“Oh yeah, that big dark stone house, right? With the chandelier made out of swords?”
“That’s it.”
She laughs. “We dare each other to walk under it. Nobody will. It sort of clicks sometimes, like it’s going to fall. Those wires are so thin. And the drafts too… those cold-air blasts. There must be some problem with their heat or AC. I always wear extra layers.”
“How about the noises?”
“What noises?”
“Slamming? Banging? No? Never mind. I understand the owners host many parties.”
“Campaign years are great. I’ve worked five or six receptions in that one house. No offense, but I don’t remember you in particular.”
“You offered me an aspirin. And you swept up some broken china.”
“Those plates that fell off the mantel, the rare plates? Talk about Humpty-Dumpty. And the house got freezing cold that night.” She sips her tea. “Good thing none of our crew crashed the plates. Look, I’ve got about fifteen minutes. I got another job to get to. What’s on your mind?”
“Someone you might have seen or known about while working in the house. It’s about an insurance claim.”
“I hate insurance companies. They screw you right and left.”
“It’s for an individual I’m trying to help. I can pay you for your time.”
She pokes at the teabag. “We sign a client confidentiality sheet. Ambrosia bonds us.”
I slip a ten from my purse and lay it on the table. Talk may be cheap, but Henry Faiser is costing me. “I’ll say a name, and you could nod if it rings a bell. The name is Carlo. Carlo Feggiotti.” She shakes her head. “He has a flattop, dark-complexioned.”
“Nobody I can think of.”
“He quotes poetry and chews bubble gum. The poet is Dante. No? You’re sure? Then how about this name—Perk?”
“Perk’s a man? What’s he look like?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only heard the name.”
“Nope. Sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Take the ten dollars anyhow. Maybe if you could give me a name or two of coworkers who’ve worked at the Marlborough house, and phone numbers?”
“Can’t do it.”
“Just one?”
“I don’t even know last names. The crews are always different, and there’s a lot of turnover. The pocket name tags, we need them for each other.” She blows to cool the hot tea. “I’ve worked Ambrosia events for four years, and I can count on one hand the crew I know. Some of us saw each other a couple weeks ago at a memorial service. It was like a reunion for a few of us.” She pauses. “Poor Al…”
“Al? Al who?”
“He always worked the bar.”
“At Marlborough?”
“Beacon Hill and Back Bay events. Wherever. Sure, Marlborough too.”
“His last name… what’s the last name?”
“He had one crazy fifties haircut, but he was a pro.”
“Al? With a pompadour?”
“Yeah.”
Could it be Alan Tegier? “You say he worked with you at the Marlborough house?”
“Sometimes.” She looks past my shoulder. “His family had his photograph at the service. They played doo-wop records. He loved that.” She looks back at me. “How’d you know about his hair? Just a good guess?”
“Maybe I’m psychic. Al’s last name… what is it?”
“No last names. Why do you want to know all this?”
“Did everyone call him Al?”
“Al or Alan. Why?” Her sideways glance is pure suspicion. She swirls her tea and drinks. “He worked different jobs, like most of us. Knock yourself out, you still don’t get ahead. He was saving for a car. He had his eye on a red Mustang.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Late April, early May. What’s this about?”
“His last name, won’t you tell me?”
“What do you want to know for?”
“How did he die?”
She reaches for the tote. “I gotta go.”
“Is it Tegier? Is it Alan Tegier?”
But Brenda Holstetter grabs the tote and dashes for the door. I try to follow, but she’s too fast. Outside, she disappears. I look up and down the block, but she’s gone. Back inside the deli, my ten-dollar bill lies in a pool of spilled tea.
Chapter Twenty-one
Woburn, pronounced woo-burn, is best known for the John Travolta movie Civil Action. He played a lawyer who sues a chemical company that has polluted Woburn’s drinking water and has given its children cancer. It’s Erin Brockovich without Erin.
Woburn is also the hometown of the late Alan Tegier, and thus my immediate destination. It’s a long shot, but if Pompadour Al is Alan Tegier, he might have told his family something about Marlborough and Carlo. Something I can use with Devaney to steer him to Henry Faiser.
Stark insists that we take the Harley. “We’ll take Biscuit. I’ve improved the harness. We’ll stop at Fresh Pond on the way back so you can see her new flying-leap dive.”
“Stark, don’t tease me. I have things on my mind.”
“So do I, Cutter. What time do you want to go?”
“Immediately.”
“We’re gonna hit rush hour.”
“So be it.”
“Get out your brain bucket.”
This is bikerese for helmet. I have not told him that my purpose is a drop-in visit to the Tegier family, whose address I got off the Net.
The Fat Boy roars to my curb at 4:11 p.m., and the harnessed Biscuit warms my heart with her furry full-body ecstasy of wiggles and yelps, clearly happiest with both of her custodial “parents.” On the touchy subject of the motorcycle harness, I cave in like a reluctant mother—“just this once.” Stark wears jeans and lightweight leather. I am in a linen-silk-blend pantsuit, which Stark warns isn’t warm enough.
He’s right. I’m shivering as we pull onto Fordyce Street, a block of modest brick bungalows in Woburn. I have gambled that showing up unannounced is my best bet. Stark says he’ll exercise Biscuit and pick me up in an hour. He lingers at the end of the block, watching as I knock at 653 Fordyce. A woman opens the door with the chain lock on, and one blue eye surveys me from a lined face framed by strawberry-blond hair held in a banana clip.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Tegier? I’m Regina Cutter. I’m helping the Boston police. If you’re Alan’s mother, I’d like to talk with you.” The eye blinks and squints. “I’m not selling anything,” I say. “I’m helping a Boston police detective trace your son’s whereabouts the night he died.” It’s cheap of me to add this, but “I have a son in his twenties. Believe me, I wouldn’t come to your door otherwise.”
The chain bolt slides. I’m in. The room smells of pine cleaner. I stifle a sneeze. “Sit anywhere. I’m Alma.” It’s a small living room dwarfed by the overstuffed blue sofa and matching chairs. I sit across from a sofa wall covered with decorative crosses, Maltese, Latin, Celtic. Somewhere a sound system plays marching band music. “I was just mopping the kitchen.” Alma Tegier gestures toward her rolled jeans and shirt knotted at the navel, then turns on a lamp and calls out, “It’s okay, Franzie. I’ll deal with this.”
Franzie, a slim-hipped twenty-something with brunet ponytail, nods from the dining room, her bare arms reaching and grabbing to box up items on the dining table, which is set up like a home factory. She moves in rhythm to John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
“We buried Alan. He’s at rest. I’m his stepmother, but I raised him and Franzie like my own. Their mother passed away when they were babies. My husband was a widower.” I force myself to meet the gaze of this woman whose eyes are like stones, her voice metallic. “The police were here three—no, four times. If they’d paid attention when first he went missing…”
“On May third.”
“They brush you off. They don’t take you serious until it’s too late.” She meets my gaze. “You got the date right, the third of May
. He did not have one enemy in the world, our Alan. He was a hardworking, good boy. Maybe if he went in the navy like his dad. It’s all hindsight.”
“I understand he worked for a caterer.”
“And cleaned carpets. He had two, three jobs the way people do nowadays. I begged him to take a vacation. He worked with Franzie assembling the kits too.”
“Sewing kits?”
“First aid, needlework, headphones, whatever they bring her. She makes a dime a kit. On a good day, she boxes six hundred. The march music keeps her speed up. They come pick up the kits twice a week. It’s a job, if they don’t move it to China.”
The piccolo trills, the cornets speak. “Mrs. Tegier, I know you’ve answered many questions about Alan. I’m hoping to learn something the police might have missed so far.”
“I told them over and over, he got a ride to the Arlington T stop and went from there to his five o’clock job, a cocktail party somewhere in the Back Bay. He wore his bartender outfit, the white shirt, black pants, and cummerbund. He said he’d get a ride back or else take the T to Arlington and call for a ride. He never called, and he never made it back.”
“What time did you expect him?”
“We never knew for sure. Sometimes he worked a night shift cleaning carpets. Or he’d go on to another caterer job if they were shorthanded.”
“At Ambrosia?”
“Or Fife’s or Holiday’s. But Ambrosia, they’re big. Alan liked the work. He called his corkscrew his six-shooter. ‘Got my trusty six-shooter,’ he’d say.”
With eyes filming, she reclips her hair. “When he started out, I knew every address where he worked, State Street, Washington Street, Alewife Brook Parkway…I got out the atlas. I always knew.”
“Mrs. Tegier, did Alan ever work at a house on Marlborough Street?”
“Like the cigarettes?”
“Same name. Did he ever mention working there?”
She lowers her head, shakes it, and mumbles. “I always knew at first. But he was a man, he wanted to come and go on his own. So he did.” I wait while she dabs her eyes.
“Did he ever talk about a Back Bay house with a custom chandelier made of old swords?”
“No.”
“The owners, he’s black and she’s white. Maybe you remember anything he said about their house? Any conversations?” She pauses, shakes her head again. “Did he ever mention a Carlo or Perk? No? When a job was done, did he usually leave alone? Did he walk by himself?” She says she doesn’t know. “Did he have a friend or acquaintance in the Back Bay, anyone he might visit after work near Dartmouth Street?”
“Nobody we know. The police asked us all that.”
“Did he ever mention working in a house that got cold or drafty? Sudden drafts?” Once again she shakes her head no. “I understand a high school friend has come forward to tell the police that he saw Alan at a pool hall in South Boston on the night he disappeared.”
She scoffs. “That’s Rudy Cavitch. What’s the word when they show off to get attention?”
“An exhibitionist?”
“That’s it. Rudy’s a sweet kid but completely nuts. He tells whoppers. He’ll say anything to get attention. In high school, nobody believed a word he said. The Woburn police know all about him. The Bostons, they’ll learn.” The sofa wall of crosses catches my eye. “That’s my collection,” she says. “Only crosses, no crucifixes. I like how they look. They’re from all over the world, Malaysia, Korea, Ireland. It wasn’t for religion. I mean, at first it was just a hobby, until Alan—”
I nod. “So you have no reason to think anyone would want to harm your son?”
“No, nothing. You raise them. You do what you can. My husband served on navy frigates, and I had the kids and their problems, Franzie’s boyfriends, Alan with his skin when it was so bad. I can show you ‘before’ and ‘after.’ ”
At least I owe Alma Tegier this moment of reverie. She goes to the far side of the room and pulls down framed photos. “Here’s Alan at high school graduation.” I look at a sharp-faced boy, eyes lowered, his chest in the commencement robe and his mortarboard at a rakish angle to show his pompadour. His face is covered with blemishes.
“It was deep acne. It was on his neck and chest. They had him on tetracycline, but it didn’t really help. They tried to cover it with makeup. He was shy, it made him miserable. Now look.”
She swaps picture frames to show the new Alan, flirting with the camera lens and sporting a thin mustache. In the background, a Christmas tree twinkles. His complexion is entirely clear. “My husband took this last December. It was a good Christmas. That’s what I tell myself, we had good times, and Alan had a good, worthwhile life. He had friends, a loving family. He was saving for a car. He had a thing for Mustangs. Mustangs and doo-wop music. We put a model Mustang in his Christmas stocking. This last year he found a doctor to help him. I mean, if it wasn’t for Dr. Dempsey—”
“Dempsey? Bernard Dempsey?”
“You know him? Of course you do, he’s famous. Oh, the tragedy that’s happened to him with his wife…we sent a card.”
With both hands planted in my lap, I force my voice low and steady. “Dr. Dempsey treated Alan?”
She nods. “Alan wasn’t an ordinary patient. Dr. Dempsey accepted him in an experimental plan. It was very select.”
“Really?”
“And very secret. It involved injections, but that’s all we knew about it. Alan got the shots at his skin laboratory near Kendall Square.”
“Advent Tissue Science.”
She nods. “Alan signed a consent form and a secrecy agreement too. He wouldn’t tell me or Franzie anything about it. He wouldn’t tell his dad either. If anything got out about it, he’d be expelled from the program. That was Dr. Dempsey’s rule.” She fingers the knot of her blouse. “I mean, his skin cleared right up. We couldn’t complain.”
“About the secrecy?”
“About his moods. He got down in the dumps, he couldn’t sleep. We wondered if maybe the shots… then again, it was like a miracle, and Alan followed the rules. He said that if he told, he wouldn’t get a second chance. He said if he told, he’d be finished.”
“For acne, Reggie, there’s topical ointments. For deep acne, antibiotics.”
“What else?” Impatient, just back home from Woburn, I’ve called Trudy Pfaeltz, who’s about to leave for the hospital. Biscuit is at my ankles, Stark gone. I’m fighting a cold. “What about shots?”
“If antibiotics don’t work, the last-resort treatment is isotretinoin. Jeez, it’s almost six—”
“Iso… spell it.” Parakeets chirp in the background. Trudy spells. “That drug, is it experimental?”
“No, but the side effects are serious. The trade name is Accutane. It’s been in the news. Can we talk about this tomorrow morning?”
“What side effects?”
“Dry eyes and chapping are common. Blood and liver disorders too. Cholesterol levels get screwed up, and triglycerides too. It causes serious fetal damage and psychiatric problems. A few people have died. Patients sign consent forms and get regular blood tests. Hell, where’s my keys?”
“And this iso… isotretinoin, it’s injected?”
“Oh no, the dosage is oral. Capsules. Damn keys.”
“The particular treatment that I heard about was definitely injected.”
“I don’t know what it could be. Ye gods, this purse is hopeless. You sure the doc’s a dermatologist?”
“That’s what I was told.” I do not reveal the name, sparing Trudy and myself a scorching rerun on Dempsey.
“Great, they’re right here in my pocket. Listen, I have no idea what’s in the syringe, Reggie. Probably it’s a clinical trial. Trade secrets and all that. I’m out the door. Tell me, do you like the scissors? Then how about the summer barbecue set with extra-long Wedge-Lock handles, the fork, turner, and tongs. I can show you over this weekend.”
“Maybe next season, Trudy. Bye.”
I feed Biscuit, th
en phone the Renaissance restaurant to learn that Brenda Holstetter is not working tonight’s dinner shift and is off tomorrow. “I have something of hers,” I say, “something I want to return personally.”
The good news: Brenda will most probably stop by the Renaissance tomorrow afternoon for her weekly paycheck. I’ll be there too. Strategy is crucial. Do I confront her at the restaurant door? Or follow her down the street when she departs with her check? No, she’ll outrun me again, bolt and disappear. Call Stark? Again, no. I need to come up with a way to get to Brenda. Because one good lead for Frank Devaney can feed the fires of the Dempsey case and lure Frank back to Henry Faiser.
At noon the next day, I’m standing in front of a novelty shop across from the Renaissance, wearing slacks and my spongiest Nikes because this could be a very long afternoon. It’s overcast and in the low eighties, and my knit top is hot. The novelty shop window features itching powder, rubber fried eggs, and varieties of plastic animal droppings. I’m on edge, eyeing the restaurant traffic, which looks steady if not bustling. The minutes drag, each quarter hour a week long. Twice I dash into the street, mistaking a restaurant patron for Brenda. If she uses a back entrance through an alley, I’d miss her entirely.
Finally, I see her. It’s after 2:30 when she comes down the block in black pants and a white shirt. She goes inside. I quickly follow, which is my plan. Brenda stands at the hostess desk talking to a sandy-haired manager who shuffles pay envelopes. Her back is turned, but the manager sees me. “I’m sorry, we’re closed until dinner.”
“I understand, but here’s my favorite server—Brenda. How are you, hon?”
She turns, recognition souring to hostility. “Mitch, this woman came in yesterday—”
“Indeed I did. For my money, Brenda is Ms. Renaissance. That darling tam and breeches, the sweet brocade vest—why, I’d come for the decor and the authentic toggery. I tell all my friends to ask for Brenda’s table.” I step toward the manager. “So I was surprised to hear Brenda tell me she’s not so crazy about the Shakespearean costumes.”
He frowns. “Our servers all work in the spirit of the restaurant.” Brenda protests. “I didn’t say…I never—”
Now You See Her Page 20