Deep Pockets

by Linda Barnes

  Todd Geary didn’t knock, maybe hoping he’d overhear something to his advantage. Or maybe he didn’t want to get in the habit of knocking on his own door. Chaney practically leaped from his seat as soon as the door opened.

  “I have to be going,” he said. “I’ll be at the lab the rest of the day. Leave me a message on my cell and I’ll get back to you, either one of you.”

  Geary had his mouth open to ask a question, but Chaney was already gone, his footsteps retreating down the hall. The lawyer shook his head and seated himself behind his big rosewood desk. He seemed surprised to find me still seated in the chair when he glanced up.

  “Possibly,” I said, “you can help me.”

  “Possibly.” He was tight-lipped, still angry at being dismissed from his own office.

  I smiled. “You seem to know Dr. Chaney well. Would you be able to tell me whether he has any enemies?”

  The lawyer steepled his hands, brought his fingertips to his mouth, then rested his hands on the desk. “I’d advise you to talk to his wife.”

  Fine with me. I wanted to meet Chaney’s wife. If she was sharp enough to realize he’d left the house, maybe she was sharp enough to verify the oddball phone call. Maybe she’d listened in.

  “You think she would know?” I asked.

  He displayed those even teeth in another smile, not a pleasant one. “That’s not what I meant. Have you met Margo Chaney?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what a treat you have in store.”

  I waited for him to smile, to share the joke, but his face stayed deadpan.

  “Would you be willing to call her and arrange an appointment?”

  He picked up the phone and dialed.

  CHAPTER 17

  The house, which adorned one of those tree-lined streets northwest of Harvard Square, was secluded and private, with a high wall and a large yard. A Colonial among Colonials, vintage 1700s, or a good imitation, with plenty of elegant houses to copy on nearby Brattle Street, once called Tory Row, due to the sympathies of those living in the fancy mansions during Revolutionary times. I eyeballed the address the lawyer had given me, wondering whether he’d made a mistake, transposed a number. Don’t get me wrong; Harvard professors earn good money, but this was a massive house in an expensive area.

  I rang the bell and waited. The professor had told me his wife was ill. Todd Geary’s arched eyebrows and odd manner when discussing Mrs. Chaney made me think I might be facing something more exotic than physical infirmity.

  The garden fence was seven feet high, designed to stop peeping neighbors cold. Even in heels, I couldn’t peer over the top. Footsteps proceeded down a flagged path, and then a cool male voice inquired whether I had an appointment. When I said yes, a slot opened and the same voice asked me to please place my card on the tray. I scribbled my name on the back of one of the lawyer’s cards and handed it through, wondering if the Chaneys had recently been burgled. Seemed like a lot of security—a big ADT sign on the lawn, this elaborate ritual by the fence.

  “Just a moment, please.” The footsteps receded, leaving me stranded on the wrong side of the gate. I measured the height of the multichimneyed roof. Three floors at least, maybe twenty rooms. I counted mullioned windows, gave it up at thirty-seven, wondered whether Chaney would be proved right and some physical evidence would magically turn up linking him to the hit-and-run on Birmingham Parkway. It’s tough to manufacture evidence. Police procedure has gotten pretty damned sophisticated when it comes to physical evidence.

  The gate opened soundlessly. The man attached to the voice was young and wary, filled with undergraduate earnestness. He had blond hair that fell in waves over his ears, a round face, wire-rimmed glasses, and an Adam’s apple that lurched up and down as he spoke.

  “Mrs. Chaney will see you in the withdrawing room.” He blushed when I raised an eyebrow at the quaint term. “She is returning the house to its pre-Revolutionary condition, so she prefers to use that word. A previous owner had actually removed walls, but she was fortunate to find the original architect’s drawings. It’s one of her hobbies.”

  I followed him onto a wide enclosed porch and then into a fan-shaped foyer—gray, with white trim. The place smelled like rose blossoms. I wondered whether Mrs. Chaney would wear a hoop skirt.

  I was disappointed, but not by much. She wore what might be described as “invalid’s garb,” a long off-white nightgown, almost entirely covered by a woolen robe. Her dark hair was caught and elaborately looped at the back of her neck. She was pale, formidably thin, and perfectly groomed, in spite of her boudoir getup. She was either much younger than her husband or remarkably well preserved—hard to say which. Her glance was positively terrifying. I had the feeling that she’d priced every garment I wore within thirty seconds, right down to my underwear.

  At first sight, she didn’t seem to be black. Her dark hair was smooth but braided, and her features—well, again, hard to say. After what Chaney had told me about not trusting white people, I decided his wife was most likely a woman of color.

  “I hope you’ve come to explain,” she said irritably. “I’ve tried speaking to that worthless twig of an attorney. I have no intention of paying him extra to handle this. And now he tells me he may have to hire another attorney, and you as well, just because Wilson has gotten himself into this ridiculous trouble.”

  Once she’d finished evaluating my attire, she picked up where she’d stopped in her knitting. A ball of pale blue yarn rested on her lap and steel needles flashed.

  “Perhaps I could sit,” I said.

  She was posed in a semireclining position, her back elevated by pillows, her slippered feet propped on a sort of a chaise longue. From some distant history lesson or long-forgotten book came the term fainting couch. That’s what the piece of period furniture must be; I hesitated to ask.

  “Yes, sit, if you must. I hope this won’t take long. Mark? Mark dear, could you bring coffee for Miss—”

  “Carlyle.”

  “And some cocoa for me.”

  He didn’t click his heels before leaving the room, but he came damned close. I waited for Margo Chaney to say something, but she merely stared at me as if I were some interesting form of insect life until I spoke.

  “Mr. Geary thought you might be able to help me.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know how.” Click went the needles.

  “You said your husband had gotten himself into trouble.”

  “Yes, well, we are all sinners, every one.” Clack.

  I didn’t know how to respond. Coffee and cocoa might arrive at any moment, so I thought I’d try small talk. “You have a lovely home.”

  It wasn’t anyplace I’d want to live. More like a museum than a place to eat and sleep, with glossy paint, ornate molding, and gleaming chandeliers.

  “Yes, well, you may tell Mr. Geary that this home will go unmortgaged to my children, along with my home in Oak Bluff. Both have been in my family for generations, and they will remain so, unencumbered. There is no use pretending that Wilson is made of money at the present time. What money there is is my money, and I will not squander it on a man who has behaved foolishly.”

  Vehicular homicide may be careless or brutal, but I’d rarely heard it described as foolish. If she had a family home in Oak Bluff on Martha’s Vineyard, she was not only a woman of color; she was a woman of money, too. The so-called talented tenth vacationed on the Vineyard.

  “Miss Carlyle,” she said, “what is your work?”

  “I’m an investigator.”

  “A policewoman?”

  “I was a policewoman.”

  “But you’re no longer one. Perhaps you’re not entirely corrupt.”

  “Let’s hope not. I’m working for your husband.”

  Her needles were small, the yarn thin. She worked quickly, but I couldn’t tell what she was making. “Running down some hooligan with his car. Imagine—” She stopped abruptly, and I realized she’d caught Mark’s faint footsteps. He carried a s
ilver tray laden with floral china. He stooped and placed it on a mahogany table with practiced ease.

  “Cream?” asked my hostess without rising from her chaise.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Sugar?”

  “Please.”

  She dismissed Mark with a frown as soon as he’d doctored my coffee. A plate of what seemed to be pound cake made me realize I was starving. The cocoa smelled wonderful and I wished I’d requested it as well. On the other hand, the room was warm and stuffy. If I’d ordered cocoa, I’d probably have fallen asleep.

  “Please, help yourself,” said Mrs. Chaney.

  “May I cut you a slice of cake?”

  “No, I couldn’t possibly eat, but do have some.”

  I did.

  “It’s a Colonial recipe, with cranberries and currants.”

  It was dry as dust. If I hadn’t chugged coffee to moisten it, it wouldn’t have gone down. She watched me like a hawk while I ate, as though she were going to do her dissertation on my table manners, or lack thereof. That and the dry cake killed my appetite.

  “Miss Carlyle.” She paused, as though she’d forgotten what she was going to say. Or maybe because she felt too weak to continue.

  “Carlotta,” I said helpfully.

  Most people would have responded with their own first name. Hers, I knew from the lawyer, was Margo, but she couldn’t bring herself to divulge it, or to use my given name. “What I wish to— I do not wish this matter to appear in the newspapers.”

  “I don’t plan to speak to any reporters.”

  “Don’t be rude. Are you having an affair with my husband?”

  “No.” How many affairs did she imagine Chaney was capable of carrying on simultaneously?

  “I like to get things straight from the beginning.”

  “I see.” And that wouldn’t be rude, I thought. “Let’s talk about Friday night, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Your husband says he was here with you Friday night when he received a phone call.”

  “I don’t recall hearing the phone.” She made a noise that in anyone less delicate would have been a snort. Click, clack went the needles.

  “But you heard him when he went out that night?”

  “The side door is underneath my bedroom. I would hear it. I often do.”

  My bedroom, not our bedroom. And not a slip of the tongue, either.

  “Is there a phone in your bedroom?”

  “I generally turn off the ringer at night.”

  “What time was it when you heard your husband leave the house?”

  “I didn’t look at the clock.”

  I thought she was lying. I let her words settle into the cool silence of the room, hoping she’d amend them, but when she spoke again, it was to ask, “Are you the sort of person one hires if one suspects one’s husband is unfaithful? A hypothetical question, you understand.”

  “Let’s give it a hypothetical no.”

  “I—if I’d realized at the time why the police were interested, I might have lied and said Wilson was home. It was unwise of me not to say he was home; I don’t know what came over me.”

  A sudden desire for revenge, I thought.

  “Perhaps if I told the police I’d been mistaken, that Wilson actually was here—”

  “Reverse yourself now that you know what it’s about?” Oh, the cops would enjoy this, I thought, both halves of the couple revising their tales.

  “You don’t think that would be a good idea?”

  “The police might not believe you.”

  She smiled. “I’m a very convincing liar.”

  I smiled to let her know that was not news to me.

  She said, “Perhaps Wilson might tell you with whom he actually was at the time. And then she could discreetly go to the police with her information.”

  “But you have no idea where he might have been?”

  “No. Tell me, Ms. Carlyle, do you have children?”

  I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “No, but I have an almost-adopted sister.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I was paired up with a little girl through the Big Sisters Association a long time ago. We’re still together, but it’s more a mother-daughter relationship than a sister thing.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “You should be, for that girl’s sake. I have a son. He’s fifteen now, away at school.”

  For the first time, she set down her needles and made eye contact. Hers were deep-set and coal black.

  I said, “You must have had him when you were very young.”

  “Thank you. I did. And then I divorced his father. I thought I was in love with Wilson, that he was the great love of my life. I thought it was the right thing to do, that my happiness and my son’s happiness depended on it.”

  Sometimes when reluctant witnesses open up, it’s like a dam breaking. They begin with monosyllabic grunts, progress to sentences, and then, bang, you’re going to hear the story of their lives. I stayed motionless, my coffee cup raised to my lips. I didn’t intend to do anything to stop the impending flood.

  She said, “I have had six miscarriages since I married Wilson. A single child—my father used to say that no one should have an only child. It’s too risky for your genealogical line, and for your child, as well. You invest too much in him. I know I do. That’s one of the reasons Byron’s away at Groton. I can’t keep my hands off him, my attention off him, when he’s here. I used to be an active person, and now, when I’m not going to one doctor or another, I lie here recovering from one pregnancy, hoping another will take. I feel terrible all the time, bloated and ill.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was using baby blue yarn and small-gauge needles. Hoping another would take.

  “If I knew for certain that Wilson were having an affair, I don’t know what I’d do. How I’d feel. Jealous, yes. Angry, yes. But I can’t say I’d blame him. I’m not the woman he married. I take my basal temperature twelve times a day. I call him to come home and do his duty, and that’s what it’s become, a duty. I keep imagining that he’s going to leave me and have children with another woman, and then sometimes I want him to leave. I want to leave and have babies with another man. They can’t find anything wrong with either of us, but I had a healthy child with my first husband. I know I could have more babies. I know I could.”

  A fifteen-year-old son. Not legally old enough to drive, but fifteen-year-olds do drive. There would be an ex-husband, as well, although it seemed to me that any man would be grateful to Wilson Chaney for taking this peculiar woman off his hands. I’d known other women obsessed with making babies, having babies. I was seeing signs of it in my own baby, Paolina, and it scared me to death.

  She said, “I would divorce him today if—”

  “If?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Of course I couldn’t leave him at a time like this, with people accusing him of something so vile. I wouldn’t desert him now.” She pulled a lace handkerchief off a small table and dried her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t usually— You’re a good listener.” She made the compliment sound like an accusation. “Tell Wilson I’ll tell the police whatever he wants me to say.” She picked up her knitting and the needles slowly clicked to life.

  “Mrs. Chaney, does your husband have any enemies? Anyone who might wish him harm?” Chaney’s lawyer, Todd Geary, considered Margo to be Chaney’s enemy; that suddenly seemed clear to me.

  She pressed her lips together in a frozen smile. “Well of course he has enemies, dear. He’s a full professor at Harvard. Do you have any idea how many people envy that, how many want his job? Everything Wilson does is measured and tested and ranked. Is he smart enough? Is he published in the right journals? And then there’s extra pressure because he’s black. I’m tested and ranked, too; don’t think I don’t know it. I used to entertain the right people, try to make things easier for him,
but now— I don’t even know the younger people in his department. If you want to know who’s sharpening their knives for Wilson, you’d have to ask Fording or someone else on the spot.”

  “Who?”

  “George Fording, Wilson’s department head. He would do anything to help Wilson. I’m sure he would.”

  Was this the same department head Chaney’d described, the one who’d cheerfully toss him to the wolves?

  “Do you think he’d see me?”

  “Certainly. George would do anything for me. Would you like me to call and pave the way?”

  When I nodded, she summoned Mark and asked him to fetch a telephone. I wondered whether she ever moved, whether prolonged lounging was in some way connected to increased fertility, what she did with all her baby knitting. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see her following her husband, stalking him, running anyone down with the van. Too much energy required.

  She barely seemed to notice when I left. Mark ushered me to the gate.

  “I assume you’re not related to the Chaneys,” I said.

  That drew another flush. “I’m her secretary.”

  “How long have you worked for her?”

  “Long enough to know she wouldn’t want me answering questions.”

  “Do you like your job?”

  “It’s better than washing up after the chosen ones in the dining halls, thanks.”

  He shut the gate behind me, and I walked in the shade of the elm trees, heading toward my car. If Chaney was right, if he was being set up, I didn’t have much time. If someone wanted Chaney to take the blame, the telephone witness would show up with a dead-on description of Chaney. Or an anonymous note would tell the cops some tasty morsel Chaney had neglected to tell me. I wondered if all of Chaney’s love letters to Denali Brinkman were safe and accounted for in the plastic bag stashed under my cat’s business.

  I used my cell phone to call my message machine. Garnowski sounded drunk, but he’d come through with an address for Freddie Church. If Church was home, I could fit him in before my appointment with George Fording.