The Renewable Virgin Page 3

  Marian Larch tried to talk me into stopping and getting something to eat. ‘It’s nine o’clock and you haven’t eaten since noon. How about it?’

  ‘All I want is to get home and soak in the tub. I’m so tired dinner would just make me sick.’

  ‘A sandwich, then. You need something in your stomach. It’ll pick you up, Kelly.’

  ‘I can make a sandwich at home. I wanna go home, dammit.’

  Her potato face crinkled into a smile. ‘Okay. Home it is.’

  I wasn’t too tired to notice I didn’t have to tell her where I lived; she’d looked my address up or read it out of my police file or something. My police file! Christ.

  Before long Marian pulled up to the curb in front of my building. ‘I’ll wait until you’re inside.’

  The apartment building where I lived didn’t have a doorman and depended solely on an electronic security system. We had to unlock two sets of doors just to get into the lobby, and the exterior of the building was always kept brightly lighted.

  Well, almost always. Tonight one of the lights was out.

  I was fumbling with the first key when a figure stepped out of the shadow. I jumped and started to yell until I saw it was a woman.

  ‘Kelly Ingram?’ she asked.

  I relaxed. She was an older lady, gray and tired-looking, as tired-looking as I felt. ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name is Fiona Benedict. I’m Rudy Benedict’s mother. I just wanted to see the woman in whose place my son died.’

  CHAPTER 2

  FIONA BENEDICT

  I hadn’t heard from Rudy for almost three months, but that wasn’t unusual. Rudy often went for long stretches of time without communicating, and then suddenly would telephone every night for a week. Or write long, single-spaced letters about everything under the sun or sometimes about nothing at all, writing for the sheer pleasure of writing. He did sometimes tend toward excess. In the meantime I kept sending my regular letter every other week, providing what stability I could. Washburn, Ohio, had not been ‘home’ to Rudy for a long time, neither the town nor the university. Nevertheless I kept him informed about our comings and goings. Whether he acknowledged it or not, Rudy needed a touchstone outside the world of commercial illusion he lived in.

  I was in class lecturing on the Crimean War when the call came from the New York police. I remember being annoyed at the interruption and had no foreboding of bad news. When the man on the telephone, a Captain Michaels, told me about Rudy, I made him repeat what he’d said, twice. Then I hung up on him. Later when I’d collected myself, I called him back and asked for details. Poisoned? How?

  At that point all the police knew was that Rudy had ingested cyanide crystals under the mistaken notion he was taking medicine. Who had substituted the cyanide for the medicine was not known. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Dr. Benedict,’ Captain Michaels had said, ‘but it looks like murder.’

  I arranged for someone to take my classes, got through the night somehow, and flew to New York the next morning.

  When I got to Police Plaza Captain Michaels was out on a case or too busy to talk to me or perhaps just didn’t want to be bothered. But finally a nice young man whose name I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten helped me find what I needed to know. Rudy’s body wouldn’t be released until the autopsy report was received from the medical examiner’s office; the young man said it was expected late that afternoon. I spent the intervening hours arranging for the cremation of my son’s body, in accordance with Rudy’s frequently expressed wishes. The process for making such arrangements consisted primarily of proving my ability to pay for the service.

  As it turned out the autopsy report didn’t come through that afternoon after all—some delay or other. I finally did meet Captain Michaels, though, a florid-faced, overweight man headed for a coronary. By then I’d had enough time to adjust to the idea that someone had hated Rudy enough to want him dead, incredible though that seemed. But I’d no sooner reached that point than I had to make a complete reversal.

  ‘We learned something new just last night,’ Captain Michaels told me. ‘It looks like the cyanide wasn’t meant for your son at all. Seems he took it by accident.’

  He couldn’t have stunned me more if he’d slapped me.

  ‘His girlfriend gave it to him,’ the Captain went on. ‘He was complaining of a headache and she gave him a sample bottle of a new remedy that turned out to be cyanide instead. We’re checking her out, but it looks like she was the one meant to get it, not your son.’

  Looks as if, I thought numbly. ‘What’s her name?’

  He hesitated, guessing what I was feeling. ‘Look, Dr. Benedict, you can’t really blame her. She—’

  ‘I’ll find out eventually, Captain,’ I said mildly.

  He shrugged. ‘Kelly Ingram. She’s a TV actress.’

  I didn’t know the name. ‘Do you have her address?’

  ‘Dr. Benedict, I know how you must be feeling, but try looking at it this way. It was an accident. Same as if he’d died in a car crash. Crazy and stupid and no reason behind it, but happens just the same. Try thinking of it like he’d died in a traffic accident.’

  I’m certain his intentions were good but I loathe being patronized. ‘You have the wrong idea, Captain. You say this Kelly Ingram was my son’s girlfriend. I want to meet her—she’s the one Rudy was spending his time with before he died. I simply want to meet her. Is that an unreasonable request?’

  Still he was reluctant. ‘I don’t like giving out addresses, ma’am, you understand. But I can fix it for you to meet her here … maybe tomorrow. Let’s see, tomorrow’s Saturday, yeah, that’ll be all right. Where you staying?’

  I gave him the name of my hotel and had to settle for his assurance that he’d contact me as soon as he could arrange a meeting.

  It had been a long, horrible day and I should have been glad to go back to the hotel and collapse. But I was plagued by a sense of something left unresolved, something more I should do. Visitors at Police Plaza all wear badges which are to be turned in at the time of departure. Captain Michaels had assumed I was on my way out, but I didn’t want to leave, not just yet. I didn’t feel satisfied, somehow. So instead of checking out I found a chair in a waiting area near the Captain’s office and sat there.

  I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for—reassurance, possibly. Rudy had died by accident, the Captain had said. Part of me rejoiced that my son had not turned out to be the sort of man who could provoke murderous hatred in another person. But another part of me said Are you sure? What if the Ingram woman hadn’t been the intended victim at all? What if she had deliberately poisoned Rudy and simply pretended the rest of it?

  A dismaying thought, and probably a calumnious one. It had undoubtedly occurred just as Captain Michaels indicated: someone had aimed at Kelly Ingram and hit Rudy by mistake.

  A low snicker brought me out of my musings. Two uniformed police officers nearby were talking sotto voce with the kind of snide look on their faces that meant they were making sexual remarks about a woman. I followed their glance to see an absolutely stunning young woman following a policewoman into the Captain’s office. Could it be …?

  I stood up and walked over to the two officers, watching their faces turn carefully blank. ‘Excuse me, could you tell me who that was? The woman who just went into Captain Michaels’s office?’

  ‘That was Kelly Ingram,’ one of the officers said. ‘She’s on that show LeFever.’

  Aha. So she was right here, and Captain Michaels must have known she was coming, and yet he’d put me off with promises of a meeting tomorrow. Why didn’t he want me to see her tonight? Probably he had other matters to take care of first; police are supposed to be sticklers for procedure, I understand.

  I’d never heard of LeFever. The officer had said she was on the show, not in it. Television instead of Broadway, then. The Captain had said she was a TV actress.

  The policewoman who’d taken Kelly Ingram into the Captain’s office ca
me back out, a doughfaced woman in her thirties who looked as if she knew her way around. She and the glamour girl she’d escorted into the office were just about as different as any two women could be. The policewoman was homely and tough-looking and undoubtedly could take care of herself. Kelly Ingram was glamorous and soft-looking and probably would never have to take care of herself her entire life. She looked like the kind of woman whose beauty was so extraordinary she’d simply rely on that to carry her through life, never developing any other aspect of herself, not her mind or her personality or any possible talent she might have.

  And this was the sort of woman my son had chosen.

  If Rudy had been younger, it would have been understandable. But he’d reached the age where seasoned judgment was supposed to have taken over. Rudy would have been forty next month, early middle age. And he was keeping company with this sensual child—early twenties at most, barely out of her teens. Not quite Lolita, but too close for comfort. It would appear my son had become conscious enough of his own advancing years to begin hankering after young flesh. It was later than I thought.

  Was it Kelly Ingram’s beauty that made someone want to murder her? Was it envy? Sexual treachery? Why was I standing there guessing?

  The doughfaced policewoman started down the hall, reading from a manila folder as she walked. Without even thinking about it I fell in behind her. At the back of my mind was the idea of waiting until Captain Michaels was through with Kelly Ingram and then catching her as she left. But still I followed the policewoman; I followed her straight into the ladies’ room.

  She’d been carrying several folders other than the one she’d been reading from, plus a stack of official forms of some sort. All in all they made too big an armful to juggle in the small stall, so the policewoman had piled them on the shelf over the washbasins. She’d already gone into the stall before I entered the rest room and so she thought the place was empty; but it was still rather careless of her. The top folder was marked Ingram, Kelly.

  There were her home address, several business addresses, physical description, age—I was surprised to learn she was twenty-nine. Not the child I’d thought, then, but I’d had only a brief glimpse of her. I had no time to read further as a flush from the stall told me not to linger. I was standing in the hall wondering what to do next when the police officer who’d identified Kelly Ingram for me came up and pointedly asked if I was looking for somebody. It was time to leave.

  Once I was outside, waiting for the Ingram woman in the vicinity of Police Plaza suddenly seemed a less than brilliant idea. Besides, I had her address now. I stepped off the curb and held my right arm in the air until a cab squealed up to me.

  Kelly Ingram lived in a new-looking highrise in midtown. The building had no doorman; that meant I couldn’t wait in the lobby. My plane had left Ohio at 7:10 that morning and I’d been on the go ever since. I was not a young woman, and the day had finally caught up with me. My legs were trembling as I sat down on that part of the steps that was not in direct light.

  I think I actually fell asleep. I know she was at the door unlocking it before I realized she had come. I called her name and stepped into the light so she could see me.

  And when I told her I wanted to see the woman in whose place my son had died, she attacked me.

  I sat in the kitchen of Kelly Ingram’s expensive apartment drinking instant Sanka while the doughfaced policewoman made sandwiches, talking nonstop as she worked. Her name was Detective Marian Larch, and it was she who had prevented the Ingram woman from shaking my head right off my shoulders. The glamour girl herself was soaking in the tub.

  ‘She’s had a gawdawful day,’ Detective Larch was saying. ‘’Course, yours couldn’t have been all that great either. But your showing up like that, when you did—well, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. She was depressed about Rudy to start with, and then she’s scared because it sure does look like somebody wants to see her dead—that would throw anybody. She had this long, rotten work day where nothing went right. Then Captain Michaels keeps her in that office for a couple of hours, and he makes it clear she’s not off the hook as a suspect herself. She was tired and she hadn’t eaten and she was wanting a bath, and then you step out of the shadow and point out your son would still be alive if it wasn’t for her. No wonder she went a little crazy.’

  ‘Yes, I should never have said that.’ I did regret saying it. It was senseless and self-indulgent and could have accomplished nothing under the best of circumstances. ‘I think I was a little crazy myself. I’m glad you were there, Ms Larch. I could never have stopped her.’ The shaking had given me a terrible headache, but I wasn’t too eager to take something for it. Not in that apartment.

  Among Detective Larch’s other talents seemed to be an ability to read minds. She opened her bag and took out a sealed packet containing two headache tablets. ‘Straight from the dispensary—I took some earlier today. Go on, they’re safe.’

  I thanked her and swallowed the tablets. Detective Larch placed a platter piled high with aromatic sandwiches on the table. My stomach turned over at the odor; but it had been nine hours since I’d last eaten and I needed something. I found one sandwich containing nothing but a bland cheese and took that one.

  Our hostess came in wearing a robe, her hair still damp. With her make-up washed off she looked closer to the thirtyish person she was, but she was still one of the most astonishingly beautiful women I’d ever seen. I found myself staring; she noticed, and had the grace to pretend not to.

  She sat down next to Detective Larch and reached for a sandwich. ‘Now I’m hungry. Thanks for making these.’

  The policewoman said something unintelligible, her mouth full.

  The Ingram woman and I eyed each other warily. We’d both apologized, once we’d come to our senses, but there was still tension between us. I was still blaming her for Rudy’s death, and she knew I was. I should have been blaming the murderer—but I didn’t know who the murderer was, and I did know who should have died instead of Rudy and she was sitting right there across from me. I was offended by the casualness of the scene, by the ordinariness of her sitting there in a mundane domestic setting, eating pastrami on rye. I kept telling myself I should be feeling compassion for this woman who could still be murdered at any time, who might be dead by this time tomorrow. I kept telling myself that, but I couldn’t make myself listen.

  She’d finished her first sandwich and was half-way through her second with no sign of stopping. Detective Larch said, ‘How can you eat like that and stay thin?’

  ‘Chose my grandparents carefully,’ the Ingram woman said.

  That surprised me. Most of the slender people I knew liked to credit their good figures to their own self-discipline. Yet this woman whose very livelihood depended upon her appearance had casually admitted it was none of her doing; she just happened to get born with the right genes. So the glamour girl could afford to be a big eater, while poor Marian Larch looked like someone who’d put on five pounds if you so much as said the word chocolate in her presence.

  ‘When did you get in, Mrs. Benedict?’ the police detective asked.

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Talked to the Captain yet?’

  ‘Captain Michaels? Yes. He said he’d set up a meeting with you, Ms Ingram. He wouldn’t give me your address.’

  ‘Call me Kelly,’ she said. ‘He didn’t say anything to me about any meeting.’

  ‘He must have forgotten,’ Detective Larch offered. ‘Mrs. Benedict—if the Captain wouldn’t give you Kelly’s address, how’d you find out where she lived?’

  Oh-oh. ‘Why, I just asked someone else,’ I said innocently.

  Detective Larch shrugged. ‘Okay, if you don’t want to tell me. You’re here now.’ She changed the subject. ‘Are you having your son’s body shipped back to Ohio?’

  ‘No, Rudy wanted to be cremated. I’m having it done here. But his body hasn’t been released yet. The autopsy report hasn’t come
through.’

  ‘Probably tomorrow,’ the detective said.

  ‘I was wondering why the delay.’

  ‘Medical examiner sometimes has a backlog. They get the reports out as fast as they can. It’s nothing to worry about, Mrs. Benedict, it happens a lot.’ She seemed to hesitate. ‘Excuse me if I seem insensitive—but do you plan on taking your son’s ashes back with you?’

  What a gruesome thought. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Then be sure to tell the people at the crematorium ahead of time. Otherwise they’ll hand you this little box—’

  ‘Oh, good heavens!’ I shuddered. ‘Thank you for warning me.’ Just then Kelly Ingram surprised me for the second time in five minutes; she reached out and touched my arm in sympathy. ‘You’re a history professor, aren’t you?’ Getting my mind off Rudy.

  I nodded, and wondered what else she knew.

  ‘That’s all Rudy told me,’ she said. ‘That you were a history professor and you lived in Ohio.’

  ‘Is it Dr. Benedict then?’ Marian Larch wanted to know.

  I said it was, but did not tell them to call me Fiona. Both of these women were part of an alien, violent world that I did not care to be on a first-name basis with. I stared at the table and said nothing. There was one sandwich left on the platter, exuding a spicy odor impossible to ignore. It was an association I have resented ever since, remembering the smell of garlic every time I think of that period of my life when I was arranging for the disposal of my son’s body.

  Detective Larch said, ‘Is there somebody back in Ohio who can help you with all this—the arrangements, I mean?’

  ‘I can manage, thank you.’

  ‘But a little help would make it go easier. Isn’t there someone—’

  ‘There is no Mr. Benedict, if that’s what you’re fishing for,’ I said calmly. ‘He deserted Rudy and me when the boy was eight.’

  The Ingram woman looked surprised at my mentioning so personal a matter but Marian Larch didn’t bat an eye. ‘No, I meant a neighbor or friend. Or one of your colleagues. Can I help?’