The Big Dig

by Linda Barnes

  Charles River Dog Care would be open, and I still needed Erica Mullen’s address and Walters’s client list. I wondered whether he’d hired a replacement for Veronica yet.

  Could I convince Roz to devote a few days to pet care if I paid her enough? If so, I could drop by, bombard the staff with questions about my new puppy. Did he need special food? Was Dr. Aronoff a good vet?—I had a soft place for Aronoff; I’d met Dana Endicott in his office. Maybe Walters, as well as the Horgans, sent pets there. While I monopolized the staff, Roz could rifle the files, grab the client list.

  It had the makings of a plan. But would Walters hire Roz, navy blue hair, tattoos, and all? Ah, well. I took a deep breath. Tewksbury High would be open on a Monday, too. The dead sister first, or Erica Mullen first? I felt like driving, so Tewksbury won.

  Chapter 28

  The high school was open, but might as well have been closed for all the details I gleaned about Veronica’s dead sister. An elderly English teacher with a shiny bald head had taught other James sisters. He reminisced cheerfully about Elsie, a truly promising student, as we sat at a cramped table in a cafeteria that smelled like pasty mashed potatoes. Jayme was bright as well. He barely recalled Veronica, and didn’t seem the type to question about her early lesbian leanings. He thought Lisa, or was it Leslie, attended some private school. Perhaps she was academically gifted, possibly a behavioral problem. He bit his lip and furrowed his brow and couldn’t, for the life of him, remember the name of the school.

  I got back in my car with a sigh. I could drive to Charles River Dog Care in an hour, but since I was already to hell and gone northwest of the city, I decided to drive to the James’s home instead, hope Jack James’s bad back had improved. If he was at work, Helen might relish a chance to talk about—

  The Goldsby School.

  The letters on the roadside sign jumped out, and my foot hit the brake almost before I thought. I took a sudden right turn down a winding driveway lined with elms. Right in the neighborhood, en route between the high school and the house, a private school, and if the James girl had been academically gifted … Private schools make necessary community friends by giving scholarships to promising locals.

  A long shot, yes, a hunch, but an opportunity to do a good deed and feed my insatiable curiosity at the same time. Marian’s note to little Krissi Horgan was still in the car. How are all the stiffs at Goldsby? I transferred it to my pocket as I navigated the twisting road. Sometimes I believe that if I take care of other people’s children, they’ll do the same for mine. Goes around, comes around. I hadn’t been doing much for Paolina lately, and she had, after all, landed me a paying client.

  Who was I kidding? If I stopped at the school, gave Krissi her note, it would be because I hadn’t given up on the Horgan case yet. Liz might have fired me, but I wasn’t ready to write that final report.

  A graveled parking lot opened at the end of the drive. The grassy quadrangle was surrounded by buildings that looked more like cozy homes than institutional structures. A grand hall, in old redbrick, blended into the landscape so well that it might have grown there like an ancestral oak. If I could, I wondered, would I play fairy godmother, touch Paolina with my wand, send her off to someplace like the Goldsby School? Did I want her to attend school where the wealthy learn to get richer and make friends with those most likely to help them climb the ladder? The Goldsby doorways didn’t have metal detectors, like Cambridge Rindge and Latin’s.

  The forsythia bushes budded yellow at their very tips. The occasional student hurried past, flinging a backpack across one shoulder, better dressed than any contemporaries at Tewksbury High. I wondered if I’d recognize Liz and Gerry Horgan’s blonde daughter if she passed. Would she be brisk, efficient, and over-strung like her mother, brusque and offhand like her father?

  Daughters of undersecretaries of state, sons of business tycoons attend Goldsby. I’ve worked private school cases before and I knew private investigators would be given the polite heave-ho. If anyone thought I was from the press I’d be out on my ear. Asking questions about a former student was safer than asking about a current student, but no one would feel the need to oblige.

  My clothes weren’t bad, and New Englanders, especially old money New Englanders, show an open contempt for fashion. I could be a prospective parent interested in enrolling a child, but I wasn’t sure that was the way to go. I strolled from vine-covered building to vine covered building, reading the signs to the right of each pillared door: music education, science laboratory, mathematics instruction. A small unadorned door to the rear of a larger building was labeled INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT.

  I went back to my car, traded my backpack for a briefcase I keep in the trunk. I twisted my hair up and fastened it with a clip, checked the results in the rear-view mirror, used lipstick.

  Then I made my way back to the small door, knocked lightly, turned the brass knob, and walked into warmth. The entryway was small and looked in through a glass door on a welcoming fire, a worn Oriental carpet and the kind of furniture your grandmother might have owned had she been a doyenne of Yankee society.

  The young woman at the desk stopped tapping her keyboard and stared up at me with sharp eyes behind dark-framed glasses. She wore a pink twinset, had dyed black hair, and a pugnacious jaw. I’d been hoping for a sweet old dear.

  I used one of my phony business cards, apologized for my lack of an appointment. Miss Harriman said that was okay, how could she be of assistance? When I replied that I’d come on the behest of a client who wished to make a donation in memory of a former student, I got a dazzling smile, the offer of coffee, and the news that Mrs. Bowman would be delighted to see me.

  Mrs. Bowman was exactly the sweet old dear I’d had in mind. Her white hair stood out around her head in frothy waves and I could see hints of pink scalp. Her room was a trifle stuffy, but comfortably furnished in blues and golds. She greeted me gravely, shook hands firmly, and invited me to choose between a sofa and an armchair. My phony card did not identify me as a lawyer. It simply gave a name: old Caroline Grady again, and a fictitious Boston address.

  My client, I informed Mrs. Bowman, wished his generosity to remain anonymous, would that be a problem? A beaming Miss Harriman brought coffee for two, adjourned, and Mrs. Bowman and I spent such a long time discussing the difficulties of anonymous philanthropy that the name of the student to be honored by the gift was almost an afterthought. When I mentioned Lisa James, I glossed over the name lightly. I said I believed she’d been a member of the class of ’92, but it could have been ’93. My client had not been quite sure.

  Mrs. Bowman selected the ’92 and ’93 yearbooks from a collection on a mahogany bookcase. A faint shadow crossed her face as she ran her finger over the faces of the graduating seniors of 1992.

  “You don’t mean Leslie Ellin James, do you,” she said in a flat voice.

  “Yes. I’m so sorry. Didn’t I say Leslie?”

  “No, you didn’t.” Her voice sounded too level, as though she were trying to control it.

  “Slip of the tongue.”

  “Miss Grady, exactly what sort of memorial does your client have in mind?” Her tone was different, almost hostile.

  “Nothing ostentatious. A stone bench, maybe a garden, or a tree. I’m sure if you’d care to make a suggestion—”

  “There could be nothing with her name on it. Nothing like that.”

  “I’m sorry. Is there some issue here I’m not aware of?”

  “I’m afraid that I really would have to discourage your client from attempting to use this school as a vehicle for any political statement he might wish to make.” Mrs. Bowman averted her gaze and straightened the cuffs of her silk shirt.

  “One minute, please, Mrs. Bowman. I’m afraid my client may also be using me.” I let my voice grow puzzled, then indignant. “I have no idea who this girl is other than a former friend of the gentleman who hired me. Why should the use of her name on a memorial be a political statement? My client simply wishe
s to make an anonymous gift—”

  “Miss Grady, Leslie Ellin James did not graduate from this school.”

  “Her picture seems to be in your yearbook.”

  “She left prior to graduation. She—I suppose you could say she ran away. Then she met—an entirely unsuitable companion. She married him and when she died she was Leslie Harrow.” She spoke the name emphatically, paused as though waiting for me to react.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simply an event no one in this community wishes to remember. Some of us do, whether we wish to or not; we don’t need any memorial plaque.” Her spine stiffened and she looked me straight in the eye. “As you probably know, Leslie Harrow died the very next year, in Waco, Texas, one of those poor people—I always think of her as one of the children, although she had a child of her own by then. I think of her as one of the children, shot, or burned to death in that terrible place.” She lifted her hands to her chin, fingertips to lips, almost as though she were praying.

  “You’re talking about the Branch Davidians.” The words felt foreign on my lips.

  “David Koresh, and the others. I remember so few of their names.”

  Koresh. I remembered that name. Leslie James died at Waco.

  “I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Mrs. Bowman said. “You can see, a memorial would be out of the question.”

  A death at Waco was a death a family as well as a school might decide to forget. A grainy photo flashed across television screens, reprinted in news magazines, like the photos of air crash victims, but infinitely different, with fault and blame and shame in attendance, playing their dirty roles.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Mrs. Bowman.

  Miss Harriman gave me a puzzled glance as though she’d expected me to stay in the inner office longer, emerge in a better mood. No doubt about it, I was shaken. I crossed most of the distance to the door before remembering the limp envelope in my pocket. Miss Harriman had gone back to her keyboarding. When I said, “Excuse me,” she glanced up.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know many of the students?”

  “I am a student.”

  “Would you know where I could find Krissi Horgan? Kristal Horgan.”

  Her mouth twisted. “She hasn’t been here in like a month. She’s probably going to have to repeat the whole year. You’d be amazed how many kids just take off. The family goes to Gstaad skiing or something.” While she had to work, her look said.

  Kristal Horgan’s family was very much in Boston.

  I said, “She could be sick,” and waited to see whether Miss Harriman would respond.

  She gave a short laugh. “Most of the girls here, I’d say, they miss a month of school, they’re pregnant. No doubt about it.”

  She seemed young to be so cynical. I wondered if she came from a family like Paolina’s, if she were here on scholarship, working part-time to offset costs.

  “But not Kristal,” she said, going back to the keyboard. “It’s all dogs with her. Boys don’t even register.”

  Chapter 29

  I sat in the frigid car—five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour—trying to digest what I’d learned, factor it into Veejay’s disappearance. Leslie James died at Waco. At some point I must have turned the key, maybe only for the heater, and then I found myself zooming along Route 3, before I realized I was driving. Leslie James died in that grim inferno, a conflagration that bred other conflagrations. I must have seen her graduation photo in the paper, one of many—women and children—burned to death when the compound ignited. I remembered the gruesome television coverage. David Koresh was a name that echoed, and Ruby Ridge was another. Oklahoma City … Tim McVeigh …

  April 19, 1993. Seven years ago … Leslie was close to graduating from high school in 1992, which would make her eighteen or nineteen when she died. If Veejay were twenty-one now, she’d have been, what? eleven or twelve, when she’d watched her sister die. Maybe the sister she felt closest to, the sister with whom she’d shared a dog.

  What if both my client and her maid told the truth, and nothing but the truth? Masked men, entering easily through a locked door, unfazed by large dogs, stealing photographs. Veronica James had left willingly, and left her beloved dog behind. She was missing and it was my job to find her.

  I had another job, finishing up the report on the Horgan site. And Krissi Horgan, who also loved dogs, was she also missing? She’d stopped visiting the site so abruptly that Marian feared she’d done something to anger the girl. She hadn’t been at school in nearly a month, didn’t seem to be at home. Loved dogs. Couldn’t be pregnant, only loved dogs, boys didn’t register …

  Mooney, my cop friend, razzes me about “intuition.” I can’t help it. I pick up hints, changes in intonation, shifts in tone. They register, often subconsciously, submerge, then resurface. I see them as thin silk lines, each seemingly independent, that come together, interweave, form a web. Or jigsaw puzzle pieces, shifting, changing. I tugged my hair, drove faster than I should, considered black Jeeps in the shed behind Charles River Dog Care, under the dim street lamps near the Horgan site.

  I disapprove of all those assholes making cell calls while speeding along major highways, driving over yellow lines, never mind white ones, endangering themselves and others. Me, I’ve driven a cab; I’m a pro; I can handle it. I punched Claire’s number at the Registry, asked her to try another plate for me. New Hampshire JN 6794, the one I’d seen through the dirty window of the shed. I used Information to get Dr. Aronoff, the vet’s, number, even though it was somewhere in my notebook. I didn’t want to pull off the road, not on 128. People drive on the damn shoulder of 128. I tapped it in, warned the receptionist not to put me on hold. I needed to know whether Dr. Aronoff had an arrangement with Charles River Dog Care, if he handled their emergencies. He did.

  I pulled into a rest stop, yanked my hair, stared at the cell phone. I hit redial, and when Aronoff’s receptionist answered, I raised my voice to Liz Horgan’s pitch, identified myself, and told her I wanted to reschedule Tess’s checkup.

  “I’m sorry about last time,” I said.

  “Yes, well, this time, if you can’t make it, be sure to call. No-shows are extremely inconvenient. Dr. Aronoff is such a busy man.”

  I hung up and rooted around the dash compartment for a bottle of water, couldn’t find it, tried the floor. I’d met Dana Endicott at Dr. Aronoff’s, while on an errand for Marian. I found the bottle, tilted my head back, and drank. The Horgans could be Charles River clients. Maybe Veejay picked their dog up every day, took it to the vet, taught obedience classes in which Krissi Horgan participated.

  And? So? I didn’t know yet, but I remembered that cop, banging routine doors, looking for his ho-hum hit-and-run witness. If you bang the door looking for a witness, and a big-time dealer comes out with his hands up, you’ve got to be ready with the handcuffs. Damn. The Fresh Pond Rotary would be a mess, construction everywhere, but I decided to take Route 2 anyway, risk a traffic jam.

  I called Roz, told her to run Leslie James Harrow through the Internet with a focus on Waco.

  “Waco? As in massacre? Okay. And the copies are almost dry.”

  “Stay on the clock. Run a print card over to 425 State Street, Foundation Security, tenth floor, give it to Eddie Conklin, tell him it’s from me, ask him to run it as an urgent favor. Use your charm.”

  “Wiggle my boobs?”

  “Whatever. Is Lemon there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me talk to him. And before you leave the house, feed the cat.”

  I could hear her holler, hear his approaching footsteps. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Lemon, you want some work?”

  “Always hungry.”

  “Still got the dog?”

  He gave a snort. “Hannibal? What do you want with him? He’s no bloodhound.”

  “Has he been to obedience school?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Perfect.”

  At the Fres
h Pond Rotary, I almost made a three-sixty and drove back to Goldsby, thinking someone, someone there would tell me more, more about Veronica’s sister, more about Krissi. But when I recalled the silent weimaraner and the black Jeep and April 19, 1993, I kept driving, edging through traffic, to meet Lemon in the parking lot of the Store 24.

  Chapter 30

  Traffic was one problem, Lemon another. I’d given detailed intructions; he’d told me to expect him in fifteen minutes. He runs a dojo in Somerville, but before his conversion to clean living and karate, he did performance art on the street and took every drug on the market twice. I decided to triple his estimate, dodged an SUV at the tricky intersection of Storrow and Route 2, drove outbound along Soldiers Field Road, following the river as it meandered along the Watertown border. The dogs got plenty of fresh air and sunshine running along the Charles, according to Walters, but I saw no sign of them. I U-turned, drove past the Everett Street lights, found the pack attended by a dark-haired woman and Harold, the man who hadn’t called to offer the client list, near the Lars Anderson Bridge, heading east.

  A terrific sight, all that golden fur, those waving tails. I’d never seen such elaborate leashes. They looked more like horse harnesses and enabled each walker to handle multiple dogs, although if all the dogs got the notion to take off racing at once I’d give the woman, slighter than the man, not much of a chance. Harold had eight dogs, the woman who was probably Erica, six. I strained to make out details of her appearance, but both humans wore layered running clothes and sneakers, the woman a close-fitting hat. She was youngish, short, and dark. I considered their position and direction; there was little chance they’d make it back to the shop in less than an hour.