by Linda Barnes
“Marissa,” Reedy corrected.
“Marissa is just playing some little ol’ trick on her hubby. Don’t expect him to pass out with guilty chills when he sees my face.”
“I say give it a try.”
I spent a futile five minutes trying to convince the FBI to leave. No dice.
“May I change clothes? I feel a trifle underdressed for Dover.”
“Put on a coat,” Reedy said. Great sense of humor.
I crawled into the front seat of the car, leaving Mooney the rear, with, I devoutly hoped, no leg room at all.
“Aren’t you afraid that allowing me to confront Garnet at this time of night—morning—could constitute harassment?” I asked the FBI man.
“Once a kidnapping’s been reported, we assume total jurisdiction. We’re in a much more powerful position now that we have the original complainant.”
“Complainant?” I thought. I love FBI-speak. I didn’t bother remarking on the royal “we.” The FBI is a unit, a presence, a “we.” I hoped Mooney was suffering in the back, getting his legs scrambled on every bump.
I gave my head a toss, both to rearrange my hair and wake my brain. I was no longer Tessa Cameron’s employee. I’d gone against her son’s wishes and reported a crime. I could expect a lousy greeting at best.
Unless Andrew Manley happened to be present.
“Gary,” I said sweetly. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Ask away,” he said, while Mooney snorted in the rear seat.
“When did you guys start the profiling business, Teten and Depue and Douglas, and all those guys at Quantico?”
Every FBI agent knows the proud history of the Bureau. They love to expound.
“It was ’69 or ’70 when Teten started his class in applied criminology,” Reedy said. “He asked agents, cops from all over the country, to bring in unsolved cases, you know, the kind that wouldn’t let ’em sleep nights. He got a tremendous response.”
“Say a girl disappeared in ’71, killed by a guy who’d done at least two others—raped and murdered them. Would the FBI lab have paper on that?”
“Only if it was a big-time case, or took years to solve.”
“It was big time,” I murmured softly, wondering how I could get access to the Fibbie file on the Cameron case.
There was silence in the big car. It moved so differently than my small Toyota that we might have been on a ship at sea.
“Mooney,” I said, “did you review the Thea Janis file before you let me see it?”
“You bet,” he said. “And after.”
“Remember the Albion confessions?”
“I didn’t memorize ’em.”
I smiled in the dark. I had, and Mooney’d known I had.
I addressed myself to the FBI man. “Gary,” I said. “Here’s a theoretical: A guy kills a woman he may know, then kills another woman, then a third who looks like the first woman. Gets caught standing over the third lady’s nude body, knife in hand. No vehicle nearby.”
“So?”
“Would you call him an ‘organized’ or a ‘disorganized’ killer?”
“You kidding? The guy’s ‘disorganized.’ Miracle he didn’t get nabbed after the first killing. No plan of escape on the third murder is enough to indicate ‘disorganization.’ But ‘organized’ and ‘disorganized’ weren’t the terms the Bureau used in the early seventies.”
“What did the Bureau call them?”
“We had what we called the ‘simple schizophrenic,’ I think. Poor choice of words, but he sounds like the guy you’re talking about. And then we had the ‘psychopath.’ Your average Ted Bundy.”
Albert Ellis Albion hadn’t been found standing over Thea Janis’s body. According to MacAvoy’s reconstruction of the crimes, she’d been the second victim in the series.
“Does an ‘organized’ killer change?” I asked Reedy. “Become ‘disorganized’?”
“Possibly. Over time. Especially if he’s starting to lose it psychologically, if he wants to get caught. He could start sending notes to newspapers, bragging to buddies in bars.”
I swiveled to face the backseat. “Any progress?” I asked Mooney in a low voice.
“On what?”
“On getting me in to see Albion.”
“You do this for Reedy, maybe I’ll pull a favor for you.”
“I’ll expect it,” I said.
After fifteen minutes of happy talk about serial killers of the past, present, and future, we left the main road, squeezed between the gateposts, and started up the tree-lined path to the Cameron mansion. The house was ablaze with lights.
More than a single candle in the window to guide Marissa home.
I hadn’t noticed any cars on the way up the drive, but the minute we stopped a man stepped out of the shrubbery and reported through the half-opened window that all seemed quiet. He informed Reedy that two agents had heard engine noise from a side road half an hour ago, maybe a motor scooter or a minibike, but it hadn’t approached the house and an attempt to pick up the scooter had failed when it turned off into the woods.
A scooter. Like the one at Avon Hill School, driven by Anthony Emerson’s “street urchins.”
“Did anyone see it?” I asked quickly.
“No. The grounds are heavily wooded,” said the agent.
Special Agent Reedy seized control by saying, “I want a full search of the area. Tire tracks. Anything. Have they kept the damned lights on like this all night?”
“No, sir. Place lit up like a Christmas tree about ten minutes—”
The front door opened and Garnet Cameron appeared, elegantly dressed, as if he were expecting the press, not the cops.
“Come in, Agent Reedy. Come in, please.”
Agent Reedy seemed puzzled. It was evidently a far warmer welcome than he’d experienced before. “Thank you, sir. Uh, just a few questions.”
“We’ve received another message,” Garnet said. “I’m afraid it’s more serious than I thought.”
“Did you get it on tape?”
“Yes, yes I did. Part of it, anyway. I was rattled. I didn’t switch on at the beginning.”
“Let’s hear it.”
We were hastily ushered into a room I’d never seen before, studded with heavy oak furniture. A grand piano guarded one side of a marble fireplace, hardly taking up any space at all. Garnet merely nodded when he saw me.
Reedy moved in and took charge of the machinery.
The same voice I’d heard earlier, the digitized rumble, said, “She’s alive. If you mess with us, we’ll cut her face.”
Garnet’s recorded voice shot up an octave. “Let me talk to Marissa! How do I know—?”
There was a loud click. For a moment I thought the kidnappers had hung up, then a new sound began. In a steady voice a woman read aloud. Her tone seemed automated, lifeless.
“That’s Marissa,” Garnet offered eagerly. “She’s reading from the Times. Today’s—uh, yesterday’s—paper.”
“It’s taped,” Reedy said, “but if it is today’s news, you know she’s alive and relatively unharmed.”
“Is she drugged? Why does she sound like that?”
Reedy nodded. “Probably tranquilizers in her food.”
The mechanized voice came back. “Mr. Cameron, remember the payoff is two million. Don’t bring in the police, or else. Remember her fingers. One at a time. Maybe her pretty little nose first. Or an ear.”
“What do you think?” Garnet muttered as the tape came to an end.
“I wish I’d been here. How much of the conversation did you miss? How long before you turned on the recorder?”
“I don’t know. Not long. Not more than a sentence, two at the most. Won’t you be able to trace the phone number?”
“Yes, but if your perp is sophisticated enough to alter his voice, he’s probably calling from a public booth, or he’s figured out a way to reroute the call.”
I wondered about the voice-changer. Did it mean that Garnet might
otherwise recognize the voice?
“Can you raise two million?” Reedy asked.
“No.”
“One million, five?”
Garnet took in a deep breath. “Yes. It will take time. You heard them. They’ll—”
“No,” Reedy said calmly. “Forget the threats. Kidnappers are greedy. They want money. Without your wife, safe and sound, they’re not going to get paid. They know that. When they call again, sell them on a new price. Try them out on one million.”
“Bargain with them?”
“Think of it from their point of view. One million’s a lot better than a dead body to get rid of.”
“Mr. Cameron,” I asked quickly. “Is this going to have any effect on your gubernatorial run? Do you plan to withdraw from the race?”
Special Agent Reedy was already excusing himself and us, apologizing gruffly for the intrusion. I’m sure he wanted to run the phone number, just in case, but I also got the feeling he didn’t like me asking such embarrassing questions.
He glared at me as we descended the steps. He’d have given me hell once we got outdoors. Fortunately one of his men intervened. They’d taken cast impressions of a narrow tire print in muddy ground. Nearby, they’d found a box, addressed in block print to Mr. Garnet Cameron. The box was small, light. The top was loose and no wires or machinery protruded. The exterior surfaces had been fingerprinted. Would the Special Agent in Charge care to open it?
He would. He donned latex gloves.
I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything lately. I was geared for a finger.
The box was filled with yellow hair, Marissa Cameron’s long flowing hair. The straight shining locks seemed to have been severed with a dull scissors. A block-printed note asked, “Want some more?”
The agent had a message for me, too. Tessa Cameron would like to see me. She was waiting in the gazebo by the lake. The man pointed down a path, said, “About three quarters of a mile.”
I shot a brief look at Gary Reedy’s taut face, and took off, jogging.
28
As I understand it, a gazebo is an open structure. I spent fifteen minutes searching for something resembling a park bandstand before coming upon a round building made of piled rock, like an old New England stone fence gone berserk. The rocks rose high, into a miniature fairy-tale tower, complete with turret. Huddled by the shore of a dark lake, it looked like an illustration from a children’s book. If I waited till sunrise perhaps Rapunzel would cast down hair even longer than Marissa’s. The thought made me shiver.
A single round window provided enough light to outline the door. It was surprisingly cool inside. Thick walls. I climbed the winding stair.
Toys of the rich and famous. Maybe Thea and Beryl and Garnet had romped here as kids. And one was dead and one was schizophrenic and one had a kidnapped wife. For a moment I wished I could sweep the cobwebs from the corners, send all the lost children back to an earlier time with a snap of magical fingers.
So they could suffer all that pain again.
The door at the top of the tower was ajar.
Not a single child’s plaything. Whatever it had once been, this was Tessa’s hideaway now, with creamy sofas and thick rugs. The portrait on the far wall had to be Tessa when young. She’d been exquisite. More conventional than Thea, but those were more conventional times.
My eyes automatically searched tabletops, bureaus. No photos or portraits of the late Franklin Cameron. No family memorabilia at all.
“Mrs. Cameron?”
“Thank you for coming.”
She seemed to have nothing more to say. She just sat on a sofa, staring into nothing, playing with her jeweled hands.
“Was there something you wanted?” I asked.
“Merely a progress report. Have you an idea now who could have faked my daughter’s writing?”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Cameron. Your son told me you no longer wished to pursue the matter. He brought me the contract you’d signed, torn to pieces. He said you’d voided the check.”
She seemed stunned, said, “It’s a lie. All lies. Why should I change my mind? Of course, I want to know who did this. Why would I not want to know?”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll assume you’re still paying me.”
“Certainly! I am, perhaps, sorry you called in the authorities about this latest … misadventure. Oh, I realize you feel you had to do it, but now I think, yes, I worry that we may all be playing into Marissa’s greedy hands.”
I said, “Wait a minute. You think the manuscript is fake—and now you think the kidnapping’s fake? Why would Marissa throw in her lot with kidnappers? She could just divorce your son. Take him for alimony.”
“She needs no money. Her family has considerable assets.”
“Do you think it’s personal? Does she hate your son that much?”
“It’s political.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a diversion, to take my son’s mind off the election at a critical stage.”
I hesitated, sniffed the air. I couldn’t smell her camellias. Could this be the house she shared with Dr. Manley?
“What is it?” she asked.
“Does this remind you at all of the other time,” I asked, snatching at straws, “when Thea disappeared?”
Her chin came up. “How could it?”
“I’ve read the police files. The FBI thought Thea might have been kidnapped. Your phone was tapped then; it’s tapped now—”
“Then I was out of my mind with worry. Then I couldn’t eat. Then I couldn’t walk or talk.”
“Did Thea disappear during a political campaign?”
She ignored the question. “Have you made any progress?”
“I’m not sure. I did speak to Andrew Manley again. I’d like to question him, but I haven’t been able to locate him.”
She shifted position on the sofa, crossed her elegant legs. “Would you care for a drink?”
The fairy-tale castle had been furnished with a wet-bar. On it stood a frosty pitcher, an assortment of dark-tinted bottles. Only one Martini glass had been used, I noted.
“No, thanks,” I said.
She bit her lip. “Please then, won’t you sit down?”
Velvet upholstery tickled the backs of my thighs. I waited.
She said, “Dr. Manley decided I might wish to explain further … concerning the notebook, the manuscript.”
“I would be interested in interviewing the doctor,” I said.
“Dr. Manley is out of town,” she said firmly. “He thought I might tell you how we came by the first chapter. Why we’re so anxious to recover it.”
Talk, I urged her silently.
“We’d been out—a restaurant, dancing. Drew and I have been close friends for years now. We knew my son was away at a fund-raiser. Marissa rarely entertains. We were puzzled to see so many lights in the living room, even a fire in the fireplace. On a steamy night, hot like this one.”
“When was this?”
“Last Saturday night, the night before Drew came to see you.”
“Go on.”
“We assumed Garnet had come home early, so we went to join him for a drink.”
She hesitated so long that I had to prompt her.
“Yes?”
“No one was in the room. A notebook lay on the floor, a notebook so like Thea’s that when I saw it I couldn’t breathe. I thought I might have a stroke, a heart attack. Drew made me sit on the sofa, take deep breaths. I saw a few scattered pages as well. Drew gathered them all. He was breathing so quickly, I became worried about him as well. He brought me the notebook. He asked if it looked like Thea’s beautiful script, and it did! I thought my heart would burst! But he insisted it was forgery, and for proof, he showed me the note.”
“What note?” I asked, my voice barely a breath, a whisper.
“The note that demanded money.”
“Where is this note?”
“We burned it.”
“You what?”
/> “In the fireplace. Really. Drew said I shouldn’t have, but I don’t know … It was so hot, so stuffy … And Thea is dead. She would never beg for money. And so we knew that the rest of the manuscript—”
“Whoa. What ‘rest of the manuscript’?”
“The note said we would have to pay more and more for each notebook, for each chapter, that it was vile, obscene, that it would ruin the whole family forever. Politically. That it was Thea’s confessional—written long ago—given to a friend before she died.”
I waited a moment, thinking. Berlin, now.
I asked, “Why believe the note if you disbelieved the manuscript?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Drew said that he would handle everything.”
Her precious Drew had insisted the manuscript was genuine. Then he’d veered off the track, changed his mind utterly and completely. Disappeared. Come back. Done the vanishing act again.
I licked my dry lips. I said, “Your son is involved in a political race and his wife disappears. Was your husband campaigning when Thea disappeared?”
She placed her fingertips on her temples, rubbed them in delicate circles. “It was so long ago. If he was—and I doubt it—he lost or gave up. Franklin was never a successful man. Nothing he ventured went well. Why do you ask?”
“I’m looking for parallels,” I said. “Your husband. Your son. Then. Now. Thea. Marissa.”
“There are none,” she said. “None.”
Okay, I thought. Let’s switch the subject.
I said, “Your daughter Thea left a will.”
“Her agent advised it. ‘A literary heir,’ he said, ‘for a literary legacy.’”
“Did Thea leave much money?”
“No. A trifle.”
“Who gets her royalties?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Don’t or won’t?”
“Please,” she said. “Stop.”
“Mrs. Cameron,” I said.
“What?”
“Someone other than one of your son’s political opponents could be imitating Thea’s work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s talk about your other daughter. Let’s talk about Beryl.”