Dying to Remember

by Glen Apseloff

  The two of them kept in touch over the years. They wrote letters, talked on the phone, and then, after Elizabeth moved to Boston permanently, met periodically for lunch, dinner, or shopping. Recently they’d been seeing more of each other, as Elizabeth’s relationship with Chris had become strained. Most of the time, they met at Faneuil Hall, a short walk for Claire and a hop on the subway for Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth loved the subway, or T, as it was called. Claire did, too. They both agreed it was much more lively than the Tube in London. It didn’t travel as quickly or as smoothly, but it merrily screeched and swayed as it lurched from stop to stop. While the Tube was like a greyhound, the T was more like a Jack Russell terrier. The green line of the T, the one that went to Faneuil Hall, was always packed with a culturally diverse crowd of students, businessmen and women, and Asians from Chinatown speaking Mandarin to one another or reading newspapers and magazines covered with calligraphic symbols. The marketplace next to Faneuil Hall was equally diverse, attracting an abundance of entertainers, tourists, and locals. And the assortment of food was unrivaled. Claire recalled the last time she and Elizabeth had met there—their last meal together—in mid-November. Elizabeth had seemed preoccupied. She’d nibbled only the tip off a slice of pepperoni pizza and hadn’t even finished her lobster bisque. Afterward, Claire had hugged her good-bye at the T stop.

  “Call me anytime, kiddo,” Claire had said, taking Elizabeth’s hands in hers. They stood so close that Claire could smell her perfume and feel the warm mist from her breath through the autumn chill. Close enough that she could have leaned forward and kissed Elizabeth on the lips. She wished she had.

  Elizabeth. Sweet Elizabeth. Gone forever.

  If only things could have been different.

  Chapter 23

  Detective Wright came home early from work. He and Karen lived in an old but well-kept condo on the edge of Back Bay not far from Kenmore Square and Fenway Park, where the Boston Red Sox played. Occasionally Wright went to a game with Marty Gould. That’s how he’d found the condo. After an extra-innings game against the Yankees, he’d stumbled across the place when he went home by a different route to avoid traffic. It had a small back porch—to which they’d added a ramp—high ceilings, six-panel doors, hardwood floors, and a fresh coat of white paint throughout.

  Wright was met at the back door by their dog, Lizzy, a miniature Schnauzer rescued from a kennel by Wright after its owner died. At first Karen had objected to the dog—she didn’t want another pet after her cat, Trixie—but Wright had brought the animal home without asking her.

  Karen had thrown up her arms. “How am I supposed to take care of a dog? I can barely take care of myself.”

  “There are people worse off than you, and they have dogs. Blind people—you never hear them complaining.”

  “Oh? And our dog is trained to do what? Fetch jars off shelves?”

  “No, to eat dog biscuits.”

  The animal barked, perhaps recognizing the word biscuit.

  “I really don’t want a dog,” said Karen.

  “How can you say no to that face?”

  The dog had cocked its head quizzically. Its ears, which hadn’t been cropped, flopped to both sides. Wright had to admit the animal looked ratty—with matted, gray hair and a reddish-brown discoloration around its mouth, extending into its beard. He guessed that something in its saliva had turned the hair that unappealing color.

  Karen regarded the animal skeptically. “Is it a boy?”

  “Girl.”

  “That’s one ugly girl.”

  The dog sat quietly, looking back and forth, as if sensing it was the topic of conversation.

  “She’s getting up in years,” said Wright.

  “I’m not surprised. How old, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Younger than we are.”

  “I’m guessing not in dog years.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Do you really want a dog that’s going to die of old age in a couple of years?” she asked.

  “One year, two years—it doesn’t matter.” Wright took her hand. “It’ll be quality time. We’ll be a little family.”

  Karen still wasn’t convinced. “Does she even have teeth?” For now, the dog was keeping its mouth shut.

  “Of course she has teeth . . . Four or five.”

  “I don’t know, Gordon.”

  “I do. Trust me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Eventually she gave in. Wright let her name the dog, a minor concession considering she would end up taking care of it most of the time. She chose “Lizzy,” after Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He didn’t tell her it reminded him more of Lizzie Borden.

  After a while, Karen even began to feel protective of the pet. Soon it became her child, her hairy baby. This despite the fact that in dog years, Lizzy could have been her mother.

  Wright closed the back door behind him, then petted Lizzy to quiet her down. “Yes, I’m happy to see you, too.” He took off his jacket and hung it on a wooden peg on the wall. Behind him in a corner of the living room, a Christmas tree blinked colorful lights from beneath evergreen needles. He turned and watched it for a moment. Lizzy avoided the tree, its blinking lights, and hobbled toward the kitchen. Tomorrow the veterinarian would take a look at her front paws. They were both reddish brown from her chewing them, and Wright guessed that some sort of infection had taken root in one or both.

  Karen wheeled herself in from the kitchen, Lizzy at her side. At the rate Lizzy was hobbling, pretty soon she might be needing a wheelchair, too.

  Wright kissed Karen, then eased himself into a chair and grabbed a small pile of mail off a nearby end table. “How was class?” Karen had taught freshman English that afternoon.

  “Challenging.” She wheeled herself closer to him.

  “Why do I get the feeling you really mean lousy?”

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s just not getting any better.” Lizzy looked as though she wanted to hop into Wright’s lap, scrunching her haunches as if about to jump, but the dog never got past the scrunching stage. With a soft whimper, she resigned herself to the floor and lay on the hard wood, gazing up at Wright and Karen under bushy eyebrows.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with these students,” Karen said, her voice tinged with exasperation. “I thought I was disadvantaged being in a wheelchair, but the students in this class are truly handicapped. They’ve learned almost nothing, and the semester is going to be over in a week. What am I supposed to do?”

  To Wright the answer was clear. “Give them an F.” He dropped a piece of junk mail into a wastebasket.

  “Twenty-three out of twenty-five? I can’t do that!”

  He looked into her eyes, as gorgeous as ever. Kind and bright and honest. “You can do anything.” He reached over and ran a hand through the curls of her hair.

  “I can’t fail ninety-two percent of the class.”

  “Yes, you can.” He returned to the mail in his lap. “If they don’t learn, then they shouldn’t pass. It’s simple cause and effect. Their inability to perform causes them to fail, which in turn will cause them to have to repeat the work and maybe eventually learn something.”

  “You always have such a logical view of things, but logic doesn’t always work. Not in this case.”

  Wright opened a gas bill. “I’d give them Fs.”

  She sighed. “Even if I wanted to, the administration wouldn’t let me. They’d be concerned it might reflect badly on the department.” She shook her head. “Let’s not spoil the evening talking about this. Let’s talk about your day. How was it?”

  “Interesting . . . Marty and I interrogated Dr. Barnes.”

  “Oh?”

  “The man can’t remember anything for more than about a minute.” Wright discarded another piece of junk mail. “He doesn’t even remember faces.”

  “Does he understand what happened to his wife?”

  “Yeah. He’s sharp. He can understand anything
; he just can’t remember it. And he doesn’t seem willing to share any pertinent information, like who his wife had an affair with. He seemed surprised when we told him she was pregnant. He might not have known, or he might just be hiding that he had a motive to kill her.”

  “Do you think he could have hired someone to do that?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. More often than not it’s the husband in these types of cases.”

  “What about the dog?” she asked.

  “I think it lacked the manual dexterity for a murder-suicide.”

  She picked up a letter from his lap and affectionately hit him over the head with it. “You know what I mean. When someone like Dr. Barnes owns a dog for years as an indoor pet, don’t you think he’d have a strong emotional attachment to it? Like us with Lizzy. The pet becomes a part of the family. I think he would have given explicit instructions not to harm the dog.”

  “Maybe he did. People don’t always follow instructions. He probably said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t shoot the dog.’ But when a seventy- or eighty-pound canine bares its teeth, all bets are off.”

  “So what type of person do you think he could have hired?”

  Wright put aside another piece of junk mail. “Could be someone who knew her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, for one thing, the alarm to the security system didn’t go off. That means either it wasn’t turned on or Elizabeth Barnes knew her killer, or at least was expecting a visitor. The perp cut a hole in one of the downstairs windows, but I don’t think he gained access that way. The dog would have heard him and made a commotion. You can’t cut a hole in a window and pop out the glass and then enter a residence without alerting a dog, unless maybe it’s deaf.”

  “So you think someone cut the hole afterwards to make it appear as though they’d broken in?”

  “I’d bet on it. Plus we found blood from the victim on the dog’s nose.”

  “On the dog’s nose? What does that mean?”

  “That means the perp killed her first. He shot her three times. Then the dog came over to investigate. The dog sniffed around and stuck its nose in one of her wounds. Then the perp shot the dog.”

  “Why does that mean the killer was someone who knew her?”

  “Because otherwise he’d have shot the dog first.”

  “Unless he was instructed explicitly not to.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Wright acknowledged. “I’ll figure that out.”

  She patted his leg. “I’m sure you will.”

  “The interesting thing is that Barnes seems to be trying to piece this together himself. I think if he was involved in his wife’s murder, there’s a good chance he actually forgot about it.”

  “That would be ironic.”

  “Yeah. He’s our prime suspect for now, so we’ll dig into his research and his finances, and we’ll talk to his colleagues. If we turn over enough rocks, we’re bound to find something under at least one of them, if he did it.”

  “If he didn’t do it, do you think there’s a chance he could figure out who did?”

  Wright leaned back. “I doubt it. Not unless his memory comes back. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on him. All our bases are covered—his phone is tapped, and we’re intercepting his garbage pickup. If he does figure out anything, we’ll know what it is.” With that, he turned to the dog. “Am I right, Lizzy? Am I right?” He reached down and scratched her behind the ears.

  Lizzy wagged her stump.

  Wright took that as a yes.

  Chapter 24

  When Shirley Collins arrived at Barnes’s house promptly at 8:00 p.m., the chime of the doorbell caught him by surprise. He’d forgotten she was coming over, even though the list in his pocket had reminded him every time he looked at it.

  Standing in the entryway in a bright red dress coat and a matching beret that complemented her flushed cheeks, Shirley looked up at him with a radiance that seemed to drive away the frigid air. Her eyes showed a hint of tears, and he wondered whether that was from the cold or from emotion—she was, after all, coming to the house where her colleague and friend had been murdered. In one hand she held a bottle of wine, in the other a large carryout bag with Mandarin characters on it.

  “Hello, Chris.” A puff of frozen breath came out with her words. “I swung by Chinatown and picked up dinner at Shanghai.”

  He didn’t remember having suggested that restaurant to her. The mere mention of it brought back memories of the times he and Elizabeth had ventured into Chinatown for lunch or dinner. Usually they ate at either Shanghai or China Pavilion, but they went there not just for the cuisine. Part of the novelty of eating Chinese food was simply being in Chinatown, seeing the calligraphic symbols on signs everywhere, wandering past stores displaying cooked chickens with the heads and feet still attached, passing by phone booths designed like miniature pagodas. And the smells of spicy beef, pork, chicken, and seafood wafting from the restaurants could make any pedestrian salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

  She stepped into the front hallway. He closed the door behind her, then hugged her. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  He had hugged her every time they’d gotten together, but merely as a courtesy. Now he didn’t want to let go. Her embrace felt like that of a long-lost friend.

  Finally he stepped back. “It feels like forever since we saw each other,” he said.

  “It does. I’m glad you called.”

  “Let me take your coat,” he offered. “And of course the wine.”

  She held the bottle out to him. “It probably doesn’t go with Chinese food, but I wasn’t about to carry a pot of tea over here, and, no offense, I think I’m really going to need this.”

  “Yeah, probably me too.” He took the bottle and her coat.

  She wore a black V-neck sweater-dress that clung to her from static, accentuating a figure that belied her age; she could have passed for early twenties. The hemline fell just below her knees, revealing sheer black stockings and matching pumps.

  “You’ve cut your hair,” he said. “It looks good.” About four inches had been taken off since he’d last seen her, and it now had more body, bouncing with her movements.

  “Thank you. It’s nice of you to notice.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket for his billfold. “Let me reimburse you for dinner.” His hand closed on what felt like a tape recorder.

  “No”—she waved him off—“put your money away.”

  The wallet must have been in another pocket. No matter. He remembered Shirley wasn’t one to give in after she made up her mind. “All right, but don’t let me forget that I owe you next time.”

  “I’ll try to remember.”

  He suddenly felt at a loss for words. Seeing Shirley without Elizabeth made him more aware of Elizabeth’s absence and more aware of the fact that she’d been murdered. He wondered whether it had happened close to where they now stood, maybe exactly where they now stood. “Let’s go into the kitchen,” he said.

  As soon as they set foot there, Barnes noticed several pages of notes taped to the refrigerator, all in his handwriting. Obviously reminders of some sort. He hoped they didn’t contain any information he wouldn’t want Shirley to see, but taking them down meant he would probably misplace them, and now seemed like a bad time to start reading them. Instead he took out plates for dinner. “Would you like a fork?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll give the chopsticks a try.” She glanced at the refrigerator.

  He rummaged through the silverware drawer and took out a corkscrew. “How about if I open the wine and you serve the food?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She dumped fried rice onto the two plates and covered it with sweet and sour pork, broccoli beef, and Kung Pao chicken. “I got a little of everything because I wasn’t sure what you like.”

  “I always order potstickers. I can eat the rest of this while
you go back and get some.”

  She smiled. “A sense of humor. I’m impressed. I don’t remember that from the last time we got together.”

  “You didn’t bring out the best in me then. I think it was that boyfriend of yours.”

  “Well, I don’t think he brings out the best in anyone. That’s one of the reasons I’m not dating him anymore.” She offered Barnes a plate, then, seeing he was still working on the wine, placed it on the counter.

  The cork came out with a pop. He reached above Shirley and retrieved two crystal wineglasses from the cabinet. “Would you like to eat in the dining room or the family room?”

  “The family room,” she said. “It’s less formal.” She picked up her wineglass. “I’ll try not to make a mess. I usually don’t eat with chopsticks, but I think I can keep the food off your carpet.”

  They carried their dinner and wine out of the kitchen. In the family room the vaulted ceiling reached twenty feet at its peak, and now to Barnes it seemed even higher. Without Elizabeth the house felt cavernous. The chimney of the stone fireplace along the far wall was like an upended road, spanning floor to ceiling.

  He turned on the gas flame, and Shirley slipped into a leather wing chair. He sat a few feet away, facing her, both of them angled toward the fire. They set their wine on a coffee table.

  “It’s good to see you,” said Shirley. “And a little surreal. I keep expecting Elizabeth to walk into the room.”

  He could see tears in her eyes. “I know.”

  “I hope this doesn’t sound selfish,” she said, “but I have to admit I came here as much for her, and me, as I did for you. Part of me needed more closure. I went to the funeral, of course, but that wasn’t enough. It never is.”

  “How was it?” Barnes asked.

  “Depressing.”

  “Did you know most of the people there?”

  “No. About a third, maybe.”

  “Did any of them seem unusual?” Barnes asked. He was thinking that her killer might have gone, too.

  “I have to tell you, I didn’t notice much of what was going on around me. I was in shock the whole time. I . . . I still can’t believe she’s gone.” She wiped away a tear and drank some wine.