The Twisted Thread

by Charlotte Bacon

  CHAPTER 22

  The call had come in at 6:25 on Saturday morning. A man claiming Tamsin Lovell had attacked him in Nicholson House had dialed 911. Would someone please go and arrest her, and by the way, could an ambulance be sent to the academy? And quickly? His cell phone was low on batteries. Matt and Vernon had just arrived at the station, disheveled, in foul moods, and in a moment, Vernon was racing to go and try to find Tamsin and Matt had sped immediately to Jim French.

  Vernon had been lucky. He knew the make and model of Tamsin’s car and had seen it speeding away from Armitage as he lurched onto Main Street. “Made it easy,” he said. “She was thirty miles over the limit.” She was still wearing her jogging gear and ponytail, and had bent her head in apparent awareness of the futility of her situation. Vernon said he’d experienced a rough and uncomfortable pleasure seeing her there in her diminutive car. He had spent much of the last two days having her dodge his questions about what she’d had in the bag. Yes, she had argued with Mrs. McLellan, but “everyone knew she was a stroppy sort.” Which made Tamsin what? Vernon had asked. “Discreet,” she had answered and more or less kicked him out of her office. Since her arrest, she had maintained a glassy silence, despite five interrogations, all of which she had sat through with a rough smile and utter disdain. Her lawyer, more expensive than she might have been expected to come up with, had stood by with a mixture of professional cool and mystification. No one seemed to understand her complete refusal to cooperate despite ample evidence of assault and the threat of more charges coming. The documents she’d been shredding were slowly being pieced together. Vernon was trying to trace the call she’d been making. Porter claimed to know nothing, a stance that was becoming increasingly hard to fathom or believe. By four that afternoon, Angell had said, “Put her in the holding cell for a few hours. See what happens when she gets a load of her new roommates,” and there, among some drug addicts and a few drunk drivers, she sat in hostile stillness while her lawyer scurried about trying to secure bail.

  By six thirty that evening, Matt had needed to go outside and assume a horizontal position on the seat of the picnic bench. He lay there and noticed it was about to rain and couldn’t care about an imminent drenching. Scotty Johnston’s lawyer had just sprung him, and the boy had managed to leave yet again without saying anything about the mirrors, Claire, or the whereabouts of her baby. The warrant to search Harvey Fuller’s apartment had been delayed. Jim French was hazy about the entire assault. He remembered that Tamsin had been talking on the phone and loudly, but he had no idea to whom. At least he was out of the hospital and nursing nothing more than a mild concussion and a bad headache. At least no one else was dead. It was soothing in the semidark below the table, with the heavy air about to slide into rain, and the only element marring the very temporary peace the acrid smell of a cigarette. Matt sat up and, to his surprise, saw Vernon creeping out of the scraggly woods that edged the station’s parking lot. He was grinding a butt beneath his sole and obviously hadn’t spotted Matt prone on the bench. Spying him now, he lifted both hands in surrender.

  “Just don’t blow my cover,” he said. “It’s this whole thing. It’s that Englishwoman who will not explain what she was up to. It’s that Scotty kid. It’s the whole damn thing. I just couldn’t be good anymore.”

  “But why not a cheeseburger or some fries, Vernon? As far as sins go, aren’t they a little more comforting?”

  “I don’t really like smoking. Could never get addicted. But a good burger? One bite and I’d be gone.” He sat down opposite Matt. “It’s raining,” he said.

  “That it is,” said Matt, but neither of them moved. Drops began to spatter the warm tarmac in the parking lot and sink into the dark fabric of their jackets.

  “Do we go and arrest him now?” Vernon asked. “We’re not even sure where he is.”

  “Soon,” said Matt, “but it’s not going to be smooth. Not one bit of it will be smooth.”

  “And still no baby,” Vernon said.

  “No baby,” Matt said, and then they turned around. A car had rolled into the parking lot. A Volvo station wagon. He and Vernon both stood. “So it’s going to start like this,” Vernon said. “That’s not what I would have predicted.” They watched as Porter McLellan unfolded himself from the car. He turned, not seeing them, and instead of walking toward the station, he stood there for a moment and appeared to watch the water beading on the hoods of all the squad cars. Porter was not wearing a raincoat, either, and seemed as immune as they were to the dampness. He didn’t move for a moment and appeared merely to be breathing in the spring air. But then he did something that was both strange and oddly beautiful. He lifted his face to the sky and let the rain pelt down on his skin. He turned his hands palm up and let the water, falling harder now, gather there.

  “Shall we?” Matt said to Vernon, and together they walked over to the man in the rain, who by this time had lowered his hands and was standing there, looking at the policemen come toward him. “Let’s go inside, Mr. McLellan,” Matt said, and the tall man followed him. The station was silent as they walked in, three tall, dripping men. Uniformed officers, secretaries, ubiquitous FBI watched the shining puddles they left in their wake. Matt opened the door to his office, and Vernon gave Porter a seat. Matt sat at his desk. None of them spoke. Rain lashed the window. Vernon clicked on a small light, but otherwise, the room was almost dark.

  “I have a letter here,” Porter said at last and pulled out an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. “This is my confession, Detective. I am sorry I did not make it right away.” His face was ashen, his words robotic. “I cannot apologize enough for having prolonged this horrible time.” His voice was growing thinner, frayed like an old cloth.

  “Does your wife know you’re here, Mr. McLellan?” Matt asked.

  Porter shook his head. “No.” He appeared to be about to add something, then caught himself, and shrank back into his chair. He stared at his own hands.

  Matt removed the letter and read it aloud. “It is with profound guilt and regret that I confess to murdering Claire Harkness in her room on the morning of May 22, 2009. She was planning to implicate me as the father of her baby. I went to reason with her and found myself carried away with rage. My crime was unintentional, but nonetheless I bear full responsibility. There are no limits to my regret. I will add, however, that I do not know what happened to her child, who was gone by the time I reached her room.”

  “Mr. McLellan, would you like to call your wife?” Porter shook his head. Matt continued, “I would also suggest you call your lawyer.” Again, Porter shook his head. “How did you find out that Claire had had a baby and that she was planning this accusation?” Matt asked.

  “A girl in her dorm came to tell me,” Porter said and stared out the window, apparently unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

  “Mr. McLellan, I don’t think the baby is dead. I think he’s nearby. But I need to know what you saw. What you did.”

  “I wish I could help, but I can’t.” Porter was almost whispering. “He was gone. Claire wouldn’t say where he was. Someone had taken him away.”

  Matt said then, “The reason you can’t help us, Mr. McLellan, is because none of this is true, is it? It wasn’t you who was there. You had nothing to do with Claire’s death or the disappearance of the baby. But you know who did. And that’s what we need to talk about.”

  But Porter again said nothing and kept staring at his hands, his jaw slack and his head low. It was then that Matt heard shouting in the hallway, an intense reversal of volume given Porter’s deadened silence. Porter shrank further in his chair, clearly recognizing the voice. The next moment, Matt’s door flew open, and Lucinda almost tumbled into his office, followed by two spluttering officers. The young men hadn’t stood a chance of containing the headmaster’s wife. “Porter, say nothing. Stop now.” Her eyes flew to the paper that Matt was still holding and said, “Let Robert handle this. You have to, for all of us.” She was commanding him, also
pleading with him. “Let Robert take over, Porter,” she begged, holding her husband by his limp arm. He would not meet her eye, either. There was something dulled and cooling in Porter, some loss of essential heat.

  He continued to sit in the chair. He could barely breathe, much less move. And then another person burst into the room. In the commotion Lucinda was making, Matt hadn’t heard what must have been the rush of his footsteps down the hall. It was a boy, a tall, dark boy, in jeans and a button-down shirt. So this is how it ends, Matt thought. They had never met him though they had been on the brink of arresting him before his father had arrived at the station. Miles McLellan. Porter’s youngest son and a senior at Armitage. Who else could he be? He looked exactly like his father.

  Matt watched the soaked and shivering boy, the raging wife, and the broken man over whom she towered, and knew he’d guessed correctly. It had been Miles who had fathered the baby last August in Castine. Claire had seduced the boy and then hidden the resulting pregnancy. It had been Miles who had gone to Claire and argued with her about their son. It had been Miles who had pushed her against the bedstead. It had been Miles, crying, in his father’s disreputable old jacket, whom Betsy Lowery had mistaken for his father.

  The boy had run or, more likely, biked from the academy or wherever he had been hiding. Admittedly, it was all downhill, but he must have cycled with incredible speed to have followed his mother so closely. He had decided to step forward. What a beautiful child, Matt thought. High cheekbones, dark, clear skin, and glowing eyes. Tall and well built. The son he and Claire had made could have been astonishing. “You can’t do it, Dad,” the boy said softly now. “It was my fault. It was all my fault.” His parents turned to him then, and as he watched their faces, Matt moved toward them. “Miles,” Matt heard himself say. Porter’s son looked at him, his cheeks flushed, his chest heaving. He started to speak, but Matt said again, “Miles, don’t say a word. Wait for your lawyer. Listen to your parents.” Matt felt Vernon rise beside him, and what his feeling was, Matt couldn’t say without turning to look at him, but his partner chose to stay silent. He didn’t interrupt what Matt was doing.

  Lucinda and Porter stared at Matt, not quite grasping what it was he was offering them, not quite believing this stroke of good fortune. Miles rushed to his parents and broke down in sobs. Matt couldn’t stop looking at them, their arms twisted around one another, a knot of self-protection, grief, and humiliation. Lucinda and Porter tried to soothe their boy as they must have done when he was small. They stroked his hair and paid attention to no one but him.

  But he wasn’t a young child. He was old enough to have gotten a girl pregnant. He was strong enough to have killed her. Matt remembered the bruises that had ringed Claire’s wrists and dotted her neck. Her death could easily have been accidental, as the pregnancy must have been, too. But then Claire had made the momentous decision not to have an abortion. Claire had planned to use the scandal as an elaborate attempt to shame her family, her school, her entire heritage. She was the one who had lost. She was the one they had all lost sight of, the person whose rage and abandonment they had mismeasured. Her gamble hadn’t worked, had folded back on her with irrevocable consequences. To think of her anger, her frustration, and her misguided calculation almost made Matt weak. He felt sick and empty. Vernon, too, looked washed of the capacity to act.

  There was so much to do, Matt thought, watching them, and in his mind, the scenario played itself out. Through the sly manipulations of a lawyer, most likely the Robert whom Lucinda had invoked, Miles would most likely be convicted, if he were even formally accused, of manslaughter or the like. He might not even serve time. Kids of his kind went to New Zealand to work on sheep farms for a couple of years then off to college, their names not untarnished, but their lives more or less back on track.

  It was his father who would suffer most. He would have to leave not only a world to which he was born but a world in which he had wielded a high degree of power and control, influence and importance. But he had been willing to forfeit it all for that boy weeping in his arms. Everything for a son. Matt turned to leave the room, Vernon close behind him, bumping into Angell as they left. “Corelli? Cates? Where are you going?” But neither of them could talk. They walked through the station, which was still close to entirely silent. Vernon stole a couple of umbrellas from a bin by the door, and together, they went out in the rain. “Friendly’s?” Vernon asked. “Ali’s,” Matt answered. “This situation is not worth reigniting a cheeseburger addiction, Vernon.”

  But Ali’s was closed, and they wound up with pizza in Matt’s car, parked near the train tracks that separated Greenville from Armitage, unable to face a restaurant, cheer, smiling waitresses.

  “This bites,” said Vernon.

  “At least you didn’t get the pepperoni,” Matt said. His car would smell forever of tomato sauce and stale crust. He couldn’t care at the moment. “Roll down the window. It’s hot in here.” It was better with the windows open; the cool rain washed from time to time over the greasy food.

  “I’m not talking about the pizza,” said Vernon, inhaling most of a slice.

  “Clearly,” said Matt.

  “She gets pregnant by the son of the headmaster, and she’s going to spring it on the whole school. Then she gets scared. It’s actually real. It happens and she’s got to deal with it. So she sets up a system with Scotty; he’s going to get the baby out if she can’t handle it, and she can’t. And then Miles hears and goes to talk to her. But the baby’s gone and he gets mad and knocks her down and at some point runs to Dad.”

  “Most likely,” Matt said. “I cannot get over how young they all are.” Crouched in his car, rain pelting the windshield, he felt fantastically old.

  “Manslaughter?” Vernon was pulling the cheese up from the pizza and watching the stretchy web it made between his fingers.

  “That’s revolting. Stop playing with your food. Maybe. Depends on forensics, the lawyer, the judge, venue, all of it. Miles is a minor.” Matt sighed. They both knew the answer was probably no.

  “I just don’t spend a lot of time with cheese. It’s a novelty. Well, obstruction of justice at least. All the way around. And that English girl.”

  Matt said that those charges would probably stick. And as for Tamsin, they had traced her call to Colson Trowbridge, and she had admitted having an affair with the chair of the board, which was why she’d even accepted a job at that ridiculous school in the first place. Porter had found out and was going to fire her, but then he needed her help when the whole debacle with Claire exploded. She had hidden Miles for several days, to keep his face out of view of the police, a stupid, desperate move that Lucinda, Tamsin claimed, had hatched. She’d removed the photos from Porter’s desk for the same reason: they were panicked that someone would remark on the incredible resemblance between father and son and put it together that Betsy Lowery saw Miles, not Porter, that morning. The papers she’d been shredding had been photographs as well, but of Claire and Miles sitting together near a harbor, probably in Castine. She had no idea where they had come from. “Who took them?” Vernon wondered, then answered his own question. “Who cares?” he said, rummaging for napkins. “She’s the one who’s going to do time.”

  Vernon still believed in the cleansing powers of time in the pen. Matt had dealt with ex-cons too long in Philadelphia to think of jail as much more than a training ground for further disaffection and rage. He also didn’t think imprisonment would add that much suffering to what Porter was going through already. His ruin was complete.

  Matt tried to breathe deeply, but something kept catching in his chest. “I also figured out one of the things old Fuller was lying about. He has a house in Castine. I saw a watercolor in his apartment, and the title finally clicked. Castine Harbor at Sunset. He was up there when Porter and Claire and Miles were. He must have seen them. He knew all along the family was involved. But there’s something else, too. We’ll get the warrant tomorrow.”

  “Basta
rd,” Vernon said mildly. “Any pizza left?”

  “He is, and yes, there’s some left.”

  Vernon mulled all this over as he indulged in another slice. “And we don’t know about the baby. But Scotty does.”

  “Indeed,” said Matt and reached for the car keys. “And that’s who we’re going to go and see now.”

  “You okay?” Vernon asked as he crumpled the pizza box and stuffed it in the back of Matt’s car.

  “No, Vernon,” Matt said. “I am most decidedly not okay.” They drove fast through the rain, back to the school on the hill.

  “God, I hate this rain,” Vernon muttered. “Been thinking about taking the kids and Kathy to a serious beach for a few days.”

  “Really?” Matt asked as he turned onto the long drive leading to the campus. “Won’t that enlarge your carbon footprint?”

  “Ipanema,” said Vernon, almost sheepishly. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  But Scotty wasn’t in his dorm. Scotty wasn’t anywhere on campus. Scotty had, so it appeared, hastily packed some belongings and left Armitage without telling his dorm head, parents, or anyone else. In the hard rain that covered the campus, he had simply disappeared.

  CHAPTER 23

  Returning to her apartment Sunday morning, Madeline found what she’d been dreading. Another note slid under her door, as always in lurid red pen. At least there were no more threatening quotations, but the contents more than made up for it. “We have pictures of you from last night. We know where you were and what you were doing.” At first, Madeline’s heart seized. Pictures of her and Fred on the Internet or YouTube? It would be the end of their careers. Slowly, she calmed herself. Fred’s bedroom had no windows. There was no way they could have gotten a camera in there. The worst they could have done was to take photos of her entering and leaving his apartment. And that, though frowned on, was not illegal. And, she reminded herself, she’d been fully clothed both times. Still, she was furious.