New England White (56 page)

She sits down.

Cold, but bearable. Over soon. At last.

Get up, Julia.

Go away. You don’t exist. You’re just a message from the other half of my brain. A throwback to atavistic times, when the left brain was not in charge. Julian Jaynes proved it, and I believe him. He was a psychologist, in case you don’t know, and my brother and I were named after him.

Julian Jaynes was a very wise psychologist, but he was misled. Now, get up!

She gets up, if only to silence the voice. But now her pants are covered with snow that will shortly begin to melt from her body heat, soaking her legs.

“This better be important,” she grumbles, but the voice does not answer.

She takes a tentative step. The chill wind batters her. Swaying on her feet, Julia looks around for Frank Carrington. Her weary body feels like a single congealed block of ice. She seems to be freezing from the inside out. She tries and fails to remember the word for this process. Her brain has had enough. She is so sick of this snow. And of this night. Maybe the best thing is to sit down once more and wait for the voice in her head to freeze to death.

Then she sees the worst thing she can imagine.

Frank has caught up with her. There he is, no more than a block behind, shuffling along the street. She tells her body to run, but her body is asleep. He drags toward her, foot twisting with every step. Nobody throws open a door. Nobody comes to her aid. She hears a shout, but it is only the angry wind.

She turns anyway, tries to run, manages only a step or two before she stumbles into the enfolding chill of the New England snow.

Frank Carrington looms over her, parka thick with blood, eyes ringed with joyful madness, gun hand flailing but pointing in her direction. Julia forces herself to her feet, determined not to go without a fight. She swings a strengthless hand at him, not sure whether she means to slap or punch. Either way, his head snaps backward very hard.

Then Bruce Vallely is holding her as she weeps, leading her away from the body lying broken-necked in the snow.

CHAPTER 65

THE ALL-PAY AUCTION

(I)

A
ND SO THE REPORTERS CAME TO TOWN
, invading hordes rolling along leafy byways in search of the perfect interview, delighted at the opportunity to celebrate one of their own, who had selflessly placed her own physical body in harm’s way in order to trap the sinister, Mafia-connected antiques dealer she had come to Harbor County to track down. They considered it rather unsporting of the heroine, Mary Mallard, to refuse all visitors to her private room at the medical center, the extra expense paid for by the university, in gratitude for her services—because the dealer in question, the late Frank Carrington, was responsible for the slaying of Professor Kellen Zant and the brief kidnaping of the wife of President Lemaster Carlyle, whom he evidently intended to hold for ransom.

The school’s press office refused to make available for interviews either the wife in question or the director of campus safety, who had cracked the case, although some of the stories called him the chief of campus security, or some other variation. In the story’s early days, accuracy was not a strong point; for that matter, it was not in the later days, either. Mary Mallard, the press reported, had suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries when, forced to drive the first spouse’s black Escalade at gunpoint, she smartly and bravely smashed the car into a tree. Her refusal to be interviewed was seen, and envied, as an effort to keep the details private until the time arrived for the presumed book tour. The chief of university security—well, whatever his title was—had some sort of important supporting role, and the hordes clamored for his story, but, alas, he chose that moment to take his accumulated vacation, looking at properties in South Carolina for his coming retirement. As for the Carlyles, the invading horde besieged them for a few days. President Carlyle delivered a grateful and charming and witty statement for the cameras, but the invaders were otherwise kept at bay by a phalanx constituting the director of public information, a brace of something called Sister Ladies, plus the president’s cousin, Astrid Venable, and his somber new assistant, Katie Chu, who practically moved into the house for the duration of the siege.

A few intrepid reporters, turned away at Lombard Hall, snuck into Kepler Quad to chase down Julia Carlyle, only to discover that she had resigned her position. A statement from the dean said how proud the school was to count Julia Carlyle among its graduates, and how delighted the school was for her service, marked by such integrity and courage. The statement made it sound like Julia had been to war. All inquiries were directed to Iris Feynman.

The refusal of the Carlyle family or Mary Mallard to discuss the tragic events of that chilly New England night (as one cable anchor put it) still left the hordes with plenty to plunder. In the village of Tyler’s Landing, Vera Brightwood, proprietor of Cookie’s and unofficial town historian and conscience, gave one interview after another. Many of Julia Carlyle’s acquaintances from the city also had praises to sing, chief among them Tonya Montez, described by several print journalists as her close confidante, and by one evening news anchor as her cousin. Julia’s dear, dear friend Tessa Kenner filled a lot of airtime, not all of it on her own show, and hinted that she knew a lot more than she was telling.

Meanwhile, the popularity of President Carlyle on campus was soaring. None of the policies that had caused faculty discontent had changed, but the, ah, well, the context was different. No longer was he the tyrannical monster established in office by the right-wing alums. Well, all right, he was. But he had ascended to a new status, that most beloved of campus figures, the victim—an
actual victim,
an African American whose family had been endangered by a racist white man. True, the Carlyle family was modeled along lines both sexist and heteronormative, and therefore not a desirable example for exaltation, but the victimhood was perfect. (Even those among the oppressed peoples who try to live by the culture’s illegitimate norms are crushed in the end by the forces of reaction!) And so, despite the resistance of a few diehards, they allowed him to merge gender studies and women’s studies. They allowed him to toughen rather than weaken the school’s anti-drug policies. By the spring, however, when he proposed appointment of a committee to consider the desirability of returning ROTC to campus, the old battle lines would be redrawn: being a victim was one thing, but allowing the mildest trespass upon the sacred groves of academe by the most dangerous organization in the world was another matter.

None of the stories mentioned the President of the United States, a New England Senator who hoped to replace him, or an obscure Harlem men’s club fallen on hard times.

And then there was the quieter drama, well outside the scrutiny of the press, discreet emissaries from people who knew people who were connected to other people, slipping into town to confer, ever so quietly, with the Carlyles, making sure all was well, asking if they needed anything, promising assistance with whatever might arise, and inquiring, quietly, whether, by the way, any rumors of allegations had come quietly to light over the past few weeks that might tend to cast this candidate or that one in a—

No, no, and, no, said the Carlyles. We aren’t political. But if anything turns up, you’ll be the first to know.

(II)

M
EANWHILE,
Vanessa Carlyle’s new therapist announced that she would not be trying to “cure” the teenager of being a teenager. I’m somebody for her to talk to, said Dr. Jacobstein. At this point in our relationship, I’m not going to pretend to be anything else.

Then who’s going to set limits on her? asked Julia, very surprised.

Actually, that’s the job of her parents, said Sara.

And what about the trauma underlying her behavior?

It’s over, said Sara. Julia was stunned. The psychiatrist’s eyes were kind, but when she spoke she sounded like Lemaster. I would tell you if I could, she said. The rules don’t allow it. All I can say is that the trauma was based on an error in perception. Something Vanessa thought was true. Now she knows it wasn’t.

Julia asked if that meant her daughter was fine.

No, she isn’t fine. She has plenty of issues to deal with. But she’s tough. She’s going to deal with them.

And Gina? Is she coming back?

A distant smile. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

Back home, Julia watched her daughter closely. Vanessa kept reading about wars and listening to her dirges, and, in the wee hours, still danced with her mother. When Julia asked if it was true that she was feeling better, her daughter hugged her and said, Thanks to you. Julia asked what that meant. Vanessa, eyes glowing, assured her mother that she would figure it out.

Meanwhile Jeannie, now known as Jeans, continued her search for perfection, but after a few days of puzzled pining, asked first her mother, then her father, why Mr. Flew no longer dropped by the house. He’s moved away, they reminded her. Moved away
where
? she demanded, stamping a perfect foot, because she wanted to write him; and because she could not bear the thought that he had departed without saying goodbye. Julia did not know the answer, and Lemaster refused to say. Jeannie—Jeans—had always been able to charm her father, who at last agreed, reluctantly, to forward a letter if she wrote one. She wrote it, he forwarded it, and three weeks later she had an actual answer, addressed to her personally, posted from one of the more turbulent former Soviet republics.

He missed them all, wrote Jeremy Flew, but duty called.

As for the other children, the boys, Aaron wanted to come home, to rally round the family in the crisis, but his parents decided he should stay in school, and the headmaster assured them that Phillips Exeter Academy could protect him from the media: they had managed the miracle for others far more sought after. Preston did not manage to call, and when Julia finally reached him, he told her that he was on his way to Australia, where he would be spending most of the next year at one of the world’s great observatories, and, oh, yes, one of the other grad students had told him something about how his family was in the news, but he had paid little attention, because they always were.

Will we see you before you go?

I’m leaving tomorrow, said Preston, but he always was.

Then, in the middle of March, after the reporters departed, the director of campus safety returned from his vacation, and Julia knew it was time for the next act.

CHAPTER 66

…THEN BEGGARS
WOULD RIDE

“S
O, WHERE DO YOU GO
from here?” asked Julia Carlyle. “What’s next for the great Bruce Vallely?”

He blushed and shrugged and dropped his strong, gentle eyes. The weather had once more turned bright and fair, as sometimes happened in a New England winter before the thick gray walls closed in again. They were seated where the whole thing had started, the tavern on Route 48. The same disinterested crowd, the same uninteresting food, the same garbled hum of meaningless conversation, the same sputtering snow, as if the weather could not make up its mind.

When Bruce said nothing, but lingered over his coffee, Julia said, “Are you really retiring? Is that what people do when they run out of space on the shelves for their medals?”

“I don’t think they give medals for…what I did.”

“They should,” she said, and meant it.

“I broke a man’s neck, Julia, and another man”—he searched for the words—“another man I treated the way God never meant his creatures to treat each other.”

The reporter, Julia supposed—or whatever he really was—the man who accosted her while she pumped gas in Langford. She knew, now, that Bruce had worked out a deal of some kind with Tony Tice’s clients, and she had even supplied the envelope from Mona, with contents, to enable him to pay them off. But she had chosen not to pry too deeply.

“Well I’m grateful.” A playful frown. “Even though I told you not to follow me. How did you find me?”

“A transmitter in your car.” He neglected to mention that Turian, his deputy, was the one who had planted it, while Julia and Bruce sat in the bagel shop. He had recommended Gwen as his successor, but Lombard Hall was moving at its usual glacial pace. “I’m pretty sure I broke the law,” he added.

For a moment they were joined in silence, as dishes clanked and doors banged and the easy hum of human communication rose and washed over them. It seemed to Julia, from what she had seen and what Mary had told her, that Bruce rarely let the law get in his way. A few months ago Julia would have said her husband was just the opposite.

Bruce said, “So—how is Vanessa doing?”

“Sara says she’ll be fine. It’ll take some work, but she’ll be fine.”

“It’s a resilient age.”

“Oh, Bruce, Grace was right about you.” Teasing, but meaning it. On her plate, shifting patterns of morning sunlight played their distracting game of tag. “You’re really hopeless when it comes to kids, aren’t you? No, Bruce, the late teens are not a resilient age. They’re an age of impressionability, and an age when every poor grade or pimple or romance gone bad means the universe is about to collapse on itself. You know what Lemaster says? That the West invented adolescence when we had enough wealth that we didn’t need teens in the workforce, but we invented it badly. We’re like on model 1.2 or something. That’s what Lemmie says,” Julia repeated, her husband’s name strangely awkward on her lips. She hurried on. “The truth is, Bruce, she’s going through a terrible time. Vanessa is. She doesn’t cry or have nightmares, that’s not who she is. She dances to funeral dirges. She studies war. She laughs, she seems ebullient. But on the inside she’s suffering. I know she is. I don’t blame her. I don’t know how I would have survived what she’s been through.”

“I see your point,” he said in that slow, absorbing manner. The eyes refused to release her, and her frantic command to her own to drop was ignored. She felt itchy and uncertain. “Maybe she needs a change of scene.”

“I thought I might take her to France for a while after graduation,” she gabbled desperately. “She and Mona get along so—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it isn’t, Bruce.” The first thread of panic, weaving itself through her aplomb. “It’s what I meant, though. Right now, it’s the only change I can offer her.”

She remembered another Lemasterism. “The world is the way it is. It’s not some other way, it’s this way. You know what my Granny Vee used to say? If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. But they’re not. Wishes aren’t real. They’re not related to…to…” She hesitated, confused by the brave pain in his eyes, and began to founder, to lose her place in a stream that was, just seconds ago, flowing smoothly in the right direction. “We’re real people, Bruce. There are people who live inside the mirror, doing what they want, as if their lives are mere reflections, not real at all. And there are other people who live on this side of the mirror, who have to ignore those reflections, no matter how much they might glitter. That’s being an adult, Bruce.”

Julia waited. It was Bruce’s turn now. She wanted him to declare his feelings so she could tell him that she had come to agree with Lemaster that duty mattered most. Wanted him to talk about how wonderful life could be so that she could talk about how she had already lived the life of one who is unreliable, and half killed herself doing it. Wanted him to talk about the future so she could talk about the future she planned with the husband who had saved her when she needed him, and who needed her now.

Bruce spoke gently. “All I meant was, maybe the move to Elm Harbor will be good for her.” Julia stared. He still loved his Grace. She felt silly, and young, and romantic.

Bruce Vallely obviously did not.

“Actually,” he said, “I came to talk about something else.”

“About what?”

“About the night Kellen Zant died.”

Julia braced herself, wondering what shocks were left. “Frank killed him. Frank Carrington. He didn’t want the diary to come out. Then he decided he needed it to protect himself…”

She trailed off.

Bruce nodded. “Yes, I do think Frank killed him. And I think you have correctly stated his motive. But there is one piece of evidence that does not fit the pattern, and I think I need you to tell me what I should do about it.” He pulled out the envelope Trevor Land had given him. “University telephone records,” he explained, drawing a page from within. “To a particular cell number the night Zant was killed.”

“I don’t want to see this.”

“I don’t want to show it to you.”

But he did anyway. The phone number was Lemaster’s. A call was circled on the night in question, about an hour before they left the dinner in Lombard Hall.

Anthony Tice had called her husband.

Out on the street they awkwardly hugged. Both knew the meeting would be their last.

“May I ask one question?” she said.

“Sure.”

She hefted the envelope. “Why didn’t you give this to the police?”

He smiled that tired smile. “The investigation,” he said, “is closed.”

Well, that was true enough. Julia felt the New England winter slipping up from the ground and down from the sky, grabbing hold of her limbs with its familiar chilly tendrils, determined to restrain her from any foolishness. And it dawned on her, first faintly, then with growing forceful certainty, that she would never live anywhere else; that she was as firmly married to New England as she was to Lemaster; that her roots ran too deep in the soil, past the frosty surface and down into the soft, brown warmth that was turned up with spring plantings.

She said, or maybe blurted, “I’ll miss you.”

That warming smile teased the corners of his lips, he dipped his heavy head, and then, good soldier that he had always tried to be, without a further word of objection or farewell, Bruce Vallely followed his orders and marched off into his overdue retirement.