by Linda Barnes
He bit his lip. “It’s possible,” he said with great dignity.
“But improbable,” I said.
“She did call home,” he offered.
“When?”
“The last day. April 8, 1971.”
He seemed to have no trouble recalling the date.
“The cruelest month,” he murmured, staring at his glossy shoes. “‘April is the cruellest month.’ T. S. Eliot …”
“What did Thea say? On the phone.”
“Nothing portentous. That she’d be spending the night with a girlfriend who lived near school.”
“That’s all?”
“She’d never stayed away before.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I never saw her again.”
I glanced at the manila envelope. “Why break the silence now?” I asked.
“Money?” he said, with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
“Tired of supporting herself?”
“Money is freedom to write.”
Among other things.
“If she’s been gone for twenty-four years,” I said, “what makes you think she wants you to find her?”
“Please listen to me, Miss Carlyle—Carlotta. I have waited to hear from Thea for twenty-four years. Twenty-four years,” he repeated forcefully. “And now—mercifully, magically—I have. If she doesn’t want to see her family, fine. If she does, fine. I—we only want to know that she’s all right.”
He seemed utterly sincere. I tapped the fingers of my left hand on my blotter. My right hand went automatically to a strand of red hair, twisting it into a fat candlestick. Habits die hard. Like using a favorite calligraphy pen, paper of a certain weight and texture.
I needed the work. I liked the man. I considered my caseload, my financial status. I live rent-free courtesy of my aunt Bea, who willed me the oversized Cambridge Victorian I call home as well as office.
Taxes must be paid.
I was under no illusion that Mr. Adam Mayhew was telling me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. On the other hand, my living room-cum-office does not resemble a courthouse. And everybody lies.
“I see two ways to track her,” I said. “Through the new work, or through the past.”
“Through the work,” he said decisively.
“How was it delivered?”
“What?”
I tapped the precious manila envelope with the eraser end of a pencil. “This didn’t travel through the mail.”
No response.
“Mice leave it on your doorstep?”
“No. And I don’t appreciate your tone.”
My headache hammered. “Is the mailing envelope inside?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“There is a secretary who opens the family correspondence. She, being unaware of the envelope’s value, threw it away.”
“Surely someone went through the trash,” I said reasonably, “in the hope of finding Thea’s address.”
“The envelope could not be located.”
“Is there a return address inside the envelope? A cover page?”
“No.” Another quick glance at the ground. Another lie?
“Is this all there is? A single chapter?”
“No,” he said quickly. “There’s an entire novel, a whole new book.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Parts of it.”
“Where?”
He bit his lip. “I can’t say.”
“Is this some kind of publicity stunt? ‘PI searches for missing manuscript? Press hot on the trail?’”
“No. No. I assure you. The first chapter is all I can show you at this time. You have my word that the novel exists.”
His word. He peered at me solemnly from behind his protective lenses.
“I always thought they made a mistake,” he said quietly.
“What kind of mistake?” I asked.
“A mistake … Never mind. It’s getting late. What was I saying?”
“I was saying that with no address for Thea, I’d have to consider the writing a dead end. I’d have to start at the beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d need to go back to her disappearance. And I’m not going to kid you: It would be practically impossible. By now, if she’s alive, she’s established another name, another identity, another life. She could be anyone. She’s had time to establish a whole new set of bona fides.”
“The rest of the family might object to reopening the investigation,” he said pensively. “Old wounds …”
“Where would you suggest I start?” I asked.
He stared at me. “You could begin by authenticating the chapter, I suppose. I can get you a sample of Thea’s handwriting …”
“I’m not a graphologist,” I said. “I’m not a forensic archivist.”
“I know, I know.”
“First you say you know she’s alive. Now you’re asking me to make sure the work is genuine. Am I being hired to locate a missing person? To prove Thea’s alive? Dead? What?”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t know! I don’t know the whys and wherefores. I only—I feel that Thea is out there. Possibly desperate—”
“Did you bring a photo?”
“Yes, but it’s so old—”
“I’ll need it.”
The aged briefcase creaked as it opened. Mayhew hesitated, then passed over a large leather folder with a mute glance of appeal, as though he wanted to beg me not to lose Thea’s photo. I wondered if it was his only copy.
“What’s the setting for the new novel?” I asked. “Is it local?”
“Yes,” he said eagerly. “A small town, not far from here.”
“Which town?”
“She’s changed the details—creative license—but it’s probably recognizable.”
If I could nail the locale, I thought, I might visit, hang out in the places mentioned.
“Will you, at least, try to find her?” Mayhew demanded. “Can you find her?”
First he hit me in the pride. Can you find her? Then he appealed to my pocketbook. With ten hundred-dollar bills that he peeled off a fat roll.
“I’d prefer a check,” I said. A check with his name printed on it, his address.
“But wouldn’t that slow things down?” he said. “I stopped at my bank to get cash, so you could begin immediately.”
“Which bank?” I inquired.
His posture didn’t alter but his chin seemed suddenly firmer. “BayBank, my dear,” he said, his voice calm and level. “I imagine it is your business to mistrust. I’m glad it isn’t mine.”
I felt shamed by his clear blue eyes. But I didn’t take his cash. I said I’d think it over. Missing persons work is dicey at best. Finding someone who’s had better than a twenty-year head start and may not want to be found … I tried to make it clear that I felt he was asking the impossible.
“Improbable, my dear,” he said disarmingly. “Not impossible. And I will pay for your time. Generously. It is—it could be—so very important.”
“I’ll need to keep the chapter,” I said.
“We’ll copy it,” he said immediately. “Have you got a machine?”
“No.”
“I’ll zip into the Square. Those places stay open all hours.”
“Mr. Mayhew, if you want me to establish the work’s authenticity, I’ll have to use the original. It could have fingerprints on it, prints that match Thea’s.”
Or don’t.
For a minute I assumed the deal was off. Then he fixed me with a glance that seemed to see through me and beyond.
“I’ll need a receipt,” he said.
“No problem.”
“I’ll write one.”
I said, “I’ll sign it.”
He removed pen and paper from his briefcase in record time. As long as he was in the mood, and since his stationery bore no inscribed return address, I had him print his name, address, and phone number on a Rolodex card. He
didn’t offer a printed business card, but he happily accepted one of mine.
He practically shook my arm off before he left, his puppy enthusiasm fully restored.
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About the Author
Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries. Her witty private-investigator heroine has been hailed as “a true original” by Sue Grafton. Barnes is also the author of the Michael Spraggue Mysteries and a stand-alone novel, The Perfect Ghost.
A winner of the Anthony Award and a finalist for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, Barnes lives in the Boston area with her husband and son. Visit her at www.lindabarnes.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Linda Appelblatt Barnes
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1447-2
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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