Read The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man Online
Authors: Alfred Alcorn
The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man (20 page)
“We are contending that in the particular case of Sigmund Library, the university wittingly or unwittingly allowed an environment of sexual exploitation to exist of which these two young people are the very evident victims.”
“What exactly, could you tell me, Mr. Dearth, should the university have done differently?”
“That is up to the deans in the administration to decide. But the very existence of a large securable closet and the ends to which everyone knows it was used indicates substantial grounds for complaint. The principle of undue temptation applies here.”
“Undue temptation?”
“A concept I developed. It recognizes the limits of human virtue.”
I shook my head in wonder and disgust.
“There’s considerable case law in this area,” the lawyer continued.
“Morin versus Museum of Man
established a good many of the points now being used in current cases.”
I told him what he was doing was unconscionable even by the farcical ethics of the legal profession. I paraphrased for him a quote from Izzy Landes to the effect that an organism’s worst parasites are usually indigenous to it. As in the case of Mr. Morin, I accused him of making a travesty of the law. “You, Mr. Dearth, and people like you in the legal profession are consciously and for
your own selfish ends deconstructing a great and noble American institution.”
“Are you calling me a parasite?” he demanded to know.
“That’s exactly what I’m calling you, Mr. Dearth. You and your ilk do not help society in the least. You merely find and feed on its vulnerabilities, all the while perverting the law as you go.”
I told him that, as a member of the Subcommittee on Appropriateness, I was writing to the state bar association demanding that he be disciplined in a most decisive way.
It was some small gratification to see Mr. Dearth dumbfounded for once in his garrulous life. Leaving him there I turned and walked from the room, ignoring the two pathetic individuals he had suborned into a suit against the university.
I’m afraid I spent valuable time and a deal of spirit making good on my threats. Not only did I send a detailed and indignant letter to the members of the subcommittee with copies to President Twill and the Wainscott Board of Regents, but I filed a complaint with the state bar association. Not that I have much faith in that latter organization, despite its impressive-looking code of ethics. The lawyers handling the estate of my late aunt, Harriet Heathering, all but looted its substance, leaving the sole heir, a nephew, with a pittance. When he took the matter to the state bar, they sat on it for a year and finally did nothing. As Izzy says, we live increasingly under a rule of lawyers, not law.
And such is life and death that none of this really means a damn to me; it is nothing more than a tempest in a tosspot next to the daily unraveling of my beloved Elsbeth. She is now insisting that we spend Thanksgiving out at the cottage, but the poor dear is scarcely able to get out of bed.
I received this morning a most extraordinary document. It indicates — the good news — that Korky Kummerbund may still be alive. It also indicates — the bad news — that he is under considerable distress and possibly in great danger. I’ll let the document, which is carefully handwritten and which came via ordinary mail in a standard number 10 envelope, speak for itself.
Dear Norman:
The following article must appear in the Bugle as soon as possible under my byline if I am to have any chance of being seen alive again. It must be word-for-word or I will be starved to death. As it is, until the meal described below, I had not had anything to eat for more than a week. I am allowed to tell you that I am under extreme duress from lack of food and noise on a loop, but that is all.
Your trusting friend,
Korky
A U
NIQUE
R
EPAST
by Korky Kummerbund
It is not difficult to describe the decor at this new eatery, which opened recently to a very select clientele. It is strictly no-frills, a setting informed by a radical minimalism
that announces an anti-aesthetic so total it defines a whole new aesthetic.
Suffice it to say, the surroundings achieved a congruity with the food and service to a remarkable degree. The walls are … well, walls, unfinished gray chalkboard. The floor, of concrete, is covered with a thin carpet of gray-beige, and the ceiling matches the walls. The toilet facilities, over in the corner, are rudimentary but adequate. The food is served through a hinged pet flap in the bottom of a sturdy door of solid wood.
To start this memorable dining experience, I had what the simple but elegant, hand-printed menu called
bouillon aux bons morceaux de papier journal
. It was in fact a transparently thin bouillon with florets of newsprint cut from one of my food columns in the
Bugle
. I was unable to discern which particular column. The bouillon came in a tin bowl with a ring attached to the rim for hanging. Along with the white plastic soup spoon, which had a slightly flaring handle, the bowl made for a fittingly Spartan vessel for the dish, especially when arrayed against the scarred Formica top of the table and the simple and effective lighting, a naked 75-watt bulb hanging from a standard ceiling fixture, dirty white against dirty white.
Appetite truly being the best relish, it takes an effort to describe how delicious the bouillon and the bouillon-soaked newsprint tasted. The first sip of the nearly clear liquid is like a revelation, an epiphany of the senses, as the tongue and the esophagus surrender to its essential minerality, satisfying a primordial craving for salt in a way hard to describe with mere words. (It brought
to mind the remark by A.J. Denny that food gives the tongue a voice beyond language.) The florets of newsprint, cut into simple, almost child-like patterns, added body to the fluid and, when properly chewed, proved not all that difficult to swallow.
It was, in any event, the perfect prelude to the fish, or should I say amphibian, course. The menu lists
les petites tranches de crapaud grillées avec des allumettes
. The toad came under the door on a small, stark cutting board complete with a box of wooden matches, plastic fork, and X-Acto knife. To my great delight, it was accompanied by a pint of Thunderbird, a sweetish little wine with no pretensions to complexity whatsoever.
If anything, the bouillon and newsprint had whetted my appetite, and I tore into this delicacy with a gusto I usually reserve for more prepossessing dishes. The truth: I found every morsel of the thing delectable, especially after I had gotten the hang of cutting off an appropriately sized piece and skewering it on the tip of the X-Acto knife where, with one or two matches, I could crisp it nicely. The sulfur from the matches added its own distinct resonance to a taste hard to limn with mere words. The essence was that of a paludal origin, not quite fetid, but definitely smacking of the swamp. The bones were sufficiently pliable not to be crunchable unless properly singed, but alas, I ran out of matches before quite finishing. Actually, raw toad isn’t that bad, either.
Again, after the perfect interval, I was served the main course, which, according to the simple but beautifully wrought bill of fare, consisted of
Tartare d’écureuil écrasé dans la rue sur un lit de glands gratinés
.
But I do not complain. Again simplicity added an undeniable
elegance to the presentation. The rodent had been skinned and flensed. The meat and, from what I could gather, the rest of the soft parts had been ground medium-coarse then served in the cavity of the pelt, artfully splayed on its back, legs outspread and tail in full fluff curling upward and over toward the turned little head.
It was delicious. I never thought acorns could be so tasty. They added the exact right textural counterpart to the chewy meat and the shredded newsprint, the flavors combining with a gustatorial synergy little short of wondrous. I was ingesting nothing less than the essence of oak, at first hand in the muted yet subtle woodiness of the acorns, and then, at one remove, in the nutty echoes alive in the flesh of the little creature that feeds on these underappreciated delicacies.
The service was truly excellent, the dishes being slid on the floor through the door flap after just the right interval between courses, as you would expect in any well-run establishment.
As well as food, I was served food for thought. It is seldom in life that a meal serves both the body and the spirit, if only with a lesson in the true meaning of hunger and humility.
It was only after I had read this document through twice that I realized it constituted evidence of a kidnapping case and of a sick, deranged mind. Holding it by the edges, I forthwith placed letter and envelope in a plastic bag and phoned Lieutenant Tracy.
He arrived at my office less than half an hour later. Donning white gloves, he examined the letter in detail. He shook his head in disbelief. “What is this? Fresh roadkill squirrel? What kind of sicko …? Is this serious or some kind of joke?”
I nodded. “Both, I’m afraid.”
He shook his head again. “Where do you find fresh toad this time of year?”
“Maybe it wasn’t fresh.”
Lieutenant Tracy started to laugh, something I had never seen him do before. It was an attractive, revealing laugh that had him shaking his head and wiping tears from his eyes. Then, like a squall, it stopped as abruptly as it started. He wiped his eyes and apologized. I said I understood.
I told him it was, as far as I could determine, Korky’s handwriting. Over the past two years he had sent numerous notes and cards to Elsbeth and me. I said I could easily provide a sample, but I thought the editor of the
Bugle
should be informed immediately as to what had transpired.
Donald Patcher, the editor of the
Bugle
, responded with a sense of concern for Korky’s welfare when we contacted him. There was no bluster about the inviolability of the press and that sort of thing. He said he would run it the next morning just as though it were Korky’s regular column.
In part because it can’t be avoided — I’m sure she would read the column in tomorrow’s
Bugle
or one of her friends is sure to mention it to her — I called Elsbeth and let her know what had happened without going into details. She took it well, saying it would be good to read his column again whatever it said. I’ve told her about Corny’s death as well, again without going into details. Truth in these matters is always the best policy.
Robert Remick has called again. He was his gentlemanly self, but news of the Bert-and-Betti fiasco had reached him, as I knew it would. I sensed a note of exasperation in his tone as he told me that he and the rest of the board had full confidence in my ability “to clean up this latest mess” at the museum.
I had his call very much in mind when I summoned Alger
Wherry up for a meeting. Closing the door and having Doreen poised with her pen and steno pad did not have much effect on the man. He refused to answer any questions I had about the use of the empty room in the Skull Collections. “Good,” I said, “you’re fired. Effective immediately. Please collect your personal effects and remove them.”
He turned surly. “There are procedures …”
“We are no longer part of the university in that way, Alger. Appeal all you want to Human Resources, it won’t do you any good. In fact I’m looking for a good excuse to get rid of Maria Cowe and her inefficient staff.”
“The Long Piggers have been using the room.”
“You mean they never stopped using the room.”
“Right.”
“Who are the members?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that.”
“I don’t know most of the new members. Everyone has a code name. I don’t know who they are. I don’t really care.”
“Who does have the names?”
“Brauer. And Corny did.”
I believed him if only because I could tell from his air of defeat, which was more pronounced than usual, that he didn’t care enough to lie. He left, agreeing to clean out the room and start using it for storing skulls.
Word of Corny’s demise has spread far and wide. I have arranged for the Chards’ family attorney and an officer of the Middling County Probate Court to witness the tape. I can only hope they don’t start telling others about it afterward.
It’s evening and we are back from a couple of days out at the cottage. Elsbeth, weak and frail as she is, asked several times to spend Thanksgiving at the lake. I remonstrated with her, saying what if something happened? What if there was an emergency?
She smiled and took my hand. “Norman, dear, it’s already happened. I’m beyond emergencies.”
“But …”
“What’s the worst that could happen? That I die out there. I’d love to die out there.” She laughed her wonderful laugh, even if it were only a slight echo of itself. “You could build a bonfire on the lakeshore and cremate me right there like they did Byron. And then have an orgy.”
It turned out to be, despite everything, a wonderful time, of the kind that haunts you afterward. We all knew, of course, that this would be the last time Elsbeth would make the journey, taking the same roads, the same turns, winding our way through the needle-carpeted evergreen forest until we come to the fork in the road that I always used to miss. I think we fear death because we think we will miss all the things we do again and again in life.
It hasn’t changed much over the years. We’ve cleared back the hemlock saplings encroaching on the drive that leads to the cottage. We’ve had the rotting sills replaced, a new well dug, and some new wiring installed. But otherwise it’s not a lot different than it used to be all those years ago. We packed an extra space heater, because Elsbeth does suffer from the cold.
Upon arrival, I plugged in an electric blanket for Elsbeth on the wicker sofa in front of the fireplace. I lit the fire while Diantha started the turkey breast in the oven. She said it looked like something that had been given thalidomide, what with the stumps where the legs had been. But we had all the fixings — stuffing, cranberry sauce, creamed onions, gravy and mashed potatoes, three kinds of squash, a decent white wine, and pumpkin pie. We toasted our lives and we said a prayer of thanks and asked that Korky be returned safe and sound to us.