Corpus Christmas

portrait, drawn in delicate silver point and highlighted with touches of white.

A taxi lumbered past, an ambulance wailed in the distance, and from the river a block away came the lonesome hoot of a tugboat’s horn; but Nauman’s small car was a pool of silence.

At last Sigrid turned to him. “It’s like something Durer would have done,” she whispered brokenly. “Is that how you see me?”

“Just like Durer,” he said and leaned forward to touch the tear that glistened on her cheek.

Paris.

…add my condolences to the Ambassador’s and hope it may somehow comfort you to know that it was not a cold, indifferent stranger that personally supervised the packing of your son’s possessions, but a father like yourself; moreover, one who has also had to submit to the heaviest burden Providence may lay upon the shoulders of any father.

As a pen more gifted than mine has written, “What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?”

I pray God may strengthen you in this hour of darkness.

Letter to Erich Breul Sr., dated 12.15.1912, from Mr. Leonard White, personal assistant to The Honorable Myron T. Herrick, Ambassador to France.

(From the Erich Breul House Collection)

X

Sunday, December 20

Conscience, duty and sheer willpower kept Sigrid from burying her groggy head back under the pillow when her alarm clock went off ninety minutes early the next morning. Getting up at any hour was always a chore, but she had promised Roman that if he’d leave the mess, she would help him clean up before she went to work; so she dragged herself out of bed and into the shower.

After so much wassail the night before, Roman had professed himself uninterested in doing anything other than putting away the leftovers and trundling off to his bed in what had once been the maid’s quarters beyond the kitchen.

Ten minutes in the shower restored the outer woman and Sigrid headed toward the kitchen to see what hot black coffee could do for the inner. As she passed through the living room, she gathered up a handful of dirty glasses and plates and carried them out to the sink.

Roman had cleared himself space on the green-and-white tiled counter and was seated there with newspapers and coffee. His miniature countertop television was tuned to the morning news.

“There’s your friend,” he said, pouring her a cup of coffee by way of greeting.

She paused to watch Soren Thorvaldsen arrive in handcuffs at the federal courthouse. A moment later, cameras panned over the Sea Dancer tied up in custody as belligerent vacationers streamed down her gangways. While the camera lingered lovingly on the stacks of paper money uncovered in the engine rooms, Sigrid opened the refrigerator for juice, encountered the glassy eyes of the Saran-Wrapped eel, and closed the door again, all desire for juice abruptly gone.

When the program moved on to another story, Roman clicked it off and rose with a sigh. “How art the mighty fallen,” he said portentously. “I’ll begin on the dishes if you’ll bring in the rest.”

“Deal,” she said and carried a large tray out to the living room for the demitasse cups and saucers that had accompanied Roman’s buche de Noel. Christmas trees with their lights extinguished always looked vaguely forlorn to Sigrid. There was something sad about shimmering tinsel when it reflected only cold winter daylight.

Two trips with the tray cleared out most of the disorder and five minutes with the vacuum took care of cracker crumbs, stray tinsel, and a crushed glass ball. Afterwards, she poured herself a second cup of coffee and began to dry the pots and pans while Roman continued to wash by hand the things he couldn’t fit into the dishwasher.

An unquenchable optimist, he announced that his sale of that short mystery story had finally convinced him that he was ready to begin writing the full-length murder mystery he’d been planning since the first day they met back in April.

“In fact,” he said, scouring vigorously with steel wool, “I finished the first chapter yesterday morning. Now if I were to average three pages a day, I could be finished by Easter.”

“Three months?” Sigrid asked dubiously. “I thought a book took at least a year.”

“That’s for serious writers,” he told her.

“And you’re not?”

“My dear, I’m forty-three years old. I have a certain flair for the English language, a certain facility, but depth? I fear not.”

He rinsed a copper saucepot and handed it to her. “Writers with something profound to say write poetry, writers with something serious to say write novels, but writers with nothing to say write genre fiction. I shall become a mystery writer.”

He handed her another wet pot. “Don’t look so sad. I shall try to be a very good mystery writer.”

Sigrid smiled. “Tell me about your plot.”

“Actually, I don’t have one yet,” he confessed. “That’s the one drawback. I don’t want to write suspense or thrillers or, God forbid, one of those dreary down-these-mean-streets-a-man-must-go sort of social tracts. No, I want to write classic whodunits, elegantly contrived puzzles, and for that you need a cast of several characters who all have equally good motives to kill the same person. But that’s almost impossible anymore. I’ve been doing some research and there are no good motives left.”

“No good motives for murder?” Sigrid snorted. “Roman, I’m a homicide detective. Believe me, people kill for a thousand different reasons.”

“And most of your cases, dear child, are open-and-shut, no? Domestic violence. The husband enraged at his wife’s nagging; the wife who simply refuses to be battered any more; addicts killing for drug money. I’ve been so disappointed to see how really ordinary most of your work has been. Oh, I won’t say you haven’t occasionally had interesting puzzles, but usually, it’s for money or power, is it not?”

He finished with the pots and pans and began to wipe down the stove and surrounding countertops.

“Well, yes,” Sigrid admitted. “But-”

“And most of the time, as soon as you find one person with a solid motive, that’s the killer, isn’t it?”

“So what’s your definition of a good motive?” she asked, nettled.

“One that would work for more than two or three people,” he said promptly. “Like your babies in the attic in last night’s Post. Even though that was a dreadful picture of you, the story itself would make a smashing murder mystery. Just think: everyone connected with those babies had a reason to kill them-both sisters, the brother, even the husband. If I were using them in a book, I should probably add in a grandmother and a crazy nurse or priest.”

Roman paused with the wet dishcloth in his hands. “Illegitimacy used to be such a wonderful reason for murder! Along with miscegenation and incest. Nowadays, if it’s not drugs or mere lust, it’s for something as pointless and bizarre as a parking place or a pair of designer sunglasses.

“People used to kill for noble reasons-for revenge or honor or to usurp a throne. Today, everyone lets it ‘all hang out.’ ” His lip curled around the phrase disdainfully. “You can’t build a believable mystery around simple scandal for its own sake anymore. Can you imagine trying to write A Scandal in Bohemia today? Instead of