Read The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man for Free Online

refill of the house Merlot, a sturdy red we buy by the case.
    We were comfortably ensconced in the tree-shadowed conservatory with Di up and down getting drinks and things and taking care of Elsie. Merissa sat close enough to me on the small wicker sofa for the effects of her perfume, redolent of spring flowers, to sharpen the effect of the wine on me. So much for the trappings of woe, I thought, though in fact the favor she finally got around to asking involved the arrangement of obsequies for her late husband. She wanted me to petition the Reverend Alfie Lopes to have a memorial service for Heinie in Swift Chapel.
    “Heinie was absolutely devoted to the museum and to Wainscott,” she said. “He went to all the graduations although he didn’t graduate himself.”
    I doubted Heinie’s devotion to anything but himself, but did not feel it my place to demur. Grief, even feigned grief, must be served. Still, I nodded only vaguely, hesitant to make such a request on her behalf, although it would be, I suppose, the Christian thing to do. I did not want to help dignify the memory of this man, regardless of his apparent generosity to the museum.I say
apparent
as he got a thwacking great tax break in giving us those coins.
    It is more complicated than that. At the risk of sounding petty, indeed, of being petty, I am all too aware that Swift Chapel is part of Wainscott, and the museum’s relations with the university are at a delicate juncture. To have a memorial service for an honorary curator of the MOM at Swift Chapel could be construed as an admission on our part that we are more closely a part of Wainscott than we want to concede.
    Merissa sensed my reluctance and backed off immediately. “It doesn’t really matter. It was something he wanted me to do. In case …”
    “Really?” I said, my investigative instincts piqued. “In case of what?”
    She shrugged and let it drop. With more wine we passed on to other topics — how she had already moved out of the big house and into an apartment in town. How the first and second wives were at each other’s throats and leaving her alone. How she wanted to get her own lawyer because Heinie’s lawyer was nothing more than a well-dressed thief.
    Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, she put her hand on my knee and said, “Frankly, Norman, I’m glad he’s dead. Oh, I know it’s an awful thing to say.” She lifted her mildly mad, beautiful eyes to mine. “But he had become a regular dispenser of misery. He went around handing it out. Especially to himself. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but in Heinie’s case, being dead is a definite improvement.”
    After she had left, not altogether steadily, I mentioned to Diantha that Merissa’s demeanor had not been that of a bereft widow. Indeed, she seemed quite jolly toward the end of her visit, a result perhaps of the wine.
    Diantha came and sat next to me on the sofa, putting her handon my knee as though to reclaim me. “Norman, darling, I think there’s something you should know, but you have to promise me not to tell anyone else.”
    I nodded, but noncommittally.
    “You promise?”
    “Does it have to do with Heinie’s murder?”
    “It might.”
    “You know I can’t promise that. I’m already part of this investigation.” I winced inwardly, given how much I was already holding back, even from my wife.
    “I’m going to tell you anyway.”
    I waited, watching her troubled expression, which gave depth to her pretty features, showing character as well as beauty.
    “Well, you know about the affair she’s been having with Max Shofar?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, it’s been hot and long and it’s still going on.”
    “Enough to give Max …?”
    “And Merissa …”
    “A motive?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Why didn’t she just divorce him?”
    “They had a prenup. She would have only gotten a pittance.”
    “And if he died?”
    “She stands to get a hefty chunk of his estate.”
    I nodded slowly,