Mansions Of The Dead (37 page)

Sweeney smiled. “I was engaged to an Irishman. When I used to live in England. He was a flute player. He’d always bring me out to sessions.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “They’re good tonight.” Sweeney nodded and they lapsed into silence, listening to the music. At one point, Sweeney looked over and saw that Quinn was sitting with eyes closed, a foot tapping out the music’s rhythm on the floor.

The musicians had just finished one long piece and the observers were applauding when Quinn’s cell phone rang. He reached for it and stood up, answering it as he left the back room. Sweeney watched him duck into a little alcove outside the door. He talked for only a few minutes before he came back to get his coat.

“Good to see you,” he said, slipping out through the crowds of people.

“Wait . . . ” But he didn’t wait and Sweeney followed him out onto the sidewalk. “Is everything okay?” she called out.

“I have to go,” he said. “There’s been another hit-and-run.”

Sweeney felt herself go cold. “Who was it?” A couple came out of the bar, laughing and stumbling, and she stepped out of the way to let them pass.

Quinn hesitated for a few moments before walking back to her. “Melissa Putnam,” he said. “Down in Newport.”

IT WAS AFTER ONE A.M.
now and Sweeney drove a little too fast down Mass. Ave., back toward the university, and Becca Dearborne’s dorm. Quinn had allowed her to drive him home and she had told him about Melissa Putnam’s message.

“What did she say?” he’d asked once they were in the Rabbit.

“Just that she wanted to talk to me and that she’d call back. She didn’t leave a number or I would have gotten back to her. What happened?”

“Apparently, she couldn’t sleep and told her husband she was going for a walk around nine-thirty. Then an hour or so later, someone was coming home early from the bars in town and their headlights caught her lying by the side of the road. She hadn’t been hit very hard—it was probably an accident—but she’d hit her head on the pavement and that accounted for her being unconscious. They think she’ll be okay though.”

“God, could it have anything to do with Brad?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Quinn said. “I asked if I could go down, but they said no. I guess it’s being handled by the Newport police for now. We’ll have to see what happens. It may be that it was just somebody driving drunk and they didn’t see her.”

“But you have to admit that it’s pretty strange that she called me. I’ve only met her once or twice. I guess she knew I was looking into the jewelry . . . ”

Quinn looked at her quickly. “You think maybe she was calling you about the jewelry?”

“I don’t know.”

“My friend said he should know in a day or two. I don’t know how this all works, but I think it took longer because he’s doing it on his own time. I’ll call you as soon as I know.”

“Call me on the cell. I might be in Newport this weekend, visiting my aunt.”

“In Newport?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, well. I was planning on going down there to see her.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.” He laughed. “But do me a favor and don’t get into trouble.”

Sweeney had pulled up in front of the house, but Quinn didn’t undo his seat belt. He sat there for a few moments, thinking.

“It’s strange that it’s another hit-and-run, isn’t it?” Sweeney asked him. “Have you found out who might have hit the other girl? Alison Cope?”

“We’re following up on some leads. Nothing so far. According to her roommates, she knew Brad Putnam only by sight, so there’s no connection there, but we’ll have to see if we can establish one between her and Melissa Putnam.” He sounded very tired.

“What do you think happened?” she asked him. “What did you think when you found him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when you first arrived at the apartment. What struck you about the room? Was there anything strange?” She wasn’t sure what she was asking him.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It struck me as being a very disorganized murder.”

“Disorganized?”

“I mean, it was messy. I had the feeling that someone had been
looking for something. Things were pulled out, drawers, you know. And there were books and things on the ground. But there wasn’t anything missing and we decided eventually that there must have been a struggle, or that perhaps he was killed by someone in a rage and they kind of lost it.”

There was something hesitant about the way he said it.

‘What?” Sweeney asked.

“Nothing, it’s just that it didn’t seem like the person was in a rage. Not to me. It was like when you’re looking for something, you know? And you really want to find it and you just kind of turn everything upside down, planning to put it back later. I don’t know. That’s crazy.”

“No, it’s not. But what could the murderer have been looking for?” Suddenly, she thought about the files she’d taken from Brad’s apartment, sitting at home on her desk. But she couldn’t tell Quinn about that. There were laws about breaking and entering, even if she’d used the key.

“I don’t know.” He looked awfully troubled.

“Remember to call me,” she said. “And I’ll ask around, see if I can find out anything else from the kids in my class.”

He looked as though he were about to say something else, then thought better of it.

“What?”

“Nothing. Thanks for the ride,” he said. “And remember what I said about staying out of trouble. I’ll call you when I hear about the jewelry.”

Now she clutched her class roster listing Becca’s dorm address. She knocked on the wooden door.

Jaybee came to the door first, wearing only boxers and looking surprised to see Sweeney.

“I need to talk to you,” Sweeney told him. “To you and Becca. Melissa Putnam was hit by a car tonight. Hit-and-run.”

Jaybee’s eyes widened. He didn’t say anything, but he held the door for her, then shut and locked it behind her and turned on a couple of table lamps in the little living room/kitchen area. Without a word,
he disappeared into the bedroom, not bothering to close the door.

“Bec,” she heard him whisper. “Bec, you have to get up.”

They came out a few minutes later, Becca in flannel pajamas and Jaybee wearing jeans and a T-shirt. “What happened?” Becca asked. “Is she dead?”

“No, but they don’t know how seriously she was hurt.” Without being asked, Sweeney sat down on a low futon in the little living room. Jaybee and Becca sat down across from her, on the floor. “Listen, I have to ask you guys something. Raj and Jennifer and Ashley told me about the mushrooms and the cemetery, the night Brad died. Was he taking mushrooms too?”

“No,” Jaybee said. “The rest of us were. But Brad chickened out at the last minute.”

“Why?”

“It was because of his sister. He was all nervous about getting caught and wrecking her campaign. At the last minute, he didn’t take them. I was the only one he told, though. Everyone else thought he was tripping out too.”

“So why was he so angry? Jennifer said he was really upset.”

Becca looked at Jaybee.

“Becca,” Sweeney said. “I think someone tried to kill Melissa Putnam tonight.”

“It’s okay,” Jaybee said. “Tell her.”

Becca sat up, holding her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth a few times, as though giving herself strength. “It was me and Jaybee. He had just found out about me and Jaybee.” Tears came to her eyes. “We were in the cemetery and Jaybee and I went off and we didn’t think anyone could see us and we were kissing. And then we turned around and Brad was there.” Her voice was very low, almost a whisper.

“He was furious,” Jaybee said. “It had been going on for a couple of weeks and we wanted to tell him, but I knew he wasn’t going to like it. He’d been in love with Becca since he was like ten, and he used to talk
to me about it all the time, about how he knew that they were going to be together someday and how she was the only one who understood him. When I realized that I . . . well, that I wanted to be with her, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell him, but then we got together and it just seemed easier and easier to pretend. He thought I was seeing someone because I would spend nights at Becca’s, and it totally sucked, lying to him. I hated it, every time I did it. But I didn’t want him to know.”

“But then he saw you?”

“Yeah, he saw us kissing and we . . . it was like we knew he was there and we turned around and to tell you the truth, it scared the shit out of me,” Jaybee said. “He was just staring at us and then he said something about how he should have known and how it was probably his fault and he didn’t deserve Becca. It was awful.”

“And he was really angry?” Sweeney asked Jaybee.

“Yeah. At first anyway. He was going on and on about what a coward he was. What a wimp and how afraid of everyone he was. But then, once we got him home, he wasn’t so angry anymore. It was more . . . I can’t describe it, like he had, like he had decided something. Like he had made some kind of decision.”

Becca said, “I think maybe it sent him over the edge, finding out about me and Jaybee. Brad had always had this weird thing about me, because of Petey’s death, because I was there. He couldn’t let go of it.”

Sweeney stared at the poster on the opposite wall. It was a Rothko, one of the black and burgundy ones. It wasn’t a painting she would have expected Becca to like. “Wait a second. What do you mean? You were there the night Petey died?”

They exchanged a quick glance and Jaybee said, “Becca was at the bar. Nobody was ever supposed to know that she was there. Her parents got a lawyer.”

“Do you know which one of them was driving?”

“I swear I don’t,” she said. “We were all hanging out at the Full Fathom Five and we were all drunk. Brad and Petey and I were excited
because they didn’t ask for ID and Drew and everybody were buying us drinks. It was really fun, but then their dad came in.”

“Andrew Putnam was there that night too?”

“Yeah, he came in and he was completely toasted. I mean, just wasted. And he was being really embarrassing, pretending he was our age or something, and flirting with Melissa. It pissed Drew off. That’s why he wanted to go home. Because his father was there. But no one else wanted to go. This friend of mine from boarding school was there and she said she’d give me a ride home, so I stayed. But Drew wanted everyone to go home and he was getting kind of, I don’t know, just really angry. And Melissa got really mad, I guess at the way he was talking to her, and so she took off and took their car home, ‘cause we’d all come in separate cars. That really pissed Drew off, so he said it was time to go and they all took off and that was it.”

“Do you think Drew was driving?” Sweeney almost whispered.

“I told you I don’t know. They never told us. I asked Brad once but he said he’d promised not to tell.”

“Promised who?”

“I don’t know. I told you I don’t know.” She seemed on the verge of tears and Sweeney let her turn to Jaybee and bury her head in his chest. “This is really important you guys. Do you think that Brad was killed because he was going to say who was driving that night?”

“No! What are you . . . ?”Jaybee looked horrified. “It’s his family.”

“Someone was driving that night. Brad knew who it was.” Sweeney felt her stomach sink as she said the words. There was truth to them.

“No,” Becca said. “It’s impossible.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to a ticking clock on the wall.

Sweeney waited a few more minutes. “Becca, why didn’t you say anything about the night Brad died?”

In the strange, low light from the desk lamp on a side table, Becca suddenly looked very young. She was crying and she wiped her eyes across her sleeve, like a little girl.

“Because I was guilty. Can’t you see? It was my fault. If I had just loved him, none of this would have happened.”

“But that’s not how it works. That’s not how love works.” Sweeney watched Jaybee try to comfort her, pain shadowing his own face. “That’s not how anything works.”

THE AIR GREW SALTIER
as Sweeney drove south toward Newport.

So exhausted that she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, she had gone home, packed a bag, and set off. Now the tangy air seeped through her thin sweater, so that she grew more awake as she drove.