The Perfect Ghost

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by Linda Barnes

I inhaled courage and abandoned the car. While you may have been husband to Caroline, you were not the father of her children, not the father of any children. The house was a lie, the same way the marriage was a lie. Halfway up the walk, I found myself wondering which you had envied more: Garrett Malcolm’s splendid, rambling house or his beautiful and talented daughter.

  I rang the bell twice in quick succession. I wanted to get this over with quickly, return to the driver’s seat, speed back to the Cape, return to Malcolm and my chance at life. I thought I’d catch Caroline with her guard down, in jeans or sweats or gardening clothes. I thought I’d catch her unaware. There was a moment as she opened the door during which her features readjusted, like a Polaroid snapshot coming into focus, but she was blurred only for an instant. Then she was cool and organized again, in total command. Does she sleep in makeup, Teddy? Is she always perfectly dressed and groomed?

  She wore a chocolate brown slim skirt, with sweater to match. The scarf at her neck had a touch of crimson. Her face was pale and perfect, a cool mask I couldn’t help but envy. What a strength it must be to never show what you feel. I wondered whether she experienced it as strength or burden, whether she seethed under her perfectly arched eyebrows.

  She nodded curtly and stepped aside, taking my wish to enter for granted. It didn’t occur to me until later that she might not want the neighbors to witness a confrontation. It didn’t occur to me until later that she might have been waiting for someone else. Indoors, the high-ceilinged foyer was pure Caroline, cool white walls, veined marble tile, harsh abstract art.

  “I came for the other tape.”

  “And you never travel. Why Teddy believed your bullshit, I’ll never know. You’ve got a nerve, throwing me out of his place, then demanding anything.”

  I tried to smile. “It’s important that I have all Teddy’s notes, all his tapes, so I can finish on time. You don’t want to repay the advance. Really, you don’t need that on top of everything else.”

  “How thoughtful of you.” Her voice was mocking. “I gave you what I found at the Cape house.”

  That wasn’t quite true; I’d grabbed it and run. Instead of pointing out the lie, I said, “There’s another tape. Number 128.”

  Her lips stretched into a no-warmth smile. “Isn’t it possible that my precious husband didn’t do as much work as you thought he did? Ever think of that?

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should engage your brain. As you leave.”

  “Once I have the tape I’ll be happy to leave.” I wanted to rip her eyes out, but I managed to stay calm. “Do you know a friend of Teddy’s named McKay? A colleague? A former colleague?”

  “I don’t know Teddy’s friends. That should be obvious, even to you.”

  “Do you have his laptop, his iPod, his—”

  “Is this an endless list?”

  “No.”

  “The police returned his phone.”

  “Can you check to see if someone named McKay called him?”

  She ignored the question. “I imagine they’ll give everything back eventually. There are”—she hesitated, searching for a word—“formalities.”

  “Who told you that? Detective Snow?” My stomach lurched. It occurred to me that I might have made the trip for nothing. Tape 128 could have been in your car when it happened. The police could be holding on to it. They might have listened to it.

  “Yes, that’s the name. He wanted to talk to you.” She turned and her heels clacked up the stairs, four-inch heels in the morning, in the privacy of her own home. I considered following, but the house seemed forbidding and my knees felt weak and unequal to the task. I thought she might have simply deserted me in the foyer, hoping I’d show myself out, but then I heard drawers open and bang shut.

  I tried to rub heat into my hands. The bench poised near the foot of the stairs was constructed of metal and glass, and topped with a pristine white cushion. I couldn’t imagine having the nerve to dent that icy whiteness, couldn’t imagine anyone slumping there to remove dirty boots.

  In time the goddess descended, both hands clenched as though she were playing a game, preparing to ask which hand held the treasure. My heart started racing, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Two things,” she said. “Then I want you out of here.”

  “Fine.”

  She pursed her lips, as though coming to a decision. “First, what do you think about this?” Her left hand opened to reveal a slip of paper, small and folded. She watched as I unfolded it.

  “It’s a check.” I felt stupid even as I said it.

  “Of course it’s a check. I found it on Teddy’s desk, tucked under the printer.”

  “Unsigned.” It wasn’t dated, either, but it was your personal check in the amount of one hundred eighty thousand dollars, a washed-out blue rectangle drawn on Bank of America, the address of the Lexington house printed clearly at the upper left. The “Pay to the Order of” line was completely blacked out with heavy lines from a felt-tip pen.

  “Did he have that much in his account?” I asked.

  “I’ll have to see, won’t I? Who do you think he was paying?”

  I shrugged. “You said two things.”

  The black microcassette had made a deep mark in her palm. I took air in through my nose and reached for it gratefully.

  “Don’t get all excited,” she said. “It wasn’t at the Cape house, so it’s probably an old one.”

  I glanced at the label: 048. Not 128. 048 would be a tape made closer to the beginning of the project. A tape I’d thought safely in the office, like the Sylvie Duchaine tape. “Where did you find it?”

  “In a kitchen drawer.”

  If I hadn’t heard you descant on the endless variety of Caroline’s lies, I might have believed her. My hand closed over it. “Are you sure there weren’t any others? It’s important that I have all of them, every one.”

  “You have no idea what he was like, do you?”

  “I knew him better than you did.”

  That unamused smile again. “You’re such a child.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Did you think you were the first, the last, the true love of his life? Believe me, he specialized in little mice like you. Or did you think you were the only one he was banging?” She hurled the spiteful words like knives at a target, checking to see which would stick.

  I clamped my lips shut and wished I could stop my ears as well. I tried to feel sorry for her, the aging ice queen locked in the ice palace.

  “I wasn’t really going to divorce him. Did he tell you I was?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Don’t you miss him?” I said.

  “I used to. But that was a long time ago.”

  CHAPTER

  twenty

  Tape 048

  Mark Barrington

  Mark Barrington: If you’ve read the trial transcripts, you know it all. No reason to look me up.

  Teddy Blake: Just a couple of questions.

  MB: Sure, sure, everybody’s got questions.

  TB: You have trouble with that?

  MB: Let’s just say I’m uncomfortable speaking on the record.

  TB: Then off the record.

  MB: Off the tape?

  TB: I don’t have a problem with that. [Click.]

  MB: Okay, I guess. You know, divorce work, I do so much of it, you asked me about anybody else, I’d have to send my girl for the records, look it up. After a while they’re all the same. People lose interest, the guy strays, the woman doesn’t want to screw him anymore, the kids are grown. They can’t even remember why they wanted to get hitched in the first place. You know the deal.

  TB: But you remember the Gregory-Malcolm split.

  MB: Sure I do. I don’t have to look that one up. That’s the one that got away. Shoulda put my name out there in lights, that case. I mean, I thought I was the cat’s meow, the big-time go-to guy, figured I’d move to L.A., make millions with celebrities for clients, and
here I sit on my duff a couple hundred years later. You probably had trouble finding me.

  TB: You wound up settling.

  MB: You do what your client tells you. You can counsel him about what’s in his best interest, but in the end you do what he wants.

  TB: The preliminary hearings, the depositions, they seem to go in a very different direction than the final disposition.

  MB: Yeah, you might say so.

  TB: Garrett Malcolm called the shots?

  MB: I was ready, more than ready, I was amped, gonna fight tooth and nail, hungry and mean as a cougar. Garrett wanted the girl with him, he wanted her with her grandparents, he wanted her with that theater group so she could grow up the same way he did, and I thought we had a damn good chance for full custody, given always the hazards of a trial, the decision of the judge. It’s always a crapshoot, but things had gotten better for fathers in Massachusetts, and the two of them, their lifestyles would be a giant factor. He, for all the craziness, had a solid home base. Claire Gregory was all over the damn map. Her house was a hotel room in Rome one day, a friend’s mansion in Brentwood the next. She might be on location for this film or that film. Malcolm offered comparative stability.

  TB: Sounds promising.

  MB: It was. I coulda won that baby.

  TB: And?

  MB: You’re not taping this, right? And then one day he walks in and says it’s all off, give Claire whatever the hell she wants.

  TB: And what did you think?

  MB: Strictly off the record? I thought she got the goods on him.

  TB: The goods?

  MB: You know. I figure she’s got photos of him screwing other women or men or monkeys, whatever. Shooting dope, doing drugs, doing something that would not only ruin his career but land him in the clink.

  TB: You don’t think he just changed his mind, decided a girl’s place was with her mother?

  MB: He swung a hundred and eighty degrees overnight, like somebody was holding a gun to his head. I’ve seen that kinda thing before, and I waited for the explosion. I even started reading the Hollywood gossip rags because that kinda stuff always leaks.

  TB: But in this case, it didn’t?

  MB: Look, that’s enough. I’m an old fart who talks too much. I see any of this in print, I’ll deny you were here. My wife’ll back me up, too. Believe me, she will, ’cause she’s my fourth wife and she really wants to be the last one.

  CHAPTER

  twenty-one

  What the hell, Teddy?

  None of my hopes for this nerve-wrenching journey were bearing fruit. I’d anticipated Brooklyn Pierce’s tenor, trained and supple, as the triumphant sound track for my return to the Cape, but this taped growl was slurred and halting. It wasn’t Pierce, and worse, it was unfamiliar. I vaguely recollected the name Barrington; no doubt I’d noted at some moment in time that a Mark Barrington had served as Malcolm’s divorce attorney, but I’d never scheduled an interview with the man.

  Maybe you’d approached him on other business—say, to instigate divorce proceedings against Caroline—and taped him on impulse, the way you must have taped Pierce. But you’d always claimed divorce was out of the question: Caroline would never divorce you. I listened long after the canned voices died, then punched rewind and listened again. Every one of our tapes was numbered. Each tape started with the same identifying information. I already had a tape marked 048 in my registry, and this wasn’t it. My 048 was dated like all the other tapes. This one wasn’t. And that early clicking noise, that sharp snap where you evidently shut off the machine and descended to the briefcase trick, the one where the interviewer hides a second recorder, a gambit you railed against in class? What in hell were you thinking, Teddy? What were you planning?

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of another new tape any more than I couldn’t fathom the figure on that unsigned check: one hundred eighty thousand dollars. Given, it wasn’t the millions scribbled on that notepad, but it wasn’t lira, either. A hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

  Route 2 to Storrow Drive on autopilot. I zipped past the BU exit with a brief and yearning glance in the direction of Bay State Road, kept my foot pressed hard on the accelerator. Approaching Leverett Circle, traffic slowed as red cones blocked access to two lanes. I inched toward the rotary and stopped at the yellow light, provoking the enraged driver behind me to issue three long blasts on his horn.

  An unauthorized biographer might have pursued Malcolm’s divorce attorney, might even have paid him for his tittle-tattle. But there was no chance anything like that would end up in our book. In my book.

  The old Southeast Expressway used to be a dreaded stretch of elevated road that divided downtown Boston from the North End, depriving both neighborhoods of sunlight and asphyxiating them with exhaust. Now sunken underground, cemented beneath the Rose Kennedy Greenway, it’s even worse, a tomblike marble-run where frantic drivers cope with inadequate signage, desperate to merge or exit before getting shunted to the wrong destination. Staying tucked in the right-hand lane was not an option unless I craved a forced detour into East Boston.

  I knew how you worked, Teddy. You were methodical, not impulsive. Orderly. Focused.

  By the time I got as far as Braintree I was sweating and wishing I’d stuck to Route 128, the long way around. The shorter option should have taken less time, but traffic was stop and go, one lane knocked out by construction, another jammed with trucks. I consulted my watch and edged into the fast lane. Traffic loosened and I drove like a woman pursued by banshees, shoulder muscles tightening by the quarter mile.

  So much could go wrong at high speed, so quickly and irrevocably. The rental had no dashboard gauges, just a single light marked “engine,” an idiot light that might or might not flash prior to disaster. Oil could leak, steering belts fray. Each engine part was vulnerable. Moving parts wear on each other, abrade each other. You have to oil them, coddle them, watch over them. And even if you trusted the engine, there were errant drivers, brake-riders who veered from lane to lane, seeking a momentary rush, a brief advantage, and always, always, humans too stupid and selfish to control their alcohol intake before venturing onto the highways.

  A cloud of birds launched itself from an overpass and swooped into vee formation, heading north. Sparrows, perhaps, common grayish-brown birds, but they, too, filled me with dread. Weeks ago, thousands of red-winged blackbirds had fallen from the skies over Arkansas, plummeting onto houses and roadways. Grackles and starlings, struck by lightning in Louisiana, rained down on a small bayou town. Even if the mechanical parts of the engine kept turning, even if no driver intent on mayhem strayed into my lane, falling birds could crack my windshield like an eggshell. I glanced nervously at the clock, flicked the turn signal, and evacuated the high-speed lane.

  The Sagamore Bridge was visible in the rearview mirror when my cell rang the first time. It’s not yet illegal to answer a cell phone while driving in Massachusetts, but I wasn’t tempted because steering took all my effort and concentration. The third time the phone rang I exited Route 6 and made three aimless right turns onto progressively less crowded roads till I was able to pull over on a residential lane.

  You have three missed phone calls. You have one voice mail.

  The three numbers were identical. I felt a twist in my gut as I pressed keys and entered my password. When Darren Kalver informed me that my three o’clock meeting with Garrett Malcolm would need to be rescheduled, I gulped a deep shuddering breath and thought, I could have spent another night at the apartment; I could have slept in my own bed.

  Anger, at Caroline, construction delays, carelessly weaving drivers, and now Kalver swelled like a cancerous growth in my throat. I plunged my hand into my purse, seeking Xanax, then withdrew it as though I’d been stung by a scorpion. I couldn’t drive drugged. Did Malcolm know Kalver had canceled? Of course he knew; Malcolm would have ordered Kalver’s action. Postponed, not canceled. Postponed. I grabbed at that straw. Rescheduled, not canceled.

 
I blamed Kalver. You don’t have time for her. She’s unimportant. She’s nobody. Let’s put her off. Let’s cancel her. I crossed my arms over the steering wheel, lowered my head till it rested in their cradle, and closed my eyes. All the rush and fury, all the miles yet to drive before I got to Eastham, all the useless miles to Boston and back again.

  The tap, tap, tap on the window made me start. Tap, tap, tap, like Melody’s broom hitting the ceiling, smacking the floor. Disoriented, I checked my surroundings as I lowered the window. Was I in Lexington? The houses were too small. Had I slept?

  “You all right?” The khaki-clad policeman stood between sun and shadow, so I had to squint to make out the features beneath the bill of his cap. I peeked at the rearview mirror. His pale gray cruiser, blue lights flashing, crowded my rear fender.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you might be lost or—”

  “Yes.” I leaped at his suggestion.

  “Are you looking for someplace? Someone?”

  The name flashed into my mind as though it were written in flaring neon across the windshield. At first I wasn’t sure I’d spoken it out loud.

  “Detective Snow?” the policeman said. “Russell Snow, up in Dennis?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m supposed to go see him.”

  “You still got maybe twenty minutes’ drive,” he said. “Take Exit Nine off of Route Six. You know how to find Carrier Street?”

  “No.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  The chill from the open window made me shudder, or maybe it was the release of tension when he no longer blocked the window. I was certain he was typing my license plate number into a laptop, making sure I wasn’t piloting a stolen vehicle or fleeing a liquor store stickup. I felt the wild desire to escape, race off, even though I’d rented the car legally. I sat statue-like till he returned and unfolded a large-scale map. He was patience itself explaining the route, asking if I wanted him to write down the details.

  “It’s okay. I’ll find it.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing else I can do? You want me to call Detective Snow, let him know you’re on the way?”

 

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