Cold Case

by Linda Barnes

  Still, the total effect was impressive enough to make me wonder if there were a servants’ entrance where I might park my humble vehicle without disgrace.

  “Snap out of it!” I scolded myself. I wouldn’t get much information out of Tessa Cameron if I let myself be intimidated by her house. I pulled underneath the la-di-da porte cochere, just as if I were piloting a huge black Mercedes S500. Or maybe a Ferrari Testarossa. A red one.

  A trim dark-jacketed man raced down five steps and interrupted my fantasies, intent on assisting me from the driver’s seat.

  “May I take your keys?” he inquired.

  “Why?”

  “Guests generally park to the left of the big house. I’ll be happy to move your car—”

  I gunned the engine and drove to the proper area. I don’t easily part with my car keys.

  So, all in all, I was fifteen minutes late for my session with Tessa Cameron.

  She made me wait.

  The foyer wasn’t bigger than my house, but it was certainly prettier, with a bridal staircase descending to creamy marble tiles. A huge gilt-framed portrait of Franklin Cameron dominated the entryway. Based on photos I’d seen, the artist had been a flatterer, enlarging the man’s eyes, strengthening his chin.

  I was ushered to the left, into a room with ornate molding. I don’t know what the family called it—the drawing room, the withdrawing room. I’d have named it the sunroom because the windows faced south and the plants bristled with glossy leaves. The wallpaper was off-white, with stripes of pale pink and gold, a different texture for each color. A jumble of greenery and rattan gave the place the look of an outdoor garden, but the furniture wasn’t casual patio stuff by any stretch of imagination or pocketbook.

  The room rated a fat goose egg in snoop-potential. Not a single photograph of the illustrious clan. The only drawers opened to reveal a NYNEX phone book and plain white stationery. Except for the absence of a Gideon Bible, I could have been cooling my heels in a fancy hotel suite. I sensed the decorator’s icy hand.

  Sharp staccato footsteps sounded first, followed by raised and furious voices. It took me a minute to realize that the argument issued from above. Swiftly I moved toward the window wall. All the better to hear you with, my dears …

  A woman’s voice, high, shrill, demanding. Rapid-fire speech to match the tap-tapping spikes, so angry I couldn’t hear sentences because the sounds slid together. I concentrated on isolating words.

  “Disgust.” Definitely. “You disgust me”? Possibly.

  The man replied: baritone, a low rumble of resentment. Threatening?

  Other feet approached. I turned in time to see Tessa Cameron enter the doorway as though by divine right, a woman of a certain age. Only her plastic surgeon could tell for sure, but I put her down as the best-maintained sixty-five I’d seen off-screen and unfiltered through flattering light. An oval Madonna face, spoiled by discontented lines edging a pursed mouth. Brilliant amber eyes, all-seeing as an eagle’s. Ramrod-straight posture. Once-dark hair gilded the color of money. A faintly foreign air to her gliding walk, as though she belonged in a long gown and lace mantilla.

  As she drew close, I couldn’t help breathing her scent: Camellias. Her height surprised me. She walked with the calm assurance of a taller person, a grande dame. It came as a shock that all her power radiated from a slender five-foot frame.

  She wore a simple sleeveless off-white sheath that looked as if it had been cut to her measurements and stitched to her body. Pearls were her only adornment. Made me glad I’d changed out of my jeans. When Filene’s Basement, Boston’s mecca for the thrifty—not to mention the cheap—holds its annual women’s suit sale, I arrive early and take my place among the throng waiting to charge the doors. My sleek blue gabardine has made it through four seasons and, considering how rarely I wear it, I’m hoping for another ten. I’d paired it with a cream silk blouse. My aunt Bea’s rose-gold locket dangled in the V-neck. I’d even found a pair of run-free panty hose, which—considering the heat—I regretted.

  My hostess looked like she’d been born wearing panty hose and heels. Probably had feet shaped like Barbie’s.

  “Miss Carlyle?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, feeling enormous, like Alice after she’d OD’d on Eat Me mushrooms. Size 2 women have that effect on me.

  The overhead argument rang out with renewed zeal and increased volume. I wished the combatants would curse each other by name.

  “Bastard!” the high voice screeched.

  A rumbling burst finished with the word “police,” or possibly “please.”

  “No way did I sign on for this!” Female outrage spewed at broadcast level. “The campaign, yes! But I had no idea what—”

  The woman lowered her voice abruptly. I could hardly ask Tessa to clarify.

  “Come,” she said firmly, her hand clasping her pearls. “Won’t you join me in my office?”

  Damn, I thought, I’d rather eavesdrop.

  15

  Tessa led the way, and there was little I could do but follow. Her office, I thought ruefully, was probably soundproofed.

  We passed beneath Franklin Cameron’s looming portrait. I inquired about it—When had it been painted? Who was the artist?—but she merely shrugged as she executed a quick series of turns, her posture ruler-straight. Each corridor seemed distinguished only by a differently patterned oriental runner. I felt the need to scatter a few Hansel-and-Gretel pebbles. I don’t know much about oriental rugs. If someone told me to follow the Isfahan to the Bokhara to the exit, I’d be in trouble.

  Tessa’s office was a time capsule. Framed posters from her late husband’s electoral campaigns covered the walls. Banners swagged the ceiling: Cameron for Senate! Cameron for House! Cameron! Cameron! Cameron! All the posters, all the campaign stuff, dated from thirty years ago. My eyes did a quick circuit: No posters from Garnet’s current contest.

  Had I heard Garnet’s voice upstairs? Did he share living space with his mother as well as his wife?

  Tessa took a seat behind the tiny desk—I’m sure the decorator’d called it an “escritoire”—Had the decorator determined the nostalgic motif or had Tessa erected this shrine to her late husband?

  She gave me an appraising stare.

  “You are not exactly what I expected,” she said in her heavily accented voice, staring at my bargain basement suit, noting my shoes, my absence of purse, my worn briefcase. I was sure she’d priced my wardrobe to a nickel. Probably knew my left heel wiggled, needed replacement.

  “What did you expect?” I asked.

  “Sit, please.”

  I took the visitor’s chair, which was too low and cushiony for my taste or comfort.

  She shrugged, and her small hands moved expressively. “I don’t know. Someone like on television. One of those ‘Charlie’s Angels,’ you know?”

  She’d been watching reruns.

  “Or maybe a woman like a refrigerator, no?” she continued. “Big, like you, but heavy, like a block.” She smiled broadly and I found myself enjoying her animated presence.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “It’s very little, I’m afraid. Such a small thing.”

  She faced away from the windows, while I was forced to stare into the sun. Enthroned in her high-backed chair, she appeared tinier, almost childlike. This was a woman who knew how to manipulate her surroundings. She had the best position, the best light.

  Some office. The desktop was bare. There wasn’t a single bookshelf. What did she do in here?

  She smiled charmingly, said, “I can explain perhaps best like this: you have people around you, the people who clean your house, iron your clothes, cook, drive your car—”

  Right. A full staff. I keep mine in a kitchen drawer.

  “And sometimes these people, they are not as honest as they should be. But you do not wish to call the police because there will be notoriety, and after all Helga is an excellent cook and you would so hate to lose her little pastry treats. B
ut she has taken something and you cannot just ignore this. You would like to handle it within the family, no?”

  “What did Helga take?”

  “No, no. Not so literal, please. Helga is not my cook. She is a person I make up in my mind to show you—”

  “A hypothetical case.”

  She beamed as if I. were her star pupil. “Right. So you say, ‘hypothetical.’”

  When people start beaming at me and generally behaving like ardent admirers who wish to bask in my wisdom, all my alarm bells go off at once. Either they want me to join a weird cult, I figure, or they’re planning a con.

  “Tell me a little more about this hypothetical theft,” I said.

  “It is of no intrinsic value, this thing that was stolen.”

  “Sentimental value,” I suggested.

  “Yes. I see you are very perceptive,” she said. “Simpatico.” Her smile was starting to look glazed, frozen, as though it had been pasted on her mouth and was beginning to itch.

  “I take it you want my help in recovering this sentimental treasure,” I said.

  “That is exactly what I want.” She seemed relieved. The smile ratcheted up a notch in warmth.

  “Can you describe it to me?”

  “I believe you already know. It consists of papers, an artist’s notebook.”

  I decided to plant a zinger, see if a woman of such poise could be rattled. “And the hypothetical thief, that would be Drew Manley?”

  Her head turned abruptly and she faced me straight on. Till that very moment I hadn’t realized that she’d arranged herself at a slight angle, as though she were being photographed, presenting her best side to the camera.

  “Andrew Manley,” I repeated. “I assume you called me because of Andrew Manley.”

  Rattled she was. “But he told me he never—”

  “He didn’t give his true name,” I assured her. “He tried an alias. That’s one reason I agreed to come to your house. I figured I’d have a better chance of meeting the real Tessa Cameron.”

  She couldn’t decide whether to hit me with indignation or keep her good humor. I could practically see the wheels spin, hear the gears mesh.

  “So you know everything?” she said, finally deciding a fishing expedition might be the appropriate response.

  “Not everything,” I said lightly. “I’ve seen your photograph, so I do know you are the genuine Mrs. Cameron. But I don’t know what you want.”

  “I only want this thing, this treasure that Dr. Manley took from me.” She stared hungrily at my briefcase. “You brought it with you, yes?”

  Doctor. He’d made it through med school, just as his yearbook had prophesied.

  “You’re calling your doctor a thief,” I prompted.

  “Please, put no such word in my mouth. Thief! Fool, perhaps. He regrets what he did. He said you sent him away, you told him you no longer have this thing, these papers. But also he said you could not show him the postal receipt. He is a man like all men, gullible. He believes you would send this to your FBI. Me, I am not so gullible.” She made an elegant exit from the chair, one moment relaxed, the next perfectly upright. “I will see this receipt, or else I will see my stolen property.” For a woman five feet tall in heels she was damned impressive.

  “I was told the property belonged to your daughter, Thea.”

  “Dorothea,” she corrected, caressing each syllable. Her face changed as she spoke the name. Her mouth relaxed. She looked ten years younger. “My brilliant, my beautiful daughter. She has been dead so long and still they try to use her. Everything they try to steal. Even her true name.”

  “Dorothy Cameron.”

  “Dorothea. That is where Thea comes from. Franklin, my husband, he will not let me name this daughter after the wishes of my heart. I name Beryl and Garnet, my treasures, and I think this one will be Ivory, Jade, Lapis, a precious thing also. But my husband’s mother has money, and for that money, that hope of inheritance, he writes on the birth certificate Dorothy, his mother’s ugly name. I spit at him for that. Now, if he still lived, I would spit at him.”

  Was that why Franklin Cameron’s picture hung large in the foyer? So she could practice spitting at a man twenty years dead? Did she use his campaign posters for target practice?

  “Dr. Manley told me the manuscript meant your daughter was alive.”

  She bowed her head, remaining silent for a full minute. Her lips moved as though she were praying.

  “Why would he say such a thing, such a lie?” she murmured at last. “You think you know a person, really know him, and—”

  The knock on the door was strong enough to shake the paneling. It startled both of us.

  “Mama, open the door.” The voice was deep, baritone, of the same timbre and pitch as one of the upstairs quarrelers.

  Tricky Tessa. I hadn’t even seen her snick the lock.

  “Please,” Tessa Cameron whispered to me, “say nothing. Pretend you are not here.” Then, loudly, she addressed the door. “Darling, I’m on the phone. Long distance. Very important. It’s way past twelve! You’ll be late for your meeting.”

  “Mother, Henry told me you have a guest.”

  I wondered if Henry was the car-key man.

  “Cat’s out of the bag,” I said to Tessa with a shrug, making my words loud enough to carry. I’d never met a gubernatorial candidate before.

  “Ignore, please, this interruption,” she said to me, steel in her voice. “I will pay you.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Damn him,” Tessa muttered under her breath. To me: “No, I do not curse my son, I curse the chauffeur. Why should I be spied on in my own house?”

  I didn’t have an answer. The knocking was becoming insistent, taking on a regular rhythm.

  She shook her head and her smooth coiffure moved all-of-a-piece. She made a clicking noise with her tongue, an expression of pure irritation, in English or Italian. “Shhhh,” she said, moving toward the door. “I’ll let you in. A moment, please! Always he must be in charge. Always! His father died when he was young. That is what I say to excuse his behavior. Do not judge him harshly.”

  Seemed his mother did that already.

  Tessa opened the door, and The Man Who Would Be King charged past like she was the housekeeper. He regarded me for a moment, then did a quick reverse, facing her.

  “Mama, I thought we’d agreed you’d stay out of this.”

  “No. No. This is so simple, darling. You watch. You see. Miss Carlyle, this is my son, Garnet. He forgets sometimes the politeness.”

  Not often, I thought. Not a man with his political savvy and ambition. Garnet resembled his mother, same searching amber eyes, same perfectly oval face. His hair was touched with gray at the temples. No dandruff.

  His suit was European-cut, charcoal with a faint stripe. No lint. No creases. He’d teamed it with a pink shirt so subdued it was almost gray, enlivened the ensemble with a hand-painted floral tie that probably cost more than my entire outfit.

  All the Dover Camerons, except the elusive Beryl, rated space in Who’s Who. So I knew Garnet had graduated from Harvard, held a law degree from Yale, was forty-two, and currently married to the much-younger Marissa, with one divorce in his past. No kids. Eighteen when sister Thea had vanished.

  For years he’d devoted his considerable energy and influence to politics, on the money side. Fund-raising time, folks heard from Garnet. Folks with money. I bet he rarely forgot his manners then.

  He’d racked up favors, bided his time. When the traditional weakness of the Massachusetts Republican Party reasserted itself, he’d picked the perfect moment to switch from money raiser to candidate, fulfill his father’s unsated ambitions.

  I admit to being politically disaffected, but I vote, even though the things I want to vote for—like giving more money to Paolina’s school so they won’t have to run an endless stream of bake sales and magazine drives—never end up on the ballot. I was actually looking forward to yanking the lever for this gu
y. We breed strange candidates in the Commonwealth—rich folks who stand up for the little guy, poor folk who grovel to the rich, longing to be one of their number. The Kennedy model must have rubbed off: Do what’s necessary to get rich; once you’ve got a million bucks to spare, groom your kids for public service.

  Garnet Cameron said, “I see you’ve met my devoted mother, Ms. Carlyle.”

  Tension there, thick as butter.

  She glued a jovial smile on her mouth, said, “You hear, Garnet, what little I say to her. Only that we have lost some pieces of paper from a sketchpad. She has found them. We pay her for them. A check, cash, whatever it is she wishes. It’s so simple, you see?”

  “You didn’t exactly say you lost them,” I corrected. “More like Andrew Manley stole them.”

  Garnet rounded on his mother, but she didn’t give him a chance to slip a word into the accusatory silence.

  “What? What did I say? She tells me his name, not the other way around. Always you belittle me.” Tessa had a delightful accent, I decided, like rippling water. I hoped she’d keep talking because Garnet looked as though he desperately wanted her to shut up.

  “Listen to me, darling.” She addressed me quietly, just woman to woman, as if her son had evaporated from the room. Clients rarely call me darling. “Such hair you have! You need a good haircut, true? I have someone for you, a man who works wonders with such hair! This thing I want you to return … The doctor—who is my dear friend—perhaps thought he was doing a good thing, yes, but he didn’t realize—‘Stole’ is far too strong a word.”

  “Mama!”

  “What? What? All the time, everything I do is wrong, eh? I can see this is a good person, an honest woman—”

  “I asked you to let me handle this.” Garnet’s mouth barely opened; his jaw seemed set, locked.

  Tessa said, “I think you should not be late for your meeting.”

  “Consider it canceled,” Garnet returned.