Front Page Teaser

by Rosemary Herbert

  As the two tucked into their meals, Cormac gave his attention to Liz’s account of the ups and many downs of her day. “I’m impressed at all the balls you seem to have in the air,” he said. “That is often the case for me, too, but at least I’m not sent out on fool’s errands like that New Year’s resolution goose chase.”

  “You know, it’s not as foolish an errand as it first appears, Cormac,” Liz said. “Yes, I’d love to have been trusted to handle a more obviously important assignment, especially breaking news. And in the context of longing to devote all my attention to Ellen Johansson’s disappearance, it was intensely frustrating to have to interview those girls today. But I took away some real insights from what one girl told me, which I shared with our readers in my story. Even if those words do not change one moment of any other reader’s life, the fact that they are reported will have an impact on the girls I quoted, who may have some pride as a result and, perhaps, one day use the article to support a job or college application. In addition, it’s good for the Department of Youth Services to have such good press. It might be useful when funding time comes around, and, God knows, those girls need all the assets they can get. It’s also good for the Banner to be a force in the community.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought of all that. What you say makes me reconsider my attitude towards lifestyle pieces.”

  “There’s no doubt there’s much more bang in breaking news—and there’s no doubt I’d rather cover it—but I like to think soft news has its own kind of impact,” Liz said, pausing to savor the cassoulet. “This is wonderful,” she enthused. She told Cormac about the afghan made by the DYS crocheting group. “Often when I’m frustrated about covering the community news beat, I feel better about it at the end of the day when I cover up with that afghan. It reminds me that what I do is important to somebody. In fact, it was that beat that brought me in contact with Ellen and Veronica in the first place.” Liz filled in the details of the Santa and Newton City Hall hora assignments for Cormac, explaining how her report caused the wallpaper stripping and admitting she didn’t examine the walls when she had a chance because she was too busy comforting Olga.

  “Is it a good idea for you to become so personally involved with your sources? Of course in my forensics work, I must guard against emotional involvement. It would ruin my judgment, I’m sure.”

  “Well, you’re right, of course. I blew it today because I was too concerned with Olga Swenson’s emotional state. But it is hard, for me, at least, to separate passion for my work from passion for its ‘sources,’ as you call them.”

  “Well, if I may be considered one of your sources, does that mean you have some passion for me?”

  “Ah, that depends upon many factors. Which makes me wonder, have you any news for me?”

  “Not at the dinner table, my dear. Say, how about taking a look at the dessert menu? Please don’t behave like all women and say you ‘can’t possibly.’”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” Liz said, drinking the last of her wine.

  “This time, you order for us. Don’t worry, I could happily consume anything on the menu.”

  Liz passed over the light sorbets and flan in favor of a slice of bourbon and pecan pie and a chocolate sponge cake. “Complementary flavors, so we might share them,” she said after she ordered.

  Cormac ordered two more drams of single malt whisky. “Unlike the Lagavulin we consumed earlier, which, I’m sure you noticed, had a smoky, malt taste, the Macallan we are about to imbibe is a sweeter affair, with strong hints of vanilla and spice,” he instructed Liz, with the air of a bon vivant.

  “You spoke of remaining detached in your work. Do you ever worry that it carries over into the rest of your life?”

  Cormac considered the candlelight that shone through his drink. “Touché,” he said, lifting his drink to his lips.

  “Good fencing makes good neighbors,” Liz parried.

  “I get your thrust. Or perhaps that should be your line.”

  “Hah! Do you dare risk the unkindest cut of all?”

  “A woman’s scorn? Not when I can cut and run at will.”

  Liz looked Cormac straight in the eyes. “I wonder—” she began.

  “What’s in this package?” Cormac finished for her, taking a gift-wrapped box from his inside jacket pocket. “The contents might be pretty to the eye of one beholder. Now, don’t say, ‘You shouldn’t have!’”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” Liz said again.

  While the pianist played “A Foggy Day,” she carefully untied the golden cloth ribbon and undid the thick wrapping paper, patterned in burgundy and cream swirls reminiscent of an old volume’s endpapers. The box might have contained a bracelet or perhaps a necklace, but Cormac’s choice was more original than that. The present was a Montblanc fountain pen.

  “Oh, golly!”

  “For the writer in my life,” he said, reaching across the table to place his hand over hers.

  “For the musician in mine,” Liz said after a moment, taking the four little packets from her purse and passing them across the table to him.

  For the first time that evening, Cormac Kinnaird displayed his true, boyish smile as—feeling with his fingers the coiled wires through the gift wrap—he realized what the packets contained. Looking up at her, and intently, if briefly, meeting her eyes, he said just two words.

  “Oh, Liz!”

  Then, as quickly as his eyes shied away from hers, he seemed to lose his urbane air in favor of his familiar taciturnity.

  Jekyll and Hyde, Liz thought, and requested an espresso.

  Only when the coffee came did Liz dare to ask about the forensic news again. At this juncture, the doctor grasped at her question as a conversational lifesaver.

  “I am the bearer of some significant news,” he said, lapsing into formal tones and word choice and speaking softly because of the subject matter. He leaned across the table towards Liz. “We already knew the blood type of the drop of blood found on the poinsettia does not match the blood type reported to be Ellen’s in the papers. Nor does it match that of the chief suspect, Erik. But it looks like it does match the blood type of your cabdriver: B-negative.”

  “Does it match the DNA on the cigarette butts I retrieved from the taxi?”

  “No, no, Liz. I think that test should be run, but those results will take at least eleven weeks to come back. I tested the blood I found on a scrap of tissue I found among the cigarette butts. Looks like your guy nicked himself shaving and threw the tissue in the ashtray once he was in the cab.”

  “That’s marvelous news!”

  “Not really. If—and remember, it’s a big if—the scrap of tissue is from your cabbie, it only proves he had the same blood type as the unknown bleeder in Ellen’s kitchen. We need the DNA test to prove it was the same person. For that, we can test the blood on the tissue and the saliva on the cigarette butts, too. But, as I said, that will take about eleven weeks.”

  “Eleven weeks? It takes that long? That’s awful!”

  “Actually, that’s extraordinarily quick. For the police, it ordinarily takes a few months. We have an advantage in that I can run the samples in a teaching lab and don’t have to wait in a line for priority.”

  “Wouldn’t this high-priority case take precedence for the police, too?”

  “Yes, and no. The violence in Ellen Johansson’s kitchen suggests foul play, but if she’s dead, her life is not on the line. Police labs are also at work on testing samples from death row inmates. It’s usually the case that there’s a bit of a backup in police labs.”

  “I don’t like relying on a lead time of only a week or so. Fortunately, I wasn’t planning to give them the information at this stage anyway.” Liz set down her espresso and picked up her unfinished single malt. Raising it to her companion she took a long sip, and then blew Cormac Kinnaird a
kiss across the small table.

  Cormac’s response was steely. “You know, you should report what you know to the police, Liz. Failure to turn over evidence that one knows might be useful to the solution of a case amounts to obstruction of justice.”

  “But we don’t know if it’s important until we get back the results. Surely, we don’t have to share this information until we know if it is significant.”

  “That sounds like a good argument to the layperson, but are you willing to put that to test in court? You’d be up for a seven-to-fourteen–year prison sentence. And even if you got off on some remarkable technicality, no police department would ever be willing to work with you again. That would spell disaster for your career.”

  “Not to mention yours. Oh, Cormac, I don’t want to hand this over to the police at this point.”

  “But you do want to know what happened to Ellen?”

  “Of course, but I want to know first, before anybody else. Do you think the police would share information with me first if I hand over the cigarette butts?”

  “You are green at hard news reporting, aren’t you? They might, but I wouldn’t count on it. Even your having the poinsettia in your possession is enough to get you in trouble. The only thing that keeps you from being in hot water on that one is that Erik apparently gave it to the aftercare teacher. I’ll be interested to learn why it was not sprayed with luminol by the police. I’m afraid, Liz, you’ll have to count on our advantage in getting DNA results back from the teaching lab.”

  Avoiding Liz’s eyes, he signaled the waiter for the check, paid it with a flourish, and led Liz to the coatroom. There, he helped her into her raincoat, and allowed his hand to linger on her back as he escorted her down the stairs. On the lower landing, he pulled her around to face him and surprised her with a lingering kiss. Then, taking her hand, he led her into the cold and blustery night.

  As the pair rounded the corner onto Mt. Auburn Street, Liz’s cell phone interrupted their progress—in every sense of the word—with a piercing ring.

  “I’m so sorry, but I think I should answer it. It might be Olga or Erik.”

  But it wasn’t.

  “Tom!” Liz exclaimed.

  “I know it’s late but you seemed so desperate to hear from me,” Cormac heard Tom’s voice say, as he leaned closer to Liz.

  “I’m outside and it’s freezing. Will you be findable mid-morning tomorrow?” Liz asked.

  “I can be at your door at dawn if you like—or earlier,” Tom said. “But I have a billboard to hang. So I’ll have to leave by about 10:00 a.m.”

  “Tell him you’ll be there,” Cormac said, revealing he’d heard it all. “I won’t darken your door tonight. I’m shattered.”

  Chapter 19

  It’s not a Banner day,” Liz told Prudence when the cat nudged her awake on December 27. As she turned over in bed, she realized she had a mild headache. Since she was not scheduled to work, the day was hers, to use as she liked. That meant she could lie in bed, at least for a little while, and nurse her headache while speculating on its source. Did it stem from too much single malt and wine? Did it result from the fact that she’d have to turn over her ace in the hole to the police? Or was it founded on frustration with Cormac Kinnaird’s mixed signals?

  Then again, if this was a tension headache, it might have a much more profound cause. After all, now Liz felt convinced that the New York City cabdriver had visited—and been injured in—Ellen’s kitchen. And, she reminded herself, Ellen had been injured, too, as was certain from the blood found on the cookie ingredients. If she turned over the evidence to the police, the discovery she had hesitated to reveal would land her a scoop. But Kinnaird still had the bag of evidence. She wouldn’t let on to the city desk until late afternoon. That would leave her free to find Cormac, follow up on some lines of inquiry, and look for Veronica’s new wallpaper, too, if time allowed.

  With all this in mind, Liz decided not to catch a few more winks, even though it was 6:00 a.m. Instead, she got up and threw on some jeans and a turtleneck, boots, and a jacket, and drove to Rella’s Italian Bakery, where she purchased a good-sized square of crumb cake, a loaf of bread, and bacon, eggs, and milk from the dairy case. She also bought copies of the Banner and World at a newsstand. Back at home by 6:30, she took another half-hour to shower and dry her hair before phoning Tom.

  “I hope you meant it when you said you’d like to come over early,” she said.

  “Course I meant it.” Tom’s groggy voice was evidence she’d woken him, but he didn’t complain.

  “I can offer you bacon, eggs, and crumb cake as soon as you can get here.”

  “Give me three-quarters of an hour.”

  Next, Liz phoned the Ali Abdulhazar of Randoph, hoping to catch him before the start of the business day. The woman who answered spoke only Arabic. Although Liz could not understand a word she said, the woman’s anger came through loudly and unmistakably. Next, Liz phoned Erik Johansson, hoping to catch him before he set off to work. The phone answering machine picked up, this time with a recording of Erik’s voice stating, “You have reached the Johansson home. Please leave as long a message as you need to. This machine will not cut you off. If you have information about my wife, Ellen Johansson, be assured I will check this machine frequently.”

  As Liz began to speak, Erik cut in and said, “You start your work day early! I’m not sure. . .”

  “I have important news, Erik, and would like to deliver it in person before I report on it for tomorrow’s paper.”

  “News of Ellen?” The note of desperate hopefulness in his voice was unmistakable.

  “If you mean, ‘Is there any sign of her?’—no. I’m terribly sorry. But I have a lead about the altercation in the kitchen.”

  “Can’t you tell me about it now?”

  “I’d rather tell you in person.” Liz hoped Erik would consent to meet at his home where she might convince him to give her a peek into Veronica’s room, but he insisted they meet at his workplace at 10:00 a.m.

  Next, Liz called Clifford Buxton. Against background jazz, the music teacher’s message announced that he and his wife were out of town but would check messages now and then. Liz left one, then filled the coffee maker and laid bacon on her frying pan. By the time Tom arrived ten minutes later, the little house beside the turnpike was filled with the smell of breakfast cooking.

  “Coffee smells good,” Tom said, wiping his feet on the doormat. “Bacon, too. I sure could use some.”

  “It’ll taste even better with this crumb cake,” Liz said, laying out plates and cutlery for two on a tongue of countertop that served as an eating bar. When the eggs were cooked, the pair sat on high stools and dug into the breakfast.

  “Do you mind?” Tom said, as he sopped up egg yolk with the crumb cake.

  “Not a bit,” Liz said, doing the same. As he bent over his plate, Liz noticed with a feeling of tenderness, that Tom’s freckled nose was windburned. Then she told him about her wallpaper fiasco and the scoop that she’d rather have kept quiet until DNA evidence was available.

  “At least the scoop will rescue your reputation at the Banner,” Tom smiled. “And I think we can rescue Veronica’s bedroom situation, too. If we can get our hands on the paper you want, I could hang it over the weekend.”

  “You realize it’s the holiday weekend?”

  “Sure. But my heart goes out to that kid. Do you have a Yellow Pages?” He circled ads for three wallpaper outlets. “These have the largest stock around. We’ll call them first. Let’s have the White Pages for Boston.” Tom flipped through the book. “We’ll try this place, too. It’s a kids’ furniture place really, but it has a small decorating department for upholstery and wallpaper. The paper selection is small, but it’s all for kids. Lot of French imported wallpaper, but it’s worth a shot. If these places don’t have t
he paper in stock, we can call the warehouse. It’ll cost, but the warehouse can send paper by overnight mail if they have it. The important thing is to identify the pattern and the company. I’ll have to get in and measure, too.”

  “I was hoping that would be necessary.” Liz cut Tom a second square of crumb cake and poured them both more coffee. “If you meet Erik, don’t let on how well we know each other. Let’s let him assume you are the first or only decorator who would consent to work on the holiday weekend.”

  “No problem. I’d give you the World, and you know it, Liz,” Tom smiled, handing her a copy of the Banner’s competing newspaper. “This one’s easier to read,” Tom winked, opening the tabloid Banner. “You got anything in the paypuh today?”

  “Yeah, my New Year’s resolution piece. Nothing about Ellen, I’m sorry to say. But that doesn’t mean Dick Manning hasn’t gotten something on the case.”

  “It’s too early to make those calls about the wallpaper, so how about I help you check out these papers? You need more room to spread out that paper. Come on.” Tom took her hand and led her to the sofa. Once she was seated, he pushed a footstool in place for Liz’s feet, turned on the Christmas tree lights, realized the tree needed watering and took care of that, and, finally, topped up their mugs with coffee and delivered them to the coffee table. Settling in next to Liz on the sofa, he patted her thigh before licking his thumb and turning the pages of the Banner with an earnest flourish. Smiling at him, Liz realized her headache was old news.

  “Hey, I see the Red Sox manager resolves to win the World Series this summer,” Tom laughed, reading Jared Conneely’s sidebar.

  “Hope springs eternal, I guess. Are you a Sox fan?”

  “Yeah, sure. But I never know if that means I’m a loyal guy or a loser.”

  “Not a loser,” Liz said, giving him a quick kiss.

  “I guess not! Come spring, I’ll have to take you out to a ballgame.”