Cold Case

by Linda Barnes

“Rumpled, hot, disgusted. Take your pick.”

  “I saw the cop cars.”

  “Just your everyday break-in attempt.”

  “Attempt?”

  “They didn’t get in. An 0511 in cop talk. Nighttime attempt with forcible entry. Did you call 911?”

  “No.”

  “A guardian angel must be watching my house.”

  “Not necessarily,” Donovan said. “Why not spend the night at my place?”

  He wriggled his eyebrows playfully and I had to wrestle my thoughts out of his air-conditioned bedroom. Quit kidding yourself, a voice hollered in my head: You don’t want to question him about fellow-psychiatrist Drew Manley, dead on the Marblehead sand. You want to rip off your clothes and fool around. It’s happened before in the aftermath of a messy death. Nothing so life-affirming as sex.

  I swallowed and said, “Let’s stay put.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Not nervous, but if anybody does decide to break in later, I’d like to be the welcoming committee.”

  “May I join you?”

  “The sheets aren’t clean.”

  “I don’t mind that so much as the gun on the night-stand.”

  “Better than under the pillow,” I said.

  “Long as the safety stays on, I’ll risk it.”

  I took in a deep breath. “Do you know a shrink named Manley? Andrew Manley?”

  “Excuse me, but this doesn’t sound like on-the-way-to-the-bedroom chat. I came over to soothe and relax you—”

  “And help fix my goddamn back door.”

  “Not exactly. I’ll admire you while you do it, Carlotta. I’ll pour you a drink if you’ve got anything drinkable.”

  My dad taught me the basic use of the hammer and screwdriver. Why so many fathers failed to pass this information on to their sons, I have no idea.

  Donovan inspected my refrigerator, no doubt wondering why my mother had failed to pass on any culinary expertise.

  “I’ll bring something from my place,” Keith said.

  “By the time you return I’ll have this sucker nailed,” I said.

  I didn’t do the repairs with finesse. I’d have to get a locksmith on it in the morning. My objective was one night’s safety. I used a lot of ten-penny nails, curses, and hammer strokes.

  Sweating, I wandered into the living room. My message machine blinked. I checked, and all the messages were from Vandenburg, demanding I dial back at once!

  Hah! He must have heard that Carlos had been in touch with me. He could wait till snow covered Miami for me to return his calls.

  Keith Donovan brought Sauvignon Blanc and a pricey-looking jar of blue massage gel.

  “Patient give you that for a present?” I asked sweetly.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Is it good for massaging feet?” I asked.

  “What is it with you and feet?”

  What it is with me is that feet are a major erogenous zone. Rub my instep firmly using a circular motion of the thumb, and I make low guttural noises, and forget to ask questions—

  “Dammit,” I said. “I need to know about Manley.”

  Donovan made tracks for the kitchen. If it had been his kitchen he’d have returned with proper stemware, the wine ensconced in a silver bucket. Since it was my kitchen he’d grabbed a couple of water glasses and a bowl into which he’d chipped ice from the side of the freezer. I grabbed one of the larger chunks, ran it over my forehead, and held it at the pulse point in my neck before popping it, dripping, into my mouth.

  “Manley,” I stated firmly as we settled on the rickety sofa. I’d kicked off my sandy sneakers, removed my khaki jacket, unbuttoned the two top buttons of my blouse. Donovan smiled encouragingly, like he hoped I’d keep unbuttoning. I wanted to. It felt as though I had sand in my armpits, sand in my bra.

  Donovan handed me a glass of wine. I noticed he was staring out the window.

  “See anybody?”

  “No.”

  “You seem jumpy.”

  “Your house was almost burglarized!”

  “Tell me about Manley.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Basically, everything you know.”

  “Nice guy. Good shrink. Drink up. Let’s go to bed.”

  It sounded as if the two men had more than a nodding acquaintanceship.

  “He ever ask you about me?”

  “I don’t remember. I may have mentioned you.”

  “Does he do much work at Weston Psychiatric?” I kept my verbs present tense. I wanted to hear what Donovan thought of the man before he knew his fate. Death tends to freeze opinions, turn them into eulogies and summations rather than day-to-day observations.

  “I think he’s semiretired. He doesn’t accept new patients, I know that. He specializes in long-term analysis, the kind fewer and fewer medical plans pay for.”

  Beryl Cameron, her sister’s literary heir, wouldn’t need medical insurance to afford Drew Manley’s continuing care.

  “Is he a specialist in recovered memory syndrome?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It’s a topic I keep running across,” I said.

  “My advice is keep running. RMS is fraught with incredible problems. Judges and juries don’t seem to understand that it’s a case by case process. That some alleged victims show actual signs and symptoms of abuse, while others may have been prompted or misled—”

  “You seem to know quite a bit about it,” I said.

  “It’s a psychiatric hot button right now. If it comes to a trial, you can hire a top gun, a forensic shrink who’ll quote you chapter and verse on why all alleged abuse victims must be believed absolutely. And the other side can hire their own gun, another highly credentialed forensic shrink, who’ll quote you chapter and verse on why no alleged abuse victims who delay coming forward can be believed for one instant. In Boston, a federal judge just ruled that repressed memories have sufficient scientific validity that a jury may be allowed to hear them. Whole business could change tomorrow.”

  “Which side are you on?”

  “Right in the middle. With the yellow lines and the dead armadillos.”

  “Here’s to the middle,” I said. We clinked glasses. Mine was almost empty, and I thought about pitching it in the fireplace. More debris to clean up from one hell of a night.

  “So did you ever work at Weston?” I asked Donovan, blinking my eyes. The wine and the long drive and the sheer physical exertion were starting to catch up with me.

  “I’ve been there. When I was a student.”

  “Long ago and far away, huh, old man?”

  “Undo one more button and call me an old man. Dare you.”

  “Work first,” I said, draining the last sips of wine. I grabbed another ice cube and ran it over my face. If I closed my eyes I could still see headlights, taillights. I felt disoriented. Maybe I should phone Tessa Cameron, tell her the latest developments.

  Donovan leaned over and gave me the kind of kiss that makes it hard to concentrate.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Could you get me into Weston Psych?”

  “As a patient, maybe. As an investigator, no.”

  “If I entered as a patient, could I get out again?” I asked. Just a few more questions and I’d give it up, let go, return his kisses, unbutton his shirt. Wipe away the memory of Manley’s still body abandoned on the beach.

  “Depends on who commits you.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Ah?”

  “It’s August, Keith. Aren’t most shrinks out of town?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could you make a phone call for me, just to find out if someone is a patient at Weston Psych?”

  “Carlotta—”

  “It’s not like you haven’t done it before, Keith.”

  “I know. But Weston Psych is a different animal. They’re extremely … cautious.”

  “So be extremely sneaky, Keith. I have confidence in you.”

  He took another
sip of wine, glanced at his watch, said speculatively, “It might be easier to put one over on the night staff. Patient’s name?”

  “Beryl Cameron. Long-term care. If they say they have no Beryl Cameron, try Beryl Franklin.”

  I listened on the extension while he jumped through hoops, listing his credentials, linking his name with Manley, inquiring not whether Miss Beryl Cameron was a patient, but instead whether she was receiving more or less than 600 milligrams of Clozaril per day.

  “Six hundred and fifty,” came the reply.

  “Very good,” I said admiringly, after we’d both hung up. “What’s Clozaril?”

  “Brand name for clozapine.”

  “Which is?”

  “An extremely powerful antipsychotic drug used to manage patients with severe schizophrenia.”

  “Why did you choose it?”

  “Manley. WPI. Long-term patient. Call it an educated guess.”

  “I want to visit Beryl Cameron. I want to know who committed Beryl Cameron.”

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Donovan.”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I can’t help you get into WPI.”

  “You’re staring down my blouse,” I said.

  “You finally noticed.”

  “It’s been a long hot day. I could use a shower.”

  “After,” he said.

  “After what?”

  His index finger traced my neckline, lingering at the third button.

  He rubbed his fingers together. “Sand.”

  “Possibly kitty litter,” I warned.

  “Shower first,” he said. “Take your clothes off down here, so we don’t mess up the house.”

  “Is that what your mommy used to make you do?”

  “‘Mommy’? Is that shrink talk?” he said, undoing the three remaining buttons on my shirt. “I thought shrink talk was forbidden.”

  A fine sprinkling of sand fell on the floorboards along with my shirt and bra.

  “Hey,” I protested. “You take off some clothes, too. This is getting one-sided.”

  “I’ll join you in the shower once the first layer of grit goes down the drain.”

  I made for the stairs.

  I was washing my hair, eyes closed, when I heard the shower curtain move. I felt him behind me, his breath on my neck. He worked the shampoo into my hair, strong fingers building up lather, massaging my scalp, twisting my curls into a ridiculous upswept mass. His soapy hands slid to my breasts and belly and thighs. I snuggled back against him, one hand massaging his erection. When I turned to rinse the shampoo from my hair we met face to face, hands and lips working. Miracle we didn’t fall and maim ourselves in the shower stall. We never got around to the massage gel.

  Sometimes after we make love, I catch Donovan watching me in a particular way, his eyes slightly narrowed, his forehead furrowed. And I wonder if he’s thinking about Sam Gianelli, my former lover, my former boss at the now defunct G&W cab company. It’s not like I deflowered a virgin when Donovan and I went to bed. And I know all about Roz. It’s very involved, and when I see that look cross Donovan’s face I’m tempted to ask what he’s thinking.

  Then I remember he’s a shrink, and I keep silent.

  Last thing I want is long-term analysis. Short-term sex does fine.

  Except, of course, that I couldn’t sleep. With the heat of the moment past, memories flooded back. And guilt. And trepidation. If someone had tried to break into my house, why wouldn’t he tackle the car, an easier target? The car with Manley’s credentials, with Pix’s knapsack …

  I slipped on shorts and a T-shirt, crept out of the room, and down the stairs. Donovan shifted in his sleep, but didn’t wake.

  I couldn’t use the back door. On my way through the living room, I stopped at my desk, worked latex gloves onto my hands. I hesitated at the front door, wondering whether to shut the porch light. The light would outline my silhouette. Turning it off might clue in an observer, announce the action about to take place. I turned off the light, waited five minutes.

  The cement stoop felt cold on my bare feet. I walked in the damp grass, used my key quietly, wishing I’d flipped off the car’s dome light.

  I stood, the passenger door ajar, waiting. Nothing moved for two long minutes. I counted one hundred and twenty beats silently—one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand—then bent and fumbled all of Manley’s effects into Pix’s knapsack.

  Inside, I shook the contents onto my desk. Remembering Pix’s comment, her quoted verse, I kneaded the knapsack, squeezed it. No hard cardboard backing, no place to hide a calligrapher’s notebook. A crumpling sound. Paper. A single sheet folded into an inner zipped compartment. Cream-colored with wavy lines.

  Words heavily crossed out, rewritten, altered. This was a working draft, prose, almost poetry. I recognized the elegant hand, the elaborate script I’d come to associate with Thea.

  “for b,” it said.

  “call her precious, call her jade, call her gemstone, loadstone of loathing. always she kept her self to herself. call her secret, silent, sleeping. arms above my head, twined together with white ribbon, twirling ribbon from birthday gifts, carefully saved in a scented drawer, she feels nothing. sensation flees, gone before it should begin. whisper her name when you come she is not here she cannot hear there is no here”

  It stopped abruptly. No punctuation, in the middle of the page. I read it again, smoothed the crinkles, turned it over.

  On the back, a childish hand, barely legible, had scrawled: “once upon a time Alonso told me he was an FBI guy”

  I reread it twice, locked everything in a drawer, threw away the latex gloves. I took another shower before returning to bed.

  38

  I have no idea how late we’d have slept if Roz hadn’t burst into the bedroom, brimming with news.

  What with the heat, we’d dumped the sheet during the night. Donovan made a sleepy attempt to grab it off the floor. Roz assisted, giggling like a madwoman.

  “It’s not like I’m seeing anything new, honey,” she informed him dryly.

  I, on the other hand, was seeing something new: Roz’s hair. Roz’s bizarre hair, differently cut and colored weekly, has become such a given that I hardly notice it anymore. Cornrows, Mohawks, it’s the same to me. Last night, while my back door was getting wrenched off its hinges, she’d evidently crossed a new threshold.

  I can only describe it in terms of a monk’s tonsure. The top of her head was clean-shaven, shiny, an area the diameter of an orange. The surrounding fringe, four to five inches long, stood out in a spiky halo of neon purple and Day-Glo pink.

  Donovan smothered his face in the pillow.

  “Are you laughing at my hair?” Roz asked.

  Donovan, immediately serious, lifted his head. “Why would anyone laugh at your hair?” he said.

  “Roz,” I said. “Is this urgent?”

  She said, “It’s past ten o’clock.”

  “So what?”

  “So Woodrow MacAvoy has hidden assets.”

  “Give me the bottom line.”

  “It took me hours. I expect money.”

  “Understood. If you want hours to explain your cleverness, you wait for me to get dressed. Urgent, I can handle in bed.”

  “Bottom line: Remember the T&C’s?”

  “Turks and Caicos Islands.”

  “This is the good part,” Roz chortled. She was talking to me, but she was watching Donovan like he was an artist’s model. Maybe she’d paint him in the nude for some new display. Bet he’d love that. “I’m not sure I could have gotten it alone, on our computer, but I found this guy who used to do a lot of work in banking security.”

  “At the Liberty?” I asked.

  “Right. I bought him major hours of on-line access for which I expect to be paid.”

  “You haven’t told me anything yet.”

  “Your Sergeant MacAvoy may live like a poor man,” Roz said, “but he’s got bucks in offshore tax havens.”

&n
bsp; I said, “As in how much?”

  “I found at least six hundred fifty K, which oughta dwarf my request for a mere three hundred bucks, Carlotta. I kept track of expenses and everything.”

  “I’m not paying for the haircut.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “And I finished the drawings you wanted. Another hundred.”

  “Where’d you sleep?” I asked.

  “What business is it—”

  “Let me rephrase that. Why weren’t you home when the house nearly got torn apart?”

  “The back door, huh? I noticed. I slept with a friend. Kinda like you. How you doin’, Keith?”

  He’d long since removed his face from the pillow. “Fine, thanks.”

  I said, “Roz, on your way out, one thing.”

  “Money,” she said.

  “I don’t keep it under the mattress. Something’s bothering me. You know how when you wake up suddenly—”

  “Yeah,” Roz said bluntly, “all your brain waves and. shit are screaming at you. It’s creative time.”

  “There’s a number,” I said. “A number … It was erased from Thea’s file every time it appeared. Nine digits. It’s on my desk, under the blotter. It could be a Social Security number. Pop it in the computer and see what comes out.”

  “Probably nothing.”

  “Probably.”

  “Oh, and Gloria called. She says call her at ITOA.”

  “As soon as I’m awake.”

  If Roz had left right then it might have been okay. Instead she said, “Did you see the morning news?”

  “No.”

  “Here’s the paper. You owe me fifty cents. That guy Manley, the one in the Harvard photos, he’s dead.” With that, she bowed out. Didn’t even close the door.

  “Goddammit,” Donovan said. “You knew last night.”

  How had they identified the body so quickly? I had Manley’s wallet, his appointment book. It wasn’t like some cop could have reached in the victim’s pocket, yanked them out: Exhibit A.

  Donovan repeated, “You knew.”

  I went defensive. “It’s not like he was your best friend.”

  “He was a human being. So am I. You could have told me.”

  “I’m getting dressed,” I said.

  Donovan stayed in bed till I left the room. Not even a morning kiss.