The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [76]
The sergeant said he didn’t have that kind of time and, besides, “It’s probably just some kind of fag thing. I mean, they’re weird people.”
Lieutenant Tracy nodded to his man. “Yeah, and you’ve got to fly to New York and run down what you can about Celeste Tangent’s mob connections.”
Still, the sergeant wasn’t very happy when I volunteered to call Don Patcher at the Bugle to have him pull copies of Korky’s reviews and send them over to me. I soothed his ruffled feathers somewhat by saying that Korky was a very close friend of my wife, and that I would be doing it as a favor to her. We did agree that we were dealing with someone possessed of a distinctly malicious sense of humor, that we had entered that realm where evil and the darkly comedic batten on each other.
Speaking of which, I had another call this afternoon from Mr. Castor of Urgent Productions. He sounded a very conciliatory note, saying that he understood completely my position in regard to the museum as a backdrop to the film they were making. But not only would they treat any setting with the utmost respect, they would also clear any perspective with me personally. He assured me as well that the film would be sensitive in every possible way.
I demurred again. But in a like conciliatory spirit, I held out some hope to him, telling him I would shortly be taking the matter up with Professor Brauer.
27
Bobette Spronger called me yesterday around noon to confess something I had suspected all along. In that contemporary, and to my ears graceless, accent, she went on at some length. “I know I like should have told you sooner, Mr. Ratour, but I did use the soy sauce I found in one of those little plastic tubs someone left in the fridge.”
“Why,” I asked, “didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because like it was against like my diet and I didn’t want anyone to know I was cheating. And Mosy like likes it with soy sauce.”
“Is there any of it left in the refrigerator?”
“I don’t think so.”
I rang off and called Lieutenant Tracy. He came over immediately, and together we drove to the library. We met in the nondescript little room where we had talked before, and Ms. Spronger and Mr. Jones gave him a full statement. We were in the process of checking the refrigerator with the help of Mr. Jones, who wheeled around the place with admirable mobility, when the Director of the library, a Mr. Dewey Jackson, arrived on the scene.
Our encounter with him represents an example, I can see in looking back, of the difference between real and fictionalized detective work. In that ethereal realm of Inspector Dalgliesh, for instance, the police show up at a library and are treated with respect, even deference. In reality, Mr. Jackson, thinnish, balding, bristly beard, and stringy ponytail, a child of the sixties, demanded to know exactly what we thought we were doing in his library.
Lieutenant Tracy showed his badge and suggested we retire to Mr. Jackson’s office, a request that had to be given considerable thought. Mr. Jackson made it clear he considered the police at best a necessary evil. We finally returned to the stark little room and sat around the table.
Mr. Jackson demanded to know if we had a search warrant.
The lieutenant patiently explained that we were merely trying to ascertain the origin of any soy sauce brought into the building over the past several months.
“Then you are searching for something.”
“Mr. Jackson …”
“Dr. Jackson.”
“Dr. Jackson, we are only making preliminary inquiries …”
“I don’t want you interrogating my staff without counsel present.”
“We are only asking some basic questions.”
“I think I should talk to the dean about this.”
There he was, I thought, Homo academicus at his worst — petty, picky, and, despite all the bluster, timid. And what galled