally looked at each other, there were tears on both faces. I
  said, "I'm sorry, Michael, I'm sorry for everything."
 "I know. You can't help it that you don't love me."
 "No."

 "You need to wipe your nose."
 "I was mean. I'm sorry."
 "You were mean. It hurt."
  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm starting to cry again. It's not just
  you, Michael, or us. It's everything -Moshe, Minnie . . ."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "I know. Everything stinks."
  "It's horrible, and we've been so petty-having a stupid fight when the
  world is falling apart."
 "I don't care about the rest of the world. I love

 you.12
 "I know. Good night, Michael."
 I didn't kiss him goodbye.
  It was only after he drove off and I turned to face my parents' dark house
  that I realized how very much I didn't want to be alone. I wished Michael
  had thought to wait to see me safely inside the house.
  But first, before I could unlock the front door and turn on the comfort and
  security of lots of lights, I had to get that poem out of my car.

 166
 Chapter 20

 I slogged through the snow to the car and opened the door with cold,
 fumbling fingers. I felt like a child who's afraid of a bogeyman under the
 bed. I checked the back seat-no one was hiding there-and jerked my head
 around every few seconds to reassure myself that I was truly alone.
  I had a feeling there was no need to worry about fingerprints on the
  note, but if there were any, my gloves would protect them. I carried the
  note, unread, up to the front door.
 Inside, the phone was ringing.
  The keys that always slid so smoothly into the locks, didn't for several
  frustrating moments. The door which never creaked, did. The hall light
  switch which was always at my fingertips, wasn't. Every familiar,
  comforting thing seemed to have moved-perversely, infuriatingly,
  frighteningly-an agonizing quarter inch out of my reach.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  I didn't close and lock the door-my route of escape-until I had raced
  around the first floor and turned on every light in sight. I even locked
  the basement door in the kitchen. Then I answered the phone which was still
  determinedly ringing.
  "Hello?" What if it was an anonymous caller to match the anonymous note? My
  voice sounded breathless and high pitched.
 "What's wrong, Jenny? Are you all right?"
  "Geof." I sank onto the stool beside the phone. "I'm fine, yes, I'm fine,
  I'm fine."
  He laughed, but only a little and that little had a tense sound to it*.
  "Who are you trying to convince?" he said. "Did you just get in?"
 "Yes. I did. Yes."
 I laughed, too, a shade hysterically.
  "Oh Geof, this is crazy. Do you know, I'm just scared to death? When
  Michael dropped me off, I got spooked. I feel like a kid who's afraid of
  ghosts."
  "He should have gone in the house with you." I heard anger.
  "Don't be mad at him," I said. "He was distracted."
 Silence at the other end of the phone.
 "We had an argument," I said quickly.
  "I guess that's none of my business," he said carefully.
 "I think it is. I'll tell you about it sometime."
  "Thank you," he said simply. The stiff, hard edge of his voice softened and
  relaxed. He said, "You don't have much to thank me for though. Hell of a
  cop I am, letting you go home alone. I'm sending somebody over to take you
  someplace else for the night."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Okay." I was just scared enough to be meek.
  "Okay?" His laugh was deeper, and unbelieving. "Did you say okay? Just
  like that? No argument?"
 "Where should I go?"
 "You have a sister, right?"
 "Not there."
 "A good friend?"
  "They'd ask too many questions," I said. "How about your house?"
  "Now that would sure as hell raise questions," he laughed. I waited for
  him to consider it. "But if you don't mind what it does to your
  reputation, I certainly don't mind what it does to mine."
 "Tell them I slept on the couch," I suggested.
  "I'm not a good lian," he said softly. "Uh, Jenny? Give the rhyme to the
  officer, please, when he comes to pick you up."
  "It's out of sync, isn't it?" I said. "I mean it doesn't fit the previous
  pattern of leaving a note with the body. What do you think it means?"
  "Uh," he said and hesitated. "Jenny, maybe it's not the rhyme that's out
  of sync."
  "What do you.. ." I said, and then when his meaning came through to me,
  "Oh God, you mean maybe there was supposed to be a body to go with the
  verse, don't you? Maybe I'm supposed to be dead."
  "Well, you're not," he pointed out. "But do not eat or drink anything
  until you get to my place, got that?"
  "No," I said weakly. "I mean yes. I mean no I won't."

  I perched on a stool in the well-lighted kitchen at my mother's house and
  stared at the blasted rhyme

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 and willed my hand to stop shaking. It wouldn't obey me, so I set the
 note on the counter top.
  Snow fell off the roof and hit the ground with a sudden thud. I jumped
  the proverbial foot, discovering that a person's heart, when said
  person is frightened out of her wits, really does stop beating. When
  it starts again, it's with a, no kidding, sickening lurch. Whoever
  coined that clichd knew whereof he spake.
 I longed for the cop to come fast, soon, now.
 And I read:

   Jennifer Cain, beauty and brain, Her father is Greed, her mother's
   Insane; Jennifer Cain, giver of pain, Gave her life, but not in vain.

  I put my head on the counter with the note and wept.

 170
 Chapter 21

 The policeman who rang the doorbell five minutes later insisted on
 identifying himself fully with his badge. "It wouldn't do for you to go
 with just anyone, miss," he said kindly, if unnervingly. As I locked the
 door behind me, I heard the phone ring inside the house. I had forgotten
 to switch on the answering machine; well, it would just have to ring until
 whoever it was gave up.
  I climbed into the front seat of the squad car beside the officer. He was
  about fifty, gray and ruddy with that bulbous red nose that comes to
  heavy drinkers as they age. Pretty, he was not; but he was quiet and
  considerate. If he thought my destination interesting, he didn't show it
  by word or expression. I may be a child of the '70's, but I am also my
  mother's child enough to have been obscurely grateful for his lack of
  leering.
 Geof's home turned out to be one of a number of

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 enormous contemporary houses in a new and expensive part of town. From the
 outside, his was all graceless angles that pointed off in every direction
 as if the architect hadn't been able to make up his mind which way was up.
  "Must be nice," the officer said as he walked me to the door. "You'd
  never know he was rich, though, the way he acts I mean. Never puts on no
  airs."
  He preceded me into the house and turned on so many lights that I had a
  feeling he knew I'd been ffightened at my own empty home.
  "Snazzy, huh?" It was obvious he was waiting for my dramatic reaction to
  the interior of the house.
  "Good grief," I said. I didn't mean at all what he thought I meant, but
  he was pleased with the look of astonishment on my face.
  "Well, Detective Bushfteld said to tell you to make yourself to home and
  that we'll drive by every now and then just to see you're all right. We
  won't bother you or nothin'-I'm sure you need your sleep---Lbut maybe
  you'll feel better, just knowin' we're there."
  "Yes. I will." I jerked my wondering eyes away from the scenery and
  smiled as largely as my exhausted muscles would permit. "I can't thank
  you enough, Officer. Really, I'm so grateful."
  "No problem," he said, prophetically I hoped. "Take care now, Miss Cain."
 I locked the door behind him and turned around.
  To my right was Geof's living room. Beneath the vaulted roof there was
  only one piece of furniture: an enormous redwood hot tub, with no water
  in it.
  To my left was his dining room. There was no furniture there-only
  Nautilus equipment for body 172
          GENEROUS DEATH

 building. Well, that accounted for the broad shoulders and muscular legs.
 But from the looks of his house, there was no accounting for taste. His
 kitchen, in which he evidently neither cooked nor dined, was straight
 ahead down the hallway: hardback and paperback books lay neatly stacked
 on every available inch of counter space and floor. There was only a
 single thin path through which he evidently strolled from barbell to book
 to tub.
 Bell, book and sandal.
  The mind boggled at what the bedrooms might reveal.
  I walked cautiously forward until I could see the family room just the
  other side of the literate kitchen. And there, thank goodness, lay the
  answer to that eclectic decor: packing boxes. Geof, it appeared, had only
  just moved in.
  I breathed more easily. Before I jumped to unflattering conclusions, I'd
  wait and ask him if maybe his last wife got all the furniture in the last
  divorce.
 A phone rang somewhere.
  I found it in the kitchen between stacks of Le Carrd novels and a yellow
  pile of National Geographics which looked as if they had actually been
  read.
  "How do you like the house?" Geof asked as soon as I'd said a cautious
  hello. I thought I detected a grin in his voice, but I wasn't sure, so
  I settled for tact.
 "Well, it's certainly ... new ... isn't it?"
 He guffawed.
  "Ain't it awful?" he laughed. "I suppose I should have warned you, but
  I was afraid you wouldn't go if I told you I was in the middle of moving
  out."
 6'out?"

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Um. That house was the supremely bad idea of wife numero dos, name of
  Melissa. Her taste was all in her mouth."
  ..Now, now. It's not nice to speak ill of the departed. %%
  "Oh, that was one of the nicer things I could say about her. That was a
  compliment compared to what you will undoubtedly hear some time at great
  and boring length."
  "You seem a nice enough guy to me. How come two wives couldn't get along
  with you?"
  "My fault," he said, the laughter gone. "I'm told it's not much fun to
  live with a dedicated cop."
 "Is that a warning?"
  "I suppose." He sounded as tired as I felt. "I'm sorry things are such
  a mess, Jenny. I hope you'll find your way around well enough to be
  comfortable."
 "I will. Don't worry about me. 11
 "I'll make my own choices about that."
  Sadly, it only took a moment for him to tell me how
 little more was known about the attack on Minnie.
 "She's still alive, " he said, "but unconscious. They
 pumped her stomach at the hospital, on the assump
 tion that she'd been doped like the others."
 "Why didn't it kill her, too?"
  "Well, she'd eaten fairly recently and that slowed the action of the
  drug, plus we got there soon enough and we knew what we were dealing
  with."
 "But she's still in danger, I take it?"
  "Yes, and possibly in more ways than merely medical. I've got a
  twenty-four hour guard on her. I am not going to let anybody get near her
  to harm her a second time."
 "Did you find a rhyme?"

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "On Minnie? No." He sounded puzzled. "But I guess ifll turn up."
 He told me to sleep well and we hung up.

  It was two A.m. by the luminous clock on his bedside table when I woke
  and became aware of him sitting on the bed beside me.
  "You're staring," I said sleepily and smiled. "Have you been staring
  long?"
  "Years." He looked older in the dim light from the moon that shone around
  the edges of the window shade; the long night had temporarily aged him.
  He reached out a gentle fingertip and stroked my eyelids. "You're the one
  who just woke up," he said, his voice husky, "but I think I'm the one
  who's dreaming."
  He stood up slowly and began to remove the tie he had loosened hours
  before at my house. I raised my hands to shake the tangles from my hair.
  The sheet and blankets fell away from my shoulders.
  Geof's hands paused on a shirt button and his eyes moved down from my
  face.
 I looked down at myself
 "I don't wear a nightgown," I said.
 "Yes," he said, "I see that."
 His fingers moved at the buttons again.
  "What," I said suspiciously, "are you grinning about?"
  "I was just thinking about the guys I used to know in high school." He
  slipped off his loafers and socks, then removed his shirt and draped it
  over the back of a bedside chair. When his handsome head emerged from the
  white T-shirt he pulled off over it, he was still smiling. "We used to
  watch the cheerleaders bounce up and down and we'd make bets on which

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 girls were for real and which weren't. You were always so proper in
 high school-friendly, of course-but proper, so we never had the benefit
 of anybody's firsthand account to tell us the truth."
 "Well?" I was trying not to laugh.
 He stepped out of the rest of his clothes.
  "Just wait until my reunion," he grinned. "Finally, I can tell them
  you're for real."
 I threw a pillow at him.
  Things happened fast after that, the first time; then things happened
  beautifully slowly.
 "Darling Jenny," he said softly before he slept.

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 Chapter 22

 You'restaring again."
  I woke in the morning, too few hours later, to find him propped up on one
  elbow and turned toward me in the bed.
  He said without preamble, "I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was
  the wall and the first thing I felt was exhaustion and depression over this
  damn case. But then my foot moved so it touched you"-he smiled-"and then I
  remembered..."
 He kissed me a sweet good morning.
  ". . . and isn't it amazing how rested and optimistic I suddenly feet.
  Love's even better than a good night's sleep."
  I pulled him down so we snuggled together under the covers. I said, "A
  little early for talk of love, isn't it?"
 "Early in the morning or the relationship? It's

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 neither for me, Jen. I've been in love with you since I was seventeen
 years old."
  I was-I have to admit it-charmed, although of course I didn't believe a
  word of such blarney.
 "Oh Geof, that was only a schoolboy crush."
  "Maybe, but I've fantasized about you ever since," he insisted, to my
  surprise. He brushed a clump of hair from my forehead, then ran his
  finger down my nose and cheeks and across my lower lip.
  "In your fantasies, have I always been a fourteenyear-old girl?" I
  teased.
  "Give me some credit," he laughed. "I've seen your picture in the papers
  now and then through the years;
                         is
 I've kept up with how you've grown UP.
  "And have I changed a great deal? From the girl you remember?" Suddenly
  it was important for me to know what he thought of me now as compared to
  the bubble-headed child of then.
  "You're more beautiful," he said simply, and then when I thought my heart
  couldn't race any faster, he floored me by adding gently, "Sometimes
  sorrow does that to a person, and trouble." When I didn't say anything,
  he continued in a much lighter tone. "You were always outgoing, but now
  you're, well, confident. I like that. Very much. And you're still the
  ambitious girl who wanted to be the best at everything." He paused and
  grinned. "Now you tell me how I've changed. I'll bet you can't even
  remember me well enough to do it."
 "You must be kidding."
 He raised an eyebrow.
  "You were a memorable kid, Geof, don't you know that? Anybody who knew
  you would remember you. Vividly."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 He lay back and groaned.
 "For all the wrong reasons," he moaned.
  "Well, you did all the wrong things!" I reminded him, laughing. It was
  my turn to roll over, prop up on one elbow and peer down at him. "Why did
  you? Was it rebellion? Your own personal war against the plumbing and
  hardware business?"
 He glared at me.
  "Damn it, Jenny, you weren't supposed to get it right on the first try!
  I was all worked up to spend at least a week in justifying for you my
  years of juvenile delinquency, and you hit the nail on the head in the
  first five seconds."
  "Don't say nail," I deadpanned, "you hate the hardware busine&s,
  remember?"
  He chuckled. It had that deep, delicious sound that laughter has when a
  person's lying on his back. I found the rumble irresistible and leaned
  over to kiss the source of it, in the middle of his rib cage.
  "Mmm," he said. I slid up with my kisses, spacing them about an inch
  apart until one landed on his mouth. He would have pursued the subject
  further, but I was for the moment more interested in the previous topic.
 I propped myself upright again.
  He sighed resignedly and crossed his arms behind his head on his pillow.
  "So," he continued with mock seriousness, "what we have so far is your
  basic poignant story of misunderstood youth. He knows he doesn't want to
  do what his parents want him to do, but he's too dumb to know what he
  wants to do instead."
 "So he kicks."
 "And generally raises hell, yes. Until one day, the

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 good fairy drops by and waves her magic wand and says, 'Hey Bozo, wise
 up."'
  "This is not the same good fairy that paid a visit to Cinderella."
  "I don't think so. But this old gal knew her fairy business, because when
  she waved her wand it suddenly occurred to Bozo that although he thought
  he was hurting his family, he was-ta da-" We finished the sentence
  together. "Only hurting himself"'
  "Geof, you idiot, was there really a good fairy in your life?"
  "Yeah." He smiled reminiscently and it was obvious he liked the person
  in his memory. "She was a cop. it
 44A,h.9v

  "She caught me shoplifting one Saturday, but she didn't arrest me.
  Instead, she blackmailed me into riding around with her every spare
  minute I had for two solid weeks."
  'Ah ha," I said. "And her magic wand was probably a nightstick. And after
  that illuminating experience, you knew in your black little juvenile
  delinquent heart that what you really wanted to be was a cop, just like
  your fairy godmother."
  "You're very perceptive,99 he said, and smiled at me. "Not to mention
  silly. I think that all my life I've been looking for a woman I could be
  silly with."
  "Do I look as ridiculously smug as you do right now?" I asked him.
 "Yes. 99
  1 ran a hand lightly over the impressive muscles of his chest and upper
  arms and laughed at the look in his eyes.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Okay," I said, "you're just waiting for me to say it, aren't you? You
  want to hear me say how wrong we were about you; how you've grown up into
  a gorgeous, respectable, capable man. And if the other cheerleaders could
  only see you now, they'd eat their hearts out.VV
  He loved it. He laughed from deep down in his flat belly, until I rolled
  toward him and gave him something more current than memories to consider.

  The sweet dream ended and reality returned when he drove me to The
  Foundation on his way to the station that morning.
  "You're positive there will be at least two people in the office with you
  all day?" he said, a cop once more.
 "Yes, Geof, I'm sure."
  "Come on, Jenny, don't be impatient with me," he said easily. "Surely
  you're convinced by now that you might be in considerable danger."
  "Yes. Okay. I'm sorry." I frowned at the gray sky; I was heartily sick
  of gray skies. "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at whoever has put me in the
  position of having to circumscribe my life. It infuriates me."
  He didn't have an answer to that. We were compatibly quiet until he
  pulled up to my building.
  "There are a lot of things we haven't discussed," I said tentatively, my
  hand on the car door handle, my mind on the anonymous notes.
  "Yes," he said, "I know. Expect a visit from Ailey Mason today. I may not
  be able to come too, but I'll try.91
 "Kiss me, please."
 "Yes, ma'am." He obeyed me very nicely, just as

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 Simon Church drove by, smirking, with Derek Jones in the passenger's seat
 beside him.

  Simon and Derek and I walked into the elevator together. I said a terse
  good morning, then busied myself with the elevator buttons, my coat, my
  briefcase, anything.
 "Good morning, Jennifer," Derek said.
  "Yes, isn't it?" Simon was equally arch. "You know, Derek, I always feel
  better about the day when I know our police force is out there protecting
  us, don't you?"
  "Absolutely, Simon. A citizenry can feel so safe in the embrace of our
  guardians of the law."
  "Well put, my man. Safe in the strong arms of the law, as it were, kissed
  by the sweet breath of justice."
  I felt the red at the back of my neck rising faster than the elevator.
  "You know, I tried to call Jennifer this morning, Simon."
 "Did you, now?"
 "Urn. Nobody home. Early, too."
  "Maybe her phone machine was turned on and she was trying to sleep?"
  "No, that's not it. The machine wasn't on and the phone just rang and
  rang."
 "My, my, where do you think she was?"
  "Don't know. Worried me a little. Do you think I should have called the
  police?"
  "I wouldn't think so," Simon said as the elevator door finally,
  mercifully opened. "I'd guess they already had the situation well in
  hand. So to speak."
  "All right. - I turned on them, having had enough of their smarmy
  vaudeville act. "Enough. Please. Thank you. it

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  Derek, the employee on my payroll, was instantly contrite. "Sorry,
  Jenny," he said to the person who buttered his bread. "We were out of
  line."
  But Simon was merely egged on to further depths of lunacy and
  tastelessness. "Speak for yourself"' he said. 7 only stepped out of line
  for a minute, and look what happens-some dumb gumshoe steps in front of
  me!"
  I could literally have struck him. I settled for a figurative hit below
  the belt.
  "Simon." I turned reproachful eyes on him. "I'm not in a good mood this
  morning ... I feel so bad about Minnie. You've heard, haven't you? Yes,
  well, I hope you understand my feelings. We could all use a little
  kindness today, don't you agree?"
  It worked, but then I'd meant at least some of it sincerely.
  "Oh shit, Jenny." His voice and face filled with remorse. "The Tactless
  Bastard Strikes Again. I'm just sorry as hell."
  "That's okay," I said magnanimously. "I understand."
  "Big of you," Derek murmured in a wry sotto voce that Simon didn't hear.
  1, taking firm control of the scene, held open the office door for them.
  This was my domain. They could like it or leave.

 "Why are you here, Simon?"
  I indicated a chair beside my desk, after I'd stalled the outer office
  by telling Faye and Marvin I'd talk to them about Minnie later.
  "A little more graciously if you please, my love." He crossed his
  athletic legs and lit a cigarette-not one of the French ones whose smell
  he knows I abhor.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 At least he knew better than to push me that far that morning. He said,
 "Derek called me and asked for a ride to work. His car won't start. So I
 thought I'd drop by and say hello to dear sweet Jenny."
 He smiled ingratiatingly.
  "Must we be flip?" I was fast running out of patience and time. "I have
  a startling idea: Let's address whatever it is that's on your puerile
  mind and get it over with. And let's do it now."
  He wasn't offended; as long as you didn't insult or threaten his museum,
  it was impossible to hurt Simon's feelings. "I want to know where the
  Martha Paul stands with The Foundation," he said bluntly, getting down
  to the brassiest of tacks. "I want to know how these murders affect me."
 "Minnie's not dead," I said angrily.
 "Yet."
  "Oh, Simon." I put my elbows on my desk and hung my chin in my palms and
  felt forlorn. "You think she's going to die, too?"
 His shrug was a gesture of helplessness.
  "It sounds like it, Jen, although I can't fathom who'd want to kill a
  terrific old gal like Minnie. Do they know who did it?"
  "Nope, except it must have been the same monster who killed Arnie and
  Moshe and Mrs. Hatch. They've got Minnie under armed guard at the
  hospital to make sure he doesn't get a second chance at her."
  "Armed guard?" Both his complexion and his sangfroid faded all at once.
  "This can't be real life! This can't really be happening to people we
  know!" He shrugged again, but it had an air of depression about it now.
  "Hey listen, I'm sorry I was such a jerk this morning. But I'm upset,
  too, you know. I don't know

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 how to handle it. I mean how do you handle murder, for Christ's sake? So I
 concentrate on the one thing I do know-talk to me about my museum, Jenny
 love."
  "You want to know where you stand, Simon? You stand in a big, fat, deep
  hole that I'm going to try to get you out of. Here, my friend, is how it
  is. . ." I straightened the papers on my desk as I quickly gathered my
  thoughts.
  "If Arnie's new will stands up in court, The Foundation will not get any of
  the $8 million. If we go to court and challenge the will and win, we might
  get it all ... but more likely, we'll only get some of it. If we get any of
  the money, we'll abide by the terms of the old will and invest the money
  and distribute the earnings to you. Are you with me so far?"
  He nodded, deadly serious now that we were talking about his life's blood.
  I continued: "If we go to court and lose, you might as well pretend that $8
  million never existed. You won't see a penny of it unless Ginger Culverson
  falls in love with you or the museum."
  "Oh well, then there's still hope." He managed a grin.
  "Humility, thy name is Simon Church," I said. "Okay, that explains the
  Culverson bequest. Now for Moshe Cohen: The money he left to The Foundation
  will be funneled to the theater and some Jewish organizations. You gain
  only because The Foundation as a whole gains. Do you understand why that
  is?"
  "Don't be condescending, love," he smiled. And then, robot-like, he
  recited, "When-you-add-ftinds-to-
  the-general-assets-of-The-Foundation-you-increase-your - investment -
  capabilities - and - that - benefits -every - charity - on - your - list -
  because - the - more -185
          GENEROUS DEATH

 money - you - make - the - more - you - have - to - give - away - to -
 beggars - like - me."
 I had to laugh.
 "Right," I said.
  "Okay." He leaned forward in thought. "That's clear even to my
  right-brained artistic mind. As The Foundation goes, so goes the Martha
  Paul."
  "Well, sort of," I semi-agreed. "That's true as long as we continue to
  be your principal source of funding, which I suppose we will unless these
  murders kill us, too.12
  "Is that a possibility?" He looked a little wild. "You don't mean it."
  "I mean it, this publicity is doing us no good at all. But let's talk
  about Florence Hatch and her will. Mr. Ottilini says she finally did get
  around to writing one-just the week before her death, as a matter of
  fact. She left some money outright to the Welcome Home for Girls and some
  to The Foundation so we could found other treatment centers in addition
  to continuing to support the Home. Again, you only benefit indirectly if
  at all."
 "Shit, I lose again."
  "I wish you'd at least use French obscenities, Simon." I smiled. "You'd
  fool some of the people some of the time into thinking you're cultured."
 "Fou of the dog," he said and laughed.
  "As to Minnie," I concluded, "she is not going to die, please God. But
  when the day comes-years from now-that she does, half of her estate will
  come to The Foundation and the other half will go to her church."
 "How will you use the money, darling Jenny?"
"It's unrestricted funds, dear Simon, which means 186
          GENEROUS DEATH

 she trusts us to use our discretion and spend it as we see fit."
 "Would you see fit to spend it on me?"
  I smiled. "I can't speak for my trustees, but I think you can be fairly
  sure you'd get your share,Simon. We've talked about Minnie's will before
  this, haven't we? I thought you already knew where you stood with the Big
  Five."
  "I thought I knew where I stood with Arnold P. Culverson," he said
  bitterly. "Since then, I don't take anything for granted." He checked his
  watch and abruptly stood up. "Thanks, Jenny love. As long as I'm already on
  the Titanic, I like to know how soon it's going down."
 "Are you on budget this quarter, Simon?"
  "Surely you jest. As you know perfectly well, my budget is an exercise in
  wishful thinking. We're going under, my dear. I needed that money from
  Arnie, bad."
  "But he might have lived for several more years, Simon. You still wouldn't
  have got his money as soon as you really need it."
 "He wouldn't have let us drown."
 "He as good as did, Simon."
  Despair crossed the museum director's strong, mobile features. He made one
  of his silent, sudden exits, leaving me alone with my own unhappy thoughts.

 187
 01-
 Chapter 23

 Before I could follow him out the door to talk to my staff, the phone in
 my office buzzed and presented me with a complication I had stupidly
 failed to foresee.
  "I've been worried sick about you." It was Michael. His voice had that
  quality that mothers get in their voices when they're glad their child
  is home safe, but they could kill him for having worried them so.
  "You didn't answer your phone," he said accusingly. "I called and called
  last night. I even drove by and rang the doorbell, but the house was
  dark. You weren't there this morning either."
 I dodged the obvious if unspoken question.
  "Oh, Michael," I said, "I'm sorry you've been concerned. It just didn't
  occur to me that you might call after you left last night. But I'm fine,
  really, I'm perfectly all right."
  "People are getting murdered left and right in this town and you
  disappear!" He wasn't through being

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 aggrieved. "What was I supposed to think? Of course I was wGrried!"
  "Of course you were," I said soothingly. "I would have felt just the same
  way. And I'd have been furious at you for putting me through such a bad
  night."
 That mollified- him a bit.
  "Damn right," he said, but more mildly. "I was so worried I almost called
  the police."
  I gathered my courage and asked the most leading question of all.
 "Why," I said, "didn't you?"
 A long pause.
  "Because," he said, "I would have felt pretty embarrassed to find out the
  police already knew where you were. I suppose you get my drift?"
 "Got it."
 "Well?"
  "I'm trying to figure out if I think you have a right to ask that question
  and if I have an obligation to answer it."
  "You have an irritatingly legalistic mind, Jennifer. Right now, I'd rather
  you had a merciful heart."
  "Then the answer is yes," I said quickly, and got it over with. "Yes, I
  spent the night with Geof."
  "Thank you," he said, without irony, and my heart ached. "One of the things
  I'll always love about you is your honesty, brutal though it sometimes is.
  You've spoiled me for other women, Swede."
  It sounded like a farewell. For him, emotionally, it probably was. And
  I-perverse creature-felt suddenly lonely and afraid to lose him.
  I didn't say so. Sometimes the hardest cruelty is to show a temporary mercy
  that seems to offer hope for a future that cannot be.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  We said a few trivial things, promised to get together soon, said careful
  and gentle goodbyes and hung up. I sat with my hand on the phone and
  consoled myself with the thought that it had to happen sometime, if not
  with Geof then with another man. Unfortunately, that same thought was
  probably no consolation at all to Michael.
  I buzzed Faye and asked her to call the staff into my office. She would
  say I was the bigger fool; I wasn't so sure she'd be wrong.

  Faye was crying and Marvin, the controller, looked as if he'd like to.
  Seeing them, and Derek, seated in a half circle around my desk brought
  home to me as nothing else had the larger context of the tragedies.
 I saw it clearly in Faye's tears.
  "Poor, poor Mrs. Mimbs," she said. And, "What is the world coming to?"
  And, "I'm so frightened. Everybody I know is just so frightened."
  They weren't aware of any threat to me, and I didn't fuel their fears by
  telling them. Things were bad enough without their knowing their boss was
  next on the list.
  "What do the police say, Jennifer?" That was Derek, without a hint in his
  voice or face that he knew I had unique reasons to be privy to police
  knowledge. He said, "Can we believe what we read. in the papers?"
  "I think so," I said. Then I added cautiously, "Although I'd imagine
  they're not telling us everything they know."
  "What do they know?" That was Marv, sitting as straight and precise as
  the long columns of figures he loved. He spoke rapidly and enunciated
  every conso-
  
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 nant, so his sentences had the efficient, staccato sound of an adding
 machine.
  "Well . . ." I started to review the depressing sitaation, but stopped
  myself when I saw the outer door open. "Here comes the man who can tell you
  better than L" I raised my voice so the newcomer could hear me. "Come in,
  Mr. Mason. We're having a staff meeting. Pull up a chair, if you like."
  His inexpressive face made it impossible to tell if he ever liked anything,
  but he did place a chair just behind and to my left, neatly usurping the
  position of authority in the room. It occurred to me that I might have
  underestimated him. I wheeled my chair around to face him. He might be
  young, but he must not be a total fool, or Geof wouldn't have sent him out
  alone.
  "We're worried, Mr. Mason," I said, "and scared. We'd like to know what's
  going on. Can you tell us?"
  He didn't like that, though I hadn't been peremptory. Evidently he only
  asked direct questions; he didn't answer them. I'd be more devious next
  time.
  "What's the Big Five?" he said abruptly, and it was then I decided he was
  a fool after all. When I heard three separate exclamations of understanding
  and horror behind me, I very nearly told him so.
  "No!" Faye actually stood up and leaned her tense white fingers on my desk.
  "Oh no, Jenny!"
  Marv clacked his tongue several times, a sure sign of his distress and
  consternation.
  "You should be in the theater, Mr. Mason," I said acidly. "You have quite
  a little knack for the dramatic moment."
  "I hear you have some little talents yourself, Ms. Cain," he, unbelievably,
  said.
 Derek, bless his irreverent heart, laughed at that

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 and winked at me to remind me the man was an idiot. I smiled sweetly and
 said, "Why thank you, that's very flattering and nice of you to say so.
 Now what is it you'd like us to tell you about the Big Five? If you
 already know enough to call it that, I'm surprised you don't know the rest
 as well."
  "I like to hear things firsthand," he said, somehow managing to insinuate
  double meanings even into that simple sentence. "Who are the Big Five?"
  "Moshe Cohen, Arnie Culverson, Minnie Mimbs and Florence Hatch," I said.
 He waited.
 "And L"
 "Why'd you call them the Big Five?"
  "Of all the potential donors to The Foundation, they're-they were,
  are-the ones from whom we're most likely to get generous bequests." Verb
  tenses were getting to be distressingly confusing.
  "They'd promised to give money to The Foundation?$9
  "Yes," I said, "or else they'd dropped strong hints to that effect."
 "How much money?"
  "We were supposed to get $8 million from Arnie Culverson," I said. "That
  was the whole of his estate."
 "Nothing for his family."
 "No. You already know this, don't you?"
  "But the wife is independently wealthy, so she didn't need his money
  anyhow," Mason asserted. I've always disliked people who refer to the
  female spouse as "the wife," like "the table" or "the chair."
  "Need is a relative            term, Mr. Mason," I said.
 "What you or I need and what Marvalene Culverson
 thinks she needs might be two very different things."
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Are you aceusing Mrs. Culverson of something?" "No." I could be every bit
 as terse as he. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the resentful
 expressions on Faye's and Marvin's faces; they didn't like this grilling
 of their director. Derek wore that deceptively amused look that conceals
 contempt. He liked it when I said, "It would be stupid to accuse Marvalene
 of killing Arnie, when she didn't stand to gain a penny from his death."
  "But she didn't want you to get the money either," the detective pointed
  out in his nasty, personal way.
  "I, as I have said before, was never going to get the money. But you're
  right in thinking that she didn't want The Foundation to inherit. At
  least that's the impression I always got from Arnie. I never heard it
  directly from her, so I don't actually know for a fact that she gave a
  damn."
 "What about Cohen?" Mason said.
  "What about Mr. Cohen?" That was Faye. I smiled at her and answered the
  cop's implied question.
  "Moshe left The Foundation a half million in his will," I said.
 "Why'd he leave you the dough?"
  "He wanted to provide financial support for the new theater," I
  explained. "But he didn't want to establish a separate trust to do it.
  Establishing a trust is an "pensive and complicated procedure, and he
  didn't see any need to go through that process when he could use the
  mechanism of The Foundation."
 Marv cleared his throat.
  "Yes, Marv?" I said, knowing he wanted to add something to my
  explanation.
 "There's the matter of ROI," Marv said.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "ROI," Mason repeated stiffly. He didn't like being presented with terms
  he'd never heard of.
  "Return on investment," Marv explained patiently. "Mr. Cohen was a
  successful businessman. He knew he'd get a better ROI from The Foundation
  than from a separate trust set up just for the theater."
 "Why?" Grudgingly.
  "Because whenever someone leaves money to The Foundation, they are, in
  effect, adding their pile to a larger pot. We, in turn, invest the whole
  pot in stocks, bonds, securities or whatever, in the hope of earning a good
  return on the investment. Obviously, the larger the pot we invest, the
  greater our potential for a larger return. The smaller the pot, the smaller
  the return."
 "Obviously," Mason said nastily.
  "Common sense," Marv agreed pleasantly. "So Mr. Cohen knew his money would
  make more money if he placed it with The Foundation. And that would mean
  there'd be more money to spend on his theater."
  "Mrs. Mimbs and Mrs. Hatch?" Mason was eager to get out of the unfamiliar
  realms of high finance and back to motive and murder.
  I told him about Mrs. Hatch's will and about Minnie's.
  "They didn't like their husbands?" Given his choice among several possible
  conclusions, I felt sure Mason would always leap to the most unpleasant
  one.
  "They loved their husbands," I said politely. "But those men have plenty of
  money of their own, so the women could give theirs away."
  "You do-gooders." Mason's face finally showed an emotion-disgust. "You sit
  up here in your ivory tower dispensing largesse and you think everyone's
  innocent and the world's just clean and wonderful."

               194
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Dispensing largesse," Derek murmured. "Such big words for such a. .
  "Derek." I cut him short, though of course Mason got the insulting point.
  "It is precisely because the world is not clean and innocent that The
  Foundation exists," I said calmly.
  "So what will you clean up with your money, Ms. Cain?" His tone was as
  full of envy as anybody's I'd ever heard. Finally we'd got to the core
  of his resentment.
  "My bequest is designated as unrestricted funds," I said. "That means The
  Foundation can apply the money however or wherever it wants."
 "How much?"
  "Right now, I suppose my estate is worth about one million."
 "Where'd you get the loot?"
 "Rich grandparents."
 "What's it in?"
  "You mean, what are my holdings? Blue chips, mostly. But I don't have
  control over them yet. They're held in a revocable trust that pays me
  quarterly dividends. When I turn thirty, I'll be able to take over the
  administration of the trust and manage my own investment portfolio."
 "When will you be thirty?"
 64     19
  Sunday.
 "This Sunday?"
 "Yes. 9.)

  "Uh, Jennifer." Derek suddenly had an odd, hesitant look about him.
  "Sorry to ask this, but, uh, what if you died between now and Sunday?
  Would The Foundation still get the moneyT'
 "No," I said. "Under the terms of the trusts that my

                195
          GENEROUS DEATH

 grandparents set up for my sister and me, if either of us dies before we
 turn thirty, the other one gets the money. All of it. After we turn
 thirty, we can do whatever we want with it."
  "So," Derek mused, "if somebody wanted to harm The Foundation. . ."
 "They'd better kill me before Sunday," I said.
 "Interesting," said Ailey Mason.
  "That's one way of looking at it," I said dryly. I ,avoided the horrified
  expressions on the faces of Faye and Marv.
  "Well, well." Mason tugged his black topcoatwhich he had never taken
  off-more tightly around him and slipped his leather gloves back on.
  "We'll be in touch, Ms. Cain."
 "How nice," I said politely.
  When he reached my office door he turned back to face me.
 "Happy birthday," he said.
 "I certainly hope so," I replied.

  Right after Mason left and the others filed out of my office, I got a
  call from a highly excited member of The Foundation board of trustees.
  It was Jack Fenton, phoning from his office- at the bank, where he still
  went to work every day despite his seventy-seven years.
  "Jennifer," he said, "I don't want to frighten you unnecessarily, but
  I've been doing a lot of thinking about the attacks on our friends. I've
  come to a startling conclusion."
 "The Big Five," I said tiredly, stealing his thunder.
 "Yes! You've thought of it, too!"
"I've mentioned it to the police, Jack." 196
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Good, good. Very wise, Jennifer, very wise. I think we have the answer,
  don't you?"
 "It could be coincidence."
  "Bosh," he said succinctly. "Who knew about the list? Who knew about the
  Big Five?"
  I told him what I had told Geof the day before in New York City. "I
  knew," I said. "Naturally. And all of you trustees, and my staff. And I
  suppose anyone we might have.told, like wives or husbands."
 "Who else?"
  "Well, it wasn't a term we should have used outside the privacy of The
  Foundation, but I have a feeling we bandied it about rather loosely."
  "Bankers never bandy," he said amusingly. "Although I seem to have a
  vague memory of having discussed the Big Five with our priest one
  Sunday."
 "You go to Minnie's church, Jack?"
  "Um." He clucked, distressed. "Poor Minnie HaHa."
 "You told your priest?" I said patiently.
  "Yes, Dr. Priestly, if you can believe it. Ian Priestly. Nice enough
  young fellow, but doesn't know beans about money management. I've tried
  to give him the benefit of my experience, sticking the old nose in, don't
  you know."
  "It's a nice nose, Jack," I said. He was one of my favorite trustees.
  "I'm sure he appreciates your advice."
  "Don't you believe it," he said astringently. "I'm just a nosy old codger
  to him. At any rate, be that as it may, I told him about the Big Five.
  We were talking about the church's money problems, and that led to talk
  of potential -donors which led to The Foundation, and you see how we got
  to the Big Five."

               197
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Sure. I take it we don't know if he mentioned it to anyone else."
 "No. I'll ask him."
  "Maybe," I suggested tactfully, "we'd better leave the asking to the
  police."
  "Bosh," Jack said. "Cops can't hold a candle to bankers when it comes to
  weaseling information out of people. Bet I'd have made a helluva
  detective."
 "I don't doubt it," I laughed.
  "Who else knew about the Big Five?" asked the banker-cum-detective.
  "The directors of our charities. I'm sure we discussed it with them. Not
  particularly discreet of us, I suppose ...
  "But natural," said Jack, who understood the byways of charity and the
  symbiotic relationship between givers and getters. "So that means the
  museum knew. . ."
 "Simon, yes. And Allison Parker. .
 ". . . the Welcome Home . .
  "Right, and the directors of the boys' home and the historical society
  and the home for battered women and the local AA and the hotline for
  runaways
     19
 and ...
  "If I ran down the list of the agencies we fund, I'd know who knew about
  the Big Five," he said.
 "I'm afraid so."
  "Well," Jack summed up, "we know who's being attacked, don't we. And we
  have a list of potential suspects . .
 "A long list, Jack. And we still don't know why."
  "Why somebody's trying to kill off the Big Five? I think that's perfectly
  clear, Jennifer: Somebody wants to ruin The Foundation. When the
  newspapers make

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 the connection between the victims and the Big Five-and they will, believe
 me-they'll publish it. And then nobody will want to give us a blooming
 cent. We'll get written out of so many wills so fast you won't see the ink
 dry."
 "But why?" I persisted. "It doesn't make sense."
  "That's only because we don't have all the facts yet," he said. "When we
  get the rest of the facts, then we'll know."
 I wasn't persuaded, but I didn't argue with him.
  "Uh, Jennifer," he said in a very different tone of voice from the
  businesslike one he'd been using. I could feel his concern and the
  warning before he voiced it. "I think you ought to have police protec-
  tion."
  "I do," I said and smiled to myself, "In a manner of speaking."
  "See that you do," he said sternly. "It would be hell to try to replace
  you, young lady."
 I was touched.
 My phone was busy all morning.
  The other three trustees called, of course. Mr. Ottilini said hed put two
  and two together and come up with the Big Five; he'd even told the police
  last night, but hadn't wanted to frighten me at the time with what he
  hoped was an erroneous conclusion.
  "I'd rather have been wrong," he said over the phone. He sounded the way
  he had looked when he walked away from the Welcome Home for Girls the day
  we found Mrs. Hatch's body-that is, old, sad and tired.
 "We don't know that you're right," I reminded him.
 "Be careful anyway, Miss Cain."
"If I eff, I swear it will be on the side of caution." 199
          GENEROUS DEATH

 A dry chuckle whispered its way over the phone.
 "How is Minnie?" I asked, knowing he'd know.
  "She's still unconscious," he said. "She was discovered before the drug
  had time to stop her heart."
 "Is she unconscious because of the drug?"
  "No. Because of the knock on the head, which she might have sustained
  when she rolled down the cliff."
 "Or which might have been inflicted on purpose?"
 "Possibly."
 "Bastard. 11
 "Indeed," the old lawyer whispered. "Indeed."
  After Roy Leland and Pete Falwell called, it occurred to me that Michael
  was the only trustee who had not yet connected the Big Five, the murders
  and me.
 How ironic, I thought.
  His mind was so preoccupied with the fear of losing me and with murder
  in general that he hadn't realized he might lose me in a rather more
  permanent way to a rather more specific danger.
  Having accomplished exactly nothing in the way of regular Foundation
  business, I went to lunch.

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 Chapter 24

 Nobody tried to kill me at any time during the rest of that day. Nobody
 tried to kill me on Thursday. Nobody tried to kill me on Friday or
 Saturday. Early Sunday morning, I rolled over in bed and nudged Geof to
 wake him.
 "Wish me happy birthday," I said.
  He stretched and yawned and turned on his side to return my attention.
 "Happy birthday, Jenny."
 "Do you notice anything special about me today?"
 "You're alive."
 "Quite. Why is that, do you suppose?"
 "Because we protected you so well?"
  "From what?" I tweaked his long, handsome nose. "Nobody tried to kill me.
  It's anticlimactic, isn't it?"
  He laughed and said, "I'm not disappointed. I hope you're not."
 "I've ruined your case, you know. Now you're

               201
          GENEROUS DEATH

 going to have to look for another motive." I lay back on the pillow and
 sighed. "If somebody wanted to wreck The Foundation, they should have
 killed me by now. Ailey Mason will be furious."
 "He's not so bad."
 "He's an ass."
  "He's young, he's got a lot to learn." He scooted closer to me under the
  covers and kissed my bare left shoulder. "I'm glad you're alive, Jenny."
  I returned the compliment with a kiss on his bare and slightly hairy
  right shoulder. "How's about a little hanky-panky?" I leered.
  "Brazen hussy," he laughed. He threw the covers off, revealing two people
  who would put the nightgown and pajama industries out of business in no
  time.
  "Can you wait until I've brushed my teeth?" he said. "And fixed some
  coffee?"
  I threw my feet over the side of the bed, sat up and sighed theatrically.
  "Dear Abby," I said, "what does it mean when he wants coffee before
  hanky-panky? Have I been seeing too much of him? Do you think the thrill
  is gone?"
  His answer was to push me gently back down on the bed and kiss me, as
  they say, lingeringly. No, the thrill definitely was not gone.
  "You're right about the toothpaste," I said, however. "And I'll take my
  coffee black this morning, please."
  "Here." He held out his hands. I grabbed them and he pulled me off the
  bed to a standing position. We strolled, arms around each other, into the
  bathroom where we companionably brushed our respective teeth at the
  double sinks and washed our respective 202
          GENEROUS DEATH

 sleepy faces. I felt fey, and electrically, gratefully alive.
  While Ge.of shaved, I brushed my hair back into a ponytail at the nape
  of my neck. I dabbed on enough makeup to cover the blue beneath my eyes.
  Funny how troubles show up in shades of blue around the eyes-got the
  blues, they sing, and blue Monday and feelin' blue. Appropriate, but
  remarkably unattractive on the human female face. I dabbed on the makeup
  with a heavier hand.
 "You're quiet this morning, Detective Bushfield."
  "I'm counting my blessings." He wiped off the remnants of shaving gel
  from under his chin. I like to watch men shave. His hand with the
  double-edge razor moved in quick, sure, efficient strokes. He rinsed the
  razor and set it on the edge of the sink. I thought he was going to walk
  past me and on into the bedroom.
  Instead, he stopped behind me, lifted my ponytail and kissed the back of
  my neck.
 "That's one blessing," he said.
 I smiled back at him in the mirror.
  He turned me around and placed a second kiss o1i my lips.
 "That's two blessings," he said.
 He moved his kisses downward.
 "Three blessings," he said. "Four. .
  I pulled his head up until his mouth was even with mine again and kissed
  him back. "Mustn't lead a girl on," I said, "with words of coffee, if you
  don't intend to produce."
 We hugged, gaily, happily, gratefully.
  Ten minutes later we were in bed again, but this time we were perched
  against pillows we had propped 203
          GENEROUS DEATH

 against the headboard. Geof had wrapped a thick navy blue robe around
 himself and pulled the covers up over our legs. I wore a white chenille
 robe left over from a previous wife.
  The coffeepot sat on a table on his side of the bed; he'd carried it up
  from the kitchen, along with buttered English muffins, a jar of honey
  that smelled like fresh clover and a wrapped and beribboned birthday
  present.
  "For me?" I said idiotically. I was delighted; I love birthdays.
  "Yes," he smiled, "unless you know of somebody else in the room whose
  birthday happens to be today and who I happen to be nuts about."
  And that's what it was: a little box of mixed nuts with a card that said,
  "Little Geoffrey Bushfield is nuts about pretty Jenny Cain." There was
  a P.S.: "This card and one cashew redeemable for one fabulous weekend in
  the New York City of your choice."
  "I'm a fool for birthdays, you know," I said. I couldn't seem to stop
  beaming.
  "Somehow I guessed as much," he said dryly. "Beneath that beautiful and
  efficient exterior beats a sentimental slob of a heart."
  I ate a Brazil nut while I got the heart in question under control. "I
  can see why they married you," I said. "It's not every man who makes
  coffee as well as he makes love."
  "I butter a pretty mean muffin, too," he said between satisfied munches.
 "Um." I licked butter off my lower lip.
  "But married life," he said with mock seriousness, "if I may say so. .
  ."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "You may say so, particularly in light of your employment history as
  outlined here on your rdsumt . . ."
 ". . . is not all love and muffins."
 "What then, oh wise one, is married life?"
  "Well, my first wife said it's not the time you spend together, it's how
  you spend the time."
 "Together."
  "Precisely." He sipped and smiled. "Quite the philosopher, my first wife.
  She also said, she who hesitates is lost, and so she didn't hesitate to
  divorce me.9s
 "She's not lost then."
 "No. Found herself in California."
  "Regular national lost and found department, that state," I said. I
  chewed the muffin, but eschewed further comment. If this was how he
  wanted to introduce the topic of his divorces, that was fine by me. I
  didn't have to see tears to appreciate the pain beneath the banter. He'd
  get to all of it, given time and trust.
  "Wife numero dos, on the other hand," he said, '4was of a practical
  rather than a philosophical nature. With her it was not the quality of
  the time we spent together, but the quantity of it.,,
 "Not enough, huh?"
  "Not by your basic long shot. I worked too many weekends and too many
  nights."
 "She got lonely."
 "Only for a time, but she solved that problem."
 "Found a friend, did she?"
 "Yep. Married him, too."
 "Oh, Geof."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Don't feel sorry for me, Jenny. You get what you ask for in this life,
  and I got mine."
  I licked my fingers before I said, "Did you ask for me?"
  He put down his cup of coffee. He took hold of the fingers I had just
  licked and he kissed the inner tip of each one of them.
  "Yes," he said finally. "The first time I asked for you I was about
  seventeen years old. And I guess I've been asking for you ever since in
  all the women I've known. None of them was you, of course, and maybe
  that's been the problem. It never occurred to me that I'd ever get the
  real thing."
  "Didn't your fairy godmother ever tell you?" I said in a voice so husky
  I hardly recognized it as my own.
 He looked at me.
 "About what?" he said.
 "About happy endings."
  We set down the rest of our plates and got down to the business I had
  tried to initiate earlier that morning. It was nice-after toothpaste,
  coffee, muffins and conversation-very intimate, very comfortable.
 It was very wonderful to be alive to enjoy it.

  Only a couple of hours later, I took the wheel of Geof's car for my
  weekly drive to the hospital. My own testament to American ingenuity
  still sat idlebut not idling-in the driveway of my parents' home. I'd had
  a few rather more pressing things to worry about that week, and a willing
  chauffeur in Geof.
  He sat beside me in his BMW. I'd never taken anyone with me to visit my
  mother before, but I didn't think I'd tell him that, at least not yet.
  We

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 talked of other mutual concerns as I negotiated the unfamiliar car onto
 the all-too-familiar route.
  "So," I said, "if he wasn't going to kill me, why'd I get one of those
  poems?"
  "Well, I wasn't really kidding about the protection we 9 ve given you."
  Geof pressed the lever that lowered the passenger's seat so that it and
  he leaned back comfortably. "It's just possible that he couldn't get to
  you to get at you."
  "So to speak." I pointed at one of my favorite views along the road-a
  "typical" New England barn attached to a farmhouse. Geof made
  satisfactory, appreciative sounds.
 . "Youre a good tourist," I said. "I like people who react to things."
 "Wow!" he said. "What a terrific farmhouse."
  "That's the way," I laughed. "So then you still think the murders are
  connected to the Big Five, even though nobody murdered me?"
 "I suppose," he said agreeably.
  "You're awfully relaxed about this, Mr. Crime Fighter. You don't suppose
  you could act a little more alert, do you?"
  "Um." He closed his eyes. "If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,
  the price of eternal vigilance is exhaustion. Besides, I've just had the
  most wonderful morning. . ."
 "Anyone I know?"
  "And I'm limp as a deflated blimp. Drive on, sergeant, you're doing a
  fine job."
  A Don Williams country/western tape was sticking halfway out of the
  cassette player, so I pushed it in and turned the music down low. Geof
  was asleep by 207
          GENEROUS DEATH

 the time mellow Don was singing and I believe
 in YOU. 91
 1 let him nap all the way.

  We sat on opposite sides of my mother's hospital bed and talked over her
  prone body. She might as well not have been there, which to all intents and
  purposes she wasn't.
  "How long has she been like this?" Geof asked. His chin rested on his arms,
  which he had crossed on top of the metal side railing that had been raised
  to keep my mother from falling out of bed.
 "A week."
 "This isn't the first time she's gone catatonic?'9
 6   99
 'No.
 "Shell come out of it then."
 "That's what the doctors say."
 "The tone of your voice says the doctors are fools." "No, but they don't
 know everything."
 "What do you know that they don't?"
  "She won't come back. There's nothing for her to come back to."
 "You? Your sister?"
  "That was good enough when we were young and needed her in order to
  survive. We haven't needed her in that way for years, though, and somewhere
  inside her I'm sure she knows it. Nobody needs her with a strong enough
  need to keep her alive for their sake."
 "What about for her own sake?"
 "That was never enough, not for her."
 "Yes," he said, "it isn't, for some people.11
  We sat silently then. I stared into my mother's open, vacant blue eyes;
  Geof stared over the bars at me. She'd lost weight in a week, even with the
  tube that 208
          GENEROUS DEATH

 fed nourishment directly into her stomach. And she looked flaccid as a
 coma patient; maybe it was coma rather than catatonia. It hardly mattered;
 either way, she was far away from me.
  "Where are you, Mother?" I whispered to the cold metal bars. "Is it warm
  where you are? Are you comfortable and safe? It's okay, you know; don't
  feel guilty about anything. It,isn't your fault, none of it has been your
  fault. I know you can't fight anymore, I don't blame you. You hung in
  there for so many years for Sherry and me, and once upon a time for
  Daddy. I know you're tired and you want to rest. Mother, I just want you
  to know that if you want to go-it's all right with me. I love you, no
  matter where you are or where you go. So you do what you need to do, and
  don't worry about me. I know you love us, somewhere in there you do."
  I stood and leaned over the bars to kiss her forehead. My tears
  splattered onto her nose and ran down her cheeks so that it looked as if
  she were crying too.
  Geof stood too and reached for me over my mothees bed. He held me until
  I stopped shaking, and then he drove me home.

 209
 Chapter 2S

 We drove first to my parents' house to water the plants and get me several
 changes of clothing. As Geof remarked on the way over, it might be safe
 for me to stay, alone now that my birthday had come if not yet gone, but
 we couldn't be absolutely sure of that.
  "Besides," he added lightly, "I hate to make a bed by myself."
  "I didn't know it mattress to you," I said and he groaned.
 "That was a hit pillow the belt," he said.
 "No sheet."
  '~Obscene language in public is a pun-ishable offense."
 "All right!" I laughed. "Truce!"
  "Say uncle," he demanded. So much emotion in so short a time had rendered
  us both a little goofy.
 "Aunt," I giggled.
 "That'll do."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Pun-kl" I yelled as I slammed the door and slogged, laughing, through the
  snow to the front steps. I walked in the postman's several tracks, slurring
  them as I kicked my way home. Thin layers of snow had fallen in my absence,
  so the house had a freshly powdered if rather forlorn look about it. I
  fantasized that it was glad to see me. The evergreen bushes my mother had
  planted years before bowed low to me under their white load; icicles sucked
  determinedly at the eaves, Except for the tracks of the postman and those
  of a roaming dog or two, the yard spoke eloquently of no-one-home.
  I climbed the postman's footprints up the front steps and onto the porch,
  fumbled in my purse for my big brass key ring, the one I bought so I
  wouldn't have to fumble in my purse for my keys. Geof whistled his
  leisurely way up the walk behind me.
  The feel of the house key in my hand was like the feel of welcome-home,
  which is where I was rather glad to be, Geof's company notwithstanding. I
  smiled happily to myself and looked up at the big front door of my parents'
  home.
 It was open.
  Not wide open, but definitely ajar. The small pane of glass nearest the
  lock was broken. Funny, I'd never noticed how vulnerable my nice sturdy
  conscientious bolt was, and how easy it would be for a hand to reach in
  through the glass and switch the lock I had so carefully turned. I noticed
  now.
 "Geof, 19
  He came running at the alarm in my voice, lifting his long legs high
  through the snow I had never shoveled. When he saw the door he said
  quietly, "Get back in the car, Jennifer." It was impossible to see

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 inside the hallway because of the curtains I had neatly closed before I
 left with the policeman several nights before. I watched Geof pull a gun
 I didn't know he had from a holster I hadn't known he was wearing. I
 didn't have the slightest idea what kind of gun it was, but it looked as
 efficient as the man who owned it. He said, "Get in the driver's seat. I
 left the keys in the ignition. Do not start the car. Wait five minutes.
 If I don't come out this door, or if you see or hear anything that
 frightens you, drive immediately to the police station and tell them to
 get here fast."
 "I could run to the neighbors'."
  "They're not home," he said, proving how little I knew about how alert
  he was. "Go now, please."
 I went.
  But only as far as my own car, where I quietly opened the trunk and
  reached in for the tire jack that was stored beside the spare. I set my
  purse in the trunk, which I left open, and walked back through the silent
  snow to the front porch. I waited there, off to one side, with the jack
  raised high in both hands like the racket of a tennis player at the net.
  It did occur to me that I must have looked pretty ridiculous and that I
  wasn't all that sure what 1, thought I was doing. But I didn't see any
  need to spend my five minutes unprotected.
  Sooner than I expected, Geof stepped back out on the porch. He saw me
  just as he put his gun back in its holster.
  "Expecting someone?" he said. "Maybe the villian running out the front
  door with me in hot pursuitT'
 I dropped the jack in the snow and breathed again.
 "You might have needed me," I said defensively.
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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I do need you." He gestured for me to join him on the steps. I wondered
  why he wasn't angry at me for ignoring his undoubtedly wise instructions.
  He seemed, instead, gentle.
 I understood why when I stepped into the house.
  "Bastards, " I whispered when I saw, and then my whisper turned into a
  banshee scream. "Bastards, bastards!"
  "Yes," Geof said coldly, rather like Edwin Ottilini before him, "yes,
  indeed."

  I've heard that bomb and burglary victims experience similar feelings of
  violation and fury, of fear and grief and helplessness. That may be so,
  but frankly, I think I'd rather be bombed, provided no one was home at
  the time. I wonder if it isn't a little less excruciatingly personal when
  yours is only one of several devastated houses on the block and the hit
  was merely a vicious stroke of fate, not purpose. If you're bombed, at
  least you can't imagine the pilot and the bombardier had it in,
  personally, for you. They didn't smile meaningfully at each other, six
  thousand feet up, and say, "Coming up on Jenny Cain's house. Let's
  annihilate it, old boy. Bombs away!"
  There wasn't any doubt that somebody had it in, as personally as
  possible, for me. The proof lay scattered about my parents' house in tiny
  shreds of family photographs and scissored pages of favorite books; it
  snuggled in the cozy down that spilled out of the slashed cushions of the
  chairs and sofa in the den; it nestled evilly among the pieces of broken
  crystal in the dining room. My mother's twenty Wedgwood dinner plates
  were neatly lined up in four rows in

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 front of the hutch. Something hard-the heel of a shoe? the leg of a
 chair?-had carefully stepped down in the center of each one, smashing it to
 pulverized dust.
  "This took a lot of time," Geof said as he walked me through the house.
  He'd already called the station. I asked him if he'd thought to tell them
  to bring brooms.
 We climbed to the second floor.
  Out of the comer of my eye, I glimpsed the damage to my room-clothes pulled
  out of drawers and closets, probably ruined. But I walked on down the hall
  to the only room my mother had known in her adult life besides various ones
  in various hospitals.
 "Wait, Jennifer!"
 But I didn't.
  I stood in the doorway of my parents' bedroom and stared.
  "This took a lot of time," I said finally, unconsciously parroting Geof.
  "Somebody certainly took a lot of time to do this."
  It looked as if a tomado of frenzied malice had ripped through the room.
  Clothes lay everywhere, having been yanked from their hangers and drawers
  and tumbled to the floor. But that wasn't what had taken the intruder so
  much dangerous time, it wasn't that task over which he or she had labored
  so painstakingly. There were in that room other marks of wickedness so
  painful to me that my eyes could only briefly register them and then
  skitter away ... the last hooked rug on which my mother had been working
  was carefully and completely unraveled so that the colorful ribbons of
  material lay limp among the 214
          GENEROUS DEATH

 devastation ... my parents' wedding pictures which my mother had never
 removed from the room were still intact, but for their two heads neatly
 scissored from every single one of them ... my Grandmother Cain's eyelet
 pillowcases had been cut into ragged squares of dead lace ... the funny
 little ceramic sculpture of a clam that my mother had made for Dad when
 he took over his doomed company was smashed into unrecognizable shards ...
 my bronzed baby shoes, and my sistees, were lined up side by side on the
 floor where somebody had defecated on them ...
  I turned blindly away from that awful room and ran back down the hallway,
  looking neither right nor left, nor at Geof who waited anxiously for me
  at the head of the stairs. I ran down the steps and out the front door.
  I plowed back through the snow to Geof's car and I got in and sat in the
  driver's seat and I stared out the window in the direction that was
  opposite of my parents' house.
  He followed me out. He opened the door on the passenger's side and leaned
  in toward me.
 "I'm all right," I said to the window.
 "I don't think so."
 "I don't think so either."
 "You'll be cold if you wait here."
 "I'll live."
 "I'll have somebody take you back to my house."
 "That would be good."
 4'Jenny . . ."
  "Actually," I said to the window, "I'm too old to be living in my
  parents' house. Even if they're not home. And there's no need to pretend
  I'm keeping it safe for my mother's return."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Darling. . ."
  "It's time to move on." My breath frosted the window so that I
  couldn't see out of it. I said to the frost, "It's time for me to move
  on."
  Geof closed the door gently as the police cars turned the comer of the
  street where I no longer lived.

 216
 Chapter 26

 There weren't any fingerprints, of course, except the ones that ought to
 have been there-mine, Michael's, Ginger's, etcetera. And whoever it was
 didn't just happen to drop a telltale matchbook or leave behind a cufflink
 with a type of rare stone that was owned by only five people in the world,
 three of them now in prison and the fourth paralyzed from the neck down
 by a freakish tobogganing, accident in Switzerland. Whoever it was didn't
 leave any footprints, either. Whoever it was had either traipsed barefoot
 through the snow or had removed his shoes or boots at the door so as not
 to track traceable prints of mud on the rug.
 Very clean, the one who hated me, and careful.
  "I think we have to face that possibility," Geof said that afternoon in
  his office at the station. It was small, neat and functional, giving not
  a hint of the sensuous side of him. He had, on second thought, had me

               217
          GENEROUS DEATH

 delivered there-like a perishable package-instead of to his house.
  The possibility he thought we had to face was the one that ran along the
  lines, of somebody out there hating me.
  "So maybe the one they're out to ruin is Ms. Cain, here," Ailey Mason
  said. "Maybe they were after her all along, and not The Foundation."
  "Oh, come on," I protested. "They didn't attack the others just so The
  Foundation would collapse and I'd lose my job!"
  "Maybe," Geof mused, "maybe you're just a double victim, in a sense . .
  ."
  "Just?" I said faintly. I'd wept for a solid hour in the women's john at
  the police station; now I felt drained, calm and capable of murder
  myself.
  16 What I mean," Geof said, "is that you're a potential victim, A,
  because you're one of the Big Five. But you're also a potential victim
  because, B, you're the obvious living symbol of The Foundation."
  "I thought double jeopardy was illegal," I said, still more faintly.
  "Or maybe he was just plain frustrated because he couldn't get at her to
  kill her at The Foundation," Mason suggested. 16 Because she was always
  there with other people and because you, uh, protected her at other
  times. So he goes to her house to kill her and when she's not there, he
  gets real pissed off. I can see that, yeah, I can see that."
 I rolled my eyes at Geof.
  "He can see that," I said. "He can understand how some homicidal maniac
  could get so angry at me for not having the courtesy to be home when he
  wants to kill me. . ."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "He didn't mean that, Jenny," Geof grinned. "Tell her you didn't mean it
  that way, Ailey."
  Mason lit a cigarette and looked disgusted. He probably thought he looked
  blast and sophisticated.
  "What I want to know," Geof said, "is when he broke into your parents'
  house. Obviously, it had to be sometime between Tuesday night when you
  left and today when we got back from the hospital."
  Mason lifted a quizzical eyebrow that Geof didn't answer. So Mason said,
  pompously, "I can determine that by the neighbors and the postman and the
  snowfall." If there's anything worse than a pompous ass, it's a young
  one. This particular sample of the species proceeded to lecture his
  elder. "You knowtoday's Sunday, so did the postman notice the door was
  ajar when he delivered the mail yesterday? I can narrow it down fast with
  easy stuff like that."
  Geof nodded seriously, managing to control his grin. Then he said, "Then
  I want to know the alibis for that time period for the people who knew
  of the existence of the Big Five list."
  For an instant, Mason looked like the young, overworked kid he really
  was. "Jesus, Geof," he complained, "why don't you just ask me to get
  alibis for everybody in Poor Fred?"
  "Don't make this harder than it is," Geof said mildly. "Concentrate on
  the primary possibilitiesthe staff of The Foundation, the trustees, the
  directors of the charities, the relatives of the victims, and don't worry
  about the secondary layer of people who might have known about the Big
  Five-spouses, friends,, and so on. At least not yet."
  Mason grunted, but there was a measure of respect to the sound, if that's
  possible.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 Geof turned back to me.
  "Now we need to talk about you, Jenny. Tell me who hates you, not that
  I believe for one minute that anyone could."
 Mason grunted again.
  "Hate?" I felt uncertain with the word, much less the idea. "Well. I
  suppose I've made some people angry if they didn't get the money they
  wanted from The Foundation, but I don't think I'd say they hated me. It
  "Okay," he said patiently, and smiled. "Let me phrase it another way.
  Whose blood pressure rises at the sound of your name? Who, if i en the
  chance to
                     giv invite you to dinner, would not? Who, upon
                     hearing you'd had a run of bad luck, would smile?"
 I glanced at Ailey Mason. He smiled.
  But it was my sister who stood in the doorway behind us and said, "You
  called?"
  Geof glanced up at her and his mouth visibly dropped. Mason and I
  swiveled at the sound of her voice, and when the young cop saw her he
  rushed to his feet, dropping cigarette ashes down the front of him in his
  huffy.
 She was a knockout's knockout.
  She'd tucked her silver-blond hair into a snug mink cap that matched her
  knee-length mink coat. Both were the color of bittersweet chocolate, a
  shade that dramatically framed her Swedish complexion. Her eyes were so
  big and blue you'd have sworn there were clouds passing through them.
  She pulled off the cap, releasing a long loose swirl of fragrance and
  hair. Mason released a short, tight sigh.
  She slipped off the coat, revealing a multi-hundreddollar cashmere
  sweater in a gold as soft and pale as

               220
          GENEROUS DEATH

 antique coins. It clung to her as if it were afraid she'd lose it. Her
 slacks were the color of rich, moist real estate and just about as
 expensive. Her tiny feet in their tiny boots had walked only on
 shoveled-if not hallowed-ground and did not drip snow upon the floor.
  The vision parted her red wine lips to reveal beauty queen teeth. The
  vision smiled.
  "You're Jennifees sister, aren't you?" Geof managed to say. "The
  resemblance is amazing."
  "You think so?" Mason said. I hoped some of the ashes that had spilled
  on his chest were still hot. He quickly stepped out of the vision's way
  and offered her his chair.
 She offered him her cap and coat to hold.
  He took them like a votive offering; she took the chair like a
  birthright.
 The vision turned to me and spoke.
  "Happy birthday, Jenny," it said. "How does it feel to be thirty years
  old?"
 "Hello, Sherry. Right now, it feels about forty."
  "Looks it, too," she said softly. "A policewoman called my home, Jenny,
  and asked me to come down here. What's going on?"
  "Sherry, I'd like you to meet Detective Geoffrey Bushfield and Detective
  Ailey Mason."
  "Bushfield?" She turned the sky-eyes on him. He managed, -somehow, not
  to swoon. "Your name's familiar, have we met?"
  "We went to the same high school," he smiled. "I think it's a little more
  likely that I'd remember you than that you'd remember me."
  She nodded to indicate her acceptance of this
 probable truth. "Still," she said, managing in the
               221
          GENEROUS DEATH

 most ladylike way to examine him from head to foot. "I'd have thought I'd
 remember you."
 "Thank you." He grinned.
  "Sherry," I said, having had enough of her irritating behavior, "someone
  broke into the house and destroyed almost everything in it."
 "What house is that?"
  "Our house." I clenched my jaw and tried to remember this wasn't a whole,
  three-dimensional person I was dealing with, but only a pathetic, card-
  board caricature of a woman. Sherry hadn't yet learned how to be a real
  and fully developed adultshe was stuck somewhere in bitter
  adolescence-and so she, unconsciously, played grownup roles: This was her
  reigning princess act and she was very good at it.
 "Why would somebody do that?" she said coolly.
  "Don't you want to know what damage they did?" I said.
 "Yes, tell me, I'd enjoy that."
  Mason and Goof exchanged startled glances that she didn't see.
 I told her.
 She seemed to enjoy it.
  "Well, I'm sure you'll take care of everything, Jenny," she said calmly
  at the end of my recital. "It's half mine, of course, so I'll expect half
  of the insurance money. You'll see that I get it, won't you, Sis?"
  "It i's not mine or yours, Sherry, not yet anyway. It seems somehow to
  have escaped your notice that Mother is not yet dead."
  "No?" She rose gracefully and smiled at Mason as
 she held out her arms for her coat and cap. He
 stumbled with them toward her. I hoped he tripped
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 on them. She said, "Well, with any luck, by the time you get the claim filed
 and the insurance company settles this thing, she will be."
 Geof looked stunned.
  "Mrs. Guthrie," he said, "the vandalism at your parents' house seems to
  have been an act of premeditated malice. Do you know anyone who hates your
  sister?"
  "Hates Jenny?" Her lashes blinked once over the big blue guileless eyes.
  "How could anyone possibly hate my sister? She's as nearly perfect as
  anyone I know, Detective Bushfield. Everyone loves Jenny; everyone has
  always loved Jenny."
  "And you?" he said softly. The silky down at the back of her neck should
  have prickled at his tone. "Do you love Jennifer?"
  She smiled at him, the smile the Wicked Queen gave to Snow White along with
  the poisoned apple.
  "She's my sister," Sherry said. "Of course, I love her."
  There was a moment of appreciative silence after she had swept regally from
  the office.
 "My sister is a. . ."
    . knockout," Mason said.
    bitch," Geof said. "A-Number-One, USDA Prime Cut, Grand Champion,
    c*ertified bitch."
 "You," I said, "are so perceptive."

 The day was beginning to intimidate me.
  "I'd like to make a phone call, if that's all right," I said to Geof
  shortly after Sherry's departure.
  "Suspects are only allowed one call. Victims get two." His smile was so
  gentle it left me awash in 223
          GENEROUS DEATH

 gratitude for the one intelligent, compassionate, loving,
 six-foot-two-inch thing about my day.
  "Use my extension," he added as he pushed Mason out the door with him.
  "My young friend and I have people to see and things to do. But please
  don't leave without me, Jenny."
  I wasn't likely to do that. I didn't, in fact, particularly want to leave
  the security of the police station ever again. I thought I might just
  stay there forever and have my meals brought in.
  I sat down in Geof's swivel chair behind his immaculate desk and pushed
  the buttons on his phone.
 "Hello?" said the party I called.
  "Michael," I said, then waited a beat for him to reply. When he didn't,
  I said, "It's Jenny."
  "The voice is familiar," he said, "and I think I've heard the name
  somewhere before. Do you sell siding?"
  "No, but we have a special today on full-color photographs of your entire
  family."
  "Actually, miss, you've called at a bad time. My entire family has just
  sat down to dinner."
  "We also take photographs of entire families eating dinner.' ,
 461 get the picture."
  "We hope you will, for just $300, which includes two glossy eight-by-tens
  and one hundred wallet-sized photos of your dog or child, whichever you
  prefer. We'll throw in a genuine plastic frame for free."
  "Let me tell you how I see the situation, miss, what did you say your
  name is?"
 G'Jenny.l~
"The way I see the situation, Jenny, is that you 224
          GENEROUS DEATH

 wouldn't call me unless you had something pretty important on your mind.
 Because you know the sound of your voice is a twist in the heart for me
 and . . ."
 "Michael."
  ". . . and you are basically a kind and loving person who wouldn't twist
  said heart unless she had a damned good reason to do so. Do you have a
  damned good reason, other than to ask me to wish you happy birthday,
  Jenny?"
  "Would you, given the chance, wish me a happy birthday?"
  "Happy birthday, my love," he said softly. Then, in a firmer voice:
  "Scratch that. Happy birthday, somebody else's love."
 I took a deep, trembly breath.
 "I shouldn't have called you," I said.
  "First, tell me why you did; then we'll decide if it was the right thing
  to do."
  "Michael, somebody broke into my parents' home. They've ruined almost
  everything. Mom's crystal and china, our clothes and the furniture. They
  broke the stereo and the records. They smashed the TV they. . ."
  "Jesus! Who, why?" he exclaimed. "My God, Swede, is there anything I can
  do to help you?"
  "I don't know." Suddenly I was confused about my motives for calling him.
  "I thought there was, that's why I called you, but now I'm not sure what
  I thought you could do."
 "Maybe just hold your hand," he said.
 "Maybe," I whispered. "Yes, I guess so."
 "Consider it held."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "I don't suppose this is fair, is it?"
  '~Neither was the son of a bitch who smashed your house."
 "Are you moving, Michael?"
 "Yep."
 "Soon?"
 f  9.)
 'Yep.
 "You're not going to tell me more?"
 "I don't think so, no."
  "You don't want me to be tempted to write to you, and thereby raise your
  hopes," I humbly suggested.
  "That's pretty much it." He sounded sure of himself, older, more mature.
  "If I'm going, I'm going clean."
  "Do you think," I said very, very hesitantly, "that I could take you out
  for a farewell dinner?"
  "No." Then as if to ease the abruptness: "Thank you, Swede, but I don't
  think that's a good idea."
  "Well." I felt suddenly bereft and I wondered if it was a temporary or
  a permanent bereft. "Well, I guess we'll see if I miss you."
 He managed to laugh.
  "Oh, Jen, I do love you," he said. "And yes, I guess we'll see."
 We said goodbye and hung up.
  Calling him was a stupid and cruel thing to have done, I told myself. And
  I shouldn't have wondered out loud if I would miss him. In the core of
  me, I knew I wouldn't-at least, not in the way he wanted to be missed.
 Geof opened his office door and stuck his head in.
  "We're sending out for hamburgers, Jenny. Want me to order something for
  you?"
 "You're it," I said.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "I'm what?"
  "You're what I would order right now if I could order anything I
  wanted in this world."
  He leaned against the door frame as if he'd lost his strength. "How do
  you want that fixed?" he said in a low voice that turned my wrists to
  water. "Mayo, mustard, all the trimmings?"
 "No," I said, "just bare. Do you deliver?"
 "I don't know," he said, "do IT'
 "You certainly do."
 We smiled at each other.

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 Chapter 27

 Whoever had thrown the tantrum at my parents' house had somehow missed my
 pet-the little home computer. At my suggestion, Geof had it lugged over
 to his house that night. When we walked in, late, it was set up on the
 floor beside the empty hot tub in the living room.
  "Hello, Fido," I said and gave its molded plastic top a fond pat. "I'm
  going to feed you tonight and then we'll see if you'll do tricks for us."
  We could have used the police computer, but we'd have had to file time
  requests in quadruplicate, and this was to be only an informal effort,
  anyway, just to see if by any luck we came up with something new. So it
  was a lot simpler and more direct to use Fido.
  I plugged him in and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him. Geof
  set a glass of iced orange juice beside my left hand. He sat on the bare
  floor too, his back against the tub and his own glass ofjuice nearby.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Why is there an empty hot tub in your living room?" I had to ask, having
  meant to ask from the first night.
  "This is as far as we got when some friends helped me haul it up from the
  rec room in the basement," he said. "I wish it were full and hot and we
  could get in it right now."
 "You and me both, pal."
  "You're sure you're not too tired, Jenny?" He reached out a long arm so
  that the hand attached to it could massage the back of my neck.
  "That's wonderful," I groaned. "Please stop, or I will fall asleep." I
  turned Fido on, inserted the disc I needed and tapped the keys. My body
  was exhausted, but my brain was perking on pure adrenaline; I could stay
  up all night if my body didn't fall apart.
  I tapped and six words appeared: "WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY HOW."
  Behind me, Geof laughed and said, "Why do I get the feeling you're always
  one step ahead of me?"
  "That's why your legs are longer," I said, "to compensate."
 "Okay if I dictate?"
 "Fire away, Mr. Executive, sir."
 "We'll put some names under WHO . .
 "They being the people who knew of the Big Five?"
 "Right."
  I tapped them in as he dictated them: Jennifer-Cain, Derek Jones, Faye
  Basil, Marvin Lastelic, Edwin Ottilini, Jack Fenton, Pete Falwell, Roy
  Leland, Michael Laurence.
  We paused over the name of the fifth Foundation trustee. Geof said, "He's
  the one who drove us to the church, isn't he?"

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "Um hm."
  "He looked intelligent; I therefore assume he's in love with you."
  "Um." I kept my eyes straight ahead on the glowing screen and my fingers
  resting lightly on the keys.
  "You haven't seen much of him lately, I would guess," Geof said casually.
  "How"s he taking it?"
  "He's leaving town." Then I added quickly, "But not because of me,
  because his father's come back to take over the family business and
  Michael is splitting to go out on his own."
 "Where's he going?"
  "I don't know exactly," I said to the keyboard. "Someplace in Colorado,
  I think."
 "When's he leaving?"
  "I don't know that either." I picked up my glass of juice, took a sip and
  turned to smile at him. "Who, what, -when, where, why and how? I called
  Michael today, from your office, to tell him about my parents' house. He
  was shocked. He was concerned."
  Geof seemed to take the information in, like a computer, and consider it.
  I waited for his next question, which was: "Okay, now please add to our
  fist the names of the directors of the charities you serve, if you have
  reason to believe they know of the Big Five."
  I tapped in Simon's name and Allison Parker's and five others, even
  adding Dr. Ian Priestly. Then we added the names of the immediate family
  members of the victims-Marvalene and Franklin Culverson, and Moshe's only
  son who lived in town, and Mr. Charles Withers Hatch and the three
  Hatchlings.
  "Su rely we can eliminate Minnie's husband," I said. "He's an invalid,
  after all. And I wouldn't think

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 we'd need to bother with the relatives who live out of
   is
 town.
 "I agree. Does Ginger Culverson know of the list?"'
 "I wouldn't think so, unless Simon has told her."
 "They're friends?"
  "I introduced them about a week ago and they seemed to hit it off. I
  don't know if either of them has followed up on that meeting. I'll find
  out."
 I stared at our lengthening list of names.
  "Good grief, Geof, that's twenty-three names counting ine!" It made me
  more tired just to look at the length of the list. "And I'll bet there
  are others who know of the Big Five."
  "Twenty-three's not so many," said the only experienced cop in the room.
  "We can trace the movements of twenty-three people fairly easily, knock
  on wood. In fact, we've already done a lot of it this week. All it takes
  is time and patient policemen. And women. We won't concern ourselves with
  the secondary possibilities yet; I have a gut feeling the name we want
  is among those twenty-three."
  I gazed at those names of twenty-three people I knew. While it was true
  that I didn't necessarily like each of them, I hated the thought that one
  of them might be a murderer.
 "Jennifer," Geof said, "what about your sister?"
 I almost spilled my juice on the computer.
 "Oh, Geof!"
 "Did she know about the Big Five?"
  Reluctantly, I said, "Yes. About four months ago, I asked for a meeting
  with her in Mr. Ottilini's officeneutral ground-to discuss our trusts and
  wills. She was curious about my leaving so much money to The Foundation.
  I did a little pious preaching about the

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 good I hoped it would do. I'm sure I mentioned the Big Five, heaven knows
 why, maybe I hoped she'd like to be the Big Sixth."
 "So," he said gently, "we have twenty-four names."
  I let out a whoosh of breath through my mouth and tapped in the name
  Sherry Cain Guthrie. Suddenly I felt a great deal more weary. My back
  hurt. My head hurt. My heart hurt.
 "You sure you want to continue?" Geof asked.
  I thought of the devastation at my mother's house. I thought of how
  Minnie looked when they carried her off in the ambulance. I nodded and
  gulped the last dregs of the juice; it was crisp and fruity like an
  afternoon in the sun in June, and it cleansed my palate of the bitter
  aftertaste of the day.
 "Carry on," I said.
  "Okay, now for WHAT." I could hear the strain of exhaustion in Geof's
  voice. "This one's easy-in each case, the murder weapon was an overdose
  of Soronal."
 "The hypertension medicine that Arnie took."
 "Right."
  "Was it all from his prescription? I mean the drugs that killed Moshe and
  Mrs. Hatch and the one that was used on Minnie?"
 "Maybe, but it's hard to say."
 "It is? Why?"
  "Well, you remember we found two pill bottles on Culverson-one of them
  was empty, but the other still had a few capsules in it. Unfortunately,
  we have no way of knowing how many of those pills he took legitimately
  in the days before he died. So we don't know if the killer doped
  Culverson and then stole 232
          GENEROUS DEATH

 some extra pills, or if he's been using some other prescription since
 then."
 "Some other prescription? Whose?"
  "You make it sound so simple," Geof laughed. "Whose? Well, for starters,
  think of all the Type A, hard driving, nervous people you know. Any of
  them could be candidates for migraines or hypertension and that means any
  of them might take Soronal."
  "Oh," I said, chastened. "That describes half the people on our suspect
  list, doesn't it?"
  "It certainly does," he agreed wearily. "And even if they don't take
  Soronal, they probably know people who do since those are common ailments
  and that's a popular drug. It'd be easy to get access to it."
 "Why did he have two bottles of pills on him?"
  "Because he'd had his prescription refilled that afternoon after he left
  Ottilini's office."
 "Where'd he go after that?"
  "First to the country club, where the waiter says he ate alone and only
  picked at his food. Then it looks as if he went directly to the museum."
  "Well." I tapped my front teeth with a fingernail. "I suppose any one of
  the twenty-four of us could have met him at the Martha Paul that night,
  if we could have got past the guard."
 "Maybe," Geof said cautiously.
  "But if you can't prove he went anyplace else and you can't prove any of
  the rest of us met him at the museum, then things don't look too good for
  Simon."
  "They shouldn't, no, especially since he admits he was there at the
  museum that night and that he met with Culverson. On the surface, that
  looks bad. And he was also at the cocktail party the night Cohen died,
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 so he might have been the one who doped the old man. But we checked Simon
 out-he has two alibis that even I have to believe, one for the attack on
 Minnie and one for the attack on your home."
  I was surprised. "You know when that happened?" I said. "You didn't tell
  me."
  "I forgot." He was apologetic. "It was last night. The mailman says your
  door was not open and the glass was not broken when he delivered the mail
  yesterday. And a neighbor stopped by your house in the early evening
  yesterday to say hello and there was no sign of entry then, either. And
  it doesn't make sense that whoever broke in would do it in broad daylight
  today, so that leaves last night. On top of all of which is the fact that
  you haven't shoveled your walk."
 "Huh?" I said brightly.
  "It has snowed twice since yesterday," he explained. "The first time, it
  started after the postman made his rounds on your block. It snowed about
  an inch total. The second time, it started to snow about four-thirty this
  morning and accumulated another inch. Well, there are two inches of snow
  in the postman's footprints, but only about half that is those other
  slurred prints. So we know your visitor arrived between the end of the
  first snowfall yesterday and the start of the second one this morning."
  "Well," I said, "that assuages my guilt for not having shoveled my
  walks."
 "Your neighbors," he smiled, "might not agree."
  "About Simon," I said quickly, "I know he has an alibi for the attack on
  Minnie, because that's the day he was in New York with us. There wasn't
  time for
 him to . . ."                       1

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Sure there was," Geof said. "Simon could have called her from New York
  just as easily as someone else could have called her from here. And he
  had a good hour and a half from the time our plane landed to the time we
  arrived at the church. Unfortunately, the museum guard swears that Simon
  arrived at the museum straight from the airport, that he went to his
  office and stayed sequestered there all evening. In fact, that's where
  I located him."
 "The guard actually saw Simon?"
  "Yeah, on his outside rounds. Every time he walked by the window, there
  was Simon bent over his desk, working. And that's where he was all last
  night, too, and I mean literally all night. I guess he's got a special
  photographic show coming up and he spent the night there working on it.
  If he's the workaholic you say he is, I can believe he'd do that."
  I was happy to hear it; at least that let one of my friends off the hook!
  "Lucky for him, too," Geof said as he poured more juice from the pitcher.
  "Because if you gave me half a chance I could come up with a teal good
  motive for dear old Simon."
  "Tell me," I said, although I didn't really want to hear it at all.
  "Well," he said a little too eagerly for my taste, "what if Culverson had
  a spasm of remorse when he went to the Martha Paul that night? Remorse
  about leaving the money to his daughter? And what if he worked up the
  courage to tell Simon the news?"
 "This is pure conjecture, Geof," I said sternly.
  "Sure." He raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Want to conject with me?"
 I didn't, but I couldn't chicken out at that point.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Okay," I said unwillingly, "we all know that Simon has the emotional
  control of a spoiled brat . . ."
 and he's a fanatic about his museum and we know he views the loss of
 Arnie's money as the death of his dreams. So you're thinking that maybe
 they got in an argument and Simon was furious and hurt-he would be, of
 course-and, and what?"
  "Well, by this time, Culverson's pretty upset, too, right? So maybe he
  starts getting one of those migraines he used to get . .
  "So he pulls out his pill bottle and takes a couple ...
  "And Simon sees his chance for revenge against the old man who was
  cheating him."
  "I don't know, Geof," I said doubtfully. "That's pretty cold-blooded. I
  mean, I can see Simon grabbing a lamp and bringing it down over Arnie's
  head in pure rage, but I can't see him cold-bloodedly taking the time to
  get hold of Arnie's pills, dump them in whatever Arnie was drinking. .
  ."
 "Wine, from a bottle in Simon's office."
  "So Arnie would have to drink the drugged wine. And then maybe before it
  knocks him completely out, Simon suggests they take a stroll around the
  Chinese Gallery. . ."
  "You're very good at this," Geof grinned. "And when Culverson finally
  keels over, all Simon has to do is lift him onto the testered bed, run
  down for the comforter and then tuck the old man in."
 "Simon's little joke."
 "Ha ha."
 I shook my head violently. "But he didn't do it,

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 Geof' This is cruel and absurd to pretend he did! Simon is the one with
 the alibis, you said so yourself And it doesn't sound like him anyway-if
 Simon got mad enough at you to kill you, you'd be dead in a minute because
 he'd act impulsively, and not so coolly as we've imagined.
  "I don't like this exercise," I said petulantly. "Let's stop now,
  please."
  "Yeah," Geof said with regret in his voice and face. He slid his back
  down the side of the hot tub until he was flat on the floor. "Damn.
  "Who else has alibis?" I said to change the subject and relieve my sense
  of disloyalty to Simon.
 "Okay," he sighed, "call up your WHEN category."
 I did that.
  "Now," he directed, "we'll. enter the names of those people who cannot
  adequately account for any one of the time frames of the attacks,
  excluding the one today on your house, since we haven't talked to
  everyone about that yet."
 "What do you call adequately?" I wanted to know.
  "Two reliable witnesses who are not alcoholics, drug addicts, felons,
  devoted wives or mothers or boyfriends."
  "Is that the official way?" I was curious to know how the official police
  mind operated.
  "No," he laughed, "that's the Bushfield way. This is a small town, Jen,
  and I am not the FBI. We catch more crooks by using common sense than by
  the application of criminology, to tell you the truth."
  "I won't tell anyone," I promised. "I do believe I like your style,
  Detective Bushfield."
  He laughed again. It took all my willpower to keep my body seated and
  upright and not let it tumble to

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 the floor where my weary head could rest so snugly in the crook of his
 shoulder.
  Abruptly, he got up to pull a thick notepad from the inside pocket of his
  sport coat. He flipped through it until he came to the pages he wanted,
  then dictated names while I entered them in the computer.
 When we were through, I looked at the screen.
  "Well, that's a mixed bag of nuts," I said. Maybe Geof could make sense
  of it, but it looked to me as if we had plenty of nothing. There weren't
  many holes, the holes that existed were not very big and there wasn't a
  single person among the twenty-four who could not account for more than
  two of the time periods. Plus, since so many of us knew each otherserved
  on the same committees, attended the same parties, etcetera-a lot of us
  alibied for each other.
 "Chummy lot," Geof said, halfway through.
  "'You're the one who said it's a small town," I countered.
  Derek Jones had alibis for three of the pertinent time frames----~'l
  think he was with a woman he'd prefer not to name," Geof smiled; Faye was
  quoted as saying she "couldn't for the life" of her recall what she was
  doing the night Arnie died-it was, after all, several days later before
  anyone thought to call it murder and begin inquiries; Marvin, of course,
  had everything but an annotated diary and five notarized witnesses to
  account for his well and constructively spent time.
  Like Simon, all the other directors of the charities had alibis for one,
  two or even all of the times in question. That held true for the
  relatives of the victims too. As for my trustees, they were well alibied,
  mostly by each other. Michael had been at the cock- 238
          GENEROUS DEATH

 tail party along with most of the other suspects the night Moshe died, but
 he could account for the other times, having spent them on dates with
 women who were not, me.
  "Hmm," I said to that information. "That's interesting, not that it
  matters to me of course."
  "You didn't expect him to be celibate, did you?" Geof sounded amused.
 "Don't be so bloody fair-minded," I said huffily.
  "Having known you, shall we say, intimately, for a time, Ms. Cain, it
  surprises me that you were chaste for all those months you dated him."
 "I don't recall saying I was."
  "Oh." He sat up and took a drink of juice. "Well, I guess that just
  because you never slept with him doesn't automatically mean you never
  slept with anyone."
  "I don't recall saying that I never, to coin a euphemism, slept with
  him."
  "God damn it, Jennifer, don't be so bloody honest.90
  "It's not supposed to matter in this day and age," I said and smiled at
  him. I wasn't talking about honesty.
  "Do you like to think of me sleeping with other women?"
  "Not on your life, buster," I said, widening my grin. "But neither do I
  blame you for having done so. Heck, if they contributed to your present
  level of expertise, I'm grateful to them!"
  "I don't blame you either," he said crossly. "I just don't want to have
  to hear about it."
 "You brought it up," I said gently. "Sexist porker."
 He grinned back at me.

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          GENEP,OUS DEATH

 I leaned over and kissed him.
 "You're a sweet old hypocrite," I said.
  "Let's go to bed," he murmured. He held up his wrist so he could see his
  watch, but he seemed to have some difficulty in focusing on what it told
  him. "Good grief, Jenny, do you know what time it is? Let's get some
  sleep and start fresh in the morning."
  "That's easy for you to say," I huffed. "Your life doesn't depend on what
  we might be able to find out tonight."
 His eyes focused and he sat straight up.
  "Right," he said dutifully, but a good deal more alertly. "Where are we?"
 64WHY.99

 'Ifty what?"
 I started to giggle. "Not WHAT," I said, "WHY?" The silliness was
 contagious.
 "When?" he, I swear, giggled back at me, "Now?"
 "Not WHEN, dummy, I said WHY!"
  "Why not?" he said and we fell on each other in hysterical,
  after-midnight, tears-rolling, helpless laughter. It felt wonderful. We
  let it roll over us until the last guffaw died and the final giggle
  trickled down and out.
 "Oh, Abbott," I gasped, "my stomach hurts."
 "Me too, Costello."
  We lay like that for several more minutes and then-by another of those
  silent accords-sat up again and began to discuss motives. It didn't take
  much time because there weren't any to speak of. We couldn't figure out
  why any of my staff or the trustees might wish to harm The Foundation;
  we didn't think my sister hated me enough to kill several other people
  just to establish a camouflage for killing me; I doubted

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 that Michael wanted to ruin The Foundation just so I'd lose my job and be
 persuaded to leave town with him; and none of the victim's relatives had
 anything to gain from the other deaths.
  We agreed it was theoretically possible that Simon might have killed
  Arnie in a fit of fury; that Allison might have slain Mrs. Hatch to get
  funds for the Welcome Home; that the manager of the theater might have
  murdered Moshe to aid that charity; and that the Reverend Dr. Ian
  Priestly might have ...
  "Ridiculous," I said in disgust. "And what's more, none of them has any
  reason to kill the rest of us."
 "More's the pity," Geof said wearily.
 He reached over me toward Fido.
  "May I turn this thing off?" he said. When I nodded, he flicked the
  switch. "We're no smarter than we were, are we Jennifer?"
 "Ugh," I said, "and arrgh."
  "Enough scintillating repartee," he said and yawned. "To bed, woman."

 241
 Chapter 28

 I woke when Geof did, but I didn't get up and get dressed and drive in to
 work with him. Instead, I pulled the phone down beside my head on the
 pillow and called Faye to tell her I'd be late. She didn't seem to know
 about the vandalism of my parents' house, and I didn't tell her. Then I
 phoned Ginger Culverson to ask her to a late lunch at the Buoy. After
 that, I called my friendly neighborhood Standard station to ask them to
 tow my car away and fix it. Then I called Avis and Budget to reserve a
 rental car. But because of the bad weather, other drivers had beat me to
 the available inventory. Those agencies didn't have an engine to offer.
  I decided to take a chance and call our local version of Rent-A-Wreck.
  Bless their battered hearts, they had a '67 Ford Galaxie with only
  150,000 miles, maximum rust, minimum chrome. I could have it, they

               242
          GENEROUS DEATH

 said, if I picked it up that afternoon. What the hell, I thought, as long as
 it runs.
  Then I rolled over and slept some more. What's the use of having executive
  privilege if you don't abuse it now and then?

  The Buoy was crowded when I got there at onethirty. I hung my coat in the
  ancient cloakroom, hooked my lady executive hat on top of it and squeezed
  my way through the drinkers at the bar to the eaters in the deli at the
  back. I have a passion for the Buoy's lobster sandwiches and homemade cole
  slaw and fries.
  I looked along the west wall where the tables for two are lined up, but I
  didn't see Ginger there.
 fi'Jenny!II
  I turned at her voice. My smile of greeting must have wavered a bit when I
  saw that she was seated at a table for four and that mine was the only
  empty chair.
 I walked resignedly over and sat down.
 "Surprise," Franklin Culverson said with a smirk.
 "Jennifer, dear," his mother added.
  I gave them my best gracious-loser smile and said weakly, "Well. How nice."
  Franklin snorted delicately through his nose. His sister scowled at him and
  then smiled apologetically at me.
  "I can explain," she said quickly, causing Franklin to exchange arch
  glances with his mother. "When I told them I was meeting you for lunch,
  which was obviously my first mistake-not meeting you, but telling them-they
  insisted on coming along. I tried to talk them out of it. . ."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  I was beginning to feel embarrassed. I needn't have bothered though;
  neither Franklin nor Marvalene appeared to be in the least offended, at
  least not by Ginger's attitude. They were, I would learn, deeply offended
  by something else she'd done.
  "Go ahead and order your lunch, Jennifer, dear," Marvalene instructed.
  She was chic in pale yellow Ultra Suede, with not a drop of dirty slush
  on her pale yellow high-heeled shoes. I wondered how she did it: boots,
  maybe, that she took off in the cloakroom? She pushed a menu away from
  her. "I'm too upset to eat," she said. "Franklin is too upset to eat.
  Ginger is upset, but never too much to eat."
  Her daughter's mouth, which was closed over a forkful of potato salad,
  curled into a grin. Obviously hers was a duck's back and her mother's
  insults were only water.
  I ordered the lobster, slaw and fries I'd been salivating for and a diet
  cola. The four of us made banal and tense conversation until my food
  arrived. My sandwich was a glorious three-inch high creation of hard bun,
  pink meat, mayonnaise and secret seasoning. I sank my teeth into it and
  tried to keep the innards from dripping out the far end of the bun, under
  Franklin's fastidious and amused eye.
  "Don't ever order one of those on a first date," he said. I had to laugh,
  and that caused one of those nowand-then moments of genuine warmth that
  I had been known to experience with him. It didn't last long.
  Marvalene lit a Virginia Slim and blew a thin cloud of smoke toward her
  daughter. "Ginger, dear," she said, "tell knnifer what you told us this
  morning."
 "Yes, Mother." Ginger's voice was full ofwry. But her

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 father's eyes were dancing with eagerness and happiness.
  "Jenny," she blurted, "I think I'm going to give some money to Simon-I
  mean to the Martha Paul."
  . "Some money!" Franklin practiced his snort; it was already nearly
  perfect. "Some money!"
  "Well," Ginger amended, "what I think I'll do is give him enough money
  to hire the lawyers and go to court to overturn Martha Paul's will. What
  do you think?"
  I washed down a chunk of lobster with a gulp of cola.
  "I think that's wonderfully generous of you," I said with what I hoped
  was not a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. She had said she would give
  "him" the money-no mention of The Foundation as intermediary. Well, that
  was her choice and her right, but I was instantly concerned about Simon's
  ability to manage the funds wisely. It also occurred to me that Ginger
  had just very clearly answered Geof's question about whether or not she
  and Simon had become friends.
 Ginger beamed at my praise; her relatives glared.
  "That's not all," Ginger said excitedly. "I've also decided to give them
  the seed money they need to build a new museum! I'm not going to give
  them as much as my father was, obviously, or I'd have to donate my whole
  inheritance. But I'll make it a nice healthy sum-maybe a quarter
  million-and I'll call it a challenge grant."
  "Terrific idea," I said and wondered if perhaps I should take some
  lessons from Simon on fund raising. He must have put her up to the
  challenge grant idea, and it was a good one; I doubted that she'd have
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 thought of it on her own, inexperienced as she was in the field of fund
 raising. A challenge grant acts as a spur to other donors; in effect, it
 means the original donor is saying, "Okay, for every dollar you raise,
 I'll match you one, up to X amount of money." As a fund raising device,
 it's dynamite. But it's also one that required the leadership of a superb
 fund raiser to direct the campaign. Did Ginger know that Simon was
 probably not that man? I wanted to warn her, but any way I approached the
 subject it would look like sour grapes and envy. Hell, maybe it was. Maybe
 Simon could do the job-God knows he was a driven demon when it came to the
 preservation of his beloved museum.
  I tried to look wholeheartedly instead of halfheartedly delighted. Ginger
  may have wondered why I didn't have more to say about her momentous deci-
  sions, but she'd just have to be satisfied with a "terrific" and a smile.
  Too many things had been happening to me lately-and too many dramatic
  bombs had been dropped in my lap. My internal computer was near overload.
  I wondered why Marvalene and Franklin were so upset by the news; it
  wasn't ever going to be their money, so why did they care what Ginger did
  with it? And why had they trotted along to lunch with her?
  "Jennifer says that's terrific news, Mother," Franklin said. His eyebrows
  made twin St. Louis arches over his cynical eyes. "Do you want to tell
  her the rest of it, or shall Ir'
 "I'll tell her," Ginger said firmly,
  I waited, as I seemed to have been doing so often in the recent past, for
  someone to hand me what was 246
          GENEROUS DEATH

 sure to be more bad news. But, as with the Degas painting from the little
 old man, I was wrong.
  "Jenny," Ginger said and smiled her father's most mischievous smile at me.
  "Mr. Ottilini has persuaded me that with so much money at stake, I ought to
  draw up a will immediately. And that means I've had to figure out who to
  leave the money to. Well, I don't have any family but these two charmers,
  and they're not rotten clear to the core, so I'm going to leave half of it
  to them . . ."
  "Them" smiled benevolently upon the prodigal daughter.
  "I don't know why you're so pleased," she laughed at them. "I am the
  youngest, you know. I'll outlive you by decades."
  "There's always the long shot," Franklin said pleasantly, and Ginger
  guffawed. Obviously she didn't take their nastiness at all seriously.
  "As for the rest of the money," she continued, 46well, my father was a good
  businessman, whatever else he might have been. I trust his judgment in
  matters of money. So I'm going to leave the rest of it to The Foundation."
  I was stunned. Grateful. With any luck, she'd live another sixty years and
  it would be that long before The Foundation saw a penny of her gift. By
  then, I'd be too old or too dead to administer it. But her decision was
  enormously gratifying all the same, because it was a sign of renewed faith
  in The Foundation, and in me, I suppose. Perhaps it was a sunny omen that
  portended change in our drooping fortunes. I nearly cried in my cole slaw.
"That's wonderful," I said inadequately. "I'm real247
          GENEROUS DEATH

 ly grateful, and the trustees will be, too. I don't know how to tell you
 what this means to us, Ginger, how very much."
  She looked gratified and proud, as well she should. She excused herself
  to go to the restroom. Her mother waited until Ginger was out of earshot.
 "Well, now you see why we're here," she said.
 "No, I don't," I said.
  "Come on Jennifer," Franklin said impatiently. "You've got ~o help us
  talk Ginger out of dumping all that money on the museum. Everything she
  spends on it will be that much less for the rest of us."
  "Dear God." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Maybe honesty is not
  the best policy after all. I think I wish you'd be a little less open in
  your greed."
  "Don't try to tell us you think it's a good idea for her to give all that
  loot to Simon," he countered. "You know Simon, you know how he is. "
  "Why does it matter to you, Franklin?" I was really irritated. "Odds are
  you won't outlive Ginger, so you won't get the money anyway. What do you
  care?"
  "What do we care?" Marvalene was shocked to the core of her stainless
  steel heart. "My dear Jennifer, one always cares about money. Every
  little bitty penny, one cares about."
  By the time Ginger returned, her relatives and I were past speech. Well,
  I was past speech; they were past believing. And the awful, ironic truth
  was that I did want to talk Ginger out of giving money directly to the
  museum. Only now I couldn't do it without arousing smug suspicions on the
  part of m&e and fri,re that my motive was identical to theirs.
  I avoided further discussion by looking at my watch.

               248
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Ginger," I said, "can you drop me off at Twelfth and Central? My cat's
  still out of commission. I've ordered a Lease-A-Lump."
  The happy family made room for me in Marvalene's Seville. They dropped
  me off a few minutes later.

  "Beauty is only skin deep," the young woman at Lease-A-Lump pontificated.
  We stood in the cold slush beside the pitiful heap I had just leased
  against my better judgment.
  "True," I said and kicked a tire to fool her into thinking I knew what
  I was doing, "but ugly goes clear to the bone." She looked confused.
  "Or," I amended, "clear to the U-joint, as it were. Are you sure this
  piece of junk will run?"
  I had offended her. She patted a broken headlight as if to console the
  car. "We guarantee all our babies to within one hundred and fifty miles
  of town," she said reprovingly. "In the unlikely event that this car
  breaks down, we will drive out and pick you up and provide you with
  alternate transport."
  "Ation," I said irritably, under my breath. "Transportation. " Aloud, I
  whined, "You don't have anything else? Something with fewer miles on it?
  A '39 Hudson, perhaps?"
 I wrested open the door. It fought back, but I won.
  "My God, who had this car last?" I said. It was a mess of dirt and salt
  from the streets and sidewalks.
 She looked mortified.
  "I really am sorry," she said and became, at once, human, "but we've been
  so busy we haven't had time to clean our cars as well as we should.
  Really, though, I know the last driver took good care of it."

               249
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Only driven by a little old lady on Sundays," I muttered. "Listen, I've
  seen some of those Sunday drivers and what they can do to a car you
  wouldn't do in a demolition derby." Car dealerships of any kind bring out
  the -worst in me; it's because I feel so ignorant.
  46 No," she said seriously, "by a museum director, which is probably just
  as good."
 "Not Simon Church by any chance?"
  "Yes!" She was pleased as punch to find some area of rapport with this
  difficult customer. "He just brought it back in this morning. Such a nice
  man, and so funny! Do you know him?"
  I nodded. "Poor Simon. I didn't know he'd been having car troubles, too."
  "He said he had a fender bender a couple of weeks ago and his car's been
  in the shop ever since." She handed me the keys to the ruined beauty and
  said, "If you talk nicely to her, she'll follow you anywhere."
  I laughed and felt better about the whole dubious transaction. I climbed
  in the driver's seat, turned the rusty key in the rusty ignition and
  backed jerkily out. Theyoungwomanand I waved at each other. Shelooked
  like a proud but nervous mother who's never quite sure when she sends her
  kid off to school if the principal will call and say the kid's in trouble
  again and will she please come pick him up and take him home.
  "Behave yourself," I said to the car, "or I'll tell your mother."
  The massive auto and I rolled heavily if not merrily along to my office.
  "Baby" didn't have power steering, but I muscled her into the parking
  lot. As I drove past the comer where Geof had been dropping me off of a

               250
          GENEROUS DEATH

 morning, I thought of the morning after the night of the attack at the
 church on Minnie Mimbs, the morning when Simon and Derek "caught" us
 together. I grinned at the memory of their ribald kidding. I could still
 clearly see the utterly surprised expressions on their faces, Derek
 staring at me from the passenger's seat and Simon from the ...
 My heart skipped a funny beat.
  Derek had hitched a ride with Simon that day because Derek's car was in
  the shop, not Simon's. And yet the young woman at Lease-A-Lurnp said that
  Simon told her he wanted to rent a car because his own was being fixed.
 Why would he lie to a Lease-A-Lump lady?
  Why would he need two cars, one of them an old dump that nobody would
  recognize as his?
 I stopped grinning.

 251
 Chapter 29

 The car seemed to swing of its own accord around the perimeter of the
 parking lot and back onto the street again, as if it were a dowsing rod
 and I the dowser. Its long blunt nose pointed aggressively in the
 direction of the Martha Paul. I felt as I had on the day when Edwin
 Ottilini and I had met at the Welcome Home because our feelings of unease
 spurred us into intuitive rather than rational action. Those same queasy
 feelings propelled me toward the museum.
  What did I think I was going to ask Simon? I didn't know. What was I
  looking for? Didn't know that, either. I had a feeling I was taking a
  risk, but I couldn't have admitted, much less articulated, its specifics.
  I just went, sweating palms, jumping heart, terrible sensation in the pit
  of my stomach and all.
  The parking spot with the label "Director" was empty of Simon's vintage
  Mustang. I stashed "Baby"

               252
          GENEROUS DEATH

 a couple of slots down the row and walked in the staff entrance on the
 north side of the museum.
  "Good afternoon, Miss Cain," the old guard smiled, though "old" is, I
  suppose, redundant in describing the guards at the Martha Paul. He pushed
  the buzzer that allowed me to open the security door; then he pointed out
  the empty line on the security log where I was to write my name, time in
  and the name of the person I wanted to see. I wrote in the name of an
  assistant curator whose car I'd seen in the lot.
  "I'd like to see Simon, too," I said casually, as if it were an
  afterthought. "When do you think he'll be back?"
  "Oh, not for an hour at least," the guard said. "He's off to some meeting
  or other."
  "Okay, thanks." With my heart beating preposterously fast, I walked down
  the hall toward the cramped suite of closets that passed for staff
  offices. Some other visitor came in behind me, distracting the guard's
  attention so I was able quietly to try the door to Simon's office. I knew
  it would be unlocked because none of the locks in the building worked
  anymorethey were old, rusted, useless.
  I breached Simon's cubicle and silently shut the door behind me. I
  decided not to consider how mortified I would feel if someone opened the
  door and saw me standing there, alone, in the thin light from the window.
  If Simon walked in, well, I'd just cover my presence with a perfectly
  logical excuse like, "Oh golly, I thought this was the ladies' room," or
  else I'd proceed to feign amnesia, grand mal or, possibly, death. I felt
  like a spy in one of those movie scenes I've always hated-where the spy
  sneaks into an office and rifles the files while the audience squirms,
  253
          GENEROUS DEATH

 just knowing someone's going to walk in on him.
  I squirmed for a long moment until my brain clicked back into gear.
  "Look," it commanded, "Think Fast So You Can Get the Hell Out Of Here!"
  An office supposedly tells a lot about the person who inhabits it. This
  one told only partial truths about Simon. Here was his public persona-the
  serious and respectable museum director, holder of advanced degrees and
  recipient of multitudinous honors. I knew that his apartment, however,
  displayed a rather different personality; his bookcases there held an
  eye-popping-and valuable-potpourri of pornography through the ages; the
  original paintings on the walls of his home and the sculptures on their
  stands pursued the same unnerving interest. Long ago, when he was an
  adolescent, Simon's first porno-graphic purchases had undoubtedly been
  purely, so to speak, prurient. As he matured, however slightly, his
  devotion had changed to the more detached attitude of a collector.
  Simon's apartment might be X-rated, but because of the quality of the art
  within it, it was not without its socially redeeming qualities.
  The only painting on the walls of Simon's office, however, was a superbly
  executed and incredibly boring nineteenth-century still life with nary
  a phallic symbol to its name. The floor-to-ceiling books in this room had
  never required discreet brown wrappers; they were volumes on art history,
  museum management, photography, philanthropy; they were trade magazines
  and catalogs. The office was cluttered, but that was more an effect of
  space than personality. One advantage to its being small was that I
  didn't have much to search.

               254
          GENEROUS DEATH

  I started with the file cabinets and flipped through the folders. They
  only proved the enormity and difficulty of a museum director's job,
  especially in a museum that was shamefully understaffed and underfunded.
  At the Martha Paul, Simon was jack-of-alltrades, but unlike the clichd,
  he was master of some of them. His expertise and love of his work shone
  from the full, professional and well-organized files. Holding them, I
  felt as though I had Simon's heart in my hands. I hoped I wouldn't do
  something stupid to hurt it.
  Like a proper television-trained spy, I invaded his desk next. Nothing
  was locked. More files. More art catalogs. Personnel files on museum
  staff members. A file on The Foundation which contained nothing more
  incriminating than an obscenely funny sketch beside my name. Pens,
  pencils, film. The same tourist magazine guide to New York that I had
  saved from our trip the previous week. Stuck inside was a paper napkin
  from an Italian cafe just off the Bowery, near Soho, with a woman's name
  and phone number scribbled in the comer. Proofs of payment for tax
  purposes, and expense vouchers. Other paper napkins from other cafes and
  bars with other women's names and phone numbers. Simon's version of the
  little black book, I supposed. Loose paper clips, drafts of memos, two
  out-of-date calendars.
  I had a bad moment when there was a knock on Simon's, door. I ducked
  behind his desk, held my breath and waited. Whoever it was called
  "Simon?" once, then went away. I let my breath whoosh out, but it took
  a while longer for my heart to beat again.
  I commanded myself to finish the job; there wasn't much left to search.
  I carefully moved an expensive-
  
               255
          GENEROUS DEATH

 looking camera off a straight-backed chair and leafed through the
 magazines underneath. Nothing. I put the camera back.
  Simon's trenchcoat, left over from the last day of fall, hung on a hook
  on the back side of the door. I fumbled through its pockets, coming up
  only with lint, matches and a couple more napkins with the requisite
  phone numbers. I wondered if he ever followed through. What in heaven's
  name did these women think when he took them back to his apartment for
  the first time? They felt paralyzing shock, probably. Maybe that
  accounted for the fact that I'd never known Simon to have a steady girl.
  They probably took one look at those paintings and sculptures, screamed
  "pervert" and ran back out the door without stopping to discuss redeeming
  social values. I had a feeling that Ginger Culverson would probably at
  least give Simon a chance to explain himselL
  There was nothing more to search except my own brain. And something very
  definitely was nudging me from in there. Something to do with what I'd
  just seen in the bookcases or the desk, something about a magazine, a
  napkin, an alibi. I didn't know what it was yet, but I had a feeling that
  whenever it dawned on me, I wouldn't like it one bit.
 And then suddenly, I had it.
  With fumbling fingers, I dug back into Simon's desk drawer until I found
  the New York City tourist magazine with its advertisements for current
  attractions. I called a phone number in one of those ads and got an
  answer that put a name and face to the vague picture that had been
  ominously building in my mind.
  "Thank you," I said to the helpful person who answered my call, "thank
  you very much." But, in 256
          GENEROUS DEATH

 truth, I wasn't grateful at all-I was shaken, appalled.
 And oddly, still puzzled.
 It made sense now, at least some of it.
 But not all of it.
  I called Geof at the police station and told him what I had found out and
  deduced. "Get out of there," he said harshly, "and call me when you reach
  your office."
 I got out.
  "Jennifer Cain!" The curator of Oriental art almost trod on my foot as
  he rounded the corner. I still had my hand on the doorknob of Simon's
  office.
  "Simon's not there," I said inanely and pointed back over my shoulder at
  the empty room. "I missed him."
 "Ah," he said Orientally.
  "Nice to see you," I lied. I turned quickly toward the exit and escape.
 "I'll tell Simon you dropped by," the curator said.
  "Don't bother!" I said, equally bright and cheery. I signed out, flashed
  my teeth at the guard and steered my shaky legs toward Baby.

  I finally made it to the office, where the mystical grapevine had been
  twining, telling wild tales of the previous day.
  "Jennifer!" Faye's eyes were big with sympathy. "I can't believe somebody
  would try to burn your house down!"
  "Don't believe it," I assured her. "Nobody tried to burn it down, they
  just made a mess of it."
 "Is it related to the murders?" Marvin asked.
"Probably," I said. "Where's Derek?" 257
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Late from lunch." Marv was disapproving. It was obvious that murders and
  mayhem were having serious effects on the discipline and morale of my
  staff. If the murderer wished to harm The Foundation, he was well on his
  way to success. I resolved not to be late or absent in the near future,
  no matter what.
  "Phone for you, Jenny." Faye held out the receiver to me. The look on her
  face gave me a feeling that "no matter what" was about to be tested
  severely.
  "Miss Cain?" The voice was vaguely familiar. Whoever it was had an awful
  cold.
 "Speaking."
 "Hampshire Hospital calling."
 Oh God.
  "'Do you think you could come out here as soon as possible?"
 Oh dear God.
 "What's wrong with my mother?"
  "I don't want to alarm you, Miss Cain, but the doctors feel you might
  want to, well, I'm afraid your mother is, uh . . ."
  I experienced a terrible, traitorous moment of thinking- Please, not yet,
  not now.
 I said, "Is she dying?"
  "Yes, I'm afraid so. I'm so sorry. Can you come out?99
 Mother, don't die yet, I'm coming.
  "Thank you," I remembered to say. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name.99
 "You're welcome, Miss Cain."
 I heard the dial tone.
 The office behind me was repressively quiet.
  I dialed my sister's home, but had to settle for leaving a message with
  the maid: "Please tell Mrs.

               258
          GENEROUS DEATH

 Guthrie her mother is dying. Dying. D-y-i-n-g. Yes, that's right. Thank you.
 I'm sorry, too."
  I debated as to whether or not I should call my father in LosAngeles; and
  decided to wait until after the fact. There was nothing he could do but
  wring his hands and feel guilty. He'd be as helpless now as he'd always
  been.
  I said to Faye, "Call Geof Bushfield at the police station, will you
  please, and tell him where I've gone and why. As for anybody else, it's
  none of their business."
 "Michael Laurence?" inquired Faye, ever hopeful.
  "He won't call," I said. "I think he may have left town already."
  She looked as I imagined Cinderella might have looked if the Prince had not
  shown up with the slipper.
  I didn't have to put my coat back on because I hadn't been in the office
  long enough to take it off. I had my hand on the doorknob when the phone
  buzzed again. I waited long enough for Faye to silently mouth a name at me.
  "Simon Church," her lips informed me. Her hand covered the mouthpiece.
  "Tell him I'll call him back," I said shakily. His call was a remindet of
  that other grim reality-the one in which death arrived via murder, not
  nature. Was I foolish to drive alone to the hospital? Geof might say I was
  and he might insist on a police escort-which is why I had asked Faye to
  call him for me. I couldn't take the time to wait or to argue with him
  because minutes might make the difference between whether or not I got to
  see my mother before she died. Anyway, there wasn't any risk. I knew I'd be
  safe:

               259
          GENEROUS DEATH

 According to the pattern established by the killer, the danger to me lay
 within The Foundation, just as it had lain in wait at the museum for
 Arnie, the theater for Moshe, the Welcome Home for Mrs. Hatch and the
 church for Minnie Mimbs. Death might be waiting for me at the hospital,
 but it wouldn't be my own.
  When I stepped outside, I was shocked to see how late in the day it was.
  It didn't seem possible. Time should have been standing still instead of
  racing toward four-thirty already. By the time I got through rush hour
  traffic and reached the hospital, it would be dark. I hated to make the
  drive back alone at night even under the best of circumstances. Of
  course, there was no guarantee I'd be back before morningMother might
  linger so that I'd need to spend the night or even the next day at the
  hospital. I wished I had a toothbrush with me. I wished I had Geof with
  me. I wished I felt less drained from the emotional traumas of the last
  two days. I wished I was driving my own car and I wished I didn't know
  the terrible things I knew.
  I switched on Baby's radio to a classical station, more for its calming
  than its cultural effects. But the selection on the air was a cacophonous
  screech of hyperactive violins. I fiddled with the dial, but couldn't
  find anything more soothing than a winter storm forecast on one station
  and a jazz trumpet on another. I turned the damned thing off.
  "Well," I said to the car, "it's just you and me and the night, Baby."
  If it snowed hard, I would particularly miss my front-wheel drive. But
  if the storm came in off the ocean, as forecast, it would bring humidity
  that might turn to ice, and there's no car in the world that can handle
  our ice storms.

               260
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "How about a hurricane, God?" I muttered. "Just to top things off, put some
  icing on this miserable cake."

  I was delayed by rush hour fender-benders and a malfunctioning stoplight.
  By the time I finally pulled through the stone gates of Hampshire Hospital,
  it had started to snow. The yellow that glowed from the windows of the
  hospital should have been the archetypal warm beacons in the night; they
  looked sallow and cool instead, and anything but welcoming.
  I walked quickly past the volunteer on duty at the information desk and
  onto the elevator. The hospital had that busy, purposeful air that
  hospitals get around feeding time. Nurses' aides rolled food carts clatter-
  ingly down the long halls. Somewhere, from some room, an old man yelled
  that he was "hungry, dad blame it!" There is, at least, that sort of
  freedom within the prison of senility. A male attendant pushed "4" for me
  and then proceeded to stare fixedly at my feet all the way up. "It's a
  perfect day for bananafish," I said to him in parting. As the elevator
  doors closed on him again, he was still working it out in his mind, having
  evidently never read Salinger. I glanced down at my feet. They were cold
  and drippy from the snow, but they looked all right to me.
  Sometimes, I thought, it is certainly hard to ten the players from the
  fans.
  I waved a small hello to the nurses on duty at the desk. They looked
  surprised that I'd got there so fast, though I thought I'd been fearfully
  slow.
 The door of my mother's room was closed.
 I stood in front of it for a moment and stared at it

               261
          GENEROUS DEATH

 much as the attendant had stared, probably unseeingly, at my feet.
 "Are you Mrs. Cain's daughter?"
  A young male patient appeared at my shoulder and companionably stared at
  the door with me. He couldn't have been more than twenty; he might have
  been the young shuffier I'd seen on one of my earlier Sunday visits. He
  had brown hair that someone had neatly brushed for him and body odor. He
  looked as thoughtful as Einstein.
  "You do not usually come to visit during the week," he observed.
 "No," I said.
  "Usually you come on Sundays and you do not often arrive this late
  atnight."
  "That's true. She's dying." I had a feeling he'd understand better than
  some people.
  "That is true," he agreed seriously. My words sounded odd coming out of
  his mouth. "As are we all. Do you know, I have noticed that very many of
  the people I know tend to die. I wonder sometimes if it has anything to
  do with me."
  "I don't think so," I said gently. "No, I definitely think that is not
  the case." I could have told him that very many of the people I knew
  tended to die, too, but that it didn't have anything to do with me.
 He nodded his chin deep into his chest.
  "Well, at least that is one good thing," he said with great dignity. He
  shuffled off. I opened the door of my mother's room. Someone had turned
  off the lights. That made me angry. I didn't think she should die in the
  dark.
 I flipped the light switch.

               262
 Chapter 30

 God damn you to hell!"
 . The curse hit me just as the lights came on. My nerves were already
 pretty well shot, so it didn't take much more than those hissed words to
 throw me back against the wall. But the shock to my eyes was greater even
 than the shock to my ears.
  As I had expected, my mother lay like death on the bed.
  As I had not expected, someone sat in a chair pulled up to the far side
  of the bed. That someone had jerked her head violently when I entered the
  room. Now her platinum hair lay tangled on her shoulders; her blue eyes
  were rimmed in ugly red and they stared at me with the hopeless, dreadful
  stare of someone who had just glimpsed the black hole of her own soul.
 My sister.
  She repeated the curse. It occurred to me that I'd never before had the
  experience of someone saying

               263
          GENEROUS DEATH

 "God damn you" and meaning it. It was chilling. Before I could react with
 anything more than a shudder of surprise, she bowed her pale head on the
 bed and took up where she had obviously just left off-sobbing.
 "Is she dead?"
  The pale head rose again and the haunted eyes glared at me over the
  covers. "Cut it out, Jennifer, you don't have to play your little game
  anymore."
  "What the hell are you talking about?" I was getting fairly angry myself.
  Our mother lay dead or dying, and Sherry wanted to play hate-your-sibling
  games. I walked quickly into the room, past the door of the private bath,
  toward the bed to see for myself.
 Mother was breathing softly and easily.
  Perhaps, out of compassion, I should have been sorry to see that she
  lived. But I wasn't. I was overwhelmingly, selfishly overjoyed. Her death
  was one blow I wasn't prepared to absorb that day. "She's alive," I think
  I whispered, awed and grateful. "Oh, Sherry, Mother's alive!"
  My sister stood up so abruptly she knocked her chair over backward. "Of
  course she's alive!" she hissed. "You call my house and you say she's
  dying, just to get me out here because you knew what it would do to me.
  . ."
 "Sherry, I didn't. .
  "Well, I don't care if she dies, do you hear that, I don't care! Why
  should I care! Who ever cared about me? You don't know, you don't know
  what it was like. You went off to college and left me alone with a crazy
  mother. Dad left me, you left me, she left me. And they hated us, people
  hated us. You don't know, you don't know what it's like to go to high
  school with

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 kids whose fathers are out of work because of your own dad. You weren't
 there, you don't know . . ."
  She was, without one single doubt, as hysterical as they come, but also
  as close as I'd ever seen her to getting down to bedrock. I stood
  paralyzed, waiting for her hysteria to wind down.
  It never had a chance. As her voice rose to a scream of anger and
  anguish, nurses came running to calm her down. They couldn't have this
  kind of behavior in their hospital, though I wanted to tell them it was
  more healing than many pills they dispensed. In the best melodramatic
  tradition, two attendants held her while a nurse shot her with something
  that knocked her to her knees in a split second. I'd always wondered if
  hypos could really work that fast. For a tempting second I wondered if
  they had a second dose handy for me.
  "We'll take her to a private room, Miss Cain," a nurse informed me
  disapprovingly. "Does she have a husband we should call?"
  Numbly, I gave them the information they wanted and I watched the
  attendants lift my sister and carry her gently from the room.
  I also told the nurses that I had received a phone call from the hospital
  telling me my mother was dying.
  They said in shocked tones that it wasn't true and wasn't it simply awful
  how some people could play such cruel practical jokes? Would I like them
  to call the police and lodge a complaint?
  I turned away from them and gazed out the window of my mother's room and
  saw that the night was very much upon us, as well as the blowing snow
  that pinged like sleet against the glass.

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  Then I looked down at my peaceful mother and realized that I had been
  wrong about what I'd told Geof that day in the carriage in the park in
  New York. What's your passion? he'd said and I had told him it was The
  Foundation. But it wasn't. If I had a passion in life, it was caring for
  and about this woman who had loved me until her body had betrayed her
  mind into forgetting such abstractions as love-and daughter.
  "Yes," I said to the nurses, "it might be a good idea to call the police
  in Port Frederick. Ask for Detective Bushfield, would you please?"
 They left me alone in the room.
  It took me a slow-witted minute to comprehend that being alone in that
  hospital was probably not a very smart idea, not smart at all. A thrill
  of fear propelled me quickly toward the door the nurses had left slightly
  ajar behind them. I ran toward the comfort and safety of the lighted,
  populated hallway.
  As I passed the closed door of the private bath in my mother's room, it
  opened quietly, swiftly.
  Before I could react, I saw the warning of the absurdly tiny barrel of
  the absurdly tiny handgun. It looked for all the world like a child's
  toy, but it wasn't.
  "Shut the door," said Allison Parker, the esteemed director of the
  Welcome Home for Girls, "and turn off the lights."
  She pointed the gun in the direction of my mother's head. I did as I was
  told.

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 Allison Parker? I was stupefied. It was so unlikely, impossible,
 unbelievable that I wanted to laugh. I wanted to reach out my hands and
 say "Very funny, Allison, now give me the toy gun."
  For a moment, we just stood and stared at each other in the faint glow
  of a night light, installed for the safety of patients whose bladders
  called to them in the night.
 She smiled. I didn't.
  "How nice of you to come when you're called," she said, just as if I'd
  responded to a request for a pound of tomatoes and a gallon of milk for
  "her girls." As always, she looked about twelve years old, but a mean
  twelve. It couldn't be Allison Parker-, I knew who the murderer was and
  it wasn't she!
  "Did you kill them?" I said. I was damned if she'd hear my voice shake.
 Her smile was a nasty parody of the one with which

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 she welcomed gifts and visitors to the Welcome Home. "I'll tell you what
 we're going to do," she said. I'd heard her say that very thing any number
 of times to her teenage charges, but never with so much steel behind it.
 "We're going to leave this hospital separately. You will walk out first.
 If anyone asks, you will say you are going to the cafeteria. You will not
 mention me because I will have this gun pointed at your mother until I see
 you drive around and flash your lights twice.
  "You will wait for me in your car. You will not try to escape because if
  you do, I will immediately come back up here and kill her. I'm afraid I
  took a bus out, so I'll have to ride with you,, Jennifer."
 "Where are we going?"
 Shelaughed.
  "Your sister made it plain where you're going," she said, "but that's for
  later. First, you're going to your car. I'll give you two minutes to do
  it. Any longer and she's dead."
  One hundred and twenty seconds gave me barely enough time to walk quickly
  down the hall, run down the stairs rather than wait for an elevator, open
  and start my car, drive around and flash my lights. It didn't give me
  enough time to write a note, whisper for help, call the police or fumble
  my keys.
 She opened the door for me.
  My muscles tensed with the knowledge that I could throw myself at her and
  her gun. But she anticipated my martyrdom.
  "No, no, no," she simpered and leveled the gun once more in the single
  direction where I was most vulnerable: at my mother. "Your time starts
  now, Jennifer."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  I stepped into the bright hallway, quickened my pace and didn't look back.
  I could almost appreciate the irony of the fact that I might, after all,
  never see my mother alive again. It also occurred to me that the situation
  had the makings of a good news/bad news joke.
 The good news was that it wasn't Simon after all.

  The snow that had sounded like sleet was sleet. Baby was already lightly
  iced, causing the door to jam for a heart-stopping moment until I finally
  and frantically jerked it open. There weren't enough of my one hundred and
  twenty seconds left to scrape off the windshield, so I had to drive blindly
  to the side of the hospital where I knew my mother's room was. I flashed
  the headlights.
  In the time it took Allison to join me, Baby's massive heating system had
  warmed the interior of the car and melted the outer ice sufficiently for me
  to see to drive.
  I knew the winding two-lane highway would be a slick sheet of danger. With
  any luck, I thought grimly, maybe we'd slide off the road into a tree,
  conveniently killing her without harming me. Such is the stuff of futile
  fantasy. I did not dare to instigate a crash because, on the ice, there was
  no guarantee the car would land where I wanted it to. If we plowed into a
  ditch-and I did survive the crash-I could freeze to death before the road
  crews discovered us in the morning.
  I decided to try to navigate the roads so that we got wherever it was that
  Allison wanted us to go alive, and then I'd figure out my escape. I'd
  always wondered how I'd react if a rapist, say, kidnapped me and forced

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 me at gun or knife point to drive him somewherewould I acquiesce and hope
 for the best or would I fight?
  Well, I had the answer to that question if not to some others. I wasn't
  about to let her kill me. She'd have to claw for the opportunity. As she
  and her deadly little friend climbed into the car, I was no longer merely
  frightened. I was also mad as hell.
 How dare she.
 "Which direction?"
  "Port Frederick. You're going home for the last time, Jennifer Cain."
  "Screw you." My peripheral vision told me she looked a little surprised;
  she must have expected me to be more intimidated. It was a stupid thing
  to say, of course, though it felt wonderful to say it. I knew I shouldn't
  put her on her guard by acting aggressive-, I should play the meek victim
  so she'd be surprised by my attack when I finally made one. I was
  starting to feel sure of myself, as if all future surprises would be on
  my side.
 More fool 1.
  However, my delusions of power steadied me during the hazardous,
  half-blind drive back to town. Maybe I should have tried to get her to
  talk, to establish a rapport with her, as they say, but I'm no
  psychologist.
 I just drove.
  She just silently pointed the gun, and smiled that dreadful parody of her
  Welcome, Home smile.
  I surmised that Allison had killed Florence Hatch to get the bequest for
  the home and secure her own job ... the other killings must have been a
  cover for that sole intent. There was probably some simple 270
          GENEROUS DEATH

 explanation for how she lured Mrs. Hatch to her death, but I couldn't
 figure out how Allison managed to kill Arnie Culverson at the museum or
 how shewiry but tiny-had the brute strength to manhandle Minnie Mimbs; at
 the church.
  But what puzzled me most was the feeling of, well, overkill. Surely she
  didn't have to kill four people just to camouflage one murder. It seemed
  like a lot of unnecessary trouble and danger to me-even given Allison's
  reputation as a workaholic. Maybe, in the best classic tradition of
  last-minute braggadocio, she'd tell me all about it before she shot me:
  The good news is I'll tell you how and why I did it, the bad news is
  these are the last words you'll ever hear.
 "Turn left."
  We'd reached the outskirts of Poor Fred. My shoulders ached from the
  effort of keeping Baby on the road, my eyes stung from the strain of
  squinting through the falling snow. But I did as I was told through
  several left and right turns. She was clever to keep me guessing block
  by block-I couldn't devise a plan of escape if I couldn't think more than
  half a block ahead at a time.
  My worst moment was the one when I realized that Geof didn't know I had
  rented a wreck, much less what make or model. If he sent the police out
  for me, as he surely would, he wouldn't know where to look or what kind
  of car to look for. That moment of dreadful awareness was so bad I lost
  my concentration and very nearly drove us into a ditch after all.
 All things considered, I wish I had.

 We reached our destination.
As directed, I rolled Baby over the snow into the 271
          GENEROUS DEATH

 dark parking lot, stopped the car near the door and turned off the motor.
 I stared straight ahead at the building to which Allison had brought
 me-the Martha Paul Frederick Museum of Fine Art.
 What in the world?
  Maybe she was going to duplicate her murder of Arnie Culverson, using me
  as leading lady? Like hell she was. I knew this building as well as I
  knew The Foundation offices and that was one small fact to my advantage.
  I intended to use it for all it was worth.
  "I'll tell you what we're going to do," she said once more. I stared at
  the building. The only lights shone from the south entrance-the staff
  door-where the night guard kept watch. At intervals he would roam the
  building-inside and out-looking for just such intruders as we. I
  certainly hoped he found us.
 "Look at me."
 I made my movements calm and deliberate.
  "My, aren't we displaying grace under pressure," she sneered. "I'll enjoy
  seeing that famous poise crumble. And it will." She laughed. "Oh, it most
  certainly will."
 "Please . . ." I made the mistake of saying.
  "Please?" Her eyes glowed as if I'd said the magic word and won the
  money. "Oh no, Jennifer, I'm the one who always says please, aren't I?
  Please and thank you and oh, I'm just so very grateful and bh, aren't you
  sweet to be so generous and thank you, thank you, thank you!" Her small,
  high voice rose in pitch and volume with each bitter, gneering, phrase
  until it filled the car with bile.
  "Do you know, Jennifer," she said, "that in the Far East, if a Buddhist
  wants to comprehend the American psyche, he sets himself the task of
  saying a certain 272
          GENEROUS DEATH

 mantra over and over. And do you know what that mantra is? It consists of
 the words 'thank you, please, excuse me,' Over and over again, the
 Buddhist repeats that American catechism. And thus he enters the soul of
 America.
  "That makes me the archetypal American, wouldn't you say? I've been
  saying please and thank you all my goddamn life. And of course, I'm
  always saying excuse me in case I happen to offend the delicate
  sensibilities of the rich. You know the rules of charity, Jennifer-never
  say what you think, never say what you feet. Just smile and smile and say
  please and thank you and oh, I'm so very sorry, I didn't mean to offend."
 She smiled that terrible smile again.
  "Excuse me, Miss Cain, but won't you please get out of the car? Thank you
  so very much."
  She was full to sickness with the bitter taste of begging. It didn't,
  somehow, seem the appropriate moment to point out to her that she had
  chosen her profession, that other more healthy personalities knew how to
  ask without begging, that for every donor who demanded eternal gratitude
  there were others who gave willingly from the heart, sometimes without
  even being asked. Nor did I suggest that she stop to consider the lack
  of proven and workable alternatives to our social and economic systems.
  Perceptive as I am, I sensed she was not in the mood.

  She continued to issue her instructions only one step ahead at a time.
  It was unnerving, effective.
"We'll walk to the staff entrance now." 273
          GENEROUS DEATH

  When we stood there, with her so close I could feel the gun in my spine,
  she said, "Ring the bell."
  "Why, Miss Cain!" the old guard exclaimed when he answered my summons.
  "Whatever brings you out to see us on such a night?" He glanced curiously
  at my companion.
  "I'm Allison Parker," she surprised me by saying, "the director of the
  Welcome Home for Girls." I could hear in her voice the deceiving smile on
  her face. "Do you think we could come in? It's awftdly cold out here."
  "Of course, of course." He shuffled out of our way. As we followed him into
  the anteroom, he turned his back on us in order to open the inner door.
  We followed him past that barrier. I automatically started to walk toward
  the log book where visitors always sip in. But that unthinking movement on
  my part separated me from Allison, who stood behind me, so that when the
  old man turned around he saw the gun.
 She shot him.
 Just like that. Bang, you're dead.
  He hadn't even had time to change the expression on his face from startled
  to afraid. No wonder she hadn't cared whether he knew her name. No wonder
  she'd marched so boldly into the museum. It was easy to get past a guard;
  all one had to do was kill him.
  She got one of her wishes, too: My poise collapsed into a horrified, craven
  puddle of terror and shock. "Nol" I screamed, and it was only the sight of
  the little gun pointed once more at me that shut my mouth on hysteria.
 "Simon's office," she said.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  The corridor was black. I made my way by memory and feel. It was
  childhood's worst fears come to life-fumbling down blind hallways, scared
  of the bogeyman who will grab you in the dark.
  The bogeyman walked behind me with her left hand on my shoulder and her gun
  in my spine again. I understood then how mesmerizing and controlling even
  the smallest barrel of a gun can be. I cursed myself for a fool, knowing
  that by safely driving us here I had probably squandered my only chances
  for escape.
  In addition to all of which I had suddenly begun to take Allison Parker
  very seriously indeed. Excuse me if I have ever offended you, I wanted to
  beg of her, please don't kill me, thank you very much.
  A faint light shone around the edges of Simon's closed office door on the
  north side of the building. How typical of him, I thought irrelevantly.
  Childishly, irresponsibly, he seldom remembered to turn off the lights when
  he left a room.
 "Go in."
 I threw open the door.
  Simon Church raised his head from where it had been lying on top of his
  crossed arms on top of his desk and sleepily rubbed his eyes.
 "Jenny!" he said and yawned. "You're late."

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 Just in case he had some innocent reason for being there and for expecting
 me, I acted quickly to prevent a repeat of the tragedy at the staff
 entrance.
  "She has a gun!" I shouted at him. "She killed Max!" I was still standing
  right in front of her, she'd have to shoot through me to get Simon.
  Behind me, she took the steam out of my drama by laughing-possibly as
  much at my bravado as at the bewildered look on Simon's face. She said
  contemptuously, "I'm not going to shoot him, Jennifer. You can go in."
  With a sharp nudge of the gun on the back side of my ribs, she suggested
  I get a move on.
 Finally he saw who she was and what she held.
  "Allison Parker?" He was all incredulous disbelief, just as I had been,
  and it looked as real as mine. But he didn't look nearly so sleepy now.
  "Is this a joke, Allison? No, it can't be a joke. You don't have a sense
  of humor."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "She killed them," I said shrilly, panicky. My knees gave way and dropped
  me into the only other chair. "Arnie, Moshe, Mrs. Hatch . . ."
  His eyes filled with comprehension and astonishment.
  "I'll be damned," he breathed, "so you're the one. Oh, that's wicked,
  Allison, you are a nasty, wicked bitch.")
  She grinned as if she were quite enjoying herself. And 1-1 was filled
  with remorse for ever having suspected my friend Simon. Because that's
  exactly who I had suspected after my search of his office and it was
  Simon's name that I had presented to Geof on an incriminatory platter.
  What had I done to Simon's good name and reputation? How could I have
  been so stupid as to add two and two and come up with five?
  He never took his eyes off her as he said, "I got a call from your
  office, Jenny, about four-thirty. I thought it was Faye with a cold. She
  said you had something important to tell me about Arnie Culverson's death
  and you wanted to meet me here at eight. I don't suppose you know
  anything about that call?"
  "No," I said angrily, "but you might be interested to know that I got a
  similar call, supposedly from the hospital. My mother was dying, they
  said; would I come at once, they said."
 His eyes flicked to me and then back to her.
  "Pull the wings off flies, do you, Allison? I suppose you drown puppies
  and kitties, too?"
  "Self-righteous, aren't we?" she purred. Then, viciously: "You want to
  compare sins, Simon? Then we'll see who gets to throw the first stonel"
 This was too much for me.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "For God's sake, don't pretend you're no worse than anyone else,
  Allison!" I was thoroughly sickened by her murderous, self-deceiving
  egotism. "Youyou've killed three people and you tried to kill Minnie .
  . ."
  Silence grew large and heavy in the small room. She didn't respond to my
  outburst-I might as well not have been there and certainly I wished I
  weren't-but only smirked infuriatingly at Simon.
  "You wanted the bequest from the will," he said accusingly, petulantly.
  "Of course," she said. "She strung us along for years with hints of all
  the money she'd leave us if we were good little Christian girls. I did
  everything but get down on my knees and beg for that money. I curtseyed,
  I wagged my tail, I debased myself to that stupid woman." Allison's face
  darkened, suffused by the ugly red hate that ran through her like thick
  blood. "One week she'd say she would leave it all to us; the next week
  she'd get mad about some slight and she'd threaten to cut us off . . ."
  I could well imagine it. As I'd told Geof, Florence Hatch was a wonderful
  woman, but ...
  "So when she finally, actually wrote a will," Simon said slowly,
  obviously thinking out loud, "you didn't want to miss your chance at
  last."
  "She could have changed her mind," Allison said defensively. "And she
  would have, again and again!"
  "And," Simon drawled, "you couldn't take the chance that she might die
  during one of those weeks when she'd decided to cut you off without the
  proverbial cent." He seemed almost to empathize with her while also
  loathing her.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "Well, you know how it is with philanthropists, Simon," she smirked. "We
  live for the day they die, don't we!"
 A look of sheer disgust crossed his face.
  "But the others!" I burst out against all known better judgment. "Why did
  you have to kill the others? And why me, why my parents' house?"
  The loaded, threatening silence descended for a heartbeat. I thought I'd
  pushed her too far.
  "'But Jenny," she said finally. Quietly. Horribly sweet and unctuous. "I
  didn't . . . "
  Simon seized the opportunity of her looking away from him to lunge
  violently across his desk. She stopped him with a single bullet that
  creased the back of his chair and missed his neck by millimeters.
 "Down," she said as to a dog.
 Wisely, he obeyed.
  Her glance at me was briefer this time. She wouldn't make that mistake
  again; if we wanted to distract her, we'd have to do a smarter job of it.
  "As I was saying," she continued smoothly, "I killed dear generous Mrs.
  Charles Withers Hatch, yes. And I killed Moshe Cohen, by dropping the
  drug in his wine at the cocktail party before the premiere. It was so
  easy! And there was such a crowd, nobody saw me slip the verse in his
  pocket."
  "But he might not have died," I said. "What if the medicine hadn't worked
  the way you thought it would? What if he hadn't died, or he hadn't died
  at the theater?"
  "That wasn't important," she surprised me by saying. "If he died, fine.
  If not, at least it would look as if somebody had tried to kill him. And
  when the cops found the verse I hid in the bed where Arnie Culver-
  
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 son's body was found, they'd think somebody killed him, too."
  Simon looked suddenly as if he might be sick. I felt like gagging myself.
  "And all that was only prelude to the murder of Mrs. Hatch?" I tried to
  keep my voice calm and nonjudgmental as if we were only discussing some
  clever thing she'd done. I was trying to fit all the pieces together. I
  was also trying to figure out some plan of attack and escape. And I
  wasn't yet succeeding at either effort.
  "She had to die," Allison agreed as if it were the most reasonable
  conclusion in the world. "And quickly, before she changed her stupid mind
  again."
 "How?" Simon sounded strangled.
  "How did I do it?" The smirk was back, that insufferable, maddening,
  terrifying smirk. She was so proud of herself. "I'm certainly glad you
  asked that question." She giggled. "See? You're wrong, Simon, I do have
  a sense of humor."
  She told us-with great pleasure-how she and the house parents had taken
  the girls to their regular Sunday night movie. Allison made sure they
  arrived late at a popular show so they'd have to split up their group and
  take separate seats in different parts of the theater. No one noticed as
  she sat down on the aisle in the rear. When the lights went off, she
  walked out. She knew Mrs. Hatch was attending a meeting that night, so
  she called and got her patron summoned to the phone. They must talk
  immediately, Allison said, about an urgent and confidential crisis at the
  home. She convinced the older woman to let Allison pick her up, promising
  to get her back to her meeting as soon as possible. Allison drove her to
  a secluded street 280
          GENEROUS DEATH

 where nobody would notice or remember the car, and fed her lies and doped
 coffee until Mrs. Hatch fell heavily asleep. Then Allison- drove back to the
 theater, left Mrs. Hatch lying on the front seat under a blanket, and
 returned to her seat in time to leave with the others. The usher thought
 she'd only been to the restroom, if in fact he noticed little Allison at
 all. The girls all rode back in the van-as she knew they'd want to do-while
 Allison followed behind with her doomed cargo.
  Later that same night she crept out of the home, woke Mrs. Hatch
  sufficiently to get the poor woman to stumble to the abandoned
  refrigerator, opened its door, sat Mrs. Hatch down, shoved the rest of her
  in and closed the door. Sleep turned to suffocation and then to death.
  "She'd been in my car dozens of times," Allison said, "so I didn't care if
  she left strands of hair or fabric behind her."
 So easy, neat and horrible.
  "That explains Florence Hatch and Moshe Cohen," I said hoarsely. "But what
  about Arnie Culverson ... and Minnie Mimbs ... and me?"
  "Good question," she said softly. "Maybe one of you would like to make a
  dying man's confession. Jenny? Or Simon, how about you?"
  He laughed at her, but not convincingly. His normal ruddy complexion had
  paled beneath the black, late-night stubble on his cheeks, neck and chin.
 "Am I a dying man?" he said.
 "Oh yes," she murmured, "yes, of course you are."
 "Are you going to shoot me?"
 "Heavens no, Simon."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

 "How then?" he insisted.
  "Well," she drawled, "let's just say it will be different from the way
  I'll kill Jenny."
 My heart lurched out of control.
  "And how will you do that, Allison?" Simon's voice and eyes were watchful
  now, alert for another opportunity to disarm her.
  "By giving you your fondest wish, Simon," she said sweetly. "Of course
  the shame of it is that you won't be here to enjoy its fulfillment."
 I had a hideous feeling I knew what she meant.
  "I'm going to give you a new museum, Simon," she said. "I know how
  desperately you want one, everybody knows that, so I'm going to do you
  a favor and bum this old place down. . . "
  "No!" Simon and I were on our feet at once, together.
 "Sit down, children."
 We fell back into our chairs.
  "When they find what remains of you," she continued, "they'll say you
  tried to start a little fire, Simon, just a little arson that would
  damage this place just enough so there'd be no choice but to build a new
  museum. Unfortunately, the fire got away from you and-well, it's a pity,
  they'll say."
  "My paintings!" His anguish was painful to hear. I felt its echo deep in
  my own soul. "My sculpture! You'll destroy centuries of art-no!"
  "How will they account for my body?" I said.
  "Oh, easily." Her smile was sugared ice. "You see, they'll guess that
  Simon lured you over here and then killed you, leaving your body in the
  fire where he could later claim you died accidentally."

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  "That doesn't make sense, Allison," I objected. "Why would anyone
  think that Simon would want to kill me?"
 She gazed almost kindly upon him.
  And he-that great, handsome, infuriating, childish, brilliant bear of
  a man-began to cry. Violently. Appallingly. Revealingly.

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 When he finally spoke, it was in the dull dead monotone of the defeated. His
 body, even the flesh of his heavy face, slumped.
  "How did you know?" he begged piteously, though there was no pity in that
  room. "How'd you know I killed Arnie?"
 I bent over and buried my face in my hands.
  "I didn't at first," she told him. "The newspapers said it was suicide and
  the police said so too. But then I began to hear people gossip about how
  strange it was that he, of all people, would do that. At the time, it just
  sort of passed through my mind that maybe he'd been murdered.
  "But I didn't give it another thought-until dear Mrs. Hatch told me she'd
  finally written her will. I knew I'd have to kill her if I wanted to be
  sure of getting that money, but I'd need a good cover. That's

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 when I really began to think about Arnie Culverson's death and how easily
 it could be made to look like murder."
  "You still didn't know?" he said in horrified disbelief. "You mean you
  just decided to make it look like murder?"
  "Bad luck for you, Simon," she laughed. "I decided that what I had to do
  was plant an obvious clue-like a note-to point toward murder. Then, I
  thought, what if a second philanthropist were to die in a similar way ...
  same drug, a note. And then I could kill Florence Hatch and it would just
  look like one of a series of related murders of philanthropists."
 "The hypertension pills," Simon said dully.
  "My aunt takes them," Allison smirked. "I used hers."
  "And the notes," he moaned, "those goddamn stupid poems."
  "In the best classic tradition, wouldn't you say?" She was highly amused.
  "Well, I had to think of some obvious gimmick, didn't IT'
  "You planted that note in the testered bed where I left Arnie." Simon was
  barely audible.
  "I wish I could have seen your face when that janitor brought it in to
  you! Oh my that's so funny! If I'd only known what I was doing to you!
  And you had to call the police, didn't you, because the janitor had seen
  that poem."
  "They didn't know!" he suddenly cried out, wringing his hands in futile
  anguish. "They'd never have proved it was murder if it hadn't been for
  you!"
  "And I still didn't know you'd really killed him," she said wonderingly.
  "Don't you think that's funny, Simon? Even then, I didn't know you'd
  killed him." 285
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  It was very hot in that awful room and suddenly I grew aware of the fact
  that I'd never removed my coat. Moving slowly so as not to alarm Allison,
  I unwound the scarf at my neck and then shrugged out of my coat and jacket.
  She supervised my every move as if she suspected I might have a submachine
  gun hidden in a pocket.
 "Comfy now?" she cooed.
  I looked uneasily from murderer number one to murderer number two; all it
  needed was a third and we'd have set the scene for Macbeth.
  "Arnie Culverson, Moshe Cohen, Florence Hatch," I murmured. "Three of the
  Big Five. . ."
  "Well, yes," she said modestly, "it had occurred to me that would make a
  lovely pattern."
  Simon lifted his body heavily out of his chair and leaned his weight on his
  knuckles on his desk top. For the first time a glimmer of fight showed in
  his eyes. "You screwed things up for me, Allisonl" he said loudly.
  "Everything would have been all right if you hadn't got them thinking
  murder!"
  "Well you didn't exactly make life easy for me either, you bastard!" she
  screamed at him, shocking me out of my fog.
  It was his turn for -mocking laughter and he threw it at her enraged little
  face.
  "You didn't like it when I played your game, did you, Allison love? I don't
  see why you should mind, dear ... I played by your rules, didn't l?"
  "Why couldn't you leave it alone?" she screamed at him. "Why'd you have to
  try to kill Minnie Mimbs?"
  They didn't even hear me moan. I might as well not have been there; this
  was a killer duet.
 Simon managed a crooked grin.

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  "You put me behind the eight ball, Allison. When I heard how Moshe Cohen
  and Florence Hatch died, it was real clear to me that somebody was using
  Arnie's death to cover another purpose. And that put me in real danger
  because if the cops tried hard enough, they might prove I killed Arnie.
  I didn't have an alibi for that night ... and I was at the cocktail party
  when you doped Moshe. So it was obvious to me that I had to take matters
  into my own hands again. If somebody was killing the Big Five, I was
  going to have to have perfect alibis for the last two deaths. And the
  only way to manage that was to kill Minnie and Jenny myself."
 "Oh, Simon," I choked. "Oh, Simon."
  He turned his face toward me but he didn't seem to recognize me as anyone
  he knew.
 "The holograph," I stuttered, "and the rental car."
  "How the hell did you figure that out?" he said harshly.
  "I was here this afternoon, Simon," I said weakly. "See, my car's in the
  shop and the only place I could find a rental car was at Lease-A-Lump."
  He closed his eyes and shook his head as if he couldn't believe his own
  bad luck. Allison had a most interested expression on her face. I said,
  "And the car they gave me is the one you had leased. The woman told me
  you'd said you needed a car because your own was being fixed, but I'd
  seen you driving your car that day you brought Derek to work . . ."
 His eyes still closed, he smiled slightly.
  "I thought you might know whether Minnie was supposed to live or die,"
  he said, "and I wanted to know if she was under guard. . ."
  "Which information I helpfully volunteered," I said in disgust. "Well,
  when I realized you had lied

               287
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 about your car, I got a funny feeling-1 don't know, I just got worried
 because I'd known all along that you could have killed Arnie, and I-well,
 I drove right over here."
  Where I had noticed the books on photography, including several on the
  subject of holography. And a napkin from a cafe near Soho where the
  Museum of Holography happens to be located. And a tourist magazine where
  I had noticed an ad listing the hours the museum was open. And a camera
  that reminded me of the photography show Simon had been putting together
  for the museum.
 "What the hell is holography?" Allison said.
  "It's a three-dimensional image," I said tiredly, "projected into space
  by means of laser light waves. Ever been to Disney World, Allison?" She
  nodded, but suspiciously, as if she thought I was making fun of her. "Did
  you visit the haunted house?" I said, while Simon folded his hands on his
  stomach and smiled smugly. She nodded again. "Well, then," I said, "you
  probably remember the 'ghosts,' don't you?"
 "That's a holo ... hoga. . ."
  "Hologram," Simon pedantically corrected her. "Yes, as Jennifer said,
  it's a three-dimensional image that can be projected into space so it
  looks like a real person. Holograms can be made into, well, movies, so
  the images look for all the world like real people moving about the room.
  I've been working with the people at the Holography Museum in New York
  City, putting together a demonstration of the art for my photography
  show."
  "And I'll bet," I said, "that one of the holograms you put together just
  happened to be a threedimensional movie of you working at your desk in
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          GENEROUS DEATH

 your office. So if a guard just happened to walk by outside, he'd see
 you-or what looked like you-bent over your desk. Really, Simon," I said
 wryly, "I'll bet it's brilliant. I'd love to see it sometime."
  "Do come to the show," he said and grinned at me, seeming to forget for
  the moment that he and I had a new, as it were, relationship.
  "Gee, you'll have to miss it, Jenny," Allison said, and Simon's face
  turned ashen again. "You, too, Simon. But while you're boasting, do tell
  us why you needed a rental car."
  He slumped back in his chair again, the spark of defiance having slipped
  away with the reminder of what she planned for him and his beloved
  museum.
  "I had to get to and from the Episcopal church," he said, "without being
  recognized. And I had to leave my car in the parking lot here so the
  guard would think I was still here. I fixed the burglar alarm on one of
  the windows and just climbed in and out as I pleased."
  "So you finally had a perfect alibi," Allison smirked, "but hardly a
  perfect murder. Minnie Mimbs is going to live, you know. Who knows? Maybe
  right this very minute, she's telling how you tried to kill her. And
  won't that fit in nicely with my plans for you."
  Defeat settled deeper and more visibly into Simon's body, his face, eyes,
  voice. Plainly, she enjoyed his misery and was in no hurry to end it. But
  then why should she? No one in the world knew we were there or for what
  deadly purpose.
  "Why didn't you leave a note with Minnie's body?" she asked. They seemed
  so interested in each other's technique; but then experts in a given
  field do like to 289
          GENEROUS DEATH

 exchange trade secrets. "You knew about my little rhymes. 9$
  Wearily, he told her how he knew he couldn't have duplicated the
  typewriting or style of thought. And rather than take the chance that the
  police might begin to suspect the existence of two murderers, he omitted
  that one part of her pattern.
  'The verse in my car," I blurted out, "did you leave it there, Simon? Did
  you mean to kill me the same night you tried to kill Minnie?"
  "What verse?" His eyes slid a surprised look toward me before they
  skittered quickly away again. He didn't seem to be able to look at me
  anymore. "Nol I didn't try to kill you, Jenny, I couldn't, I . . ."
  "I left that note," Allison cut in coldly. "Actually, I hadn't planned
  to kill anybody else after I killed Moshe Cohen and Mrs. Hatch. I thought
  that would be sufficient to confuse the police. But I did want the police
  to be sure to keep looking to all of the Big Five for a motive, rather
  than to any single victim for a specific motive. So I decided I'd make
  it look as if Jenny and Minnie were threatened. I thought that would be
  enough, I thought that then my job would be done and that would be all
  I'd have to do."' Momentarily, she looked furious with him and for a
  terrible instant I was sure it was all over. But she must have wanted to
  prolong her triumph, because she swallowed her fury. The smirk returned.
  "Don't you want to know how I figured it was you, Simonr she taunted him.
  "When I read that somebody had attacked Minnie, I knew somebody was
  trying to use my pattern. I had to get control of things again before
  whoever it was inadvertently incriminated me. So I decided I'd have to
  kill Jenny." If there 290
          GENEROUS DEATH

 was regret in her voice, I didn't hear it. "I started looking for an
 opportunity," she explained coolly. "I knew I'd never get her alone at The
 Foundation, so I drove by her house every night, but she was never
 there."'
 I'd been at Geof's, of course, thank goodness.
  "Well, when I was driving by one Saturday night, I saw that dear Jenny
  had a visitor. . ."
 "Oh shit," Simon said, almost like his old self.
  "Iliere was enough light reflected from the snow that I was able to
  recognize you," she said. "I was curious. It was obvious that Jenny
  wasn't home, and yet you went up to the door and didn't come back down
  the walk for a long time . . ."
  "Simon, how could you do that to me?" My voice shook as I confronted him
  with my memory of his sadistic labors. "How could you . .
 Stiff, he wouldn't look at me.
  "'Consider the alternative, Jenny," he said. "I might have killed you,
  you know. I couldn't bring myself to do that, but I had to make it look
  as if there'd been some sort of attack on you or your property. Nothing
  personal, you understand, love."
  'Nothing personal!" I flew out of my chair toward him and screamed at his
  averted face. "Nothing personal, you rotten son of a bitchl What about
  my mother's china, what about her clothes and her rug that you unraveled,
  what about the clam sculpture, what about the baby shoes you, oh Jesus,
  Simon, is
 YOU ...
  He did look at me then. His expression was one of bewildered, wounded
  innocence.
  "Huh?" he said and then we saw awareness in each otheeseyes and we turned
  as one toward Allison.

               291
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "So I finished the job for him," she shrugged. "So what?"
  "Why?" I screamed and Simon grabbed my wrists to keep me from lunging at
  her and bringing instant death down upon both of us. "What have I done
  to you? Why, why?"
  The little hand holding the little gun began to shake. I watched,
  mesmerized, as the trembling crept from her hand through her entire arm,
  into her shoulders, down her body. She shook as if she were in the grip
  of a fever, she shook as if she were convulsing and the 'gun began to
  slide around in the air, pointing wildly now at Simon, now at me, now at
  nothing.
  "Stop!" Simon howled at her, terrified the gun would go off in her
  shaking hand. "For God's sake, stop!V)
  As abruptly as it started, the violent shaking stopped, leaving her
  coated in sweat and staring wildly at us-no, not at us, at me.
  "My father," she whispered. "My father's name was Charles Parker, but you
  wouldn't know that, would you, Jennifer? He was just another little man
  canning clams."
  "Oh my dear lord." I sank into the chair again. Instantly, I understood
  the source of her hatred.
  "He worked for Cain Clams for thirty-two years, Jennifer, but you
  wouldn't know that, would you? And he was going to retire, but when your
  father took the money and ran there wasn't even any pension fund left,
  was there, but you wouldn't know that, would you?"
 "I know! I'm so sorry, I .
  "Sorry! You don't know sorry yet, you don't know it at all! My mother
  died that year, you do know that, I

             . 292
          GENEROUS DEATH

 put that much on my rdsumd. And then Dad lost his job and his pension and
 he left us and they split up us kids and I had to start begging, Jennifer,
 just like I always had to beg from The Foundation. Just like I had to beg
 from Mrs. Hatch. Thank you, please, excuse me, thank you, please, excuse
 me . . ."
  "Allison . . ." But there was absolutely nothing I could say-, what had
  happened to her father and her family was a terrible thing and it was my
  father's fault. And no amount of good works on my part would satisfy her
  lust for revenge. It didn't matter that it wasn't my fault. I was a Cain.
  And worse than that, I was someone else to whom she'd debased herself
  with hypocritical gratitude.
  Somehow, from some inner source of bitter strength, she pulled herself
  together. With one last look of vengeful triumph, she turned away from
  me and leveled her eyes and her gun at Simon once again.
  "This morning," she said curtly, "I learned that you were said to have
  been at the museum all Saturday night and I was the only person in the
  world who knew that wasn't true. That's when I figured it out, Simon,
  that's when I knew you were the one who'd attacked Minnie because you had
  the same alibi for that night, too. And the only possible reason for you
  to follow my pattern was if you had killed Arnie Culverson here at the
  museum that night. You had something to cover up, and that was it."
  "He came to me in my office that night," Simon said, looking off into a
  painful space of memories. "And he told me he was going to write the
  museum out of his will. I didn't know he'd already done it; I guess he
  didn't have the nerve to tell me that much. I thought my only chance was
  for him to die before he 293
          GENEROUS DEATH

 could write the new will. So I killed him. We got in an argument. He got
 a migraine. He took some of his pills and when I saw the bottle, I knew
 that's how I could kill him. He took off his coat because he was hot and
 he went to the bathroom. I emptied the pills out into my hand and I
 dropped them in a glass of wine. They'd dissolved by the time he came
 back. I said to him, I said, It's okay, Arnie, let's be friends again,
 let's have a drink on it. And we did. And all I had to do was wait for him
 to get drowsy. So I said, Let's take a walk, Arnie, I want to show you
 something in the Chinese Wing. And we sat on the testered bed and talked
 until he got drowsy and then he went into a stupor. And I put him on the
 bed and I went back down and got that damn comforter and pillow and I
 fixed him up on the bed and I wiped my fingerprints off the pill bottles
 and put the bottles in his hand so his prints would be on them again. And
 I thought I'd saved the museum."
 Simon smiled gently into space.
  "I've received a fair number of shocks recently, ladies," he said. "But
  I suppose the worst was that morning Jenny came to my office and told me
  there was a new will and we weren't in it."
  Quietly, he crossed his arms on his desk top, lay his head on them and
  gave up.
  "Don't go to sleep, Simon," Allison chided him. "I'll tell you what we're
  going to do. Get up."
 He did, in slow motion.
  I wondered if he could-would-help me if I made a move to escape. I was
  not so stupid that I failed to appreciate the danger to myself now from
  him as well as from her. If we got rid of Allison, we'd still face each
  other, Simon and I, he with his guilt and I with my knowledge of his
  guilt. Would his meager supply 294
          GENEROUS DEATH

 of scruples survive a second test with my life? Or would I have another
 killer from whom to run-my good friend, Simon Church?
  "You too." She was beginning to treat me cavalierly, like the dispensable
  commodity I was to her. "Up.99
  She directed us, step by excruciatingly terrifying step, into the guard
  room.
 Simon saw the dead guard.
  He didn't speak, but just sagged further into his bones. I knew then he
  would be useless to me; the enormity of the chain of events he had
  triggered had caught up with him and overwhelmed him. I didn't think he
  consciously wanted to die, but I couldn't think of a single reason why
  Simon might want to live.
  While those thoughts skittered around my brain, Allison lit a cigarette.
  I had a wild image of her blindfolding us, tying our hands behind our
  backs and giving us one last puff before she blew our brains out. But she
  was not so fanciful; simple arson was her plan. On the floor, there was
  a small pile, of trash which the guard had evidently been in the act of
  sweeping into a dustpan when we interrupted him permanently. She dropped
  the lit cigarette and the burning match onto the trash. Then she lit the
  other matches in the book and tossed them into a wastebasket close by a
  neat stack of old newspapers. She didn't care if it looked like arson;
  she wanted it to look deliberately set.
  "1911 tell you what we're going to do," she said calmly. 1619M going to
  shoot Jennifer. Or, would you rather do it, Simon? No? Oh, that's right,
  you don't have the stomach for killing dear Jenny. Well, that's all
  right, I'll do it. And then, Simon, I'm awfully sorry 295
          GENEROUS DEATH

 but I'm afraid that for this plan of mine to work, you're simply going to
 have to burn to death." He stared at the dead guard; he didn't seem to hear
 her sentence of death. "Or," she smiled, "if you're lucky, maybe smoke
 inhalation will get you. Either way, when they find you, they'll think you
 got hoist by your own petard."
  I wondered-in the middle of my own sudden desperation-how she thought she'd
  get him to submit to such horror; maybe she'd knock him out before she
  escaped, put his fingerprints on the gun, toss it beside his body and leave
  him to the flames. It wouldn't be hard for her to do, not in the
  mesmerized, submissive state to which she had reduced him.
  Her gun, which had been leveled at a midway point between Simon and me,
  moved slightly in my direction. On the floor, the trash threw off burning
  sparks; the flames in the wastebasket tickled the newspapers which caught
  fire and warmed the old wood walls. I had a fleeting, futile thought of the
  smoke detectors that had never been purchased for this room. It was, in
  fact, the only room without them-one of the many absurd little economies to
  which we'd resorted to save a penny here, there. Surely, everyone had said,
  in the guard room of all places a fire will be quickly seen and
  extinguished. There'd even been a little article about it in the local
  newspaper, an article that Allison had undoubtedly seen.
  The flames from the floor were now waist high. I didn't have much time
  left; she'd have to make her move soon if she was going to get out
  unnoticed and alive herself. Smoke made my nose sting and my eyes water.
  Fire crept toward the outstretched arm of the 296
          GENEROUS DEATH

 dead guard. I knew I couldn't bear to watch his cremation. I'd have to
 make a move before that happened.
  "Simon," Allison said suddenly, and she laughed at her own cleverness.
  "Tell me-is there any last work of art that the dying museum director
  wishes to see?"
  Of all the millions of words she could have strung together in a sentence
  to say to him, those were the cruelest. Of all the ways to rub it in,
  that was the worst.
  It was also the dumbest mistake she could possibly have made.

 297
 Chapter 34

 She had underestimated not his love of life, but his love of art. He might
 have let her kill him, but not his treasures. It was not for himself, but
 for El Greco and Rodin and even Andy Warhol that he leaped at her-through
 the flames, over the guard's body, past me-with a great outraged roar.
 She, having felt so confident of his slumping defeat, was taken shockingly
 off guard. The gun went off, but wildly, because her shot was reflexive
 rather than aimed. Still, the bullet hit, him, piercing the palm of one
 of his outstretched hands so that when he wrapped them around her neck he
 bloodied her. Over and over as he strangled her, as they struggled on.the
 floor, he yelled, No! No! No! She never let go of the gun, but beat it
 frantically against his skull and against the torturing hands that gripped
 her neck and would not let go. Her feet and knees kicked up convulsively
 at him; her back arched; her body twisted in its futile effort to wrench
 free; her

               298
          GENEROUS DEATH

 round blue eyes bulged. But in the end it came down to this: His strength
 was greater than hers; his passion for art was greater than hers for
 living.
  I didn't stick around to watch her last kick or to see him toss her body
  onto the flames. It wasn't possible for me to get past them to the exit
  and fire blocked my path to the telephone with its button that automati-
  cally summoned the police. So I bent down and unzipped my boots as
  quickly as my shaking fingers allowed and then slipped the boots off so
  I could run quietly if I had to. I turned from the wrestlers and ran away
  from them, back down the long dark corridor toward the museum offices.
  I'd break a window in one of those offices and yell for help, I'd find
  another door and run for help, I'd ...
  "Jenny!" It was Simon, free of Allison, shouting at me. "Come back! Help
  me put out the fire! Please! Jenny!"
  Then came his pounding footsteps after me. I wouldn't be able to crash
  a window or find a door in time, not before he caught up with me. I'd
  have to hide somewhere in the museum, then wait for a chance to sneak
  back downstairs to some route of escape.
  He, who knew the building even better than 1, found a light - switch. And
  for a blinding moment, predator and prey were illuminated so that when
  I whirled around he could surely see the fear in my eyes. I saw the
  killer in his.
  His bloodied left hand hung limp, but probably not useless. He didn't
  seem to have her gun; had it fallen into the fire? At least that afforded
  me the safety of distance-I would have liked to put plenty of distance
  between us.

               299
          GENEROUS DEATH

  "I won't hurt you," he lied. "Stop, Jenny, you've got to help me!" He
  wasn't in as good physical shape as I'd thought-already he was breathing
  hard. I felt a sudden fondness for those foul French cigarettes he smoked.
  He started toward me again. I knew I'd never be able to escape him in the
  light. I was paralyzed; I didn't know what to do, though failing to the
  floor and weeping appealed to me a great deal.
  The problem was solved for me by the fire. It reached the fuse box and the
  central wiring. The corridor shut down to black once more. As I took off
  running again, I wasn't entirely grateful for my reprieve, however, for in
  shutting off the electricity the fire had also disarmed every single alarm
  in the museum.
  I took the steps to the first floor and then to the second floor two at a
  time. All the rooms on the second floor opened into each other, so there
  were no dead ends where I could get boxed. There we could play endless cat
  and mouse until I guessed wrong or he guessed right. As for the squeaky old
  floor beneath us, we shared its hazards equally; at any given moment it
  might betray him to me, or it might whisper to Simon, "Psst, she's over
  here."
  The upper floors of the museum were dark as the inside of a temple on a
  moonless night. The original windows of Martha Paul's house had been
  boarded up to provide more wall space for the display of paintings. In my
  stocking feet, I fled by memory into the cold gallery that was second on my
  right. Oriental sculpture. I prayed to all the Occidental and Oriental gods
  I could think of to help me remember the locations of all the sculptures
  that might teeter and

               300
          GENEROUS DEATH

 topple if I crashed into them, of every bench that might trip me, of the
 red velvet ropes that were meant to cordon off visitors, but which might
 catch me at the waist and throw me violently to the floor.
  From that gallery, I passed silently into the Persian Gallery and
  crouched down beside a wood and glass display case to listen.
 I didn't hear a sound from Simon.
  I did hear sirens! And then shouting. What the alarms and I had failed
  to do, the neighbors had accomplished. I blessed them for having looked
  out their windows and seen the smoke or fire. I almost relaxed, thinking
  that with the arrival of the police and firemen, I'd be safe.
 The wooden floor creaked.
  I knew that creak. It told me Simon was in the Sculpture Gallery near the
  entrance to the Persian Gallery where I crouched. Fool, I called myself,
  idiot. If my situation had momentarily looked more hopeful with the
  coming of help, Simon's looked more desperate. He'd find me now because
  he had to. Somehow, he had to kill me and get my body into the fire
  before anyone knew we were there. Only then could he escape from the
  building. Once out, he could run up with the rest of the crowd and no one
  would question his presence. Of course he was there, they'd say, he was
  the museum director.
 I stood up.
  The floor did not creak, but unfortunately my knees did.
 "Jenny, love."
  I ran for the outer door and didn't give a damn how much noise I made.
  In fact, I began screaming. With 301
          GENEROUS DEATH

 people arriving downstairs, it seemed the sensible thing to do.
  Fbr a few desperate minutes, we wound in and out of the labyrinth of
  galleries like art devotees gone mad-past the knowing eyes of Buddha and
  Rama Krishna, through the reconstructed Shinto Shrine, back and forth,
  racing through thousands of years of culture like broken time machines.
  I stopped screaming. I didn't have the breath for it any longer. Outside,
  the sirens were louder and closer, unintelligible yelling mingled with
  the wails. They'd never be able to distinguish my screams from all the
  others anyway, so I gave it up as a lost cause and crossed silently in
  my stocking feet into the Chinese Furniture Gallery.
  Trembling, exhausted, I decided to crawl up onto the Testered Bed With
  an Alcove to hide. Once on the bed, I closed the thin silk curtains that
  surrounded me and it on all four sides. The bed itself, that fine old
  piece of furniture, centuries old, did not creak. They don't, I thought
  wildly, make them like they used to. I almost laughed hysterically, out
  loud.
  I clamped my hands across my nose and mouth to stifle the noise of my
  breathing. I heard Simon follow me into the gallery. Then I heard nothing
  at all.
 I waited.
 He waited.
  And then he walked over to the bed so quietly that I would not have been
  able to hear him if I hadn't been absolutely still myself. I tensed my
  exhausted muscles, ready to roll through the curtains and off the bed if
  he reached for me.
He stepped up on the platform. 302
          GENEROUS DEATH

  He stepped into the little alcove that was attached to the bed, the
  alcove where a Chinese aristocrat might have entertained a friend with
  tea and conversation.
  He sat down on one of the two facing benches in the alcove, just a thin
  silk curtain and about four feet away from me. Obviously, he didn't know
  I was there. Now I could bear the breathing he was trying to quiet-harsh
  gasps dredged up from deep in his unhealthy, equally exhausted lungs. I
  knew he'd never be able to hear my small movements over the noise of his
  own breathing in his ears. For a crazy moment, I wanted to speak up
  suddenly and say, "Now aren't you sorry you didn't stop smoking?" It was
  momentarily hard to remember that the man in the alcove was not my old
  friend Simon but my deadly enemy who had already killed two people and
  tried to kill a third.
  With that chilling reminder, my moment of hysterical craziness passed,
  leaving in its place a cold clear fear that focused my mind wonderfully
  on one object -the question of how to disable Simon so I could escape.
  I crouched silently on my haunches on the bed and wondered what in hell
  I was going to do next. My right foot went abruptly to sleep. Wonderful,
  I thought. If I made a rolling dive, I'd fall down again the minute I
  stood up. My left nostril started to run; I'd have given anything to blow
  my nose or sniff. The middle of my back ached, as did the inside of one
  ear. I didn't dare swallow for fear he'd hear me. And, naturally, I felt
  a tickle in my throat that made me desperately want to cough.
 I had two choices: I could think about my misery or

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 think about getting out of there. I forgot the various bodily complaints.
 I stopped listening to the sirens and shouting because they were not
 likely to be of any help to me. It was a case of help thyself, or never
 need help again.
  A weapon. I would have killed for a weapon. More to the point, I would
  have killed with a weapon. Did Simon have Allison's little gun? Like the
  wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, he certainly had bigger legs with which
  to trip me and stronger arms with which to grab me and more massive hands
  with which to strangle me. I had only a penknife tucked away in a pocket
  of my purse in Simon's office. And a winter scarf, draped helpfully
  across the back of the chair in his office.
  There was nothing at hand with which to knock him out, nothing with which
  to stab him. I couldn't tackle him with my bare hands because he was at
  least eighty pounds heavier than I and not so terribly out of shape that
  he couldn't throw me about as he pleased.
  What I needed was to catch him off balance and somehow restrain him just
  long enough for me to drag my painfully tingling feet to the exit. And
  from there tumble if I had to down the stairs to the first floor where
  there were windows I could crash open and shout out of.
  My legs reported to my brain that they didn't like being bent for so long
  in so awkward a position. My brain told them to shut up and cooperate or
  we'd all be in trouble.
  He was still breathing noisily and trying to cover the sound. Any minute
  now he might lunge out of the alcove to search for me again. Did he think
  I'd already escaped down the steps? Maybe I should continue to crouch on
  the bed until he left it; maybe he wouldn't 304
          GENEROUS DEATH

 detect my presence once he got the sound of his gasping under control.
  Maybe the moon is blue, too. I didn't like those ideas; they depended too
  heavily on luck and this was a day on which luck hadn't shown any
  particular propensity to favor me. It was far more likely that any moment
  he would sense me kneeling so close to him. I had to act fast, before he
  did.
  I peered at the old silk curtains, wondering if they'd do as a weapon to
  strangle him with. But no, by the time I tore them down he'd have heard
  me and lunged at me.
  And then suddenly, I knew exactly what weapon to use and where to find
  it. I had it on me.
  Slowly, I reached up to unfasten the top four buttons of my blouse. Soft
  as the old silk was, it still made a faint swishing noise which very
  nearly gave me a heart attack which would have rendered the whole
  exercise unnecessary. I stopped my hands in mid-air, paralyzed. When he
  didn't react, I knew he hadn't heard. I moved faster, but it was harder
  because now my fingers were really trembling.
 I got the buttons undone.
 Then I unfastened the buttons at each wrist.
  I put my fingers between my breasts and touched the plastic clasp of my
  brassiere. Thank God I wore a front-opening variety. Pressing my fingers
  very tight against both sides of the clasp so my flesh would muffle the
  sound of the snap, I unhooked it.
  With my right hand, I reached inside my now-loose blouse and slowly,
  slowly pushed my brassiere strap down to the middle of my upper arm. With
  the same hand, I then reached up inside my blouse from the wrist and
  pulled the strap down. It caught at my 305
          GENEROUS DEATH

 elbow. My heart missed a few beats while I straightened my arm so I could
 slide the strap past the obstacle, over my wrist and then over my fist
 until the half inch width of tough white elastic hung loose below the
 waistband of my skirt.
 I would have breathed deeply if I dared.
  I performed the same gymnastics with the other arm and the other strap.
  And still, the rasp of his breathing deafened his ears to my small
  sounds. When both straps were draped at my waist, I held my breath and
  tugged the whole bra down, then slid it around me until it pulled out
  from under my blouse and lay free in my hands on my lap.
  Every woman knows the lazy way to remove her bra without having to take
  off her blouse and then go to the trouble of putting it back on again.
  I slid my shaking hands through the armholes and wrapped the straps
  tightly in my fingers. I held the bra stretched out in front of me and
  it glowed white in the complete darkness: a weapon for a woman. Or a
  transvestite.
  Well, Simon love, I thought, you've always wanted to get me out of my
  clothes and into a bed ...
  I lunged through the silk curtains toward his head. My aching legs failed
  me so that I fell upon him rather than tackling him. But his reflexes
  were a second too slow. I threw the bra over his head, wrapped it around
  his throat and pulled backward with all my strength.
  The gun went off, a late reflexive shot like Allison's, answering my
  question as to whether he'd taken it from her.
  Then I heard it drop on the floor and he threw both hands up to fight me
  off. By then I'd twisted the cotton and elastic several times behind his
  neck. I'd 306
          GENEROUS DEATH

 managed to knock him off balance so his upper body slammed painfully
 against the edge of the bed; his lower body twisted against the seat and
 floor of the alcove.
  I half stepped, half fell off the edge of the bed, dragging his big head
  and body with me until I had him where I wanted him. The blows he beat
  on me were bruising and they hurt like hell.
  I drew the straps around opposite sides of the thin post that supported
  the beiXs canopy and tied the tightest knots I could. He fought and
  twisted so hard I worried the bed might come down on both of us. I prayed
  my knots and the ancientwood would hold long enough for me to run away.
 I started to pull back from him.
  One of his flailing arms knocked me back toward him and with his other
  hand he grabbed blindly for my hair, catching an agonizing handful of it
  and then using it to pull me down across his face. I bit his cheek as
  hard as I could and tasted blood. In that instant of his pain and shock,
  his grip loosened and I pushed myself away.
  I rolled off him and the bed, missing the last vicious and desperate kick
  he aimed at me. I stumbled across the gallery floor while he thrashed
  like a beached and wounded whale.
  Instinctively, almost unconsciously, I fumbled with my buttons, managing
  to fasten them again. God only knows what ridiculous and inbred sense of
  modesty prevailed. I was just tucking in the last edge of the tail of my
  blouse when the outer door slammed and several people with flashlights
  came pouring into the gallery.

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  The sudden light hurt my eyes so I put my forearm protectively over them.
 G'Jenny!99
  I couldn't see him, but I threw myself toward the sound of his voice.
  Immediately, I was in Geof's arms and it was impossible to tell which of
  us was shaking more.
  From that safe haven, I watched Ailey Mason and two firemen weave their
  flashlights around the gallery. All three beams came to rest at once on
  Simon, illuminating his desperate, bug-eyed, purple face and the white
  fabric that choked him.
  Mason held a gun on him while the firemen cautiously untied him. Simon
  sank to the floor of the alcove, gasping painfully.
  One of the firemen held up the weapon I had used. It dangled absurdly
  from his fingers. Mason flashed his light on it, then on Simon, then on
  me. And finally, the hysterical laughter bubbled out of my throat.
  It must have seemed like a classic locked-room mystery to Ailey Mason:
  a man with a brassiere wrapped murderously around his throat, and the
  only woman in the room has her blouse neatly buttoned and tucked into her
  skirt.
  The expressions on the faces of the men were so funny I began to cry.

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 Chapter 3S

 We sprawled--Geof and I and a weary cohort of neighbors, firemen and
 police-on chairs and floor of the Port Frederick Community Center. It had
 been opened to the scores of people who'd poured out of their warm houses
 on this frigid night to help rescue the treasures in the Martha Paul.
  We drank gallons of coffee and munched dozens of doughnuts. We smiled
  companionably and virtuously at one another, sharing a communal pat on
  the back for our successful efforts. Some people closed their eyes
  briefly, but most of us couldn't sleep for the rushes of adrenaline
  surging through us.
  We'd just performed a Herculean task in miserable weather and dangerous
  conditions. We were proud of ourselves. And exhausted.
  By midnight, the old museum/house looked like an ice palace because as
  the firemen extinguished the blazes, they coated the mansion in ice. If
  the fire

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 hadn't ruined it, the weight of the ice surely wouldnot to mention the
 water damage when all that ice melted, or the smoke damage.
  While the firemen sprayed and hacked in the lower south end of the museum
  where the fire started, we volunteers formed a human chain to remove the
  art to relative safety. It was hard, heavy work, and God only knows how
  many nicks we knocked in costly picture frames, but we got the job done.
  Everything was laid on huge tarps spread on the snowy ground, then
  covered by other tarps. Now, armed police from neighboring towns guarded
  the several centuries of beauty and genius that lay on the lawns and in
  the parking lot of the museum. "Hell of a time of year for an outdoor art
  show," one volunteer was heard to crack.
  We wouldn't know until morning-or even laterabout smoke damage to our
  treasures. At least none was destroyed by fire. Well, almost none. We did
  lose several paintings in the storeroom, but they were there in the first
  place because they were examples of the occasional lapsesof good artistic
  judgment on the part of certain curators. Nobody, especially those
  curators, would miss them. And we could use the insurance money from them
  to purchase more worthwhile works of art. Thank you so much, Allison
  Parker.
  They thought they'd found her and the old guard among the icy ashes, but
  the fire had burned so hot and long at its source that identification of
  human remains was hard to make. Of Allison and the guard, only one was
  mourned.
  Simon was taken first to a hospital to repair the damage I'd inflicted
  on his throat, and then to jail. 1 310
          GENEROUS DEATH

 hoped his throat was sore as hell. I hoped it hurt so bad he could hardly
 swallow, much less talk. I hoped he was painfully bruised from his
 battering against the bedpost.
  I was not in a forgiving mood. My head hurt where hed yanked my hair and
  I had a few blue bruises of my own to nurse. I would have liked to have
  seen my teeth marks on his cheek; I hoped it got infected.
  Geof's head hung off the back of the straightbacked chair where he had
  finally, wearily, slumped to a well-deserved rest. His arms hung limp at
  his sides and his eyes were closed. Without opening them, he said, "Your
  sister called the station to see if you are okay."
 "My sister?"
  He turned his head on the rim of the chair back and watched me ponder
  that surprise.
 "I think I'll think about that tomorrow," I said.
  He smiled and said, "Good idea, Scarlett. I'm told we got another call,
  too. Long distance. Gunnison, Colorado. Inquiry about the state of your
  health."
  "Michael?" I said, yet again surprised. "So that's where he is. Wasn't
  that sweet of him to call?"
 "Um," he said sardonically, "sweet."
 "How in the world did he hear so soon?"
  "You're big news, kiddoo," Geof informed me. "This story's already on the
  twenty-four hour cable news networks." He imitated an anchorman: "In Port
  Frederick, Massachusetts, tonight, a mass murderer turns out to be a mass
  of murderers!"
  "Don't know that I'd call two a mass," I said and had a moment of d6jA
  vu. Where had I said something like that before? I was too tired to try
  to remember; everything seemed long ago and far away.

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          GENEROUS DEATH

  I turned my head and looked at a volunteer who was sunk in a heap on the
  floor about a yard away from me.
  "How you doin'T' I said gently to Ginger Culverson. She'd been one of the
  first volunteers to respond to the plea over the local radio. Even Franklin
  and Marvalene had come out to help-they huddled now in a comer of the room,
  audibly telling each other how wonderfully altruistic they were.
  "I ache," she said and smiled sadly back at me. "Bodywise and heartwise."
  "You aren't the only one who misjudged him," I told her, as if that could
  help. "You'll have to get in line behind me, for instance."
  "I liked him a little differently than you did, Jenny. 19
 "I know. I'm sorry."
  "We'll get our new museum now, won't we?" she said, and even managed to
  sound as if she cared.
  "Either that," I said, "or we'll have to set up shop permanently in the
  parking lot."
 "Guess the insurance will build it," she said.
 "I hope," I said.
  "But you could probably use some financial assistance to make the new
  museum bigger and better," Ginger mused.
 "Undoubtedly," I said carefully.
  "Well, here I am," she said brightly, just as her eyes filled with tears.
  "Simon's dream come true."
  We exchanged teary, ironic smiles before she buried her head in her arms.
  Her father, I thought, would have liked her so much.
  Ailey Mason trotted in the front door of the center. I watched him search
  the crowd for Geof. Once he

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 spotted us, he slowed down to a weary trudge and made his way through the
 volunteers to stand in front of us.
  "Mr. Mason," I said formally, "you don't happen to have a certain article
  of clothing for me, do you?"
 He actually grinned and looked his age.
  "Evidence," he said sternly. "We have to hold it as evidence."
  "Oh dear," I muttered while I imagined a lot of cops getting a lot of
  good laughs. I turned my head to plead for special dispensation: "Geof?"
  "I'll get it back for you," he promised and leveled Mason with a cold
  look generally reserved for suspects. Mason swallowed his laughter and
  turned on his heel to search out the more sympathetic and good-humored
  comforts of hot coffee and doughnuts.
  I had closed my eyes and was nearly napping when I heard Geof say my name
  softly.
 "You called?" I said and smiled at him.
  W~When this is over," he said, "I'll have to get a move on moving, so to
  speak, out of my house."
 "I suppose you will," I said neutrally.
  "I just wondered . . ." He hesitated. "Do you have any architectural
  preferences? Contemporary? Cape Cod? Federalist? Tudor?"
  "Actually," I said, "my architectural preferences are more along the
  lines of Cheap. Easy To Clean. Comfortable."
  He laughed and I said innocently, "Why, pray, do you ask, good sir?"
  "Well."' He seemed to have developed a hesitation in his speech that I
  hadn't noticed before. "I've been thinking how I need a new place to live
  ... and how 313
           GENEROUS DEATH

 you don't want to live in your parents' house now ... and. - ."
  "Geof," I said, "I don't know how I feel about being number three of
  anything."
 "I know." He was humility itself. "I don't blame

 you.11
 -- "I'd like to think this over," I said gently, "and give us some more
 time to see what develops."
  "Sure," he said quickly, "I can see that, sure." But he sounded
  disappointed nevertheless.
  I rolled my head over the rim of my chair and smiled at him again. "Geof,
  have you ever lived with anybody without benefit of marriage?"
 "No," he said, "actually, I never have."
 "That would be a first, then."
 He was beginning to grin back at me.
 "Yes," he said, "that would be numero uno."
  "Good," I said and leaned back again and closed my eyes. "I like to be
  number one."

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