The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [13]
It is more complicated than that. At the risk of sounding petty, indeed, of being petty, I am all too aware that Swift Chapel is part of Wainscott, and the museum’s relations with the university are at a delicate juncture. To have a memorial service for an honorary curator of the MOM at Swift Chapel could be construed as an admission on our part that we are more closely a part of Wainscott than we want to concede.
Merissa sensed my reluctance and backed off immediately. “It doesn’t really matter. It was something he wanted me to do. In case …”
“Really?” I said, my investigative instincts piqued. “In case of what?”
She shrugged and let it drop. With more wine we passed on to other topics — how she had already moved out of the big house and into an apartment in town. How the first and second wives were at each other’s throats and leaving her alone. How she wanted to get her own lawyer because Heinie’s lawyer was nothing more than a well-dressed thief.
Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, she put her hand on my knee and said, “Frankly, Norman, I’m glad he’s dead. Oh, I know it’s an awful thing to say.” She lifted her mildly mad, beautiful eyes to mine. “But he had become a regular dispenser of misery. He went around handing it out. Especially to himself. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but in Heinie’s case, being dead is a definite improvement.”
After she had left, not altogether steadily, I mentioned to Diantha that Merissa’s demeanor had not been that of a bereft widow. Indeed, she seemed quite jolly toward the end of her visit, a result perhaps of the wine.
Diantha came and sat next to me on the sofa, putting her hand on my knee as though to reclaim me. “Norman, darling, I think there’s something you should know, but you have to promise me not to tell anyone else.”
I nodded, but noncommittally.
“You promise?”
“Does it have to do with Heinie’s murder?”
“It might.”
“You know I can’t promise that. I’m already part of this investigation.” I winced inwardly, given how much I was already holding back, even from my wife.
“I’m going to tell you anyway.”
I waited, watching her troubled expression, which gave depth to her pretty features, showing character as well as beauty.
“Well, you know about the affair she’s been having with Max Shofar?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s been hot and long and it’s still going on.”
“Enough to give Max …?”
“And Merissa …”
“A motive?”
“Maybe.”
“Why didn’t she just divorce him?”
“They had a prenup. She would have only gotten a pittance.”
“And if he died?”
“She stands to get a hefty chunk of his estate.”
I nodded slowly, thinking back to that trip down to Raven’s Croft to tell her what had happened. The way she said, “He wouldn’t!”
Diantha’s disclosure was very much on my mind the next morning when I found a message on my voice mail to the effect that Lieutenant Tracy wanted to drop by. I left word that I would be in, all the while worrying even though I knew what it was he wanted to talk about.
I was restive, anyway, the result in part of an e-mail from Worried regarding the coins Heinrich von Grümh donated to the museum. Worried, some may remember, is the anonymous tipster who works in the Genetics Lab and who has proved helpful if not instrumental in resolving some decidedly tangled mysteries in the museum. He wrote:
Dear Mr. de Ratour:
I see you’re back in the news with this Grum [sic] guy murder. And I don’t know if what I’ve got to tell you has anything to do with the case. But the scuttlebutt going around the Labs is that the coins he gave the museum are fakes. The way I heard it is that the guy with the long name in charge of the Greek stuff brought some samples down to Robin Sylphan who runs the electron microscope which gets you in as close as you can get. It’s all very