“Enough!” he bellowed. “Instructions.”
So that is why, one fine spring morning a few days after Royal Meade’s funeral, I was on the hulking ferry as it groaned into its slip at Staten Island. Part of my instructions from Wolfe was that I was not to go to the church until after the funeral because, he said, “The distractions among the staff will be manifest. They will be intense enough even the week after the services, but we can afford to wait no longer.”
Before leaving home that morning, I had called the church for directions, and a chirping secretary had told me that “It’s not more than twenty minutes’ walk from the ferry terminal, and tours are every half hour.” She’d helpfully given me street directions, which I copied onto a sheet of notebook paper I was now holding as I stood in front of the Borough Hall on Richmond Terrace, a street overlooking the waterfront and the distant towers of Wall Street.
“Downtown” Staten Island, if you can call it that, looks more like a small harbor burg than part of a borough of New York — a borough that, one, is tired of being a garbage dump for the rest of the city, and two, has of late been making noises to secede. Whatever the arguments pro and con, this sure didn’t seem like New York. There were no horns honking, and only an occasional pedestrian on the sidewalks that passed in front of small, empty shops and more than a few boarded-up storefronts on one- and two-story buildings. If it wasn’t a sleepy town, it was at least taking a breather.
After consulting the directions, I got myself squared away, heading south up Schuyler Street — and I do mean up.
If I ever knew how hilly the island was, I’d long since forgotten. In ten minutes, I was out of — and above — the small business district and into tree-shaded residential blocks where at least half the two-story frame houses cried out for a coat of paint and looked as though they had served as models for Charles Addams cartoons, complete with window shutters hanging at cockeyed angles by a single nail. I followed winding streets, all of which ran uphill, until, breathing hard, I reached a large open area that was level. In the center of this clearing, at least a block away, stood the Tabernacle of the Silver Spire, which looked vaguely like its photograph in the Gazette.
My first impression was “What’s the big deal?” The blocky, glass-and-concrete hulk appeared unimpressive, but I later figured out that was partly because the spire dwarfed it. And, after all, I was still at least three football fields away. The “clearing” turned out to be a parking lot — acres of blacktop, crisscrossed with yellow lines. Poles supporting floodlights poked out of the asphalt at regular intervals. Each one had a sign with a section and aisle number, just like a shopping center, lest the worshipers forget where they parked the family sedan. As I walked across the lot, the tabernacle seemed to grow, and by the time I got to the entrance — four sets of double doors with silver, cross-shaped handles — I conceded that this was indeed a big deal.
I pushed into the entrance hall. It was twice the size of my old high-school gymnasium and had a chrome-and-gold chandelier that Donald Trump somehow missed when he was fitting out his casino in Atlantic City. A bright-eyed redhead in a snappy green outfit sat inside a circular, chrome-skinned counter under the chandelier and shot a smile my way. “Good morning, sir. Here for a tour?”
“Not today.” I smiled back, recognizing the voice as the same one I’d heard when I called earlier. “I’d like to see Lloyd Morgan.” My voice echoed off the walls, or maybe it was bouncing off the floor that made my footsteps sound like I was eight feet tall and wearing hobnail boots.
She asked if he was expecting me, and I shook my head but gave her my name and told her he knew me. She picked up her phone and punched a number. “Mr. Morgan, a Mr. Goodwin is here to see you. Yes... He says you know him... Yes... All right.” Cradling the receiver, she threw another smile at me, crinkling her eyes and showing off a pair of dimples. “Mr. Morgan will be out in a moment. You can have a seat over there, Mr. Goodwin.” I smiled my thanks and walked around the hall, stopping to contemplate a large oil painting of Barnabas Bay in a chrome frame. The image oozed success and sincerity. Bay’s blond hair was styled, his eyes looked bluer than the oceans on the big Gouchard globe in Wolfe’s office, and his half-smile was all warmth and no smugness. I was still looking up at the face when clicking heels on the gleaming terrazzo floor announced Morgan’s arrival. He obviously wasn’t thrilled to see me.
“Why are you here?” he asked in an angry semi-whisper that couldn’t be heard by the dimpled redhead. I noticed that he was wearing a silver lapel pin in the shape of the church’s spire.
“To talk to you, of course, and Mr. Bay, too. I—”
“You’ve got colossal gall showing up after what’s happened,” he snapped, dispensing with the whisper. “I went to you in good faith, and when you and Mr. Wolfe turned me down, I trusted that your recommendation would be a sound one.”
“My recommendation was a sound one, and still is,” I told him. “Which is why I’m here. Fred Durkin didn’t murder Meade, and Mr. Wolfe intends to find out who did.”
“That’s total nonsense!” Morgan hissed. “The police arrested him, it was his gun, and he—”
“Time out, please,” I interrupted, holding up a hand. “You spent some time with Fred.”
“Enough. He talked to me first, of course, when he came here. And we had a couple of other conversations, neither of them very long.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“How did he strike you?” I asked.
Morgan shrugged and looked irritated by my questioning. “He was... all right, I suppose. It was clear that the man isn’t a genius, but he struck me as a decent person. Which goes to show we all can be fooled at one time or another.”
“He is a decent person, Mr. Morgan. I’ve known him for years, and seen him in some tough situations. Fred Durkin is not a murderer.”
“Huh! The evidence is otherwise,” he said stiffly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a great deal to do.”
“I’d like to see Bay.”
“Impossible. He’s tied up with a thousand things.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
“No, but if he did, I assure you he would not want to see you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a meeting.” Morgan turned to go back to wherever he’d come from, and after a wave at the redhead, I fell into step with him.
“Mr. Goodwin,” he said, wheeling on me and indulging in a deep, loud breath, “I must warn you that if you don’t leave, I will ask one of our security guards to escort you from the premises. At the risk of sounding impolite, you are not welcome here.”
“That’s pretty impolite, all right. Okay, I won’t tax the resources of your private constabulary, but you and the good reverend haven’t heard the last of Nero Wolfe and me. So long.” Having thus told Morgan off, I gave him a salute, but it bounced off his broad back as he stalked down the hall, presumably returning to his meeting.
So I’d been run off the property, sort of. Wolfe’s instructions had been for me to try to see Bay, but not to push it. I sure hadn’t pushed it, and I felt so frustrated that I barely smiled at the bright-eyed redhead in green as I went out the door. I started across the parking lot on my way back to the ferry terminal, when I spotted a cluster of people gathered outside another door to the big church. I put on the brakes when a woman in the group waved at me and said something I couldn’t hear, so I got closer.
“Are you looking for the tour?” she asked when I was within a horseshoe pitch of her. “I’m about to start one.”