Silent Treatment

Chapter11

St. Anne's was filled to overflowing forEvie's funeral. Outside, the day was as gray and somber as the mood within thechapel. Evelyn DellaRosa, vibrant, beauty-queen lovely, gifted as a writer andreporter, suddenly dead at age thirty-eight. There were few in attendance whoweren't reflecting on the transience of life and the vagaries of illness andchance.

The hundred-and-fifty-year-oldwhite-shingled church fronted on the picturesque village green of Sharpston,the northern New Jersey town where Evie was raised and where her parents stilllived. Today, Harry observed, it held a remarkable collection of people — really quite a tribute to Evie. But with each arrival, Harry felt as though heknew his wife less. In addition to relatives, a number of Harry's friends fromthe hospital, and neighbors from the co-op, there were co-workers from themagazine and various artists and patrons of the arts. There were folks from thestation and network where Evie had not worked in over ten years, and a numberof people whom Harry did not know at all. Shortly before the service, Evie'sfirst husband, John Cox, now a network VP, walked in with a gorgeous youngwoman. As far as Harry knew, Evie hadn't spoken to her ex since shortly aftertheir extremely hostile divorce was finalized. Yet here he was.

The days of mourning following Evie'sdeath had been marred by visits from Albert Dickinson to Harry's neighbors inthe co-op, to his co-workers at the hospital, and to Carmine and DorothyDellaRosa. Dorothy had called Harry as soon as the policeman left, and hadasked about Caspar Sidonis.

'Dorothy, I don't know if this man Sidonisis telling the truth or not,' Harry had said. 'And frankly, I don't care. Iloved Evie, and I'm sure she loved me. Even if she was involved with this otherman, which I strongly doubt, I'm sure we would have worked things out in time.'

'Oh, my,' was all Dorothy could think ofto say.

As the service was about to commence,Harry glanced back and spotted Caspar Sidonis slipping into the last row. Thesight of the man brought a strange mixture of anger and embarrassment. Cuckoldwas a repulsive word and an even more disgusting concept.

'Sidonis just walked in,' he whispered toJulia Ransome, the literary agent who was Evie's closest friend in the city.

'Do you really care?' she asked withoutbothering to look back.

Harry thought about it. Perhaps it was hernature as a literary agent, but Julia always had a way of slicing to theessence of any situation.

'No,' he said finally. 'To tell you thetruth, I guess I really don't.'

From the moment he turned away from Evie'sbody and walked out of her hospital room, Harry had been trying to sort out hisfeelings. He thought about moving, about just leaving his practice and takingoff, perhaps starting over again in one of those eternally warm, low-crimeEdens the medical classifieds were always extolling. But just as he ultimatelycould not trade in his patients for the Hollins/McCue pharmaceutical job, heknew he would not leave them now. Not that Albert Dickinson would let him leaveanyway.

Evie's casket rested on a draped standsurrounded by flowers. At the center of a wreath of white roses was a blowup ofthe same flawless, sterile, professionally done portrait that she had allowedon Harry's desk. There would be no burial. The day her obituary appeared in theTimes, a Manhattan attorney had contacted Harry. Three weeks earlier, Evie had made out a new will amending a previous one. In it, she requestedcremation and changed the beneficiary of her jewels and artwork from Harry toher parents — another sign that she anticipated the demise of their marriage.Harry was left as beneficiary on a $250,000 insurance policy they had taken outjointly some years before, but that was all. Nowhere in the will was there amention of Caspar Sidonis.

Harry sat in the first row, between Juliaand Evie's parents. His brother Phil, Gail, and their three children were justto Julia's right. Doug Atwater sat directly behind him. Harry felt gratefulthat none of them could read his thoughts, which, at that moment, weredominated by the wish that this whole thing would just be over so that he couldreturn home. With the help of his associate Steve Josephson, Steve's wife, anda cleaning service, the apartment was pretty much back to normal, minus a fewshattered drawers and the missing valuables. Now, all he wanted was to spend anight or two sitting in on bass with the combo at C.C.'s Cellar, and then losehimself in his practice and patients.

The mass was dignified and reasonablybrief. Harry had been offered the option of speaking, but had declined. Thepriest, who had known Evie since childhood, did his best to make sense of herdeath, but Harry heard only snatches of what he said. He was preoccupied withtrying to make sense out of her life. His thoughts kept drifting toEvie's IV line and to the doctor or doctor-impostor who had somehow marched onto and off of the neurosurgical unit totally unseen by any of the staff. Now,further complicating the conundrum was another riddle: three keys on arabbit's-foot chain.

'You okay?' Julia whispered as the priestwas concluding his eulogy.

'Not really,' he responded. 'Listen,Julia, are you free for a drink tonight? There's some things going on I'd liketo talk to you about.'

Although he and Evie had occasionally spenta social evening with Julia and her husband, he had never been alone with her.She was several years older than Evie, slim, attractive, and sharplyintelligent. Her agency was one of the more successful in Manhattan. She wasworking on her third marriage.

Julia considered his request. Some minuteslater, during Holy Communion, she leaned over and whispered, 'Nine o'clock atAmbrosia's.'

He nodded. 'Thank you.'

Although Phil, Julia, and Doug Atwatereach offered to stay with him, Harry remained alone in the sanctuary until ithad emptied.

'Is there anything I can do?'

Father Francis Moore spoke softly, butHarry was startled nonetheless.

'No. No thanks, Father. I was justthinking.'

'I understand.'

Harry turned and headed out. The oldpriest walked alongside him, a Bible cradled in one hand.

'You will be going over to theDellaRosas?' he asked.

'Yes. For a while anyhow. I'm prettyworn-out.'

There was no way he could avoid going tohis in-laws, but he was determined to head back to the city as soon as possible.

'I understand,' Father Moore said again.'Although we haven't met before today, Dorothy and Carmine speak very highly ofyou. They say you're a very gentle, kind man.'

'Thank you,' Harry said.

They left the church with Harry a few feetahead of the priest. Several pockets of people were standing around somedistance away, talking or waiting for their rides. Harry had just reached thebottom of the stairs when Caspar Sidonis stalked over and confronted him.

'You killed her, you bastard,' he rasped,his whisper harsh and menacing. 'You know it and I know it. And pretty sooneveryone's going to know it. You couldn't stand to lose her so you killed her.'

It had been thirty-three years since Harryhad last thrown a punch at someone's face. That time he had barely grazed thecheek of the bully who had been baiting him. The larger boy's retribution hadbeen swift and memorable. This time, Harry's punch, thrown from a much betterangle and with much more anger and authority behind it, was more effective. Itconnected solidly with the side of Sidonis's nose, sending the surgeon spinningonto his back in some low, rain-soaked shrubbery. Blood instantly spurted fromboth his nostrils.

Shocked, Father Francis Moore dropped hisBible. Harry calmly picked it up, wiped it on his trousers, and handed it back.

'I guess I'm not so gentle after all,Father,' he said.

Ambrosia's was an eternally packed,upscale bistro on Lexington near Seventy-ninth. Harry spent an hour at theoffice reviewing patient lab reports and catching up on paperwork before takinga cab to the club. The drizzle that had dominated most of the day was gone, andthe dense overcast had begun to dissolve. The city seemed scrubbed and renewed.It was before nine, but Julia Ransome was already there, nursing a drink at oneof the tall, black acrylic tables opposite the bar. It was relatively early byManhattan standards, even for a Thursday, but the bar was already three deep.

Julia exchanged pecks on the cheek withhim. She was wearing a black silk blouse and an Indian print vest, and lookedvery much at home among the beautiful people.

'Who'd you have to pay off to get thistable?' Harry asked, sliding on to the stool opposite hers.

'Donny, the bartender over there, has beenwriting a novel for the last ten years or so,' she said, smiling. 'I promisedto read it when he finishes. In the meantime, I call ahead and he puts one ortwo of his pals on these stools until I get here. It's one of the perks ofbeing a book agent. My seamstress has a first novel in progress, too. So doesthe plumber I can get at ten minutes' notice anytime, day or night. The trickis being able to tell which people haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of everfinishing their book. Once in a while I'm wrong. When that happens I just haveto read it and then set about finding a new mechanic or dentist or whatever.'

'Well, I appreciate your meeting me likethis.'

'If you think for one moment that Iwouldn't have, I obviously haven't done a good job of letting you know you'reone of my favorite people.'

'Thanks.'

'I mean it, Harry.' Julia finished herdrink and motioned the waitress over with a minute shake of her head. 'Youdrinking tonight?'

'Bourbon neat. Might as well make it adouble.'

'Whoa. Double bourbon neat. Now there's aside of you I've never known.'

'Don't worry. If I actually finish itthey'll have to haul me out of here in a wheelbarrow.' He waited until thewaitress had returned with their drinks and left. 'Julia,' he said then,'please tell me about Evie.'

The agent studied her glass. 'What do youwant to know?'

'At this point, almost anything you chooseto share would probably be news to me. The surgeon I pointed out to you todayat the church — the one who claims Evie was in love with him — is convinced Igave her something, a drug, that caused her aneurysm to rupture. He's wrongabout it being me, but I'm not sure he's wrong about the rest of his theory..' Harry reviewed the nightmarish evening on Alexander 9, his conversation withthe anesthesiologist, and his conclusions. 'Julia,' he said, 'I had no ideaEvie was involved with another man, even though for a year or so she wasn'tparticularly involved with me. I just thought she might have shared some otherthings with you that. . that I didn't know about.'

In the silence that followed, Harry feltcertain Julia was going to deny any knowledge of what he was talking about.Suddenly, though, the woman looked up at him and nodded.

'You were outmatched from the beginning,Harry,' she said. 'You may have been able to handle the Vietcong' — she gavehim a quick, ironic smile — 'but you didn't have a chance against EvieDellaRosa. She and I have known each other since she lived with me one summerduring college. That's almost twenty years. She was an exciting, intriguing personin many ways, and God knows I'll miss her. But over all those years, I've neverknown her to be content. Whatever she had — whoever she had — she alwayswanted more. And she didn't particularly care what it took or, unfortunately,who got hurt in the process. That's the part of her — that seductive charisma — that always frightened me. It kept us from getting closer than we were. JohnCox was at the funeral today. Did you see him?'

'Yes, I did.'

'What did Evie tell you about theirbreakup?'

'That she caught him having affairs, andthat when she confronted him, he got her fired from the news staff andblackballed throughout the industry.'

'Does that jibe with his showing up at herfuneral today?'

'No. I have to say I was surprised to seehim.'

'John Cox was crazy about Evie. She hadthe affair, Harry — with John's boss. I only know what John told me and that'snot much, but it was the boss, not John, who gave her the boot. And blackballedher. I think John would even have given her another chance. But she wasn'tinterested.'

'Was she at all happy with me?'

'For a time — maybe a year or two. Harry,Evie needed to be in the spotlight. She needed to be at the center of theaction. Part of her fought that need — that's why she married you, I think.Stability. But the stronger pull was clearly winning out.'

'Did you know about Sidonis?'

'Nope. Not about him or any other menduring your marriage — if there were any. I'm not sure that sort of thing wasever important enough for Evie to talk about. Or maybe she didn't trust me thatmuch.'

'I know she was dissatisfied with her jobon the magazine, but — '

'Hated it. She was born to be in front ofthe camera, Harry. You know that. At least you should. From the moment shestarted at Manhattan Woman she was searching for a ticket back into thelimelight.'

'I've had the impression lately that shewas working on something special.'

'I think you're right.'

'Do you know what it was?'

Julia shook her head.

'I tried to get her to tell me about itthe last time we were together. All she would say was that it was big stuff,and that the producers of A Current Affair and some other tabloid showswere already offering her big bucks and on-air guarantees just to see what shehad.'

Harry stared off at a wall across theclub. On it, artfully done, was a six-foot-high neon sculpture of a woman'sprofile and hand. She had a twenties look and was smoking a glowing cigarettein a foot-long holder. Although Evie smoked only rarely, something about therendering reminded him of her. He suspected it would be a long time beforethings didn't.

'No further questions, Your Honor,' hesaid, finishing his bourbon. 'I really appreciate your coming to meet with melike this, Julia.'

'Nonsense. You're a terrific guy. Andwhether she appreciated it or not, Evie was lucky to have you. Harry, do youreally think someone purposely killed her?'

'I don't know what to think. The chemicalanalysis of her blood should be completed within a few weeks — sooner if thepolice detective who wants to mount my scalp on his lodge pole has his way. I'mconcerned about what might happen if one of the tests is positive, but I'm alsowondering whether I'll trust the results if they're negative.'

'So you believe that woman, Evie'sroommate?'

Harry studied the neon smoker as heconsidered the question. Two days after Evie's death he had gone back up toAlexander 9, but Maura Hughes had been sent home. 'Shaky as hell, but notchasing any spiders,' was the way one of the nurses described how Maura hadlooked upon discharge. Harry was sure that the real reason for the rapiddischarge was the refusal of her insurance carrier to cover any more days. Atypical scenario. Companies were shortening stays and refusing coverage withalmost as much vigor as they were denying any responsibility for theconsequences of their policies.

'Harry?' Julia was looking at himcuriously. 'I asked you a question about Evie's roommate in the hospital. Youseemed like you were about to answer, and then you sort of drifted off.'

Harry glanced down at his empty glass.Years of virtual abstinence had reduced him to amateur status as a drinker. Heknew that being easily distracted was the first clue that if he wasn't tightyet, he soon would be. So what, he thought. The tighter the better.

'Yes, I believe her,' he said. 'A doctor,or someone posing as a doctor, came into that room after I left. A short timeafter his visit Evie's aneurysm burst. I think he injected something into thatIV. You know, maybe that story Evie was working on has something to do with whathappened. I wish to hell I knew what it was all about.'

'Did you check her office?'

'At the magazine?'

'No, the one in the Village.'

'What?'

'She was renting an office — you know,workspace — someplace in Greenwich Village. Didn't you know that?'

'I … um. . no. No, I didn't know thateither. Do you know where it was?'

'No idea.'

Harry brushed his hand over the pocketwhere he was carrying Evie's rabbit's foot and keys.

'Julia, I need to find that place,' hesaid.

She looked at him with concern.

'You need to go home and get some sleep,Harry. That place'll be there tomorrow. Besides, if you don't know where it is,finding it may not be so easy. She doesn't have a phone there. That's as muchas I remember of what she said about it.'

'Thanks,' Harry said. 'Julia, who in thehell was she?'

The book agent set a twenty and a tenbeneath her glass and guided him out of the bar into the cool night air.

'Harry, if you asked ten different peoplein Evie's life that question, you'd get ten completely different answers. Itwould be like the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant bywhatever part they happen to be feeling. Snake, tree, wall, stone, leaf. They'reall correct. . but only up to a point. Want to share a cab home?'

Harry knew that she lived in almostprecisely the opposite direction from his apartment.

'Hey, listen,' he said. 'Don't worry aboutme. I need to walk for a bit to clear some of this Old Grand-Dad out of myhead. I'll get some rest. I promise.'

They waited until he had flagged down ataxi for her, then embraced.

'Call if you need me,' Julia said. 'Anddon't drive yourself too crazy trying to see any more than the rest of theblind men.'

Harry watched as the cab disappearedaround the corner, then headed slowly downtown.