Cloudland

by Joseph Olshan

  Before I began the task of packing the car and getting the dogs settled, I phoned the hospital and learned that Anthony had finally been admitted. I asked for his room; when there was no answer I wrote the number down to check in with him later. The phone rang again just as I was about to step out of the door, and this time I saw it was Nan O’Brien. Wanting to get on the road, I figured I’d call her back on the way down to New Jersey.

  Hiram arrived with his smaller pickup truck, which sported a retractable soft top that enclosed the bed in the back. “Better for keeping Henrietta in.” He grinned and pushed a wooden ramp out of the truck and came strolling toward the house holding a quart container of vanilla ice cream. “Did you know this is a pig’s idea of paradise?”

  “Have they conducted a survey?”

  “Just watch.” With great confidence Hiram walked past me and headed toward the kitchen where Henrietta was lying on her side, eyeing him warily. He dipped a finger into the ice cream, pulled out a tablespoon’s worth, and held it before her, approaching with soft cooing. The ice cream began dripping onto the floor. She clattered to her feet, slurping it up and then went bucking toward him for the rest. Hiram, in turn, began backing out of the house, holding the quart before him like an offering. “Any pig would chase me to the moon for this stuff,” he commented, to which I replied, “I suppose you can catch more pigs with ice cream than you can with carrot parings.”

  Henrietta unabashedly followed him out of the house right to the wooden plank, scaled it without even a hesitation, and clambered into the back of the truck. Once there, Hiram dumped out half of the melting mass in a metal dog bowl, placed it down on the truck bed, and my darling wolfed it like ambrosia. Securing the soft top and closing the tailgate, he wrote a number on a scrap of paper and gave it to me. “My cell.”

  “You have a cell phone?”

  “Yep.”

  “Your father is probably turning over in his grave.”

  “I certainly hope so,” he said. “After bringing me into this dying profession.”

  When he drove off, Henrietta’s head was still down, scarfing the ice cream. I noticed that Squirrel had accompanied Hiram in the truck and was now pressed against the rear window of the cab.

  * * *

  In a state of shock and numbness I drove for an hour or so down Interstate 91, until cell service was consistent. I left word for Prozzo at the Springfield police station that I was heading down to my daughter’s home in New Jersey and included her phone number. As I pressed onward, Virgil and Mrs. Billy kept circling in the back of the car, unable to lie down and get comfortable. It was as though they sensed Matthew’s lies and his predicament literally pressing down on me, my constant replaying of the conversation we’d had during his visit. Rewinding it in my head, I was particularly unnerved by how composed and earnest he’d appeared and how he so effortlessly transited the conversation about The Widower’s Branch and the River Valley murders. Then again, wasn’t this ability to detach from horrific realities and appear normal one of the characteristics of a killer?

  I managed to reach Nan O’Brien, who wanted to know how Anthony was faring. I told her he’d been admitted to the hospital and that before leaving home I’d tried his room but there’d been no answer. While promising to keep her informed, a thought occurred to me. “Your friend at the police department … he’d have access to arrest records, wouldn’t he?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you ask him to look and see if somebody named Matthew Blake was arrested in Burlington in 2006 … for assault?”

  “Okay. I can do that.… Is everything okay?”

  I considered for a moment whether or not I wanted to confide in her and then decided to say, “There are just a few complications with the investigation. Right now I’m on my way to visit my daughter in New Jersey. How about if you check with your friend in the police department and when you get back to me I’ll be able to explain more.” I gave her Breck’s home phone number.

  When I was driving past Springfield, Massachusetts, I tried Anthony’s room at the hospital, and this time Fiona answered the phone.

  “Thank God somebody is finally picking up,” I said.

  “We haven’t been here very much. He’s been having tests.”

  “So how serious is this?”

  There was a short pause and then she exhaled. “He’s got a pretty substantial concussion. They say it’s not too bad but it’s not mild, either. He’s still disoriented.”

  “Oh God. I … can’t … this is just awful.”

  “Actually, just a little while ago he told me he wanted to speak to you. Unfortunately, I can’t put you through. He’s still out with the doctors. It’s going to be at least another hour. It might be best if you call back after seven and before nine? Where are you, anyway?” I told her I was driving to my daughter’s house and they could expect to hear from me again later on.

  Following Breck’s scrupulously scripted instructions, Virgil, Mrs. Billy, and I arrived in Morristown, New Jersey, around five-thirty in the afternoon, did one promenade around the village square, and pulled into the driveway of a small but well-appointed Tudor house. Her Audi station wagon was parked in the driveway; I assumed that Violet was still at work in Manhattan so that I’d have enough time to get the children settled. As it turned out, she didn’t arrive home until close to seven o’clock.

  I’d forgotten Violet was nearly six feet tall—it wasn’t often that Breck and I met women taller than ourselves—and I admit that she’s a very imposing, alluring woman, with a pale blond pageboy, a crisp, energetic manner, an impeccable dresser. There had never been a discussion of her age; I suspect Violet is probably three or four years younger than I am. When she came home that first evening she was wearing a suit that I could swear was Chanel, which would have cost thousands and certainly the equivalent of a man’s power suit tailor-made in Hong Kong. My great concern for Breck had always been that not only did she give up her life in Vermont for this woman, but that being jobless she’d also end up becoming the “housewife.”

  But I had to file this fear away, at least on the first evening; no sooner had Violet come through the door, greeted me warmly, and slung her Gucci briefcase on the old Spanish Inquisition table that lined a wall of the entry foyer, than she shed her Chanel jacket, rolled up her corporate sleeves, and without even putting on an apron, started culling ingredients for dinner: a pasta with a homemade sauce of radicchio and leeks in white wine. “Works a full day and then insists on coming home every night and making dinner for me,” Breck boasted as she fixed me a gin and tonic with lots of ice and lime.

  “So then what do you do with yourself all day?”

  “I knit,” Breck said snidely.

  “Just love being in the kitchen,” Violet immediately chimed in, to deflect any tension. “Really helps me unwind.” Then to me, “I am so glad that you’ve finally come to visit. You even could have brought … Henrietta if you’d wanted.”

  Breck tsked. “Oh, come on … I asked her not to.”

  Violet waved dismissively. “Even if she peed on the rugs, there is something called Nature’s Miracle. Works for dog pee. I’m sure it must work for pig pee.”

  I told her I knew all about the stuff and had even written about it in my column.

  “I’m pretty sure pig pee has a higher concentration of urea that might permanently stain rugs,” Breck opined.

  Violet went and stood next to her. Although Breck no longer looked emaciated, she appeared quite lissome next to her big-boned older partner. “Don’t be negative,” I said.

  “She just worries because most of the stuff in the house is mine,” Violet explained. Turning to Breck, she added, “Now that Catherine has finally come to visit, I want you to pull up your shirt and show your ma your stomach.”

  “She’s already seen it.”

  This woman is too much, I thought. In spite of my nagging distress over Matthew, I was momentarily amused and distracted.

  Violet
turned to me. “Think of a shallow bowl. That’s what her stomach looked like before she put some necessary weight on.” She returned to the cutting board and continued her dicing and slicing. “I guess I shouldn’t be telling you anything about your daughter, who you obviously know better than I.”

  Appraising Breck, I said, “In the way that I do know her. But she does look a lot better. When you two first got involved I was worried that she’d neglect herself.” I paused a moment and then added, “But I was never worried about the age difference.”

  “That would be the pot calling the kettle!” Breck said with appropriate sarcasm, and yet again Matthew’s predicament detonated in my stomach. I checked my watch and found it strange I hadn’t heard from Prozzo. Surely the detective would have questioned him by now.

  Violet turned to me, her face completely animated. “I was concerned about her, too, trust me!” she boomed. “Now, get this. One day I actually suddenly saw something sticking out of her belly.”

  “Vi, do you really have to?” Breck moaned.

  Much to my delight, Violet ignored her. “To me it looked like a tumor … but now don’t worry,” she assured me, “the story has a happy ending.” Breck was groaning.

  “So we get her into Manhattan to see my GP, who looks at it and orders a CT scan. What is it? No cancerous mass, but her large intestine sticking out of her stomach because she’d gotten so damned skinny.”

  “Okay, enough!” Breck said with true annoyance.

  “I love your daughter dearly,” Violet pronounced. “But when this episode happened and we were riding back home I said, ‘Girl, either you start eating normally or I can’t go on.’”

  “Don’t think I haven’t said similar things,” I told her. “But it doesn’t carry much weight when a mother threatens to disown a daughter over an eating disorder.”

  “She knows you’d never do it.” Violet approached Breck, slipped an arm around her, and Breck collapsed against her partner and actually looked content. I was liking Violet more and more; however, she did strike me as being quite manic.

  * * *

  Violet had studied several languages (including Chinese) in college, and held a position at the World Bank. She was the point person who did a lot of meet-and-greet with her foreign—mostly Asian—constituents. Consequently she was out to dinner a lot in Manhattan, and Breck often spent her evenings alone. I would have thought this might have been difficult for my daughter but it hardly seemed to be. Maybe (and she certainly wouldn’t admit this to me), although she clearly loved Violet, somebody with such a huge personality might be easier to stomach in smaller doses on a daily basis.

  “She’s great fun but a bit intense,” I whispered to Breck during a lull in dinner during which Violet was shuttling some dishes into the kitchen. Too agitated to eat, I’d left most of my pasta on my plate.

  Breck raised her eyebrows conspiratorially and said, “She actually reminds me of you in certain ways.”

  “Me? Oh please!”

  “Okay, you on speed,” Breck conceded.

  Mrs. Billy and Virgil seemed to have settled down, each perched on either end of a leather love seat in the flat-screen-television room. The phone had rung several times after we started dinner, and when it did, I flinched, somehow believing Prozzo was calling me. Neither Breck nor Violet seemed concerned about answering. “We have to do this,” Violet explained. “Otherwise my work people will never leave me alone.”

  “I’m just wondering if it might be for me.”

  Breck asked, “Doesn’t everybody have your cell number?”

  “I gave the detective your number, too.”

  “He’d call your mobile first, don’t you think?” Violet said.

  I remained on edge. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was nearly eight-thirty. I needed to contact Anthony at the hospital before it got too late to call.

  Breck gathered up the last few dishes and headed to the kitchen. A moment later she reemerged and said to me, “Ma, you were right. One of the caller ID numbers is Vermont.”

  “Damn … what’s the prefix?”

  “Hang on.” She trotted back to the cordless phone and hollered back, “Four-eight-four.”

  “Springfield. Prozzo.”

  “So that is the detective?” Violet said as she got up from the dining table and went to the adjacent living room and sat down in an overstuffed armchair.

  I yelled to Breck, “What does he say?”

  “No message.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent sure.”

  I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed the cordless that Breck had left on the counter and dialed my home voice mail. There were two from Matthew, the first of them ignored while I’d been preparing to leave town. “Catherine … it’s me. I don’t know if you’re there, but I was wondering if I could drop by tonight and see you … again. Would that be okay? Give me a call and let me know.” Then three hours later, him once more but sounding completely frantic, “Hi, it’s me. Where are you? I need to get hold of you. It’s critical. Just call me!” I could only assume that Prozzo had finally interrogated him.

  Breck, who had been rinsing a stainless-steel platter, was monitoring my face, and when I put the phone down, I knew that she knew. “Begging you to call, huh?”

  “He sounds really upset.”

  “Upset? Uh, Ma, I’ve kept my mouth shut so far. But you must realize his life is probably over. And you better count your blessings that you’re still with us.”

  “No, I will not … because honestly I just don’t believe he killed anybody.”

  “Well, I hate to say it, but I think I was right all along about him.”

  Breck followed me out into the living room and sat down in another overstuffed armchair that was opposite the one Violet was sitting in. Strategically placing myself in a wing chair so that they were on either side of me, I glanced around the enormous living room, which was more like a great room: two long sofas arranged at a ninety-degree angle, armchairs in modern Italian design, geometric-shaped end tables filled with what I’d call objets: quartz obelisks and crystal figurines. Large glass cylindrical vases full of dried artemisia gave the room a slightly desiccated floral fragrance.

  “You don’t need to call him back, Mom,” Breck repeated, this time for Violet’s benefit. “I know you want to, but—”

  “I’m not going to call him. At least not right now.”

  “Ma, look at me,” Breck said. “You can’t at all.”

  I flared up. “I’m not your daughter!”

  “That has nothing to do with this!”

  “My, my … Breck!” Violet murmured, warning her not to press me too hard.

  It was time to call Anthony. My purse was sitting on an end table across the room. I hurried over and fished out my cell phone and scrolled through the numbers until I found the hospital exchange I’d dialed previously.

  He picked up the phone, sounding very weak.

  “It’s Catherine,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Just okay. I’m tired. Glad to hear from you. They won’t let me talk too long on the phone, though … okay, Fiona?” he said. And then to me, “She’s on me about it.”

  “She told me you got quite a concussion.”

  “Yeah. Got to stay here at least until tomorrow morning.” He hesitated a moment. “We got problems, Catherine.”

  His statement left me feeling winded. “What problems?” I glanced at Breck and Violet, who were sitting in their chairs motionless, trying to glean bits of the conversation.

  “Well, I was going to Burlington, right—”

  “To see the coroner?”

  “Yeah. Because … a DNA match was finally identified to the second hair sample in the car.” He broke off and the phone was muffled. “Wow … I’m really dizzy.” Then I heard Fiona say, “I can give her the information.”

  “No,” he resisted. “I need to talk just a little more. Just give me another minute, all right?” I b
raced myself for him to say the DNA match was to Matthew but he surprised me. “It’s to some guy in Florida.”

  Flummoxed relief. But I knew the relief would be momentary. I said, “Prozzo came to my house—”

  “I know. He was here at the hospital with his new theory.”

  “What do you think of his new theory?”

  Anthony faltered again, the phone sounded as though it was being shuffled around. “Remember when I last called you and you couldn’t really talk? The FBI agent assigned to us had just gotten in touch with me. He said he’d wanted to be in contact sooner but there’d been developments with that kid who went missing up in Middlebury—right before he was found. Anyway, he gave me some information, troubling information. I have my notes here.” He stopped to confer inaudibly with Fiona. “All right,” he said to her. “When I’m ready you can read the notes to Catherine, as long as you go slow. Real slow.”

  Anthony went on, “But the gist of my conversation with the agent was that Prozzo has been in possession of certain facts that he has not shared with anybody else, including me.”

  “How does the FBI know what hasn’t been shared?”

  “Because he got the information from them. Not from this particular agent, but somebody down in D.C. with whom Prozzo has some kind of inside track. When our agent up here began talking about what I already should have known about and didn’t know, we both figured out what was going on.”

  “Why didn’t you confront Marco about that when he came to see you?”

  “Two reasons. I was feeling rather ill when he showed up and I just wasn’t up to interrogating an interrogator. And then I decided I want to try and find out on my own why Prozzo might be withholding information.”

  “Okay, I hear you. But now I’m wondering about Prozzo’s claim that New Hampshire wasn’t cooperating with him, that they were withholding information. In light of what you just said, I wonder how true that claim actually is.”

  “My thoughts entirely,” Anthony said. He paused, muffled the phone, and then I could hear, “Okay, Fiona, take over.”