Authors: Kate Flora
I resented being made fun of. I didn't want to talk to him anymore and I wanted him to go away. I knew my reaction was childish. This was a murder investigation. Not an unexplained death, despite what we'd said at breakfast. Not a potential suicide. No one knots her own stocking around her throat and strangles herself. Of course, we've all heard about autoerotic strangling, but that's not what this was, I was sure. His job was to get the facts, not to be charming. But it was so new. I didn't feel like I'd even had time to catch my breath since I'd found the body, and here he was, expecting coherence.
I inhaled, slowly. Let it out, slowly. We don't like to speak ill of the dead. It seems, after a person has already met an ugly end, that at least we should accord them some privacy and grace. But, as Andre told me when he was investigating my sister, Carrie's, death, the dead have no privacy rights. Protect their privacy and you may, unwittingly, protect the killer.
I stifled a yawn. The warm air was making me sleepy. "She was an impossible woman," I said. "She was great on her feet, she truly did have a wise vision for the organization, but beyond that, she was awful. Disorganized, controlling, irresponsible, self-aggrandizingâ"
"What does that mean?"
"She wanted all the power and glory. She took credit for other people's work, other people's ideas. She couldn't bear to share the spotlight. Martina was like a piece of blotting paper. She wasn't that good at original thinking herself but she could sit down with anyone for twenty minutes and parrot their whole speech better than they could. She was bad at delegating. She'd micromanage to the point of obsession and then, when it was too late for anyone to do a good job, she'd delegate in desperation and then criticize the quality of the product. The organization had outgrown her, I think. She would have made a good figurehead but she wasn't capable of the day-to-day management anymore."
I swallowed. I sounded like a shrew. But was I really trashing Martina if all I was saying was the truth? "She was a user. Assistants like Rory..." I paused to make sure he knew who I was talking about. "You know, little hysterical Rory from this morning?" He nodded. "She'd run them right into the ground, promising them bigger and better things that never materialized in return for massive amounts of drudge work." I stopped. "Is she okay? Rory, I mean?"
He grunted but I couldn't tell whether it was an affirmative or not. "This young woman, Rory Altschuler, how long has she worked for Ms. Pullman?"
"I don't know. A year and a half, maybe longer. You'd have to ask her."
"What kind of working relationship did they have?"
I considered. I didn't really have an answer to that, only an outsider's opinion. I told him that.
"Give me your opinion, then."
"As I said, Martina was a user. She abused Rory. Yelled at her, criticized her, pushed her unmercifully. Demanded unreasonable hours, unfair amounts of work. But Rory seemed to be able to see Martina's good side, her strengths. I think Rory imagined she wanted to be just like Martina. And despite the helplessness you've seen today, Rory is a very competent young woman." I wondered if the phrase "young woman" was condescending? Probably. Despite my sensitive job, I sometimes err on the side of political incorrectness. "And then, Martina could be very charming when she wanted to be. When she wasn't abusing Rory, she treated her like a favorite daughter. So I guess you'd say mixed." He seemed to be waiting for more but I had no more to offer.
"Ms. Pullman was married?" I nodded. "Any children?"
"None of her own. I believe her husband has a child from a former marriage who may live with them."
"You know her husband?"
"I've met him."
"What can you tell me about him?"
"Very little. He's a lobbyist. Good-looking. Mid-fifties. They've been married about eight years. I don't know whether he was married when they met or not. I've never heard anything about his first wife. Nor have I met her, though I understand she's involved with education in some way. Martina was also a lobbyist. For teachers. Then she got this idea for the association, and turned it into a full-time job for herself. She pays herself pretty well, too." It was a catty thing to say. I know only too well that women are chronically underpaid. But Martina's generosity extended only to herself, and put a strain on the association's finances when it tried to do other things. At first she'd been defensive about it, but the last time the board had brought it up, she'd flatly refused to discuss it.
"Her husband didn't come with her?"
"Not that she mentioned. And I haven't seen him. You haven't spoken with him? Surely he's been notified?" Even as I said it, I knew he wouldn't answer. My mind raced ahead, thinking about how it would be for Jeff. That heart-stopping moment when you realize how bad the news really is. I bit my lip against the surge of my own memories and forced them away, pressing them back into the secret place where feelings live, closing the door against the weight of them, like shutting out an unwelcome guest. My sorrows were my own business; I didn't like people to know things about me.
"Okay," he said, tapping his notebook with a pencil. "So she didn't get along very well with her board. Is that what you said?"
"Not exactly." I could hear my father's voice in my head, reminding me never to let anyone put words in my mouth. His advice had come in handy more times than I could count. "We all admired her. And it's hard when a person is an organization's founder to... that is, because it was her vision, she thought she..."
Spit it out, Kozak.
"She thought she ought to have lifetime tenure, as director, and we thought she ought to stay on the board in an honorary position and let someone else take over the reins."
"So there was a lot of backstabbing and squabbling?"
"We don't do things that way," I said, primly.
"You just said you didn't get along."
"I said we disagreed. The way mature professionals deal with disagreement is to talk about their differences."
He twisted in the chair, a sudden, violent movement that made me jump. "Oh, give me a break, Ms. Kozak. Somebody killed the woman."
"It wasn't one of us."
He leaned forward and stared. He had strange eyes that, when the light hit them, seemed to flash. "How do you know? You know who did it?"
"Of course not. But you saw how she was dressed. Obviously she was waiting for someone, and it doesn't look like it was a woman."
"Maybe. Maybe not." He leaned back in the chair. "Tell me about this morning. Everything that happened from the time that Ms. Altschuler came and knocked on your door."
There was a knock on my door. I looked at him, feeling stupid to be asking for permission to answer the door in my own room, but he had that kind of presence. Overpowering. He nodded. I went to the door and opened it. A smiling bellboy stepped in, carrying a vase of gorgeous pink roses. He set them on the table, I tipped him, and he left. I picked up the card and hesitated. Maybe I should open it later.
"Go ahead," he said.
I ripped it open and turned away from him to read it. It said, "Happy 31st Birthday to the one who makes life worth living. Andre." And now I knew what day it was. It wasn't a particularly happy birthday, so the roses made a big difference.
I sat back in my chair, clutching the card. More than ever, I wanted him to go away. I wanted privacy to bask in Andre's loving gesture. I didn't want to be thinking about Martina Pullman and who might have killed her. I wanted to think about how lucky I was to have met Andre and gotten a second chance at the happiness I thought I'd lost forever when my husband, David, died. If only I could have stood up, thrown my arm over my eyes in a dramatic, old-time movie gesture, and declared to that opaque, looming presence, "I want to be alone." Reality is a bitch.
"Boyfriend?" he asked. I nodded. "Special occasion?"
"My birthday."
"Oh." He didn't wish me a happy one, or even many returns of the day. "Tell me about this morning."
I took him through it, step by step. The lost earring, the phone call. Rory pounding on the door. Going down to the conference room and then up to Martina's room. Back down to the desk to get security and a key. Back to the room, and what we'd found. "Who went in first?" he asked.
"I did. The manager asked me to. In case she wasn't dressed or something, I suppose."
"Tell me everything you did."
"I walked into the living room and I called her name. I said something like, 'Martina, it's Thea, are you okay?' I waited and she didn't answer. That was when I noticed the table and the food...."
"Did you touch anything?"
"Of course not."
"Of course not? Didn't I find you going through the papers on her desk? That was touching something, wasn't it?"
"I meant I didn't touch anything important."
"You don't know what might be important. How long did you stay in the living room?"
"I don't know. Half a minute, perhaps. When she didn't answer, we went on."
"We?"
"Me, then Rory, then the assistant manager and then the man from security."
"And..."
There was another knock on the door. This time it was the maid. He sent her away. "And?"
"And we went on into the dressing room. By then, I was getting nervous. I thought maybe she'd had a fall in the tub or something, but when I looked into the bathroom, I could see she'd taken a bath, but there was no one in the room. And then I... then we..." He waited, eyelids lowered over the gleaming eyes like a reptile waiting for prey. "We went into the bedroom...."
"Back up a minute," he said. "Tell me everything you noticed about the bathroom."
It seemed like an odd question. "You saw it...." I began.
"Tell me," he repeated.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember. "The tub was dirty... you know, it had a ring... and there were some towels on the floor. And a terry-cloth bathrobe over the edge of the tub."
"Anything else?"
"Slippers. Those little useless backless slippers. Lined up neatly in front of the sink."
"Anything else?"
"Some clothes, I think. Underwear on the floor and some folded clothes on the counter. Makeup. Hair dryer. All that stuff. And a book on the floor beside the towels."
"Was the book open or shut?"
"Shut."
"Good. Now you can go on."
What was this, I wondered, a test of my memory? Couldn't we just stop here? The next part was going to be hard. I hesitated.
"Go on," he ordered.
"When we went into the bedroom, I saw her and I immediately tried to keep Rory from seeing, but I couldn't stop her. I told her to go back, not to look, but she hurried past me, saw Martina, and started screaming."
"She started screaming and then what did she do?"
"She ran out of the room and I sent the assistant manager after her so she wouldn't get the whole place in an uproar."
"She didn't touch anything?" I shook my head. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"But you didn't scream?" I shook my head. "Then?"
"Then I told the security man to call the police."
"Did he use the phone in the room?"
I tried to remember. "He reached for it, but then he stopped himself and went out to the other room to use the phone."
"That's everything? No one touched the body to be sure she was dead?"
"Oh, yeah. He did that."
"Who? The assistant manager or the security guy?"
"The assistant manager went after Rory. I sent him after Rory. I don't know what he might have touched on his way out. The security guy reached out and touched her leg. He said she was cold so she must be dead. That's when I told him to call the police."
"He didn't touch anything else? Just turned and left the room?"
I closed my eyes and tried to remember, wondering why this was important. What difference did it make whether the guy might have touched her knee and her foot? "There was one of those room-service breakfast slips lying on the floor. He picked it up and put it back on the pillow."
"And then?"
"He went to the phone, reached for it, hesitated, and went into the other room. I don't know what he did after that."
He nodded. "Good."
"Why does it matter?" I burst out. "What difference does itâ"
He put a finger to his lips. "I ask the questions," he said. "Now, what about you? Did you touch the body?" The body. At that point, she was still Martina. Had I touched her? All I'd done was pick up her shoe. "It helps me a lot if you answer out loud."
Bastard! He didn't have to be like this. He could just ask and I'd tell him what he wanted. I glared at him but somehow, in midglare, I began to imagine Andre in his place, trying to interview someone like me. Someone touchy and smart and impatient. Someone with her own agenda. Someone who might be involved. Or someone who knew the players and could be a useful resource if she'd only get off her high horse and cooperate.
I pushed back the hair that was straggling into my face. It felt like I'd been holding my breath for hours. I let it out with a sigh. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't mean to be uncooperative. It's just such a shock."
"Of course," he said. "When you're not used to..."
Sometimes it seemed to me that I was getting much too used to bodies and death, though I wasn't about to tell him that. But I didn't want to listen to him, I wanted to talk. "It was so ugly. Grotesque. When I saw her, the first thing I thought was that she'd been... killed by a lover, because of the way she was dressed, but then it came to me that it was too artificial. She seemed..." I hesitated, searching for the right word, expecting him to say "Go on" in his impatient way, but this time he kept his mouth shut. "Posed. Arranged to sort of... maximize the indignity. The whole of it... the outfit, the position of the body, her having been strangled with her own stocking... it was all so... theatrical. So completely contrived to degrade her. Actually, I didn't think of that right away. I was too stunned, too embarrassed for her. I wanted to cover her up...."
The phone rang. "Don't answer it," he said. "Go on."