Kate answered the door, distracted. Her half-glasses perched precariously atop her nose and a Nikon Sure Shot hung around her neck. “Oh, Rita. Come along, dear. Come see what I’m up to.”
Planning another murder? This woman needs a job.
“You’ve never seen this, I believe,” she said. “Not all of it anyway.” She led me into her large country kitchen with custom pine cabinets and sparkling white countertops. Stacked everywhere were decorative plates, vases, and cups in the same colorful pattern as those displayed on the kitchen walls. No bloody knives were in evidence, so I relaxed.
“What are you doing, Kate?”
“How’s this for a project?” Spread out on a rustic pine table was a piece of black velvet, and on top of it sat a plate. “I’ve been wanting to get to this for a long time,” she said, then leaned over the plate and snapped a picture.
“You’re taking a picture of a dish?” Definitely needs a job.
“Not just any dish, it’s Quimper. French faience. Pottery that’s made in Brittany.” She picked up the dish, turned it over, and showed it to me. On the back was a black squiggle. “See this mark? It’s a P, for Charles Porquier. He introduced the first mark of the house. This lone P is an extremely rare signature.”
“Why are you photographing it?”
She set the plate down with care and took a picture of the P. “For insurance purposes. I have a hundred and fifty pieces, if you include the knife rests, the wall pockets, everything.” She waved at a hutch crammed with plates. “The collection is worth, oh, sixty thousand dollars.”
If I had been drinking coffee I would have spit it out, but she hadn’t offered me any.
“You seem tired, dear.” She removed the plate from the velvet and returned it to the hutch. “How is your father? Improving?”
It reminded me of my purpose. “He’s fine, thanks.”
“I’m so glad. This must be quite a stressful time for you.”
“For you, too. The reporters everywhere, Fiske in trouble. Actually, I’ve been working on a way to solve this murder. I came to tell you and Fiske about it. Is he around?”
“Upstairs in his library.” She removed a plate from the wall, dislodging it slowly from its hooks, and set it down on the velvet. “Fiske got himself in trouble, dear. He’ll get himself out of it. He’s formulated a plan of his own, he’ll tell you about it.”
I didn’t know if I’d heard her correctly. “What?”
“Isn’t he the one who started this? With his little affair?”
I didn’t know what to say. “Affair?”
She smiled tightly over her glasses. “He has a midlife crisis, so he trifles with his secretary. It’s not exactly unheard-of.”
So she knew?
“Don’t look so surprised, dear. Of course I knew he was having an affair. I’ve lived with the man for forty years, married him right out of Bryn Mawr. Never even finished my degree.” Her tone sounded bitter, but I couldn’t read her expression because she bent over and stuck a Nikon in front of her face. “This piece is my absolute favorite,” she said from behind the camera.
“You knew, but you never let on?”
“No. In fact, when he told me about it this morning, I acted very surprised. Aren’t men foolish?”
“He told you, this morning?” What was going on?
“Oh yes. It’s all part of his grand design. Endgame, he calls it. Will you look at the work in that plate? It’s all hand-painted, you know.” She picked up the plate and held it up. Orange and blue flowers ringed the border and in the center was a peasant woman in a white cap and full orange skirt. “Isn’t she lovely?”
Frankly, no. The woman’s face was crudely painted, with only one or two lines to represent her features. “She looks kind of blank, don’t you think?”
“Naïf.”
“What, she looks naive?” I was projecting.
“No. It’s the style. Naïf. Primitive.”
Enough with the fucking dishes. “How did you know about Fiske?”
Her face dropped even its tight smile and she set the plate down. “He was like a young man again, happy as a lark. That’s why I think it was the first time he… strayed, because I hadn’t seen him so happy.”
Ironic. I thought of Paul. He’d cheated and he still wasn’t happy. “Did you tell Fiske you knew?”
“No.”
“You weren’t angry?” Angry enough to kill?
“No.” She shrugged in her thin cotton sweater.
“You didn’t think about breaking up?”
She snapped another photo and looked up at me. “Why would I, dear? Fiske and I grew up together. We’ve built a life, a home. Why would I throw that away? Why would he? I knew he’d get over it.” She turned away and flipped the plate over, back to business.
So Fiske didn’t tell her he’d loved Patricia, and she wouldn’t admit it to herself anyway. I eyed the plates hanging on the kitchen walls, seeing them as if for the first time. Each one depicted a man or a woman standing in profile, with the men facing right and the women facing left. Kate had hung the dishes in pairs, so the men and women faced each other. Still, their faces remained unsmiling and expressionless. She could put them together, but she couldn’t make them happy couples.
Nobody could.
“Ah, Rita,” Fiske boomed as I entered his library. “Good to see you.”
I hadn’t seen him this happy since his arrest. What a screwy family. “Fiske, how are you?”
“Fine, just fine, thanks. I’m in control now. I’m not stepping down. I told the chief judge.”
“Good. I stopped by because I have something to discuss with you. Kate said she’d be up in a minute-”
“Do you know why I like the Royal Game, Rita?” He waved exuberantly at the chessboards resting on the long polished table.
Huh? “What?”
“Chess. I like it because of what it teaches us about battle, about conflict. It originated as a game of war, you know, in India, in the sixth century. One of the grandmasters, Lasker, said that chess was a fight in which the ‘purely intellectual element holds sway.’”
“Really.” Between him and Kate it was a regular university around here.
“It didn’t occur to me until today, until I saw the headline calling me ‘embattled.’ I thought, that’s what I am. In battle.” He looked up and smiled. “In battle.”
I get it. “Fiske, listen-”
“There’s power in these pieces, properly used. Take this one, for example.” He held up the White Queen. “She has the greatest range, the greatest striking power, on an open board. A full twenty-seven squares at the center of the board.” He twisted the piece between his thumb and forefinger. “She may take from one or two squares away, but she may also take from a great distance. Then she is the most effective. You don’t see her coming, she blind-sides. Just like a woman, eh?” He set the Queen down and laughed, but I didn’t.
“Fiske-”
“Do you know what Ben Franklin said about chess, Rita? That it can teach us life lessons.”
Wrong. Chess is not life, poker is life. When games collide.
“I have Franklin’s essay right here. I was reminded of it after I saw the headline.” He reached for a book on the shelf behind him and thumbed through it. “Here we go. Franklin, in The Morals of Chess, writes that chess teaches us perseverance, for one ‘discovers the means of extricating one’s self from an insurmountable difficulty’ and ‘one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last.’ Isn’t that wonderful, Rita?”
“I guess.”
He snapped the book closed. “Well, I’m extricating myself. The King is powerful, too, and although his striking distance is shorter than the Queen’s, he takes justly. Face-to-face, not from a distance. Each time he attacks, he places himself at great risk, simply because of his proximity. Nevertheless, he looks his enemy in the eye-and he takes.” Fiske inhaled as if inspired. “Did you know that in the endgame, the King cannot be mated in the middle of the board? He must be driven to the edge. Now I ask you, why should I permit myself to be driven to the edge?”
“You shouldn’t.” It had finally happened. Fiske had turned into a White King.
He slammed the book to the table so hard the chesspieces wobbled. “But I have, Rita! By the press, by the chief judge, by Julicher, by every women’s group in the city. By every minor player on the board. And I’ve had it! So I’m fighting back, and I’ve already made the first move.”
“Telling Kate?”
He paused. “Why, yes. She told you?”
“Yes.”
“An aggressive gambit, my own application of the Sicilian defense. Do you know what she said, my lovely wife? She was terribly hurt, but she said she’d forgive me.”
I still couldn’t believe Kate would react so calmly, no woman would. At least I didn’t. “That’s all she said?”
He smiled. “What else was there to say? People are not chesspieces, they move unpredictably. I would never have guessed that Kate would understand this, but she has. She’s promised to stand by me, and she will. My next move was to invite Patricia’s lawyer, Mr. Julicher, to the house-he should arrive at any minute-and I intend to deal with him. Honestly. Justly. Face-to-face.”
“Stan Julicher? Here?”
“I’ll tell him the truth and ask him to back down. If my own wife has no cause for complaint, why should he?”
What? Fiske was making a bad move and ruining my own game. “Wait a minute. Julicher won’t let up.”
“Even after he’s made aware that he’s persecuting an innocent man?”
Talk about naive. “Come on, he’s a publicity hound! He couldn’t care less.”
Fiske’s mouth made a determined line and he folded his arms like a regent. “Then he’ll be made to understand whom he’s dealing with. He’ll understand if he doesn’t cease and desist this harassment in the media, I’ll make my next move. We’ll exchange pieces, I’ll take King for Pawn.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll file suit for libel and defamation. Julicher has gone far beyond any privilege to discuss this matter. I’ll join in suit every radio and television station on which he appeared, every newspaper that carried the words. Checkmate!”
“Fiske-”
“Don’t fret now. My initial strategy is to take the high road. I invited him here, with his women’s groups to boot. But no press, that was my stipulation. He agreed.”
I shook my head. Things were happening too fast. I didn’t know whether to go forward with my own plan or not. Then I remembered my father, and LeVonne. “Fiske, listen to me. I have something to tell you and Kate.”
“I’m right here,” said a clipped voice from the door. It was Kate, followed by Stan Julicher. “Look what the cat dragged in,” she said drolly, and showed Julicher to a wing chair. Then she perched on the arm of her club chair and lit a cigarette.
“Mr. Julicher, I don’t believe we’ve met,” Fiske said, extending a hand. “I am Fiske Hamilton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Julicher shook it, glancing around at his elegant surroundings. “Good to meet you, sir.”
Fiske cleared his throat. “As I believe I mentioned, I called you here to discuss the Sullivan case as frankly and freely as possible.”
“Fiske,” Kate interrupted, “Rita said she has something to tell us.” She cocked her head toward me. “Don’t you, dear?”
An awkward moment. I didn’t want to tell them with Julicher here. “What I have to say is privileged, Kate.”
“Attorney-client privileged?” Fiske asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Fiske squared his shoulders. “But I have absolutely nothing to hide, Rita. I see no need for secrecy anymore. I’m about to tell Mr. Julicher the truth about Patricia and me. I am innocent of any other wrongdoing. So, please, speak as freely as if we were alone.”
Unthinkable. “Fiske, you’re still a murder suspect. Anything we say here is discoverable if you waive the privilege. Mr. Julicher, if he wanted, could testify-”
“I told you, so be it. Let it come out that I called Mr. Julicher here to clear my name. Let it come out that I met with him, man-to-man, to settle this thing once and for all.”
Julicher edged forward on his chair. “Anything I hear in this room stays in this room.”
I almost laughed. “Come on, Stan. You won’t tell the press as soon as you hit the driveway?”
His eyes went rounder. “I swear it.”
“Bullshit.” There was no reason to trust him. Then I remembered what my mentor Mack had said about publicity, and it gave me an idea. “Tell you what, Stan. You can tell the press everything you hear in this room, but not until Monday afternoon. And I’ll give you an interview about it, an exclusive interview. Imagine it, you interviewing me-former adversaries-on how we broke a murder case.”
Julicher almost fell off his chair. “An exclusive?”
“Yes, on the condition that you can’t breathe a word until I call you on Monday afternoon. If you do, I’ll deny the whole frigging thing. There’ll be egg all over your face.”
“Agreed.”
It would stick, I felt reasonably sure. I glanced at Fiske. Time to start play. “This conversation is confidential, then, to everyone but Paul.”
Smoke curled around Kate’s silver hair. “We haven’t seen Paul today,” she said. “Have you?”
Did she know about us or not? It didn’t matter anymore. “You’ll see him for Sunday brunch, as usual?”
Kate nodded. “Sure.”
“I can’t come, I have LeVonne’s funeral. Tell him about it, will you? I want him to know, see if he thinks it’s logical.” I had planned it this way. I didn’t know if I could bluff Paul, I didn’t want to try.
“Of course.”
“Good. Here’s my plan-”
“A plan?” Fiske said. “To do what?”
“To catch a killer, of course.”
So I took a deep breath and lied, lied, lied. Not too much detail, not too little. Just a single playing card, laid facedown, and a high bet. All the while, a poker face. Adrenaline surged into my veins and my nerves tingled with tension. As best I could tell, they bought the whole damn thing. It felt like the best bluff ever, for the highest stakes.
After all, I was betting my life.