Ms. Terrell’s judging eyes studied me like the proverbial book. I could only hope that my untrustworthy narrator was convincing.
“It was a terrible day,” she said. “George was well liked. I remember crying when I heard he was dead. Now I look back on that time and wonder about it.”
“About what?”
“Nothing. The crying. I mean, I didn’t even know him. I guess I was blubbering over the violence of the murder.”
“Do you know why Prendergast killed him?”
“They said it was jealousy.”
“Over a girl?”
“A woman,” Bexleigh corrected. “The prettiest, smartest, strongest — she competed in the Olympics — and most sophisticated creature on campus. Everyone was in love with her — male and female.”
“A professor?”
“No. A student. Valeria Ursini. Her friends called her Pixie.”
“Was Sola going out with Valeria?”
“Valeria didn’t go out. She would grace you with her company now and then but you just followed after.”
“Did George Laurel follow?”
“Maybe.” There was contempt in the word.
“So was she seeing Sola too?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why would he kill George?”
“I’m surprised you don’t already know. Valeria and Sola got together sometimes because they were both Ferris scholarship students.”
“I didn’t know that.” Even the untrustworthy could tell the truth sometimes. “So you think that maybe Sola killed George out of jealousy?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Bexleigh glanced to the right, giving me the sign that she needed to get back to work.
“Thank you for your time, Ms. Terrell.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Oliver.”
My iPhone told me that Valeria Ursini worked as a film archivist at Mandrake College in Yonkers. The urban university was easy to infiltrate. A Black man in a sharp gray suit was accepted easily. I asked around about the film archive and found that it was located on the sixth floor, through the library.
At just about seventy, Valeria would have still given Sophia Loren a run for her money.
She wore a coral-colored one-piece dress that came down to the middle of her calves and revealed a stunning figure — tastefully. She was flipping through film cans on a cart in the middle of a large room where students worked on various machines that examined and restored celluloid.
“Miss Ursini?” I asked the Yale bombshell.
“Yes?”
She raised her head, bringing a hand to her only slightly creped throat.
“Hi. My name is Joe Oliver. I’m the new director of the Ferris Fund.”
Her expression turned from mild interest to definite distaste.
“Oh. How can I help you, Mr. Oliver?”
“The fund is about to celebrate a big anniversary. We’ll be showcasing scholars all along the way. To some of these we’ll be awarding a one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize.”
“And?”
“We were wondering if you’d like to be one of the scholars we celebrate.”
“I haven’t done anything to be recognized for.”
“You’ve restored hundreds of films that would have been lost. And you discovered hitherto unknown works by Alice Guy.” Thank goodness for the internet.
“No one is concerned about her work.”
“But the history of any field of study must include everything if it is to be considered complete.”
Something I said, some emphasis, turned the lady completely against me. Her face hardened and my words drained away.
“Go back to your master and tell him that I will keep my word.”
“You mean Roger Ferris?”
“Leave.”
29
Just when I got situated behind the wheel of the car my cell phone rang.
Answering the call I asked, “Are you following me again, Olo?”
“No.” I could hear the subdued smile behind the word. “Just wanted to know where you were.”
“I’m in Yonkers on the way to Rikers Island.”
“What’s there?”
“Alfred Xavier Quiller.”
“What’s that do for you?”
“Among other things, he’s the reason Int-Op turned against us.”
“Yeah, about that, my mentor has maybe found the one who sold us out.”
“You going back to settle up with them?”
“After I finish this job.”
“The way things look, I’m happy to hear it. I’ll see you this evening.”
Possibly the best thing about the Quiller Case was what I learned going to New York City’s prison for the second visit. If I’d had a weak heart, the first time I went to see Quiller would have caused an infarction. But on the second trip I was only mildly nervous. For more than a dozen years I’d been so afraid of Rikers that it colored my dreams, made me wake up in a thousand cold sweats. But the simple act of facing the object of my fears dispelled the bugaboo from my mind. That was a lesson that would last me the rest of my years.
Two different guards met me and showed the way down to the undocumented cell. When the door slammed behind me, I detected an odor. It was bodily but more than that. Not exactly offensive, it was more like a warning.
There was also a mild buzzing sound in the air. Looking up on a shelf he had for a few books, I saw that Quiller had set up a small electric fan, maybe to make it seem that a free breeze was coming from the outer world.
Quiller rose from his chair when I entered the cell. The whites of his eyes had darkened. His hair was tangled and there were streaks of gray throughout that I would have sworn had not been there before. And for some reason, the prisoner couldn’t stand fully erect. It was as if he’d aged a decade or more in a few days.
“Mr. Quiller.”
“Mr. Oliver.” It was the first time he’d used my name.
“May I sit down?”
He nodded at the stool in front of his desk. I sat. Rather than lowering into his chair, he let himself fall backward.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
He laced his fingers before his face, a penitent in desperate prayer.
“They’ve judged me. I’m lost.”
I glanced at the wall and saw that the cockroach I’d seen on the last visit had died only a few inches farther on.
“A federal prosecutor was here,” Quiller said. “I am now officially under arrest. I will be charged with murder and espionage. If I’m lucky, she said, I’ll be sentenced to ADX Florence for life — as long as it lasts. My so-called friends have abandoned me. I have been condemned for my adherence to the truth.” Somehow he managed to keep melodrama out of his tone.
“What about Roger Ferris?”
Quiller smiled. “Even the richest man in the world cannot defy this pack of hyenas.”
I couldn’t argue with the man. This was his domain, his own private tragedy.
“You can’t fight them in open court?” I asked anyway.
“The court won’t be open. I’m a threat to national security. My fate will be sealed in secret.”
We sat in that fearful silence for a very long three or four minutes: the dead cockroach, the condemned convict, and me.
“You met Mathilda?” the doomed philosopher asked at last. His tone was almost hopeful.
“Yeah.”
“She’s an amazing woman, is she not?”
I nodded and said, “What’s confusing is you and her together.”
Alfie could have taken that comment to a very dark place. But all he did was wince and nod.
“I spent an entire lifetime being alone,” he explained. “Then I met Mattie. She never tried to convince me that I was wrong. She just told me that she wouldn’t dignify my arguments with reply. Dignify, with reply. That was what she said. I knew right then I’d been wrongheaded — about everything.”