Out of the Cold (19 page)

  .    .    .

I had just let myself into my father's loft and waved to Tara, who was in my father's office, when my cell phone rang. My heart fluttered as I checked the display. Long distance—Nick?

“Hello?” I said breathlessly.

“Hello,” came a voice I didn't recognize. The caller identified himself as Doctor Antoski.

“You wanted to talk to me,” he said.

I didn't know a Dr. Antoski, and I was about to tell him that he must have the wrong number when he said, “I work at the walk-in clinic on Dennison. I'm in the airport in Nairobi. I just checked my messages and there was one from you. Something about Mr. Duffy.”

Then I remembered. Morgan had left a message with my cell-phone number for the doctor Mr. Duffy always saw.

“How is Mr. Duffy?” he said.

“I'm afraid he died,” I said.

There was a pause on the other end.

“How did it happen?”

“He'd been drinking,” I said. “They said he passed out.”

“If I told him once, I told him a thousand times that it wasn't the street that was going to kill him, it was that cheap red wine that he was always drinking.” The doctor sighed on the other end of the line. “I thought I'd finally got through to him. The last time I saw him, he told me he hadn't touched a drop for a couple of months. That was a big deal for someone like him.”

I quickly explained why I—well, Morgan—had left the message.

“Did Mr. Duffy talk much about himself?” I said.

He seemed to hesitate. “No, not really,” he said finally.

“Did he ever talk about his past?”

“Never.”

“Not even about what happened to him. How he'd had that head injury?”

“I asked him a couple of times,” Dr. Antoski said. “He'd had a serious blow to the head. His skull was caved in on one side. It affected the vision in his left eye, as well as some of his brain function. But he never told me anything about it. Whether he didn't like to talk about it, or he didn't remember... It's funny, though. Even with that, he was an expert with computers. In fact, he helped me with some problems I was having with mine. That's not something you'd expect from a man his age, let alone a person without a home. I'm sorry he's gone. And I'm sorry I can't be more help to you.”

Disappointed, I thanked him and hung up. It looked like Ben was right. Some things weren't meant to be.

Tara came out of my father's office with an enormous smile, carrying what looked like a computer case.

“I finally got my computer back,” she said. “And it's working! I feel like celebrating.” She studied my somber expression. “You look awfully glum. Everything okay?”

“I've been working on a puzzle,” I said. “I was hoping I'd solve it, but... ” I shrugged.

“How about if I buy us coffee and a decadent dessert?” Tara said. “I know a place that has amazing brownies—à la mode, with a hot chocolate sauce to die for. What do you say?”

“Sounds good,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

My phone rang again. This time it was Aisha.

“I found something else that belonged to Mr. Duffy,” she said. “Can you meet me at the laundromat?”

I said I'd be right there.

“Change of plans?” Tara said.

“I have to meet someone. I'm sorry.”

“Is it going to take long?”

“I don't think so.”

“Come on, then. I'll drive you to where you're going, and when you're done we'll get dessert. There's nothing like chocolate when you need a lift.”

“Are you sure I'm not messing up your plans?”

“The only plan I had was to celebrate the return of my life-support system,” she said. “I can't function without my computer. What do you say, Robyn? You can tell me all about your puzzle. Maybe I can help you work it out.”

Tara waited in the car while I went into the laundry place. I found Aisha alone in front of a dryer.

“Rashid is at home watching Yasmin. I told him I had to do the washing early this week—the laundry will be closed on Friday for the holiday.” She reached into the pocket of her thin coat and pulled out a silver locket. “I found this in Yasmin's drawer,” she said. “She says Mr. Duffy gave it to her. The chain is broken. Yasmin says she didn't do it. She says it was that way when Duffy gave her the locket. He wanted her to have it, and he made her promise not to tell. He knew that Rashid would insist that she return it.”

I opened the locket. There was a small oval space inside for a photo. It was empty.

“The picture I gave you,” Aisha said. “I think it was originally in this locket. And look.” She pointed to the locket's inside cover, opposite where the picture had been. It had been engraved:
To Franny. Eternally yours, Max
.

“The picture was of a man named Maxwell Templeton,” I told Aisha. “And I'm pretty sure that
Franny
must be a woman named Frances Braithwaite. She used to know Maxwell Templeton. She told me he died more than twenty years ago.”

“What was Mr. Duffy doing with it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Will you return it?” Aisha said.

“Won't Yasmin be disappointed?”

Aisha looked squarely at me. “If you know who it belongs to, then please return it,” she said. “It's the right thing to do. If someone had given me a locket like that, I would want it back. Wouldn't you?”

  .    .    .

Tara took me to the dessert place and ordered lattes and a chocolate-fudge brownie with two spoons. I forced myself to eat some of it, but I think all I did was dampen Tara's celebration.

“It looks like that puzzle of yours is driving you crazy,” she said finally.

“It is,” I said. “I hit a dead end, and I don't like the feeling.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “Why don't you tell me about it? I always feel better when I have a chance to talk things out.”

I told her the whole long story.

“I was hoping the picture would turn out to be Mr. Duffy,” I said, fingering the locket. “But it looks like another dead end. I should have known. The picture didn't look even remotely like him.”

“Some people's faces stay perfectly recognizable,” Tara said. “But you'd be surprised how much a face can change between sixteen and sixty, especially if a person is ill or had an accident or a particularly difficult life.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But the person in my picture turns out to have died over twenty years ago.”

“Tough break,” Tara said.

We finished our treat, and Tara offered to drive me home.

“I have to make another quick stop,” I said. I had made a promise to Aisha. Maybe I couldn't find out any more about Duffy. But I
could
return the locket to its rightful owner—assuming she wanted it back. Her name had changed from Pfeiffer to Braithwaite, so she must have gotten married. Maybe she had thrown the locket away years ago. Still...

“You go ahead,” I said.

“I'll take you,” Tara said brightly. “It's the least I can do.”

  .    .    .

Mrs. Braithwaite's car was parked in her driveway, but I hesitated. She was probably busy. She might not be happy to see me—or the locket.

“Problem?” Tara said when I hesitated.

“No.”
Just do it
, I told myself. “I don't think I'll be long.”

This time Braithwaite answered the buzzer herself. When I identified myself and said that I had something of hers, she told me I must be mistaken. But when I told her it was a locket and read out the inscription, she was silent for a moment, then said, “I'll be right there.”

A minute later, the door opened and she admitted me inside. I handed her the locket. She opened it and let out a sort of moan.

“Where did you get this?” she said.

When I told her, she shook her head.

“Is it possible?” she said. “Is it really possible that something you lost more than twenty years ago could suddenly turn up again, thousands of miles from where you lost it?”

“Mother?” a voice called from the hallway. “I heard the door.”

A young woman who looked about Tara's age poked her head in. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said, when she saw me. A young man trailed after her. “I heard the door,” the young woman said. “I thought it was Edward's father. He should have been here by now.”

Braithwaite introduced me to her daughter Jenny and to Jenny's fiancé Edward. Jenny looked at her mother again.

“Is everything all right, Mother?” she said.

Braithwaite nodded weakly. “Robyn came to return this to me,” she said. She handed her daughter the locket.

“The chain's broken,” Jenny said.

“I did that,” Braithwaite said, “just before I threw it at your father.”

Jenny looked surprised. “You threw this at Daddy? I don't remember you two ever even arguing.”

“Look inside, Jenny.”

Jenny did as she was told. “Max?” she said. “You mean—”

“I mean your real father, Jenny.”

“But he died when I was a baby.”

“You were two and a half,” Mrs. Braithwaite said, taking the locket back from her daughter. “It should have been the happiest time of our lives.” She ran her thumb across the surface of the locket. “I didn't think I'd ever see this again,” she said to me. “Max and I met when we were in school. He was at St. Mark's. I was at St. Mildred's. He was a year older than I was. He gave me this locket in my senior year. It used to have a picture of him inside.”

“I know,” I said. “I had the picture—and a ring from St. Mark's. That's how found you.”

“You have the picture
and
his St. Mark's ring?” she asked. “May I see them?”

I explained to her that both the ring and the photograph had been stolen.

Her eyes grew misty as she looked at the locket again. “Max and I planned to get married as soon as we graduated, but my parents thought I was too young. They sent me to Europe for a year. Max went away to college. We wrote to each other for a while and then, I don't know, just drifted apart. I got married, but it didn't work out. Then one day I ran into Max. In an airport, of all places. I hadn't seen him in seventeen years. We had dinner together, and it was as if we had never been apart. We got married six months later. Two years after that, just when I thought it would never happen, Jenny came along.”

“I don't understand,” Jenny said. “If this is your locket, what was
she
doing with it?”

“Someone gave it to me,” I said. “A woman I know asked me to return it.”

“But how did she come to have it?” Braithwaite asked. “I ripped that locket off my neck and threw it at Max more than twenty years ago. That was the last time I ever saw him or the locket. How did some other woman end up with it?”

“A homeless man gave it to her,” I said.

“A homeless man? Where did
he
get it?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, does this woman know how to find him? Can we ask him?”

“I'm afraid not,” I said. “He died last Monday night. He froze to death.”

Mrs. Braithwaite stared at me.

“I just don't understand,” she said. “After I threw that at Max, it was never recovered, but I assumed he had it with him when he—” She broke off suddenly, her face twisting in anguish. I felt sorry that I had come. All I had succeeded in doing was stirring up painful memories.

“My father drowned,” Jenny said.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Your father killed himself,” Braithwaite said quietly.

Jenny stared at her mother. “Killed himself?” she said. “You never told me that.”

“It was such a long time ago. You were so young—too young. And Steven was such a good father to you. I didn't think...I'm sorry. I should have told you.”

Jenny looked at her fiancé, who slipped an arm around her.

“I should go,” I said quietly, but no one seemed to hear me.

“After you were born,” Braithwaite said, “I had a hard time coping. I was home alone a lot. And Max had changed so much in the short time we'd been married. The only thing he seemed to care about was programming and debugging. And he was drinking—far too much. He was driven by his work—at least, that's what I thought at the time.

“Max had such big ideas. He thought he could change the world. He drove himself hard. The last time I saw him, he said he was going to the office. He said he couldn't think, at home with a crying baby. That's when I yanked the locket off. The chain cut into my neck before it broke. I was so angry. I told him if work was more important than his wife and daughter, he could live at the office for all I cared. I didn't see what was really going on with him.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny said.

“I found out...later...that he was being treated by a psychiatrist. He'd been drinking to deal with his depression. But he kept working. He forced himself. He kept muttering about problems at work, but he never told me what they were. He never said anything to me about how he was feeling. But I should have seen.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Jenny slipped out of Edward's embrace and hugged her mother.

“His office was in a run-down place near the docks. He always said he didn't want to waste money on what he called nonessentials. You remember the place, Edward?”

Edward nodded. “I used to go there with Dad.”

“Edward's father and Max were business partners,” Braithwaite said. Her eyes clouded. “They found Max's watch in the harbor, his shoes and a few articles of clothing washed up. But they never found his body. They thought that maybe the tide...The police said there was no evidence of foul play. They knew he'd been in a bar earlier that night. At first they thought maybe he drank too much and fell into the water. When they found out he'd been seeing a psychiatrist, his death was ruled a suicide. I'm sorry, Jenny. I should have told you.”