Yet I voluntarily walked the walk in the Eldridge neighborhood and felt my rib burn at the bone-white birches where I’m sure Peter Wald died. I snooped and talked to Carlo and went to the Brighton Auto Mart. No one made me do these things. Sometimes a woman must step out.
Is this my moment? I find myself yielding, seeing new possibilities in the chance to speak with Tania alone. If I can cut through the glitz, she might—just might—talk about Jeffrey, his deals, his partners, especially his past. A private one-on-one with her might forge that link to Carlo. I could learn more about Carlo’s link to Faiser, then confront Devaney and press the issue of a possible witness to the shooting of Peter Wald. Maybe it’s a long shot to the Henry Faiser innocence project, but I’m in no position to pass it by. The image of Henry chafing his cuffed wrists is too vivid in my mind. The red welts on his hands are a symptom of his hepatitis. The man is a wraith. He needs care. If innocent, he needs to get out of there to stay alive.
My watch says 6:23 p.m., June 11. It’s worth recording because it marks the risk involved. There’s that certain moment when the light changes, a chill wind blows, and the season suddenly shifts. Or the makeup mirror shows a new facial line, and you’re up a notch on life’s cycle. This is one such instant. It’s not just for fun but for keeps. It’s not a hobby I can exit and leave to the pros. I’m too far in it for that. This is a moment when a woman realizes she’s got to go deeper than she thought.
It’s a humid, drab evening, and the fading daylight gives the Marlborough house an ocher cast. If Tania is indeed alone, she hasn’t turned on the lights. I’m thinking one hour in and out. I’ll be back home before dark. From the sidewalk, the white limo is nowhere in sight, not that Arnot could park it out front. His absence is crucial, my act of faith.
Here’s my plan—first, to hold the rafter fabric and close my eyes as if communing with the cosmos, then to deliver the message in a radio-play voice echoing the history of the house. “Through time’s generations,” I’ll say, “the cloth conveys to me a certain feeling of sadness, or in French, tristesse.”
I’ll emphasize Edmund Wight’s yearning through worlds of spirit and matter. To add heft and a woman’s twist, I’ll bring in the architect Dehmer: “Both of the gentlemen’s spirits are upset that the rightful mistress, Clara Eddington, did not take her place in residence.” Here’s my message: that Tania must be patient with the spirits and trust they will recognize her as the rightful lady of the house.
She’ll buy it. At that point, I’ll segue to Jeffrey, then Carlo. I’ll pace it, frame it in psychic terms.
I climb the stairs, but before I ring, the door opens just wide enough, and Tania peers from the door frame. She’s watched me approach from a window. “Mrs. Arnot…Tania, good evening.”
She stands sideways, as though the door is her shield. I manage to step inside. No lamps glow, and the recessed system is not switched on. “I understand Mr. Arnot is out this evening.”
She doesn’t respond. The furniture casts dark shadows, and Tania herself is shadowy, all in black from the neck down, with little makeup and no jewelry. Her hair is piled up and pinned, but loose strands have fallen across her temples like cobwebs. Her cheeks look hollow, her eyes restless. Along the jawline—is that a bruise?
“Is there anything you’ll need for the psychic experience? My household staff have been sent out for the evening. It’s true, Jeffrey is away.” Minus the breathy Zsa Zsa glamour, Tania’s voice is as flat as her appearance. Her feet are bare. The house feels muggy, and Tania’s face glistens with a patina of sweat. The blades of the chandelier glimmer, the suspension wires like filaments of a spiderweb. “I could close all the shutters if you think there’s too much light. How about music? Do you need music?”
“Oh no. I mean, music isn’t necessary and the light will do.”
“Come this way. Follow me.” She gives the chandelier a wide berth. “Jeffrey says it’s cowardly if you don’t walk under this thing.”
“The chandelier?”
“I want to have it tested. I’m afraid it could fall and kill somebody. He just laughs it off. In here. The casket is in the reception room.”
My God, a casket, as if it’s a funeral. Tania’s black silk trousers hiss as I circle around the chandelier and follow her past a staircase with a newel-post carved into a dragon’s head. Avoiding the wall-mounted breastplate, I nearly trip on a jamb. It’s too much like that terrible night here with Meg, even the sandalwood vapors. Why isn’t the central air cranked to cool? The room needs oxygen. We enter a small side room with an ornate mantel and plaster rosettes. On a side table is a small carved box.
“Here it is, the casket. Why do you smile?”
“I’m sorry. I misunderstood casket.”
“It’s eighteenth-century French chestnut. The fabric is inside, Regina, for your clairvoyant touch.”
“First, would you tell me about this cloth?”
“Workmen found it. They brought it to me. I summoned an expert from the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum. It is vigogne, a neutral-colored wool in a twill weave and authentic to the period of our home. The textile expert thinks it most probably a remnant of a winter outergarment. Don’t expect a sumptuous fabric. It has succumbed to the ravages of time and, yes, insects. Whatever its secrets, you must unlock them. I’ve lost so much, my beautiful things, my peace of mind.” She puts a hand to her forehead and wipes the perspiration just as another strand of hair falls. She seems oblivious. That jawline darkness—definitely a bruise. Why no shoes? She asks, “Are you ready?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You will touch the fabric and… report to me.”
“I’ll describe whatever paranormal experience I might have, especially in connection with the origins of your home. Did you read my research report on the first owner, Edmund Wight? And the architect, Charles Dehmer?”
“I think I remember…so many names these days. There’s too much to think about. My mind gets crowded.” She stands close, and I see her dilated pupils. Is it the lack of light, or is Tania drugged?
“You’re ready?” I ask her. “I am.”
The little chestnut box hinges creak, and I reach in and pull out a piece of woven cloth. It’s dull, stiff, and filthy. I hold it away from my kelly-green light jacket and promise myself a bar of Dial when this is done. The cloth is about the size of a handkerchief and full of holes chewed by generations of ancestral moths.
It’s pitiful, worse than a rag. But yet here’s a button. Tania said nothing about the button, which looks like ivory. I want to ask what the textile expert said about it. Yet my script has no room for a button.
Tania stands with arms at her sides, waiting for the secrets. “Through time’s generations,” I say, “the cloth conveys to me a certain feeling of sadness, or in French, tristesse. Through spirit and matter—”
Listening, Tania is still as a post. I’m about to bring in Edmund Wight, but just as I say his name, a crystal shiver starts across my sight line, like breaking glass. No, ice. It’s frost on a windowpane. It’s a sky filled with ice crystals. The whole sky—
“Regina, are you all right?”
“Mr. Edmund Wight,” I begin. The air is turning cool, then cold. I grip the cloth with both hands as drafts chill my ankles, my neck.
“Regina, are you shivering?”
It’s not air-conditioning. This cold is different. It comes from the cloth; it’s blasting from it and swirling into something white.
“What is it, Regina?”
“White. It’s something white.”
She clutches her throat. “The limo. Jeffrey’s limousine.”
“Where? Coming back? Is he here?”
“He talks about you. Yesterday he said you’re too close. You’re on his mind. He made me promise.” Her voice comes from the bottom of a well.
“Promise what?”
“Not to do this.”
My heart thuds. The whiteout swirls—a cold premonition of Jeffrey Arnot? Is he ab
out to burst through the door? Yes or no, I can’t move. I’m surrounded by a thick whiteness that blows and blinds me.
“I promised Jeffrey. But the plates … and my Lalique mirror in pieces.”
It’s like a blizzard. I see no shape, no form. Every cell in my body is chilled. I’m cold to the very core. Tania raises her arm to wipe sweat from her face. She’s next to me but miles from me. She’s in summer heat, yet a foot from where she stands, I stand naked in a winter blast of arctic cold.
Chapter Twenty
So, Mom, you’re okay, right?”
I grip the phone and try to sound jaunty. “Molly, I assure you I am free of frostbite.” I know this tone. Upset as I am, I recognize my daughter’s genuine concern, which is undershot with angst about the possible chore of nursing an ailing mother. “Nothing bad happened, Mol. I left quickly. I didn’t see the husband. I came right back home here.”
“Maybe you have myxedema?”
“Never heard of it.”
“People who are perpetually cold. They wear coats all year round. It’s an endocrine disorder.”
“I am not perpetually cold. It was just this once.” Bringing up last evening’s episode with my daughter is a mistake, though Jo talked with her about so many things, and Molly has her own psychic side too. “Mol, I only wondered whether you’d ever had a similar kind of vision. Or maybe Jo reported something like it?”
“No, Aunt Jo never said anything about psychic cold spells. Maybe it was a summer virus you were fighting off.”
“Maybe so.” Let it go. Change the subject. Try not to blame yourself for mission failure, Reggie. Regain your balance and recoup. Maybe Meg could set up something with just Tania and me, a café or a walk in the Public Garden where we could talk and I could probe about Jeffrey. “How’s the exhibit coming? How’s Barbie?”
“Great. She’s talking dirty to G.I. Joe about anthrax spores.”
“Oh, Molly.” And to think of my mink, the sacrificial fur. “The opening will be totally fab, Mom. You’ll love it. We’ll serve pink champagne, twenty bucks a case, and it’s even drinkable. What’s on your agenda today? I think you should stay home and rest.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“Promise you’ll rest. I’ll e-mail Jack to tell him you’re taking it easy.” We say bye. My daughter thinks she’s tucked me in. Think again, dear.
Half an hour later, I’m Googling “psychic” and “ice” when Devaney calls. He sounds a bit sheepish. “How’s life, Reggie?”
“One of the best, Frank, one of the best.”
“I want to apologize for that courthouse business. I sprung it on you.”
“Let’s call it bygones. Tell me this: did Henry Faiser get back to Norfolk okay?” He says yes. “It was shocking to see him, wasn’t it, Frank? He looks terrible, so thin and sick, wasting away. And weakened, of course, by the hepatitis. He must weigh heavily on your conscience. Do you sleep at night?”
“Don’t bait me, Reggie.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“And don’t play dumb. I get the message. I’m doing what I can. Anyway, I got tied up right after you left.”
“With the Dempsey case? With round-the-clock Sylvia?”
“Okay, rub it in, Reggie. Bull’s-eye to the gut.” I remain silent. He clears his throat. “Actually, this is about the night you heard the scuffle in the fog. We’re questioning a guy that went to high school with the caterer, and that’s why I’m calling. It looks like Alan Tegier was nowhere near the Back Bay the night he died. He was seen at a pool hall in Southie around nine o’clock. If this checks out, you can set your mind at rest on that score. Whatever you heard on the street was probably just a scuffle. You take it easy now.”
Dismissed again and consigned to a rocking chair.
I’m due at StyleSmart because an expert is coming to consult about seasonal storage for the designer clothing, including Sylvia’s. Nicole is worried about theft, fading, and vermin. Next autumn’s auction is slated to be a major fund-raiser, and StyleSmart needs to protect its capital.
So I spend the morning with Nicole and a bleached-blond young man who represents a climate-controlled vault that will give StyleSmart a deep discount for summer storage. We survey the “boutique” inventory as he tsk-tsks about our hangers and cramped quarters. You might call this my second day of Operation Fabric, but wrenching because I find myself the docent for Sylvia Dempsey’s wardrobe.
“Here’s the authentic Jil Sander,” I manage to say evenly to the young man as we examine the designer racks.
“Before her hiatus with Prada. Excellent.”
“And here, of course, the classic.”
“Coco.” He fingers the sleeve of Sylvia’s deep pink Chanel jacket and says, “Priceless.”
“Not exactly.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She paid the ultimate price. I mean, the suit will do well at our auction.”
“But only with proper, professional preservation.”
“Indeed.”
He finally exits. We promise to call.
Nicole says, “ ‘Thou clothest thyself with crimson’ in vain.”
“What a snot, acting as though we’re Dumpster divers.”
“But it’s a good price for storage, Reggie. This is business. We better sign up.” I agree. I gather my purse and keys. Nicole walks me to the door. “Reggie, it’s none of my business, but is something going on?”
“Why?” I face her furrowing brows, the expression of concern in her eyes. “Nicole, you look as though a test came back positive.”
“Reggie, I spent years in social work. You know my heart was with the folks in the neighborhoods. I have contacts. I hear stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Your name came up. Somebody says you’re asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Around town, in different places. Some feel like you need to mind your own business. Some feel you’re out of your zone. There’s folks that play real rough. Watch yourself, Reggie. You hear me? Watch yourself.”
Of course, I’m watching myself. I’m also watching the calendar. June is ticking away, and Meg has not yet scored a private meeting with Tania for me. But I have another idea. The Arnots host numerous events, and caterers start work in the Marlborough house hours before a scheduled event begins. Caterers have ears. They have memories. Maybe Carlo has been inside the house, or a conversation about him has been overheard.
Can I open a memory bank? For Henry Faiser, I’ve got to try. Devaney dismissed the Faiser-Carlo link, but I want to know more. That catering company at the Wald-Carney fund-raiser… the servers’ pocket stitching said “Ambrosia.” The nameplate of the woman who offered me an aspirin and swept up the shattered Limoges—was it Linda? No, it was Brenda.
Ambrosia’s company policy, as it turns out, prohibits the disclosure of employee names. “Oh, of course, how silly of me.” Breathless and effusive, I make my pitch to the stonewalling receptionist. “You see, I’m calling on behalf of my aunt, a dear soul up in years. She’s convinced that your employee Brenda is the granddaughter of a close but deceased friend. My aunt, you see, attended a political fund-raiser at the Arnot home on Marlborough Street on the twenty-seventh of last month. Ambrosia catered it, and Aunt Jo has become, well, almost obsessed. She’s in frail health. Could you give it a try?”
The moment teeters, but the woman finally reports three Brendas. “I’m not positive, and I’m not supposed to do this. We use contract workers. No one is full-time.” She then gives me phone numbers. “These aren’t necessarily current. Good luck with your aunt.”
The first Brenda hasn’t worked for Ambrosia since last fall. Number two runs a movie concession stand and is surprised to hear her name’s still on the company roster. Brenda number three, Brenda Holstetter, isn’t home. A thin male voice thinks she may have today’s lunch shift.
“At an Ambrosia event?”
“At the Renaissance. Downt
own.”
The Renaissance restaurant is off Stuart Street in the theater district, its interior dark with yellowish sconces, possibly cozy in winter but drab in June. I request a lunch table at Brenda’s station, hoping this hairsbreadth connection isn’t a dead end.
At Brenda’s name, thank heaven, the hostess leads me to a table against a side wall.
“Good afternoon.” In knee breeches, a brocade vest, and velvet tam stands the woman who offered me an aspirin at the Marlborough house fund-raiser. She recites the specials, and I order the Elizabethan salad, a mix of greens and “hand-carved” croutons, then force myself to eat slowly, shoving aside the jaw-breaker croutons. I sip a cup of coffee until the 2:00 p.m. lunch closing, then leave a hefty tip.
“Thank you so much.”
“Brenda, you don’t remember me, but we met briefly last month. I’m Reggie Cutter. Could we talk for a few minutes when your shift ends? I’d like to ask a couple of questions about someone you might know.”
“Who is it?”
“Let’s wait till you’re off, okay?” With a shrug, she agrees, and at 2:15 we slip across the street to a deli, which smells of pickles. “At least it’s not meat. I’m a vegetarian. The meat smell gets in my hair, as bad as cigarettes.” She orders herbal tea. I have coffee. She’s in jeans and a T-shirt and sets down a tote bag.“Your uniform?”
“We have to buy them. Management thinks they’re good for business.”
“And are they?”
She brushes back her auburn hair. “Theme park costumes are a sure sign a restaurant is going downhill. I give the Renaissance another eight months. I’m looking, but jobs are tight. They could replace me in five minutes. I have to hang on for now.” Brenda, I see, is not so young. Lines etch her mouth and eyes. “A job’s a job,” she says. “So what’s going on?”
“Brenda, you and I met at a Back Bay political fund-raiser last month. It was on Marlborough Street. Ambrosia catered it.”
Now You See Her Page 19