“Your houseman, Arthur Mendel?”
“He’s been with the Carter family forever, and now he’s the only permanent staff left on the estate. He lives in quarters near the cattery, where the old stable used to be. When he came to the house that morning, I told him about Helen and the two cats. He said he hadn’t driven Helen anywhere, and as we talked, we both got worried. By evening, Helen still wasn’t back, so we decided to call the police if we didn’t hear from her by midnight. And that’s what we did. You know the rest; you were here with the others the next day.”
Manning asks, “Did the police question you about the cats?”
“Not much. I told them the cats were missing, but I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss over it—we were all concerned about Helen, and it seemed trivial to dwell on the cats. Do you think that makes any difference?”
Manning’s pen jabs the page with a period at the end of a note. “I’m not sure. Any new angle is worth exploring.” He flips a fresh page open. “Margaret, may I ask a personal question about your sister? Did Helen dye her hair? A friend who saw the magazine picture said that it looked as if she used a henna rinse. The color seemed to match Abe.”
Margaret chuckles, raising one brow confidentially. “Your friend is very observant. Yes, Helen used a henna rinse, trying to match the rich Abyssinian hue. I suppose it was part vanity—Helen’s hair was grayer than mine,” she says, dabbing at her temples with her fingers. “But there was more to it than that. Henna has been used as a hair color for a long, long time. Cleopatra used it. And I’m sure you’ve noticed how the Abyssinian resembles the sacred cat of ancient Egypt. Helen was intrigued by that connection. She felt it might be useful in her campaigns.”
“What campaigns?” asks Manning.
“‘Campaigning’ is what they call touring a cat for the top national awards. It’s a full-time job, involving lots of time, travel, money, and—what do they call it?—public relations. I guess you’d say that Helen’s henna hair was a gimmick.”
Manning nods, finishes a note, then asks, “After the initial shock of your sister’s disappearance wore off, were you able to determine if anything other than the cats was missing, like clothes or money? What I’m getting at is this: Do you think she could have taken enough with her to keep her comfortable for this long?”
“Helen has closet after closet of clothes. I’m not sure if anything is missing, but it’s possible. There were plenty of jewels and furs, too; Ridgely loved to lavish her with beautiful things. But valuables like that were catalogued and put in safe deposit shortly after she disappeared. As far as money is concerned, I never knew much about her finances—investments, savings, and such—we didn’t need to talk about money. You could ask Jerry Klein about it. He runs CarterAir and looks after the estate.”
Manning has dutifully recorded her comments. He caps his pen and is about to slip it into his pocket when something occurs to him. “One more thing, Margaret. When you were telling me about growing up with Helen, you made some reference to ‘the twins.’ Who were you talking about?”
“Our brothers. We had a pair of twin brothers.”
“You did?” Manning riffles through his notes, confirming that this detail has escaped him. “In all the time I’ve been covering this story, I’ve never heard anything about brothers.”
“I’d be surprised if you had,” she tells him. “They’ve been gone for over forty years. They went away to school, and something bad happened—I don’t know what—I was too young to understand. One of them died, and the other disappeared. The boys were a few years older than Helen, and I was quite young when it all happened.”
“What were their names?” asks Manning.
“I honestly don’t remember. Isn’t that remarkable? I was very young when they were still at home, and they were never discussed afterward.”
On his pad, Manning notes in the margin: Repressed memories. Heavy denial.
Margaret adds, “My single vivid recollection of them still gives me the chills. One of the boys was interested in Indian lore and had a hatchet with a stone blade that he treasured above all other possessions. One day, Helen and I were playing with him in a vacant lot behind the house. He caught a garden snake, which terrified me enough. Then, with his hatchet, he chopped off its head. It made me sick—literally. Mama couldn’t get the bile stains out of my dress, so she threw it away. It had pictures of kittens and puppies on it. I loved that little dress—it was my favorite.”
Her story has ended. She lapses into a long silence, preoccupied with her thoughts of the past, thoughts that have not even scratched her consciousness for many years. She has said enough.
Quietly, Manning caps his pen, closes his notebook, and reaches down to the floor to rub one of the cats behind its ears. Fred gazes up at Manning with an expression that looks like an appreciative grin, then breaks into a rumbling purr. Ethel interrupts her nap long enough to open her eyes a slit, wondering what has roused Fred.
Manning rises. “Don’t get up,” he tells Margaret. “I’ve taken enough of your time today, and I truly appreciate the information you’ve shared with me. You’ve been most helpful.” He steps to her chair and clasps one of her hands with both of his. “I’ll see myself out, Margaret. Thanks again.”
He crosses the room, opens the door, and glances back before leaving. Margaret sits perfectly still, facing the fireplace, eyes fixed on the flames, as if trying to discern some meaning from their ethereal, random dance.
In the hall, Arthur Mendel awaits Manning with his trench coat. “You won’t need to wear this home,” he says. “The rain has finally stopped.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” says Manning, taking the coat. “I wonder if you’d have time to walk me out to the car. Miss O’Connor mentioned that there’s a separate cattery building on the grounds. Could you show me where it is?”
“I’d be delighted,” Arthur tells him, ushering him out the front door. They walk past Manning’s car to the side of the house, and Arthur points to a low L-shaped building on a bluff at the rear of the estate. The sky has lightened some, and whitecaps roll landward from the heaving gray surface of the lake. Arthur asks, “Would you like to stroll back there for a closer look?”
“Sure,” says Manning.
Arthur leads the way along a flagstone path. Though the rain has stopped, a raw wind drives mist from the lake, and Manning struggles to don the coat he carried, its flapping folds of khaki tamed as he cinches the belt with a taut knot. Approaching the building, Arthur says, “Care to look inside?”
“Not today, thanks,” says Manning, huddling under the broad eaves at the juncture of the building’s two wings. “Actually, I just wanted to talk with you privately, Arthur. May I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly.” The older man’s quick response reveals that he’s flattered by the famed reporter’s attention.
Manning tells him, “I hope this won’t embarrass you, and I raise the issue only because there are people who might construe it as being related to Mrs. Carter’s disappearance.”
With a tone now colored by wariness, Arthur responds, “Yes?”
“During my conversation with Miss O’Connor this morning, she mentioned something that surprised me. She said that after she came to live here with Mr. Carter and her sister, the estate proved to be a happy home, except for a ‘nasty episode with Arthur’s gambling’ …”
“What!” says Arthur, stepping backward. His expression suggests betrayal. “I can’t believe she’d mention that, not after the way she threw the household into a tizzy with her loose ways. Don’t let her kid you, Mr. Manning. She may come across as Miss Prim-and-Proper, but let me tell you …”
He stops. He’s said too much. He buries his mouth in his hands, regains his composure, then forces a smile and tells Manning, “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate—I hope you’ll kindly disregard those remarks. What Miss O’Connor told you is quite correct.”
“Did the gambling problems relate to the hor
ses?”
“I’m afraid so, yes. As you may know, Mr. Carter enjoyed horses and maintained a stable that I looked after—it was right here, in fact, before the cattery was built. He never raced them, but enjoyed the track, and we both had a passing acquaintance with a lot of pros out there—jockeys, trainers, and such. Mr. Carter placed an occasional bet—it was the social thing to do—but I got a little too deep in it. I lost more than I won, and I borrowed from the wrong people. Some threats were made, and it came to Mr. Carter’s attention, which scared me more than the threats. But he was always a perfect gentleman, and he proved to be my best friend.”
“What did he do?” Manning asks.
The mist has collected in Arthur’s hair, streamed to his brows, and now drips down his cheeks. There may be tears too—Manning isn’t sure. Arthur smiles through the water on his face, saying, “Ridgely Carter paid off my debts, suggested I stay away from the track, and never mentioned it again. I never bet on another horse, and I don’t think he did either.”
Manning turns from Arthur. Pondering the horizon over the lake, he asks him, “Do you know there’s a … ‘notion’ going around that implicates you in Mrs. Carter’s disappearance?”
“I hear things—like everybody else.”
Manning turns to him. “This horse business won’t look good, Arthur. It doesn’t look good. It’s news to me, and I don’t know what to make of it.”
Arthur touches Manning’s arm. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he assures him. “It happened. It wasn’t very nice. But then it was over. I lost all interest in racing. Mr. Carter didn’t even seem to care about his own horses after that. Later, after he died, Mrs. Carter agreed with me that there was no point in maintaining a stable on the property. So we had it torn down. Mrs. Carter wanted to use the space for her cattery. It was under construction when she disappeared. And here it stands.” Arthur gestures with both hands toward the sturdy foundation of the building.
Manning pauses to think, checks his watch, then says, “Okay, Arthur. I need to get back to the city. Thanks so much.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Manning. If I can help in any way, you know where to find me.”
They shake hands and step out from under the eaves, beginning their trek to Manning’s car. They have ventured only a few yards from the cattery when Manning glances back for another look at it. The longer of its two wings stands where the stable must have been, making use of the old brick footings. The shorter wing, however, was built atop a massive new foundation of concrete.
Wednesday, October 7
86 days till deadline
MANNING IS DRIVING NORTH again from Chicago to Bluff Shores. When he phoned Father Matthew Carey yesterday to schedule an interview, the priest told him that he would be away from the parish most of Wednesday, but Manning was welcome to come talk awhile after the six-thirty Mass.
Manning glances at the dashboard clock just as it flashes 7:00 AM. Having pulled himself out of bed earlier than usual today, he doesn’t feel quite awake. He hasn’t even turned on the radio, riding in silence, immersed in uneasy thoughts. He hasn’t set foot in a church for years, except in the line of duty—covering protests, for instance, or politicians’ funerals.
He turns onto Saint Jerome’s parish property. The pine-flanked entry reminds him more of a country club than a church. In the distance he can see the main building. It is round—a mammoth cylinder of light-colored brick with a shallow, conical roof that peaks not with a steeple but with a skylight. Its only “windows” are colored glass blocks randomly piercing the walls.
Local critics have likened the building to a host of other structures ranging from a bullring to a nuclear reactor. Researching the parish in the Journal’s morgue yesterday, Manning learned that the church was built several years after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, not because the old building needed replacement, but simply because the wealthy parishioners wanted to erect an edifice better suited to the new modes of worship decreed by their changing church.
Manning drives past the school, the convent, the rectory—all of more traditional design than the church—and pulls his car into the parking lot near the hulking architectural oddity. Only a few other cars are parked there, perhaps a dozen, all in prime spaces, their bumpers almost touching the building. He reflexively checks his pockets for his notebook and Mont Blanc, then gets out of the car.
The October monsoon has broken, if only briefly, and Manning is able to walk at leisure, without darting for cover. His cordovan oxfords crunch the still-wet gravel. Hungry unseen birds gab noisily from the trees in the belated cloud-clogged dawn.
As Manning enters the building’s vestibule, an enormous sculpted bronze door closes silently behind him, hushing the birds. A ventilating system whispers from nowhere, and the carpeting underfoot heightens the pervasive sense of quiet. Pulling open one of the glass doors etched with an abstraction of the Trinity, he steps into the church proper. The vaulted room yawns before him as if to suck him toward its center, where a monolithic slab of black marble serves as the altar. The overall effect is impressively dramatic, and Manning settles into a rear pew near the door to study the church’s interior while waiting for the service to end.
Manning tries to remember his last nonworking church visit. Ten years ago? No, fifteen? Can it possibly be that long since the gnawing suspicion became a firm reality for him? It has been that long since all the moral crises of his youth were washed clean. Suddenly gone were all the ethical dilemmas and doctrinal controversies and denominational nitpicking, all the guilt and doubts and complications that had cluttered his life. Years and years have passed since the realization formed in his brain and finally screamed to him with the voice of reason and logic and common sense—the voice that would be heard—that he simply no longer could believe in the existence of God.
He’s been free that long. Why, he wonders, did it not happen sooner? Santa Claus died for him when he was six. The unwelcome knowledge that the benevolent old giver of gifts was merely a myth came as a disappointment, of course, but he soon got over it, knowing even then, even that young, that a grasp of reality—seeing things the way they are, not simply as one would like them to be—was ultimately far more satisfying, more liberating than living a game, living a lie. Things fit.
If Santa died so painlessly when Manning was six, how did God manage to linger for another twenty years?
How’d He do it? He had the forces of indoctrination and the momentum of blind faith on His side, that’s how. When Manning was six, he was deemed old enough to share the winking truth of the fairy tale that is Santa; he was also deemed old enough for recruitment into the larger fantasy, the big one. Parochial school, first communion, altar boy, confirmation—he was set down a path that narrowed at every step. He was told by his mother, his teachers, and society at large that he would frolic in heaven if he believed, that he would burn in hell if he did not. Is it any wonder that his life was thwarted and ruled by mysticism for twenty years? The miracle is that he managed to see the light at all, that he managed to slough off the nonsense and to recognize the majesty and power of reason.
Manning glances at the long liturgical banners swaying in the currents of air that circulate through the rafters. This church looks so different from those he knew in his youth. Do they all look like this now?
His attention shifts to the service, which is nearing its end. Father Carey stands at the altar, vested in white. The congregation numbers less than twenty and is gathered in a circle around the altar with the priest. Manning guesses Father Carey’s age to be near his own, around forty. True to Margaret O’Connor’s description, he is indeed attractive, with curly brown hair and intense eyes of the same color. He has a commanding presence that seems to infatuate his parishioners. It was surely a coup for so young a man to be appointed pastor of a parish as large and affluent as Saint Jerome’s, and it was probably he who convinced Helena Carter to include the church in her will. He is undoubtedly a favorite among the hierarchy
, someone “to be watched,” someone being groomed for bigger things. He’s too polished, too slick, a manipulator, Manning tells himself.
Manning watches as Carey clasps both hands of each of the faithful during the rite of peace, as he distributes chunks of consecrated bread and passes an earthen chalice of wine, as he finally instructs his flock, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” As the people begin leaving the sanctuary and the priest retreats to the sacristy, Manning rises and ambles down the aisle toward the front row of pews.
A minute or two later, the priest appears again, dressed now in the traditional black suit and Roman collar. “Mark? Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Not at all, Father,” Manning says, stepping forward to shake hands.
“Please—call me Matt,” the priest tells him, his manner businesslike, yet warmly personal, his handshake sure and deliberate.
Manning wonders if the priest prolonged the handshake a moment longer than necessary. “Thanks, Matt. I appreciate your taking time to see me.” They share a smile that seems to bond them, and Manning wonders if he has misjudged the man.
“I’m glad we could arrange it,” Carey says while sitting in the front pew, motioning for Manning to join him. “It’s been so long since Helena disappeared, we’ve all but given up hope. Lately, though, the papers are showing a renewed interest in the case. Tell me—are you on to something?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I’m here. May I ask a few questions—and take a few notes?” Manning opens his pad and unscrews the cap of his pen.
“Of course.” With a chummy tone of understatement, he adds, “I understand you’re under a bit of pressure from your publisher.”
“That’s right.” Manning laughs, though a bit uncomfortably. He asks the priest, “How do you happen to know about that?”
“Just a coincidence. I was at a social function with Archbishop Benedict on Saturday, and he had been to dinner Friday night with Nathan Cain. They go way back together—committee work or something. Anyway, Mr. Cain told the archbishop about your ultimatum, and the archbishop told me.”
Flight Dreams Page 5