“Above these things so that no one can tell from our public face that they matter to us,” Catherine finished in chorus with her.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I admired your husband’s work so much that after he spoke to my Constitutional Law class, I got a job as an intern at the Bayard Foundation.”
Renee ignored me, telling her granddaughter that she was going over to
Channel 13 to do a segment for their post-news discussion show, Chicago Talks. “You can sit in, but you cannot butt in. Do you understand, Trina? It’s very important.”
“Don’t worry, Gran. Even if you start saying that Olin Taverner was a well-respected member of the bar, I won’t barf or anything on camera.,, “You need to show your guest out: I have to leave for the studio in ten minutes. I told them it was now or never, because I’m determined to get to the parents’ meeting at Vina Fields.”
“We were done anyway, Grant” Catherine hopped up from her ottoman.
“That’s right,” I smiled again, holding out my card. “You need my address, though, as well as my name and phone number, so that you can follow up on your interview. And send me a copy of the finished piece.”
“Yeah, sure,” Catherine mumbled, shooing me down the hall before I could say anything else in front of her grandmother.
CHAPTER 13
Quicksand?
I left the Bayard apartment feeling confused and annoyed. My mood wasn’t improved by the bright orange envelope on my car-another fifty dollars, this time for leaving the front end across a yellow line. A hundred and one dollars so far today in parking fees. I could have screamed in frustration. My eyes and joints ached from my cold, which made it hard for me to think clearly. I pulled the lever to recline the driver’s seat as far as it would go and leaned back with my eyes shut.
Strictly speaking, whether Catherine was lying or not about her grandfather was none of my business. The only thing about her that could remotely justify my scrutiny was whether she had known Marcus Whitby. And I thought she hadn’t. She wasn’t yet a sophisticated liar-her breathless manner when she was twirling away from the truth would disappear with practice.
That farrago she’d spun about her grandfather and Larchmont was truly infuriating, but I thought she was merely oblivious to Marcus Whitby. Hers was an adolescent absorption in her own affairs; it was so intense that she brushed off the dreadful notion of Whitby lying dead in the pool while she went about her own separate business. I don’t usually believe in coincidences, but Whitby and Catherine-and me-all being there on the same night could actually be one.
She was frustrating enough for me to want to find out what she was doing at Larchmont Hall. But I couldn’t ask Harriet Whitby to pay me to pursue a teenager for no reason except that she’d made me feel foolish.
I switched on the radio to see if they had anything on Olin Taverner’s death. More bombing runs outside Kandahar, dissension among the Afghan warlords, Illinois cutting funds for schools and health care to balance the state budget. Since September 11, just about every public figure in America has been declaiming that we’re a Christian nation; I guess that’s why widows and orphans carry the load for fiscal responsibility here.
During the interminable commercial breaks, I began to doze, but I jerked back awake at Taverner’s name.
One of Chicago’s most prominent figures, and one of its most controversial, is gone. Olin Tavernergained notoriety in the fifties when he served as counsel to Illinois congressman Walker Bushnell on the House Un-American Activities Committee. For two decades, Taverner was one of the most important voices of American conservatism. Of late years, he had been living quietly, almost reclusively, in a retirement home near Naperville. His personal attendant found Taverner in his armchair this morning, dead of an apparent heart attack. He has left no immediate survivors. Again, Olin Taverner, dead at ninety-one.
Are you sick of turning to your ten-year-old every time you want to cruise the Web? Well, here’s a perfect solution. I switched off the sound. Dead in a retirement home near Naperville? Could that have been Anodyne Park? Maybe Taverner had been Geraldine Graham’s neighbor in that exclusive little retirement resort. Maybe I could talk to her about him. And find out whether by some remote chance Catherine Bayard was telling the truth when she said her grandfather had a key to Larchmont Hall.
A Chicago cop started purposefully down the street, ready to give me a second ticket. I put the car in gear and drove to my office. I should check a few things, anyway, before seeing Ms. Graham again. Come to think of it, I could get a detailed report on Taverner from the Web.
As I let myself into the building, Tessa was locking her studio door. She
backed away from me when she saw I had a cold: she’s a bit of a nut about germs. I made a show of covering my mouth with my scarf. She laughed, but still edged quickly out the front door.
I went down the hall to the back of the building, switching on the tiny cooktop we put back there. We share a shower room and a refrigerator, too, but we meter our gas and electricity separately because Tessa’s metal sculpting is so power-demanding. I scrounged one of Tessa’s tea bags, conscientiously leaving an IOU: one ginger-lemongrass tea bag, and took it into my office.
On an impulse, while my system came up, I phoned Morrell’s editor in New York. Don Strzepek and Morrell had known each other for years, since their Peace Corps days in Jordan, and I hoped Don might know what Morrell was up to. When I only reached his voice mail, I didn’t bother to leave a message.
I wanted a human voice. I wanted Morrell. E-mail is too remote. A traditional letter has more intimacy-you can hold the paper that someone else touched, but with e-mail, you type and send but never touch or hear. Morrell himself was beginning to seem so distant it was hard for me to feel that he was real. I studied the photo I had on my desk, his wiry curly hair, his thin face, the mouth that had kissed me, but I couldn’t summon his voice or the touch of his long fingers.
Ulysses chose his path, Penelope: don’t let that control you, I adjured myself sternly. “Don’t weep over yourself,” my mother had told me-I was eight or nine, and wrapped in misery because the girls I usually played with had gone to a birthday party I wasn’t invited to-“Do something.” That afternoon she’d abandoned dinner preparations and let me play dress-up in her concert gown, weaving an improbable story for me as Signora Vittoria della Cielo e Terra. Today I began searching the Web for stories about Calvin Bayard. Maybe I could find out why no one was allowed to talk to him. Or had Renee been spinning me a line?
When my Web search brought me the Bayard phone number, I called out to the New Solway estate, and my heart beat a little faster: What if I did get through to him? What would I say to my hero?
When a woman answered, I said I was one of Calvin’s old interns. “I’m in town this week; it would mean a lot to get to see him.”
“He isn’t scheduling that kind of appointment now,” the woman said in a deep rough voice.
“I’d settle for a chance to say hello on the phone,” I wheedled.
He couldn’t come to the phone. There wasn’t a good time to call back. I should try Mrs. Bayard at the company number if I had business with the Bayards. Her good-bye was truncated by the clicking of the handset.
So what was going on? If he was sick, why didn’t they just say so? Something about New Solway made me imagine Gothic scenarios: Calvin was dead, and to keep control of the company, Renee had organized a massive conspiracy to make the world think her husband was still alive. Calvin’s embalmed body lay in a giant freezer in the estate’s old icehouse. Marc had found it there, and Renee had murdered him.
Making things up was more fun than research, but research gets the job done. I started reading news stories on Nexis, hoping to find out when Calvin had last been seen in public. Five years ago, he’d stepped down from formal leadership of Bayard Publishing and Renee had assumed the CEO spot. The Herald-Star and the New York Times both did big stories on it. Industry scuttlebutt said she’d b
een in charge for a good four years already.
That was all the Web could tell me. Calvin hadn’t been at charity balls or any other public event, at least not any reported in the press, since his retirement. To find out anything more, I needed to do old-fashioned legwork, talk to friends and neighbors. For which Darraugh would definitely not pay me. Although come to think of it, he probably knew-that would be an easy question to slip in when we next spoke.
When I switched my search to Olin Taverner, I picked up a slew of hits. I chose the National Public Radio report, which had the advantage of being something I could absorb with my eyes shut. I logged onto a real-time player and leaned back to listen to the report.
Taverner had died in Anodyne Park-but he had grown up in New Solway. So not only were he and Calvin Bayard old enemies, they must have been old playmates; they were roughly the same age, after all. They used to gallop around New Solway on their ponies together or knout the servants, or whatever it is that very rich children do to amuse themselves.
Perhaps Marcus Whitby had been on his way to see Taverner when death stopped for him. I was getting up to find my detail map of the area, to see if there was a way for a man going on foot to Anodyne Park to end up in Larchmont’s pool, when the Bayard name arrested my attention again.
In recent years, publications like the Washington Times and the Wall Street journal have tried to change public perception of Taverner, Bushnell and other leading McCarthy era figures. Many on today’s right say that the left damaged the reputations of true patriots, and they have sought to revisit that history. One of the greatest oddities of this attempt at rehabilitation is provided by Edwards Bayard, son of Renee and Calvin Bayard, who jousted with Taverner in front of the House committee. Some years ago, Edwards Genier Bayard joined the ranks of liberal-turned-conservative pundits. He now works for the inf uential Spadona Foundation, the rightwing think tank that has set the agenda for much contemporary political discourse. Our political affairs correspondent Jolynn Parker spoke with Mr. Bayard in his Washington office.
Jolynn’s throaty voice came on, explaining the highlights of Bayard’s career: Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, a stint at the International Monetary Fund running the program to sell Bolivia’s water supply to U.S. and French engineering firms, and now heading the Spadona Foundation’s economic policy division.
“Your father is a legend in liberal political circles. How did he feel about your taking a position with Spadona, which has opposed so many of his policies and politics?”
“We had a number of interesting Christmas dinners,” Bayard said, “but both my parents are great respecters of free speech, as I am, and we all believe there is room in America for many different public opinions.”
“How did your views come to differ so greatly from your father’s?” Jolynn asked.
“It was my work at the University of Chicago, which coincided with the end of the Allende government in Chile; I became convinced that supporting a Communist like Allende-as my parents did-was damaging for U.S. interests there, and not fair to the Chilean people, either.”
“Some people would say that the United States intervening to overturn another country’s election was unfair, especially in light of the many
thousands of people the Pinochet government imprisoned and killed during the eighties.”
Bayard gave a dry laugh. “I’ve heard those complaints many times, Jolynn, but the Chilean economy is stronger today than ever.”
I clicked the stop icon. I wondered what form those interesting Christmas conversations had taken, and why Catherine had adopted her grandparents’ values instead of her father’s, and where her mother was. None of my Web researches gave any private gossip about Edwards’s marriage. I left Nexis and switched to my phone messages.
To my surprise, Geraldine Graham hadn’t called again. However, Amy Blount had phoned to say that Whitby’s housekeeper would come to his house in the morning to let us in.
Darraugh had phoned from New York, just to say he had heard from his mother as well as his PA, Caroline; he had full confidence in my abilities, but he thought we’d put enough energy into his mother’s problems for now.
My answering service has a neat little program that identifies the phone number of incoming calls; they include that in the report they e-mail me. Darraugh was staying at the Yale Club in New York, which tracked him down in the bar.
“What is it? Didn’t you get my message?” he demanded.
“Yes, two minutes ago, and I’ll wrap up my report in the morning. Two things, though: the first is that the dead man’s family has hired me to look into his death, so I will be continuing my inquiries out in New Solway.” “I would rather you didn’t-“
“I’m telling you as a courtesy, Darraugh, because you’re one of my most valued clients. You know I normally never reveal one client’s business to another.” I paused to let him digest that before adding, “The second thing is that I talked to Calvin Bayard’s granddaughter this afternoon. She says Mr. Bayard has a key to Larchmont. Is that possible?”
“Possible? Possible that he has a key to my family’s house? You had damn well not be spreading that story around town.” His anger made the receiver vibrate.
“Darraugh-take it easy. The kid told me he had a key.”
“She’s wrong. She’s lying for whatever reason teenagers lie.” His voice retreated from fury to mere wintriness.
“I see.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing I did see. “I tried to talk to Mr. Bayard, but was soundly rebuffed. Do you know why?”
“Not for any nefarious reason. He’s in poor health; Renee protects him with her usual energy. Send in your bill for the hours you’ve put in on my mother’s complaint. I hope you will remember as you look for this dead man’s murderer that I’ve paid your bills for many years now. I expect you to keep that in mind if you feel your inquiries must take you out to New Solway for any reason. You should realize you could fall into quicksand faster than anyone could get to you to pull you out.”
He hung up before I could say anything. I had known Darraugh Graham for fifteen years, but I had never heard him threaten me before.
CHAPTER 14
Gaps in the Newsreel
Many people saw Olin Taverner as your husband’s greatest enemy, Renee. Can you explain to us why Calvin Bayard continued to see Olin Taverner socially?” Dennis Logan cocked his head at Renee Bayard with an intense sincerity that made her withdraw deeper into her studio chair.
Lotty and I were sitting with Max Loewenthal, watching the interview in the back room where Lotty keeps her television. Max, who’s known Lotty practically her whole life, is the executive director of Beth Israel, where Lotty has her surgical privileges. The two have been lovers for many years, but since last fall they’ve become much closer. In a way, I resented not having Lotty to myself as much as I used to, but I like and respect Max.
Over roast chicken and a bottle from Max’s impressive cellar-which I was still too congested to appreciate-we talked idly about a number of things, including Max’s perennial struggle to find a way to bring more paying patients into the hospital. One of his board members had suggested getting designer hospital gowns for affluent patients.
“Great idea,” I applauded. “How can we really tell we’ve got a two-tier health care system if we don’t have outfits that demonstrate it? Armani in a soft gold silk for the privately insured, gray overwashed nylon for the wretched poor.”
Max laughed, but Lotty wasn’t willing to joke about the matter. She uses
her substantial surgical fees to fund a number of health programs for the un-or underinsured, but she’s acutely aware of how small a drop that is in the health care bucket.
I changed the subject hastily, describing my encounters with young Catherine Bayard. Lotty and Max had immigrated to America from Britain in the late fifties. By the time they’d arrived here, the HUAC hearings had pretty well died down, so she and Max didn’t know the names or historie
s of the key players, but they were interested enough to follow me to the television after dinner. We turned on the nine o’clock news on Channel 13.
To my surprise, the show started not with Olin Taverner’s death, but with the parents’ meeting at Vina Fields that Catherine had mentioned. I wouldn’t have thought that was newsworthy, but I guess angry rich people shouting at each other makes good theater.
The segment opened with Beth Blacksin standing in front of Vina Fields. “This discreet stone facade hides the entrance to a Chicago power institution. It’s here that Grahams, Bayards, Felittis and other Chicagoans whose names spell clout send their children. It’s a mile from the Cabrim Green housing projects, but a light-year from the turmoil of an inner-city school. No gangs, no guns here. But lately this calm building has itself been caught up in turmoil over whether they’ve been harboring not street gangs, but an international terrorist. Parents and administrators have been anguishing over whether student records, including what books students check out of the library, should be open to law enforcement agencies. At the center of this upheaval is an Egyptian dishwasher, Benjamin Sadawi, who disappeared three weeks ago.”
The station showed a photo of the youth in the white shirt and tie Mr. Contreras and I had seen last night. “The Justice Department claims he fled to his terrorist cell’s hideout. They want to examine all school records to see if these might shed some light on his disappearance. The First Freedoms Forum is trying to intervene to keep the justice Department out of school files. We spoke to lawyer Judith Ohana before the meeting. Judith, what’s at stake here?”
A tall, slim woman took the mike with practiced ease. “This is basically a witch-hunt, Beth. If one of the children from this school was in Cairo, and the army came in to confiscate books and papers and computers because of a rumor about a missing dishwasher, everyone in America would
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