by Nancy Geary
“I’m real sorry about your cousin. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t mean much under the circumstances, but the death of a young girl is about the sorriest thing I can imagine. I guess that’s my way of saying “I’m happy to help. Besides, Meaty’s a good friend. My kind of guy. And he thinks the world of you, that’s for sure. Now get in. We’re running about eight and a half minutes behind schedule because there was some construction just off Exit Sixteen that I hadn’t anticipated. We’ll make it up, “I’m no doubt about that, but it’s going to require some precision driving.”
Frances walked around to the passenger-side door, wondering what that meant. The white vinyl interior had warmed in the sun, and Elvis quickly laid out a striped beach towel for her to sit on. “I like a little heat on my ass, but a lot of people don’t,” he said, flipping the car into gear.
She fastened her seat belt as the car lurched forward.
The humid wind blew in her face and rock music filled the air as the two sped along. She glanced over at Elvis occasionally, but his gaze remained fixed on the road, and he seemed lost in the sound of his voice as he sang along. Then, as they approached the toll on the Tobin Bridge and sped through with a flash of his E-ZPass, he abruptly turned off the stereo. “We should talk. Tell me what you know.”
Frances quickly summarized the events of the last several days.
“But you found your cousin. What do you remember?”
“Not much, unfortunately.” She didn’t want to admit to her trauma-induced amnesia. She’d already chastised herself repeatedly.
“Well, you know the drill. Treat yourself like a witness and walk yourself through the details. See what comes back. You say the body was hanging from a light fixture.”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me anything about the color of her skin, angle of her head, position of her neck?”
Frances closed her eyes, but her vision seemed a blur of silk shantung and dangling limbs. She couldn’t even picture Hope’s face.
“Do you remember where the knot was located?”
“What do you mean?”
“Left, right, or facial centerline.”
She tried to remember pulling off the noose from around Hope’s neck. Had she pulled the rope from its knot? She couldn’t have untied it completely, or Jack, arriving later, wouldn’t have observed that it was a bowline.
Responding to her silence, Elvis said, “Okay. What about the body? How high was it off the ground?”
Frances thought for a moment. In the recesses of her mind, she recalled Hope’s feet, crooked and sideways on the floor. “They were touching the ground.”
Elvis seemed momentarily lost in thought, and Frances had the sinking feeling that she’d given the wrong answer. “Is that significant?” she finally asked.
“I suppose it does us both a disservice if I’m anything less than candid. If a body’s not suspended, the overwhelming statistics indicate a suicide. A person who wants to kill himself just bends his knees and lets the pressure of the noose asphyxiate him. People have been known to hang themselves simply by sitting in a chair and reclining slightly away from the rope. That’s why I asked you if you remembered where the knot was. On the right side, it would cut off the blood supply to the brain through the carotid artery. A person can lose consciousness in only a couple of seconds. A left-side knot is also pretty efficient because it blocks the jugular vein. But a centerline knot is slow and painful because it blocks the trachea. I’d be surprised if that were the case here, given what you tell me about the timing.”
Frances wanted to ask him how he knew so much about hangings but decided not to interrupt. The wealth of information that many of the best investigators stashed in their minds never ceased to amaze her.
“A murderer, on the other hand,” Elvis continued. “Now he’d want his victim completely suspended. Possibly even a drop hanging, because then the neck breaks and you’re talking maximum chance of lethal result.” He honked his horn and swerved into the right lane to exit onto Storrow Drive. “Granted we’re talking probabilities here, and there’s always the case that beats the odds. A couple of years back, I remember a Mob hit that was a nonsuspended. Turned out they’d hung a noose around the guy’s neck but held a gun to his head, forcing him to asphyxiate himself. That had to be a grueling death. Think I would have let them shoot me.”
“How’d you find out it wasn’t a suicide?”
“An informant. Described every gory detail from his tears and pleas to the shit in his pants. Poor son of a bitch.”
“But there was no way to tell by the autopsy?”
“No. When we found the guy in his body shop, we thought it was a suicide. Didn’t mean we weren’t going to try to put together a case because we thought he’d been threatened or intimidated. Something drove him to do it, but the autopsy gave us nothing.”
“I see.” Frances turned away from him and looked out at the array of sailboats on the Charles River. Six or seven seemed to form a white line, as if they were sailing in formation. The esplanade was filled with joggers and people on Rollerblades modeling an impressive collection of spandex and sports bras. A blond dog walker kept up a brisk pace with a motley pack of leashed canines. If she didn’t know better, life seemed peaceful.
“We’re almost there,” Elvis said as he put on his blinker.
Elvis pulled to the curb in front of 720 Albany Street, a drab modern building that was part of the Boston Medical Center complex. Parked directly in front were several state trooper cruisers and a white van with the medical examiner’s logo stenciled on the side. Elvis rang the bell, waited for a buzzer, and pushed the heavy door forward. Frances stepped inside.
“Elllvisss,” said a bald cop with rosy cheeks, stretching out the word. From behind the reception desk, he grinned. “What brings you to these parts? Looking for your sweetie?”
“For once your sleuthing skills are accurate. Where is she?”
“In the back. Her usual room.”
Elvis started in that direction, but the cop stopped him. “You may be the big girl’s husband, but you’ve still gotta sign in your guest. Police procedure.”
He bent over and entered Frances’s name in a large ledger. “Frances Pratt, meet Officer John Johnson. And yes, it’s his real name. His parents lacked imagination.”
Elvis headed down a long corridor and she followed a few paces behind, listening to the sound of his Tevas squeak on the linoleum floor. He stopped at a door marked “22,” knocked, and opened it without waiting for a response from within. “Mags, we’re here.”
Maggie Mallory stood up from behind a steel desk and removed her metallic half-glasses. She had an imposing presence: tall, with broad shoulders and large breasts and a mane of blond hair that cascaded halfway down her back. She walked around to where they stood, leaned over, kissed her husband, and then extended a hand in greeting. “I’m sorry about your cousin,” she said.
“Thank you,” Frances said. She thought she detected a family resemblance to Carol Burke, Meaty’s wife. Perhaps it was the wide forehead, but something about Maggie Mallory’s manner struck Frances as familiar.
She indicated a chair, which Frances took. She could see Elvis standing behind her, swaying slightly from side to side.
“I took a preliminary look at Hope Lawrence,” Maggie began, obviously happy to skip the pleasantries. “She was twenty-six, is that right?”
“Twenty-seven. Her birthday was in May.”
Maggie jotted a note in a three-ring binder. She flipped to the next page, replaced her glasses on her nose, and scanned the sheet in front of her. “Five feet six inches and a hundred and two pounds,” she mumbled before shutting her notebook. “Look, I’m talking to you candidly because of Meaty,” she said, directing her comments to Frances. “He’s family, and he tells me you’re family to him. So I guess that makes us related in some metaphorical sense. It’s odd working with someone you sort of know. It’s happened to me a couple of times, but never like this, I me
an, where the victim’s your relative on top of our connection through Meaty. I want to help, but be forewarned that this isn’t pretty.”
“I appreciate that,” Frances replied, feeling suddenly as if the oxygen had been pumped out of the room. There was an odd smell—a mixture of ammonia, grilled cheese, and air freshener—that nauseated her, but she tried to concentrate on Maggie’s words.
“Okay, then. Remember I’ve done nothing formal, so this is preliminary. But one thing struck me right off the bat. Blood’s pooled above and below the ligature. You can see it in the skin coloration of the neck. That shouldn’t happen if hanging is the cause of death. The bruising on her neck—the pattern of grooves on her throat—appears more consistent with strangulation than hanging.”
“What… are… you… saying?” Frances found herself stammering.
“My off-the-record suggestion to you both is that you don’t waste your time here. You’re not likely to find the murderer sitting here.”
17
As Frances approached the Lawrences’ house, she heard her grandmother’s voice beckoning from the patio. Teddy sat in a wicker chair, clutching the bentwood handle of her cane. Her large straw hat partially covered her face.
“Have you been swimming?” Frances asked.
“Yes.”
“With or without a suit?”
Teddy was a notorious skinny-dipper. The local paper had done a feature story on her several years before with the prominent headline MICHIGAN GRANDMA BRINGS NUDE BATHING TO MANCHESTER and a picture of her floating in the harbor in her straw hat as the Coast Guard’s boat passed in the background. Perhaps it was her age or the bluish black color of the water, but the town seemed unusually tolerant of her favorite pastime. Even the local fishermen were discreet enough to divert their gaze if their boats passed Smith’s Point as she happened to be getting in or out of the sea.
“Can you sit for a moment?” Teddy asked, ignoring her question.
Frances could tell from the rattle in her throat that she’d been crying. “Of course.” From where it was positioned facing the ocean, she pulled a chair slightly closer to her grandmother. The breeze chilled her. Assuming Teddy had something to say, she sat patiently, not wanting to rush the conversation. She gazed at her grandmother’s arm, the pronounced age spots giving the otherwise porcelain skin a mottled look. After several moments of silence, she heard Teddy clear her throat.
“So what happened to Hope?”
The directness startled her, and she paused to collect her thoughts before responding. “It’s still preliminary.”
“Lawyer gibberish. I’ve been around enough of them to tell. You’re a bad liar, Frances Pratt. Just like your father.”
She should have known Teddy couldn’t be assuaged with a noncommittal line. She’d always been blunt to the point of insulting and expected the same in others. “If you want the truth, I just met with the medical examiner in Boston. Hope was strangled.”
Teddy inhaled quickly, turned her head away, and covered her mouth with her hand. Frances reached over, but Teddy shook her head before she ever touched her. With crooked fingers she pulled at her hat to lower it on her face. “That poor girl. That poor dear girl.”
“I have to tell Adelaide and Bill today, but I don’t know how. Or rather I can’t face it. I can’t bear to add to their pain.”
Teddy said nothing in response for several minutes. When she did speak, her voice was labored, her words slow. “At least they can’t blame themselves. Adelaide’s been catatonic struggling over what she did wrong, or should I say everything she did wrong.” She coughed, then reached into a canvas bag for her cigarettes. She fumbled a moment with the package but removed one, lit it, drew a long inhale, and exhaled smoke out her nose. “I’ve buried a husband, but I haven’t yet had to bury a child, and I never expected to bury a grandchild.”
“I know how close you were.”
“She was my granddaughter, just as you are, but since I moved here I’ve seen her almost every day,” Teddy replied. “She had a passion for life, an energy and excitement—let’s call it a spirit, for lack of a better word, although I’d prefer a secular one.” She drew on her cigarette and sputtered slightly as she exhaled. “There was a period when she came over nearly every afternoon. She had some sort of diet soda and I had an excuse for an early cocktail. Occasionally she’d read her poetry. Between you and me, her skills in that area were lacking, but she read with a sense of high drama, lots of vocal intonations. I often had to suppress laughter. She could be quite melodramatic.”
Frances was silent, imagining the scenes Teddy described.
“She reminded me of myself. I nearly forgot she wasn’t our blood.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Teddy cocked her head. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know Hope was adopted?”
“No.” She’d never thought one way or the other about it; Hope was Adelaide and Bill’s baby. It was true that she had no memory of her aunt pregnant, but that didn’t seem odd given the amount of time that passed between visits.
She remembered her father telling her that she had a new cousin and that they were all going to travel to Manchester to see her. But a few days before their departure, he’d been on the telephone with Bill, and when he hung up, his eyes were red. He’d seen that Frances was listening and hugged her tight while he explained that the baby was in a hospital in Boston, seeing a specialist. She needed surgery for a congenital heart defect. He was going to be with his sister, but she and Blair wouldn’t be coming. Not right away. But no one had ever mentioned that the new baby with heart trouble had been adopted.
“No surprise, I guess. Practically nobody knows. Adelaide and Bill were so secretive.”
“Why?”
“Shame, perhaps. It was a trauma for both of them that Adelaide couldn’t get pregnant.”
“Is Penelope adopted, too?”
“No. But that made it worse. Don’t quote me on any of this, for God’s sake. Remember, I was in Michigan, and your aunt has never been much for confiding, even in her own mother, but the bits and pieces she let drop made it clear that Bill’s ego was threatened. Some notion that Morgan was more virile, or something absurd,” she said, referring to Adelaide’s first husband.
“Did Hope know?”
“I’m not sure. Several times over the years, I tried to convince Adelaide that Hope was entitled to know, but she and Bill were adamant. They thought she’d be obsessed with finding her biological parents and didn’t want her to have that torment, not on top of the other struggles she had. But I think they also were afraid that she’d reject them.”
“So she never knew?”
“If she did, she never said a word to me.”
Frances was quiet, trying to digest the information her grandmother had just disclosed. She didn’t like that this revelation made her disoriented. Whether or not Hope was a blood relative should make no difference, but she wondered nonetheless how she would have reacted if she’d been told as a child.
“Did she ever confide in you?”
Teddy paused, as if debating whether to answer. “She did when she was seeing that fisherman.”
Frances leaned forward. “Who was that?”
“A Portuguese fellow named Carl something-or-other. But she fell for him like a brick off a building.”
“What happened?”
“Well, as you might expect, she got quite a reaction from her parents. He wasn’t at all what they had in mind—at least a decade her senior and probably without two coins to rub together—but he was charismatic.”
“You met him?”
She waved her hand as if wanting to stop the conversation. “She brought him by on occasion.”
“When?”
Teddy’s glance seemed to ask whether Frances wanted the official or the real answer, but she said nothing.
“Were they seeing each other recently?”
“How many times have you been in love?” Teddy asked, igno
ring her question. “I’m not talking about a great friendship with a man or a compatibility. I’m not even talking about the kind of ease, the familiarity that comes with years of marriage or raising a family. I mean that kind of mesmerizing chemistry that can leave a girl breathless. Where even the thought of the man makes your heart race. Most of us never have that. I certainly didn’t have it with Dick,” she added almost as an afterthought. “Although I’ve often wondered whether marriage sounds the death knell for love. John Stuart Mill, the English philosopher, do you know him?”
Frances nodded.
“He once said something along the lines of freedom is the ability to choose whom to love. With absolute freedom comes true love. I think the idea is that if every day you wake up and choose to be with someone, to share your life not because of a legal or financial obligation, but because of real choice, that’s love. Hope and that fellow had something like that. I saw it the few times I was with them. He was a physical man. Large hands. Even in front of me, he couldn’t keep them to himself.”
“You invited them over?”
She frowned. “Of course not. But every so often, Hope would call and ask if she and her friend could come for tea. That was her code. Anyway, I’d say yes, and they’d show up a minute later, as if they’d phoned from the end of the footpath. We’d sit and make pleasantries for several moments, and then she’d remind me that I was late for mah-jongg. I’d excuse myself and they would stay behind, offering to clean up.”
“And?”
“Must I explain everything? My word, Fanny. You should get off that peninsula of yours every once in a while,” she said.
Frances smiled. She never would have imagined her grandmother had been a willing participant in a clandestine tryst. “Why’d you do it? Play along, I mean.”
Teddy took another drag of her cigarette, and Frances watched the ash, which seemed to dangle precariously over her lap. “In my day, marriages were arranged, or at least practically speaking. You were bloody lucky if you could tolerate the man you were with, never mind love him. I saw how Hope was with Carl, and frankly, I didn’t see anything wrong. Passion is a precious commodity. She was lucky to find it, and I wasn’t about to stand in the way.”
