by Linda Barnes
By following an indistinct murmur, I located a cluster of students sitting in a room, watching daytime TV, some rerun of the latest reality show. I apologized for interrupting and mentioned that I was looking for a friend of Denali. I didn’t mention Denali’s last name. I mean, how many Denalis could there be?
My question brought silence, then a giggle as one of the kids, who hadn’t tuned out of the show, reacted to a limp TV gag. There were four of them, two and two. A dark-haired girl stretched her long legs across a deep red velvet sofa. A stringy boy sat on the floor near her bare feet. Another girl was prone on the rug, knees elevated, a pillow under her head, a notebook resting on her flat belly. The boy in the armchair looked older, but mainly because he was trying to, cultivating a goatee and wearing gold round-rimmed glasses. His sweater had baggy elbows. He was the first to speak.
“You mean the dead girl?”
“Yeah, I’m looking for her roommate. She told me, but I can’t remember the name. Karen, or something like that, maybe.” I was making it up as I went along. According to Chaney, Denali had rarely talked about herself and had never mentioned the existence of a roommate.
“There’s nobody named Karen here,” the prone girl on the rug said, and an off note in her carefully controlled voice told me she might know the roommate’s real name.
“Well, Denali was, like, never here, either,” chimed the couch girl. “I didn’t even know she lived in Phillips till—”
The boy in the armchair broke in. “Who wants to know?”
“Just me.”
“You a reporter? You want our reaction to ‘Grisly Death in the Ivy League’?” He used his fingers to float quotation marks in the air, his voice to punch up the capital letters.
“No.”
He yanked a tiny cell phone from his pocket, hit buttons. I wasn’t sure how many buttons he’d need to summon the Harvard cops.
“Miranda, this is Gregor in the Coolidge Room. A woman’s here, asking about Denali. … No, I don’t know how she got in.”
Miranda Gironde was the name of the resident adviser. I’d wanted to meet her later, if not sooner.
“Gregor,” I said, “you got it wrong. I’m asking about Denali’s roommate. And I’m not a reporter.”
“You’re interrupting our show.”
I wanted to smack his self-satisfied face. Our show, like they put it on the tube just for them. They were all studiously ignoring me, except for the girl on the floor, who stared with veiled interest. Again, I wondered whether she might have something to say. I shot her a questioning glance and she quickly looked down, affirming the hunch.
“Jeannie, let’s meet tomorrow at eleven and go over the notes,” Gregor said, noting the interaction.
“Can’t. I’ve got an eleven o’clock at McKay,” said the girl on the floor.
“Always supposing you’re taking the damn notes.” Gregor caught my eye. “You are interrupting an important group project. Close the door on your way out.”
I left it deliberately ajar, which was childish, then paced the hall, hunting for other kids to interrogate. No one was in a small sitting room, or in a bigger room with a massive desk, a chandelier, and heavy drapes. I was back in the hallway again when I heard a door slam and light, quick tread on the stairs. Miranda—I assumed it was the resident adviser—was hurrying, a towel wrapped around just-shampooed hair. She leaned over the railing, quickly identified me as the outsider, and made her approach. She was flushed, maybe thirty pounds overweight, with a round face, tan skin, dark eyes, and dimples.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but all questions about Miss Brinkman are to be addressed to the dean.”
Her severity, I thought, was forced. The lines in her face seemed naturally cheerful; a dimple threatened to display itself on her left cheek.
“Gregor misunderstood. It’s not Miss Brinkman I’m interested in at all; I’m interested in finding her roommate.”
“And why would you want to do that?” The rhythm of her speech was faintly Jamaican.
“To recover my property. Denali was storing a few things for me while I was out of town.”
Her frown evaporated. “Oh, you know—knew Denali.”
“I don’t know why they thought I was a reporter. Have reporters been bothering you?”
“You wouldn’t believe. It’s been— You didn’t come to the funeral.”
“I was out of the country, actually. I only found out a couple of days ago—that she’d died.” I let my voice tremble just a bit, like I was trying to bear up under the terrible news.
“Oh, there now. I’m sorry.” The woman seemed programmed to believe what people told her, a serious flaw in a resident adviser. “Here, sit down.” She led me into the larger, more formal room and asked whether I’d like some tea.
“Thank you.” I’m not a tea drinker, but I figured she wouldn’t toss me out with a china cup in my hands. She busied herself with silver and teaspoons and sugar in a small alcove while I wondered which dead white male had been honored by having his name given to this room. The old coot whose portrait dominated the space over the mantel had eyes like black ice.
“You look tired,” I said sympathetically as she handed me a delicate cup and saucer.
She smiled and a dimple crinkled. “I’m not used to dealing with freshmen. Usually they’re kept in the Yard Houses but this year, what with construction and remodeling, Entry B is practically all freshmen.”
“Like Denali.”
“Yes. Are you a rower, too?
I nodded, seizing gratefully on the offered identity. I liked Miranda. I bet she fed the kids excuses when they missed curfew. Except they probably didn’t have any damn curfew here.
“I thought so, big girl like you.”
“Denali’s roommate might be able to help me find my things.”
She sat across from me in an overstuffed chair. “I wish I could help. It might be they’re gone—you know, in the fire.”
The tea was sugary and strong. I sipped and set the saucer on the oval coffee table. I should have researched the fire and the girl before coming here; Leon’s visit had interrupted the process. I’d walked around Phillips House in my search for open doors. I hadn’t seen any evidence of a recent fire, but Harvard had the clout to have such things fixed overnight.
I said, “She told me she’d keep them in her room. That’s why I thought her roommate—”
“Well, I shouldn’t tell you this, but—”
I lowered my gaze and tried to look harmless. It always surprises me when it works; I never consider myself harmless.
“I wish I had known,” she went on in a low voice. “It’s not that Denali’s roommate was unpleasant or anything like that. It wasn’t that at all; it was how different things must have been for her, as used as she was to quiet and to open spaces. We have so few students with her background. I guess the chatter, the noise, got too much for her. We didn’t realize—I didn’t realize—that she’d moved into the boathouse to be alone. Believe me, no one had any idea she was camping there, until the fire, that is.”
“The boathouse on Memorial Drive?”
“Yes. The Weld.”
“She lived there? She had a key?”
“No, no. It’s— They’re remodeling, too. You can see—you could see—there was a temporary wooden thing. They’re enlarging the boat-storage area. That’s where she— I don’t know how long she’d been living there, but she’d moved her things out of the suite. Not that she had much, poor dear. I wish her roommate had mentioned it to me, but you know, they hate to tell on anyone, and when someone doesn’t come in, they make assumptions.”
Shacking up with some man, that’s what they’d think.
“Possibly Denali mentioned me to her roommate, told her where she’d put my—”
“I’m sorry,” Miranda said firmly. “I’ve spoken to the girl and I’m sure she knows nothing about Denali’s possessions. She feels terrible about this, and I don’t want her upset all over agai
n.”
I wondered whether I could trick the RA into divulging the roommate’s name. I didn’t think she’d give it if I asked directly; I’d only raise suspicion. The tea felt astringent on my tongue, making me thirstier than before. No, I decided. I wouldn’t ask. I’d try my luck down at the boathouse. Better than getting the party line from the dean.
I drained the cup and thanked Miranda for her help. She ushered me to the door and made sure the lock clicked shut behind me.
CHAPTER 5
A fatal fire at the Weld with a Harvard girl the victim. The story should have topped every newscast in town. I yanked my spiral notebook out of my backpack and thumbed through the pages I’d scrawled in Passim’s back room. The second blackmail message had arrived two days ago, on May 15. The first had arrived three weeks ago, April 24. Denali had died the first week in April. I’d spent the third and fourth of that month in Philly, working on a case; I must have missed the initial coverage. And then I’d gotten caught up in the Dig business. I wondered if the WGU had stomped on the story. Harvard holds so many strings in its hands, it operates like a giant puppeteer orchestrating multiple marionettes. I made a note to check the Globe and Herald archives. I wondered if there were legal implications, a freshman not tucked up safely in her dorm. Maybe that was why Miranda had orders to funnel inquisitors straight to the dean.
Miranda had mistaken me for a rower, and the deception seemed feasible, short-term. I know the jargon, courtesy of Sam Gianelli, who took to rowing with the passion of a man whose mob-connected father loved only powerboats. Single scull and weigh ’nuff were terms I could toss off with authority. I’m still a regular head-of-the-Charles regatta viewer. I used to row from the BU Bridge to the Harvard Bridge and back again with Sam, going full speed on summer mornings. I shook the man out of my thoughts but kept the idea that I might learn more as a rower than as a private eye.
The day was bright and the wind stiff, the Weld Boathouse practically across the street. The lower Charles is edged with boathouses and yacht clubs. Boston University’s is the newest, an Arts and Crafts cream-colored structure with vivid red doors, an aqua roof, and arched windows, but the Weld retains the title of most picturesque. From the Boston side of the river, it looks like an elegant Tudor mansion, set so close to the water that someone had the idea of installing ramps.
I admired the panorama, students lying on the grassy riverbank, reading and sunning, dogs romping through the grass. The Weeks Bridge, in the background, made me smile. It’s a narrow pedestrian structure that connects the B school on the Brighton side of the river with the rest of the colleges in Cambridge. On summer weekends, the bridge is illuminated, and the Boston Tango Society holds dance classes there. My little sister always calls it “the Midnight Tango Bridge.”
If somebody’d substituted a flock of white sheep for the flock of white geese near the Weeks Bridge and the students had been playing recorders instead of poker, the scene might have passed for pastoral. I couldn’t see signs of a recent fire. I crossed the street at the light, backtracked, and started a clockwise circuit of the boathouse.
The eastern side of the building was blocked from Memorial Drive traffic by tall elms and overgrown rhododendrons. I could make out the remains of a structure behind the yellow tape, a few charred boards, a burned outline in the grass. The configuration of the structure was impossible to ascertain. The smell lingered. My house caught fire once, and sometimes I still wake in the night and think I catch the scent of burning wood. It wakes me fast, stone-cold alert, dread beating in my veins.
“Hey, miss, you okay?”
He was young enough to be a student, shaggy, with an untrimmed beard and long hair curling down his neck. He wore raggedy cutoffs and his shoulders were broad. No shirt. I hadn’t heard him approach, partly because I was caught in my fire memory and partly because he was barefoot.
“I, uh, heard there was a fire at the boathouse,” I said.
“You sure you’re okay?”
He’d misinterpreted my reaction to the fire site, so I went with it. “No, um, I’m sorry. See, I knew her. The girl who—”
“You knew Denali? You on Harvard crew?”
“No.”
“You knew her from before? Like from Idaho. Wow.”
I hadn’t heard about Idaho. Chaney’d just said she’d traveled. The shaggy-haired guy was waiting for me to say something. “I guess you knew her, too,” I said.
“Yeah, like not well, but— Wow, like if the crew knew you were here, we could play Forty Questions. Like twice twenty, you know?”
“You rowed with her?”
“I’m Jaycee, on heavy fours over at Newell. I help out around here, too.”
I nodded. The Newell Boathouse was Harvard’s, as well. The men rowed out of Newell, the women from Weld.
“She was a single-sculler,” he said. “Hell of a rower. Impressive. Damn shame she got injured. And then … well, the whole business was a crying shame. Thing was, we didn’t know a lot about her. I mean, growing up on a reservation, and then all alone, rowing so she could travel.” There was admiration in his voice.
I was starting to wish I’d met the dead girl; she didn’t sound like one of the snots I’d run into at Phillips House. I wondered if they had driven her away, despite Miranda’s claim to the contrary. I’d read about college hazing rites, about the cruelty of the group toward the outcast. I’d lived them as a cop.
“Did you know she was living here?”
“Hell no. Nobody was supposed to be living in there. Who’d even think somebody would? I mean, she was in a dorm, right? And this place was just a shell. No insulation, no nothing. They hadn’t even joined it up with the rest of the building, so it must have been colder than hell, you know?’
I said, “She was storing a few things of mine. I don’t suppose—”
“Well, you can see for yourself. If she kept ’em in there—”
“Maybe she had a locker in the main building or something.”
“No way. That’s one of the reasons the girls are waiting for the expansion. Can’t store anything in the big house. Man, they catch you keeping shit in there, they throw it out.”
“How did the fire start?” I was trying to see it in my mind, how a fire on a main road, easily accessible to fire department vehicles, could have turned fatal. I kept recalling the fire at my house, the billowing smoke, the acrid stink. I knew too well how easy it could be to take a wrong turn, make a fatal blunder. Maybe the building materials had been toxic. She might have been trapped under a falling beam, caught in some kind of explosion. Flammable stuff, paint and paint thinner, could have been stored in the shed. I hadn’t asked Chaney if his lover had been a smoker.
Jaycee gave me a veiled look. “You don’t know?”
“I just heard. I was out of town and—”
“Shit. I’m not sure I wanna be the one to tell you.”
“Look, I know she died in the fire. What could be worse than that?” I remembered the heat searing into my lungs, the rising panic.
“Look, you wanna sit down?”
There was no place to sit except on the grass. “Just tell me. I can handle it.”
He gave me a long look, decided I was okay. “Denali—she set it herself.”
I’d been expecting some horrible image, a girl running from the building, aflame like a human torch. “What are you saying? She was an arsonist? She was trying to burn the boathouse down, and something went wrong?”
“No, that’s not what I’m telling you. I know it’s hard to believe, but she did it on purpose, left a note, the whole thing.”
“You mean she killed herself?” Historical footage of Vietnam protests played through my mind like grainy newsreel, monks setting themselves ablaze. I looked at the charred planks and saw a funeral pyre. “Did anybody see? Was she alone? How did they—”
“I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you,” Jaycee said. “Really, from what I knew, she was a nice girl. You never expect anything like
that. I mean, you read all the shit in the papers, but look at this place, look at the sunlight and the dogs. Why’s anybody gonna do a thing like that here, right?”
He seemed honestly pained, more upset by the retelling than he’d expected to be.
“Jaycee, can I speak to you a minute?” The woman who came around the back of the boathouse was wearing a crew top and rowing shorts, and she was moving fast. She was almost as tall as I am; her shoulders were broader. She motioned the shaggy youth over, kept a suspicious eye on me while she spoke to him. I could see his back and just the top of her head. Jaycee spent the time nodding and bobbing his head. Then he went into the boathouse without a glance in my direction and the woman approached. She had authority in her eyes and some age on her. Late thirties, ocean blue eyes in a nest of premature wrinkles.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m trying to locate some things Denali was keeping for me. Nothing massive. Some CDs, a few books. I thought maybe she stored some stuff in the boathouse.”
“I haven’t seen you before.”
“I haven’t seen you before, either.”
We locked eyes for a minute, and then she said, “Any questions about Miss Brinkman should be addressed to the dean.” She had it down pat.
“Thanks.” I smiled like I hadn’t heard that one before, then turned to go.
“If you knew her, I’m sorry. She was a damn good rower.” The woman nodded curtly and bounded up the steps to the boathouse. I waited until she was out of sight before hauling out my cell phone. Chaney answered after three rings.
I identified myself. “We need to meet.”
“Listen, he hasn’t called yet, and I don’t want us to be—”
“If you want me to keep working for you, you’ll meet me. Now.”
“I can’t get away now. I’ve got— Okay, six-fifteen is absolutely the first time I can make it. How’s that?” He kept his voice low, an irritated whisper.
I agreed to the time and punched the off button on my cell, thinking that if people would just level with me from the get-go, my job would be much simpler. Damn, if people would level with each other, they wouldn’t need my services. But who’s honest anymore? What does it mean, honest? Hadn’t I just posed as the pal of a recent suicide, done too much bullshitting to judge?