If I Should Die Page 3

  I knocked at the first door. No answer, but a dim light inside was suddenly switched off and the door was locked when I quietly turned the knob.

  I moved down to the end of the corridor and heard my heart pumping despite the noise that drifted from the auditorium below.

  Please, God, please. Let me find that child. Let him be all right. I can’t take any …

  He was crouched on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chin and his head resting on the door of Dr. Harding’s office.

  “Alvin!”

  He did not answer as I lifted him to his feet, at the same time turning the knob to the empty office. The door opened and we went inside.

  I switched on the lights and watched him carefully as he looked around the office. Perhaps being here would help in some way, though I wasn’t sure how. I glanced around and prayed that Lloyd would not come up and catch us.

  The room seemed undisturbed. Books were stacked on the glass-enclosed shelves of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a small calendar was on the large oak desk, turned to today’s date. There were piles of sheet music on the filing cabinets in the corner.

  “Why did they kill him?” Alvin asked.

  He walked around the desk and touched the arm of the worn leather chair, then turned as if he expected Dr. Harding to come through the door at that moment and explain everything.

  “Why did they have to kill him?” he asked again.

  I, too, felt that Erskin would walk through the door and explain even as I fumbled for an answer to a question that had no answer.

  “Alvin, these things … happen and … sometimes there’s no explanation, none we can understand …”

  He continued to move around as if he were alone in the room, then paused near the window.

  “Here’s the cassette,” he whispered. He reached over behind the chair, pushed the plant of hanging ivy aside, and snapped the tape deck open. “This is the tape Grandpa wanted him to hear. An old recording called ‘Profoundly Blue.’ Grandpa taped it and I brought it to Mr. Harding last Saturday.”

  He held out the tape and I recognized my father’s precise handwriting: “For Erskin Harding, Ph.D. A Man Who Recognizes the Only Original Art Forms Made in America. Jazz & Blues. Best Wishes. Jeffrey Anderson.”

  I slipped the tape into my shoulder bag.

  … Quite a long title, Dad. Why didn’t you simply write “Profoundly Blue” on the label and be done with it? The title alone tells the whole story …

  But then it wouldn’t be Dad if he missed a chance to teach, preach, or otherwise inform.

  I reached across the desk and for no reason I could think of, slipped the small calendar in also. And closed my purse just as the door opened.

  “Who … are you? What … what are you doing in this office?” the man asked.

  I flashed a glance at Alvin, signaling him to keep quiet. Then I spoke. “We all heard the news. My nephew was feeling sick, so we came in here until he calmed down.”

  I gave the man my most direct stare until he looked away. He was short, with round shoulders and a hairline that had begun a serious recession, although he couldn’t have been more than forty years old. The cut of his black silk suit and white silk collarless shirt let me know that every time he walked down Madison Avenue, he left the Calvin Klein Men’s Boutique a few thousand dollars richer. His nails were manicured and carried a hint of a dull, discreet sheen.

  His face was pale and colorless. It reminded me of a wax mask, capable of reshaping itself according to the temperature of the particular room he entered. His forehead was highlighted by a large port wine stain on the left side, like the former Russian president, and his nose reminded me of a fighter who had gone ten rounds and lost.

  He seemed on guard, as if he expected someone else to come down the corridor and surprise the three of us.

  “Is this your office?” I knew it was not but I asked anyway, prepared to apologize for trespassing.

  Alvin had moved from the back of the desk to stand beside me. “This is not his office,” Alvin said quickly, breaking the silence.

  I looked down at him and tried to squeeze his hand but he ignored me and rushed on in his hurt and childish way to get the information out.

  “He’s Mr. Mark. He’s only the director of development, the fund-raiser. His office is down the hall, not in here.”

  Only the fund-raiser. Alvin made this last pronouncement proudly, as if he had appointed himself to protect the space and memory of Dr. Harding.

  The three of us faced each other in the room. Muffled sounds rose from below and I guessed that most of the parents were still in the auditorium, seeking answers which Danny Williams and Lloyd Benton had not been able to give.

  “I’m Gary Mark, the director of development,” the man finally said in a voice just above a whisper. He did not extend his hand and I wondered how friendly a fund-raiser was supposed to be. Weren’t they professional handshakers, extracting thousands of dollars with each shake? Either Mr. Mark was derelict in his duty or he had sized me up, come up with an estimate of my (zero) bank balance, and decided I wasn’t worth a handshake.

  Actually, it was neither. Gary Mark dabbed lightly at his forehead with a linen handkerchief as he glanced around the room, every movement telegraphing a vain attempt to control his emotions. It seemed that Erskin’s death had had a tremendous effect on the children, the parents, and the staff.

  I wanted to stay and talk to Gary Mark but I needed to get Alvin home where Dad and I could sit with him and try to make sense, try to come to terms with everything that had happened.

  And I certainly did not need Lloyd to walk in here and accuse me of trespassing.

  I glanced down at Alvin. “Do you feel well enough to leave? We could stay longer if you like—”

  “No. No.” He looked around, deciding that this was probably the last time he’d see the room in this state. His gaze swept over the desk, the old leather chair, the bookcase, and the dark red carpet.

  I followed his gaze and noticed the small square outline on the desk where the calendar had rested. A faint coating of dust had settled around everything else and the square was visible. I dropped my bag on the space and waited. I thought about fingerprints but I’d visited Erskin often enough in this office, along with a hundred other folks who had probably left prints. His office had been open to everyone who cared to drop by and chat.

  Alvin, who had closed his eyes, now opened them. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  I paused at the door, wondering what else to say.

  “Mr. Mark, sometimes when these things happen, there’s no …”

  He held up his hand and closed his eyes. “No. No. Don’t … I’ll … Everything will be all right …”

  I looked at him for a minute. He trembled slightly and I wanted to touch his shoulder. Instead I said, “Yes. Yes. Of course. Everything will be all right.”

  He stepped aside and I pressed my shoulder bag to my side and walked out of the room.

  chapter four

  Even on his answering machine, Tad Honeywell’s voice was extraordinary and I had a hard time remembering why I had called. I left a message, vague and neutral, and the name “Hard Head,” then hung up.

  … Damn, Tad. Please call. Please. There’s something about this calendar that’s just not right. Call me, dammit …

  I paced the floor of the living room, annoyed by the sound of my own footsteps. Alvin had finally gone to bed and Dad had canceled his gig so he could be within crying distance if the boy needed him. Nevertheless, he had decided to drop in on his buddies across the street for a round of poker. He was only a phone call away and would probably play until dawn.

  I had taken out my notebook and, in this quiet time, attempted to go through Erskin’s calendar entries, day by day, trying to reconstruct his life by reading his notes.

  There were the usual luncheon and dinner appointments, reminders for birthday greetings, sympathy cards, flowers for someone hospitalized, a
callback to the head of the Ford Foundation, and confirmation for visas and new passports for two of the choristers. From the looks of it, Erskin kept his own calendar, so apparently he didn’t have his own secretary, although he might have shared a clerk with the other administrators.

  There was a dental exam scheduled for a few weeks from now, an appointment he would never keep—the only hint that he had had a personal life.

  I settled on the sofa to concentrate. Everything on the pages related only to his professional life. The many occasions I had met him, usually after a concert, he had kissed me on the cheek and had seemed in great spirits, almost buoyant. Thinking back on those times, I realized that he was like most artists, especially performing artists—and the buoyancy was there because he was still coming down from the high excitement of the event itself. I thought of Dad and the nights—more like early dawns—when he had come in from a gig, not exhausted as one would expect, but still full of the energy that had earlier driven his performance.

  My sister, Benin, and I used to go to bed before the streetlights came on in order to wake up and run downstairs as his key hit the door. Then we’d sit in the kitchen as he brewed the usual pot of Blue Mountain coffee. And as he relived the entire evening for us, he was alive, effusive, entertaining.

  “This was a society gig at the Audubon,” he told us one night. “All the doctors, lawyers, and chiefs were there. Not a fried chicken leg in sight. Just skinny little hors d’oeuvres and skinny flutes of Moët. And everything was going great till Mrs. what’s-her-name spotted Miss so-and-so waltzing through the doors with this tall, young, fine-lookin’ cat draped on her arm. Problem was Mrs. what’s-her-name had been seeing and most likely supporting this cat on the side while playing house with her lawful lawyer husband. Next thing everybody knew, she had left her old man standing in the middle of the dance floor and ambled on over to fine-young-cat. Didn’t say one word to him but snatched his girlfriend’s wig right off her head and said out loud, ‘I know I paid for this crap ’cause Jesse ain’t never had two dimes to rub together in his whole life.’

  “It was one of those red, curly wigs too. Mop had so many curls and waves we thought it was Shirley Temple when she first walked in.

  “And before the girl could say ‘boo,’ Mrs. what’s-her-name had wound back with a left that could’ve put Satchel Paige out of business. I mean she threw that wig so far it landed in the punch bowl on the buffet table, way on the other side of the room.

  “What we usually do when a fight starts is ditch the slow music and scramble into a kind of fast tempo, a calypso, something to get everybody out on the floor and draw attention away from the catfight. Well, everybody got up from their tables, all right, but not for no hip-shaking calypso, no sirree. By that time, the two women were down on the floor tangled like a pretzel, the fur was flying, and there was this big circle crowded ‘round, with people in the back jumping up and down trying to get a look-see over the shoulders of the ringsiders. I even heard bets being called, and the cat they were fighting about was nowhere to be seen. Heard later that he had snuck out with somebody else’s wife.”

  The life of the artist, Dad said, is filled with incidents that happen in other people’s lives, incidents that the artist knows are worth recording. Even so, there is a life apart from the art which sustains him. How many of Dad’s musician friends knew what brand of coffee he drank at 5 A.M.? Or that he took his daughters on late afternoon walks, pointing out architectural treasures that anyone could have seen if they had bothered to look?

  Erskin, like Dad, must have had something beyond his music but he’d had no children to tell it to. There’s a diary lying about somewhere, somewhere just out of reach. I know there is …

  The last page of the calendar, behind the space marked “Coming Events,” had a smaller page taped to it. The notation read “Check the end of the year.”

  The end of the year. I spent the next hour looking at the calendar, but the entire space for December 1995 was blank.

  My message to Tad had been deliberately vague. Who knows who might have access to his machine at the precinct? I couldn’t take that chance.

  I continued pacing the floor.

  … I’ve got to remember to ask him for his private number. At home. Wait a minute. Is his divorce final? He might be involved with someone else, might have someone living with him … Fine as he is, he wouldn’t last a hot second before some other sister …

  Hell with that. I still need the number …

  I stopped in the middle of the room and squeezed my eyes shut. “Call, Tad …”

  I raised my arms toward the ceiling and drew my breath in and held it. “Call. This is important.”

  Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn’t. When it did, I always managed to say a prayer of thanks. I did so now as I breathed out.

  The phone was ringing.

  I lifted the receiver and was about to say, “What took you so long?” when a woman’s voice, small and breathless, came on.

  “Miss Anderson? This is Mrs. Johnson, Morris’s mother? I’m callin’ ’cause I gotta talk to you. This boy is tellin’ me some stuff I think you ought to know about.”

  “Okay. Okay. Don’t say any more. Give me your number and I’ll call you back in half an hour.” I jotted down the number and hung up, intending to go out and use a public phone.

  Who knows? Ever since I started that stupid lawsuit, the crank calls have been coming in, so who knows? My line may very well be wired.

  Anyway, there’s nothing like a healthy dose of paranoia to get me through the day …

  The phone rang again and I picked it up on the second ring. Tad’s voice: “Don’t you believe in call waiting? How do you expect Ma Bell to make any money if you stick to just basic service?”

  I heard the lilt of laughter in his throat and had to sit down. My knees had suddenly gotten weak.

  “What’s going on, Hard Head?”

  “Everything. Could you come over?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now. I—”

  “What is it, Mali? What’s—? Are you all right? Talk to me.”

  I held my breath and let it out slowly. I hadn’t meant to alarm him.

  “Tad, I’m all right. I just need you to—I’ll tell you when you get here. It’s important.”

  There was a second of silence in which I heard the light sound of his breathing. Then he said, “Whatever it is, just hold on. I’ll be there.”

  Twenty minutes later, as Tad settled himself on the sofa, I went over near the piano, pressed a strip of wood on the wall nearby, and a large panel slid open, revealing a mirrored, glass-shelved bar.

  “Sorry I sounded so upset on the phone, but I have Dr. Harding’s calendar and there’s something peculiar about it. I can’t quite figure out what it is.”

  I pointed to Erskin’s calendar lying on the table in front of him. He picked it up and began to turn the pages slowly, as I had done earlier.

  I placed two glasses on a tray. “What are you having?”

  “Walker and water, please … I won’t ask how you came by this … piece of evidence …”

  … Evidence. This was a piece of evidence. Damn …

  I paused and he returned my gaze steadily. He had me so mesmerized that for a second I had forgotten that he was a detective, a very good one, and the traits that made him good were always present, like a second skin.

  Finally, I said, “Go ahead, ask me. No, I’ll tell you. Save some time. I found it at the rehearsal hall earlier this evening when I picked up my nephew.”

  He was quiet now but I thought I detected a slight frown.

  “You’re telling me that this calendar just fell off a shelf and into your pocketbook …”

  “I’m not telling you anything of the sort,” I replied, beginning to feel like a suspect. “I’m only saying that I have it, I tried to figure out something of the man’s life from the notes, and there’s a message on the last page which I bet no one can figure out.”


  “Well, why are you so interested in his life? Shouldn’t that be our job?”

  He was right, but Erskin had been my friend. I did not want his death to become one of those open-ended “still under investigation” cases that languished in a file gathering more than its share of dust. I intended to find out everything I could about his life so I could understand his death.

  I placed the tray with the Scotch and glasses on the table and curled up on the sofa opposite him. He picked up the calendar again.

  “ ‘Check the end of the year,’ ” he said. “Maybe what Harding meant was a check check. As in bank check, bad check, blank check, check for a certain amount of money he expected to receive.”

  “Like a bonus or something? Lots of folks receive bonuses—if they have a job. Why would he be so cryptic about it?”

  “I don’t know.” Tad leaned back against the pillows. “Check the end of the year. What? Where? And with whom?”

  The question, when he repeated it, took on a soft, singsong cadence that I might have listened to all night.

  He shrugged and lifted the glass to his mouth. I watched, gazing at him over the rim of my own glass. He was forty years old and already his hair was edged with gray. Was that the result of the tension on the job, or was it because of his personal problems? I couldn’t do anything about the job, but I had some ideas about how to help him privately.

  “Perhaps,” he continued, “Harding knew he was jammed up. Maybe he knew it a while ago. And now that he’s gone, there’s something somewhere that someone is supposed to look into … But why wait till the end of the year?”

  Why indeed? I continued to gaze at him. He had taken his jacket off and leaned back. I wondered how it would feel to give him a massage … Start around those great shoulders and work my way …