Front Page Teaser

by Rosemary Herbert

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you. . .”

  “No, you aren’t. Not really. You hope it will solve the case, make your career, if you know what they were up to. Well, if you keep your promise, it won’t do the latter, since you will never put this in print.” Olga Swenson took a swig from her glass at last. Then she continued speaking. “From when she was much younger, Ellen liked to imagine she could fly. She’d run among the trees in the Pinetum, arms out, trailing some of my scarves. She called it ‘flitting and flying.’ Well, on this occasion, it was swelteringly hot, so she took off her blouse and ran around in her little undershirt. The effect was—just too stimulating.”

  She rose from her chair and added a log to the fire.

  “Karl was disgusted with Al, and not just because, as he put it, ‘the bastard got off on watching.’ He was furious at Al’s reticence. The young man was tongue-tied. I don’t know whether it was from shock and embarrassment at being caught with his pants down, as it were, or because he was learning disabled, or both. Anyway, he kept humming tunelessly and mumbling something like ‘Rah, rah shock. Rah, rah shock,’ like a cheerleader gone crazy.

  “It absolutely infuriated Karl, I can tell you.

  “Anyway, I urged—I insisted—that Karl get out in the kayak to cool down. I was afraid he’d be arrested. He wouldn’t have taken my advice, except Al’s absence had been noticed at the school and a teacher came looking for him. My husband didn’t bother with the kayak. He stripped off his polo shirt and jumped straight into the lake while I explained to the teacher that there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. The school was on its last legs financially then, so the administration wasn’t looking for any bad publicity. The boy was transferred to another school. Nothing about the boy ever made the press.”

  “Even though there was a drowning?”

  “That happened six months later. And it was ruled accidental. After a deep freeze, Karl walked out on the ice. But he misjudged the ice’s thickness. We were all devastated, of course.”

  “You said the summertime incident was the beginning of the end. Do you feel it was related in some way to the drowning?”

  “Did I? Then I misspoke. What I mean is that was the first shattering incident in a terrible year.”

  “If it was so neatly stored away, why are you opening the door on this skeleton in the closet now?”

  “Because every year, on the anniversary of his death, I receive a strange phone call. Every year except this one, that is.”

  “The calls seemed connected with the incident?”

  “Let’s just say, they brought the incident to mind.”

  “How come?”

  “The caller hummed tunelessly, just like that boy Al did. But they were just phone calls, nothing more. No letters, no other contact. I tried to put them out of my mind. But now that my daughter’s disappeared, I wonder if the caller found her this time. Could the caller have abducted her? Was it that boy, all grown up now?”

  “Do you remember the boy’s last name?”

  “It was Leigh.”

  “How would you spell that?”

  “I always assumed it was ‘L-E-I-G-H’. He was foreign but not Chinese. But I thought you weren’t going to put this in the paper.”

  “I’ll keep my word. What about his age at the time?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Do you know if Al had any prior record of violent behavior or run-ins with the law?”

  “He had struck out at his mother. She used the incident to get him some special education in that disciplined school environment, but she did not press charges against her son. Karl looked into it. If he had anything else in his record, I’m sure my husband would have moved heaven and earth to have the boy put away for life.”

  “How certain are you that Ellen was unaware of the sexual nature of the incident? Do you think if Al confronted her recently, he might have stirred up memories that would have caused her to strike out at him?”

  “I hope she has no memory of it. Frankly, I think it’s more likely she’d strike out at a perfect stranger who surprised her in her kitchen.” Ellen’s mother gazed out the window. “It’s getting dark. Are you parked at the faculty club? Perhaps I should drive you around to it.”

  “That’s all right. I think there’s enough light for me to make the walk. I could use the time to digest what you’ve told me.”

  “That’s good. Then I won’t have to leave the house while the fire is still burning. And I’ll be here when Veronica returns.”

  The two women walked downstairs to the mudroom, where Liz handed her hostess the pair of slippers and donned her boots and coat. As she stepped out into the snow, she turned and said, “I am assuming your demand that I do not print what you have told me does not extend to any information it might lead to.”

  “That’s right. If you discover Al has threatened or taken my daughter, you’ll have the scoop. You can say the young man was fixated on her. But there’s no need to mention my husband’s involvement. On the other hand, if you discover Al’s whereabouts and there’s no connection, the incident need never be publicized.”

  Pulling on her gloves, Liz asked one more question.

  “What was the date of your husband’s death?”

  “December 18, 1974.”

  Twenty-six years to the day before Ellen exited her own family circle.

  Chapter 10

  Perhaps because clouds had rolled in as the sun advanced to the horizon, daylight was fading faster than Liz had expected. After the comfort of the warm sitting room, the atmosphere felt raw, too. Those two factors meant Liz would have to adjust her expectations of a leisurely, contemplative stroll. Still, Liz reasoned, without the need to proceed delicately with Mrs. Swenson—conversationally or otherwise—she should be able to retrace her steps before the sun went down entirely.

  As the cold easily penetrated her sports leggings, Liz also felt chilled at the prospect of calling in to Dermott to say she had no story to file. Although the day was productive, nothing printable had come of it. And the city editor was bound to think she was not hard-nosed enough when she would have to admit the information she had gathered was confidential.

  “No use thinking about that,” Liz decided, picking up her pace. She might as well take this time of forced speed walking and use it as best she could. As she strode on briskly, her eyes naturally traveled to the open surface of the lake, where the scene was best lit.

  How did Karl Swenson’s drowning there change Olga’s and Ellen’s enjoyment of their Thursday afternoons? she asked herself. Did it put a damper on their walks, after the incident with Al? Or, since the boy was transferred from the school across the way, did they continue their perambulations and picnics there untroubled in the months before Karl went through the ice?

  Perhaps they’d never stopped enjoying the landscape here. To this day, Olga Swenson seemed fond of the Pinetum and topiary garden. What gave her the strength to continue residing on the shore of a body of water that had taken her husband’s life?

  If deepening dusk endows rhetorical questions with significance, it serves even better to clothe those who pose them with an air of wisdom. Or so it was for Liz Higgins, walking through the snow along Lake Waban that cold December evening. The farther her feet and her thoughts carried her, the more convinced she became that Olga Swenson had chosen well when the widow decided to confide in Liz.

  But Liz’s confidence was in for a blow.

  Night fell as Liz came to the edge of the woodland and approached the western gate leading into the topiary garden. Relieved the gate was not chained shut, Liz took comfort in knowing that beyond the rhododendrons, the scene would open up until she reached the Pinetum. Then, even when the walk darkened amid the collection of conifers, she would be closer to the well-lit college pathways and her car.

/>   Rounding the rhododendrons, she looked ahead eagerly towards the balustrade-bounded walkway.

  Much brighter.

  Bright enough to reveal the silhouette of a Doberman pinscher, posed in an unmistakably challenging stance.

  Liz froze in her tracks. Then, very slowly, she turned to retrace her steps.

  The Doberman advanced.

  She halted.

  So did the dog.

  With her back to the watchdog, Liz listened for its approach. The only sound in the moonless night was that made by the reporter’s own rapid breathing.

  Wasn’t it always said dogs can sense your fear? And that attack dogs were more likely to strike if they smelled your cowardice?

  Liz took in a few long breaths through her nose, exhaling each from her mouth. Perhaps she’d slowed her breathing. But her heart did not stop pounding. Surely she must be broadcasting her terror.

  Liz felt a breeze on her face. It was blowing from the direction of the open space. Good. Her scent would not be reaching the dog. But that was small comfort when she had no idea if the dog had continued to approach her.

  She had to know if the Doberman had gotten closer. Slowly, she turned her head and then her shoulders, too.

  She saw the dog had held its place, but now that she moved, he did, too. Straight toward her.

  Haunches forward, the dog took several steps. The movements were slow, precise, light-footed.

  Liz took a few leaden steps away from the animal.

  The hound halved the distance between them.

  There was nothing to do but test one remaining hope. The dog might stop following her if she crossed the property line. Steadily and slowly, Liz covered the remaining few yards to the gate and passed through it.

  Then Liz’s breath was not the only noise in the night. She heard the short pants of the Doberman, too.

  Liz knew it would be madness to strike out into the dark woods with the dog on her heels. At least on the Hightower Estate there was the hope of someone hearing her if she screamed. So, slowly bringing her forearm across her chest in case she had to protect her face, Liz turned and, to steady herself, softly muttered the first song that came to mind.

  “God rest ye merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay. . . ”

  Then, one snow-muffled step at a time, she rounded the rhododendrons.

  At first, the dog was nowhere to be seen. Then she spotted him in the fantastic landscape, standing, ears pointed toward her, in front of a corkscrew-shaped topiary. Placing front paws lightly on the snow, he advanced, sniffing. In his new location, the breeze would blow Liz’s odor of fear straight to him.

  The dog made a sudden change in posture.

  Was he teasing her before attacking? The damnable beast seemed to romp in her direction, circling a gumdrop-shaped conifer before flying down the hillside straight towards Liz.

  Liz lifted her arm in front of her throat. But the dog did not leap at her. Instead he circled round and round Liz’s statue-still form and finally sat down in front of her. Louder than her heaving breathing, more steady than her throbbing heartbeat, there was another sound.

  Flop, flop, flop, flop.

  A stubbed tail beating against the tightly trimmed branches of a topiary shrub.

  Amazed, Liz did not question the change in her circumstances. As she walked along the balustrade through the Pinetum and out the eastern gate of the Hightower property, the Doberman trotted at her side like her own protector. At the gate, the dog halted and sat watching her protectively until Liz crossed the arched stone bridge that led, at last, to the lamp-lit campus walkway.

  In her car, Liz turned up her heater until the windows steamed over and her teeth stopped chattering. Then she removed her jacket. Pulling her arm out of a sleeve, she found a thin, nearly threadbare scarf that was not her own. It must have gotten caught there when her jacket was hung on a hook in the Swenson mudroom. Holding it to her face, she breathed in the subtle scent of another human, an odor that must have saved her life.

  Liz turned on the defroster and, when the windshield cleared, pulled her car out of the faculty club parking lot. It felt as though an entire evening had passed, but it was only 5:50 p.m. She should have called in to the newsroom much earlier to report what she was up to, and now it looked like she would be late for her meeting with Cormac Kinnaird, too. With the faculty club closed, she drove to Wellesley Center to find a phone booth.

  “Pissed.”

  That was how Dermott McCann described himself at learning Liz had no story for him. When he gave her a piece of his mind about the late call-in, she gave him a piece of hers.

  “Why don’t you arm your reporters with up-to-date technology? Have you heard of a cell phone?”

  “Some reporters take pride in being up to date for their own sakes. Christ, how do you have a personal life without owning a cell phone these days? You know we’d pay for calls you make for us, if you submit the receipt.”

  “But not for the basic bill or the phone itself. Thanks a lot!”

  “You got a chip on your shoulder?”

  “More than that. If I’d had a cell phone an hour ago, I might have been spared a threatening encounter with a Doberman!”

  “Yeah, yeah. A likely story.”

  Hoping he’d be lingering over his banjo at Tir Na Nog, Liz left Kinnaird a phone message. Saying she’d been unavoidably delayed, she asked the doctor to phone her at Gravesend Street, where she planned to stop and change her clothes before heading to the Somerville pub.

  By the time she arrived in her Pike-side abode, Liz was so beat that she would have greeted with relief a message from Kinnaird postponing their encounter. She wanted nothing more than a very hot shower and an equally steaming bowl of soup. She treated herself to one after the other, and then fell into bed. It was just 7:10.

  At 9:30, the ringing telephone startled her awake. It was her mother calling from Mexico, where she and her partner were spending the winter in his Airstream trailer.

  “I was gearing up to leave you a voice-mail message, Liz,” she said. “I thought you’d be out on the town or with friends the Friday before Christmas.”

  Liz gave her a nutshell account of the story she was covering and told her mother how frustrated she was about the weekend falling just when she needed a business day to follow a great lead.

  “You don’t need a business day to take a ride in a New York City taxi. Why don’t you go down to the city and follow up on that taxi receipt you found? You could stay with Aunt Janice and have a good laugh while you’re at it.”

  “I thought she was in England this time of year.”

  “Not this Christmas. She had to stay in town to play an extra on a soap opera.”

  “At Christmas? Couldn’t she turn it down?”

  “Normally she would. But she couldn’t resist playing the role of a jaded ballerina-turned-dance critic, after spending so many years in the Radio City Music Hall corps de ballet herself. Of course, she’ll be missing your cousin and the grandchildren. It will do you both good to spend the weekend together.”

  “It’s true the Banner will never send me to New York to follow up on that taxi receipt.”

  “Then go for it! In fact, I’ll fund the train fare as an extra Christmas present. What does it cost, eighty-some dollars each way? Charge it and I’ll send a check you can pay the bill with. Where will you be on Christmas? Are you scheduled to work? Or has a special someone entered your life?”

  “I volunteered to work the holiday. I figured, when a special someone does come along, the Banner’ll owe me the day off. As it turns out, it may give me the edge on the Johansson story. After all, Mom, this isn’t a story about aggressive people stealing parking spots from one another at the mall. A woman’s life may hang in the balance here.”

  “You’re
too good. The paper’s lucky to have you. Don’t work too hard, OK? I’ll give you a call on Christmas.”

  Enlivened by the nap and, after she phoned her, by Janice’s delight at the idea of having a pre-Christmas guest, Liz arranged for train tickets and packed her bags. She also wrapped up a bottle of Pol Roger to present to her aunt and hand-washed a few pieces of clothing. Recalling Cormac Kinnaird’s appealingly boyish appearance while banjo playing, Liz changed into black velvet pants and a forest-green velvet tunic. The outfit seemed a bit dressier than others she had observed in Irish pubs, but it was one of the few clothing combinations she had neither packed for New York City nor left dripping on her clothes drying rack. And the truth was, she didn’t mind standing out just a little bit in the eyes of Dr. Kinnaird. So, Liz applied some make-up with care, threw on a hooded jacket and dry boots, and went out into the night again to make her way to Tir Na Nog.

  At the door of her Mercury Tracer, in the chill of the December night, Liz remembered to return to her house to pick up the Ziploc bag containing the lipstick and hair elastic. At the same time, she remembered Dr. Kinnaird’s self-important posturing at the Worcester Public Library, and the gravity of her investigation, and revised her hopes for the evening.

  It was a good thing Liz had downsized her expectations, since the tiny Tir Na Nog pub did not have music on the menu that night. While his banjo lay unplayed on one end of his table, Kinnaird looked ill at ease as Liz greeted him. Feeling overdressed, she hesitated to remove her coat. When she did, Kinnaird studiously registered no reaction.

  “It’s charming,” she said of the bar’s interior decorating, which blended Irish and Bostonian elements into one harmonious whole. The atmosphere of the small pub was intimate, too, but that dimension seemed lost on Kinnaird. She ordered Chardonnay and sat in silence until her drink was delivered.

  Liz took the opportunity to study her surroundings further. The brick walls were hung with an eclectic mix of items, including a blackboard listing bands scheduled to perform there, a circular ship’s life preserver, and a vanity license plate bearing the word FIDDLE.