by Linda Barnes
39
I dressed in white, for steamy weather, and in case I had to infiltrate Weston Psych without Cameron family permission. Sneakers, especially with leather tops, look like nurses’ shoes these days. And nurses don’t look a thing like they used to when I was a kid, all starch and frilly caps and dresses. Anything white seems to do the trick today. I rummaged through my dresser, found painter’s pants and a snowy T-shirt.
Roz gave me the eye and a sheet of printout on Woodrow MacAvoy. I read it while I downed orange juice.
Roz said, “You think Donovan’s waiting for me to bring him breakfast in bed?”
“Not funny,” I said.
“Did you see his face?”
“Anything on that SSN?” I asked.
“Nope. It doesn’t appear to be a Social Security.”
I dialed Gloria.
“What have you got for me?” I asked.
“Good morning to you, too, sweetheart,” she said, her deep voice liquid music. “Took me a while to get your Logan cabbie ’cause he snatched the fare.”
“Shame, shame,” I said.
Logan International’s got a cab shortage. Boston’s got a cab shortage. They handle it like any crazed bureaucracy, with rules and regulations that make no sense, and fines to back up their foolishness. If you drop off a fare at Logan, you can’t pick up a fare at Logan until you first circle the entire airport, register at the taxi pool, and pay for the privilege. Unless you’re a bona-fide Boston cab, not a Cambridge cab or a Chelsea cab or a Somerville cab, forget it. I mean, we have a cab shortage around here, you know?
“Guy’s a Brookline Red Cab jock, doesn’t want trouble,” Gloria said.
“I’m not trouble,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, sing it, honey. I know exactly what he knows, so you’re gonna leave him be.”
“Provided you tell all.”
“Picked up the blonde two forty-five Wednesday P.M., International Terminal, dropped her at the corner of Marlborough and Newbury. No address.”
“What about luggage? She had a ton of luggage.”
“One small rollaway bag, that’s it.”
She could have stashed the rest of her luggage at the airport. No lockers anymore, not with terrorist threats, but she could have abandoned it near a claim-your-luggage roundabout. Without tags, it could still be there. If it hadn’t been stolen.
“Anything else? Anything she said, anywhere she stopped?”
“That’s all she wrote,” Gloria said. “This is the part where you say ‘thanks.’”
I did. Then, without cradling the receiver, I phoned Mooney.
“You checking in for the daily kidnap report?” he asked.
“Where else am I gonna get it?”
Mooney said, “You know, at first, I figured they were gonna do a total media rush, tearful Mama, noble suffering husband, the whole nine yards.”
“So you think the kidnapping’s genuine,” I murmured.
“Don’t you?” he said guardedly.
I hesitated. “I’m not sure anymore.”
“That’s what you called to tell me. I should dial Gary Reedy and say, hey, the woman who brought me on board this thing, now she thinks maybe it’s a put-up job.”
“That’s not why I called. Mooney, I need help. Please. This is haunting me.”
“The FBI is haunting me. You know, the drop was set for last night, and then nobody showed.”
“Where was it supposed to go down?” Please, not Marblehead, I thought. No. If it had been Marblehead I’d have been in federal custody.
“Sorry, that’s privileged information, which means I don’t have a clue.”
“Mooney, look, there’s this number on Thea’s file, on the Cameron-Janis file.”
“So what?”
“It’s erased. Over and over again.”
“I thought you said there was a number.”
“It wasn’t that thoroughly erased.” I read it to him. “It’s nine numerals so I thought it might be a Social Security but I can’t get anything on it.”
“So?” His tone was dead, indifferent.
“Could it be a cross-reference to another police file?”
“Could be.”
“But you won’t check it out?”
“Carlotta, if and only if I get everything cleared off my desk today, which will be damned near impossible, I might be able to look it up, as a favor.”
“Which I will repay. Up front. Now.”
I gave him everything I knew about Marissa Cameron’s departure from home Wednesday afternoon, including the argument I’d overheard. I gave him the Dover cab. The Red Cab.
“You got this from Gloria,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “Sounds crazy. Marlborough and Newbury. Why’s a woman do something like that?”
“See if her family owns anything in the area.”
“I intend to. But why?”
“Here’s one possibility,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s the goods, but suppose she cooked this up with Garnet, okay?”
“One good reason?”
“To transfer money from Garnet’s campaign fund to a more personal account. How’s that?”
“I’ll call Reedy.”
“Don’t forget to run my number!”
He was already hanging up the phone.
“Roz,” I said, “talk to me about Heather Foley.”
“You’d have been proud of me,” she said.
I had the feeling this was gonna cost big.
“Why?”
“I phone-scammed the Swampscott PD,” she said smugly.
“Sounds promising. How?”
“Meet Alberta Stoneham, earnest girl reporter for the weekly Tab.”
“Tab’s okay,” I said. “They use a lot of freelancers.”
“See, there were a ton of Foleys in the Swampscott book, so I buzzed the police department’s community relations officer. Gave him polite. Gave him sweet young thing. Told him I’m doing a story on water danger, alert the teens to beach and boating hazards. Do you love it?”
“I like it. I’m lukewarm.”
“I worked him back year by year, and man, I had to listen to a lot of really pathetic shit. Once I got him on to boats, it didn’t take long to shift to alcohol and boats, and bingo, we finally hit Heather Foley.”
“And?” I was on my third glass of orange juice by now, wondering if Keith was ever going to join us.
“Body never recovered. Sad tale. Cop runs at the mouth a little, says she was the only good kid in the whole damned family. So I tell him I’d like to do some follow-up, and right off, he gives me the address like he’s got it memorized, and I write it down, and it’s yours. Impressed?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Now, want to watch an expert?”
“Always eager,” she said.
I hit information for the 212 area code, got a listing for Knopf, publisher of Nightmare’s Dawn.
“Rights and permissions,” I said to the young woman who answered the phone.
I got to listen to a string quartet play slowed-down warmed-over Beatles’ tunes. After four minutes of that, I was relieved to hear a human voice, even a nasal monotone.
“Subsidiary rights. Olive Anders speaking.”
I wrote “Olive Anders” on a sheet of paper. Also “subsidiary rights.” If you’re going to scam somebody you have to use their language.
“Yes,” I said, giving Roz a glance. “My name’s Alberta Stoneham.” I’d already written the alias at the top of the page. “I’m doing a book on modern women writers, and I’d like to quote Nightmare’s Dawn, by Thea Janis. You published it in 1970. Since the author’s dead, Miss Anders, do you think I’d get into any trouble, any legal difficulties if I were to use, say, an entire paragraph or a complete poem?”
Always use the person’s name when playing phone games. Be extra polite. Assume that she can and will help you.
I gave a small inaudible sigh for the naive
té of sweet young Alberta Stoneham. If she were real, she’d soon learn what I’d learned: There’s always someone to pay, somebody sticking their hand out for a little commercial grease.
“Hold on, please.”
I got to hear more tortured Beatles. The glorious irony of “What would you do if I sang out of key?” played out of key courtesy of a low-battery tape recorder.
“The Alicia Worth Agency handles that account.”
“Thanks you so much, Miss Anders. Could I trouble you for the phone number? I’m not in Manhattan, and I’m working on a very tight budget. Every call to information …”
The Alicia Worth Agency also had a 212 area code.
“Who are you gonna be now?” Roz asked.
“The IRS. See where the 1099-Miscellaneous forms wind up.”
Roz raised an eyebrow. I’d impressed her. A command of IRS form language is impressive, I think.
Alicia Worth agreed. She affirmed that Miss Beryl Cameron received regular royalty statements. No, they were not sent in care of the Weston Institute. They were directed to Mr. Garnet Cameron, 87 Farm Road, Dover. I assured Miss Worth that her cooperation would clear the matter completely. No need for an audit now.
Roz said, “Neat.” Flounced upstairs.
While the phone was still hot, I dialed Garnet Cameron.
“Disconnect the tape, Garnet,” I said. “The FBI doesn’t need to know where your sister, Beryl, lives. The family seems somewhat reluctant to divulge her whereabouts.”
“Miss Carlyle, Beryl is none of your business.”
“Garnet,” I said. “I’m claiming a favor. I think you owe me one.”
“I don’t owe you a thing, except the FBI on my doorstep. If it weren’t for them, I’d have Marissa back by now. I should have paid the damn kidnappers whatever the hell they wanted.”
“Any news? About Marissa?”
“No. The FBI’s handling everything. They screwed up last night. She could be dead for all I know.”
For a moment he sounded so human, so wounded, I could barely bring myself to renew my demand.
“What do you want,” he snapped, ending the spell, turning from sympathetic frog to arrogant prince in no time flat.
“You owe me a call to the Weston Psychiatric Institute. Tell whoever’s in charge that I’m on my way right now, and I’ll be visiting your sister on behalf of the family. I’ll expect them to welcome me with open arms.”
“You have a lot of nerve.”
“I’ve got the goods to back it up. You want to hear the ‘or else’ part?”
“Why not?”
“Or else I release selected paragraphs of writing attributed to ‘Thea Janis’ to every trash tabloid in the U.S.”
“You’ve got the notebook back! It belongs to me, to my mother.”
“Wrong. It belongs to Beryl.”
The phone went dead.
I listened, but heard no footsteps on the stairs. Hurriedly, I donned gloves, removed all Manley’s possessions from my locked desk drawer, shoving them into an envelope. I folded the single sheet of paper, tucked it in my back pocket.
If Manley kept an office at WPI, I intended to dump his stuff there.
I checked the location of the Weston Psychiatric Hospital in the phone book, on a map. Almost as an afterthought, I phoned the city greenhouse, asked for Edgar Barrett. I hummed to myself while I waited, appreciating the lack of piped-in melodies.
“You said the Cuban gardener, the one who worked with your father, told you he was with the CIA,” I said once our respective identities had been established.
“So?”
“Could it have been the FBI?”
“Lady, I was eight years old. He could have been the Man from U.N.C.L.E. He could have said NASA, if they were around then.”
“Could his name have been Alonso?”
“If that’s a Cuban name.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“And yours.” He slammed the receiver down.
Before I got out the door, Sleazebag Vandenburg called, demanding to know whether I had a location on our mutual friend. I hung up. So many people had been hanging up on me lately that it felt good to be in the power position.
I should have listened to him more closely, but I was revved for my visit to Weston Psych.
Roz shoved an envelope into my hands as I walked out the door. I assumed it was an itemized bill. Assumptions, they get you every time.
PART THREE
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Man, why the hell didn’t she answer the phone? He’d tried five, no six times, and, for sure, she had to be home. Where the hell else would she go? He’d even had the stupid operator check the line.
Everything had taken a crazy swing and now the motorbike was history. Cops could be after his ass, watching him punch numbers on the stupid pay phone, for all he knew.
Didn’t she say she’d always take care of him? That he could always come home? That he could always call if he was in trouble? That she could handle everything?
His hand rummaged through his jeans pocket. He still had the house key. He could go home. He could start thumbing now.
Hell, how far would he get? It wasn’t the great wide-open road, like it used to be, not like it had been for her, thumb out, thigh out, everybody ready to stop and give you a lift, have a little party. Get high.
No way.
He hung up the phone, drew deep breaths into his lungs.
Stop it, he scolded himself. Panic he didn’t need.
It wasn’t like he was alone. And there was the money, that was sure to come through. He had a place to stay. He had a lady. No use making a big deal over the bike.
He didn’t need Seattle, not when he had Boston, a fine lady to care for him.
It would turn out okay.
Dumb move, trying to call.
Dumb move, panicking.
40
In the parking lot, removed from traffic by distance and high sculpted hedges, it occurred to me that Roz’s envelope seemed more stylish, more the thing to carry, than the one into which I’d hastily shoved Manley’s wallet and appointment book.
I unfastened its string closing to expose not a bill, but two charcoal drawings, separated by a sheet of tracing paper. Thea Jams, as she might be, were she not dead.
Roz is given to extremism, to caricature. She does not consider kindness a virtue in art. The two sketches, the two Theas, if you will, had been executed without romantic illusion. Fifteen plus twenty-four equals thirty-nine, any way you spin it, but I found Roz’s efforts almost cruel. Maybe it’s our relative ages. From her comfortably twentyish perch, she sees almost-forty as older, harsher, than reality. Approaching thirty-five, I perceive the same age as youthful, vigorous.
I fixed the images in my mind, one heavy-set, one thin, both with small chins, generous mouths, wide eyes. The plump version had short curls; the thin version, long straight hair. One wore glasses. One didn’t.
On the back of the thin woman, Roz had scrawled: “Sorry. Consider these freebies. I can’t do ’em justice. Too many variables. What if she had her teeth fixed? Bonded? Hair permed? Eyebrows plucked? Everything changes, you know?”
The note echoed my police academy training. Ears and fingers. Ears and fingers stay the same. I transferred Manley’s wallet, added the sketches, sucked in a deep breath.
Everything changes.
The Weston Psychiatric Institute could have held instructional seminars on security. They handled it with greater finesse than Walpole, with the thoroughness and precision of machine tools. A cordial man in suit and tie vetted my driver’s license, phoned Garnet Cameron and spoke to him personally, guaranteeing that he’d okayed my visit even though three attendants had talked with Garnet concerning my imminent arrival barely half an hour earlier and
the shift hadn’t changed.
My whites wouldn’t have passed muster. My threat evidently had.
I was required to sign a form declaring that I would visit Miss Beryl Cameron and only Miss Beryl Cameron and would comply with physician’s orders. Since I didn’t see any physicians, just security guys, I signed, deliberately scrawling my signature as illegibly as possible.
I found myself wondering what type of force the guards preferred. No trace of a holster marred my companion’s admirably cut jacket. The Windbreaker Man could have picked up a few sartorial pointers. Syringe in the pocket? Taser? Mace or pepper spray?
The institute consisted of three large red-brick buildings and a couple of smaller dwellings. A gymnasium and a swimming pool, enclosed for year-round use, added to the campus illusion. Each major building or “dormitory” seemed to house a different level of illness, a single stratum of madness or aberration. Each had its own dining hall so the categories never mixed. I wondered if one could graduate from dorm to dorm, climbing the invisible ladder, until someone labeled you sane enough for this world.
All residents were housed in splendor; the armor barely showed, like bones under translucent skin.
I was to be accompanied at all times, not by the suit, but by a wardress. She would promptly escort me from the grounds if I upset Miss Beryl or any other “client,” a term all seemed to prefer to patient or inmate. My assigned companion clanked as she walked and it took me a moment to find the reason—keys at her belt, obscured by a white apron and ample stomach.
She had a badge on her chest that said “Jannie.” Nothing that implied credentials. At first, I figured that meant she had none, wasn’t even an LPN. When I continued to see people labeled only with first names, I decided they were attempting the illusion of chumminess. All pals together at WPI. Some could leave at the end of the day and some couldn’t, that’s all.
I’ve visited state institutions in my work, and this was so far above the best of them it could have existed on a different planet. Fresh flowers were arranged in cut-glass bowls the size of beachballs. The atmosphere and smell sang first-class hotel not medical supervision. Nor did the visible “clientele,” dressed in casual jeans and shirts, look like they were incarcerated for anything more serious than a rest.