Cold Case (19 page)

Where in all this sea of forms and files, typed, printed, and scrawled words, was Thea? I no longer felt close to her. There was no sense of her here, of Thea, daughter, sister, child, student, prodigy. I've heard it said that “God is in the details,” or maybe it's the devil who's in the details, but Thea surely wasn't. Not in the dates or the names of people interviewed, not in the lists of places searched, not in the language of the autopsy report: dead human female.

I was exhausted, my coffee cup long emptied, my bladder full. I knocked on the door for release, momentarily afraid that everyone had abandoned the patrol room.

Mooney opened the door.

“Are you clean?” he asked.

I sniffed. “Cleaner than the last person you shoved in here.”

“Solve the case?”

“I have a few questions,” I admitted.

“Such as?”

“Is it too late to get me an address?”

“Is it too late to get coffee?” Mooney asked.

“Are the two related?”

“They might be,” Mooney said, softening it with a smile.

“Moon, I'll have coffee with you, street number or no street number.”

I hit the bathroom. It took him five minutes to dig up old Woodrow MacAvoy's Marshfield address.

I figured I'd wait till Moon had devoured a couple of doughnuts before I asked him to help me set up a meeting with Albert Ellis Albion, the man who'd murdered Thea.

PART TWO

“
I am half sick of shadows,” said

The Lady of Shalott
.

A
LFRED
, L
ORD
T
ENNYSON

The coins felt damp and heavy in his hand. Quarters mostly, a sprinkling of dimes and nickels. Eight bucks' worth, and for that he'd had to stand on line at the bank twenty-two minutes. No Harvard Square clerk at any ritzy store was willing to make change, not even if he bought a pack of cigarettes or chewing gum
.

He probably smelled. He couldn't remember the last time he'd showered. Rough paper towels and liquid soap from rest room dispensers didn't seem to do the job
.

She answered on the second ring, her voice flat and familiar. Her gray voice, he called it, the one that answered with no enthusiasm, with no hope that the phone might bring good news
.

Perversely he chose not to identify himself. If she couldn't recognize his voice, they had nothing to say to each other
.

“
Why didn't you tell me?” he asked
.

“
Where are you?” she responded immediately, even though it must have been two in the morning Seattle time. “I'll come get you. Are you okay?” She knew who it was all right
.

“
So we're poor folk, are we?” he said, scorn and sarcasm dripping across the miles. “No ready money for even junior college. Work hard, boy, it's the only way you'll get ahead.”

“
Where are you?” she repeated
.

“
Massachusetts. ‘If you go to Massachusetts, be sure to wear a flower in your hair.' Did you do that? Wear a flower?”

“‘
San Francisco,'” she said. “It's ‘If you go to San Francisco.'” Her correction infuriated him. He almost broke the connection right then. But the news was really too sweet to keep to himself. And the little blondie didn't seem to understand much
.

He said, “He's in your book, huh? The guy running for governor? You were a buddy of the dead sister, right? Did he fuck all her friends and dump 'em? Or maybe you were just one of the servants, huh?”

“
Honey, no!” She broke in, interrupting his thoughts
.

Dammit, he thought, didn't she even remember his name? “Dear, darling, honey,” there were times he'd swear she couldn't remember his goddamn name. What did she give him a weirdo name like that for, anyhow?

“
Sweetie, you need to listen. I made up all those things. They never happened. Do you understand?”

“
Oh, sure. That's why they're willing to pay me the big bucks. They appreciate fiction around here.”

“
Come home,” she said. There was a pleading tone in her entreaty that he found immensely satisfactory. She might as well have told him he was calling the shots, holding the cards, for once in his life. “Come home now. Do you have money for airfare? I can wire it to you. Just tell me where to send it.”

“Money,”
he said. “Now there's an interesting subject. You'll be glad to know I'm getting mine. They're gonna give me a ton of money, you'd better believe it. They owe me big.”

“
Honey!” Her voice was light and feathery, a panicked whisper he'd never heard before. “Stay away from them, stay away from all of them. Do you hear me?”

“
I cut me a deal,” he said. “A better deal than you ever got.”

“
Go to Dr. Manley, Dr. Andrew Manley. Listen, here's the address and phone
—
12 Standing Brook, Weston
… 555-8432.
I already called him, after you went missing. Wait, please, don't hang up. I'll meet you there as soon as I can. I'll phone him again. Don't trust anybody else, just Dr. Manley. Wait for me there
—”

Sure. She always thought she knew best
.

He hung up without another word, filial duty accomplished. The phone rang, jarring his ear, immediately. “At the tone please deposit one dollar and seventy-five cents,” the mechanized voice squawked
.

He thought about walking out, letting the phone ring for all eternity, changed his mind and diligently fed money into the slot. Better not to call attention to himself, not right now. It was chump change, nothing to get bent out of shape about
.

The little blonde was exuberant. She whooped and said, right on, or something dumb like that. He wasn't really listening. He'd tuned her out after his visit to the big Dover house
.

19

Three phone messages. My popularity was definitely on the upswing. One was a hard-breathing hang-up call, which made me reassess my initial view concerning popularity. One was from Gloria stating that the harassment campaign against Thurman W. Vandenburg had begun. The third was from Paolina, which surprised me because her rustic camp, while it has many charms, has no phones for the campers. She must have walked all the way into town, slid her coins into the pay slot only to hear a recorded message. She sounded okay, said she'd try to call again, didn't give a reason for wanting to talk. Homesick? I wondered.

Insomnia. Blame it on the three cups of coffee I'd inhaled at Dunkin' Donuts, trying to get the stink of the police station out of my nose. Might as well blame it on the phase of the moon. I've got it; I live with it. Gives me extra time for guitar picking. Or if I'm deep in a case, for research.

With little faith, I dialed the twenty-four-year-old phone number for Edgar Barrett Jr., the unfortunate black gardener who'd taken up so much of the Cambridge cops' time during the early days of the Thea Janis disappearance.

The number had been disconnected. No forthcoming information. Thank you very much.

I flipped on my computer, which automatically dialed my on-line service. Icons filled the screen and I double-clicked on Netscape. The Netscape window appeared. I single-clicked on “location”: at the top of the screen, quickly typed in
http://www.switchboard.com/
. “Switchboard” had been on-line for a couple of months now. I got their welcome page, hit the return key. A prompt appeared, asking me to enter information. I typed “Barrett Jr.” under last name, “Edgar” under first. “Boston, MA.” Pressed the search button.

No hits.

I decided to modify the search. Just Edgar Barrett, leave off the junior part.

Still nobody.

Further modification.

E. Barrett, Boston. Plenty of those. A list of eight, which was all the service would provide at a time, probably not to overwhelm the client. I used paper and pencil to write down those eight—sometimes I'm attracted to ancient technologies—clicked on “next page” for the remainder. Only three more. Of the eleven possibles, five were full names, six were simply E. Barretts, which meant they were probably females hiding behind their first initial. I'd be happy to locate any relative who could tell me about Edgar, so I quickly made up a tale about an old bank deposit I was trying to trace. The tale had its merits: I could be who I was—a private investigator—which would give me credibility since businesses don't do 10
P.M
. phone calls. I do, because more folks are home then. The basic answer rate is higher. So are tempers, if you rouse people from sleep.

Money is an interesting topic to most people. Reuniting people with long-lost money is a powerful lure. Even if old Edgar didn't have two dimes to rub together, one could always imply that he'd hit the lottery and kept mum.

None of the E. Barretts panned out, from the worst, who yelled and called me names, to the best, who thought we ought to have dinner together because he liked my phone vibes.

I decided to go with location, mainly because Boston is still a segregated city, and the chances of finding a Barrett who knew Edgar Barrett Jr. were considerably greater in his home community of Roxbury than in primarily white South Boston.

Switchboard allowed me to modify my search to Barrett, *, Roxbury. I worked my way through the alphabet, fortified by a tall glass of orange juice.

Mavis Barrett was cagey, querulous, and opinionated. She didn't think folks ought to use the phone past ten at night, startle people like that. She wasn't eager to hang up. Either she was a lonely woman desperate to talk, or else she knew something about Edgar. She wanted to know how much money was involved.

“A considerable amount,” I said. “Otherwise it wouldn't be worth my while to pursue Mr. Barrett Jr.”

“That's Edgar Barrett Jr.?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “He's a man of color, could have called himself ‘Ed' or Edgar, might have dropped the ‘Junior.'”

“And supposin' he should happen to be dead?” she said accusingly. “His money gonna go to the government?”

“His money would go to his legal heir. If I can locate that person before the statute of limitations runs out.” I added that last bit of spurious information because I wanted to prod her a bit. I didn't want our phone call to swallow the whole night.

“He had a boy,” she said. “I'm Edgar's sister. Do I stand to get anything? Finder's fee?”

I said, “That would depend on whether your information turned out to be accurate.”

I had a strong feeling that if I'd replied in the negative, she'd have hung up and dialed the State Treasurer's Office. Massachusetts publishes a yearly list of unclaimed bank accounts. She was smart enough to figure that if she could cut me out of the picture, she might get Edgar's son to lend her a few bucks.

“What's Edgar's son's name?” I said as though it were a routine inquiry on a list. “Do you know his age? Address? His phone number?” I let my voice take on a weary tone, as if I had little interest in her information, as if I figured it would just turn out to be another false lead.

“Girl,” she said, “my brother, Edgar, named his boy Edgar, and young Edgar is living with a woman name of Esther Briony.” She spelled out Esther's last name. “They're right up the street from me on Amory Terrace, and they go to bed early 'cause of the children. So don't you go calling them tonight.”

“I won't,” I promised. “You wouldn't happen to know where your nephew works?”

“And why wouldn't I? He works for the Parks Department. Raises flowers in a city greenhouse long as six, eight fancy cars.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Barrett.”

I hung up. Would she call her nephew tonight, breaking the rule about late calls? Would it matter if she did? I got the listing for E. Briony on Amory Terrace, Roxbury. Government listings for the City of Boston gave me the location of the city greenhouse. Near Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Franklin Park.

The doorbell rang. I waited to see if it would chime three times for Roz, who might or might not be at home, alone or otherwise. The bell sounded only once.

Past eleven o'clock, I don't race to the door and fling it ajar. I don't assume that Roz has forgotten her key, which she occasionally does, or that Keith Donovan desires to spend the night, which he occasionally does. Nor do I usually unlock the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk and grab my S&W 40. Maybe Mooney's constant harping on the Gianelli mob threat had gotten to me.

I made sure the safety was set, stuck the automatic in the back of my jeans, and went to peer out the peephole, leaving all the lights exactly as they were.

I keep my porch light on all night. Always have. Helps the burglars ascertain what kind of locks they're up against. And switching on a light to help you squint through the peephole is a dead giveaway that somebody's home. There are evenings when I do not care to be interrupted by Greenpeace or MassPIRG, no matter how noble the cause.

Garnet Cameron shifted from foot to foot on the stoop. I scanned the area. Big car out front.

He was still suited and tied. I was back in jeans and T-shirt. Sartorial advantage to him, comfort advantage to me.

Had he brought me the tattered contract remnants?

I opened the door. The process takes some time, what with multiple locks and a dead bolt. You can't get into or out of my house without a key.

“I hope I'm not calling too late,” he said as soon as he could speak through the screen.

“I was up,” I said. “Come in.”

“This is a nice place,” he said, looking around my foyer, “nice neighborhood.”

“You don't have to campaign, Mr. Cameron.”

“Garnet. I think you've overheard enough about my life to call me by my first name.”