Rose Marie is trying something a little different, serializing a book she has written — "The Evil Men Do." Each month she will be sharing a chapter with you. As the months go by, you will be able to go back and re-read previous chapters if you wish to. We both welcome your thoughts on both the book itself and the process we are trying. So — jump in! If you missed Chapter I, it can be read here.

Judy and Rose Marie Zurkan

The Evil Men Do

by Rose Marie Zurkin

Chapter Two — The Marsh

Before he could call Sharon and make an appointment to see her, the phone rang.

"Sgt. Hinckley." The man waited for Stu to acknowledge him. 
"Hinckley," Stu repeated. The name was familiar. If he was who Stu thought he was, he hadn't thought of him in a long time. "You're a police officer now?"
"So you remember me," he said.

They had attended high school together, Hinckley transferring from a parochial school for his last four years. He had been in trouble a lot. Boys from parochial school got into more trouble than those who attended public school from the start. "We were in the same class," Stu said.  Say, yeah, we had some good times together, didn't we?"

Stu didn't remember that they had ever hung out together but went along with him, realizing that Hinckley was calling him for that reason, because they had been to school together. No doubt somebody at the police station thought they could establish a rapport. Sure enough, Hinckley asked to see Stu, who asked why. "Routine," Hinckley explained.

"You want me to go to the station?"
"Sure," Hinckley said. "When do you want to come in?"
Never, Stu thought. "How about now?"

The police station had been rebuilt recently, the old building torn down. Stu remembered it from years back when he and his friend Anthony had faced vandalism charges for throwing eggs off the railroad bridge, been caught and carted off to the jail. He realized now that the charges were intended only to scare them, which they did. Stu was scared, Anthony brazened it out. Stu was scared mostly because of Prudhomme — what would he say? How would he punish Stu? To his relief, the police bawled them out and left it at that. Prudhomme never found out.

"So what can you tell me about this guy?" Hinckley asked.
Straight to the point. "Not much. I told them what I saw when they picked up the girl."
"Sometimes people remember things later."
"I don't remember anything else. It was still dark."
"Funny how he always takes them to the marsh."
"I'm surprised you guys don't patrol there," Stu said.
"We do." Hinkley rose heavily. He'd put on weight since high school, lost some hair as well. "If you think of anything, you'll let us know."
"Of course."

Stu walked out, drove home, wondering why they had questioned him. A waste of time, his and theirs. He put the question aside, picked up the phone, rang his father's lover.
"Who?" she asked.
Why should she remember him. She had seen him only that once, in the lawyer's office. He told her again who he was.

"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Is that why you called?"
"One of the reasons."
"What were the other reasons?" she asked.
"Mainly what you said at the inquest. You didn't think he committed suicide. Does that mean you think he was murdered?"
"You called him Prudhomme. Why?"
"You mean, why don't I say, my father? I don't know, it just seems easier. We weren't close."
"I know."

He broke the silence by asking her to meet him. "Maybe you should let the police follow through," she said.
"You heard them. They're satisfied. I'm not."
"They'll probably think I did it," she said. "I was the one who found him. They always suspect the person who finds the body. Is that what you think too?"
"If you did it, you'd be happy the police called it suicide. If I thought that, would I want to talk to you?"
"Maybe you think I'll slip and say something to incriminate myself."
"Why don't you meet me and not make any slips?"
He heard her breathe at the other end of the wire.  "Can you come to the university?"
"When?"
"This afternoon if you want."
"You want to get it over with," he said.
"I have class till two.  I can see you right after. You live on the island, don't you? You're closer to the university than I am. I live in the city, which is less convenient.  For you, I mean."

And, he thought, by meeting him at work she would be saving herself any possible awkwardness from meeting him in her apartment, the same apartment where Prudhomme used to visit her. "Fine," he said, then added, "You commute all the way from the city?" 

"It's not a bad commute. I go the opposite way from everybody else. I couldn't live in the suburbs."
"I don't live in the suburbs. I live at the beach," he said. "You should come out some time. We could take a walk." The shore, the thin ribbon of marsh, the beginning of life and, who knows, maybe the end as well.
She said, "well, I have to admit your father talked a lot about the beach too. Not just the beaches on Long Island. Beaches in general."
"He did?" 

She heard the surprise in his voice. "There was probably a lot about him you don't know."
"I'm hoping to find out."
"He had something on his mind," she said. "I wish I knew what. He didn't tell me everything. I wish he did."
"So do I. Wish he talked to me, I mean."
"It's not your fault if he didn't, not entirely."
"But he talked to you."
"Not really. He did a lot of thinking, some of it out loud, and I happened to be there."
"Where did you two meet?"
"He took a class."
"An art class?" Another shock, in Prudhomme's busy life he'd found time for art classes.
"He said his priorities had changed."
"Doesn't sound like him," Stu said. "I never knew him to change his mind about anything.   What else did he say?"
He could almost see her shaking her head. "We'll talk later, in person."

He started out early, knowing he'd enjoy the slow drive along the hilly north shore of Long Island to Greenvale. When he stopped for a light at the corner of 25-A and Glen Cove Boulevard, a dog ran out into the road, and he had to brake sharply to avoid him, earning a dirty look from the driver behind him who came up beside him and gave him the finger. Stu mouthed, sorry, but what was he supposed to do, run over the dog?

He arrived early too and couldn't find a parking space because classes were still in session. He had forgotten how inconvenient the parking at C. W. Post College was, nearly decided to pull into the teachers' lot. After all, he intended to visit one of the professors. But a guard rounding the corner at the same time read his mind and stopped, pulling a candy bar out of his pocket and waiting for Stu to break the law. Campus law. What kind of a ticket could he give him, one that said he couldn't graduate unless he paid the fine? He decided it wasn't worth the hassle, leaned out the window. "Can you tell me how to find the art building?" The guard pulled a map out of a different pocket and handed it to Stu. "Can't park here, see the sign?"

"Yeah, I see."  By the time he had stashed the little red convertible in a legal space a mile or so away from the art building, he had worked up an appetite and hoped that Sharon would be hungry too.  It would be easier to talk if they were eating.

After a look at the map, he walked straight across the landscaped grounds to the art building, a dilapidated white colonial at the south end of the campus.  Class must have ended — a slow drift of students eddied toward him. The building felt cold and damp and appeared empty, and he hoped she had waited for him. He realized he didn't know what classroom she was in and walked around peering in doors. Some classes were still in session, and on the second floor he came upon Sharon winding up her lecture. Clay objects in various stages of completion lay over the tables and benches. He stood in the hall outside the classroom, shivering, wondering how they could work in such cold. His fingers felt paralyzed.

"Don't they turn on the heat in these buildings?" Stu asked as they walked down the gravel driveway toward the recreation hall and the cafeteria.
"Heat dries out the clay."
Stu shook his head. "How can you work with your fingers frozen?"
"We manage. Have you ever worked with clay?"
"No, I paint." Used to, he added mentally.
"If you never try other media, how can you be sure you've found the right one?"
"I don't care about finding the right media," he said.
"Impatient," she said.
"I guess."
"You take classes?"
"No."
"But you're an artist."
"Maybe not," he said.

She stopped so he did too. "What do you mean?"
"I haven't picked up a paintbrush in a while."

She regarded him. Condescendingly, he thought. He felt like one of her students and resented it.  "Everybody goes through a slump once in a while." They walked along for a moment in silence. Then she added, "If you're serious, it can't hurt to take some classes."
"Maybe I will. That's not why I'm here."
"I know." She looked down at the path. "Have you seen your father's paintings?"  He said no.  "I'll show them to you."
"Where are they?"
"In my apartment," she said.
"Is that where he painted?" he asked.
"I have a studio," she said. "I let him use it."
"Did you go with him?"
"He preferred being alone."

More and more Stu was finding out things about Prudhomme that he'd never known. What else?  What else?
"You think he had talent?" He hesitated to use the word talent. He was afraid that if she said yes he would feel jealous.
"He had a feel for it," she said. "You didn't know he painted?"
He nodded. "I knew he dabbled."
She shot him a quick glance which he failed to understand. "More than dabble. There was a lot more to him than that."
"I know," Stu said. "You knew him better than I did. That's why I'm talking to you."

They arrived at the cafeteria, on the ground floor of the recreation building. He held the door open. One of the students seated at a table near the door waved, and Sharon waved back. The student, a young man, had a mass of hair tied into a pony tail. Stu had forgotten how scruffy students could look.  He led her to a table in the back. "I'm hungry, are you?"

"Starving."  She removed her jacket and folded it over a chair, and they walked to the serving line together. He selected comfort food, macaroni and cheese — she selected a baked potato and a variety of toppings.  "Iced tea or coffee?" he asked. They both took coffee.

When they were seated, their lunches on the table, trays on the third chair, she said, "tell me why you think I can help you with — whatever it is you're doing. What are you doing anyway?"
"What you think. You don't think he committed suicide either."
"You think I can help you prove what really happened?"
"Not just you. I'm starting with you. You knew him better than I did." He looked into her eyes, hoping she'd see he was serious. "I'm not trying to trip you up. You didn't kill him." He hoped it was true.
"So you're talking to everybody."
"Everybody I can think of."
"What if it's somebody you don't think of?"

He nodded. "I'm hoping my father's business associate, Reed, will give me some names."
"You called him, 'my father' this time."
"Yeah, I did."
"Who else?
"My uncles."  He noticed that she shivered. "I see you met them. When was that?"
"In the lawyer's office," she said. "They didn't act happy to see me there."

"Had you met them before?"
"Not before and not after," she said. "Well, I saw them at the funeral, but they didn't see me. Or pretended not to."
"Had you been to the office before that day?" The day when she had found Prudhomme's body.
"No," she said. "Somebody was coming out of the elevator. I didn't know him."
"One of the other tenants," Stu said.
"Didn't look like it. He wasn't wearing a suit."
"What did he look like?"
"Your height but heavier."

Could that person be the killer?
"Too bad there's no camera like there is in some buildings in the city," she said.
"I was thinking the same thing. I'll get his appointment book in case it was somebody he was meeting."  
"You said you intend to talk to his brothers. You think it was one of them?"
"Not really," he said, "although it surprised me when they failed to question the verdict. They  know he wasn't the type to kill himself."
"Surprised me too," she said, "but I thought maybe they said something to you about it later."
"They talked about the money," Stu said, "that's all."
She looked disgusted. "The money he left me?"  Stu nodded. "That's what they were worried about? I have a brother too. If, God forbid, it'd been my brother, I'd be a basket case. I'd want to know everything that happened, who he'd been seeing, what he'd been saying, his state of mind. How can they  care so much about the money?"

"They weren't close," Stu said. An understatement. They had been fiercely competitive. "As I said, I don't know everything there was to know either. You're the one who knew him best." She shook her head, denying it. Why?

"Getting back to the uncles. No love lost there. Now they don't have to pretend any more. He didn't think much of them, the cockeyed schemes they were always coming up with, and he let them know it. He was much more disciplined, not like them. They were jealous. They wouldn't kill him, but I bet they're glad he's dead."

"That can't be true."
"Yes, it can. Lately he'd started keeping tabs on them, making them clear everything they did through him. They were always coming up with these wild get-rich-quick schemes."
"They have money of their own?"
"Some — inherited, not earned — and they like to live bigger than they can afford. They lost a lot of money too, and don't think it didn't gall them. Greedy S.O.B's." As Stu was saying it, he was thinking.  Except for George. Then he said it aloud. "Except for my uncle George."
She shook her head. "Too bad. Your father was a family man. He felt sorry you two were estranged. He even talked about us getting married, starting another family."

Stu was shocked and feared that it showed. Prudhomme marrying again?  "Oh, don't worry," she said.  "We talked about it, but we both decided it wouldn't work." 

Stu wondered if that was true, or if only Prudhomme decided it wouldn't work. "He had made other plans." She stopped talking and looked at him pointedly. "Did he tell you what he was planning?  No, I suppose not. I knew, and it's the reason I also know he wouldn't have killed himself."

Stu was still feeling shocked that the subject of marriage should have come up at all.  Prudhomme's relationship with Sharon obviously differed from all of his previous dalliances with women years younger than himself. But Stu admitted to himself that Sharon too differed from any of the other women Prudhomme must have known. "What plans?"

"He didn't tell you because he knew you'd try and talk him out of it. After all, he yelled at you for doing the same thing."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Stu said.
"Of course you don't." Stu thought, she didn't know Prudhomme either.

He might indulge himself privately, but his public life revealed an adherence to a strict, if antiquated, code of ethics. This had been one of the causes of the rift between Stuart and himself, a rift which they had never mended and now never would be mended. The same code would have made it impossible for him to take his own life. That's how Stu knew somebody had done it for him.

"You said he had made plans," he said. "What plans?"   
"It doesn't matter now," she said.
"Sure it does."
"He talked about making restitution," she said.
"Restitution," Stu repeated. "For what?"
"Something that happened in the past," she said.
"Something he did?"
"No," she said. "It was nothing he did."
"Then what?" he persisted.
"It doesn't matter," she said again.

"How do you know? Talk to me. I'm relying on you telling me what you know. I didn't know him like you did. Where did he go, who did he talk to besides you? Tell me — did he mention any names?" Would she help him?  She might have a reason not to want to help. The best of reasons. Gazing at her across the table, he cast her in the role of woman scorned, but the picture wouldn't gel.
"He wasn't suicidal," she said.

Stu played devil's advocate. "Maybe he was. Who knows what he had on his mind. A lot of people have problems they don't talk about. Disappointments. He wasn't the type to let his hair down. He kept things to himself, always did."

"Did you know he was seeing a doctor?"
"I heard," Stu said.  "A shrink. That's the reason they're saying he was despondent." 
"Dr. Berenson," she said.
"You knew?"
"I knew he was seeing someone. Not what they talked about."

"If he was sick…" Stu began, stopped there.  Prudhomme sick — he could hardly believe it.  Suddenly, Stu felt a surge of emotion.  No, it still wouldn't be true. Prudhomme clung to life. He never would have given in to depression, disease, or anything else.

Sharon said, "he wasn't sick."           
"What then? What was he seeing this doctor — Berenson — about?"
"I don't know."

He didn't believe her. She knew. "The past kept coming up," she hinted.
"Tell me."
"The thing is, sometimes a person is better off not knowing."
"Not me," he said. "I wouldn't be better off."
"One thing leads to another," she said. "The fact is, he's dead. You can't bring him back, and neither can I.  We should both forget about it."
"I can't do that," he said.

Walking back to his car, Stu felt a peculiar sensation in his stomach and decided it was fear. Of what he might find out. Of what Prudhomme knew that had killed him. He thought of the possibility of himself becoming a target, but he couldn't stop even so. He decided to speak to Dr. Berenson first, and after him, all three of the uncles, George and the twins. He hated the thought of interviewing the twins, but there was no getting around it. If he intended to go on digging it had to be done. And he intended to go on digging.

"I'll call you," he had told Sharon on leaving her. While she did not encourage him, she did not tell him not to call either.
"Talk to your uncles," she advised. "Talk to Dr. Berenson. I'll try to think of some way I can help."
"You don't have to," he said. "Like you said, it could be dangerous."

He resolved to talk to them all as soon as possible. And he would report back to her, knowing that it was the only way he could get to see her again.

Check Next Month's Issue for Chapter 3

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