Animal Appetite (26 page)
Authors: Susan Conant
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women dog owners, #Women Sleuths, #Winter; Holly (Fictitious character), #Dog trainers, #Dogs, #Maine, #Massachusetts, #Indian captivities, #Women journalists
Harvard’s main library is a memorial to Harry Elkins Widener, who went down on the
Titanic
.
Titanic
.
“It was hardly a good thing for
him,
” I said. “Wasn’t he a young man?”
him,
” I said. “Wasn’t he a young man?”
“No. I think he was in his twenties. Anyway, now he’s immortal. What more could one desire?”
“Life. And if we’re going to get philosophical, what I’d like to discuss is ethics.” I summarized everything I knew and wondered about the whole history of Jack Andrews, Claudia, Brat, Gareth, Professor Foley, Oscar Fisch, Tracy Littlefield and her son, Drew.
“You don’t
know
that Claudia had an affair with anyone,” Leah pointed out. “What you know is that her daughter says she did. And that her daughter hates her.”
know
that Claudia had an affair with anyone,” Leah pointed out. “What you know is that her daughter says she did. And that her daughter hates her.”
“That’s true.”
“And that madness runs in the family.”
“Leah, so far as I know, it isn’t genetic. Besides, the only certifiable person in the family is Gareth. Jack seems to have been perfectly sane, Brat is unconventional, and Claudia is . . . Well, she stole a lot of library copies of the book with the chapter about Jack’s murder, but I’m sure she doesn’t consider herself a thief.”
“Kleptomaniacs don’t, do they?”
“I don’t know. Apparently, her rationalization is that she was portrayed unfairly in the book. Mostly what she is, is erratic. She’ll be melodramatic, and then kind of vague, and then, with Gareth—” I broke off. “But Gareth doesn’t count. It’s hard to imagine how you’d act normal when Gareth’s around.”
“Maybe
he
killed his father so he could marry his mother.” Leah paused to devote herself to chicken salad. “Symbolically, one assumes.”
he
killed his father so he could marry his mother.” Leah paused to devote herself to chicken salad. “Symbolically, one assumes.”
“One certainly does!”
“How old was Gareth?”
“When Jack was murdered? Sixteen.”
“Oedipus might not’ve been any older than that. I don’t think Sophocles says. You want me to look it up?”
“Not really. Rita would say that Freud would say that—”
“So what’s Gareth’s alibi?”
“For his father’s murder? I don’t think anyone’s ever asked. Jack died sometime after five o’clock on a Monday night. He used to work alone in the building between five and seven. Gareth and Brat were presumably doing their homework or something. I have no idea. They must’ve known about the rats, and they probably knew about the poison. They both used to hang around Damned Yankee Press. I don’t know where Gareth was when Professor Foley died, either. I should ask Kevin to find out. Gareth has delusions about Professor Foley, but then he has delusions about everyone else, too.”
“What about Brat?”
“Oh, I’m sure Gareth probably has crazy ideas about her. I don’t remember if he mentioned her, but—”
“No, I mean maybe
she
murdered her father.”
she
murdered her father.”
“Brat? She worshipped him. She still does.”
“How old was she?”
“Eleven. But it’s really impossible. For one thing, she loved Chip. He wouldn’t have been tied up if she’d been there.”
“Maybe to keep him from drinking the poison?”
“That’s an idea. Possibly. But, Leah, Brat venerates Jack’s memory. She adored her father.”
“So if she found out about Tracy Littlefield? You know, Holly, a lot of parents act as if little kids can’t hear. And she was Daddy’s little girl. Maybe he didn’t quite get it that she could understand, and he let something slip. And then, of course, there’s always Electra.”
“Who?”
“She hated her mother for murdering her father.”
“Brat
does
hate Claudia, or at least she’s chronically furious at her. But Brat doesn’t think that her mother killed her father. She really does believe that Shaun McGrath murdered Jack.”
does
hate Claudia, or at least she’s chronically furious at her. But Brat doesn’t think that her mother killed her father. She really does believe that Shaun McGrath murdered Jack.”
“Deep in her heart,” Leah persisted, “maybe she knows that it was really her mother.”
“Claudia is at least a plausible suspect.”
“Is she outrageously gorgeous?”
“Who, Claudia? No. She’s attractive enough in a Cambridge sort of way. Her husband, Oscar, looks at her as if he thinks she’s gorgeous. Exotic, maybe. He’s very protective. He’s decided that she was the victim of Jack’s financial abuse. And eighteen years ago, she was probably more fetching than she is now. Maybe men think she’s beautiful. Maybe Professor Foley did. It’s always hard to predict. Steve will tell me about some woman he says is a nice person but who is really dumpy and homely, and then, to me, she’ll look like the cover of
Vogue
. Or he’ll think that someone is a knockout when I think she looks like a million other people.”
Vogue
. Or he’ll think that someone is a knockout when I think she looks like a million other people.”
“So what’s the ethical dilemma?”
“Do I tell Kevin about Tracy Littlefield? Also, do I tell Brat about Drew? Or, maybe, do I tell Tracy about Brat and let her decide?”
“No to all three,” said Leah firmly.
“Thank you. It’s so comforting to have a Harvard student in the family.”
“Think nothing of it. Speaking of which, I have to get back. Oh, there’s one more Hannah thing you’re going to want to take a look at. It’s all about her. I’m getting it for you. It’s an old dissertation.”
“Widener didn’t have it?”
“Widener doesn’t have dissertations. The new ones are in Pusey, but after nine years, they get moved to the depository. I put in a request on Tuesday, I think it was. They probably have it for me by now. I just couldn’t carry any more today.”
“Are you allowed to check it out?”
“I don’t know, but if it looks good, I can Xerox it for you.”
“It’s a whole dissertation about Hannah?”
“That’s what it sounds like. It’s called . . . It’s on the list I brought.” She got up and fished through the stack of books and articles she’d left on the counter. “My reference list is here somewhere. Here it is. ‘An Analysis of Interpretations of a Unique Captivity Experience: A Contextually Based History of Evaluative Approaches to the Legend of Hannah Duston.’”
Leah handed me the list. I scanned it. My eyes locked on to the title of the dissertation. And then on to the name of the doctoral candidate who’d written it.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “How unlike him. He never told me he wrote his thesis on Hannah Duston. No wonder he knows all about her.”
“Who?”
“Randall Carey. The guy who wrote the chapter about Jack’s murder.”
CHAPTER 29
I rented my third-filoor apartment to its present tenants under the misapprehension that in installing the wife, Cecily, in my building, I’d pulled off a major coup in the world of dogs. Imagine my shock when I found out that Cecily wasn’t a real judge. In fact, she has no connection at all with the American Kennel Club; all she does is sit on some circuit court. She doesn’t even own a dog. She and her husband do, however, dote on their two immense smoke-colored Persian cats, Learned and Billings, who spend their lives sunning themselves on the carpeted window perches that enable them to peer safely and disdainfully down at the side yard.
As befits a judge even of the non-AKC variety, Cecily is a person of tremendous poise and dignity. Today, although she was home with a ferocious sinus infection that blotched her cinnamon skin and painted dark shadows under her reddened eyes, her hair was still in its usual neat cornrows, and when I stopped in before running my errands to ask whether I could do anything for her, she was wearing her quilted red plaid housecoat with the authority of a judge’s robes. She didn’t need anything, she assured me, but thanks. Her husband was away for a week on business; she had no domestic or social obligations. She’d spend the day drinking ginger ale and catching up on her paperwork. She gestured to a chair that, like the cats’ perches, overlooked the side yard.
My initial disappointment about Cecily’s true judicial position had quickly turned to the same irrational fear I had about Rita: that unless I kept the property up, my perfect tenants would move elsewhere. Today, mindful of Cecily’s presence, I was especially eager to maintain the tony tone appropriate to the rents I charge. Consequently, as soon as Leah left, I turned to the task of splitting and stacking the remaining wood. Besides, as I’ve suggested, although training dogs is my first-choice form of meditation, splitting wood runs a close second, and I wanted to let the matter of Randall Carey and his doctoral dissertation rattle around in my head more or less on its own. The temperature outside had warmed to the mid-thirties, but a warning breeze blew from the north, and the sky looked like one immense blue eye of a Siberian husky the size of the cosmos. Whenever a car approached on Appleton, I’d glance down the street to see whether Kevin was finally returning, but after an hour, only a single small birch log remained to be split, and Kevin still hadn’t shown up.
Just as I was about to slam my ax through the last log, a male voice made me jump. Although my hand didn’t slip, the ax fell closer to my toes than I liked, and I was glad that I’d taken the precaution of wearing my heavy leather boots. Randall Carey, I thought, hadn’t meant to startle me. I felt annoyed at him nonetheless. Even a bookish city dweller, it seemed to me, should have had the sense to avoid suddenly distracting me as my sharp, heavy ax was about to pound down near my left foot. Gripping the ax in my right hand, I kicked the pieces of just-split wood toward the small pile I hadn’t stacked, and said a curt hello.
Randall Carey was, as far as I could tell, as oblivious to my annoyance as he was to its cause. “Hello, there,” he said, rounding and prolonging the
o
in
hello
to achieve what I thought was supposed to be the tone of an Oxford don greeting a rival who has just made a laughingstock of himself by publishing an academic paper containing a misplaced comma in a quotation from Flaubert. Randall wore the same suede jacket the dogs had jumped on. On his head was a gray tweed hat suitable for a movie actor in the role of an elderly Scottish doctor who plays a lot of golf.
o
in
hello
to achieve what I thought was supposed to be the tone of an Oxford don greeting a rival who has just made a laughingstock of himself by publishing an academic paper containing a misplaced comma in a quotation from Flaubert. Randall wore the same suede jacket the dogs had jumped on. On his head was a gray tweed hat suitable for a movie actor in the role of an elderly Scottish doctor who plays a lot of golf.
Instead of stowing the ax on top of the woodpile under the stairs, I let it swing lightly from my hand. There was no need to invite Randall to visit, I reminded myself. I certainly wouldn’t invite him in for coffee.
“The modern-day Hannah rests from her labors,” Randall said.
“Indeed she does.” I reminded myself that I held the ax.
In his usual supercilious fashion, he said, “I’ve brought you something.”
For the first time, I noticed that slung over his shoulder was one of those green book bags that I remembered from trips to Harvard Square with my mother when I was a kid. Was it possible that The Coop still stocked them? Or maybe Dr. Randall Carey, the historian, had preserved this symbol of Cambridge from the days before green book bags were displaced by backpacks. I had, however, no doubt about the contents of his academic artifact. A book bag? Books. Articles. Maybe, belatedly, his own dissertation.
I contemplated raising my eyebrows and looking down my nose. “Thank you,” I said flatly. “I hate to spoil the surprise, but if it’s a copy of Lewis Clark’s book, I already have one.”
My first hint that something was amiss came when Randall failed to take the book bag off his shoulder, open it, and pull out whatever he’d brought. From the way he kept looking around at the woodpile, Kevin’s house, mine, the driveway, and the two cars parked in it, Cecily’s Volvo and my Bronco, I had the sense that he found the surroundings unacceptable for some kind of big-deal presentation. Mildly paranoid as I’d become about the rat invasion, I’d stopped leaving the dogs unsupervised in the side yard. They were in the house, and the wooden gate stood open. Uninvited, Randall Carey headed toward the yard. I again noticed that roly-poly, little-boy walk. As if the property were his rather than mine, he gestured to me to follow. Still carrying the ax, I did. I was armed. What risk was I taking? Hannah Duston had killed women and children. With the same hatchet, however, she’d also killed grown men.
As Randall Carey pulled the gate closed behind us, my eyes darted to the third floor of the house. From behind the window with the cat perch, Billings and Learned peered comfortingly down at me, and I caught sight of Cecily, who was enjoying the company of her cats and probably taking advantage of the natural light to study a law journal or a brief or whatever it was that judges perused. In the person of Cecily, Law and Justice were at hand.
When Randall Carey turned to me, his face looked weirdly happy and smug, as if he were about to spring some wonderful surprise. I found his silence disquieting.
“What’s all this about?” I asked bluntly.
“You’ll see.” By now, he was smiling. He took a seat on my park bench. I remained standing. Finally removing the green book bag from his shoulder, he rested it next to him, eased it open, and reached inside. “Close your eyes,” he said.
“You must be joking.”
“Indulge me,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
I cheated, probably not convincingly, but Randall was busy with the book bag and seemed not to notice. In fact, there wasn’t anything for me to see except Randall’s wide back. The cloth of the bag rustled lightly. Paranoia! With sudden, irrational terror, I listened for the slosh of liquid. An apparently benign surprise? Cappuccino? A thermos of latte? A milky, sweet surprise. The special of the day: half Vienna roast, half espresso, with just the merest colorless, odorless, flavorless soupçon of sodium fluoroacetate. Randall Carey, who held a Harvard Ph.D. in history, had earned his doctorate eighteen years ago, the year Jack Andrews died. Jack was from Haverhill, the city of Hannah Duston. As a boy, Jack had written a report about the local heroine. As a man, a student in Professor Foley’s own department, Randall Carey had written a dissertation. His topic had been Hannah Duston. Later, he’d written a book about murder in Massachusetts, a book with a chapter about the killing of Jack Andrews. And like Claudia, like Oscar Fisch—like Gareth?—Randall Carey didn’t like dogs. My right hand squeezed the ax handle. Until a few minutes ago, I’d been splitting wood. Now, in my panic, I was struggling to reassemble a pile of ragged, splintery pieces that fit together only here and there. The whole, however, eluded me. I couldn’t begin to see its shape.
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