Deep Pockets (16 page)

“Unique meaning patentable?”

“Yes.”

When Chaney’d walked into the lawyer’s office, he’d looked exhausted and worn-out, but as he spoke about his research, his eyes brightened and his back straightened. I remembered Denali’s roommate, Jeannie, describing Chaney as a vital, exciting lecturer. In the lecture she’d recalled, he’d issued a warning against educational medicalization. Now it sounded as though the man who’d preached against the overuse of drugs was developing his own.

Todd Geary didn’t knock, maybe hoping he’d overhear something to his advantage. Or maybe he didn’t want to get in the habit of knocking on his own door. Chaney practically leaped from his seat as soon as the door opened.

“I have to be going,” he said. “I’ll be at the lab the rest of the day. Leave me a message on my cell and I’ll get back to you, either one of you.”

Geary had his mouth open to ask a question, but Chaney was already gone, his footsteps retreating down the hall. The lawyer shook his head and seated himself behind his big rosewood desk. He seemed surprised to find me still seated in the chair when he glanced up.

“Possibly,” I said, “you can help me.”

“Possibly.” He was tight-lipped, still angry at being dismissed from his own office.

I smiled. “You seem to know Dr. Chaney well. Would you be able to tell me whether he has any enemies?”

The lawyer steepled his hands, brought his fingertips to his mouth, then rested his hands on the desk. “I’d advise you to talk to his wife.”

Fine with me. I wanted to meet Chaney’s wife. If she was sharp enough to realize he’d left the house, maybe she was sharp enough to verify the oddball phone call. Maybe she’d listened in.

“You think she would know?” I asked.

He displayed those even teeth in another smile, not a pleasant one. “That’s not what I meant. Have you met Margo Chaney?”

“No.”

“Well, what a treat you have in store.”

I waited for him to smile, to share the joke, but his face stayed deadpan.

“Would you be willing to call her and arrange an appointment?”

He picked up the phone and dialed.

The house, which adorned one of those tree-lined
streets northwest of Harvard Square, was secluded and private, with a high wall and a large yard. A Colonial among Colonials, vintage 1700s, or a good imitation, with plenty of elegant houses to copy on nearby Brattle Street, once called Tory Row, due to the sympathies of those living in the fancy mansions during Revolutionary times. I eyeballed the address the lawyer had given me, wondering whether he’d made a mistake, transposed a number. Don’t get me wrong; Harvard professors earn good money, but this was a massive house in an expensive area.

I rang the bell and waited. The professor had told me his wife was ill. Todd Geary’s arched eyebrows and odd manner when discussing Mrs. Chaney made me think I might be facing something more exotic than physical infirmity.

The garden fence was seven feet high, designed to stop peeping neighbors cold. Even in heels, I couldn’t peer over the top. Footsteps proceeded down a flagged path, and then a cool male voice inquired whether I had an appointment. When I said yes, a slot opened and the same voice asked me to please place my card on the tray. I scribbled my name on the back of one of the lawyer’s cards and handed it through, wondering if the Chaneys had recently been burgled. Seemed like a lot of security — a big ADT sign on the lawn, this elaborate ritual by the fence.

“Just a moment, please.” The footsteps receded, leaving me stranded on the wrong side of the gate. I measured the height of the multichimneyed roof. Three floors at least, maybe twenty rooms. I counted mullioned windows, gave it up at thirty-seven, wondered whether Chaney would be proved right and some physical evidence would magically turn up linking him to the hit-and-run on Birmingham Parkway. It’s tough to manufacture evidence. Police procedure has gotten pretty damned sophisticated when it comes to physical evidence.

The gate opened soundlessly. The man attached to the voice was young and wary, filled with undergraduate earnestness. He had blond hair that fell in waves over his ears, a round face, wire-rimmed glasses, and an Adam’s apple that lurched up and down as he spoke.

“Mrs. Chaney will see you in the withdrawing room.” He blushed when I raised an eyebrow at the quaint term. “She is returning the house to its pre-Revolutionary condition, so she prefers to use that word. A previous owner had actually removed walls, but she was fortunate to find the original architect’s drawings. It’s one of her hobbies.”

I followed him onto a wide enclosed porch and then into a fan-shaped foyer — gray, with white trim. The place smelled like rose blossoms. I wondered whether Mrs. Chaney would wear a hoop skirt.

I was disappointed, but not by much. She wore what might be described as “invalid’s garb,” a long off-white nightgown, almost entirely covered by a woolen robe. Her dark hair was caught and elaborately looped at the back of her neck. She was pale, formidably thin, and perfectly groomed, in spite of her boudoir getup. She was either much younger than her husband or remarkably well preserved — hard to say which. Her glance was positively terrifying. I had the feeling that she’d priced every garment I wore within thirty seconds, right down to my underwear.

At first sight, she didn’t seem to be black. Her dark hair was smooth but braided, and her features — well, again, hard to say. After what Chaney had told me about not trusting white people, I decided his wife was most likely a woman of color.

“I hope you’ve come to explain,” she said irritably. “I’ve tried speaking to that worthless twig of an attorney. I have no intention of paying him extra to handle this. And now he tells me he may have to hire another attorney, and you as well, just because Wilson has gotten himself into this ridiculous trouble.”

Once she’d finished evaluating my attire, she picked up where she’d stopped in her knitting. A ball of pale blue yarn rested on her lap and steel needles flashed.

“Perhaps I could sit,” I said.

She was posed in a semireclining position, her back elevated by pillows, her slippered feet propped on a sort of a chaise longue. From some distant history lesson or long-forgotten book came the term
fainting couch
. That’s what the piece of period furniture must be; I hesitated to ask.

“Yes, sit, if you must. I hope this won’t take long. Mark? Mark dear, could you bring coffee for Miss—”

“Carlyle.”

“And some cocoa for me.”

He didn’t click his heels before leaving the room, but he came damned close. I waited for Margo Chaney to say something, but she merely stared at me as if I were some interesting form of insect life until I spoke.

“Mr. Geary thought you might be able to help me.”

“I’m sure I don’t know how.”
Click
went the needles.

“You said your husband had gotten himself into trouble.”

“Yes, well, we are all sinners, every one.”
Clack
.

I didn’t know how to respond. Coffee and cocoa might arrive at any moment, so I thought I’d try small talk. “You have a lovely home.”

It wasn’t anyplace I’d want to live. More like a museum than a place to eat and sleep, with glossy paint, ornate molding, and gleaming chandeliers.

“Yes, well, you may tell Mr. Geary that this home will go unmortgaged to my children, along with my home in Oak Bluff. Both have been in my family for generations, and they will remain so, unencumbered. There is no use pretending that Wilson is made of money at the present time. What money there is is my money, and I will not squander it on a man who has behaved foolishly.”

Vehicular homicide may be careless or brutal, but I’d rarely heard it described as foolish. If she had a family home in Oak Bluff on Martha’s Vineyard, she was not only a woman of color; she was a woman of money, too. The so-called talented tenth vacationed on the Vineyard.

“Miss Carlyle,” she said, “what is your work?”

“I’m an investigator.”

“A policewoman?”

“I was a policewoman.”

“But you’re no longer one. Perhaps you’re not entirely corrupt.”

“Let’s hope not. I’m working for your husband.”

Her needles were small, the yarn thin. She worked quickly, but I couldn’t tell what she was making. “Running down some hooligan with his car. Imagine—” She stopped abruptly, and I realized she’d caught Mark’s faint footsteps. He carried a silver tray laden with floral china. He stooped and placed it on a mahogany table with practiced ease.

“Cream?” asked my hostess without rising from her chaise.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Sugar?”

“Please.”

She dismissed Mark with a frown as soon as he’d doctored my coffee. A plate of what seemed to be pound cake made me realize I was starving. The cocoa smelled wonderful and I wished I’d requested it as well. On the other hand, the room was warm and stuffy. If I’d ordered cocoa, I’d probably have fallen asleep.

“Please, help yourself,” said Mrs. Chaney.

“May I cut you a slice of cake?”

“No, I couldn’t possibly eat, but do have some.”

I did.

“It’s a Colonial recipe, with cranberries and currants.”

It was dry as dust. If I hadn’t chugged coffee to moisten it, it wouldn’t have gone down. She watched me like a hawk while I ate, as though she were going to do her dissertation on my table manners, or lack thereof. That and the dry cake killed my appetite.

“Miss Carlyle.” She paused, as though she’d forgotten what she was going to say. Or maybe because she felt too weak to continue.

“Carlotta,” I said helpfully.

Most people would have responded with their own first name. Hers, I knew from the lawyer, was Margo, but she couldn’t bring herself to divulge it, or to use my given name. “What I wish to — I do not wish this matter to appear in the newspapers.”

“I don’t plan to speak to any reporters.”

“Don’t be rude. Are you having an affair with my husband?”

“No.” How many affairs did she imagine Chaney was capable of carrying on simultaneously?

“I like to get things straight from the beginning.”

“I see.” And that wouldn’t be rude, I thought. “Let’s talk about Friday night, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Your husband says he was here with you Friday night when he received a phone call.”

“I don’t recall hearing the phone.” She made a noise that in anyone less delicate would have been a snort.
Click, clack
went the needles.

“But you heard him when he went out that night?”

“The side door is underneath my bedroom. I would hear it. I
often
do.”

My
bedroom, not our bedroom. And not a slip of the tongue, either.

“Is there a phone in your bedroom?”

“I generally turn off the ringer at night.”

“What time was it when you heard your husband leave the house?”

“I didn’t look at the clock.”

I thought she was lying. I let her words settle into the cool silence of the room, hoping she’d amend them, but when she spoke again, it was to ask, “Are you the sort of person one hires if one suspects one’s husband is unfaithful? A hypothetical question, you understand.”

“Let’s give it a hypothetical no.”

“I — if I’d realized at the time why the police were interested, I might have lied and said Wilson was home. It was unwise of me not to say he was home; I don’t know what came over me.”

A sudden desire for revenge, I thought.

“Perhaps if I told the police I’d been mistaken, that Wilson actually
was
here—”

“Reverse yourself now that you know what it’s about?” Oh, the cops would enjoy this, I thought, both halves of the couple revising their tales.

“You don’t think that would be a good idea?”

“The police might not believe you.”

She smiled. “I’m a very convincing liar.”

I smiled to let her know that was not news to me.

She said, “Perhaps Wilson might tell you with whom he actually was at the time. And then she could discreetly go to the police with her information.”

“But you have no idea where he might have been?”

“No. Tell me, Ms. Carlyle, do you have children?”

I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “No, but I have an almost-adopted sister.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was paired up with a little girl through the Big Sisters Association a long time ago. We’re still together, but it’s more a mother-daughter relationship than a sister thing.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“You should be, for that girl’s sake. I have a son. He’s fifteen now, away at school.”

For the first time, she set down her needles and made eye contact. Hers were deep-set and coal black.

I said, “You must have had him when you were very young.”

“Thank you. I did. And then I divorced his father. I thought I was in love with Wilson, that he was the great love of my life. I thought it was the right thing to do, that my happiness and my son’s happiness depended on it.”

Sometimes when reluctant witnesses open up, it’s like a dam breaking. They begin with monosyllabic grunts, progress to sentences, and then, bang, you’re going to hear the story of their lives. I stayed motionless, my coffee cup raised to my lips. I didn’t intend to do anything to stop the impending flood.

She said, “I have had six miscarriages since I married Wilson. A single child — my father used to say that no one should have an only child. It’s too risky for your genealogical line, and for your child, as well. You invest too much in him. I know I do. That’s one of the reasons Byron’s away at Groton. I can’t keep my hands off him, my attention off him, when he’s here. I used to be an active person, and now, when I’m not going to one doctor or another, I lie here recovering from one pregnancy, hoping another will take. I feel terrible all the time, bloated and ill.”

“I’m sorry.” She was using baby blue yarn and small-gauge needles. Hoping another would take.

“If I knew for certain that Wilson were having an affair, I don’t know what I’d do. How I’d feel. Jealous, yes. Angry, yes. But I can’t say I’d blame him. I’m not the woman he married. I take my basal temperature twelve times a day. I call him to come home and do his duty, and that’s what it’s become, a duty. I keep imagining that he’s going to leave me and have children with another woman, and then sometimes I
want
him to leave.
I
want to leave and have babies with another man. They can’t find anything wrong with either of us, but I had a healthy child with my first husband. I know I could have more babies. I know I could.”