Mansions Of The Dead (40 page)

She hadn’t been up to the Island Cemetery—the biggest on the island and where most of the residents of Newport would find their final resting place—in years, and she was surprised at how surrounded it was now by the residential neighborhoods. The cemetery was virtually packed in by the small houses that seemed a world away from the ones on the other side of town. It had been a good twenty-minute walk and by the time she arrived, Sweeney was damp with perspiration. She sat on the bench just inside the gates and looked out across the city of stone.

The cemetery was well-cared for, with rose gardens and perennial beds near the entrance gates and well-trimmed grass around the stones. There were a lot of modern stones as well as older ones, many with wilted bouquets left at their bases.

She consulted the little grid and counted out the stones as she walked down the right row. It was a white marble headstone, somewhat stained with age but still gleaming brightly in the afternoon light, a slim rectangle with a simple garland of roses along the top. The inscription read simply, “Belinda Cogswell Putnam. 1840–1925.” It did not say anywhere that she had been the wife of Charles Putnam or the mother of Edmund Putnam and for some reason Sweeney felt that that was exactly the point of this simple, lovely stone.

Below her name and the dates of her life, the epitaph read only “To help one’s fellow man is truly divine.”

With this simple stone, Belinda Putnam had exiled herself in death, away from her family, away from family privilege, away from the benefits of her family name. Sweeney tried to imagine. If Edmund had been illegitimate, perhaps she had felt guilty, unworthy of being buried next to her husband. But wouldn’t she have asked that her son be
buried near to her? It didn’t really make sense. Sweeney made some sketches of the stone and stared at it awhile longer before heading back toward town.

She was almost back to Anna’s when her cell phone buzzed in the pocket of her dress.

“Hello?”

“Sweeney? Tim Quinn.” Static crackled his voice.

“Hi. Has something happened?”

“No, no. I just got the results back from the DNA tests. I wanted to let you know.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Were you able to prove—?”

But he cut her off, his voice businesslike and short. “Actually, I think you’re going to be disappointed. We tested the hair in the locket and Charles Putnam
is
related to Brad Putnam. I think there must have been some mistake about the date on the brooch.”

“But . . . ” She hadn’t realized until now just how much she was counting on proof of her suspicions. “Are they sure? There must be some kind of mistake.”

“Yes, they’re sure.” She heard voices in the background.

“But I found this book, at the historical society. I think that Belinda must have come down here in the winter of 1863 and she must have—”

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” He sounded annoyed.

“But it doesn’t make sense!”

“I’m sorry. I know you were counting on this. But I have to go.”

“Wait, I wanted to tell you that I talked to some of my students and they said that Brad didn’t take any drugs the night he died. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Yes, thanks. We’re looking at something else now. And I really do have to go. Good-bye.” The phone went dead.

Dumbfounded, she put it away. But she had proof ! She knew that Belinda had been in Newport and she knew that she had stayed until March. There was no other explanation for it. How could Brad share
DNA with Charles Putnam if Edmund Putnam wasn’t Charles’s son? It didn’t make any sense.

The only way it made sense was that she had been wrong about everything, that the murder had nothing to do with the Putnam family, that it had in fact been an anonymous person who had come into Brad’s apartment and found him tied up and killed him. That must have been what Quinn meant when he said that he was looking at something new.

She let it settle in. She had been wrong. She had made a big deal out of something that had nothing to do with Brad’s murder. She had wasted Quinn’s time and perhaps hurt the investigation.

Disheartened, she walked back along Thames Street, wandering in and out of bookshops and the posh little boutiques that supplied well-heeled summer residents with beachwear and beach reading. Attempting to console herself, she stopped for an egg salad sandwich at a little deli by the water, and read the
Globe
while she ate.

She had just stood up to go and was putting her things back in her bag when someone touched her arm and said, “I thought that was you. You’re distinctive, even from a distance.”

The blue eyes were like granite under the shade of the deli’s awning. She hadn’t seen Jack Putnam or talked to him since the night at his apartment.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked when she didn’t say anything. He put a hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes from the low afternoon sun. In a pair of old Hawaiian print swim trunks and a faded blue T-shirt, he looked younger than she’d ever seen him, though he still seemed pale under his tan, and his eyes were still tired.

“Visiting Anna. What about you?”

“We all came down to be with Drew. You heard about Melissa?”

“Yeah. I’m so sorry,” Sweeney said. “I was thinking about all of you. How is she?”

“It looks like she’s going to be okay. She doesn’t look great, and she doesn’t remember anything, but she was pretty lucky.”

There was an awkward silence and finally Sweeney said, “Well, I guess I should be getting home.”

“Okay, well. Good to see you.” His hand rested on her arm for a moment and she felt her heart speed up.

She’d turned away and had walked a block down Thames Street when he came running up behind her, saying, “Just . . . Sweeney, just hold on a second,” taking her hand and pulling her into one of the little side alleys that led down to the waterfront. “I’ve been wanting to talk about what happened that night I ran into you at the gallery. I called a few times and I should have tried again, but I was afraid you’d hang up on me.”

“I’m sorry I told the police.”

“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. And I shouldn’t have lied. It just seemed like it would make things so much easier for Cammie.”

Sweeney nodded. They were standing very close together and he was still holding her hand.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know . . . ”

“Please,” he said. “I’ve been secretly hoping that I’d run into you. I wanted to explain about everything. I feel like you’ve seen the absolute worst of me. Hardly a way to start off a relationship.”

They were standing against a brick wall and she put a hand back to steady herself, feeling the roughness. “Is that what this is?”

“It’s a possible relationship, don’t you think?”

“Jack, I . . . ” She had been about to tell him that they couldn’t know what it was until things were more normal, until all of the immediate aftermath of Brad’s death had passed, but as she looked up at him, she realized that she had been thinking about him, nearly every day since the last time she’d seen him, that a part of her had been hoping she’d run into him too. “Are your sure your family wants company?”

“Yes,” he said. “My dad’s coming down and we’d love to have you. Please?”

Sweeney smiled. “Okay, okay,” she said. “What time should I come?”

“HOW ABOUT THIS ONE
? I think it’s Pucci,” Anna was saying as she held up an orange and red shift that Sweeney vaguely remembered her wearing in old family pictures.

“No. The color’s bad on me. And you’re much tinier than I am.”

“Yeah?” Anna held it up. “Maybe. Let’s see what else is here.”

They were up in the attic, going through the hanging cedar wardrobes where Anna’s discarded dresses and skirts hung alongside those that had belonged to Sweeney’s grandmother. Sweeney stood hunched over under the low eaves, snuffling from the dust, and looking at each neglected outfit that Anna took out and held up.

“What do you think everyone else will be wearing?” Sweeney asked.

“How should I know? You know when the last time I went out to dinner was?” Anna considered, and rejected, a Victorian-looking lace dress, with a high neck and puffy sleeves.

“But what do you think?”

“Why are you so nervous?” Anna, who was holding a floor-length madras patchwork skirt, looked up at Sweeney, studying her shrewdly.

“I don’t know. Just because it’s the Putnams. It’s the house and Newport and everything, I think.”

“But you went to the wedding and you were okay, right?”

“Yeah, but I had Toby with me. Toby makes everything easier.”

“Oh,” Anna said heavily.

Sweeney flipped through the clothes and pulled out a navy blue sleeveless dress. “Look at this. It’s silk,” she said, holding it out to Anna.

“That’s pretty. I remember Mother wearing that. Try it on. She was tall, like you.”

Sweeney unzipped her sundress and stepped out of it, then stepped into the blue dress, letting Anna zip up the back. The silk rustled against her skin and she smoothed the front. “What do you think?”

“You know what? It actually looks great.” Anna led her over to an old oval dressing mirror in one corner of the attic. “Can you see?”

Sweeney stood in front of the mirror. It was forties’ day dress, with a little waist that hugged her own and a knee-length skirt. “I like it,” she said. “Is it okay to wear it?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t think I’ll be overdressed?”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Sweeney, I really don’t know.”

Sweeney stood in front of the mirror, inspecting her pores in the low light. “Oh God, why am I going? I don’t even want to go. It’s going to be awful.”

“No, it’s not. It’ll be fun. You should get out and mix. That’s what Mother always said to me. ‘You should mix.’ I always had this image of a bunch of people in a blender. She didn’t know what to do with me. All I wanted to do was paint.”

“Poor Grandmother and Grandfather. Ending up with two crazy artists.”

“I know. I think it was part of why I was so willing to put my own work aside for Juli’s for so long. I always felt as though I was letting them down. And Paul, because he was older, had sort of got first dibs on letting them down. I wasn’t allowed.” Sweeney could hear the bitterness in Anna’s voice. She didn’t say anything.

Anna pulled out a large pink dress and held it against her body.

‘Oh God, look at this,” she said. “This must have been one of
Mother’s maternity dresses. Can you imagine. Women had to wear such awful things back then.” The dress was a soft, baby pink color and it had a Peter Pan collar with little pink flowers embroidered on it.

Sweeney watched Anna holding the dress up in front of her. “How come you and Uncle Juli never had kids?” she asked.

Anna folded the dress in half and laid it down on an old bed.

“I never really found out why. There was something wrong with one of us, but we never knew who. In those days you didn’t go to doctors about it the way you do now.

“I always wondered if it was my fault, if somehow, psychologically I kept myself from getting pregnant, if I was ambivalent about it. You know, it would have been hard with our lifestyle. I don’t think Juli would have liked staying home on Saturday night because we couldn’t find a baby-sitter, or you know, all the nursery things. He liked the idea of it, but the reality would have been a shock.”

“Did he ever . . . with . . . ?”

“With Stella? No. So perhaps it was a problem with him.”

Sweeney watched Anna’s face. “Do you think about it? Now?”

“Sometimes. Not that often. Still, it was hard. People ask you, you know. It’s amazing how rude they can be. ‘When are you going to have a baby? Don’t you want kids?’ Things like that. I remember that it got really hard for a while to be around our friends who had kids. I’d see people on the street pushing strollers and I’d think, ‘If any idiot can get pregnant, why can’t I?’ ” Anna closed the wardrobe door and gestured for Sweeney to turn around so she could unzip her.

Sweeney stepped out of the dress and got back into her clothes.

Anna reached up to find the cord for the light. “But it was just as well, in the end, wasn’t it?” she said. “The way things worked out?”

Together, they walked down the stairs.