Cold Case (16 page)

“No, Tessa. I can't.”

“Is there something you're not telling me? Perhaps you are pregnant, darling? That would explain so much—”

Garnet broke it up with, “There's no reason for Ms. Carlyle to witness this charming domestic scene, ladies.”

“Who is she?” Marissa asked.

“Why would you care?” Garnet answered sharply.

A buzzer sounded with sufficient noise to make Marissa jump. Garnet grabbed a slim cell phone from his pocket.

“Yes,” he said. “I'm aware of the time. Phone ahead and tell them the traffic's bad on the Pike or something. You know the drill.” He flipped the phone shut.

“Garnet, really,” his mother said, tapping ashes carefully into the crystal bowl, “you should go. People hate waiting. Your father never let the voters wait.”

“Lot of good it did him,” Garnet snapped.

Marissa wavered back and forth, carrying a handbag too large for comfort or style. I peeked around her, through the open door, and noted a pile of luggage in the corridor. A matched set in hunter green. More than she'd need for a campaign jaunt, unless she were planning to campaign out-of-state for, say, six months to a year.

During an awkward silence, I withdrew a standard contract form from my briefcase. Tessa grabbed it, possibly thinking I'd changed my mind and decided to return a scrap of her late daughter's writing.

I said I'd do my best to determine the source of the forgeries.

“What forgeries?” Marissa said. “What are you talking about?”

Her voice had that ingenuous note again. Did she always sound like she was lying?

Tessa ignored her. “I want them to stop immediately!” she said. “And I want to know who is making them up! There is no question of bringing in the police,” she added with a quick glance at Garnet.

I wondered if Tessa suspected her older daughter, the “lost” Beryl, of copying her dead sister's substance and style. If Garnet hadn't butted his way into the office I might have found out.

“What's this about, Tessa?” Marissa asked sweetly. “Is there some kind of trouble? Can I help?”

“No, dear,” Tessa said. Then, to me, “I'll write you a check, a retainer, yes?”

“Fine,” I said.

She kept her checkbook and a gold Cross pen in the tiny escritoire. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Marissa licked her lips, said, “Well, it's time for me to go. I didn't want to leave without saying—”

“Please,” Tessa said, “stay a little longer.”

“Mother,” Garnet snapped.

Tessa colored, and bowed her head, seemingly reprimanded. She scribbled rapidly, handed me a check and the signed contract. Before I had a chance to say more than a simple good-bye, Garnet seized me by the elbow, not hard enough for me to cry out, just firmly enough to guide me down the halls and out the door without undue fuss. He was extremely efficient. His
Who's Who
write-up hadn't mentioned anything about a stint in the Military Police. He had the moves of a good nightclub bouncer.

Once we were outdoors, he announced, “You can ignore everything that was said in there. My mother will change her mind within forty-eight hours. That's a guarantee. You'll be required by law to return the check. You might as well tear up the contract now. She's under duress. You have no right to take advantage of her.”

I shrugged. “She called me,” I said. “Not the other way around.”

“If you have any writings supposedly penned by my dear departed sister, you'd be wise to get rid of them.”

“Your mom wants them; you want to get rid of them. Interesting,” I said.

“Good-bye.”

A cab pulled up at the porte cochere, honked twice. Henry, the spying chauffeur, was loading Marissa Cameron's luggage into the trunk. Garnet went to supervise—possibly concerned that she might be stealing the family silver—leaving me to walk the last few steps to the Toyota alone.

I usually lock my car doors. In Cambridge or Boston, I practically chain the car to a tree because car theft is so common. In the rarefied Dover air, with the chauffeur on patrol, I'd been careless.

I glanced in the backseat, unconscious cop-rule #27: Never get into your car unless you've checked for unwanted passengers. The humped shape underneath my raincoat moved, and I started to open the back door.

Drew Manley raised his head and looked at me with supplication in his blue eyes. He placed a finger to his lips, then lifted both hands to make driving motions.

I shoved the back door shut, opened the driver's door, got inside, and carefully started the engine.

If I could see both his hands, I figured he probably didn't have a weapon. Still, the driveway seemed especially long and winding.

When we reached the road, I said, “So, Doctor, you want me to turn left or right?”

“Take a left on Farm, bear right at Bridge, keep going straight and it'll get you onto North Street. We can take that into Medfield.”

“You comfortable back there?”

“No.”

“You might as well sit up on the seat.”

“Not yet.”

“Is there a coffee shop, a rest area?”

“Drive,” he said. “When we get someplace safe, you can help me up.”

I tried to miss most of the potholes, but the occasional labored grunt told me I wasn't always successful.

“Don't go so fast,” he muttered as we passed a huge red barnlike house on the right.

I slowed and watched the stone fences vary in height and color. Beyond the fences huge lots were heavily wooded, like forests with well-tended lawns; there were mansions back there. I could see the occasional chimney, a slated roof or two. Cars whizzed by, expensive sedans all. I kept to the speed limit; the Dover cops might use any excuse to stop a dirty ten-year-old vehicle.

After four long minutes, we crossed some railroad tracks and I let out a sigh of relief. Intuition—and my surroundings—told me we'd made it to my side of the tracks, the side I felt most comfortable on.

The wrong side.

17

“Where are we heading?” I asked after a while. I find distances amazing in the suburbs. I mean, I like to drive, but miles and miles between corner grocery and gas station would make me nuts in no time. I prefer concrete sidewalks, pedestrians on the march.

His voice was soft, muffled. “Make sure you stay on North. Are we past the Police and Fire?”

“Just passing it. Isn't there any place closer?”

“We could have gone to the Pharmacy, but the whole town hangs out there. Look over on your right. Should be some kind of Chinese restaurant coming up. Big parking lot.”

The lot was fairly empty. I pulled into a sheltered spot near the rear. The place was too close to the police station for comfort. I didn't want any sharp-eyed uniform watching me assist an elderly gent off the Toyota's rug.

I half-lifted, half-wrestled him onto the seat. He wore a pale blue knitted sports shirt, dark slacks and shoes. His face was red, his silver hair mussed, his glasses tilted at an odd angle, but he insisted he felt fine. I recommended that he rest a bit before emerging.

“I overheard—” he began immediately. “I needed to tell you—then Garnet came—” He spluttered to a close. “Guess I'd better sit awhile, catch my breath,” he admitted grudgingly.

I surveyed the unpromising frontage of the Dragon King. Chinese/American Cuisine, it promised. I've always found “cuisine” riskier than “food.” Cocktail Lounge, said another sign, in smaller print than KENO!, which was plastered across the front door in huge yellow letters with a screamer. The establishment sat next to a chiropractor's office and a two-by-four real estate agency.

“You want a drink?” I asked Manley. “Takeout?”

Breathing more easily, he regarded his immediate surroundings with disapproval. “The back of your car's a disgrace,” he said huffily. “I must have been lying on shoes, something sharp. Maybe an umbrella. Smelly, too.”

“I don't recall inviting you on an inspection tour,” I snapped, stung by his accuracy.

“Please,” he said humbly, holding out a hand by way of apology, “I could use a chance to stretch my legs.”

“Are we going to run into anyone you know?”

He gave the restaurant a dubious glance. “I doubt it.”

I helped him out of the car. He staggered once, muttering about pins and needles in his leg.

The interior was generic suburban Chinese place. I could have described the fish tank, the dark carved wood, the vases filled with plastic carnations, the garish dragon paintings without venturing inside.

A sign said “
PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF
.” Evidently business wasn't good enough to keep a lunchtime hostess busy.

We had no trouble finding a small booth. If any cops were drinking in the adjacent red-carpeted lounge, they were plainclothes strangers.

He ordered tea. I ordered hot and sour soup along with hot and spicy green beans, surprised to see both items on the mostly Mandarin menu. He shook his head when the bored young waitress raised questioning eyes in his direction. Maybe she thought I was going to share. I wasn't planning on it; Tessa hadn't invited me to lunch.

The sulky girl made a few scratches on her order pad, and disappeared, taking tiny steps that hardly ruffled her long traditional garb. Daughter or niece of the owner, I decided. Less than fond of her job.

“Would you like to know something I've learned, something I should have learned a long time ago?” my former client asked as soon as the waitress was out of earshot.

I shrugged and kept quiet since I wasn't sure whom I was talking to—the seemingly sincere liar, Adam Mayhew, or the battered bewildered liar of the same pseudonym, the one who'd yanked me off the case. Or the genuine Dr. Drew Manley.

He took my shrug for assent. “Never get involved with a patient. No matter how you feel for her, no matter what your heart says, keep your patients at arm's length.”

“If you're trying to tell me you're not Tessa Cameron's half-brother,” I ventured, “I already knew.”

“I do live there, most of the time. I'm Tessa Cameron's lover—her paramour, she calls me—which is ‘lover' in old-fogey talk, or maybe Italian. I have been Tessa's lover since Franklin died. I was in love with her before that, but I never acted on it. For that long, at least, I resisted temptation.”

From the way he said it, I got the feeling that Tessa would not have been unwilling before Franklin's demise.

“She won't marry me,” he stated simply. “I'm not Catholic.”

“What kind of doctor are you?” I asked.

“A good one. Retired.”

“Now that I know your name, Dr. Manley, exactly how long do you think it'll take me to find out what medical specialty you practiced?”

He made a face. “I'm a psychiatrist.”

“Ah.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“Don't you know?” I asked. “It means I'm going to ask whether Tessa is the only one of the Camerons who was—or is—your patient?”

“Ever heard of doctor-patient confidentiality?”

The waitress slopped tea on the table. I wiped it up with a napkin and gave her the eye. I took a sip of hot and sour soup. Disappointingly bland.

“Ever heard of using an alias?” I asked harshly. Doctor-patient confidentiality, indeed!

“About that, um, about the alias. I never intended to defraud.”

“What did you intend? More to the point, what
do
you intend?”

He lowered his voice. I had to bend forward to hear him. “I heard what Garnet said. He
will
convince his mother to change her mind. One thing about Tessa, she has intense emotional swings. She loves that boy of hers, beyond moderation, beyond adulation, listens to him like he was Jesus on the Mount.”

“So he said.”

Dr. Manley took a gulp of tea, eyed the restaurant as though checking for spies. Only two other tables were occupied, and it seemed he found the customers innocuous.

He said, “I want you to … continue with this matter, whatever the outcome. The papers are genuine; I guarantee—”

“Whoa,” I said. “Stop right there. I'm getting
whiplash
, you know what I mean? Sunday night, it's ‘please help me find the missing genius,' then Monday night, it's ‘oops, I made a mistake. Forget the whole thing.'” I glared at him. “It's only Wednesday goddam afternoon, and you're flip-flopping again?”

He didn't seem to hear me and I hadn't kept my voice down to any whisper. He stared at the Formica tabletop and spoke slowly, as though he were feeling his way through unfamiliar country. “You know anything about tectonics?” he asked.

“What?”

“Forces, conditions within the crust of the earth, the sort of thing that causes earthquakes.” As he spoke he made flat surfaces of his hands, pushed them together with such force that one slid abruptly over the top of the other.

“What about them?”

“There are places where the crust wears thin, and molten rock and steam break through. Nothing you can do about it. It's a force of nature.”

“Hot springs,” I said. “Geysers.”

“Yes.”

“I don't understand what you're trying to say.”

“Young woman, there are times when the simple truth bubbles to the surface. Reputation, fame, money—they all have to take second place to a truth when it's spoken and heard and finally recognized for what it is…”

If he wasn't deeply moved by the words he'd just spoken, he was among the best actors I'd seen.

I said, “What is it you want me to go on with? So far, I've learned that your ‘live' Thea Janis is dead and buried. Murdered. Her mother says so, the newspapers say so—”

“Her mother never saw the Berlin poem, any more than she identified the corpse. It's easy to convince Tessa. I've told you that. She's extremely suggestible.”