Fall from Grace (8 page)

With mock gallantry, Adam gestured at a swatch of grass beside his father’s tombstone. After a moment, Pacelli sat, Adam beside her. When he looked toward the road again, the reporter and photographer were watching. Facing Pacelli, Adam asked, “Did you see him on the night he died?”

“No,” she answered. “The last time I saw him was that afternoon.”

“What did you talk about?”

She turned to him. “I’m sorry, but that’s personal to me. As is everything that happened that day.”

“But you told the police. I’m sure.”

“Only because I had to.” She hesitated, then added in a lower voice, “For obvious reasons, they were easier to talk to. Even looking at you is painful.”

Were she not who she was, Adam might almost have believed her sorrow—if not her claim to be ignorant of the will. Bluntly, he asked, “Did you know my father was failing?”

Studying him, she seemed to weigh her answer. “Do you mean physically or mentally?”

“Both.”

She turned away from him, regarding a patch of grass in front of them. Then she said, “It won’t surprise you to know that while you were burying your father, I was consulting a lawyer. Call that cold, if you like, but the requirements of ‘good taste’ left me with a free afternoon. Right now, for various reasons, I’m not prepared to take this any further.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t, in time. You’re free to try me later. We’ll see how things stand then.”

Carefully, Pacelli got to her feet, her face suddenly pale. She began to leave, then looked back at him again. “There are two more things I should say to you. Whatever happened between you and your father, he deeply regretted that. And whatever happened with Ben and your mother, I’m sorry for how she must feel.”

Left unspoken was whether Pacelli meant his father’s affair, his death, or the loss of his estate. The nerve of this expression of sympathy left Adam briefly silent, even as he rejected the notion of his father mired in regret. Then he asked, “Did he tell you why I left?”

Pacelli shook her head. “I asked him, several times. But he could never talk about it.”

“That much I believe.”

Pacelli looked into his face. Then he turned from her and walked away. The image of her last expression, curious and intent, lingered in his mind.

Walking toward the road, he saw the reporter waiting by his car. When he reached it, she stood in front of the door, her voice and manner so feral that Adam wanted to push her aside. “Mr. Blaine,” she said, “tell me what you and Carla were talking about.”

For an instant, Adam felt a reflexive sympathy for Carla Pacelli. Then he looked at the reporter so coldly that she seemed to recoil. “When I want to see you,” he told her, “I’ll let you know.”

He got in the car. The original reason for this trip, the newspaper, lay forgotten on the passenger seat. Looking back at the cemetery, Adam saw Pacelli, her head bowed, her hand resting on his father’s tombstone. No doubt she thought that the Enquirer could use another photograph.

When Adam came through the door, his mother was in the living room. “Where were you?” she asked.

“I decided to stop at his grave.”

Her mouth parted, as if to form a question, and then the telephone rang.

Clarice answered. “Hello, George,” she said, her tone pleasant but reserved. “Yes, I’m all right, thank you. Please, tell me.”

For a moment, she listened intently. Then her face froze, save for the bewilderment in her eyes. “I had no idea,” she managed to say. “Are you sure?”

As she listened, Adam saw, she placed a hand on the chair as if to retain her balance. With great civility, she said, “Thank you, George. It was kind of you to call.”

Putting down the phone, she gazed past Adam as if he were not there. “Was that the DA?” he asked.

She blinked, aware of him again. “Yes. He called about the cause of death.”

“Is there something more?”

Clarice drew a breath. “Yes. Your father had brain cancer. A massive tumor, apparently.”

The words hit Adam with a jolt. “Did he know?”

Clarice sat down. “If so, he chose not to tell me.”

Looking away, she held a hand to her face. Another betrayal, Adam sensed her thinking, another secret. Then a further thought struck him: that on the night he died, Benjamin Blaine was looking at the last summer solstice of his life and, perhaps, knew that. A host of implications started running through Adam’s mind, complicating or explaining his father’s last few months, the shocking suddenness of his death.

Who might have known? he wondered, and thought again of Carla Pacelli.

Nine

Dr. Philip Gertz, the Blaines’ family doctor, had gray hair, a thin face, and a judicious manner underscored by thoughtful blue eyes. In ten years, he had changed surprisingly little. But his office in the new Martha’s Vineyard Hospital was a considerable upgrade. Waving Adam inside, he said, “I saw you at Ben’s funeral. But I didn’t have a chance to give you my condolences.”

The remark came wrapped in a dubious tone. Evenly, Adam said, “That’s all right, Doctor. When someone dies, you have the funeral, and once it’s over the man is still dead. All that’s left is how he treated the living.”

Gertz regarded Adam closely. “And you’ve been all right?”

“Fine.”

“Good.” The doctor paused, glancing at his watch. “You said you wanted to ask me something.”

“About my father. We just learned that when he died, he had a very serious brain tumor.”

Gertz sat back, his face slack, then slowly shook his head. “Sweet Jesus Christ.”

“You didn’t know?”

The doctor shook his head. At length, he said, “Late last year he came to me complaining of headaches that disturbed his concentration. I referred him to a neurosurgeon in Boston.”

“And?”

“Ben called me later to say he was fine, and that the headaches were gone.”

“Did he ever see the neurosurgeon?”

Gertz’s brow furrowed. “If he had, I’d have expected a report—a reputable specialist, which this man is, would have performed tests. So maybe not.”

For a moment, Adam tried to enter his father’s mind. “Still, I’d like this doctor’s name.”

Gertz wrote it on a sheet of paper. Shaking hands, he said, “Tell me what you learn. When it comes to Ben, I guess nothing would surprise me.”

A redbrick Georgian structure, the Dukes County Courthouse was located next to the site of his father’s funeral. Since Adam had last been on the island, the county sheriff had installed a magnetometer at the entrance and a conveyor belt on which Adam placed his keys and wallet. Passing through security, he noticed cameras pointed at him from the ceiling, attached to the wires of a new alarm system. The shadow of 9/11 had reached the island.

George Hanley’s office was on the second floor, a cubbyhole jammed with file cabinets and a wooden desk covered with papers. The room was further dwarfed by the local DA himself, a burly man at least six feet four, with thick white hair, a mustache to match, and shrewd green eyes. As Hanley stood to shake hands, he gave Adam a warm Irishman’s smile that did not obscure his keen look of appraisal. On top of his desk, Adam noticed, was an accordion folder marked BENJAMIN BLAINE.

“Mind if we talk outside?” Hanley asked. “The older I get, the more I resent sitting here on a day like this. How many more of these do I get? I’ve started to wonder.”

The remark, though casual, carried a pensive undertone. Adam’s father and Hanley had been friends, at least of a kind, and he supposed that, for Hanley as for others, Ben’s death had left a psychic hole. “Sure,” Adam said. “I’d rather feel the sun on my face and watch the passing parade. I’ve been away for a while.”

“Which was duly noted,” Hanley said good-humoredly. “This island is a small place, you’ll remember.”

With that, Hanley led Adam down the stairs. As they left, Adam noticed a sheriff’s deputy in a room near the entrance, watching a TV monitor that showed a sequence of doors and hallways in the courthouse. As with the camera and alarm system, he filed this away.

The two men found a wooden bench between the courthouse and the Old Whaling Church. Hanley raised his face to the light, breathing in the clean fresh air. Then he cast a jaundiced eye on the tourists who jammed the redbrick sidewalks along Main Street, bobbing in and out of clothing stores, a bookshop, an ice cream dispensary. In his rumbling voice, he said, “God, I hate to see them. Then I hate to see them go. They bring the money that keeps this island afloat.”

Adam nodded. “So,” Hanley ventured, “I guess you’ve got some questions about Ben’s death.”

“A few.”

Hanley turned to him. In the same mild tone, he said, “Frankly, Adam, I didn’t know your father was of any particular concern to you.”

“He wasn’t,” Adam answered in a clipped voice. “But the rest of my family is, starting with my mother. This has left her badly shaken. It isn’t often that one loses a husband and an inheritance in the space of a few days. Nor did it help that the state police treated her like a suspect in his death.”

Hanley shrugged, his expression neutral. “The state police aren’t from here. Someone on the island dies under funny circumstances, they take a boat over from Barnstable—the crime lab to inspect the scene, the medical examiner to take the corpse to Boston, and someone like Sergeant Mallory to work with me and the town police. Mallory doesn’t know your mother, brother, or uncle. What he does know is that this is a high-profile death with several possible explanations. Which can be summarized as ‘jumped, fell, or pushed.’”

Though Adam knew this, the blunt coda carried a disturbing message—this was a homicide investigation, and Hanley and the police had reason to pursue it. “Do you have a favorite?” he asked.

Hanley’s smile was less amused than deflective. “If I did, I couldn’t tell you. And if I can’t, Sean Mallory certainly won’t. Don’t even bother with him.”

“But it’s fair to say you’ve reached no conclusions?”

“That’s fair to say,” Hanley replied in a tone that conveyed vast reserves of patience. “If we had, we’d have closed the case or indicted someone. At some point one or the other will happen.”

“Based on what?”

Hanley drew a breath. “I’m only talking to you as a courtesy, and only to the extent I can. What I will tell you is that you can expect to hear from Sergeant Mallory. For understandable reasons, he’s taken an interest in your family. But then it’s an interesting family, isn’t it?”

For a moment, Adam watched some prototypical tourists—dad, mom, squabbling sister and brother—passing in newly acquired Martha’s Vineyard T-shirts. “All families are interesting,” he said. “It’s just that some are less public. The medical examiner’s report must be of some help.”

The corner of Hanley’s mouth twitched. “Not to you.”

“Not even for my mother’s sake?”

“I admire your mother,” Hanley said firmly. “But we can’t give it up while the investigation is on.”

So the report was completed, Adam divined, and in Hanley’s possession. “Then it’s fair to say that the report doesn’t preclude a homicide.”

Hanley leaned forward, elbows on knees, weighing his answer. At length, he said, “In itself, a fall off that cliff doesn’t tell you much. You get a severe trauma to the head, bleeding around the brain, a fractured skull, and scrapes on the face and body. None of that says why Ben fell.”

“Did he land close to the cliff, or out a ways?”

Hanley laughed briefly. “Kudos for the question. But I’m not telling you anything your uncle Jack couldn’t. Ben landed close to the cliffside.”

“Meaning that no one hurled him into space.”

Hanley’s smile lingered, as though he were following Adam’s thoughts. “Ben was a big man, Adam. The Incredible Hulk is not among the suspects.”

“In other words,” Adam persisted, “the location of the body is also consistent with accident or suicide.”

“I suppose.”

“Then I suppose you also know he was drunk.”

“So your mother tells us. But the toxicology report isn’t in yet.”

“Still, he could have fallen. And now you’ve learned that he had brain cancer, which suggests the possibility of suicide.”

Hanley’s smile became bleak, his lips clamped tight. “The man I knew for fifty years would not have deprived the world of his presence. But you could posit that—unlike wars, famine, pestilence, and plague—brain cancer disheartened him a bit.”

“And therefore, accident or suicide are real possibilities. I’m left to wonder why you think this could have been a murder.”

“Yup,” Hanley agreed laconically. “You’re left to wonder. Not that I’m saying it was.”

Adam watched his eyes. “But you think it was, don’t you?”

Hanley fixed him with an unblinking gaze. “You know that promontory intimately. Do you believe Ben had one too many and just stumbled off the cliff? Or decided to end his life even a day before God did it for him?”

No, Adam thought. “I’ve no idea, George. As you point out, I hadn’t seen him for ten years.”

A new expression, probing and tough, entered Hanley’s eyes. “Can I ask why?”

Adam had expected this. “Objection, George—irrelevant. When he went off the cliff, I was in Afghanistan. I sure as hell didn’t push him.”

“But there came a time when you might have wanted to, didn’t there?”

Adam stared at him. “Everyone wants to know why I left, like it must be shrouded in mystery. I suggest that you consider the man you knew.”

Suddenly, Hanley’s expression held the merciless bleakness of a recording angel. “You know what I’m asking. Was there something about Ben, even ten years back, that might provoke someone to consider killing him?”

The way he treated all of us, Adam thought. In an even voice, he said, “Which cuckolded husband or boyfriend are we talking about? Beyond that, I haven’t got a clue.”

Hanley’s tone and expression were unimpressed. “Even when you were in high school, Adam, they said you were the smartest guy around. You’re here for your own reasons. I suspect it’s the will, and the feelings it might engender among members of your family.”

Adam shook his head. “You can’t feel anything about a will that you don’t know exists. That leaves Carla Pacelli, who had everything to gain and, as I understand it, no alibi at all.”