Cold Case

by Linda Barnes

  “You got something on tape,” Mooney continued.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, reluctant to display my drowned recorder. “At first, MacAvoy was giving me nothing but crap, a fairy tale about how he got this enormous reward for making Thea’s suicide look like murder.”

  “And that’s not what this is about.”

  “Did you find the cross-reference, the file that wasn’t supposed to figure in Thea’s disappearance?”

  “MacAvoy never threw out a sheet of paper in his life.”

  “You found it.” I almost stopped shivering.

  “The Cold Case squad had it. Sooner or later, maybe in a hundred years, someone might have linked it to Thea.”

  “Why didn’t MacAvoy destroy it?” I asked. “Or take it home, put it in a safety deposit box, so he’d have a stronger hold over the Camerons?”

  “He couldn’t destroy it, Carlotta, because it’s cross-referenced twice, the second time to the FBI. I’ve got a call in to Gary Reedy.”

  I rubbed my head. It felt heavy, logy, like I was waking up the morning after a high-octane bash.

  “We ought to be heading back,” Mooney said. “Want me to drive?”

  “No. I can handle it,” I said automatically. I flicked on the headlights, put the Toyota in gear. Route 3 was practically empty. A few dark trucks hustled along in the middle lane.

  “Have they heard from Marissa?” I asked. “Is she still missing?”

  “Daily newspaper readings. On tape. She’s okay so far. They’re renegotiating, a new price, a different rendezvous.”

  “Reedy seems to be handing you more information.”

  “When he feels like it. Back to tonight. You said this guy, Nueves, the gardener, disappeared the same day as Thea Janis.”

  “That’s what MacAvoy said. The exact day. MacAvoy was paid off to make sure the two disappearances were never linked.”

  “You figure they ran off together? This Alonso Nueves and Thea Janis? That it would have been some kind of political bomb?”

  I said, “I don’t figure it at all, Mooney. Six hundred thou is too much to pay just to name suicide murder. It’s way too big a payoff to keep newspapers from speculating that your underage daughter ran off with a guy who’s not listed in the Social Register.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Mooney agreed.

  “Dammit, Mooney, I blew this. I should have given MacAvoy to Internal Affairs. If he’d had the chance to come clean, he might not have killed himself …”

  “Carlotta, if you can’t drive straight, pull the damn car over. You win some, you lose some. If it went down like you said, you’re not doing jail on this. You even have a witness.”

  “Some witness.”

  “Get over it,” Mooney said through clenched teeth.

  A shiver ran down my spine. “I’ve got blood on me, I’ve still got his goddamned blood on me. I—”

  I coasted into the breakdown lane, and we sat. He looked at me once. His hand moved, like he wanted to hold me, comfort me, but I was stiff and miserable, chilled with salt water and failure.

  I let him drive me home. That’s how bad I felt.

  “Mooney,” I said as I opened the door. “You know how MacAvoy seized control of the case, years ago.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you do that? Since it’s so spread out, over time and space. Dover, and Marblehead, and Marshfield. Weston.”

  “State police will have something to say about it.”

  “But they know you. And with the FBI connection, they may want nothing to do with it.”

  “I may want nothing to do with it.”

  “Mooney.”

  He shrugged. “They might give me some time with it, hoping I’ll fall on my butt.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I was starting to feel less like a killer. More like a cop.

  I said, “You know Marblehead’s searching for a young guy in the Manley death, the one they’re calling a tramp—”

  “Seen hanging around the Marblehead shack. Yeah. What about him?”

  “How are you at lying to the media?”

  “I love it.”

  “Tell them there’s been a break in the case. Tell them you’ve got the guy in custody.”

  “Just for the sake of lying?” he asked.

  “Why not?” I said.

  He yanked out a cellular phone, dialed a number, spoke briefly.

  “That ought to make the morning editions,” he said.

  We sat on the front porch waiting for a unit to come and fetch him. As we spoke I noticed a light in Donovan’s house.

  I took a brief inventory. Had I left a nightgown, underwear, anything I cared about at his house? Would I go there again?

  How had he learned about the supposed mob hit? Had Mooney betrayed me? Set Donovan up? Mooney would know I could never go back to a man who didn’t respect my ability to protect myself, to live my own life, make my own choices.

  I swallowed and stared at Mooney. I couldn’t ask him. I needed him too much.

  “Mooney,” I said. “Do you think you can wangle an exhumation order?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “Why?”

  “Something MacAvoy said, about the Camerons not being too choosy with the body. And a girl named Heather Foley, who drowned right before the Camerons’ Mount Auburn Cemetery funeral extravaganza. At first, Heather’s family maintained the body was hers. The ME went against them. Heather’s body has never been recovered.”

  “Some never are.”

  I could tell he was interested. Mooney doesn’t believe in coincidence any more than I do.

  “Who’s buried in Thea’s grave, Moon?” I asked.

  46

  I woke well past three the next afternoon, feeling sandy, waterlogged, and uneasy. My sheets were twisted and tossed on the floor, like I’d fought with them during the night. I had trouble deciding on a pair of shorts, a simple shirt. My hands moved awkwardly, as though they’d swollen from the heat. I fumbled, matching holes and buttons incorrectly, cursing repeatedly. Finally I tossed the clothes in a heap, yanked on an extra-long T-shirt, and headed downstairs.

  Sunday. Sunday afternoon. A mere week ago “Adam Mayhew” had called, begging for an appointment. Now he was dead. MacAvoy was dead. I swallowed phlegm, ran for the bathroom, brushed my teeth twice, then scoured my hands so thoroughly I might have been mistaken for an obsessive-compulsive and hauled off to Weston Psych.

  Newspapers were stacked on my desk. My message machine blinked red. I navigated the straits, made it to the kitchen, swigged orange juice from the carton.

  Roz must have done groceries. I ate half an English muffin smothered in peanut butter. It felt fine going down, but landed in my stomach lumpy and indigestible.

  I studied myself in the hall mirror, climbed the stairs, and tried dressing again, consciously choosing an image. Not the navy power suit. Easy slacks, shapeless top. Vest. Yes. If I tucked in the shirt, the vest added a touch of professionalism. I shook out my hair, looped it through a stretchy band. Nothing fancy, just sufficient to keep its weight off my neck, its curls under control. I hadn’t selected my role yet, but I had determined my destination.

  Swampscott.

  My target was one Edith Foley, called “Edie” by the public relations cop Roz had snookered into divulging her address. Edie Foley, Heather’s mom. I studied Roz’s notes: Divorced. Ardent churchgoer. Catholic mother of eight, once upon a time. If I asked her how many kids she had, what number would she recite? Do you stop being a mother if your child dies?

  I shuffled business cards. Reporter, real estate agent, Avon lady, product survey specialist. I wound up tucking eight possible identities into my wallet. Improvisation is often the key.

  My car was starting to feel like home. Behind the steering wheel, I relaxed a bit, regaining confidence. I can handle Boston traffic. I can always drive a hack. I wasn’t keen on listening to the news. I shoved tape after tape into the boom
box. Every song sounded mournful, a tale of death and sorrow, death and sorrow, over and over again.

  Swampscott is south of Marblehead, too close to crowded Lynn for the wealthy. Oh, I suppose there’s some snazzy oceanfront property, some developer’s dream acre, but the Foleys lived near the Lynn line—the most crowded section of town—in a clapboard house that gave ramshackle a good name. The streets—Eastern, Maple, Cherry—had generic names, and the town had the look of all sunbleached August New England towns. Nothing to lift it out of the summer doldrums. No ocean view. No breeze.

  I spent twenty minutes observing the house. Patches on the roof. Negligible weedy lawn. Overgrown bushes. Two window screens missing, one slashed. No screen at all on the front door, which opened and banged shut with amazing frequency. Lots of people living there, or stopping by. Maybe all those kids had grandkids now, pressed Edie into nonstop child care service.

  I hadn’t seen the splendor of the Camerons’ Marblehead house up close, but I’d practically taken the deluxe tour of their Dover palace. I could no more imagine Tessa Cameron setting foot in this not-quite-slum than I could imagine the Queen of England naked.

  So many people coming and going, maybe Edith Foley wouldn’t care who I was. Maybe she ran a licensed day-care, in which case I could be practically anybody from the state righteously poking my nose into her business.

  I could be one of her neighbors with a complaint about the noise. Hell, poor woman probably got complaints all day.

  I decided to drive for a while, search for steeples. I noted two, one Episcopalian, one Catholic: Saint Aidans.

  I remembered passing a bakery, homed on the smell. Bought a ring of something gooey, studded with summer fruit. Paid for it with Andrew Manley’s money. This time I parked around the block, so she wouldn’t see my car.

  New neighbor makes friends, part one.

  The doormat said, “Howdy, stranger!” I didn’t think they sold those east of the Mississippi. Native New Englanders aren’t known for their outgoing ways, their friendliness.

  I knocked, carefully balancing my string-tied white bakery box.

  “Hi, hon, yer a tall one, what yer got there?” Her hair, what was left of it, was white and poked from her scalp at odd angles, like coconut sprinkled from a can. My Edie, according to research, had to be the same age as Tessa Cameron, but this was an old woman, her skin leathery and tough.

  “Do you live here? Are you Edith Foley?”

  “Sure am.” She focused on the box hungrily. “Did I win a raffle?”

  See what I mean about improv skills?

  She wore a silver cross around the neck of a much-laundered flowered housedress that buttoned down the front, stretching over ample hips.

  “At Saint Aidans,” I said helpfully, hoping she worshiped nearby.

  “I don’t b’lieve I entered that raffle,” she said.

  Oops.

  “Somebody must have entered for you,” I said cheerfully, not missing a beat. “One of your kids, maybe an unknown admirer.”

  “Joseph,” she said immediately. “My oldest boy has such a sweet tooth. He’ll be around anytime, beggin’ for a slice. Now, come on in, hon. You’ll git sunstruck standin’ out there.”

  If I decide to turn bad, watch out. It’s so easy to gain entry. Why so many crooks get caught baffles me. Or it used to before I became a cop, started meeting actual perps. Imagine all the kids in your high school who couldn’t make it past tenth grade, who thought flipping burgers offered a brighter future than frog dissection. Marry them off young, to each other, give them lots of kids they can’t afford to raise. There’s your basic prison population, with a few add-ons for drug dealing and out-and-out racism.

  Edie said, “You marched this down from Saint A’s in this heat, hon? Aren’t you a sweetie? Take a load off. Don’t mind the cats.”

  The opening and closing door hadn’t signaled the entrances and exits of persons, but of felines. At least seven stretched their necks and regarded me with unblinking eyes. From the stench, seven did not account for half the cats who roomed with Mrs. Edith Foley.

  “Live far?” Mrs. Foley said, breezing in with a tray bearing two spotty glasses of something yellowy, and the fruit ring, still in its pristine box. “Have some lemonade?”

  “Thanks;” I said, trying not to sneeze. Everything in the living room was floral, ruffled, bowed, and worn, covered with cat hair and dust. Flowered chintz furniture next to flowered mismatched drapes. Jumbles of oversized busy-patterned pillows. Lacy antimacassars. A riot of defiant femininity gone wrong.

  Every surface was littered with cat statues, chew toys, family photos in Plexiglas frames, grocery store magazines, stacks of mail.

  “Live near here?”

  I realized that Mrs. Foley was asking for the second time. Stunned by the decor, I’d failed to answer.

  “Over on Cherry,” I said quickly, tuning my voice to her down-home accent. “Just moved in. Renting a room till I get back on my feet. The folks at church have been real nice to me.”

  She sat, eyes wide with curiosity. I helped her clear a place for the tray, which wasn’t easy, but it let me ask questions about the photos as I moved them.

  “You in this one?”

  “No, child, that’s my boy Harry, second oldest, and his wife. They got two little boys now.”

  “Isn’t that swell?” I said miserably, starting to work out a back-story about my troubles, one that might lead to a sharing of confidences. If she was going to get me to talk, she was going to have to trade tales of woe.

  It was easy to pretend to hold back tears because I was actually swallowing the sneezes provoked by the dust and the cats.

  “Oh my dear,” she said. “Have you, urn, suffered a loss?”

  “It’s silly,” I said. “I really shouldn’t—”

  “Now, hon, the best thing in the world is a good cry and a talk with a stranger. I know what I say, believe me.”

  “It’s just that picture, those cute kids. I’ve had my share of trouble. First, my husband up and left me—” This was true enough. That Cal had departed some years back with my blessing Edie didn’t need to know. “But I worked regular and I tried to keep my life straight till my daughter, my little girl, died—”

  Every time I say something like that, I’m tempted to spit over my left shoulder, pound a piece of solid wood to avoid the evil eye. If anything happened to Paolina—

  The part about the dead child seemed to skip by without leaving a ripple in the water. Edie fastened on the husband who’d departed. People hear what they want to hear, that’s for sure.

  “Hon, I know just how that is,” she said sympathetically. “My man walked out of this house over twenty years ago, left me with seven boys to raise up on my own.”

  “Seven,” I echoed. “My goodness, you just can’t tell anything about folks by lookin’ at them, can you?”

  One thing I learned as a cop is that people tend to confide most readily in people who sound like them or look like them. It was obvious that Edie hadn’t been born in Swampscott, or anywhere in New England, not the way she talked, not with the “Howdy, stranger” welcome mat. I couldn’t place her accent, except that it was more West than Midwest. I don’t do the Professor Higgins bit, but I could parrot her own words back to her, broaden my A’s, drop my G’s, sound like I’d grown up in her neck of the woods.

  It’s a music thing. You’ve got to have the ear.

  She sipped lemonade, opened the box, oohed and ahhed over the pastry. Went down the hall in search of a knife and plates. I shooed a cat off the tray while eagerly looking for a picture of a girl, a young woman, an old picture. Most showed Mom and the boys.

  Aha! A small table to the left of a dinky fireplace had the look of a shrine. Covered with a paisley shawl. Candlesticks. Statues of various saints. There. A five-by-seven that practically shouted high school yearbook shot.

  Heather had done her hair up for the occasion. She’d worn a white Peter Pan collar, a choker of
fake pearls. Her smile was her best feature, open, honest, a little bit reckless. Young.

  I heard Mrs. Foley shuffling down the hall, but I didn’t return to my seat. One of the cats had already usurped my chair, and I wanted Edie’s reaction when she saw me studying her daughter’s photo.

  “We’ve got something else in common,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I used to have a girl too. I always think my life changed the minute Heather died. Good luck to bad in the wink of an eye.”

  “That’s just how I felt when my Wendy died,” I said. I wasn’t going to use Paolina’s name.

  “Oh, hon,” she said consolingly. “You’re still plenty young. You can have more kids if you want, if you can take it. My family was almost grown when Heather died, but I truly think her dad, Harold, wouldn’t have lit out like he did if she hadn’t passed. I never saw anything hit a man so hard. Took care of all the arrangements, and then raced out of here like he had a fire in his belly he couldn’t put out.”

  “Your girl was older than mine,” I said. “Pretty too.”

  “Age makes no difference,” she said. “You love them to pieces, that’s all.”

  “Your girl died, just like mine, and then your husband walked out, and look at you. You survived. I’ll bet that’s why the folks at Saint A’s thought I oughta deliver the cake. Do me some good, make me stop feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I’m the only one gotta cross to bear.”

  She didn’t see the cats wiggling their tails across the fruit goo. I wasn’t planning to eat. I mean, my cat’s okay. He’s a loner and so am I.

  I wished I’d sent Roz to do the interview. But Roz, with her hair, with her earrings and rings and fingernails … I don’t think she’d have hit it off with Edie.

  “You have any other kids?” Edie asked me.

  “Wish I did. Just the one girl. My poor Wendy,” I said, automatically thinking of Paolina, and hoping we could turn the conversation back to Heather before Edith Foley came to her senses. So far the woman hadn’t even asked my name.

  Such is the power of a white bakery box.

  “A girl is such a gift,” Edie said. “My boys, God, I love ’em so, but they never really understand, you know? It’s like they’d help out if they could, but they haven’t got a clue. I’ve got granddaughters now, two of ’em named for my Heather.”