by John Farrow
“Okay,” Caroline agrees over Émile’s protests.
“I rather you didn’t.”
The trooper intervenes. “Why not?”
“I don’t want it to be her last memory of her friend.”
The men understand, although that’s not a concern for them. Caroline thinks it over, decides that this is important, and assures her uncle that she’ll be okay. He suspects that she won’t be, but Caro has always had a mind of her own. As she should have. Chief Till shows her the headshot on a tablet of the young dead woman.
As Émile anticipated, Caroline crumbles and shakes, and starts to cry.
They give her a few minutes. At the very least, with nothing being said, identification has been doubly confirmed. Then Caroline surprises them. “She didn’t wear her hair like that. That’s not her makeup. She doesn’t have that shade of lipstick, unless it’s a bad picture. What’s that around her neck?”
The three men each take turns looking at the tablet again, with Émile being the last one to see it. He and Till communicate with a silent nod, and he passes it back to Caroline. “What do you mean?” Till probes. “What about the necklace?”
The young woman studies the photo more carefully this time, less emotionally, then reiterates, “It’s not hers. Me and Addie share everything. That necklace isn’t hers. She has a thing about jewelry anyway. She doesn’t approve.”
“Approve? How do you mean?”
“She thinks it’s wrong. Morally. Occasionally, okay, she’ll put something on, ordinary colored glass or carved wood, but nothing like this. I don’t know what the gemstones are, but diamonds? Addie would never wear diamonds or anything that might look like diamonds. Not even if she knew for a fact that none of them were blood diamonds. She used to ask: How can anybody know for sure? She’d say: Nobody should wear diamonds even if they’re fake because that’s like free advertising. People will desire them and that makes blood diamonds more common. Which makes us all culpable. Those are her arguments. She’d never put that necklace on.”
Caroline is left alone for a minute. The three men consult. Émile is introduced to the state trooper, whose name is Hammond. While he and the town cop appreciate that he’s given them a head start on a few things, now they want him gone. Hammond does, anyway.
“Sir, you’ve helped us out. Thanks. You’ve been on the job in the past. We respect that. We do. There’s a point where we keep this in-house.”
“You’re saying that you’ve reached that point.”
“We have, yes.”
“Actually, you haven’t.”
“Excuse me?”
Émile gives him a penetrating look down the ski slope of his impressive schnoz. “I’ll step aside—in a moment. I knew the dead girl, therefore I know a few questions that need to be asked right away. After that, I promise to be good. I’ll take a hike.”
Making eye contact, the chief and the trooper arrive at an agreement.
“You’ll be brief?” the trooper asks, but it’s not a question.
The three return to Caroline’s side and sit with her. She seems more relaxed when it’s her uncle who poses the next query.
“You mentioned this morning that your friend Addie could be, let’s say, impetuous when it came to boys.”
“Sure. She loses her head over a new guy. Happens quite often. She seems to only—” Caroline hesitates as her lips quiver. Suddenly she’s reminded that her friend will never be in love again. They’ll never laugh about that again, and she won’t wind up weeping over a catastrophic breakup again, either. Coming out of it, Caroline casts her eyes about, not looking at any of the three, as if she’s contemplating a quick exit.
The trooper nods to Cinq-Mars, and the two of them walk off a short distance together.
“Good question,” the officer compliments him. “We’ve got this. You’re her uncle. A family member. As a professional, you know how that can have a bearing on a witness’s responses.”
Cinq-Mars does know, although he’s not inclined to welcome the other man’s condescending attitude. “All right. Look, I’m calling my wife. She’s sitting with two more of Addie’s friends. If you have no objection, I’ll pick them up, tell them the news, then bring them over. I presume you’ll want to talk to them as well.”
“Of course. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Looking back over his shoulder, Émile sees Caroline accepting a tissue from Till. She blows her nose, dabs her eyes, then goes on talking. These two are probably right. She’s more likely to speak of certain intimacies shared among friends in the company of strangers.
Someone else will ply her with the tricky questions.
He takes out his phone.
He walks farther away, and deeply exhales.
This is not a call he wants to make.
* * *
Twenty minutes later Émile Cinq-Mars is leading two teary young women and his wife into the library. Sandra stays with the girls who are met there by Caroline. They’re granted a bit of time. Chief Till peels away from State Trooper Hammond to speak privately to Émile.
“Thanks for that. Bringing them over.”
“Go easy on the girls, Chief. I’m sure you will. They’ve never experienced anything like this.”
“Can’t make any promises. The governor’s edict has already come down.”
“That was fast.”
“I’m to remain an informed party, which means I’ll have no more say in this investigation than you will.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No skin off your nose,” Till points out to him.
“Instinct,” Cinq-Mars tells him. “You give me confidence I don’t feel in Trooper Hammond.”
“You mean you figured out that I’m more likely to cooperate with you.” The chief smiles and shrugs. “Maybe that’s true, too, but it’s not to be. Spilt milk.”
“Did my niece impart any deep dark secrets?”
“A few.”
Émile’s surprised. “Seriously?”
Till shrugs once more. “She told us that the dead girl was also into girls. Once in a while anyway. Crazy about boys. Still, she switched over from time to time. I think that’s what she was shy about saying in front of you.”
Cinq-Mars takes that in. At times he’s not pleased with his worldly knowledge, which he chooses to share in this instance. “I’m told that very few young women can get a degree in English literature these days without a certain amount of experimentation.”
“Where you come from maybe,” Till opines.
“Social patterns in Canada tend to follow the American lead, not the other way around. I’ve heard this has been going on in the Ivy League for a long time, although I don’t know who tracks these things.”
This time the policeman seems willing to concede ground. “The deceased girl, I just found out, studied international finance. Her major. Not English lit.”
“I was making a generalized comment—”
“I know. What she was studying isn’t the point. From what your niece said, Addie Langford was crazy about boys. She was open about that and shared the intimate details with her friends. When she had a fling with a girl though, she went into a shell. Slipped into hiding. She didn’t emerge until the relationship was no longer current. When she went missing overnight, your niece says that that’s what they were secretly worried about, that she’d found a girl, was having a thing, that they might not see her for a week or two. They might not have her attention, or find her in good humor, for that length of time.”
“Wrecking their plans for commencement.”
“Pretty much. Caroline told us about a recent ex-boyfriend.”
“Vernon.”
“You know him?”
“Of him. We’ve not met.”
“Hammond called the boy. We’ll talk to him soon. I mean, the troopers will.”
“You’re out of the loop, Chief? It is your town.”
“Actually, Hanover’s my town. I have administrati
ve jurisdiction over Holyoake, as well. Because of that I’m assured of the troopers’ total cooperation.” The way he says it—deadpan—a listener might not cotton on to the underlying sarcasm. Émile recognizes what’s dripping from his hat. This time, it’s not outdoor rain.
“Good luck with that,” Émile commiserates, and thinks that the two of them are about to part company when he notices that the chief is hesitating.
“What you said before,” Till remarks.
Cinq-Mars gives him his full attention.
“Struck me as rude.”
Cinq-Mars is flummoxed, then asks, “About female English majors?”
“That was also rude and I’m not going to believe it’s true.” He gives him a sharp glance, followed by a formal shrug. “I have a daughter who’s an English major. We can’t afford Dartmouth, no way. She’s at Wisconsin. A son at Boston College. Mind you, he’s threatening to become a priest. I don’t know what scares me more between those two scenarios.”
“I’ve been threatening to become a priest my whole life,” Cinq-Mars tacks on, and while Till has no reason to think he’s not joking, he takes him at his word.
“Instead, you chose to become a cop. Not sure I like that option, either. Not in the world we live in. Not after a morning like this.”
“I hear that,” Émile concurs. He knows that the man has something on his mind that might be significant, although he can’t fathom what it might be. “When and how was I rude?” he wonders.
“You told me that if you catch a detail, you’ll let me know, as if the rest of us are blind, deaf, and dumber than wallboard.”
“Yeah,” the older detective admits, “that was rude.”
“I’m asking now. Since I’m officially the low man on the totem pole, any help is not a hindrance. I’m only asking. You do have more experience at murder scenes than me. More than anyone I know. So. Did you? See anything?”
Émile knows what’s going on. The chief of police has been shoved off the case due to the superior political maneuvering of others, and any involvement he’s permitted from now on will be nothing more than window dressing. He’s looking for any way off the shelf that he can find.
“Actually, Chief, you called it accurately before.”
“How’s that?”
“A murderer who dresses up his victim after the fact is a rarity. But Caroline pointed out another thing.”
“The necklace.”
“Exactly. It doesn’t belong to the victim. Yet it looks valuable to me. A rapist, a murderer, might be tempted to remove an item of value from a victim. Natural human avarice, let’s say, or souvenir collecting. Or a killer might leave something behind because he doesn’t want to get caught with it in his possession later. In this case, in addition to the makeup and the clothes, it’s possible that the perpetrator placed an object of considerable value around the victim’s neck. Who does that? I suggest that doing everything possible to trace that necklace might yield a clue or two. If the necklace has meaning, some secret significance, that also might point to our killer. The value of the necklace suggests that we’re looking for a person of means.”
Till seems to agree with that, although his body language indicates that he feels stymied. “Like the troopers will give it up to me anytime soon.”
“High-quality digital photographs, Chief Till. Why not? While you’re at it, e-mail me a set. I’ll give you my card.”
Eager to rush off and get on to a study of the jewelry, it’s all the chief can do to delay another second to receive the card. He clicks it against his forehead in a gesture of thanks, and dashes off.
Émile, then, feels eyes upon him, turns, and spies Sandra in emotional distress. He goes to her and they embrace. They’ve not had children of their own, coming together a bit late in life for that, and this death of a family member’s friend is hitting them as grievous in a personal way.
NINE
Malory, his love, is visible to him, draped across the sofa, a hip and one leg askew. Tangled in her own clothes she looks deformed. She’s a bloody mess. A dark stream crossed the warped wood floorboards and pooled close to the professor’s shoes where he stands by the door. Dry now. More blood lies splattered across the wall and upon an abstract painting of a sunny meadow.
He despised that painting.
Phil Toomey stands frozen in place. Wretched. Displaced.
In shock.
He’s spotted the bullet hole in her head. First he saw the gaping wound that nearly separates her left shoulder from an arm, while other injuries, slices and stabs, mar her torso. He hunts for any special alarm or panic on her face, which is tilted toward him, seeing only that she is dead. Her mouth agape. Nothing to interpret in her gaze, nothing to seize upon as a final communication.
Professor Toomey is suddenly compelled by his own need to breathe, and gulps air. He snaps at the waist. His breath accelerates. He tries to measure each inhale and exhale, calm his heart rate before he hyperventilates.
He needs to believe that the appalling scene before him is real.
He needs to breathe and react. Do something.
She’s clothed. At least, the thought strikes him, it wasn’t that.
That solitary coherent notion severs his shock and his brain starts clicking again and suddenly he’s returned to himself. Not calm but capable of functioning.
In the old days, Toomey was never required to commit an overt act of aggression, let alone a murder. Nor did he ever plan such a thing or cause an event like this to happen on his watch, nor had he been part of any discussion in which any similar deed was contemplated or devised. He never witnessed what people in his office liked to call extreme prejudice. Twice, however, the task of cleaning up a room—once with a corpse still in it—had been assigned to him. He had accomplished his chores with equanimity and dispatch. Even, he had to admit, with vague excitement. The first time, he understood why he’d been asked, he was the only agent handy in a remote theater of operations. The second request made no sense. When, eventually, he was able to confront his bosses, their response was both surprising and an object lesson. One that he committed to memory. From then on, he was careful about which tasks he performed exceptionally well. If given an unsavory chore he’d rather not repeat, he learned to botch it the first time.
Walk no closer. Instinctively, he knows this. He thinks he can make it to her but he mustn’t risk blood on his shoes to either trace his steps or identify the pattern on his soles. Suddenly, his body rebels against him, he’s on the verge of a scream. He fights to repress the reflex as his nerves recoil and rebound. Gasping, he dry heaves repeatedly and all seems lost.
He needs to grasp control of himself once again, then hang on. He’s worked in the shadows but the darkest work was left to others. He passes through another moment when the whole of his being wants only to call out her name, to summon her back among the living, to rock her in his arms again, to be smothered by her embrace. He has to forcibly restrain himself, pin himself to reality, face this, and see exactly what’s before him.
See her, but he must not touch her.
Blood’s everywhere. Soaked into the floor. This has been atrocious.
From outside, Toomey hears car doors slam shut.
What to do?
Careful to step only on clear spots, he works his way to his right and a window there. He glances outside at the edge of a lace curtain. He almost expects to see this, too. Cops. Guesses that they’re cops, anyway. Detectives. They’re in no hurry. Should he receive them, with Malory savaged? Allow himself to be found on the scene? Proof of his innocence is indicated by his white spiffy shirt, blood-free, and his clean, pressed pants. No one could possible think that he was involved in the carnage. Not the spiffy professor. On the other hand, the cops are showing up within a minute of his arrival and, as an academic, what is he doing here? Did he need to see her—in her home—about having his desk dusted? Toomey has been a witness to how things work. If he’s being set up, cops can easily orchestrate h
is personal defamation—cause him to appear bloody and bruised in a moment. As it is, his fingerprints and DNA are indelible throughout this apartment. His DNA from a day ago sleeps inside her, if that still counts, he doesn’t know, and dried secretions undoubtedly are on the bedsheets and on her clothing and panties and mopped up by Kleenex and tossed in wastebaskets in the bathroom and bedroom and who knows where else.
They’ve ransacked each other all over this apartment, leaving evidence behind.
Run! The message had warned him to run.
If this is a setup—the early arrival of the cops, if they’re cops, suggests that it might be—then he’s toast. Even if it’s not, he’s still easy to frame, a lazy cop’s wet dream. What jury in America, white, black, mixed, biased, or fair would sympathize with the rich white professor having it on with a poor black cleaner lady, who is now violated, savaged, and dead?
No one in court will mention how secretly smart she was or think it mattered. What mention can he make of a latent Eros without sounding the fool, or degrading the good opinion of himself that others might hold?
He does not want to leave poor Malory to the devices of the authorities. Not like this. He even has the thought that if she has family he wants to grieve with them. Properly. Publicly. Out of the shadows. And yet, if this is as it seems, a brutal crime of passion and the killer is a former lover or a new jealous one, or if it is a random homicidal-madman incident, a vegetative subset of a subset intrusion, then to stand there and implicate himself will only muddy the investigation and be helpful to no one. Least of all to himself. His fingerprints and DNA are on file, just not in any data bank local police can access. Still, who knows where this will lead, or where it began, or how, or if, he’s been implicated. He’s free to run and escape scot-free. He’s also free to stay and suffer the ignominy of all that.
There’s a third option, and how he hates third options. The additional alternative maintains that he’s imperiled and caught in a trap. He can neither surrender nor flee without either option being construed differently. He has a note in his pocket that contains a dictum. Pure warning. Which he failed to heed.