Chapter Twenty-three
Call it the afterglow or an aftertaste. Every block that I drive from the Newbury lunch to Barlow Square forces me to the fact that I’m revved but stymied. Alex’s accusations spew from Luis to Corsair to Steven’s street pickup dates. Should I revisit the Apollo Club for another round with surly Matt? And what did Luis mean when he asked about a movie or video from Steven’s things? Focused on giving him the Lava lamp, I wasn’t nimble. Suppose Stark and I go back to Jamaica Plain. Suppose, suppose, suppose.
Brooding? Am I thinking or brooding? I take Biscuit for a short walk, straighten up the kitchen, iron a blouse for a mindless moment—and get the telephone call I’d schemed for. It’s Leonard Vogler of Corsair Financial.
He doesn’t waste a word. “My Margaret—Mrs. Vogler—would much appreciate your offer to meet with her regarding a memorial service for Steven, Ms. Cutter. Would tomorrow afternoon be possible?” It’s that speakerphone voice again. “Corsair could send a car.”
“Mr. Vogler, I have a car. I might be able to rearrange my schedule. Yes, it’s just possible at three o’clock.” This gambit is from my ex, Marty, always insisting on the impression of a full schedule. Leonard Vogler puts his assistant on with directions to Crowninshed Farms.
The next day, Friday, is drizzling and gray as I pass the North Shore I-95 exits, reaching Crowninshed Farms just before 3:00 p.m. This will be lady-to-lady, so I’m in a slate skirt, silk shirt, and sienna Brioni Escorial jacket with pearls.
The gatehouse attendant gives me the once-over and points me into a subdivision that feels like a time warp of my former life. Any one of these McMansions could have been ours. They’re gabled brick and half-timber with cedar shingle accents, Palladian windows and chimney stacks, and multivehicle garages. Dignified entrance gates, beveled glass, super landscaping. Did the developer lower the banister rails an inch or two so the man of the house feels just a little taller? Ours did.
At an S-curve, the subdivision suddenly ends. Now I’m in a corridor of dense dark evergreens, no house in sight. The gatehouse attendent said nothing about this. I clock the distance, five-, six-tenths of a mile. The road narrows so that two vehicles can barely pass. I’m alone on the road, and it feels like a one-way to the center of the earth.
Finally a clearing. A long rutted front drive leads left toward patchy brown fields and a house set back against a ridge, as if pushed there, an outpost. I count five chimneys. There’s a barn and some sheds.
Pulling over, I verify the number, 11. Two strips of reflector tape make a crude V on a corroded mailbox here at the roadside.
Jolted in the ruts, I approach a brick house and outbuildings that loom in a gray mist. I’m looking at sagging shutters, a collapsing barn, fallen fencing, and a huge greenhouse whose panes are mostly smashed like so many blinded eyes.
Surely a mistake, this can’t be the Voglers’ home—just as the Damelin house “couldn’t” be Steven’s. Not one window shines against this gunmetal-gray sky. Except for a car parked in the front, the place looks abandoned, like one big Keep Out. Why is the Voglers’ home such a wreck? A financial pinch at Corsair? A family reversal of some sort? Lean times needn’t call for extreme dilapidation. It’s as if they’re flaunting a New England ruin.
And nobody knows I’m here. No one at all. The nape of my neck prickles in the dampness. Don’t be silly, I tell myself. Don’t overreact. Yet I’m wishing for a tracking device.
Be logical, Reggie. It’s a drab day in a rainy autumn. Inside is a woman who is “not well.” But gooseflesh from gloom? No, it’s something else I feel—dread. I can’t imagine Steven here in this house any more than I can picture him on Croker Street in Lawrence. Parked, I’m staring at a big rusted piece of farm equipment with teeth and claws.
One thing’s certain: there is no body of water visible at this North Shore location, neither a swimming pool nor creek nor even a fishpond. The route to the Vogler property has stopped two miles short of the seacoast. The North Shore that promised a link to my vision of Steven drowning is a dead end. The dull brass knocker thuds on a heavy door. The house smells like mold, and the brick is the color of flesh.
“Miss Cutter?”
“Yes.” In the opened door stands a stocky woman with bobbed hair and stony eyes. A beeper is clipped to her apron strap. “I’m Alma. I’m the housekeeper. Mrs. Vogler is in the sun parlor. This way.”
She leads me through a living room of Queen Anne and Chippendale sofas, chairs, case clock, secretary. To my eye, all authentic.
In a room off to the left, I glimpse ranks of wall-mounted rifles, pistols, and sailing ship paintings. But I’m focused on the tabletops that hold clustered family photos. There’s a dark-haired boy and blond girl who must be Andrew and Dani Vogler as children. Also a man in tweeds—Leonard Vogler? And a smiling blond woman on a boat deck. Surely Margaret. I’d love ten minutes alone to study each face and to look for photos of Steven, especially photos of boyhood horse shows. But Alma marches me briskly over a threadbare Sarouk. The rooms smell of dead roses.
“Ms. Cutter, so good of you to come. I’m Margaret Vogler.”
In a glassed-in porch, a bone-thin woman in a mango-print jersey dress with a halter top rises slowly in open-toe sandals with spike heels. It makes me chilly just to look at her. She extends a hand flashing with rings. Sparkle combs hold back platinum-streaked hair, which frames a full-featured face, a wide mouth, and a fawn complexion. Her fingers tremble as she grips a cane for support. Her smile is wan, her soft gray-green eyes hollowed. Meant to be cling-sexy, the mango jersey hangs on her frame, and the exposed skin of her bare shoulders is grayish in this light. The fawn complexion seems a triumph of makeup.
“Will you have tea? Alma, hot tea, if you will.”
It takes a moment to realize this woman can’t be much over thirty-five. Her affliction has added years, a decade. By my count, she’s barely older than Steven and can’t possibly be the Mrs. Vogler described by Crystal. The woman before me is, no question, a new Mrs. Vogler.
In moments, we’re on first-name basis. Margaret hopes the traffic wasn’t too hideous. We agree the season has been unusually wet, the autumn leaves less spectacular than usual. I speak slowly so as not to tax the strength of an invalid.
Alma sets a tea tray on a table at Margaret’s side and disappears. The cups are Beleek porcelain with cheerful shamrocks, and the pouring takes considerable effort. The silver—old and heavy, monogrammed not with a V but a C—is tarnished. Does this woman have MS? Parkinson’s? Was it a stroke?
Is she the smiling blonde on the boat deck in the family photos? There’s no equestrian memorabilia in sight, and that shambles of a barn surely isn’t a stable. The head of her cane is carved into a grinning leprechaun with ruby eyes. What happened to Vogler’s first wife?
“Leonard tells me that you’ve offered to help us with the memorial service for Steven.” Her voice is husky.
“That’s right. Rev. Gail Welch of All Souls Church in Boston’s South End offers to officiate. Her church administers the Big Buddies mentor program in which Steven has helped a Dominican boy named Luis Diaz. Perhaps he talked about the program? Or Luis?”
“Luis? I’m afraid not.”
“Steven also knew and admired my late aunt, Josephine Cutter. Perhaps he mentioned her name?”
She murmurs, “So many names.”
“Or Jo? She went by ‘Jo.’”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps my husband…”
“Of course.” We sip our tea. “I myself met Steven just before he… late last month. He sublet my upstairs flat and showed great kindness. He rushed to help me when I fell.”
“Oh, that’s Steven through and through.”
“I understand he was like a member of the Vogler family.”
“Oh yes, he was a brother to Andrew… Drew. And to Dani, that’s short for Danielle. They all loved horses, and they all rode as children. My husband deserves great credit for rescuing Steven, sponsoring his educ
ation.”
“How fortunate for a boy, for a young man.”
“Absolutely. Steven himself told me that he was so puny as a boy that he wore Dani’s boots. They say he started riding Brownie, the gentlest horse. Within two seasons, he was on an Arabian named Hurricane.”
She looks at me as if reciting this history lifts her beyond her own come-lately entry into the family. “You see, Regina, the Vogler family had certain future plans that went beyond the boys’ friendship. My husband’s business, at first he thought—”
But she breaks off and reaches for her teacup. “My husband consoles himself that Steven’s life, though cut short, was fuller. His birth parents… well, the father drives a taxi. I believe they live in Lawrence, and you know those depressed New England mill towns. I understand the family grew apart. You do like Irish Breakfast?”
“It’s a favorite.”
“I grew up on it… I’m half Irish on my father’s side.” She looks me in the eye. “The fact is, Regina, when the heart’s broken, the mind flies into pieces. My mind is a thousand pieces.”
Because of Steven’s death? Or her illness? Both? The leprechaun grins. The case clock strikes three, though it’s almost four. Margaret Vogler takes no outward notice. On the stiff wicker sunporch furniture, she flouts comfort. Maybe she fights her disability this way. Maybe the open-toe high heels and clingy jersey dress defy the season, the losing battle with her body, and even the dilapidated homesite. Her acknowledgment of the Damelins only seems to erase them.
“Do have one of these crisps. Alma’s sister sent them over.”
The ginger wafer jams the roof of my mouth like cardboard. I murmur how tasty, work the cookie loose, and manage to swallow as Margaret says, “Regina, it’s so important to have photographs at a memorial service. I’m sure you’d like to have a selection from the framed ones in our front room. There are two or three of Steven.”
Good, here’s the topic of family photos. Run with this, Reggie. Get the family history. Strategize. “Candids are also nice,” I say. “They’re not so formal. They help to celebrate the life. Perhaps there are family albums we might see?”
“Oh, the albums…” Her face clouds. “I hadn’t thought about the albums. They’re not really necessary, though, are they?” She brushes her fingers as if in dismissal. Clearly the albums aren’t part of the afternoon plan. “Anyway, we recently did some rearranging. Everything’s topsy-turvy. These days I can’t find a thing.”
Is she flighty or evasive? Is the second wife dodging the pictorial memory lane of her husband’s past? If so, it’s understandable. But this is my one chance for deep background. I must push. “Margaret, I surely know that upside-down feeling. But sometimes things turn up where you’d least expect them.”
“Nothing is in its place. The steak knives, the albums. It’s a bit comic, actually.”
“I’m sorry to hear that… because guests at a memorial service so appreciate the pictorial biography. There’s no substitute for family albums.”
“But we can’t rummage through the house, can we? I’m afraid for now the framed photos will fill the bill.”
I nod to show agreement. Think faster, Reggie. Plan. I ask for another cookie. “So delicious,” I say brightly. “I wonder, does your Alma have her sister’s recipe? Would it be too much trouble to ask?”
“Not at all.” I manage to swallow the doughy wad as Margaret beeps her housekeeper. Alma reappears. “Alma, Ms. Cutter is interested in Liesl’s recipe for the ginger crisps.”
“Fantastic,” I say. “The texture is amazing.”
“That’s your gluten flour,” says Alma. “You want to use a gluten flour and hot oven, not too much shortening. My sister doesn’t measure anything. She doesn’t have to.”
“Well, I’ll remember that.” I give Alma my warmest smile. “And while you’re here, Alma, Mrs. Vogler was just saying how confusing new household arrangements are. We were regretting that the family albums are temporarily out of place. I don’t suppose you know where they are?”
“Oh, did you want them? They’re in the great room on the second shelf. Should I bring them in, Mrs. Vogler?”
Cornered. Margaret looks cornered. “That would be fine, Alma.” She gives me a resigned smile. “If it weren’t for Alma . . .”
“A treasure.” The housekeeper disappears and returns with an armful of leather-bound albums. I quickly pull my chair around for the scrutiny I’d hoped for. In forced togetherness, Margaret and I gaze at color shots of children on horseback, on ski slopes, in a pool. So far, there’s no sign of the first Mrs. Vogler. “That’s Dani. She talks about that red bathing suit to this day.” The blond child beams, waist-high at the shallow end.
“And there’s Drew somersaulting from the diving board at the club.” I lean closer to see a boy with short dark hair, arms and legs tucked into a ball in midair, the image blurry. We move to the second album, and Margaret flicks the page.
“There’s little Steven, one of the family’s first pictures of him.” Next up on the diving board, face unmistakable, Steven clowns with a beach ball, his expression apprehensive. He must be ten or eleven, but extremely small for his age. In the next picture, the boys play tug-of-war with the same ball, both laughing, though the larger Andrew seems to be wresting the ball away.
Margaret turns the pages as if eager to get this over with short of rudeness. The years fast-forward, but the pattern stays the same. Danielle is at the margins, seldom with the boys. She appears in a choir robe and sings at a piano. She sits at an arts and crafts table while hand-lettering the family’s holiday cards. Dani looks delicate, though the field hockey stick and tennis racket proclaim her as active in sports. In several photos, she poses with the tall, loose-limbed man with sandy tousled hair and a bright red neckerchief—Vogler. Everybody’s in court whites.
The boys, however, seem inseparable. Steven and Andrew brush horses, soap saddles, ride in fenced rings, in horse shows. They ski, roast hot dogs, bicycle, pass footballs, escort corsaged young women in tulle and satin prom gowns. Steven gains weight, reaches full size beside Andrew. Her diamonds flash as Margaret turns the page to show the two young men posing in college graduation robes. Arms around one another’s shoulders, laughing, they could be brothers, even fraternal twins. I can see that Andrew Vogler, like Steven, is dark but finer-featured, his eyes deeper set, mouth narrower.
“Isn’t that Danielle on Steven’s arm? Was she his date?”
“That, I believe, was a college formal.”
Does Margaret know Steven was gay? Do the Voglers? At that time, did he? Each and every album page turned by Margaret’s tremulous fingers, however, raises the question too obvious to ask aloud: where is the first Mrs. Vogler, the mother of Drew and Dani? The younger second wife is the chronicler of a family history in which she plays no part. Looking closely at the photos, I now see scissored borders, cropped edges. The albums have been purged. The first Mrs. Vogler is gone. From death? Divorce?
“Andrew is a handsome man,” I say, “just as Steven was. Why, they both look good enough to be male models.”
She gives a noncommittal smile. My model prompt goes nowhere. Few of the photographs show Steven alone, so I choose several that include Andrew. For the memorial service, I promise good care. “And so Steven visited regularly here—up until the end—is that right?”
She closes the last album. “Leonard and I were perfectly willing to make space available for Steven’s skis and paraphernalia, just as we do for Drew and Dani. Our home is scheduled for major renovation. In the meantime, we protect their things with waterproof tarpaulins. The Vogler front door has been thrown wide-open.”
Translation: Lately Steven drove up to this Crowninshed Farms near-ruin to get his stored stuff. Lately Margaret became the superintendent of a storage locker. Which means it’s unlikely that she or her husband knows of the deal between Steven and Jo.
“Perhaps you know Steven’s longtime friend Alex Ribideau?”
She s
eems surprised to hear me say Alex’s name. “Yes, of course. Of course, I do.” Her eyelids flutter. “He’s a dancer. I, too, was a dancer.”
“Oh?” I try to conceal my shock.
“It was some time ago. But those of us in the performing arts are kindred spirits. We share a deep bond.” She pauses, twists a diamond band, touches her throat, and says, “To help the police, my husband searched our records of contributions to the arts.”
“To the Jeremiah Steele Dance Company?”
“Precisely.” She clasps her cup, her fingers tight. The fawn complexion reddens.
“As of this morning,” I say, “the police couldn’t find Alex. Right now he’s dancing faster than they are.” A smile breaks through. How much does she know about Steven’s former lover? How deep is that dancer-to-dancer bond? “When Alex asked for a memento of his time with Steven, Margaret, I couldn’t say no. I met him at the Parker House.”
“You saw him?”
“We had a drink together. He’s devastated.”
“Oh, poor Alex.” She looks at the sun parlor doorway as if Alma might lurk. We’re seated so close together our knees nearly touch. There’s a faint medicinal odor that seeps through Margaret’s dress, her very pores. “I’ll tell you this,” she says. “Alex and I have also spoken, days ago. He was frantic. He ought to be with us, planning the service.” Her cup rattles as she puts it down. “If only I could help. You see”—she meets my gaze—“I introduced them.”
“Introduced Steven to Alex?”
She pauses, her eyes locked on mine, and says, “Alex to Steven.”
“Oh, I see.” It takes everything to nod calmly and set down the Beleek cup and saucer with the bright shamrocks. So this is why Margaret Vogler’s mind has flown into a thousand pieces: it’s about Alex Ribideau. It’s Alex whom she’s upset about, not Steven. Steven Damelin, I realize, is secondary. His death means crisis for Alex, even if Alex is the killer. As the case clock chimes again, I realize that another hour has come and gone, and neither Margaret nor I have once spoken the word “murder.”
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