Deadline for a Critic

3

Getting scooped in one’s own newsroom is a bitter pill indeed. Such was the lot of Suburban Reporter staffers who responded to their editor’s frantic phone calls in the wee hours of the morning. The general feeling was that they should do something. But what?

Most of the surface questions had already been asked by the television reporters: “With me is Detective Charles Papkin. Sergeant, have you found any signs of foul play in the death of Ridley Groendal?”

“We’re not ruling out anything.”

Or: “With me is Jonathan Dunn, publisher of the Suburban Reporter. Mr. Dunn, what will be the effect of Ridley Groendal’s death on the print journalism field?”

“Ridley Groendal was an institution, a legend in his own time. He’s going to be missed, there’s no doubt about that.”

A statement of the fact of Groendal’s death, along with the taped interviews, would be included in the morning news programs. The story, as far as television was concerned, either would die at this point, or—if there were further developments—there would be more interviews for the noon, six and/or eleven o’clock news. Since most people got their news from television, most people would learn that a critic had died under somewhat questionable circumstances and that he would be missed by, among a few others, his publisher.

Reporters from the News and the Free Press were next in line, demanding considerably more background information than the TV people. Some were milling about in search of provocative quotes or any other angle to the story no matter how seemingly insignificant.

Reporter staffers had their questions too. But they knew that everyone else would be in print long before they would. They had to go for a second-day story. So far, they had accomplished little more than returning to stare at the still unmoved corpse of the late Ridley C. Groendal. And Groendal was now history.

“You say that Mr. Groendal didn’t complain about anything this evening? No pain?” Ray Ewing, now questioning Harison, was by far the more affable of the two detectives present.

“No,” Peter Harison answered. “He seemed to be feeling fine. The review he finished just before he died was one of his better efforts. And I don’t think he could have done that if he’d been feeling ill. Rid was not the sort to work over great discomfort.”

“But you mentioned something to Sergeant Papkin about what Mr. Groendal had to eat tonight . . .”

“Yes, I did.” Harison was getting a bit testy. This was the second time he’d gone over the evening’s events. “Do I have to do this again?”

“If you don’t mind.” Ewing’s manner made it clear that it didn’t matter whether or not Harison minded. He was going to do it again. The implication was not lost on Harison. “You never know when some detail will come to mind. Could be a big help.”

“Oh, well, Rid really indulged himself tonight . . . uh, last night now, I guess. Anyway, he ate and drank all the wrong things. Bad for his heart, which was not all that strong.”

“Why would he do that? I mean, if he knew it was bad for him.”

Harison shrugged. “It certainly wasn’t the first time Rid did something foolish like this. He was not the abstemious type. He liked his food and drink and he didn’t, let us say, regularly deny himself. So tonight’s dining and libations were not in any way unique. It’s just that they happened to happen on a night when there would be a . . . a complication.”

“Now that’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Mr. Harison. We’ve heard from several sources, some of his fellow workers here, that Mr. Groendal was, well, a rather heavy eater. But he doesn’t look like one . . . I mean, he could not be described as obese. As a matter of fact,” Ewing’s inclined head indicated the corpse stretched out on the floor nearby, “he seems to be pretty thin.”

Harison shuddered. He had been trying assiduously to avoid again viewing his friend’s body. Now that his attention was directed to the corpse, Harison noticed abstractedly that Groendal was now blue—at least the exposed skin of his face and neck were a bluish hue. “Well,” he commented, “he wasn’t always.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get it. If he had a weight problem and he was currently eating the way you’ve described, how come he wasn’t a heavy man?”

Harison hesitated. “I guess you’d find out anyway. There’ll be an autopsy, won’t there?”

Ewing nodded.

“Rid had AIDS. That contributed to, if not caused, his somewhat emaciated appearance.”

“I see.” I wonder; thought Ewing, if he got it from you? It was not a certainty that Groendal had contracted the disease from Harison, but it was an hypothesis until something better came along.

Ewing had put this possibility—that theirs was a homosexual relationship—on hold in his mind shortly after he had arrived on the scene. It was not merely that the two men were together when Groendal died; a number of other factors contributed to the premise. The two were not journalistic colleagues. The deceased, the detectives were told, was a critic. The other stated he was not employed but was living in retirement. But he would not say from what he had retired. Then too, Harison had a slightly effeminate air.

That, along with the fact that they shared the same address and that neither was married, added to the suspicion that they were a homosexual couple. That Groendal had AIDS was about all Ewing needed to spell out his probable sexual preference. Short, of course, of coming right out and demanding the information from Harison. Which Ewing was prepared to do should such become relevant.

“I found it,” said Papkin, returning to Ewing and Harison.

Ewing looked at the other detective inquiringly.

“The other letter Harison says Groendal was reading just before he keeled over. It’s all crumpled into a ball.” Papkin was carefully unfolding and smoothing a piece of paper.

“Where’d you find it?”

“Over there . . . on the floor.” Papkin indicated a spot under a desk several yards from the desk at which Groendal and Harison had sat. “He must have been pretty goddam mad to have slammed it down hard enough to bounce it all the way over there. And it’s crushed so tight it’s tough straightening it out without tearing it.”

“Oh, he was mad, all right,” Harison said. “I’ve never seen him so angry.”

“I found something else,” Papkin said. He held up an object he had enclosed in a plastic bag, protecting possible latent fingerprints.

“Oh?” Ewing studied it without reaching for it. It appeared to be an empty syringe. “Where was it?”

“On the floor under the desk—next to that letter.”

Ewing turned to Harison. “Do you know anything about this?”

Harison seemed startled. “It’s a syringe.”

“We know that. Do you know of any reason we should find it close to Groendal’s desk and near a letter he had discarded?”

Harison appeared to have recovered from his initial shock. He shrugged. “It’s probably Rid’s. He is—was—a diabetic. He had to take regular insulin injections. It’s the same size and type that Ridley used.”

“Then we should find traces of insulin—and nothing else—in the syringe.”

“I . . . I suppose so. Of course.”

“One more thing: Do you have any idea how the syringe got on the floor?”

Harison shook his head. “Not really. I guess he must have missed the wastebasket. Or, maybe the cleaning lady was careless when she emptied the basket.”

Wordlessly, Papkin placed the plastic bag with the four letters, apparently the last ones Groendal had read. These letters by themselves constituted more than enough to initiate a homicide investigation. But it was always nice to have a possible weapon as evidence—the proverbial smoking gun. In this case, a syringe that had been used by somebody—Groendal, or, perhaps, his killer.

“We’ll have it checked out,” Papkin said. “Are you done with Harison?”

“For the moment, yes.” Ewing turned back to Harison. “We’ll undoubtedly have more questions. We’d appreciate your keeping yourself available.”

Harison left the detectives with some reluctance, though he had no singularly attractive option. A few reporters were still waiting to ask more questions, most of which would undoubtedly be impertinent. Eventually he would have to make funeral arrangements. He was not looking forward to that. And, inevitably, he would have to go home—by himself. He knew that would be wrenchingly lonely.

All in all, he minded least talking to the detectives, especially Ewing. He, for one, did not ask some of the more embarrassing questions. But now the detectives had sent him away. So there was nothing to do but face the unpleasant tasks that lay ahead.

In wordless agreement, Ewing and Papkin moved to an otherwise empty section of the newsroom so they could compare notes uninterrupted.

So far, all had gone by the book. The EMS had been first to respond to Harison’s emergency call. That emergency medical squad had been followed by uniformed police and then by the medical technicians. Then Homicide had been summoned, and the routine investigation into an unexplained death had begun.

It was routine procedure. In the wake of a sudden, unexplained death, when there was any question whatsoever, the homicide department was summoned. Homicide detectives spent much of their time in the fruitless investigation of what often turned out to be very natural deaths. The theory was: Take every precaution; don’t let a big one get away just because, on the surface, it appeared to be a natural death.

In answer to Papkin’s question as to what might have directly precipitated this apparent heart failure, Harison had mentioned the letters Groendal had been both reading and reacting to just before he had collapsed.

Both plainclothes officers and the uniforms had then begun a search of the desk and wastebasket. They found all the third and fourth class mail in the basket; as well as three letters and four first class envelopes (together with some unopened first class) on the desk. It was not until Sergeant Papkin found the fourth letter crumpled into a wad on the floor—and picked up the syringe next to it—that they felt they had everything. Now, each read the letter that Papkin had done his best to smooth out.

“Well, what d’ya think?” Papkin asked.

“I’m not sure. These letters are dynamite. They’d be enough to get a rise out of just about anybody.”

“I agree. So, suppose these people knew that Groendal had a history of high blood pressure and a bad heart . . .”

“Yeah, suppose.”

“Seems to me they’d be creating a degree of risk so high they could figure that Groendal would get so worked up about them that he’d croak.”

“Uh-huh.” Ewing nodded. “And I get the impression almost everybody knew about Groendal’s condition—his heart condition.”

“Not everybody.” Papkin smiled crookedly. We didn’t know.”

Ewing’s answering grin evidenced a more genuine amusement. “Charlie, I’ve been telling you for years you ought to be reading the fine arts section of the paper. Ain’t no use both of us knowing just the box scores and the major league standings.”

“So why should I have to sacrifice myself just so’s we can be a well-rounded team?”

“Now that you mention it, no reason. Not as long as there’s other people we can ask. And I did. And it turns out that, at least among the crowd that pays attention to the stage and books and the like, Groendal is very well known and so is his delicate condition.”

“So,” Papkin concluded, “what you’re saying is that we’ve got a collection of four people, each presumably aware that Groendal had a bad ticker—and each of them sends the guy a letter so threatening and so filled with hate that any one of them could drive him up a wall.” Papkin looked sharply at his partner. “Are you implying something like murder by remote control?”

“On top of that,” Ewing continued to pursue his own line of thought, “we’ve got all four letters landing on him at the same time. So we could have not only the possibility of remote control murder, but a nice case of conspiracy on top of it all.”

“You’ve got a suspicious mind, Ray. Have you considered that with all his health problems, maybe it was just time for this guy to go-period?” He reached for the letters and riffled through them. “See—” he looked triumphantly at his partner, “these letters aren’t even all dated the same day. One is dated Sunday, one Wednesday, and two Thursday.”

Ewing waved a hand as if chasing a mosquito from in front of his face. “There’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“These four letters Groendal read before he keeled over: Each of them was geared to drive him up a wall, but one of them stands out above the others. Did you notice? It would have put the fear of God into a normal healthy person, let alone a guy with a bad heart.”

“Yeah, I know the one you mean. But even assuming you’re right—and that’s a pretty far-fetched assumption—how could we prove that one particular letter did the trick?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the internal evidence. The content of the letter itself. We’ve got either the amazing coincidence of four letters just happening to get here about the same time. Or, it was no coincidence; it was a conspiracy. Or, one of the four really knew how to reach Groendal. And that one letter deliberately written did it . . . and the other three letters just happened to arrive at the same time . . . what do you think?”

Papkin cocked an eyebrow. “How about this Harison character? Were he and Groendal fags?”

“I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. They lived together. Neither one’s ever married. As far as I can tell, Harison lived off Groendal. Harison’s a little swishy. And—the bottom line—Groendal had AIDS.”

Papkin nodded. “That should do it.”

“I think the only reason Harison admitted it is that he knew the M.E. would find it. I guess he figured we would really think something was fishy if we had to discover that for ourselves.”

Papkin shook his head. “That sort of opens up the book on Harison.”

“How’s that?”

“Maybe he doesn’t figure into all this, but it does put a new light on him.”

“Huh?”

“Assume that Harison is the one who infected Groendal: How did Groendal feel—well, how would you feel about someone who gave you AIDS? Say Harison is a carrier—some guys are, you know, without having symptoms themselves—I mean if you sexually transmitted a fatal disease to somebody, what does that say about your feelings for him? It’s hardly a loving gesture. And if you did give AIDS to somebody and he wasn’t dying fast enough, maybe, just maybe, you could scare him to death.”

“That’s stretching, Charlie. For all we know, Groendal got AIDS from somebody else, not from Harison. Hell, for all we know, Groendal got it and gave it to Harison . . . if you want a motive for Harison, that makes more sense.

“So,” Ewing concluded, after a moment’s silence, “What’ve we got?”

Papkin glanced at his notes. “What we’ve got is one very sick guy. Jeez! He’s got AIDS, he’s a diabetic, and God knows what else. He has one hell of an evening for himself. He eats all the wrong things, he drinks way too much. He gets mad as hell, he has a stroke or a heart attack or whatever—the M.E. will tell us—and he croaks.”

“Or?” The twinkle in Ewing’s eye made it clear that he didn’t believe a word of it.

“Or,” Papkin continued, “we got a guy who managed to make quite a few dedicated enemies. Any one of those four letter writers could—and probably did—want him dead. Each one knew him well enough to know that his health was in an iffy state. What if each one decides to let it all hang out and see if some pretty definite threats can push him over the edge? It wouldn’t be the first time someone scared somebody to death.”

“Only, in this case, they would have angered him to death.”

“Yeah . . .” Papkin stroked his chin. “. . . nice twist.” He pondered. “But . . . what if the four of ’em get together and decide there’s strength in numbers? And all four agree to send their letters at roughly the same time?”

“Why not at exactly the same time?”

“To throw us off. I don’t know—just a guess for now. But they get together on it to zap him. Now that’s conspiracy!” Papkin sounded downright exhilarated.

“Possible,” Ewing acknowledged.

“Seems all Groendal had was enemies . . . ’cept of course for Harison. But Harison probably gave him AIDS. With friends like that, what would Groendal need with enemies?”

“Harison again! How would Harison have done it?” Ewing turned devil’s advocate. Someone had to.

“I don’t know. We’ve just started . . . wait a minute: Groendal was a diabetic. He needed insulin. Harison lived with him. He could’ve monkeyed with the insulin. He could have seen that Groendal got too much—or too little—of the stuff. Or, he lived with the guy, maybe he added something to the insulin.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why’d he give him AIDS?”

“Who says he did?”

“Okay, say he didn’t. Say he’s clean. Maybe he was mad as hell because he knew that if Groendal had AIDS that had to mean that Groendal had sex with somebody else. He couldn’t have been happy about that—”

“Unhappy, okay. But mad enough to kill?”

“Why not?”

“And you claim I’ve got a suspicious mind! But if Harison did it, what about the letters?”

Papkin shrugged. “Just a coincidence . . . or”—he grinned—“maybe not.” He made ready to leave. “Either way, we may need every suspicion in your suspicious mind. Right now, we’ve got a dead man. It could be accidental or it could be death by natural causes. But if I had a last buck—”

“I know: You’d put it on homicide. So would I.”