The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

“The Brewster kid? Have you tried to find out what’s going on with him? Why he’s so hostile?”

  “Well—there’s the grade. He got a C-minus in my course.”

  “Yeah, but I remember you saying over a month ago that he was disruptive in the classroom. That was before the grade.” She picked up a pretzel nugget, examined it, popped it in her mouth. “Maybe if you talked to him, you know, just informally, you might find out what’s really troubling him. The root cause.” Irena’s gone into therapy, and it’s taken. Nothing escapes the fine-tooth comb of psychotherapeutic analysis. “It would seem to me,” she continued, “that if this kid’s exhibited a sudden marked change in behavior, something traumatic might have occurred to initiate it.”

  “You mean, it’s possible he might not simply be a natural-born dirty, rotten human being?”

  “Now, Karen,” she responded earnestly, “you know that nobody’s simply a natural-born …” Then she threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, you’re teasing me.”

  Greg caught the end of this conversation. Grinning, he ruffled his wife’s golden curls. “Irena refuses to believe in the Puritan doctrine of Innate Depravity, Karen. No matter how often I preach Original Sin to her, she keeps babbling on about individuation, repression, and primal psychic wounds.” He raised his eyebrows in mock incomprehension. “I honest to God don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Earl Wiggett was as I remembered him, a tall, skinny man with a lock of long, thin side hair slicked over an otherwise shiny pate. The rust brown polyester pants with the slight flare to the bottoms and form-fitting beige polyester-knit sport shirt suggested either that he was on the cutting edge of men’s style or that he’d been wearing the same outfit for the past twenty years. Wiggett’s general air of scuzziness and the snag in the left knee of his bells led me to the latter conclusion. When he’d announced his arrival in Enfield by phoning to invite me to lunch—to “pick your brains” he’d said, with an attempt at a worldly chuckle—his high-pitched laugh had set my teeth on edge. Now, over a shared table, his effusive prattle hammered at my brain like the pecking of a nervous sparrow. I had reservations about the presence in Enfield of a man who had peddled an Alcott manuscript for two million dollars, but it would have been churlish not to talk to him. At least I’ll get a good meal out of the encounter, I’d thought; but, then, I hadn’t expected that we’d be lunching at McDonald’s.

  Wiggett had ordered my Arch Deluxe burger, fries, and Diet Coke with all the flair of a connoisseur. He’d paid for them with much fingering of bills and counting out of change. I’d cringed at the prospect of being obligated to this man, even if only for $6.14 worth of chemicals and fat. How much of my time would $6.14 buy?

  “So, Karen—I may call you Karen, mayn’t I—it seems we have an interest in common.” He bit into his burger; tomato seeds and mayonnaise dribbled down his chin onto the little notebook computer he’d placed carefully in front of him on the restaurant table, and from there onto his lap. Grabbing a wad of paper napkins from the dispenser, he hastened to wipe the greasy drips from the computer. He didn’t bother with any of the drops that had reached his person. I replaced my sandwich hastily in its cardboard shell and nibbled on a salty fry. Salt is reputed to be good for nausea.

  “Oh, yes?” I responded.

  “Serena Northbury—or, should I say Mrs. Northbury, as she was most often referred to by her readership—is an author in need of some serious reconsideration. And the grapevine has it that you are in the process of a biography?” It was a question.

  “Oh, does it?” The grapevine sure works fast, I thought. It’s only been two months since I decided to begin the book. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Oh, I was at the ALA.…” His voice twittered off inconclusively. He continued to wipe at the top of his little black computer.

  “How was it?” The American Literature Association is a cozy conference, far less painful than the annual Modern Language Association with its ten thousand frenzied participants.

  Wiggett pursed his lips, miming deep contemplation. “Useful,” he murmured. “It was useful. Not too much of this postmodernist garbage. Good, solid, historical work. Useful.” Then he changed the subject, as if he didn’t care to pursue it. I had a niggling suspicion he hadn’t really been at the ALA. Based on what? I wondered. Just because the man repulses me doesn’t mean he’s a liar. Then I suddenly knew why I didn’t believe Wiggett—I’ve been to the ALA any number of times: Plenty of postmodernist garbage goes on there.

  “So, tell me, Karen,” Wiggett leaned forward cozily, his half-consumed burger lying forgotten on its paper wrapper, “have you found anything of particular interest in your research thus far?” Although his posture was nonchalant, he couldn’t hide the avid gleam in his rust-colored eyes. His fingers tapped nervously on the closed computer.

  “Oh,” I waved my hand dismissively, “just the ordinary stuff. Family background, mostly.”

  “Any interesting scandals?”

  “Not unless you count a rift with her father. Other than that, Mrs. Northbury seems to have been a paragon of respectability.”

  “Too bad. Sensation sells.” Wiggett rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal symbol for moola. “A good scandal might get your biography on the best-seller list.” His snaggle-toothed smile would have terrified alligators.

  I tightened my lips. “That’s not what I’m interested in. It is my intention to write a historically reliable account of the author and her times, not some sensational blockbuster.” Even I could hear the self-righteousness dripping from my words. But, God, this creep was really getting to me.

  Jill Greenberg sailed by our table with Kenny Halvorsen in tow. His tray held enough junk food for three and a half people, but he and Jill seemed to be alone. When she noticed my companion, Jill widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows. The resulting expression would have been hard to misinterpret: You really that hard up, Pelletier? I gave her my best screw you look. She smiled wanly, then turned her attention back to Kenny.

  Kenny and Jill? Hmm. Although he was tall and blond like Gerry, Ken Halvorsen resembled the late Gerry Novak not at all. Broad shoulders. Straight, floppy hair. Open, earnest face. You looked at this guy and your first thought was muscle. Then you looked again and thought, nice guy. At no point did you ever think, tortured genius. Next to Kenny, slender Jill with her firestorm of hair looked fragile, in need of protection. She also looked like the boss.

  “So,” Wiggett continued, drawing my attention back to his thin, horsey face. “No surprises, huh? No great unpublished novels or anything?” His twittery laugh was meant to discount the question, but in that moment I knew he’d somehow heard about Child of the North Star. But how? Who’d told him? Who knew about the manuscript? Keeping my expression carefully blank, I went over the list in my mind: Will Thorpe, Amanda, and Shamega had been there when we’d found it. And, oh, yes, Gerry Novak. Had Novak contacted Wiggett? I tucked that speculation away to share with Piotrowski. Had I told anyone? Avery, of course, and Greg, and, oh, yes, Piotrowski and Schultz. Regular little blabbermouth, wasn’t I? My eyes fell on Jill, sitting with Kenny in front of golden arches painted on a plate glass window. Had I mentioned the manuscript to Jill? Probably—and maybe Gerry had, too. Jill would know. Had Edith told anyone? Her lawyer? The Brewsters? Kendell Brown? The Menendez couple? Who else might she have confided in? The list was endless. But what seemed absolutely certain was that one of those people had sought out Earl Wiggett and asked him a question or two about the going rate for sensational nineteenth-century novel manuscripts.

  “Unpublished novels?” I would play it innocent with Wiggett; maybe there was something I could learn from him. “You’re the expert in that field.” I widened my eyes, admiringly. “I don’t know anything about unpublished novels.” I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies.

  Wiggett leered at me, his rusty gaze narrow, knowing, and unmistakably furtive. With the greasy paper napkin, he stroked
his little black notebook computer caressingly. I glanced hastily around; anyone watching us would surely think we were involved in some illegal—or immoral—transaction. “It’s true,” he said, “I do know the ropes. If there were anything out there,” he raised his eyebrows, nodded his head sagely, “if anything just happened, you know, to surface, I could make it well worth somebody’s while to make the—ah—connections.” The skimpy eyebrows were raised almost to the frontmost strands of mousy hair plastered across Wiggett’s shiny skull. He tapped his fingers on the closed lid of his computer as if he were entering information then and there.

  I was so very sorry to have to disappoint him.

  “You see, Lieutenant,” I said into the phone a half-hour later, “when Wiggett sold the Alcott book, his name was in all the papers. Someone, maybe Gerry Novak, contacted him about Child of the North Star, hoping to make some money from it. If you talk to him, he might lead you to the person who—er—purloined the novel manuscript.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Piotrowski said, earnestly. “Thank you. Did you happen to get the name of his hotel?” Earl Wiggett would be receiving visitors shortly.

  But unfortunately I hadn’t found out where in Enfield Wiggett was staying. Unfortunately, because, even with all the resources at his disposal, Lieutenant Piotrowski was unable to locate the erstwhile literary sleuth anywhere in the area. Messages left at his home phone in California were not returned. And, although an e-mail message to the address he had given me was picked up at his end, probably on his trusty little laptop—cyberspace yielded nary a reply.

  Twenty-three

  Haunted Mansion Murders! trumpeted the early edition of the Boston Herald over a front-page photo of Meadowbrook, shot from an eerie angle with a night-scope lens. “Holy Christ,” I breathed, and snatched a copy from the tottering pile by the register. Kelly’s Tobacconist and Stationers, the paramount spot for an early morning news fix in Enfield, was almost deserted at eight-thirty on this beautiful Wednesday morning, four days after the discovery of Gerry Novak’s drowned body. I’d come to town early for a few hours’ work in the library before attending the curriculum subcommittee meeting on literature, scheduled for midafternoon. A heavy storm the previous night had cleared the air of the dense humidity that had plagued us for the past week. My brain, too, felt clearer than it had since Edith Hart’s death, and I was eager to finally begin systematic research into Serena Northbury’s life. But, now—this headline!

  I slapped two quarters on the counter and hustled the scandal sheet next door to the Bread and Roses Bakery for a cup of black coffee and a quiet corner. Two Shocking Deaths at Murder Mansion, elaborated the subhead. I groaned, and opened the paper wide to read the page-three article. Murder Mansion? So much for discretion and a dignified beginning for the Northbury center. Under the heading Murder at Meadowbrook!, I read:

  The past month has seen two suspicious deaths at Meadowbrook, the posh Eastbrook estate built in the 1800’s by schlock novelist Serena Northbury, according to confidential police sources. In mid-May Dr. Edith Hart, an elderly physician who spent her life in the noble work of caring for the down-and-out of Manhattan’s East Harlem, passed away almost unnoted by those whose lives she had so richly blessed. Suspicions that the eighty-five-year-old diabetic inner-city physician might have been hastened to her final reward by a murderous hand have not yet been confirmed by the Coroner’s Office. But the death by drowning of Dr. Hart’s protégé and heir, aspiring poet Gerry Novak, less than a month after the wealthy Edith Hart’s private funeral services, reinforces suspicions that foul play may have been involved in both deaths—

  “Karen, what on earth …?” Avery Mitchell’s astounded tones shocked me out of my appalled absorption in the Herald article. Natty in a navy seersucker jacket and charcoal trousers, Avery stood at the far side of my table, balancing a maroon Bread and Roses coffee cup and a copy of the New York Times, and staring in horror at the inflammatory headline over the unmistakable photograph of Meadowbrook. Gaze fixed on the journal’s front page, he set first the paper cup, then the rolled-up newspaper, on the marble top of the small, round table and slid into the chair across from me. “Oh, dear God, Karen, tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

  “I wish I could, Avery. Here.” I scooted my chair over closer to his so he could read along with me. “I just started the article, so I don’t know much more about it than you do.” The remaining few paragraphs did nothing to reassure either of us. Innuendo, unsubstantiated claims, and provocative speculation, managed to insinuate that a long, dark history of death, mayhem, and sinister secrets surrounded a “brooding Gothic mansion” and had led fatefully and inevitably to current violent death. Two violent deaths.

  “God,” I groaned as I raised my eyes from the final paragraph, “I feel as if I’ve just finished reading The Fall of the House of Usher.’”

  Avery’s lips were set in a grim line; he was not thinking about Edgar Allan Poe. “At least the college isn’t mentioned here,” he said. He seemed to be talking to himself. “But I’d better get on the horn to O’Hara immediately, before this rag gets word that Meadowbrook’s been left to Enfield.” Harvey O’Hara is Enfield College’s P.R. person. Having dealt with the fallout from last year’s “unfortunate incidents,” Avery was obviously concerned with the impact upon the college’s image of a link to yet more homicides. “Christ,” he muttered, “that’s all Enfield needs now: Another public scandal.”

  Lurid headlines instantly composed themselves in my overheated mind: Murder Plagues Posh Campus; Classy College Cursed by Killer. And it was all my fault, I thought; I was the one who’d gotten Edith Hart interested in Enfield College in the first place.

  Without thinking, I reached out and touched Avery’s hand. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He jerked his hand back as if I’d brushed him with a lighted match. Suddenly he was present again. Very present. “Sorry? For what?”

  I was confused; his reaction hardly suited my words. “If it weren’t for me,” I babbled, “we wouldn’t be involved with Meadowbrook at all.”

  His expression cleared. He laughed. “If it weren’t for you, Karen, we’d be out ten million dollars and a fabulous estate. It’s my job to worry about this … er … possible complication. You have nothing to apologize for.”

  He sat, silent, for a few seconds, fiddling with the pages of the newspaper in front of him. Then he glanced around the half-filled café, blue eyes swiftly scanning its coffee-swigging occupants. Aside from my former student Sophia Warzek in her white baker’s apron, delivering a heavy aluminum tray of icing-drenched cinnamon rolls to the counterman on the far side of the room, no Enfield College faces were in evidence. Avery turned to me, leaned a little closer, and spoke in muted tones. His gaze was meaningful and direct. “I’m the one who owes you an apology. I think you know what I’m referring to. This is neither the time nor the place, of course, but if we’re going to continue working together on—” The café door opened with a swish; Avery instantly sat back in his chair and directed his voice over my shoulder. “Morning, Miles. Beautiful day, isn’t it? It’s wonderful to be rid of that beastly humidity. I was just saying to Karen, I was afraid I’d have to start thinking about raising money to air-condition the entire campus if the heat hung on much longer.”

  “Humph.” Miles gave me what I’m certain he would have termed a speaking look, then concentrated on Avery. “Mitchell, you have a moment? There’s a little item of business I want to run by you.” He glanced over at me again. “Something confidential.”

  I felt my face, flushed already from Avery’s comments, turn an even warmer pink; undoubtedly Miles had Tibby Brewster’s complaint in mind. Oh, God, what ghastly timing.

  Avery was cool; he always was. Folding the Herald, headline inside, he slipped the paper over the marble tabletop toward me. I slid it into my canvas bookbag. “Can we finish this conversation later, Karen? Do you expect to be on campus all day?”

  Before I could respond, M
iles chimed in. “You remember the literature subcommittee meeting this afternoon, don’t you, Karen? Three-thirty. Comp Lit lounge.” I inclined my head in a general purpose nod—yes, I’ll be on campus, and yes, I’ll be at the meeting. Then I rose from the table. There was no way I could attempt damage control until I knew for certain what Professor Jewell was up to.

  “Some real weird guy was in here yesterday, looking through the Pinkworth papers. Tall skinny dude with bad hair,” Shamega said. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Really?” I sat at one of the tables in Special Collections, reading through the Rev. Eddie’s account ledgers. I’d recovered sufficiently from the shock of the headline to set myself a specific research goal for the day. Intrigued by the letters I’d read between Serena Northbury and her father, I decided to find out everything I could about their quarrel. Pinkworth had kept his account books for over fifty years. He’d documented his frugal expenditures as meticulously as if his entrance into the Great Beyond depended on a well-balanced spread sheet. I’d know exactly when the rift occurred, I thought, if I could find the date Pinkworth had stopped paying his daughter’s Manhattan boardinghouse expenses. But I was immediately diverted from my task by Shamega’s words.

  “So, what was Mr. Bad Hair interested in?”

  “He wanted to know if Pinkworth or Northbury stuff was catalogued under any other name.”

  Hmm, interesting. I had more than an inkling of what this badly coiffed researcher was looking for. “So, what time of day was Earl Wiggett here?”

  “Most of the afternoon. And you’re right; that was his name. You know this guy?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” I paused for a moment’s reflection. Wiggett must have been sequestered snugly in the bowels of the library at the very moment I was talking to Piotrowski about him. Damn, I should have thought of that. “Tell me, Shamega, did any police officers come looking for him?”