Cold Case

by Linda Barnes

  The little blonde was exuberant. She whooped and said, right on, or something dumb like that. He wasn’t really listening. He’d tuned her out after his visit to the big Dover house.

  19

  Three phone messages. My popularity was definitely on the upswing. One was a hard-breathing hang-up call, which made me reassess my initial view concerning popularity. One was from Gloria stating that the harassment campaign against Thurman W. Vandenburg had begun. The third was from Paolina, which surprised me because her rustic camp, while it has many charms, has no phones for the campers. She must have walked all the way into town, slid her coins into the pay slot only to hear a recorded message. She sounded okay, said she’d try to call again, didn’t give a reason for wanting to talk. Homesick? I wondered.

  Insomnia. Blame it on the three cups of coffee I’d inhaled at Dunkin’ Donuts, trying to get the stink of the police station out of my nose. Might as well blame it on the phase of the moon. I’ve got it; I live with it. Gives me extra time for guitar picking. Or if I’m deep in a case, for research.

  With little faith, I dialed the twenty-four-year-old phone number for Edgar Barrett Jr., the unfortunate black gardener who’d taken up so much of the Cambridge cops’ time during the early days of the Thea Janis disappearance.

  The number had been disconnected. No forthcoming information. Thank you very much.

  I flipped on my computer, which automatically dialed my on-line service. Icons filled the screen and I double-clicked on Netscape. The Netscape window appeared. I single-clicked on “location”: at the top of the screen, quickly typed in http://www.switchboard.com/. “Switchboard” had been on-line for a couple of months now. I got their welcome page, hit the return key. A prompt appeared, asking me to enter information. I typed “Barrett Jr.” under last name, “Edgar” under first. “Boston, MA.” Pressed the search button.

  No hits.

  I decided to modify the search. Just Edgar Barrett, leave off the junior part.

  Still nobody.

  Further modification.

  E. Barrett, Boston. Plenty of those. A list of eight, which was all the service would provide at a time, probably not to overwhelm the client. I used paper and pencil to write down those eight—sometimes I’m attracted to ancient technologies—clicked on “next page” for the remainder. Only three more. Of the eleven possibles, five were full names, six were simply E. Barretts, which meant they were probably females hiding behind their first initial. I’d be happy to locate any relative who could tell me about Edgar, so I quickly made up a tale about an old bank deposit I was trying to trace. The tale had its merits: I could be who I was—a private investigator—which would give me credibility since businesses don’t do 10 P.M. phone calls. I do, because more folks are home then. The basic answer rate is higher. So are tempers, if you rouse people from sleep.

  Money is an interesting topic to most people. Reuniting people with long-lost money is a powerful lure. Even if old Edgar didn’t have two dimes to rub together, one could always imply that he’d hit the lottery and kept mum.

  None of the E. Barretts panned out, from the worst, who yelled and called me names, to the best, who thought we ought to have dinner together because he liked my phone vibes.

  I decided to go with location, mainly because Boston is still a segregated city, and the chances of finding a Barrett who knew Edgar Barrett Jr. were considerably greater in his home community of Roxbury than in primarily white South Boston.

  Switchboard allowed me to modify my search to Barrett, *, Roxbury. I worked my way through the alphabet, fortified by a tall glass of orange juice.

  Mavis Barrett was cagey, querulous, and opinionated. She didn’t think folks ought to use the phone past ten at night, startle people like that. She wasn’t eager to hang up. Either she was a lonely woman desperate to talk, or else she knew something about Edgar. She wanted to know how much money was involved.

  “A considerable amount,” I said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth my while to pursue Mr. Barrett Jr.”

  “That’s Edgar Barrett Jr.?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s a man of color, could have called himself ‘Ed’ or Edgar, might have dropped the ‘Junior.’”

  “And supposin’ he should happen to be dead?” she said accusingly. “His money gonna go to the government?”

  “His money would go to his legal heir. If I can locate that person before the statute of limitations runs out.” I added that last bit of spurious information because I wanted to prod her a bit. I didn’t want our phone call to swallow the whole night.

  “He had a boy,” she said. “I’m Edgar’s sister. Do I stand to get anything? Finder’s fee?”

  I said, “That would depend on whether your information turned out to be accurate.”

  I had a strong feeling that if I’d replied in the negative, she’d have hung up and dialed the State Treasurer’s Office. Massachusetts publishes a yearly list of unclaimed bank accounts. She was smart enough to figure that if she could cut me out of the picture, she might get Edgar’s son to lend her a few bucks.

  “What’s Edgar’s son’s name?” I said as though it were a routine inquiry on a list. “Do you know his age? Address? His phone number?” I let my voice take on a weary tone, as if I had little interest in her information, as if I figured it would just turn out to be another false lead.

  “Girl,” she said, “my brother, Edgar, named his boy Edgar, and young Edgar is living with a woman name of Esther Briony.” She spelled out Esther’s last name. “They’re right up the street from me on Amory Terrace, and they go to bed early ’cause of the children. So don’t you go calling them tonight.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. “You wouldn’t happen to know where your nephew works?”

  “And why wouldn’t I? He works for the Parks Department. Raises flowers in a city greenhouse long as six, eight fancy cars.”

  “Thank you very much, Miss Barrett.”

  I hung up. Would she call her nephew tonight, breaking the rule about late calls? Would it matter if she did? I got the listing for E. Briony on Amory Terrace, Roxbury. Government listings for the City of Boston gave me the location of the city greenhouse. Near Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Franklin Park.

  The doorbell rang. I waited to see if it would chime three times for Roz, who might or might not be at home, alone or otherwise. The bell sounded only once.

  Past eleven o’clock, I don’t race to the door and fling it ajar. I don’t assume that Roz has forgotten her key, which she occasionally does, or that Keith Donovan desires to spend the night, which he occasionally does. Nor do I usually unlock the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk and grab my S&W 40. Maybe Mooney’s constant harping on the Gianelli mob threat had gotten to me.

  I made sure the safety was set, stuck the automatic in the back of my jeans, and went to peer out the peephole, leaving all the lights exactly as they were.

  I keep my porch light on all night. Always have. Helps the burglars ascertain what kind of locks they’re up against. And switching on a light to help you squint through the peephole is a dead giveaway that somebody’s home. There are evenings when I do not care to be interrupted by Greenpeace or MassPIRG, no matter how noble the cause.

  Garnet Cameron shifted from foot to foot on the stoop. I scanned the area. Big car out front.

  He was still suited and tied. I was back in jeans and T-shirt. Sartorial advantage to him, comfort advantage to me.

  Had he brought me the tattered contract remnants?

  I opened the door. The process takes some time, what with multiple locks and a dead bolt. You can’t get into or out of my house without a key.

  “I hope I’m not calling too late,” he said as soon as he could speak through the screen.

  “I was up,” I said. “Come in.”

  “This is a nice place,” he said, looking around my foyer, “nice neighborhood.”

  “You don’t have to campaign, Mr. Cameron.”

  “Garnet.
I think you’ve overheard enough about my life to call me by my first name.”

  “Would you like some coffee, Garnet?”

  “Only if it’s already made, Carlotta.”

  He said my name hesitantly, as though he were tasting it for the first time, savoring it on his tongue.

  “It isn’t. I’ve got water, as in non-bottled tap, and orange juice, from the carton.”

  “Juice,” he said, eyeing the wooden coatrack. “Mind if I hang up my jacket? It’s warm.”

  “Go ahead.”

  When I came back with two glasses of orange juice, he was slumped on the sofa, not seated in the straight-backed chair I keep near my desk, the “client” chair. He looked exhausted.

  I sat in my aunt Bea’s old rocker.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve received that notebook back from your friend?” he asked.

  “It should come in a couple of days,” I said.

  “A couple of days,” he echoed as though I’d said a couple of years. “My mother no longer wishes to continue with this investigation. She feels that it will stir up matters better left forgotten. If the press got this between their teeth, they could run with it for three months easily. It could crowd out every legitimate campaign issue, make this a referendum on my family, on part of the past we’d rather forget.”

  “You don’t think there’s any chance your sister might have actually written the chapter?”

  “Thea? If I did, I’d quit the campaign and help you look for her. God knows I’m tempted to quit already.”

  “Why?” I ventured. “I thought you were a shoo-in, a sure thing.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t dump this on you. Sometimes it’s hard, that’s all. I feel the pressure; it’s tough to have a whole family’s hopes and dreams rest in one person. I never thought it would come to this.”

  “Come to what?”

  “I wasn’t born an only child. Thea’s success took a lot of stress off the burden of being the Cameron flag-bearer.”

  “You still have a sister.”

  “I have one living sister. If you’re treasuring some fantasy that she’s the one who wrote the forgery, forget it. Beryl’s not capable of writing. Not anything. Not anymore.”

  The night seemed incredibly quiet. I willed the telephone silent, the doorbell still.

  “What happened to Beryl?” I asked softly.

  “No one really knows,” he answered. “They label it ‘schizophrenia,’ but that’s just a name. It’s a neurobiological disorder of unknown origin. There’s no cause and no cure. It often hits in the late teens, early twenties. Beryl started hearing voices, making strange sounds, before I went off to prep school, before Thea died. We used to tease her …”

  “Andrew Manley was her doctor?”

  A flicker of distaste crossed his features. “Not the first, nor the last. My mother saw Beryl’s disease as an attack on our family, an attack on her as a mother, a visible form of stigmatization. And in some way, I think she was afraid we might all catch it, might all become delusional, scary people talking to ourselves, screaming random words.”

  “It’s not contagious,” I said.

  “But it does run in families,” he said. “I think Thea was especially afraid that she might turn into Beryl some day. They were close, shared the same room, even though we had plenty of bedrooms.”

  He sat, quiet and composed, on my sofa, so different from the energized dynamo I’d met earlier that day.

  “I think my mother is afraid that the truth about Beryl would spoil my chances in this election. People are so uninformed about mental illness. They’re so terrified by it. The different are not well tolerated, not here, not anywhere.” He gave a short bitter laugh.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Absolutely nothing. My sister, Beryl, is under psychiatric care and, given the success of the drugs they’ve tried so far, will be forever. My sister, Thea, who’d have been the voice of her generation, is dead. Which leaves me to carry the torch. And the strange thing is that most of the time, I feel up to the task; I feel that I can make a difference, that politically this state is ripe for change—! Forgive me,” he said, stopping himself abruptly. “I mistake individuals for audiences. I’ll stop the speech.”

  “It sounded like a good one,” I said. “Strong opening.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” He stared at the fireplace, the rug, the mantelpiece. “This is a restful room. I think I could fall asleep here.”

  “That’s because you’re exhausted,” I said quickly to quash the thought. I did not need a Cameron sleeping on my sofa. “What do you think happened to Thea?”

  That woke him. “What do you mean? Everyone knows what happened to her. I remember the whole thing. I wasn’t a child. I was eighteen.”

  “Where was she going that Thursday night? It doesn’t make sense. Was she running away? Did she have a lover?”

  “Thea,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Thea was probably off on another ‘great adventure.’”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I’m sorry, of course not. My sister saw her life in terms of adventures. If it had been summertime, I’d have been part of the whole thing, which could have involved anything, absolutely anything, from robbing a neighbor’s house, leaving the loot on their front doorstep, ringing the bell, and running away, to trying to catch the biggest fish in creation, and then letting him go.”

  “But it wasn’t summer,” I said.

  “No.” He pressed his lips together. “I think she’d decided to spend the night in Marblehead, at our beach house. She could have made it easy on everyone. She could have told Dad. She could have had somebody drive her up. She could have taken a bus, a cab. But no, it had to be secret and mysterious.”

  “She hitchhiked.”

  “Yeah, that was Thea—live and learn, life on the road. Maybe she’d find somebody who’d make a good story, a great poem, a character in a play. Instead …”

  He sat his empty tumbler down on an end table, shook his head sadly.

  “I still miss her,” he said. “I adored her, worshiped her. Especially as Beryl grew more and more distant. Like I said, I didn’t grow up an only child.” He swallowed audibly. “I thought I’d always have them, two sisters I could trust with every secret thought—I’m sorry. I’m wandering. I just came to tell you that the investigation is off. My mother’s already voided the check—”

  He stood, but his exit was spoiled by the insistent ring of the doorbell. It was Henry, the chauffeur, wild-eyed, holding a cellular phone at arm’s length like it was a poisonous snake.

  20

  The chauffeur handed the phone to Garnet as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

  “Urgent,” he mouthed, then beat a hasty retreat to stand like a sentinel on the stoop.

  “What?” Garnet barked into the mouthpiece.

  As he listened, his face lost all color, draining from tan to putty. Reaching out blindly, he touched a wall, his fingers barely grazing the surface. Taking two awkward steps forward, he leaned against it. I honest to God thought he might faint.

  He said, “Wait. I’ll take it in the car.”

  I said, “Tell whoever it is you’ll call back.”

  “Shut up,” he mouthed.

  “Is there a scrambler on that phone?: Do you want everyone in the neighborhood eavesdropping?” Dammit, I thought, a politician ought to know better.

  “Look,” he said firmly into the receiver, “this phone’s not secure. Call me at—” He glared at me and I gave my number. He parroted it into the phone. “No, it’s not a trick. Immediately.”

  He stared wildly around the room. I indicated my desk phone.

  “Somewhere private,” he demanded.

  “In the kitchen, or upstairs, first door on the left.”

  He chose upstairs. My bedroom, with its habitually unmade bed. Took the steps two at a time. The phone shrilled while he was still at the top of the stairs.

  I soaked it
in: Garnet’s pallor, the aura of disaster. The chauffeur was outside, staring at the limo as though someone was apt to steal it, not an unlikely scenario. I sauntered casually to my desk, waited till the phone was between rings, then—oh so gently—lifted the receiver.

  If Garnet hadn’t been so intent on the call’s content, he might have heard the tiny click.

  “Please put her back on,” he was saying. “My God, don’t hurt her. I’m not trying to set you up!”

  The other voice was inhuman, metallic, someone with a digital voice-changer. “Finger by finger,” it said menacingly. “That’s how she’ll come back to you, Mr. Cameron. It’s your choice. Two million bucks or you’ll never see more of her than ten broken fingers. Maybe we’ll leave the nails on, maybe we won’t. You won’t even find her body. Understand?”

  “Wait!” Garnet insisted. “Let me speak to her again!” The other line disconnected and I pressed the receiver into the cradle as well.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs. I didn’t have time to analyze my decision.

  “We can discuss my ethics later,” I said. “I eavesdropped. What are you going to do?”

  “You what?” He made his way down the stairs, carefully hanging on to the banister like he needed the support.

  “I overheard the phone call.”

  He sat on the second step from the bottom, sank into it as though all the air had abruptly left his body.

  “They’ve taken her,” he whispered. “Oh, my God.”

  “Who? Who’ve they taken?”

  He looked at me uncomprehendingly, undecided.

  “Who?” I demanded, kneeling so our eyes were on a level.

  His words came out in a powerful rush. “Marissa. I talked to her. She sounded frightened.”

  “Wait a minute. Earlier today, she left with a pile of luggage,” I said.

  “Trial separation,” he agreed. “We didn’t know how long we could keep it from the press.”

  “Where was she supposed to go?”

  “Her mother’s place in Rhode Island. She must be there. This has to be some kind of hoax. Someone who saw her leave—”