‘I get that.’
‘But do you really think the two of you could have something? Or is the ghost of our sainted father too big a distraction?’
Adam met his eyes. ‘Do you understand what she wanted with him, Ted?’
‘I used to – money. Now I don’t have a clue. But I think she had her reasons. I don’t have to comprehend them, just accept that they existed. But if you can’t come to terms with that, it’s fatal.’
‘I appreciate your concern,’ Adam said softly. ‘But you’re telling me things I already know.’
Teddy grimaced. ‘Then let me tell you something you don’t know. Not only has the coroner’s inquest lingered for an ominously long time, but George Hanley has refused Avi Gold’s request to tell the judge that he won’t prosecute Jack – or any of the rest of us. Which means our problems remain very much alive.’
Adam felt the past closing in again. ‘Does Avi know why?’
‘No. Although he divines that the woman from the Enquirer, Amanda Ferris, has gotten Hanley’s ear. I know she’s still around here.’
For a reflexive moment, Adam wondered how to get rid of her. Amidst the tangle of worries – for Jack, and for himself – it struck him that Ferris was yet another impediment to any relationship with Carla, even were he capable of one. Feigning unconcern, he told his brother, ‘Other than trailing slime, I don’t know what she can do. Just stay away from her until this thing is over. And Hanley, of course.’
Teddy nodded. ‘Of course. But you don’t have that option, bro. According to Avi, Hanley wants to see you.’
TWO
By the time Adam parked in Edgartown, a driving sideways rain had started, and the few pedestrians braving the foulness of winter carried umbrellas or walked hunched against the storm. Adam’s shoulder hurt; already tired, he did not treasure getting soaked. But it was better to surprise George Hanley, and he needed to know what Hanley thought and where Amanda Ferris fit. So he hurried across Main Street, its asphalt glistening with moisture and puddles, and entered the red brick courthouse, glancing briefly at the alarm system he had thwarted months before.
As Adam well knew, Hanley’s office was on the second floor. Seeing his door ajar, Adam knocked, and heard the district attorney say gruffly, ‘Come on in, whoever you are.’
Without responding, Adam entered, took the chair in front of Hanley’s desk, and gave the older man his most amiable smile. ‘Heard you wanted to see me, George. So I came as soon as I could.’
Hanley studied him, his own half-smile not affecting the cool curiosity in his eyes. ‘I thought you were in Afghanistan.’
‘I was. But my employer has a liberal vacation policy.’
Hanley paused, a hint of his displeasure at being surprised by a man he so clearly mistrusted. Bluntly, he asked, ‘Do you know Amanda Ferris?’
Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘The Enquirer’s gift to journalism? She’s accosted me a couple of times.’
Hanley rearranged his features, adopting an expressionless mask. ‘Only that?’
Adam let a puzzled look answer for him.
Eyes narrowing, Hanley said, ‘She claims to have met with you in secret, and that you were trying to ferret out the evidence against your brother. She further suggests that you were pulling together a cover-up to exonerate Teddy, and that you broke into the courthouse to rifle my files. The ones I kept right here.’
Adam smiled a little. ‘All that? What proof is she offering?’
Hanley stared at him. ‘She says you only met at night, on the beach. According to Ferris, you were very careful to leave no evidence that you knew her.’
‘Because I don’t. In a cooler tone, Adam continued, ‘I’m everywhere, it seems, but no one ever sees me. Yet you have a security system and a bunch of cameras. Only a ghost could break in here.’
‘Unless they were very accomplished,’ Hanley retorted. ‘Someone worked a bypass on the system.’
‘Come off it, George. To shut off your alarm system I’d have to sneak into the building, setting off the system. A bit of a chicken–egg problem, you’ll agree. And if I somehow managed to do that, you’d have me on camera. But you don’t, or I’d be languishing in your downstairs jail.’
‘Someone else did it,’ Hanley said in a cold, inexorable voice. ‘We think it was a breaking-and-entering specialist disguised as a service guy, come to look at our system.’
‘Then I guess he’s the one who took your files.’
Hanley shook his head, regarding Adam closely. ‘We have him on camera – a stocky older guy with thick glasses and a mustache. But the man two of our cops saw running away from the courthouse that night was tall, obviously young and in great shape. Someone like you. So when Ferris came to us, it sort of resonated.’
Adam shrugged. ‘Sorry I can’t help you. But I don’t know what night we’re talking about, so I don’t know where I was. I wouldn’t remember anyhow – I had other things on my mind than keeping a calendar. Like my father’s death, and that poisonous will he’d left behind …’
‘But you do remember mailing copies of my investigative files to Teddy’s lawyer. His secretary certainly remembers receiving them – however reluctant she was to say so.’ Hanley leaned forward, arms on his desk. ‘Interesting how the story Teddy told at the inquest put an innocent gloss on all the physical evidence suggesting he pushed your father off the cliff. Along with Jack’s somewhat belated explanation exonerating everyone.’
‘Truthful explanation, I’d say. Anyhow, that’s your department, George. I was halfway across the world when my father died, and I’m certainly no lawyer.’
‘You’re also no fool. As I recall, you went to law school before breaking with Ben.’
‘So I did. Among the things I learned is that it’s a crime to obstruct justice. Which you seem to be accusing me of.’
‘Who else, Adam?’
Adam adopted a tone of mild contempt. ‘Unlike your new reporter friend, I don’t go around nominating people. But if you ever find out, George, please let me know. You’re making me curious.’
‘Then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind testifying,’ Hanley suggested pointedly. ‘I can reopen the inquest, so you can tell the judge what you just told me.’
Adam shook his head. ‘Please don’t do that on my account, George. I don’t feel the need to testify yet again because some reporter pisses on my leg.’
Hanley looked at him askance. ‘Are you saying you’d invoke the Fifth Amendment?’
‘If that’s your perspective. Mine is that I’ve already given at the office. Once was enough, thanks. Anything else?’
Hanley’s obdurate frown deepened the lines at the edge of his eyes and mouth. ‘Not now, Adam. You’ve already gotten what you came for.’
Adam stood. ‘I came because you wanted to see me, remember?’
With that, he left, reviewing his points of vulnerability, his avenues of escape.
The problem was Amanda Ferris.
*
Five months before, Adam had met Ferris on the beach beneath the promontory.
On the surface, little had happened since Ben’s death. Whatever enquiry George Hanley and the police had launched – an exhaustive one, Adam was certain – they had suppressed any news of the incident itself. The previous day, Teddy had flown to Boston to buy art supplies; only Adam knew enough to guess he had been summoned by his lawyer. No one had questioned Adam about anything: with the security cameras disabled, all Hanley had was a faceless man, swift and resourceful enough to vanish, eliminating a host of potential suspects while creating a dead end.
Knowing this, Adam had the familiar sense of having set events in motion without leaving any trace. But he continued to parse the varied narratives surrounding the will and his father’s death, including from his family, sensing that none of them was truthful or complete. And now he had the problem of Amanda Ferris.
As at their prior meeting, he had followed her from Edgar-town; he still wanted no evidence that they
had met. But the woman was nothing if not clever. Now he would learn how fully she understood their chess game.
The air was balmier, the seas calm, the wind smelling faintly of sea salt. This time, she had not tried to conceal a tape recorder. By now she grasped that their conversations were damning to them both.
‘Too bad I couldn’t get the pathologist’s report,’ she said with quiet acidity. ‘But you may not have to wait long. Only until Hanley indicts your brother.’
Hearing this made Adam edgy. ‘Tell me about that.’
Ferris shifted her weight, adding to the restlessness animating her wiry frame. ‘First, there’s the evidence at the scene: a footprint matching your brother’s boot, plus skid marks suggesting someone dragged your father toward the cliff.’
And mud on his father’s heels, Adam thought, but Ferris did not know this. ‘What else?’
‘There’s a button missing from his shirt, suggesting a struggle—’
‘Have they found it?’
Ferris hesitated. ‘No.’
Because I found it, Adam thought. ‘Then it means nothing.’
‘There’s also the neighbour, out walking along the trail, who heard a man screaming, then saw a figure leaving the promontory—’
Nathan Wright, Adam knew. Feigning curiosity, he asked, ‘Man, or woman?’
‘He couldn’t say.’ Ferris’s tone became more assertive. ‘But the crime lab found a hair on your father’s shirt that matches Teddy’s D.N.A.’
This Adam had not known. ‘Anything more?’
‘Your brother’s cell-phone records. About eight fifteen, well before sunset, he received a call from the landline in the main house – no doubt from your mother. At nine fifty-one, after the neighbour saw this unknown figure, Teddy left a message with an ex-lover—’
‘Concerning what?’
‘It wasn’t specific, though he sounded distraught. But the time between calls leaves an hour and a half for Teddy to go to the promontory, and push your dad off the cliff. Maybe in response to something your mother told him.’
‘Or,’ Adam interjected, ‘maybe she and Teddy gave him a shove together. He was pretty big, after all.’
For an instant, Ferris was silent.
‘You see my point,’ Adam said with the same indifference. ‘You’re still awash in maybes. So are the police.’
Ferris crossed her arms. ‘Then why did Teddy lie? Not only did he say he hadn’t gone there that night, but that he never went at all. Just like he claimed not to remember Clarice calling him at eight fifteen. How could that be?’
‘Maybe because the phone call was so ordinary. And, even assuming the footprint was Teddy’s, we don’t know whether he left it before eight fifteen, or after – or any time near the time my father died. You haven’t given me a murder, let alone a murderer.’
Once more, Ferris hesitated. But she did not know, as Adam did, about the bruises on Ben’s wrists. ‘Let me ask you this,’ he pressed. ‘Did the crime lab find any D.N.A. under Teddy’s fingernails?’
‘No.’
‘So let’s catalogue what you don’t have. First, definitive proof of a murder. Second, a murderer. What you do have is this boot print, the drag marks, the shadowy figure, the phone records – all subject to multiple interpretations. A first-year lawyer could defend Teddy in his sleep.’ Adam paused, then prodded, ‘So, now that we’ve acquitted my brother, what do you have on Carla Pacelli?’
‘Her D.N.A. on the dead man’s clothes and face. But is she strong enough to throw him off a cliff?’
Adam envisioned Pacelli at dinner. ‘She looks pretty fit to me.’ His voice became sharp. ‘On the question of strength, my dad was dying. He might even have had a stroke – in which case, an average woman could have tossed him overboard. That would explain the drag marks. So you can add Carla to the list of suspects.’
Ferris shook her head. ‘She’s a dead end. I can’t find anyone she told about the will. Present company excepted, she’s the most guarded person in America. You tell me what that means.’
I’ve only lied to you once, Carla had told him, for reasons of my own, and not about Jenny or the will. ‘Maybe she’s in mourning,’ Adam rejoined. ‘But every instinct I have says she’s hiding something serious. According to my mother, a few nights before he died, she saw my father on the promontory with a woman. Who else but Pacelli?’
‘Quit trying to divert me,’ Ferris said in a relentless tone. ‘I’ve got more than enough for a story. We’re going to print that Edward Blaine is the prime suspect in his father’s murder, and spell out the evidence against him.’
In the half-light, Adam looked into her face. ‘Actually,’ he told her softly, ‘you’re not.’
Ferris gave a short laugh. ‘Can I ask why?’
‘Several reasons. Unless Teddy’s indicted, he’ll sue you and the Enquirer for libel—’
‘Don’t try to threaten me,’ Ferris shot back. ‘We have lawyers for that.’
‘I’m counting on it. You’re the one who gave my friend money for information. He and I never talked at all.’
‘You led me to him.’
‘So go ahead and confess to bribing a cop so he’d slip you documents and information critical to a murder investigation. Then ask how long it will take the police to indict you for obstruction of justice. Because, if you print another word about my brother, I’ll make damn sure they do.’
‘That’s bullshit. You told me your cop friend needed money.’ Suddenly her voice was shrill, uncertain. ‘Go to the police, and you’d go down with me.’
‘Would I? You’re the one who passed the money, not me. You have no evidence we’ve ever spoken. And if you try to trace your calls to me, you’ll find out that you can’t. That also goes for the anonymous call I’ll place to the police.’ Deliberately, Adam muted his voice. ‘You lose, Amanda. All you can do is leave this island for good. But before you go, you’re going to give me the piece you’re still holding out. Something about an insurance policy.’
She looked away, caught, then met his eyes again. ‘If you already know, why ask?’
Ask Teddy about the insurance policy, his guileless friend, Bobby Towle, had said. ‘Because you’re telling me what you know. So that you remain in my good graces.’
Ferris’s face twisted, a study in stifled anger. ‘Four months ago, according to your friend, your mother took out a one-million-dollar insurance policy on your father’s life, with her and Teddy as beneficiaries. They collect unless Ben committed suicide, or one or the other killed him. Or,’ she added spitefully, ‘if they knew he was terminal, and bought it to cash in.’
Jarred, Adam mustered an air of calm. ‘From which you conclude …?’
‘That they knew about his will, and lied to the police. And that one or both knew that he was dying, and lied about that, too.’ She gave him a sour smile. ‘Any comment?’
Adam shrugged. ‘So many questions, so few answers. The only person who knows what they knew is dead.’
‘Conveniently so.’ Ferris’s tone became chill. ‘Your brother will be indicted by summer’s end. Then I’ll print my story, and there’s not a damned thing you can do. Especially from Afghanistan.’
That much was true, Adam realized.
‘We’re through now,’ Ferris finished with palpable bitterness. ‘I don’t need a lawyer to know that you poison anything you touch.’ She laughed. ‘Poor Carla.’
She turned from him, walking swiftly away as though fearing for her life. A good thing, Adam supposed.
*
An hour later, he had found Jack and his mother on the darkened porch, sitting in Adirondack chairs beside a radio tuned to the Red Sox game. ‘I thought they’d invented television,’ Adam remarked.
This drew a wispy smile from Clarice. ‘Memories,’ she answered. ‘When I was a little girl, I’d sit here with my father listening to the games. We had Ted Williams then, and always finished behind the Yankees. But it felt magical – just my dad, me, and the cricke
ts, the announcer’s voice in the darkness, and the sounds of a game far away. This may be the last summer I can relive that.’
Turning, Jack regarded her with avuncular concern. ‘It’ll work out, Clarice. This place is meant to be yours.’
There was something old-fashioned about this scene, Adam thought – not just the radio, but that his mother and uncle seemed like actors in a play from another era. Amanda Ferris had curdled his mood.
‘I need to talk with you,’ he told his mother.
As she looked at him in surprise, Jack regarded him more closely. Then Clarice said, ‘You can help me make fresh coffee.’
He followed her into the kitchen. Stopping by the sink, she poured out the scalded coffee, then carefully ladled more beans into a grinder. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘The insurance policy.’
Glancing up, she asked in a thinner voice, ‘Where did you hear about that?’
‘Not from you. Or Teddy, for that matter.’
‘Don’t reprimand me, Adam.’ She paused. ‘The police know, of course. But it isn’t that important. After all, it won’t let me keep the house, and with Ben having cancer when we applied for it, I don’t know that I’ll collect. At least that’s what my lawyer tells me.’
She made not telling him sound innocent enough, Adam thought, but this was not the real problem. Evenly, he said, ‘The police must wonder why you took it out. So do I.’
Clarice put down the bag of beans. ‘So now you’re looking at us like you’re George Hanley?’
‘Please don’t try guilt, Mom. I outgrew it. What concerns me is the answers I’m not getting. Did you expect that something would happen to him?’
‘Not anything specific. But when you’ve lived with someone for forty years, you notice not-so-little things, like drinking too much, or losing one’s balance for no reason. Or Ben’s indifference to being caught out with this actress.’ She paused, as though finding her own answer. ‘I didn’t imagine him falling off that cliff, or changing his will. Nor did I know that he had brain cancer. Except for worrying he might drive his car into a tree some night, it was nothing that concrete. More a sense that the ground was shifting under us in ways I couldn’t identify. When you’re as afraid as I was, and as defenceless, you become good at reading tea leaves.’
Eden in Winter Page 21