Now You See Her

by Cecelia Tishy

  “Yes, one of several. Serious campaign money is at stake—and, of course, the Arnots’ social standing.”

  I’m already on the edge of my chair. “Is the fund-raiser for Carney and Wald? For Jordan Wald?”

  “I suppose so. Remember we saw their yard sign. Tania is begging for my help. She careens between rage and despair. These people won’t go quietly, Reggie. Even if they sell the house, accusations will fly. Marlborough is one of Boston’s best addresses, but a Realtor can’t take things for granted. I have to consider resale values. Your Aunt Jo told me once that the first version of the Declaration of Independence said ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property.’ ”

  “My ex said things like that.”

  “I’m asking your help just one more time. Please.”

  Now I’m the one who leans back. “One condition, Meg. I want to be at next week’s fund-raiser. Let’s say it’s part of my sixth-sense investigation. Let’s say it’s a burning issue.”

  Chapter Eight

  Like phobic fliers, a woman of a certain age needs a martini to cross the threshold of a computer-electronics store. To my regret, I am cold sober as I search for a birthday gift for my son. The Carney-Wald fund-raiser is days away, but various tasks keep me busy. A freckled young clerk suggests inflatable stereo speakers for video games in the bathtub.

  When I say no, he urges wi-fi accessories. “The D-Link System will quintuple the top speed of ordinary home wireless systems. This is based on the latest version of the wi-fi wireless standard— you know, the 802.11g. Full compatibility is guaranteed.”

  Compatibility? That would be me, the mom, selecting a nice necktie. Filene’s Basement menswear and my budget—that’s compatibility. I picture Jack taking his new girlfriend to dinner in a nice spread-collar shirt, a clothing item on which I have gigabytes of expertise. Believe me, I know my Egyptian cottons.

  My son, however, lives in T-shirts and khakis. He could furnish his wardrobe from a Dumpster. I settle on a titanium stylus for his pocket PC, a sort of birthday stocking stuffer, then go home and order a big tin of his favorite special roasted peanuts from Bluff Gardens in Michigan. It’s the thought that counts, though I can only guess what avalanche of dazzling gifts Marty Baynes a.k.a. Daddy Warbucks might order from a SkyMall catalog.

  The phone rings. “It’s Frank, Reggie. Remember you asked me about a reported incident in the Back Bay on the night of the third when you heard that dragging sound?”

  “I do.”

  “Missing Persons isn’t my division. You know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “But TV local news is going to carry a story tonight. I think the media are taking a short break from the Sylvia Dempsey case.”

  “What is it, Frank?”

  “There’s a guy from Woburn reported missing.”

  “Woburn? Isn’t that miles from the Back Bay?”

  “Twenty miles, yeah, but here’s the thing. He works for a Boston caterer. He went out on a job starting at five. The family expected him back in Woburn by midnight.”

  “The job was in the Back Bay?”

  “Alan Tegier’s the name. None of his family or friends have seen or heard from him since he left for work that evening. He didn’t make contact with anybody known to him later that night. He left Woburn for the Back Bay and never made it back home. But, Reggie, don’t let your imagination get crazy on this.”

  “Crazy? Did you say crazy?”

  “It’s probably nothing, just a lovers’ quarrel or maybe a family fight or job trouble. The guy’ll probably turn up in a couple weeks. That’s how it usually goes in a missing person case. Nine times out of ten.”

  “But you’re concerned enough to call me.”

  “Consider it a courtesy. But it’s not your case, remember that. I want you to keep your head.”

  “Frank, after two kids and a slugfest of a divorce, believe me, what I’ve got going is my head. Count on it.”

  “I do, Reggie.” His voice drops, almost shy and barely audible. “More than you might think.”

  Channel 4 news at 11:00 p.m. broadcasts blurry snapshots of Alan Tegier, a young white man in a white shirt and black bow tie pouring wine and serving trays of salmon roe canapés. His distraught father and sister are shown stapling xeroxed photos of Alan to telephone poles, then it’s his tearful mother next, imploring anyone with information to come forward. Another clip shows the Woburn assistant chief of police and Lieutenant Tom Shabati of the Boston police say that every effort is being made.

  I go to bed wondering if there’ll be a follow-up. Or if, like the Eldridge fire, Tegier’s disappearance will receive the gone-and-forgotten treatment from the media. It’s a disquieting thought that returns to me the following morning. Despite the treacherous Harley harness, Stark has taken Biscuit for a few days, according to our custody arrangement. My nose clears, but the dog’s water bowl and food dish look sad and lonely. The house feels empty. It’s easy to fall into a melancholy mood about another young man who has vanished, in this case into Norfolk Prison.

  Meg’s idea that my aunt received prisoners’ pleas for help has also stuck in my mind. It has a certain logic. Devaney could be fooled, preyed on by Henry Faiser and by his own guilt over shoddy work in Boston’s crack cocaine epidemic. What if Jo’s files contain letters from Faiser, especially if he copied the same message over and over and mailed them out by the dozen? My aunt was an activist on so many fronts, she might have kept a letter from Henry.

  Two stout oak file cabinets flank the rolltop desk in the study, and I sit down and start in. The household accounts are neatly arranged, utilities, repairs, consumer skirmishes with appliance manufacturers. (“Surely your engineers could redesign my DeLuxe Quiet model to stop the motor sounding like a Panzer tank.”) The letterhead replies reek of condescension, evasion, and corporate pieties.

  I move on to the activist files, Jo’s battles with the city over garbage pickup, pedestrian protection, fair housing, food donation, neighborhood crime prevention. There’s a file of tribute letters too, from a church’s autumn festival committee and a wetlands preservation group, among others. Also a folder of thank-you notes and cards: a woman whose son got help job-hunting, an uncle grateful for his niece’s summer camp scholarship. One file folder is reserved for a single sheet: a letter of commendation from the Office of the Mayor.

  So far, however, no file contains pleas for help from prisoners. I’m relieved, but only momentarily—because while replacing one file and reaching for the next, my hand smacks something hard and cold.

  The guns. Just after moving in, I’d found them in Jo’s kitchen, the Taurus .38 in a drawer under a stack of brown grocery bags, the Colt .44 nesting in cotton in a box high in the pantry. What woman wants stray guns in her kitchen? I’d immediately jammed them deep in the right-hand oak file drawer. Or so I thought. But no, here they are in the left one.

  I close the study blinds, then those in the kitchen. I put the guns on the table and try to figure out where to store them properly.

  They make me believe that Jo nurtured a secret self that she kept hidden inside her various chests and cabinets. Take the scarves as another example. In clothing preference, Jo swore by Harris tweeds and Shetland wools and dressed like a Mennonite. But she left a drawerful of neatly folded, flamboyant, store-fresh scarves in silks and velvets. Beside hers, my Hermès collection is downright sedate. Scarfwise, in fact, Isadora Duncan at warp speed in a Bugatti—rest her soul—had nothing on Jo Cutter.

  Which goes to say that Jo Cutter, like most people, had her contradictions. Still, the guns are in a category all their own, a total puzzle. To my best recollection, Jo never mentioned them, never dropped the slightest hint.

  Plus, other guns might be hidden elsewhere in the condo. Several of Jo’s storage boxes remain untouched. Suppose she collected according to calibers, with a .22 awaiting me in an overnight case, a .357 in a canvas tote?

  I run a thumbnail across a nick—or trophy notch?—in th
e walnut grip of the Colt .44. It looks old, like a collector’s item. I pick it up. Was someone shot with this very handgun?

  Or killed?

  The Colt cylinder smells metallic, oily, and burned. A shiver zings down my neck. I half suspect Stark knows something about these firearms, but so far haven’t confronted him. If I do, he might confiscate them.

  One nasty thought lurks in the back of my mind: that the guns belong to a third party who might suddenly show up to demand them.

  I put down the Colt and pick up the Taurus .38. I pull back the hammer just a little, spin the cylinder, and there’s a neat click with each rotation. Clickety-click. Ever so lightly, I brush my finger over the trigger, frighten myself, then move my finger away with a shudder.

  Did the gun that murdered Peter Wald look like these? Devaney didn’t tell me. Kia swears her brother is allergic to guns. Maybe yes, maybe no. I picture the young man with liquid eyes in a cell on a thin mattress writing letters.

  It starts up again, at first warm, then hot. It’s the searing pulse at my rib. Leaning against the fridge, still holding the .38, I feel the burning sensation come, as if it seeks and finds me, and bears down upon me.

  As if Henry Faiser’s message hits me personally. It’s not scattered to the winds, but beamed at me. Did his sister visit him, tell him a white woman showed up to say she’s working on his case? I feel this certainty. And I asked for it, yearned for it, worried that my sixth sense might fail me and my life would shrink to mini-measures. I now wait for the heat to crest and to fade. This moment in the kitchen is a reckoning. The hot pulse signals the obligation that defines my new life. I am Henry Faiser’s target.

  And his lifeline.

  Chapter Nine

  It’s a lovely spring twilight with the trees in foliage and the songbirds in lullaby chorus. It’s almost seven, and the sky is mauve, the air a mix of earth and lilac. Hope is in the air. An evening like this was made for a political fund-raiser—and for knowledge that might help the Faiser case.

  I park the Beetle and walk down Dartmouth. The hideous night of two weeks ago seems from another world. Kids on skateboards jump the very curb where I stood that night, cowering, hearing the gagging noise and scuffle. I pause to scan the pavement stones carefully. It’s years since anybody bothered to pick up pennies. There is no mark visible on the concrete.

  The Marlborough Street home of Jeffrey and Tania Arnot is bathed in pearly light, the dank Gothic mists vanished without a trace. Lamplight glows from every window of the neo-Medieval brownstone, and luminarias guide us up the stairs. The Carney-Wald yard sign of red, white, and blue looks jaunty, making the very notion of haunting silly and far-fetched.

  Most guests wear business clothes, the men in suits, the women in spring linens. The massive door that slammed itself on Meg and me stands wide open in welcome. A quick inspection of the hinges and panels reveals no mechanical closing device.

  A slender blonde in a cream box suit with pearls and a Carney-Wald button greets some guests by name and gives others an emphatic, compensatory “How are you? Good to see you” and a deep, direct gaze.

  I shake her hand. “Good evening.”

  “Well, how are you?”

  “I’m Reggie Cutter.”

  “Reggie Cut—oh yes, we were hoping you’d come. Tania will be so pleased, and Mr. Arnot.”

  “Then you’re not—”

  “Tania? Oh no. I’m Alison. I work with the Arnots. Come in, have a glass of wine, and give us a chance to get things going. The governor and lieutenant governor should be here any second.” Dimples deepen her smile. “We’re practicing their titles for election day. Join the party. I’ll find you.”

  I go inside to the sandalwood aroma I mistook for gas. The catering staff pass with trays of drinks and hot tidbits. Chablis in hand, I mix among strangers who look familiar from my old life, except these are Democrats. Marty, my ex, scorns them as losers and bleeding hearts, but half of them could double at fund-raisers on Chicago’s North Shore.

  However, prosperity wears a somewhat different face chez Arnot. Neckties are scarce among the men. A celebrity architect with a shaved head and black combat boots holds court on the orange sectional sofa. A woman in a hand-painted red cotton tent of a dress gestures extravagantly, her bangles chiming with every upsweep of an arm. Several women wear the earnest jewelry of the Himalayas, chunky beads the color of tallow. In one corner a trio plays light jazz. The shag carpet feels like underbrush. No one stands within four feet of the glittering blades of the chandelier.

  One big difference from similar events in my past life: black faces are plentiful in this crowd. Which is Jeffrey Arnot’s? My guess: the tall, broad-shouldered man who angles his arm on the balustrade railing, laughing easily, shaking hands, enjoying the moment, elegant in a chalk-stripe suit of midnight blue.

  Approach him? No. First things first. Standing behind a tufted corner chair—inconspicuous, let’s hope—I close my eyes and concentrate and focus. It’s not easy. The trio breaks into an upbeat “Embraceable You” as I try to open my psychic channel. As before, nothing registers. I cross the room murmuring “Scuse me” through the crowd and try again. Nothing.

  The dining room, scene of the Black Power salute wall covering, is my next stop. A polished dining table fit for a corporate boardroom looks new, as are the twelve baronial oak chairs standing at attention. Beside me, a balding man with olive skin and a heavy mustache leans toward the wall. “Fists, Maggie, they’re actually fists. The guy’s a fighter.”

  The woman on his arm runs her fingertips across the surface. “Ooh, textured. It’s Tania’s verve.”

  “It’s Jeffrey’s temper.”

  They move off. In a corner, I try to be receptive to sixth-sense messages. Political phrases waft in the air: “poll numbers up,”

  “office-park dads,”

  “focus group.” Not one psychic vibration do I feel. Frankly, it’s a huge relief. I can now close the book on the Arnots’ haunted house.

  “Excuse me, are you feeling all right?” It’s a young woman with a tray of mushroom puffs. Her nameplate says “Brenda” just below the caterer logo, Ambrosia. “I saw you close your eyes in the front room. If you’re not feeling well, can I get you something? An aspirin?”

  “I’m fine, Brenda. Thanks. Just resting my eyes. Really.” I smile to prove well-being. I’ll tell Meg I gave it my best shot. As for the Arnots, I’ll be pleasant, gracious, and firm. Tonight’s close-up of Jordan Wald, however, will be my payment in full. I want to see the father of the murdered young man. I want to see the face of an influential public official whose fatherly grief and rage perhaps helped prompt the conviction of an innocent man.

  The trio strikes up “Tangerine,” and I head toward the front room off the entrance. The crowd is shoulder-to-shoulder, the room at maximum occupancy. A man in stunning eyewear says, “Well, of course, he’s a hack. It’s a time-honored political tradition.”

  “Cynical, Rodney. Love that about you,” says a woman in knits with brass buttons. “At least Carney’s a known quantity, all those years in the House. It’s Wald I wonder about. What’s he want?”

  “What they all want, Jennifer. He’s a four-term state senator from an old Boston family. What else do you need to know?”

  “They say he’s a loner. Steers clear of the old boys’ network.”

  “The old boys’ days are gone. Upstarts are today’s fresh faces. Or haven’t you heard?”

  “But how’d he get in the game?”

  “Real estate and heating oil. Family connections don’t hurt either.”

  “One more bored businessman hot for a second act in politics. They say he’s got Potomac fever.”

  “Be fair. He gets top grades from environmental groups. He’s a green guy.”

  The woman to the left smooths her chestnut hair. “I heard something about him.”

  “He runs the marathon every year.”

  “His wife died of cancer.”

  “
Wasn’t his son killed by a crazy drug addict? It was on TV.” I lean close to hear more, but a murmur rises and shoulders tighten. Four chunky men and a woman in black with headsets wade into the room and fan out. One near me says, “A-OK for Bulldog and Boxer.”

  Two men in suits arrive like a magnetic force, and guests part to make way like the Red Sea. The florid face and jolly, squinty eyes of the shorter man are unmistakable—he’s Michael Carney, candidate for governor. Just steps behind him marches Jordan Wald, his jutting jaw like a prow. Both men wear shadow plaid suits, though Carney is rumpled, Wald starched. Smiling, they shake hands left and right, their teeth bridal white.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.”

  Applause crackles. A microphone squeals. Alison has helped a buxom woman in platforms onto a stout low bench by the front window and hands her the mike.

  “My friends… testing, testing… friends of Michael Carney and Jordan Wald… testing, can everybody hear me?” Her voice is playful and gusting. “Can you hear?” The guests nod and murmur. She purrs, “Darlings, you’ve written your lovely checks for our marvelous candidates. You deserve at least to hear.”

  Good-humored laughter ripples. In a shantung cream coatdress with a heavy sapphire necklace-earring set, Tania Arnot is wide-eyed and apple-cheeked, with frosted hair coiffed and sprayed to withstand gale-force winds. She cradles the mike as if the bench is a cabaret stage.

  “Jeffrey and I welcome all of you tonight to our home. The beautiful spring evening promises new times… and a new governor and lieutenant governor. Are you ready to give a great big welcome to our guests of honor? Are you?”

  Her breast heaves with the Carney-Wald button, while a badge on her shoulder proclaims “More for Massachusetts!” A few feet away, the broad-shouldered man in the midnight chalk-stripe suit grins. Just as I guessed, Jeffrey Arnot. “Are you ready to welcome the next governor of our great Commonwealth?” Yesses rise like helium.

  Carney springs onto the bench, air-kisses Tania, and launches his ten-minute spiel. “Not just jobs, good jobs…a Massachusetts economy in drive… every child in the best of schools.” He tells a story about his wheelchair-bound late mother, his voice rich as fudge as he segues to life lessons learned from his father, a metalworker of sterling character. Next he sings praises of his wife and sons, who are busy campaigning elsewhere in the state in homes as warm and welcoming as Jeffrey and Tania’s.