One Coffee With

'I've been gathering material about it.'

'That sounds like a contradiction in terms,' said Sigrid. 'I know artists often paint several versions of the same subject, but that's not forgery, is it?'

'Not if they're all connected, no. But suppose an artist in the first flush of youth is entranced with painting blue cubes. For four years, let us say, he does nothing but blue cubes-singly, in tiers or jumbled on top of each other. Then he gets bored; moves on to mauve and puce gardenias. Now further suppose, if you will, that the public has liked his blue cubes but loathes these mauve and puce gardenias. Beastly colors, and anyhow, the critics don't think his draftsmanship's as good with flowers as it had been with cubes. Nevertheless, our artist stubbornly perseveres and for twenty years paints gardenias, tiger lilies and tulips, all in mauve and puce. Sooner or later he has to realize that they simply aren't bringing in much capital. In the meantime, seeing that there will be no more pictures of blue cubes, the price has simply skyrocketed. Our artist, starving in his miserable garret, begins to think how jolly it would be if he still had a few of those old canvases around. So one fine day he sneaks around to the local paint store, buys a couple of tubes of ultramarine, and a few weeks later after the paint's had time to dry, he announces to the world the discovery of several forgotten canvases from his blue-cube period. There he is, you see-a forger of his own work.'

'But it's still the same artist doing the same sort of picture,' Sigrid protested.

'You know that and I know that and so does the artist,' Tramegra agreed cheerfully, 'but critics cry foul every time. They say it's not the same, and anyhow-'

He had taken a swallow from the coffee cup and now broke off to stare at it distastfully. Then his brow cleared. 'How silly of me! I've taken your cup by mistake. How on earth can you drink it without sugar?'

He brought her another cup and pointedly pushed it over to her side of the coffee table. The swallow had been so bitter that he added another spoonful of sugar to his already sweetened cup. As he stirred the dark liquid and rattled on-he had switched subjects again and was now onto Tibetan tea flavored with rancid yak butter-Sigrid felt a faint flicker of conjecture. A flicker that steadily brightened into radiant certainty.

Gratified by the expression on her thin face, Roman Tramegra expanded on Montezuma's addiction to cocoa. A fascinating subject, he decided. Perhaps he should write an article on it.

18

AS Sigrid crossed the squad room the next morning, she was appalled to hear laughter spilling from her small office and to see a large group of men clustered around the open doorway. With a jolt she remembered the interview. Useless to envisage all the outfits she might have chosen from the Carolina side of her closet. Today's navy suit might be a twin of yesterday's gray one-just as shapeless and selected with just as little thought.

She was annoyed at having to waste good time on such a frivolous thing as this interview. How the hell could she phrase words about her 'conflicts' as a woman in a traditional male preserve when her mind was running happily on completing a case against Riley Quinn's murderer?

Lower-ranking detectives stepped aside and melted back to their desks upon becoming aware of her presence, and Sigrid's head was high as she took possession of her office.

'I'm glad to see you've been taken care of, Miss Fielden,' she said pleasantly, noting the ministrations of her fellow officers.

They had brought the young woman coffee, doughnuts and the morning papers; and now they were offering themselves as substitute subjects to interview.

'Ms. Fielden,' said the editor a little breathily, 'but do call me Iris.'

From her past experience Sigrid was quite prepared for a glamorous editor; but most of the interviewers she had met had achieved some balance between the feminine and the businesslike. Ms. Fielden, however, kept her businesslike qualities-whatever they might be-well concealed.

She had curls, long eyelashes, and many rings on her pink-tipped fingers; and she so completely filled a pink ruffled shirt that the distracted Duckett seemed unable to tear himself away from Sigrid's office. That Ms. notwithstanding, Iris Fielden looked about as militant a feminist as the average Las Vegas chorine, and her manner matched her appearance.

And true to Sigrid's foreboding, the lady gushed. Still as Captain McKinnon had pointed out the day before, this was not her first interview. Efficiently she removed Duckett and the rest from her office, closed the door, then faced Fielden's tape recorder calmly. Whenever the questions strayed from the professional to the personal, she couched her answers in vague generalities that would apply to almost any working woman and firmly steered the conversation back to the job itself. In the end the young editor was so inundated with facts, figures and stacks of police-department publicity pamphlets that she numbly asked, 'What was the name of the sergeant who works in- Burglary, was it?'

'Missing Persons,' Sigrid answered guilelessly. 'Sergeant Louella Dickerson. Mrs. Dickerson.' Without the slightest twinge of conscience Sigrid offered Dickerson up on a sacrificial platter, even tucking in a candied apple to enhance the dish: 'I've heard that her husband's extremely proud of her, but that he worries about her all the time.'

It was sufficient. Appreciatively Ms. Iris Fielden jotted down directions and telephone numbers, then departed making her own way across the squad room to the accompaniment of even more appreciative whistles.

Even Detective Tildon, entering the office as she left, looked bemused until he felt Sigrid's sardonic stare. He flushed, his cherubic face embarrassed. Despite twelve years on the force Tillie still believed that a happily married man shouldn't be looking.

'I wonder if Marian would like a blouse like that?' he said, then flushed again.

Sigrid had met Tillie's wife once: a pleasant-faced birdlike redhead whose chest was even flatter than her own. She rather doubted that Marian Tildon would do justice to a pink ruffled blouse and repressively reminded Tillie of the tasks at hand.

Without going into details about Roman Tramegra and the previous evening, Sigrid outlined her new theory of how Riley Quinn's killer had made certain he and not Nauman would get the poisoned cup.

Tillie nodded enthusiastically when she'd finished. 'That sure takes care of the how,' he said 'but why?'

Together they sorted through all the statements they'd been given during the past two days and looked for stronger motives. Everything was too nebulous. It meant another morning of digging.

'Just the same, I wonder why Harley Harris didn't say something,' Tillie said.

Sigrid reached for the telephone. 'Did we ever ask him?'

It was shortly after 10:00 A.M. when they met again to compare notes at the unmarked cruiser parked behind Van Hoeen Hall.

'Why don't we walk down to the river?' asked Tillie, who responded more directly than Sigrid to spring's quickening transformation. 'It's another gorgeous day.'

Sigrid looked around and for the first time realized that it was a gorgeous day. Once again spring seemed to have arrived while her back was turned. She stepped from the car and followed Tillie down a long brick path, which led to the promenade overlooking the East River.

Short-sleeved students lay on the grass in sheltered nooks close to the buildings, rushing the sunbathing season as they studied or flirted or just enjoyed being outdoors without heavy winter clothes.

Overhead a few small puffs of white cloud had drifted into the April blue sky; forsythia arched golden branches over a nearby water fountain, and a double row of yellow buttercups marched primly along each side of the path. Most of the benches along the path were occupied, but a breeze blowing in across the water kept the river walk itself almost deserted. The ropes of wisteria twined about the overarching trellis let welcome sunshine through now; later in the summer the walkway would be a dark tunnel shaded by thick leaves and sweet with the heavy scent of purple blossoms. As they paced its sunlit length, there was a medieval feel to the promenade, which reminded Sigrid of the reconstructed Cloisters up at Fort Tryon Park.