Now You See Her (18 page)

No. Somehow his new Marlborough house affronted her. There are references to Miss E’s “tragicomic dislike” of the stone of
Mr. Wight’s house and “intractable aversion” to the New Land. Fannie Fantrell recounts a crushing moment, a promenade when
Mr. Wight proposed marriage to Miss Eddington, then “watched the tip of her parasol trace out two letters: N-O.”

Why did she turn Wight down flat? Was this “compact” man more friend than lover, or his pedigree not pure enough? Was that
house really the insurmountable obstacle? Maybe Clara set her sights on a big-bucks robber baron in the Gilded Age. Fannie
does not venture a guess.

Within a year, the spurned Wight is said to be “storm-tossed” and “heartbroken,” while Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Eddington announce
the engagement of their daughter, Clara, to Mr. Charles Dehmer.

Dehmer! I can’t believe it, the architect. What a twist! Dehmer hasn’t figured in the picture at all except for the house.
Following a spring wedding, the couple will live on Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill. Her home turf.

I smell a plot as thick as blood pudding—the architect Dehmer conniving to wreck his client’s courtship. He must have known
that Wight, not the Harvard boys, was his real competition. Had he drawn up blueprints calling for a house style and a location
that Clara Eddington was certain to loathe? Was Dehmer a Machiavelli and Casanova combined? A snake, that’s what I think.
Fannie speculates on none of this, although she soon refers to “Mr. Wight, the bachelor of Marlborough Street” and regrets
that “he has fallen heir to his family’s fatal weakness.”

What fatal weakness? “Fevered accusations” and “dreadful dislocation of nature” conceal the specifics. But 1886 brings the
“horrid” news that Mrs. Charles Dehmer, née Clara Eddington, has been widowed, the Dehmers’ little boy, Charles Jr., left
fatherless. The Dehmers had been in residence on Louisburg Square just two years when Mr. Dehmer died of fatal injuries in
a pedestrian accident on Beacon Street. The accident involved a carriage horse driven by—“O cruelest of Fate’s twists”—Mr.
Wight’s man, Boyle.

I see the words “crushed” and “skull,” and suddenly, the “Gentle Bostonians” are as Gothic as the Marlborough house.

Here’s how I read the story. First, imagine Wight brooding in his brand-new Medieval house while Clara honeymoons with Dehmer.
Imagine this Boston gentleman trying his best not to conjure the newlyweds’ boudoir scenes. Imagine him fighting depression
and fury while Clara and Dehmer travel, for weren’t wedding trips back then months long—steamship and rail journeys to distant
resorts and watering holes? Imagine his reaction on learning of the birth of the Dehmers’ son, Charles.

All the while, picture the bereft Wight in Boston faithfully attending board meetings and Monday Club dinners but succumbing
to his family’s “fatal weakness.” Did Wight direct his man Boyle to kill Dehmer? Was he jealous and enraged enough to become
homicidal? Not that he’d act in the open, of course. A gentleman of Wight’s standing in the “Back Bay Breed” would not so
crudely make his hired man a hit man.

But if hints were dropped… Suppose Boyle took his cue from a master whose every breath the servant could anticipate and must
obey without question? After the fact, Boyle would be absolved of responsibility, “consoled” and “forgiven.” Accidents will
happen, horses startle, and pedestrians misjudge distance curb-to-curb. The less said the better.

I plod on, the task now so grim. My appetite’s gone, and it’s somehow par for the course to come upon an abrupt reference
to “Mr. Edmund Wight’s sudden and untimely death” in 1888.

“Oh—”

“You okay?” The Car and Driver guy is now into Road & Track. “I’m fine. Something upsetting in this book.” I lift it to show
the front.

“The Gentle Bostonians?”

“They’re not. I mean, they weren’t gentle.”

He half smiles and shifts his chair away.

I sink into Fannie’s account of Edmund Wight’s funeral at Mount Auburn Cemetery on March 20, 1888, complete with references
to “the calamitous season, so vexatious in spirit to all, as if Nature herself would humble the proud at heart.” What killed
him? The “grippe” and “a weakening attack of bronchitis” are mentioned. I’d vote for remorse and guilt. At the funeral, “all
were inconsolable,” and Mrs. Dehmer, “achingly lovely in mourning silks and jet,” was said to be “thrice near fainting. The
servants, too, as if their own kin were struck down.”

Including Boyle?

Fannie does not say. Page after page, I find no more aftershocks. There’s one mention of “the star-crossed Marlborough house,”
but mainly, the charmed lives resume, the symphony concerts, Sunday sermons, candlelit Christmas trees, seasonal travel to
lakes and shore. It’s as though the passions and deaths are but ripples in time. They subside. Nothing rocks the Back Bay
boat.

But why, well over a century later, does every new owner leave the Marlborough house in short order? What drives them out?
Why the freezing drafts and night noises? Is it the ghost of Edmund Wight?

What to tell Tania? A tale of the loyal Irish servant, Boyle, whose spirit mourns Mr. Wight, himself a man devoted to all
things French. The household noises are not to be taken as signs of anger, but as catastrophic sadness. Not rage, not conspiracy
to commit murder. Sadness, in fact, could be new and novel enough to hold Tania while I try to learn whether the Marlborough
house is specially “star-crossed” in this twenty-first century. Assuming “star-crossed” is the apt term for a house purchased
with money traceable to the Eldridge Street fire in which the bodies of homeless squatters were found. All of which makes
it a probable criminal act of arson and murder. The guilty could be at large while Henry Faiser serves hard time for a murder
of which he may well be innocent.

T
he fashion show at the Newton Home and Garden Alliance looms this Friday like a huge nuisance. My library book report is written
up, a piece of hackwork to appease Tania. Meanwhile, a new “Ticked Off” deadline nears, Nicole is edgy, and I’m slated to
spend extra hours at StyleSmart pressing suits and stuffing tissue paper into shoulders and sleeves and zippering garment
bags.

Devaney had called to report that Alan Tegier had been strangled, probably with a coated wire. On Faiser, he was silent. I
need to know whether he has got hold of additional stored evidence from Peter Wald’s murder, specifically the gun that killed
him. These days, however, it’s touchy between Devaney and me, sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Meg and I meet late this morning, Tuesday, in a Tremont café for coffee and a swap. A silent TV on a back wall shows the city’s
chief of police being interviewed, the closed-captioning saying extra personnel have been assigned to the Dempsey case and
that the public is invited to phone in leads on a hotline. A sure sign the case is stalled and that Devaney is more preoccupied
than ever.

Meg scans my Marlborough Street “psychic” docudrama about Boyle and Edmund Wight while I finger the Eldridge Place II brochure,
an ebony calfskin folio with thick cream papers, lavish margins, and engraved script seductively announcing the latest in
elegant living.

“This is perfect, Reggie—the devoted Irish manservant who mourns his gentleman.”

“Glad you approve.” I glance out the window, where Biscuit is tied to a parking meter and licks every stranger’s proffered
hand. Back to Eldridge II with its Palladian design, parquetry flooring, gallery walls, clerestory fenestration, master thermal
mineral spas, private elevators, valet garaging, and on and on. Worthy of Louis XIV, the cursive sweep says that Eldridge
Place II is developed by the Bevington Partners Group.

“I love the walking stick and Leghorn hat,” Meg declares. “Good.” But at the moment, I’m in the grip of a utopian fantasyland.
“All the amenities,” I say aloud. Imagine a waltz on that parquetry flooring, beautifully finished, with nary a dust fuzz
rolling like a tumbleweed over the barren plain of sloping floorboards. And no tenant complaint about a dripping faucet.

Meg folds the pages of my ghostly sad melodrama and tucks them into her bag. “This will go to Tania today. And, Reggie, if
you’re really serious about a move to a deluxe high-rise, Eldridge II is a good bet. Trust me, by the time the foundation
is dug, most units will be sold. Barlow Square is a good location, so your condo ought to fetch a nice price.”

“Probably still too pricey for me.” But my voice lacks conviction, and I pause a split second too long.

Meg mistakes this for encouragement. “I printed these from the Bevington Partners’ Web site, the usual developer stuff about
experience and innovation. They underwrite and execute development opportunities. Here you go.”

She hands me the sheets. Guilt dampens my palms. Meg Givens thinks I’m really house-hunting. I try to stall her. “But they
haven’t even broken ground. Eighteen months for such major construction? Doubtful.”

“They’re fast. Bevington’s subcontractors have sweet incentives and stupendous penalty clauses. Carrots and sticks, Reggie.
We all marveled when Eldridge Place rose like the Empire State Building, one floor per week. Of course, the fire was a lucky
break.”

“The Eldridge fire?”

“Horrible to say this, but that fire saved them demolition and hauling. It probably cut red tape too. Zoning fights are a
moot point when whole blocks lie in ashes.”

I swirl my coffee. “Meg, let me ask you, were there rumors about that property?”

“Nothing I ever heard. But, Reggie, those were slum blocks at the time. We did no business there. Eldridge Place transformed
the area.”

“Slum blocks have slumlords.”

Now Meg’s eyes narrow, and the expression on her heart-shaped face shifts from piquant to shrewd to suspicious. She says,
“You’re not really considering a move, are you? You’re not house-hunting.”

For decency’s sake, I have to say, “Not exactly.”

“So that pink love nest that Stu showed so late at night—that was wasting Stu’s time?” Her eyes flicker with anger and bewilderment.
“And mine?”

Guilt settles in like black molasses. My gaze drops. “Meg, I owe you an apology on this. I’m acting in connection with a psychic
message. No, it’s not Marlborough, and I can’t give you specifics, except you do know that people died in the Eldridge fire?”

“They were accident victims, Reggie, hoboes or druggies. Your aunt had her psychic projects, but she never used people.”

“WWJD—What Would Jo Do?”

Meg rises with a chilly smile. “I have a showing at one. I’m disappointed, Reggie. People make Realtor jokes, but we work
hard and have our pride. This is breach of faith.”

Meg exits. The coffee’s cold, and maybe I’ve wrecked a friendship in the making. One thing I know: guilt can be a useless
emotion, an apology can fall on deaf ears, and my sainted aunt is an impossible act to follow.

Back at Barlow Square, Biscuit naps and I Google the Bevington Partners Group and find something Meg didn’t mention. The developer
is mired in lawsuits over the construction of Eldridge Place. Three of the suits claim breach of contract, the fourth negligence.
Subcontractors have filed $8-, $15-, and $28-million suits alleging nonpayment for various costs, including insulation panels,
pipe, ceramic coatings, labor. Bevington has countersued, alleging substandard quality of materials and construction. All
the cases are pending.

As for the fourth case, negligence, the family of a fatally injured construction worker, Jahan Motiki, has filed Motiki v.
Bevington Partners Group, which claims that no safety harness was provided for the man’s high-elevation installation work.
Plaintiff Sari Motiki, who is represented by the firm of Heald and Menkins, alleges that her late husband sustained fatal
head and spinal injuries in a fall. Bevington contends it bears no responsibility because the worker’s employer was a subcontractor
and Motiki an illegal alien, which sounds like he came from a flying saucer. Suit and countersuit are pending.

My ex, Marty, said these kinds of mishaps and lawsuits are one cost of doing business. He used the old cliché “Make an omelet,
break eggs.” By now, perhaps his trophy and my replacement, Celina, finds the omelet and eggshells as numbing as I did. Though
maybe she’s better than I at faking awe at Marty’s all-purpose version of Deep Thought. Anyway, try telling Mrs. Motiki that
her late husband was a broken egg.

None of the suits are delaying Eldridge II, though I note a complaint which was filed last March by a group called Friends
of Eldridge.

“Friends” of those dilapidated blocks in the neighborhood? Of Suitcase Mary’s turf? The group claims that Bevington’s environmental
impact statement was flawed. It claims, too, an improper acquisition of four city blocks of single- and multifamily residential
properties on Eldridge and three side streets, including Forster, which Mary said was her street and which the concierge,
Pam, blithely dismissed as a demolition detail. The Friends’ appeal to the zoning board was denied. I find no Web site for
the Friends. Roll on, Eldridge II.

Biscuit stirs, drinks some water, goes back to sleep. Online, I search Suffolk County property transactions on Eldridge Street
over the past two years. Seven, no, eight residential properties— houses—have been bought by one person, Steven Yung. I click
around. There’s a Steve Yung Web site with a grinning man in a white shirt and bow tie. “Let me put you in the car, SUV, or
pickup of your dreams at prices you won’t believe!! I’m your NEW BEST FRIEND!! Don’t visit a showroom without me!! Guaranteed
Financing!! Satisfaction!! Credit Doctor at your service!! See me, Steve, at Brighton Auto Mart.”

It’s a long shot, but at two, en route to StyleSmart, I detour to swing by Brighton Auto Mart, which is midblock on Brighton
Avenue. It’s a narrow lot whose front-row auto prices, whitewashed across the windshields, all end in $99. The usual plastic
pennants droop from a wire, and a sign proclaims “Spring Sale.” There’s not another customer or tire kicker in sight, but
a slim, Asian-eyed man dashes from a back lot crammed with fourth-generation cars and pickups. “I’m Steve. How you doing today?”
His handshake is soft and wet. He’s in Dockers and a blue shirt and striped clip-on bow tie. He grins, nods strenuously, keeps
earnest eye contact while I introduce myself. “What can I show you, Mrs. Cutter?”