A Long Line of Dead Men

"I'm the same way."

"That's my definition of middle age. It starts the day you pick up the morning paper and turn to the obituaries. When Frank dropped dead, I thought to myself, Well, Gruliow, you're walking point." He frowned. "As if it would be my turn next. Instead it was Alan Watson. Decent fellow, very straight, stabbed to death for his watch and wallet. You don't expect that in Forest Hills."

"They've evidently had more street crime lately. It was a private security guard who found him, and you don't hire a private security force if you don't have to."

"Sign of the times," he said. "They'll have them everywhere soon." He looked down into his glass of whiskey and soda. "I had a call from Felicia Karp," he said. "I didn't know who she was, and when she told me she was Fred Karp's widow I was still in the dark. Fred Karp? Who the hell was Fred Karp? A lawyer, a mob guy, a radical? Remember, he was a guy I used to see once a year at dinner, and then three years ago I stopped seeing him because he jumped out his office window. So it took me a minute, and then she went on to say that she'd had a visit from a detective, and this chap had told her there was a possibility her husband hadn't killed himself after all, that he'd been murdered. And she'd seen my name on a list of some sort of club, and it was the one name on the list she recognized, so she was calling in the hope that I could shed some light on the matter."

"And?"

"And I did what I could to conceal my own ignorance, which at the time was all-encompassing, and told her I'd see what I could find out. I made the obvious phone calls, and when I felt I'd learned enough about you I called you up myself." He smiled engagingly. "And here you are."

"And here I am."

"Who's your client?"

"I can't tell you that."

"You're not an attorney, you know. It's not privileged information."

"And we're not in court."

"No, of course we're not. I have to assume your client is one of the other surviving members. Unless you've been hired by a widow or some other survivor." He watched my face as he spoke. "You're not giving anything away," he said after a moment.

"My client may be willing for you to know who he is. But I'd have to check with him first."

" 'He, him.' Hardly a widow, not with those pronouns. Although I think you might be a subtle man, Matt. Are you?"

"Not very."

"I wonder. Still, it almost has to be a group member, doesn't it? Who else would know the names of all the other members? Although I suppose some of us may have talked openly about the club with our wives." A smile, this one a little darker at the corners. "Our first wives," he said. "If your first divorce teaches you nothing else, it teaches you discretion."

"Does it matter who hired me?"

"Probably not. I like to know everything about people- jurors, witnesses, the lawyer on the other side. Preparation's everything, you know. The courtroom thearics may make me a hot ticket on the lecture circuit, but it's the pretrial prep work that wins the cases. And I like to win cases."

He asked if I wanted more Perrier. I said I was fine.

He said, "Well, what's your best guess, Matt? Is someone killing us off? Or is that confidential, too?"

"The club's had a lot of deaths."

"I don't need a detective to tell me that."

"Several murders, several suicides, a few accidents that could have been staged. So it looks as though more than coincidence would have to be involved."

"Yes."

"But it's impossible. The killer would almost have to be one of you, and there's no motive, no financial incentive, at least none I'm aware of. Or am I missing something?"

"No," he said. "There was some talk early on about laying down a case of good Bordeaux for the last man to drink. We decided whoever was left would be too old to enjoy it. Besides, it seemed inappropriate, even frivolous."

"So the killer would have to be crazy," I said. "And not just sudden-impulse crazy, because he'd have been at it for years. He'd have to be long-term crazy, and all fourteen of you look to have been leading sane and stable lives."

"Ha," he said. "I've got two ex-wives who would give you an argument on that point, and I could name a few other people who'd be quick to tell you I'm only eating with one chopstick. Maybe I'm the killer."

"Are you?"

"How's that again?"

"Are you the killer? Did you kill Watson and Cloonan and the others?"

"My God, what a question. No, of course not."

"Well, that's a load off my mind."

"Am I a suspect?"

"I don't have any suspects."

"But did you seriously think-"

"That you might have done it? No idea. That's why I asked."

"You think I would have told you?"

"You might have," I said. "Stranger things have happened."

"Jesus."

"What I was taught to do," I said, "was ask all the questions, including the stupid ones. You never know what somebody'll decide to tell you."

"Interesting. In a trial it's the exact opposite. There's a basic principle, you never ask a question of a witness unless you already know the answer."

"You'd think it would be hard to learn anything that way."