Free A Long Line of Dead Men by Lawrence Block Page B

drinker's complexion and the sour smell of failure clinging to him. He'd had the office for less than two years and knew nothing of its history. He let me look out his window, although I don't know what either of us thought I might see out there. I didn't tell him a previous tenant had taken a dive from that very window. I didn't want to give him any ideas.
    Karp's widow, Felicia, lived in Forest Hills and taught math in a middle school in South Ozone Park. I phoned her at home around dinnertime and she said, "I can't believe the investigation's been reopened. Does this have something to do with the insurance?"
    I told her it was in connection with another matter, and that I was trying to rule out the possibility that her husband's death had not been suicide.
    "I never thought it was," she said forcefully. "But what else could it be? Listen, do you want to come to the house? I have two hours of tutoring to do tonight, but I could meet you tomorrow. Say four-thirty?"
    She was waiting for me in the upper flat of a semidetached two-family house on Stafford Avenue, just a few blocks from where they used to play the tennis tournaments. She was a tall, angular woman with straight dark hair and a strong jawline. She had coffee made and we sat at her kitchen table. There was one of those black cat clocks on the wall, with the eyes rolling from side to side and the tail swinging like a pendulum. She said, "Isn't it ridiculous? The kids gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I have to admit it's grown on me. Let's talk about Fred."
    "All right."
    "It never made sense to me that he would kill himself. They said he was having problems with his business. Well, he was in that business for over twenty years, and you always have problems. He never had trouble making a living. And we had two incomes, and we were never extravagant. Look where we live."
    "It's a nice house."
    "It's okay, and the neighborhood's decent, but it's not Sutton Place. The point is my husband wasn't under any great financial pressure. Look, after his death I ran the business myself long enough to straighten things out and get a few dollars for the stock and goodwill. The business was in fine shape. Day-to-day chaos, yes, but nothing unusual. Certainly nothing to kill yourself over."
    "It's hard to know what goes on inside another person."
    "I realize that. But why are you here, Mr. Scudder? You didn't schlepp all the way out here to talk me into accepting my husband's suicide."
    I asked her if she knew anything about a club her husband had belonged to. She said, "What club? He was in the men's club at the temple but he wasn't very active. His work took too much of his time. He joined Rotary but that was at least ten years ago and I don't think he maintained his membership. That can't be what you're referring to."
    "This was a club of fellows who had dinner once a year," I said. "In the spring, at a restaurant in Manhattan."
    "Oh, that," she said. "What threw me off was your using the word 'club.' I don't think it was that formal, just a bunch of fellows who were friends in college and wanted to stay in touch over the years."
    "Is that how he described the group?"
    "I don't know that he ever 'described' it as such. That was certainly the impression I had. Why?"
    "I understand it was a little more formal than that."
    "It's possible. I know he never missed a dinner. One year we had tickets donated at the school, the Manhattan Light Opera, and Fred told me I'd have to find someone else to go with me. And he loved Gilbert and Sullivan, but he regarded his annual dinner as sacrosanct. What does the dinner have to do with his death? He died in December. The dinner was always sometime in April or May."
    "The first Thursday in May."
    "That's right, it was a set day every year. I'd forgotten. So?"
    Was there any reason not to tell her? I said, "There have been a lot of deaths in the group over the years, more than you'd expect. Several of them were