No, I didn’t know. Not until today. Elizabeth can’t weasel her way out of this. Not this way.
The old lady looked at Cat kindly, but it was a version of kindness mixed with pity. “It’s not the worst, at least not yet. But I’m afraid Elizabeth found a new lump in her abdomen, checked herself into Grace-New Haven Hospital.” The neighbor took off her cat-eye glasses and polished them with her sweater, then replaced them on her nose to peer back up at Cat. “I know she’d love to have visitors to keep her spirits up—she told me on the phone this morning that it’s nothing but an armada of tests at that hospital.”
Cat must have nodded, because the neighbor motioned for her to wait and returned with a key. And a plant. Not just any plant—an African violet Cat recognized as the newest iteration of Coriolanus. “Elizabeth left me her spare, asked if I could water her plant and check on her cat. I would, except Harold and I are headed upstate to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter. Would you mind doing it, just until we get back?”
Cat wanted to say no, to scream the word, but the old woman was already pressing Coriolanus and the key into her hand. “That darned cat surely does work himself into a frenzy if you don’t feed him on time,” she muttered.
Cat had spent only a single day in Elizabeth’s apartment, but this time when she pushed open the door, time slowed and she found herself setting down the bag with her tape recorder and gulping great, huge breaths as history repeated itself.
Everything was orderly. Not just orderly. Empty.
This is not my childhood home, she had to repeat to herself. This is Elizabeth’s home.
Except everything was gone, and each surface and square of linoleum scrubbed until it shone. All the furniture was gone—including the couch with its tattered crocheted eyesore of a green-and-white throw—leaving only vague outlines on the shag carpet. Yasha’s portrait on the mantel and even the crucifix were gone.
The single spark of life in the entire apartment was the oversize ginger cat that threaded his way through Cat’s legs on dainty white paws, mewing plaintively.
She set down the violet, scooped up George Washington, and flung open kitchen cabinets, dismayed to see them all empty save one with a perfect pyramid of canned cat food. The can opener was still in its drawer, and an open tin placated George Washington even as Cat became more and more alarmed.
The apartment could have easily belonged to someone who knew—had known for a long time—that she was dying.
In an apartment swept completely empty, the cardboard box on the kitchen counter stood out.
Inside, Cat discovered a hand-carved wooden cross she recognized from Elizabeth’s tale, its gleaming vines and flowers smooth to the touch. Attached was a simple note in handwriting she recognized from the bottom of the birth certificate Elizabeth had given her: A blessing for Catherine, from her mother.
Eyes stinging, beneath the cross, Cat dug through the layers of detritus from Elizabeth’s life. There was a lavender journal with the words Human Behavior painstakingly stenciled on the cover, its pages crammed to the margins with Elizabeth’s notes and sketches. And a yellowing paper pad about the size of Cat’s palm that was riddled with numbers that she recognized as an unused one-time pad. She hadn’t realized Elizabeth was sentimental enough to keep such mementos.
The framed photo of Yasha was surprisingly missing from the box, but Cat found a different photograph, one of Elizabeth wearing a plain fitted suit standing next to a stunning blonde in a stylish floral shadow dress with wrist-high black gloves, the Grand Ole Opry behind them. The woman could have passed as Cat’s older sister.
Or her mother, which Elizabeth’s scrawl on the back of the photo confirmed.
With Mary Tenney. October 1941.
Flipping it over, Cat took in Mary’s hand resting on her stomach, which was rounded in the late stages of her pregnancy. With me, Cat thought before she could shake the words from her mind.
She slipped the photograph into her pocket and rummaged through the rest of the box, found J. Edgar Hoover’s letters to Elizabeth that she had initially showed Cat and a near-empty tube of Bésame lipstick. Victory Red, of course. Near the very bottom, Cat almost ignored what appeared to be a stack of checking account ledgers. Except . . .
Elizabeth was a woman who kept no records. So, why had she kept these?
As she skimmed the pages, Cat realized the records began in September 1959. However, from that point, Elizabeth had kept meticulous—albeit somewhat coded—records, including regular deposits that were made from Long Lane School for Girls, which must have been where Elizabeth had been working. Apparently, her dream of being a teacher had finally come true.
Yet, money appeared to have always been a crux for the self-proclaimed sinner who never really reformed her ways. According to the ledger, Elizabeth managed to spend every last penny of every single paycheck.
Cat almost tossed aside the ledgers. That was, until two entries caught her eye. They read:
October 1, 1959
P.W.Clinic
$500
December 1, 1959
Bing Moos Remington
$125
It didn’t take a spy to decode that P.W.Clinic was the Payne Whitney Clinic. Or that Bing Moos Remington was Ann Remington née Moos, also known as Bing to her now-dead husband.
Why would Elizabeth make payments to the asylum that housed her friend? Or the wife of a man she sent to prison?
Cat cautiously flipped through the rest of the ledger while scrutinizing its lines. The small amounts she ignored—they were all labeled with standard and unsurprising titles: several dollars for groceries at Grand Union, the monthly electric bill, an occasional check to a local veterinary clinic for George Washington. It was the large ones she sought.
And she found them.
The payments to the Payne Whitney Clinic were paid every three months on the first of the month, as were those to Ann Remington. It was the next huge sum listed that stunned her.
August 1, 1961
TWU.21346
$ 564.28
That entry repeated itself like clockwork every August and January afterward until the most recent payment on August 1, 1963.
Cat sat down, hard.
The number 21346 was her student account at Trinity Washington University. She’d received a notice from the school before her sophomore year that her semester’s tuition was overdue. When she’d informed her mother, Joan Gray had gone extremely quiet, finally informing Cat in a tight voice that they might not be able to cover the cost. Miraculously, Catherine received word just three weeks later that she’d been awarded an academic scholarship.
In the exact amount of $564.28.
Just like the one I received today.
As Cat delved further, she found familiar infusions of cash that she remembered as pleasant surprises. One had arrived on her twentieth birthday; she remembered thanking her mother for the extra spending money, had been puzzled when she’d only laughed.
“Right,” her mother had chuckled as she mixed Cat’s favorite cranberry banana Jell-O, a birthday staple as far back as she could remember. “I just pruned the money tree growing out back.” Cat had thought she was joking, had laughed along with her.
Now, sitting in Elizabeth’s apartment, Cat ran her hands through George Washington’s thick fur, her mind jumping from one shocking conclusion to the next while the cat purred on her lap. It was no wonder Elizabeth was always broke, given that she was hemorrhaging cash all these years.
All the better to alleviate her conscience?
And it seemed self-proclaimed sinner and villain Elizabeth Bentley had also been playing anot
her role all this time.
Cat’s dirty-winged guardian angel.
One question remained: Why?
Cat picked up Elizabeth’s telephone, half expecting that the line might be disconnected. To Cat’s relief, there was a dial tone.
“Are you family?” the Grace-New Haven Hospital switchboard operator asked when Cat inquired after their visiting hours. “Visiting hours are only for family.”
“I’m the patient’s niece.” You’d be proud of me, Elizabeth, Cat thought to herself. I could fool even you with my lies.
“I’ll be back tonight to take you to my place,” Cat informed George Washington after she hung up. “Wish me luck.” Like a normal cat, he barely looked up from his nap.
* * *
* * *
It was a short bus ride to Grace-New Haven Hospital, not nearly long enough to work out in Cat’s mind all the ways this conversation might go. She was still angry and confused at Elizabeth, but another part of her—the logical part—knew that, due to the cancer, she may not have another opportunity to confront her.
To make Elizabeth Bentley, pathological liar and spy extraordinaire, answer her questions.
When Cat asked for Elizabeth’s room at the front desk, the grizzled, white-clad nurse scarcely glanced up from her paperwork, didn’t even bother to ask how Cat was related. “Bentley? She’s in room 185. Down the hall.”
The hospital was eerily quiet as Cat made her way to Elizabeth’s room, as if the entire building was holding its breath. She peered through the slim window on the door to room 185. Elizabeth was sitting up in the hospital bed, her dark hair wilted and the unattractive blue johnny making her seem paler than before. Not pale . . . ill.
How did I not notice the sickly hue of her skin before? Or the way she shifts in her seat so often, as if suffering some silent sort of pain? Now that Cat knew there was cancer eating away at her, it seemed impossible not to see it.
After being so angry at her, Cat was surprised to experience a new emotion toward Elizabeth: sympathy. There was no denying the feeling, especially when she spied the one lonely item Elizabeth had brought from home that now sat on her bedside table: Yasha’s black-and-white photograph. Of course, there were so many other complicated layers of emotion atop the sympathy that its surprising ember was nearly buried.
Cat had no choice. The only way to get through this . . . was to get through it.
She didn’t wait for Elizabeth to answer her knock before pushing through the door.
“Murder on your mind again?” Elizabeth’s arms hung at her sides like sticks, but it almost seemed as if her eyes lit up when she saw Cat. Or maybe that was a side effect of whatever drugs she was on. “I’ll have you know it’s poor form to kill a woman in her hospital bed,” she announced.
“You have cancer. And you didn’t tell me.”
“Pah. It’s nothing. I’m just here for routine tests.”
“Really? Is that why you emptied your apartment?” Cat unpacked the clunky reel-to-reel recorder, forced Elizabeth to crane her neck to look at her. It was a petty victory over this woman who had apparently pulled the strings of Cat’s life for so long.
“Merely a precaution,” Elizabeth answered. “Having cleared out both my father’s and Yasha’s things after they died, I thought to spare my landlord the trouble. Just in case.” She shifted in her hospital bed, frowned, and adjusted the short sleeves of her hospital gown. “But I’m guessing you didn’t come here to talk about my health.”
“I want to know how Mary Tenney died. How her story ended. And I want to know why you tracked me down. Three years ago.”
Elizabeth’s smirk surprised her. “And what if I don’t want to tell you?”
Her flippancy should have offended Cat, but she’d learned to decode Elizabeth’s tells. Realized that her bold stare was really a cover. That her fingers fiddling with the thin hospital blanket were searching for the comfort of her golden cigarette lighter.
I’m scared, her body language screamed at Cat. My bluster is all a cover, can’t you see that?
Cat did see. But she wasn’t willing to let her off the hook.
“You’re the only person who can answer all my questions.” Cat leveled a frosty stare at Elizabeth to let her know this was no joke. No games. “This time you’re going to tell the truth. The absolute truth. And I’m not leaving until you do.”
“Fine.” Elizabeth waved Cat to the metal folding chair. “One last sordid tale. This will be downright pleasant compared to our last interview, given that I won’t have a gun staring me in the face.”
Cat ignored the dig as she pressed play on the recorder. She sat across from Elizabeth and crossed her ankles, forced herself into a relaxed position even though her first inclination was to start barking questions and demanding answers. “You told me the last time you saw Mary Tenney, she was in the Payne Whitney Clinic following a complete mental breakdown. Is that true—yes or no?”
It was a carefully crafted question, so airtight that even the liar extraordinaire Elizabeth Bentley couldn’t weasel her way out of it.
“I did see her in the Payne Whitney Clinic, yes.” She responded so calmly that Cat could easily envision her sitting placidly across from Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, the klieg lights glaring down at her. Cat wondered briefly which was the more difficult interview for her—that or this? “Following my car accident. And after Mary’s suicide attempt and breakdown.”
“Was this before or after you were hired by Long Lane School for Girls and used your salary to pay the Payne Whitney Clinic?” Cat folded her arms over her chest. “I saw your account ledgers, so don’t bother trying to make something up. Why did you save those ledgers? And then leave them so you knew I would see them?”
Elizabeth winced. “I saved them precisely so you would see them. I’ve done terrible things, Catherine, things I’m not proud of—”
“Like always putting yourself first? Did you ever think that maybe if you’d tried harder, you could have helped Mary Tenney more, kept her from harming herself?”
Cat knew the questions were unfair the moment they left her mouth, but then, nothing about Mary’s life—or Cat’s—seemed terribly fair, even if that hadn’t all been Elizabeth Bentley’s fault. Elizabeth just happened to be the easiest and most accessible punching bag available.
Except, this punching bag punched back.
Elizabeth’s eyes crackled with sudden rage, and she leaned forward. “Now you listen here, Catherine, and you listen well. I’ve made many mistakes in this life of mine, but the one person I never, ever wanted to hurt was Mary Tenney. I did everything in my power to protect her. And once she was gone, I did everything I could to protect you.” She sighed, seemed to deflate again. “I left the ledgers because I once made the mistake of destroying every scrap of evidence that would prove my story. I wasn’t about to do that again. I visited Mary—your mother—three years ago, after the FBI located you for me. I wanted to tell her that the queen was still on the board and that I was going to protect you. However, the first day I visited her at Payne Whitney was after my car accident with John.”
“Tell me,” Cat commanded.
And so, Elizabeth did.
21
MARCH 1952
I was in the hospital, the skin in my lower lip numbed and crammed with stitches following my fight with John Wright and my subsequent car crash. The physician at New York Hospital told me that the wound had gotten infected and could have turned to blood poisoning if I’d waited another day. He’d stitched me up and pumped me full of antibiotics, wanted to keep me overnight for observation.
I wasn’t keen on the idea, but also wasn’t thrilled with the idea of going home to Connecticut and dealing with John. So, I stayed, drifting in and out of sleep until I had an unexpected visitor. Another doctor, slim and wearing delicate wire spectacles. The sort of man you imagine poring
over books, not slicing into humans in a surgical amphitheater.
“Hello, Miss Bentley.” His diminutive appearance belied an authoritative voice that reminded me of the many FBI agents and senators I’d spoken to over the years, someone accustomed to being listened to. “I’m Dr. Johnson of the Payne Whitney Clinic, the psychiatric unit of the New York Hospital.”
The Payne Whitney Clinic was one of those things people joked about sometimes—If I have to listen to that song one more time, you’ll have to lock me up in Payne Whitney. Or, One of these days I might check myself into a rubber room at Payne Whitney. Why on earth would Dr. Johnson be visiting me?
Unless . . .
“I’ve never spent time in Psycho,” I said defensively. “The FBI proved that definitively. I’m only here because of an injury from a car accident—”
“I’m not here for you, Miss Bentley,” Dr. Johnson informed me in a kindly voice. “Actually, I overheard another physician mention that you were here in the hospital and I recognized your name from your Meet the Press interview. I’m here on behalf of a patient, someone I believe was your acquaintance at one time. Are you familiar with a woman named Mary Tenney?”
Every bit of me was suddenly electrified, and gooseflesh rolled down my arms and legs. When I answered, my voice was small, shrunken. “There was a time when I knew her very well.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Unfortunately, Miss Tenney suffered some years ago from a complete mental breakdown.”
His voice disappeared down a distant tunnel, replaced by a loud ringing in my ears. I didn’t want to hear more, preferred to freeze this moment like a fly in amber, keep its secrets forever locked away. I did everything I could to protect her . . . “A breakdown?” I managed to ask. “What do you mean?”
Dr. Johnson leaned against the counter, arms crossed against his chest. “Almost four years ago, Mary attempted suicide by mixing alcohol with an overdose of phenobarbital. She was unconscious for five days and has been in a severe hallucinatory psychotic state ever since.”
A Most Clever Girl Page 36