by Linda Barnes
“North shore, north shore. Outfit called Clancy’s. There’s no Clancy to speak of.”
“Can you give me the garage address, call and tell them I might want to borrow a cab for a couple hours?”
“I know a few drivers there. Maybe I could work something out.”
‘I’ll pay double rates.”
“Don’t tell ’em that; it’ll just make ’em think you’re planning to bust up their cab.”
“Fix it for me, Gloria.”
“Consider it done.”
“Nothing on Marissa Cameron?”
“Not yet. Lots of cabbies at Logan. You take care now.”
Take care. I glanced at my desktop, grabbed Paolina’s postcard, rubbed it against my cheek, and stuck it in my pocket. A talisman, a warning.
If I get hurt, who’ll care for Paolina?
The sky was hazy, the air still. I started the engine.
Off to Marblehead, where remnants of cotton and linen clothing had been discovered twenty-four years ago.
33
I took narrow back streets to Kirkland, crossed the Charles on the McGrath and O’Brien Highway, swung unimpeded around Leverett Circle, an exhilarating feat. If I hadn’t promised Manley I’d hurry, I’d have done the rotary twice, for the sheer bliss of circling at a speed never allowed by daytime traffic jams.
Late night is the only time to drive Boston. Long-haul truckers and cabbies frequent the roads, professionals, extending each other professional courtesy. I hit the left-hand lane and floored it. The new Fleet Center loomed to the right, never to replace the Boston Garden with its obstructed views, knee-squeezing seats, and hardworking basketball teams. Route 3 heading to 93, cutting over to take the Tobin Bridge, craning my neck to catch the outline of Old Ironsides. On to Route 1, following a red river of taillights.
Marblehead’s as far north of Boston as Marshfield is south. Past Revere, Lynn, Swampscott, where Heather Foley had lived and died. Near Salem, where nineteen witches were hanged, one “pressed” to death with heavy weights. Sandy beaches, icy water, grand seaside estates, fewer summer people.
I studied headlamps in my rearview mirror. Nothing out of the ordinary, except the pounding in my chest. I piloted the car Boston-style, weaving lanes and signaling false exits to lose any followers.
I listen to old blues tapes when I drive, anything from Muddy Waters to Mississippi John Hurt. I riffled through my tape collection while stretching the speed limit.
I stuck a Rory Block tape into my boom box and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel to “Terraplane Blues.” What if the whole setup was politically orchestrated? First, “Mayhew” coming to see me, stirring up interest in Thea’s disappearance. Then Marissa’s kidnapping.
Was Tessa in command? Had she taken her late husband’s campaign losses to heart, determined the same fate would never conquer her son? When the Thea gambit didn’t pan out as planned, had Marissa been pressed into duty for the next publicity stunt?
If so, where was the publicity? Mama hadn’t gone public with Marissa’s kidnapping. No tearful interviews with the family. No televised appeals to the villains.
Every thread I yanked unraveled in my hand. I gave it up and drove.
My shadowy mob pursuer seemed nothing more than a remote possibility. I felt fine sitting in the driver’s seat with the window wide and the breeze blowing my hair, whispering a destination.
The beach shack at the Camerons’ summer place.
Once I left the main drag, scooting off 1A to 114, I drove cautiously, stopping at each amber light. Small-town cops have little to do late at night but watch for unknown vehicles behaving strangely in good neighborhoods. How would I explain my presence to a cop?
I smiled. Tell him I was on a pilgrimage of sorts, that I wanted to see the house where Thea Janis had spent her few summers, the beach from which she might have taken leave of this world. Better than saying I wanted to check the place for lights, cars. For Drew Manley, former shrink who’d supposedly found a phantom.
I went back over the phone call, trying to recall every word, each shift in vocal tone. Did I believe Manley?
It had been his voice. Definitely his. Breathless, a little wavery at times. Odd. But if he’d actually seen Thea after twenty-four years, he certainly had a right to a quaver in his voice.
Did it matter whether or not I believed he’d found Thea? I needed to talk to him, needed to understand where he was pointing me with his references to recovered memory syndrome.
Did I believe he was at the beach house with a living breathing Thea Janis at his side?
Wanting to believe is not the same as belief. Not the same at all …
Maybe Beryl was with him, I thought. Could the older sister, Beryl, have written Nightmare’s Dawn?
I pulled over near a Texaco station, flipped through my Arrow street map. Page fourteen. I wanted to locate various approaches to Marblehead Neck, a posh section of real estate. It seemed to me that varying Manley’s directions might be a good idea, considering the elusive motorbike.
I found exactly one road to Marblehead Neck. One. If the cops didn’t have it staked, they wouldn’t be much of a force. There’s always a cop car close to the richest part of town. Just in case.
Time to stop at the garage.
I turned on 129, driving away from the ocean. The streets and houses grew closer together. Smaller. The cab company was near the hospital. Good location.
I parked on the street two blocks away. No need to advertise. I transferred my 40 into my waist clip, slipped it in the back of my jeans, pulled my short-sleeved T-shirt over the bulge. I stuck a flashlight in my back pocket. Useful, and a decoy as well. Somebody asked me what I had back there, I’d show them the flash. First.
The dispatcher had a cab waiting. He’d talked to Gloria. He spoke cash.
Since I had no passenger to ferry out to the Neck, I got the next best thing. I stopped at an all-night convenience store, bought a bottle of Tylenol, the liquid stuff you give to squalling feverish babies. I’d have bought booze if I’d found an all-night liquor mart. Liquor and medicine make up eighty percent of cab deliveries.
Maybe no one would challenge my approach. I kept the white paper sack in full view on the passenger seat. Be prepared.
A causeway separated the Neck from Devereux Beach to the south and Marblehead harbor to the north. Once home to a sturdy fishing fleet, the well-lit harbor seemed moored with pleasure craft. Silvery lights studded a sailboat’s mast.
I wondered which end of the causeway the cops routinely watched. Maybe they switched off. That would be smart.
The coastline of Massachusetts is a precious resource. What makes people flock to live near large bodies of water? I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’ve got it bad. The Charles River’s okay, but I’d trade it for an ocean view in a second. By law, the beaches of Massachusetts are open to all. So why do real estate ads tout deeded rights to two miles of sandy beach? Because, technically, the public area “open to all” equals only that part of the shoreline betwixt and between high water and low water marks. In other words, the peons get to wade. I hoped it wasn’t high tide.
If a cop stopped me, I’d ask.
None did. There could have been unmarked units in the thick dry brush, but I didn’t see a single one. Couldn’t hear much because of the rhythmic ocean roar.
Ocean Avenue’s a big deal, skirting massive dwellings, each no doubt alarmed to the hilt. Schools of architecture waged a silent war on Ocean Avenue. I passed a Norman castle, a futuristic domed dwelling, a Georgian manse. Did the rich folks who lived in these artifacts speak to each other? Condemn each other’s taste? Fifty-six was the number of the Cameron place. Fifty-six Ocean. There. A timbered English country house that stretched to fill an enormous hunk of land. The little house that grew.
Pitch dark. Unlike its neighbors to either side, I inspected further, shining my flash at the ground.
Just as Manley had said, a narrow unmarked lane ran down one side
of the property. I didn’t like the look of it. I drove a couple houses down, passing a French château and a haphazard brick pile with ornate windows. Each dwelling extended approximately the length of a city block. I stopped and got out of the cab near a signpost that read “DESMOULIN LANE.” It didn’t seem much of a lane, more like rough steps hacked into a bluff, but it traveled in the right direction. I decided to follow it, walk along the shore, observe the back of the Cameron estate before declaring my presence. As long as I stayed on the shoreline, I wouldn’t even be trespassing.
It seemed safer than the direct approach to the low-lying shack that Manley had described.
As I descended, the surrounding area seemed to fade, its rocky outcroppings blurring into hazy outlines. Damp air floated off the water, changing into a low cloudy mist that shrouded everything in its path.
Fog. Sudden whiteout fog. How frequently did it visit this shore? I walked a hesitant ten paces and could no longer see the bluff, the steps. A distant foghorn keened. Had it called to Thea? Did she step into the mist once too often, hear the ocean sing her name? Had sirens sent fog to envelop her, extending soft welcoming arms to lead her to the waves?
Behind me, an irregular tapping. Hard-soled shoes clambering down the same steps I’d taken? The noise raised hairs at the base of my neck.
The soft sand above the surf line shifted under my sneakers, slowing me, dragging me down. I ran toward the Cameron house. A pinpoint of light shone to one side, partly shaded by an overhanging branch.
Some ramshackle outbuilding. A changing house for midnight bathers? The shack where Manley waited to tell me the truth at last.
A light glimmered at the back of the small wooden hut, none at the front.
Manley?
I listened for a follower. I couldn’t hear anything, but I wasn’t sure of my senses, didn’t trust them with the rhythmic surf and the silence of sand.
Should I call his name? A part of me felt that a cry for Thea, long dead, would be more appropriate. Maybe as likely to be answered.
Stop it, I scolded myself. The misty seascape and eerie foghorn were filling my head with every ghost story I’d ever heard or read.
I imagined my voice ringing out of the fog, telling everyone, anyone, where I was.
No way.
I took stock, breathing deeply, slowing my heart rate, pretending calm to regain calm. Why would Manley lurk in a shack by the water’s edge, exposed to cold and rough weather? Why not wait in comfort in the big house? No key, he’d said. If “Thea” were with him, if she’d spent her childhood summers here, surely she’d recall a secret way to enter, an unbarred window, a hidden key.
Things change in twenty-four years.
Thea’s dead, the fog whispered. I tried to remember her words: “the mind remembers lonely long after in dark places …”
I crept toward the shack. My nose twitched at the smell.
The interior was brightly lit by a kerosene lantern positioned behind a red motorbike. An aged Honda, its engine cool, leaking oil like life’s blood onto sandy floorboards.
34
Wood shavings had been swept into a pile in the corner. Dented, as though someone had slept there. A tramp? A squatter?
With a red motorbike.
Why the lamp? Why advertise someone’s presence? I shoved my flashlight in my back pocket, removed a Kleenex which I used to cover my hand before grabbing the metal hoop over the burning kerosene lantern.
One if by land, two if by sea. The jingle every Massachusetts schoolchild learns came to mind. Was the lantern intended as a signal to someone on the water? Manley?
I edged outside and saw what I should have noticed first, before kerosene and motor oil had taken out my sense of smell. The lamp had misdirected me, urged me inside, not out.
The shape in the sand could be a sleeping tramp, I told myself. The dark stain beneath the shape wasn’t the right contour for a shadow.
If I’d been a cop I’d have stopped right there, called for backup.
Any move I made might disturb a crime scene. Sand would hold footprints. For how long? Was the sleeper, as I’d dubbed him in my mind, even though I suspected he was dead, lying above the high water mark? Would the sea claim the body if I didn’t act?
My foot hit something that snapped with a thunderous report on the silent beach. I bent, knelt in the sand. My hand reached for them, but I stopped in time, examined the object in situ.
Bifocals. Intact except for the earpiece my sneaker had smashed. Adam—no Andrew—Drew Manley’s glasses, frames I’d last seen sliding down my former client’s nose.
Manley, with his merry blue eyes.
I lifted the lantern high.
He was dead. Lying on Cameron-owned beachfront. The visible side of his face was smashed, dark with coagulated blood. Blood had soaked into the sand, but it no longer seemed to run freely. How long after he’d made his phone call had he died?
If I got close enough to touch him, assure myself of his identity and fate, would I risk obscuring the reason for his death? As a cop, how I’d cursed civilians who’d messed with crime scenes.
Approaching footsteps. Definite this time. The matter-of-fact slap of leather on sand. With nowhere to hide, I slid to the sand, a second sleeper.
“Alonso? You okay?” The voice was childish, high, giggly. “Like what you been using, man? You save some?”
She went to the other sleeper first. I heard her sharp intake of breath. “Oh, man,” she muttered. “Alonso, man, how’d you mess up on me like this? Shit. Alonso? You do this guy or what?” There was fear in her voice. Then she was squatting on the sand, snatching at things, shoving them in her backpack, rifling Manley’s pockets unless I missed my guess.
I lifted my weight into a crouch as noiselessly as I could. My knee cracked, gave me away.
She turned immediately. Instinctively let out a yell. I wasn’t Alonso, who’d messed up so badly. I’d spooked her.
She ran.
I ran.
She was young, wiry, and scared. I was taller. The length of my stride was almost twice hers. Every time her feet landed in the soft sand, she lost ground. I didn’t bother yelling. Waste of breath. I ran till I could launch myself with certainty. My arms circled her legs, yanked them out from under her.
She fell without noise, rolled over. Instead of striking out, she tried to use her hands to protect herself. I grabbed her by both wrists and flipped her. A knee in the small of her back pressed her to the ground.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said shakily. “I guess.”
“Who’s Alonso?”
“A guy. You’re hurting me. Fuckin’ said you wouldn’t, but you are.”
“If I let you up, you have to promise not to run.”
She squirmed vigorously. I kneed her harder. Tough kid. I’d seen tougher. Me at her age, for instance.
“Okay, we’ll talk down here,” I said.
“I won’t run.”
“How can I trust you?”
“Take my word for it.”
“How about if I take your backpack instead? Looks like you lifted a few things off the corpse, huh?”
No response. No movement.
“You know him?” I asked.
“Some guy I never saw before. Honest. Some old guy.”
A Harvard ring, a medical degree, a presumably distinguished career … Manley’s death turned him into “some old guy,” muttered by a dirty kid with a mouthful of sand.
I yanked at her backpack and she put up a struggle.
“Dammit,” I said. “Quit wiggling. What the hell did you take from him? A million bucks?”
I decided to concentrate on the pack. If she fought like a demon for it, she wasn’t about to leave it. I pinched the clasps and emptied it onto the sand. A hail of bananas, apples, oranges, fruit of every description.
“What the hell?”
She scrambled for the produce. “Why don’t you j
ust leave me the fuck alone?”
“Did Alonso kill the old man?”
Falling hard in the sand hadn’t made her cry. Fear hadn’t made her cry. Alonso’s name, linked with a killing, did. She bent her head and howled, sobbed till I thought someone would surely hear us, call the cops.
“Who’s Alonso?” I asked again.
“I met him on the road. He’s got a bike. He picked me up, like, almost a week ago. He’s really nice. He’s cool, like, an artist, and stuff.”
“He’s been living in the shed?”
“Not for the past couple days. Not since Wednesday. He had stuff to do. He took off, but, like, I thought maybe he’d come back.”
“His bike’s there.”
While we spoke my fingers continued to search her pack. What had she stolen? Wallet? That would be most likely. But her hands had darted into the pockets several times. A notebook?
“Does Alonso have a last name?” I asked.
“Forget it. He is, like, totally cool. He calls himself Alonso the Alien sometimes. Guys like him don’t need a name.”
My fingers closed on a small Coop book, like my own. My sandy friend probably hadn’t attended Harvard.
Manley’s appointment book.
What a mess.
I had an obligation to report a crime.
I had a small girl crying her eyes out in the sand over one Alonso. If Alonso were alive, he probably had sufficient street smarts not to come back for his bike.
If he hadn’t stayed here the past couple nights, why had he left his bike?
I remembered the pooling oil.
Had someone disabled it?
Why?
For the same reason someone had left the lamp lit? To attract attention to a crime scene? It was only a matter of time before someone called the police.
Hurriedly I opened the notebook, flicked on my flashlight.
Today’s page, Friday, the seventeenth, was marked “see A. at C’s.” A. for Alonso the Alien? Other dates were sprinkled with initials and shorthand scribbles.
“Come on.” I tugged at the bawling child. She couldn’t have been more than twelve.
