Even the Wicked

24

You could almost say he’d been asking for it.

I’d somehow missed the column he wrote. It had appeared toward the end of the previous week, not in the Arts section where his reviews always ran, but on the Times’s oped page. I’ve since had a look at that issue of the paper, and it seems to me I read Safire’s column that day, an inside-the-mind-of piece on a pair of presidential hopefuls. So I very likely took a look at what Regis Kilbourne had to say, and probably stopped reading before I got to the payoff.

That would have been natural enough, because his brief essay started off as a spirited defense of freedom of the press. He’d said the same things before, in response to having been given a spot on Will’s list, going on about a critic’s profound responsibilities to his conscience and his public. I might very well have decided I didn’t have to listen to all that again.

He’d used up the greater portion of his 850 words before he got to the point. The rest of his column was given over to a review of a dramatic production, but this particular show was staged neither on nor off Broadway but all over town. He reviewed Will, and he gave him a bad notice.

“It is customary but by no means imperative,” he wrote, “to revisit a long-running show after a substantive change in the cast. When the original production was essentially a star vehicle, such revisits are almost always disappointing. And this is certainly true in the case of what, were it mounted as a Broadway musical, some producer would surely entitle Will! complete down to the nowobligatory exclamation point.

“In its first incarnation, Will! was unquestionably good theater. With the late Adrian Whitfield quietly elegant in the title role, the production had a powerful grip on its audience of eight million New Yorkers. But what succeeded initially as brilliant tragedy (albeit not unleavened by its comic moments) has come back to us as farce, and a farce with all the zest and sparkle of a fallen soufflé.

“With Whitfield’s death and unmasking, his understudy has emerged from the wings — and has fallen flat on his face. Will Number Two, as we seem to be calling him, is a man of bombast and empty rage. We take this pale copy seriously only because we remember the original.

“No more. ‘You’re only a pack of cards,’ Alice said, scattering her adversaries to the four corners of Wonderland. I say the same to this craven who drapes himself in the fallen Whitfield’s garb. No longer will I go about guarded and live as if under siege. No longer will one seat of my two on the aisle be taken up by a burly chap who’d much rather be home watching ‘NYPD Blue.’ I’m taking my life back, and I can only recommend the same course of action to the current Will. Close the show, strike the set — and get a life.”

Kilbourne had made his decision on his own, but he’d let the cops know about it before his oped piece informed the rest of the world. While they’d advised against it, nobody tried very hard to talk him out of it. They’d reached much the same conclusion he had. Copycat killers can be as dangerous as the original, but it was beginning to look as though Will wasn’t a copycat killer after all. He was a copycat letter writer. He would still be pursued, and eventually caught, but there was a lot less urgency attached to the matter.

So Tuesday night, while I was playing hearts with a college student and a confessed murderer in the kitchen of a ranch house in Lakewood, Ohio, Regis Kilbourne was watching a preview performance of the new P.J. Barry play, Poor Little Rhode Island. His companion was a young woman named Melba Rogin, who looked like a model but was in fact a fashion photographer. After the performance the two had drinks and a light supper at Joe Alien’s, then took a taxi to the brownstone in Chelsea where he had a floor-through apartment on the parlor floor.

At 1:15 or thereabouts he suggested she stay over, but she had an early shoot and wanted to get home. (One of the tabloids had her speculating on what would have happened if she’d stayed the night. Would Kilbourne still be alive? Or would she have died along with him?) He walked to Seventh Avenue with her and put her in a cab headed downtown — her loft was on Crosby Street — and the last she saw of him he was on his way home.

He evidently went straight back to his apartment, and sometime within the next hour or two he had a visitor. It appeared that either Will had managed to get hold of a key or Kilbourne let him in, as there were no signs of forced entry. Nor did Kilbourne seem to have resisted his killer. He’d been struck on the head with some heavy object, the blow delivered with enough force to have very likely rendered him unconscious. He’d either fallen to the floor or been laid out there, facedown. Then the killer stabbed him in the back with a Sabatier carbon-steel kitchen knife, which had been subsequently removed from the corpse, washed in the sink, and placed in the wire basket to dry.

(“Will’s probably not a chef,” Elaine told me. “You have to hand-dry knives like that. They’re not stainless, and they’ll rust. A chef would have known that.” Maybe he knew, I said, and didn’t care. A chef would have cared, she said.)

I don’t know that the knife had time to rust, but I do know there were traces of blood still on it, which nailed it down as the murder weapon. There were no prints on it, though, or prints other than Kilbourne’s and Melba Rogin’s anywhere in the apartment.

Kilbourne was found fully dressed, wearing the slacks and sweater he’d donned to put Melba in a cab. (She said he’d worn a brown suede baseball jacket as well, and that garment had been found slung over the back of a chair.) Either Will had arrived before his victim had gone to bed, or Kilbourne had dressed again in the same clothes before answering the door. According to Melba, he’d been wide awake when she left him, so he might have stayed up to read or watch television, or even to write his review.

If he’d done any writing, he’d left no sign of it. He still used a typewriter, an ancient Royal portable that evidently had some sort of totemic status in his eyes. There was no work-in-progress in his typewriter, no notes alongside it. Some reporter asked Melba Rogin how he’d liked the play — he’d probably have asked the same question of Mary Lincoln — and she claimed not to know. According to her, he would never say anything about a play until he’d written his review. “But I don’t think he loved it,” she admitted.

That opened up a new vein of speculation. Some wit got his name in Liz Smith’s column by theorizing that Kilbourne had hated the play and written a withering review, and that his late-night visitor was the playwright himself, P.J. Barry, who’d struck down his tormentor before taking home the offending review and consigning it to the flames. “But I know P.J. Barry,” Smith wrote, “and I’ve seen Poor Little Rhode Island, and I can no more imagine P.J. doing such a thing than I can believe anyone could find a bad word to say about his play.”

There were no calls to or from Kilbourne’s apartment around the time the murder would have occurred, no reports of strangers entering or lurking around the brownstone. Sooner or later, though, they would turn up a witness, someone who’d seen someone coming or going, someone who’d heard a shout or a cry, someone who knew something.

It was just a matter of time.

Toward the end of the week, I got a call from Ray Gruliow. His had been one of the names I’d given to William Havemeyer, and Hard-Way Ray had agreed to represent him. “The poor son of a bitch,” he said. “He’s the last person you’d figure to commit murder. It’s not my kind of case at all, you know. He’s not poor, he’s not black, and he hasn’t tried to blow up the Empire State Building.”

“He’ll ruin your image.”

“Right, he’ll unbesmirch it. You know, if it weren’t so clearly contrary to his own wishes, I’d kind of like to try the case. I think I could get him off.”

“How, for God’s sake?”

“Oh, who knows? But you could start by putting the system on trial. Here’s a poor mutt who works hard all his life, never saves a dime, and his company shows its gratitude by forcing him out. Then you’ve got his wife’s death, years of pain and suffering, all of which can’t help but impinge on his emotional state. Of course the first thing I do is get that confession ruled inadmissible.”

“Which one? After I got him on tape, he walked into the Sixth Precinct and told them the same story all over again. After they’d given him the Miranda warning. And they videotaped the whole thing, including Miranda.”

“Fruit of the poisoned tree. The first confession was improperly obtained—”

“The hell it was.”

“—so that makes all further confessions suspect.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, probably not, but I’d think of something. The point is that’s not what he wants, but I think I can carry on enough when I sit down with the DA’s guy to strike a pretty good deal for him.” He speculated some about that, and then said, “I wonder what happens to the money.”

“What money?”

“The hundred and fifty thousand. Integrity Life paid the claim, double indemnity and all, and the money’s sitting in Havemeyer’s savings account in Lakewood. He hasn’t spent a penny of it.”

“I don’t suppose he gets to use it to pay his attorney.”

“He doesn’t get to do anything with it. You can’t legally profit as the result of the commission of a crime. If I’m convicted of killing you, I can’t inherit your property or collect on your life insurance. Basic principle of law.”

“And a reasonable one, from the sound of it.”

“I don’t think anybody’s likely to argue the point, though it’s had a few unfortunate effects. There was that dame who killed the diet doctor a few years back. Her lawyer could have pleaded her guilty with extenuating circumstances, and just about got her off with time served and community service, but she had no money of her own and she stood to inherit under the terms of the doc’s will. But she had to be found not guilty for that to happen, so the lawyer gambled and lost, and his client wound up with long prison time. Now was his decision colored by the knowledge that she had to inherit for him to get paid? No, absolutely not, because we attorneys are never influenced by such considerations.”

“Thank God for that,” I said.

“Havemeyer’s going to plead,” he said, “so the money’s not going to be his. But what happens to it?”

“The insurance company gets it back.”

“The hell they do. They collected premiums all those years, they accepted the risk, and they owe the money. The full amount, too, because murder fits the definition of accidental death. They’ve got to pay it to somebody, but to whom?”

“To Byron Leopold’s estate, I guess. Which means a couple of AIDS charities.”

“That would be true,” he said, “if Leopold still owned the policy. In that case Havemeyer would be excluded as beneficiary and Leopold’s estate would receive the funds. But Leopold transferred ownership of the policy for value received. He’s out of the picture.”

“What about Havemeyer’s heirs?”

“Uh-uh. Havemeyer never has title to the money. He can’t pass on what’s never been his in the first place. Never mind the fact that nobody can inherit anything from him while he’s still alive. But that does bring up a question. Havemeyer owned the policy and named himself as beneficiary. But did he name a secondary beneficiary, in the event that he might predecease Leopold? He might not have bothered, figuring that if he died before Leopold did, the money payable to him on Leopold’s death would simply be paid to his estate.”

“Havemeyer’s estate, you mean.”

“Right. In other words, why bother to designate a secondary beneficiary if the money’ll go to him anyway? There are reasons, as it happens. The money doesn’t have to wait until the estate goes through probate. But he might not have been so advised, or he might not have bothered. But if he did, can the secondary beneficiary benefit?”

“Why not? He wouldn’t be excluded because he wasn’t a party to the murder.”

“Ah, but did Havemeyer enter into the viatical transaction with the prior intent of killing Leopold?”

“He says not.”

“Good for him, but how do we know one way or the other? And if he did, can’t we argue that his criminous intent in fact nullifies the viatical transaction, thereby restoring ownership of the policy to Byron Leopold?”

“So the charities would get the money.”

“Would they? Were they his designated beneficiary before the viatical transaction?”

“Jesus,” I said.

“I assume that was an interjection,” he said, “and not the name of his beneficiary.”

“I know his beneficiary,” I said. “She had to acknowledge that she knew she’d been removed as beneficiary before the viatical transaction could go through.”

“Sure, that’s standard. How do you happen to know her?”

“She’s a friend of mine, she’s in the program. She got me started looking into his death in the first place.”

He laughed aloud. “What do you know about that? She didn’t know it, but she was acting in her own self-interest.”

“You mean she’s going to wind up with the money?”

“She’s got a damn good claim,” he said. “If Havemeyer had it in mind to commit murder, as his subsequent actions would strongly imply, the viatical transaction can be declared null and, void. If it’s void, and policy ownership thereby returns to Leopold, and if she was his beneficiary until such time as he deleted her in order to proceed with the transaction, I’d say she’s effectively reinstated by the transaction’s nullification. I’d certainly be happy to argue that point. Unless I was retained by the charities named in his will, in which case I’d be every bit as happy to argue that his failing to make the woman his heir was evidence of intent to benefit them and not her, and...”

The rest was too legalistic and convoluted for me, but the gist of it was that Ginnie might ultimately come into $150,000. “Tell her to call me,” he said. “I can’t represent her, but I’ll find her somebody who can.”

Ginnie was astonished, of course, and her first reaction was that she wasn’t entitled to the money. Suppose she just let the charities have it? I pointed out that Byron’s intent seemed clear to me, and that she could always ease her conscience down the line by giving part of the proceeds to the charities.

“Anyway,” I said, “you earned it. If you hadn’t got me started looking for Byron’s killer, the money would never get out of Lakewood, Ohio. What Havemeyer didn’t spend on pizza and tea bags he’d leave to his relatives.”

“If anybody earned it,” she said, “you did. Suppose we split it.”

“What, you and I?”

“You, me, and the charities. Three-way split.”

“That’s too much for me,” I said, “and probably too much for the charities, but we can thrash that out later on. In the meantime, call the lawyer.”

I don’t know if there was a connection, but the day after I had that conversation with Ginnie I went out and did my Christmas shopping. I didn’t know that she’d wind up with the insurance proceeds, nor could I presume on the basis of an impulsive remark of hers that she’d share what she got with me. But the prospect of a windfall, however slender and remote, evidently succeeded in infusing me with the Christmas spirit. I didn’t empty my pockets into the Salvation Army kettles, I didn’t sashay down the street whistling “Away in the Manger,” but I did somehow manage to brave the crowds in the midtown stores and buy enough presents to cover all the bases.

A shop on Madison Avenue was the source of gifts for my sons, Mike and Andy, and Mike’s wife, June, and I was able to arrange to have everything shipped — the briefcase and woven-leather handbag to Michael and June in San Jose, the binoculars to Andy in Missoula, Montana, where he’d recently wound up after brief stints in Vancouver and Calgary.

I thought I’d have trouble with Elaine’s present — I always do — but then I saw a pair of earrings in a shop window and knew instantly that they’d look great on her. Chunky little hearts in frosted glass, accented with deep blue stones. They were Lalique, the saleswoman informed me, and I nodded solemnly as if I knew what that meant. I gathered it was good.

The next morning, or the one after that, I went out after breakfast and read the paper across the street at the Morning Star. Then I walked on down to the main library at Fifth and Forty-second. I stayed there until I got hungry, had lunch on a bench in Bryant Park, eating quickly because it was a little too cold to sit there comfortably. When I was done I went back inside again and spent some more time looking things up and making notes.

Walking home, I stopped at a glitzy diner at Fifty-sixth and Sixth and had a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. I thought about what I knew, or thought I knew, and tried to figure out what I was going to do with it.

There was nothing about Will on the news that night, and nothing in the morning papers. Marty McGraw’s column was given over to his thoughts on the latest tussle between the city’s mayor and the state’s junior senator. They were both Republicans, both Italian Americans, and they couldn’t have had more contempt for each other if one were a Serb and the other a Croat.

I picked up the phone and called a few cops, including Harris Conley and Joe Durkin. Then I tried Marty McGraw, but I couldn’t reach him and nobody knew where he was.

I had an idea where I’d find him.