Cold Case (20 page)

“Would you like some coffee, Garnet?”

“Only if it's already made, Carlotta.”

He said my name hesitantly, as though he were tasting it for the first time, savoring it on his tongue.

“It isn't. I've got water, as in non-bottled tap, and orange juice, from the carton.”

“Juice,” he said, eyeing the wooden coatrack. “Mind if I hang up my jacket? It's warm.”

“Go ahead.”

When I came back with two glasses of orange juice, he was slumped on the sofa, not seated in the straight-backed chair I keep near my desk, the “client” chair. He looked exhausted.

I sat in my aunt Bea's old rocker.

“I don't suppose you've received that notebook back from your friend?” he asked.

“It should come in a couple of days,” I said.

“A couple of days,” he echoed as though I'd said a couple of years. “My mother no longer wishes to continue with this investigation. She feels that it will stir up matters better left forgotten. If the press got this between their teeth, they could run with it for three months easily. It could crowd out every legitimate campaign issue, make this a referendum on my family, on part of the past we'd rather forget.”

“You don't think there's any chance your sister might have actually written the chapter?”

“Thea? If I did, I'd quit the campaign and help you look for her. God knows I'm tempted to quit already.”

“Why?” I ventured. “I thought you were a shoo-in, a sure thing.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't dump this on you. Sometimes it's hard, that's all. I feel the pressure; it's tough to have a whole family's hopes and dreams rest in one person. I never thought it would come to this.”

“Come to what?”

“I wasn't born an only child. Thea's success took a lot of stress off the burden of being the Cameron flag-bearer.”

“You still have a sister.”

“I have one living sister. If you're treasuring some fantasy that she's the one who wrote the forgery, forget it. Beryl's not capable of writing. Not anything. Not anymore.”

The night seemed incredibly quiet. I willed the telephone silent, the doorbell still.

“What happened to Beryl?” I asked softly.

“No one really knows,” he answered. “They label it ‘schizophrenia,' but that's just a name. It's a neurobiological disorder of unknown origin. There's no cause and no cure. It often hits in the late teens, early twenties. Beryl started hearing voices, making strange sounds, before I went off to prep school, before Thea died. We used to tease her …”

“Andrew Manley was her doctor?”

A flicker of distaste crossed his features. “Not the first, nor the last. My mother saw Beryl's disease as an attack on our family, an attack on her as a mother, a visible form of stigmatization. And in some way, I think she was afraid we might all catch it, might all become delusional, scary people talking to ourselves, screaming random words.”

“It's not contagious,” I said.

“But it does run in families,” he said. “I think Thea was especially afraid that she might turn into Beryl some day. They were close, shared the same room, even though we had plenty of bedrooms.”

He sat, quiet and composed, on my sofa, so different from the energized dynamo I'd met earlier that day.

“I think my mother is afraid that the truth about Beryl would spoil my chances in this election. People are so uninformed about mental illness. They're so terrified by it. The different are not well tolerated, not here, not anywhere.” He gave a short bitter laugh.

“What's funny?”

“Absolutely nothing. My sister, Beryl, is under psychiatric care and, given the success of the drugs they've tried so far, will be forever. My sister, Thea, who'd have been the voice of her generation, is dead. Which leaves me to carry the torch. And the strange thing is that most of the time, I feel up to the task; I feel that I can make a difference, that politically this state is ripe for change—! Forgive me,” he said, stopping himself abruptly. “I mistake individuals for audiences. I'll stop the speech.”

“It sounded like a good one,” I said. “Strong opening.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” He stared at the fireplace, the rug, the mantelpiece. “This is a restful room. I think I could fall asleep here.”

“That's because you're exhausted,” I said quickly to quash the thought. I did not need a Cameron sleeping on my sofa. “What do you think happened to Thea?”

That woke him. “What do you mean? Everyone knows what happened to her. I remember the whole thing. I wasn't a child. I was eighteen.”

“Where was she going that Thursday night? It doesn't make sense. Was she running away? Did she have a lover?”

“Thea,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Thea was probably off on another ‘great adventure.'”

“I don't follow.”

“I'm sorry, of course not. My sister saw her life in terms of adventures. If it had been summertime, I'd have been part of the whole thing, which could have involved anything, absolutely anything, from robbing a neighbor's house, leaving the loot on their front doorstep, ringing the bell, and running away, to trying to catch the biggest fish in creation, and then letting him go.”

“But it wasn't summer,” I said.

“No.” He pressed his lips together. “I think she'd decided to spend the night in Marblehead, at our beach house. She could have made it easy on everyone. She could have told Dad. She could have had somebody drive her up. She could have taken a bus, a cab. But no, it had to be secret and mysterious.”

“She hitchhiked.”

“Yeah, that was Thea—live and learn, life on the road. Maybe she'd find somebody who'd make a good story, a great poem, a character in a play. Instead …”

He sat his empty tumbler down on an end table, shook his head sadly.

“I still miss her,” he said. “I adored her, worshiped her. Especially as Beryl grew more and more distant. Like I said, I didn't grow up an only child.” He swallowed audibly. “I thought I'd always have them, two sisters I could trust with every secret thought—I'm sorry. I'm wandering. I just came to tell you that the investigation is off. My mother's already voided the check—”

He stood, but his exit was spoiled by the insistent ring of the doorbell. It was Henry, the chauffeur, wild-eyed, holding a cellular phone at arm's length like it was a poisonous snake.

20

The chauffeur handed the phone to Garnet as if he couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

“Urgent,” he mouthed, then beat a hasty retreat to stand like a sentinel on the stoop.

“What?” Garnet barked into the mouthpiece.

As he listened, his face lost all color, draining from tan to putty. Reaching out blindly, he touched a wall, his fingers barely grazing the surface. Taking two awkward steps forward, he leaned against it. I honest to God thought he might faint.

He said, “Wait. I'll take it in the car.”

I said, “Tell whoever it is you'll call back.”

“Shut up,” he mouthed.

“Is there a scrambler on that phone?: Do you want everyone in the neighborhood eavesdropping?” Dammit, I thought, a politician ought to know better.

“Look,” he said firmly into the receiver, “this phone's not secure. Call me at—” He glared at me and I gave my number. He parroted it into the phone. “No, it's not a trick. Immediately.”

He stared wildly around the room. I indicated my desk phone.

“Somewhere private,” he demanded.

“In the kitchen, or upstairs, first door on the left.”

He chose upstairs. My bedroom, with its habitually unmade bed. Took the steps two at a time. The phone shrilled while he was still at the top of the stairs.

I soaked it in: Garnet's pallor, the aura of disaster. The chauffeur was outside, staring at the limo as though someone was apt to steal it, not an unlikely scenario. I sauntered casually to my desk, waited till the phone was between rings, then—oh so gently—lifted the receiver.

If Garnet hadn't been so intent on the call's content, he might have heard the tiny click.

“Please put her back on,” he was saying. “My God, don't hurt her. I'm not trying to set you up!”

The other voice was inhuman, metallic,
someone with a digital voice-changer
. “Finger by finger,” it said menacingly. “That's how she'll come back to you, Mr. Cameron. It's your choice. Two million bucks or you'll never see more of her than ten broken fingers. Maybe we'll leave the nails on, maybe we won't. You won't even find her body. Understand?”

“Wait!” Garnet insisted. “Let me speak to her again!” The other line disconnected and I pressed the receiver into the cradle as well.

I heard footsteps on the stairs. I didn't have time to analyze my decision.

“We can discuss my ethics later,” I said. “I eavesdropped. What are you going to do?”

“You what?” He made his way down the stairs, carefully hanging on to the banister like he needed the support.

“I overheard the phone call.”

He sat on the second step from the bottom, sank into it as though all the air had abruptly left his body.

“They've taken her,” he whispered. “Oh, my God.”

“Who? Who've they taken?”

He looked at me uncomprehendingly, undecided.

“Who?” I demanded, kneeling so our eyes were on a level.

His words came out in a powerful rush. “Marissa. I talked to her. She sounded frightened.”

“Wait a minute. Earlier today, she left with a pile of luggage,” I said.

“Trial separation,” he agreed. “We didn't know how long we could keep it from the press.”

“Where was she supposed to go?”

“Her mother's place in Rhode Island. She must be there. This has to be some kind of hoax. Someone who saw her leave—”

“Call Rhode Island. Make sure she got there.”

“No! Her mother will be terrified!”

“Let me call. I'll pretend to be a reporter.”

“She'll hang up!”

“I'll pretend to be a girlfriend! For chrissakes, what's the number?”

He spoke the digits quickly, but I didn't need to write them down.

“Rosemary,” he muttered. “Tell whoever answers you're Rosemary and you need to talk to Missy.”

A woman with a twangy Texas drawl answered. I wasn't sure if she was the mother, the secretary, the maid. She said Missy wasn't there in a cheerful voice. Wasn't expected. Did I want her Dover number? I hung up, ruining Rosemary's reputation for politeness.

“Didn't she tell her mother she was coming?” I asked Garnet.

“No. We weren't sure. I hoped she'd hang on till after the campaign. My life isn't always this crazy, this public. Marissa's ‘visit,' if it came to that, was going to be a surprise.”

Some surprise.

He stood up and started fumbling around the hall, trying to remember where he'd hung his jacket.

“Sit down,” I ordered. “Or go in the kitchen and make yourself some toast. We need to call the FBI.”

He turned on me, slammed both hands on my shoulders with more power than I expected. “No! He said they'd kill her!”

I pushed him away.

“Of course,” I said. “That's what kidnappers do. They terrify you and then they extort money. Unless you believe their threats, they don't get paid. But money is what they really want, not blood. That's your trump card, and the FBI knows how to play it. They don't send guys who come blazing out of cop cars with screaming sirens. Kidnapping is the one thing the FBI handles really well.”

Garnet shook his head. “It could be a hoax.”

“That's what you said before you found out she wasn't at her mother's.”

“She could be somewhere else. Maybe she decided to spend the night with a friend. She's unpredictable.”

“Sure,” I said. “Pretty soon you'll convince yourself you didn't hear her voice on the phone.”

“It could have been a recording—”

“Do you want her dead? Would a dead wife be better, campaign-wise, than a wife who wants a divorce?”

He'd have hit me if I hadn't backed out of range. I'd gotten his attention.

“Look,” he said, “I need time to think this over.”

“You need to call the FBI.
Now
. Or else I will.”

He came close enough to threaten. “If you tell a soul, I'll see you lose your license within the week. Within the week, do you understand?”

“I'm an officer of the court—” I began.

“Don't pull that bullshit on me. You're nothing of the kind.”

I should have known better than to try it on a lawyer, but he was distressed. I thought he might fall for it.

“So how long do you have to wait for the first finger?” I asked nastily. If I could provoke him into swinging at me, I decided I'd take the hit. Any reason to call the cops.

“Shut up!” he said. “Just shut up! It's a hoax and that's it. Final!”

He stormed out of the house, ripping his jacket off the coatrack. Henry, the chauffeur, followed like a shadow down the steps and across the lawn. The car doors slammed loudly. Someone gunned the engine. The big Cadillac peeled rubber as it left the curb.

21

I enjoy earning my livelihood as a private investigator. The only other thing I've got going for me is an updated cabbie license. It's not like Karolyn Kirby's itching to call and beg me to try out for the women's Olympic volleyball team.

Practical matters—food and taxes—kept my hand off the phone.

A new thought plunked me down in my desk chair:
If I hadn't answered the door, if I hadn't been home, what would Garnet Cameron have done next?

Richard Nixon made it lousy for all politicians. Garnet hadn't even muttered, “I am not a crook,” and already I suspected him.