by Allan Topol
Allison hadn’t been home since Labor Day, she recalled. She didn’t care much about seeing Mother; she had wanted to see Dad before she flew off to Israel. But with his second stroke, he “disappeared into another world,” as Vanessa had said.
On the first step of the white colonial on a one-acre wooded lot Allison reached into her purse and pulled out a house key. Before she could turn it, Mother was standing there, her eyes red and bloodshot. Her face puffy. Allison tried to hug her, but never affectionate, her mother pulled away.
“I’m so sorry.” Allison didn’t know what else to say.
Mother began crying. Allison cried with her.
“She was an angel,” Mother said. “An angel.”
“Does Dad know?”
“I tried, but couldn’t get through.”
Allison dropped her black duffel and walked upstairs. She hoped somehow he’d speak. At least recognize her. She sat next to his bed. “I’m Allison, Daddy.” He gave her a blank stare. She loved him so much. He had always been there with encouragement and support. “You can do great things, Allison.”
She sat still and looked around. On the wall were his military medals. In high school in Oxford he had been a star halfback and was awarded a football scholarship to Ohio State. But it was during the Vietnam War and he was a patriotic American so he had enlisted in the Marines. Saving two of his wounded comrades, he took a bullet in his leg. He was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry in action and a Purple Heart.
He returned home and worked with his father in the hardware store. His football career was over. He saw no point in going to college. He had never been bitter. He was proud he had served his country.
After fifteen minutes, she left his room and wandered around upstairs. The door to Mother’s room was closed. She stepped into Vanessa’s, sobbing for what she’d lost, looking at the stuffed bunnies and Barbie dolls, gazing at the framed photos of Vanessa from Vogue, Bazaar, and Elle.
She cried, and she cried more.
When she was finished, she crossed to her own room, still cluttered with college leftovers and copies of some of her articles. She had taken all the athletic trophies with her when she moved to Providence. Downstairs she found Mother sitting on the sofa sipping vodka on ice in a water tumbler looking through a family photograph album. I have to try to get along with her, Allison told herself.
But sitting down next to her, looking at the old pictures did little to soothe Allison. On the left she saw Vanessa being crowned Miss Teen Ohio as a gold tiara was placed on her blond head. The whole family was standing next to her. On the right, Allison receiving a national honor society award with only Dad and Vanessa in that one.
They were always so close. Twins. How can anyone who isn’t one understand it?
She remembered the two of them infuriating Mother by talking in an imaginary language, calling each other Alley and Van instead of “the beautiful names” she had given them.
The phone rang. It was Sara Gross, the school friend, now a doctor, whom she had called from the Israeli airport. “I’d like to come by and talk to you. When’s a good time?”
“As soon as you can.”
Thirty minutes later, Allison opened the door for Sara. She was wearing a white doctor’s coat, her stringy brown hair hanging loose, her tortoiseshell glasses pushed up on her hair. She hugged Allison, then turned to the twins’ mother, who put down the album and stood. Sara tried to hug her, but she pulled away.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Boyd.”
She began crying again.
“Let’s go outside,” Allison said.
The rain had stopped. They walked to High Street, Allison noticing students, some rushing to class, loaded down with book bags. Others were hanging out on the corners, or going into a bookstore. As they walked along the sidewalk Allison said, “Listen, I really appreciate your help.”
“C’mon. I owe you big time for teaching me how to dribble and shoot baskets. Without your help, I would never have made the team.”
“Naw, you just needed more self-confidence. That’s key in sports.”
“Before we talk about your sister, how about you? You look exhausted. This is an incredibly tough experience. I want to prescribe something, to make it easier for you?”
“You mean drugs? Tranquilizers?”
“Just to help you through the next couple of days.”
“Sara, you always accused me of being a health nut, and I haven’t changed. I never take any medicine unless absolutely necessary.”
“What about talking to your minister?”
“Phil Barnes is a moron.”
“I could put you in touch with a counselor at the hospital.”
Allison ran a hand through her hair. “How could a counselor help? With all the grief I feel? But don’t worry. I’m tough, I’ll survive.”
“Speaking of which, how’s the leg?
“It hardly hurts at all. Those Olympics seem like so long ago.”
“You were great.”
Sara sighed.
Allison was eager to talk about Vanessa “So tell me what you found.”
“Well, for starters, your mother wouldn’t permit an autopsy. That limited my options. Still, I did what I could.”
They were passing Ozzie’s Restaurant. “Let’s go inside,” Sara said.
At eleven thirty, the place was only half filled, mostly with students, loud and raucous. Two women with babies in strollers in a corner. Sara led Allison to a table near the women. The smell of French fries in the air. The waitress in a short-skirted pink and white uniform, who looked to Allison to be about twelve, came over.
“Just coffee.”
“How about some eggs?” Sara asked. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
“I’m okay.”
“Two orders of scrambled eggs with toasted English muffins,” Sara ordered, then turned to Allison. “I can’t imagine the pain of having my sister die.”
“With a twin, it’s worse.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Now tell me what you learned.”
“I took a blood sample for analysis. I examined her body and studied her medical records from Dr. Miller’s office.”
Allison somehow felt alarmed.
“Not to worry. He won’t tell your mother. Well anyhow, Vanessa had a heart condition known as hypertrophic myopsy. Were you aware of that?”
Allison nodded. “But she never let that stop her from doing anything.”
“Yes, that’s the Vanessa Boyd I remember.”
Sara pushed the glasses down over her eyes, reached into her purse, and took out some papers. “She also had traces of marijuana and some alcohol, but not a great quantity. Without an autopsy, I can’t say whether any of these caused her heart to stop when she was swimming, or whether it was something else that caused her to drown.”
“Such as?”
“A sudden swift current. A rip tide. Muscle cramp.”
“Any bruises on her body? I mean evidence of a struggle? Like somebody forced her under the water?”
“You think someone killed her? That it wasn’t an accident?”
Allison pounded her fist on the table. “The story I was given over the phone was total and utter bullshit.” Allison was getting loud; the two young mothers were staring at her. One baby started crying. Sara motioned with her hand for Allison to keep it down.
“I know my sister. You know her, too. She’d never take a trip like that herself. She always attracted men like a magnet. She drew them to her and loved being with them, particularly the movers and shakers. She hated being alone. She wouldn’t anymore go to Anguilla herself than I would fly to the moon. Some man had to be there. And he had to be responsible.”
“Well, I looked and I didn’t see any bruises. But that’s not dispositive. Someone could have lured her into the water when she was too wasted to swim—or held her under without leaving any bruises. But there is one thing …” She hesitated.
&nbs
p; “What?”
“I did see something suggesting Vanessa wasn’t alone in Anguilla.”
“What’s that?”
“Irritation and inflammation on the inside walls of the vagina.” Sara spoke in a clinical voice.
“You mean she was raped?”
“No. Probably just prolonged intercourse.”
“Prolonged intercourse,” Allison sighed. “That’s Vanessa. At least that makes sense.”
“Which means she may have gone there with a man, or perhaps met him in Anguilla.”
“Either way, some scumbag man’s involved,” Allison’s voice rose again. “Son of a bitch left her to die. He abandoned her on the beach where her body could’ve been chewed up by seagulls.”
“I’m sorry, Allison. That’s all I learned.”
Allison said. “Wait till I catch the bastard. I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.”
Allison left Sara, then walked to the gray stone Blake’s Funeral Home. The outside was dingy with peeling paint on the wooden front door, but a shiny clean black hearse parked in front.
Inside, steadying herself against a beam and looking at Vanessa in the open coffin, Allison thought Bruce must have worked hard. He’d restored the body to a good likeness. Had to be a tough job between the Caribbean climate and the lapse of time.
She sat down in silence, staring at her sister’s body. At Vanessa’s calm, still face, resting and at peace. In contrast, Allison was boiling with rage. Who did this to you, Vanessa? I swear to you he’ll pay for it.
She asked Bruce, “What came with her body?”
“Wallet. Passport. Airplane receipt. Jewelry. I gave them to your mother.”
“Cell phone?”
“Negative.”
Allison planned to get them back at the house. She should have them.
“Oh, and a shipping ticket filled out by someone in Anguilla.”
“May I see it?”
“Sure.”
Bruce went into his office and returned with a wrinkled piece of beige paper. Allison studied it. “Har Stevens, Police Commissioner” was the signature. The man she’d spoken with. Under his signature was a phone number. She memorized it. As soon as Bruce left, she punched the number.
“Har Stevens here.”
The voice and British accent, she remembered. “Mr. Stevens, this is Allison Boyd. We spoke yesterday.”
“Of course. Vanessa Boyd’s sister.”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t very coherent.”
“Under the circumstances, it’s only natural.”
“Now I’m calling to clarify some matters.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have any further information.”
“I want to know what happened to my sister in Anguilla.”
“Miss Boyd. I’m very sorry for your loss. From our investigation, we learned that your sister came to Anguilla by herself. She was staying at the Corinthian Hotel. I spoke to the hotel manager, who said she went swimming alone at night. Her body washed up on the beach in front of the hotel. Our first rate medical examiner concluded she drowned.”
“Are you certain she wasn’t with a man?”
“I did question the manager of the hotel on that myself.”
“What’s his name?”
“John Burt. But I’ve already told you what he knows.”
“I understand that.”
Allison realized she wouldn’t get anything else from Stevens. She hung up the phone.
Damn it, she thought. If only she’d pressed Vanessa in their last talk about her plans for the weekend, she’d know something.
She was convinced Vanessa had gone with an older, powerful man. And he didn’t want his name linked with her. So he left her dead body on the beach and ran. Protecting his marriage? His career? Both?
Allison recalled another time that Vanessa’s affair with an older, powerful man ended in disaster. She had told Allison she was in Rome dating one of the wealthiest and most important men in the country. Then two days later, Allison received a call from the police in Rome, telling her that Vanessa, strung out on drugs and drunk, had been arrested for being nude frolicking in the Trevi Fountain with a man who had run away and wasn’t identified.
Allison had immediately flown to Rome. She persuaded the police to release her sister, who was well known from the covers of fashion magazines, on the condition that Allison immediately take Vanessa to a clinic in Northern Italy for rehab, and she would have to remain there for a month. Allison readily agreed.
When Allison returned a month later, she took Vanessa for a week to Stresa. During that week, Vanessa poured out the full extent of her unhappiness to Allison. “Mother really pushed me into modeling from the time I was five. Sure, I thought it would be a glamorous life when she arranged for me to leave our house in Ohio and go to New York with the Premier Modeling Agency. And it was for a while. I should have quit years ago, but I was afraid of facing her. To overcome my misery, I started doing drugs, drinking far too much, and sleeping with men who were no good.”
Allison developed the blueprint for Vanessa’s new life. Quit modeling, go back to school at NYU, and get a degree. Vanessa wasn’t a straight-A student like Allison, but she was smart. Even while modeling, she took courses at NYU and always managed to get Bs. In her new life, Vanessa swore to Allison there would be no more hard drugs. Only pot. And alcohol in moderation.
At Vanessa’s insistence, Allison traveled to Oxford with Vanessa to explain to Mother that Vanessa was giving up the modeling life. It was an acrimonious discussion, with father on the sidelines as usual, and Mother calling Allison “a jealous spoiler.” But Vanessa hung tough. And Vanessa began her new life.
She graduated from NYU with honors in government, planning to go to law school one day. In the meantime, she landed a good job in Congress. As far as Allison knew, she never did hard drugs again. Allison was proud of Vanessa and proud of how she helped her twin sister, who meant more to her than anything in life.
But now her sister was gone. And Allison couldn’t bring her back. All Allison had now was a burning desire for revenge. She needed to find out whom Vanessa was with in Anguilla and destroy him.
Washington
Paul Maltoni sat across the desk from Andrew Martin and waited for the senior partner’s reaction. By working until two in the morning he had a preliminary analysis of what it would take to prevail in a challenge to the FCC’s proposed television decency regulations.
For the last fifteen minutes he had presented it to a dour-faced Martin, who had only asked a couple of clarifying questions—nothing to gauge Martin’s reaction.
After leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes for a minute, Martin said, “A brief along those lines should work. Get started now. You’ll need a full court press. Time’s short. I’ll want a draft in a week.”
“You’ll have it.”
Pleased, Paul returned to his office and began preparing a detailed schedule for the brief.
Suddenly, Ray York, a friend and fellow associate of Paul’s for the last eight years, barged into the office, waving a newspaper. “Hey, amigo, did you know she died?”
Paul looked up from his notes. “Who died?”
“You didn’t see the Post this morning?”
“I was down here until two on a project for Martin. So who died?”
Paul’s mind was cluttered with facts about the FCC decency regulations and Jenson’s brief. “Who died?”
“That luscious piece you introduced me to last year at Warren Scott’s fundraiser. I was insanely jealous.”
Paul’s mind cleared in a snap. “Vanessa Boyd died?”
“You got it.”
He held out his hand and Ray gave him the morning Metro section.
Reading the obit, Paul was stunned. He couldn’t believe Vanessa was dead.
“Why’d you break up with her?” Ray asked. “You told me you were going to marry her.”
“It’s a long story.”
“At least you c
ould have turned her over to me.”
“You weren’t her type,” Paul said glumly.
“Okay. I’ve got it. You want to be alone right now.”
“Yeah.”
“Call me later if you want to drown your sorrow in a few beers this evening.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Ray left the office and closed the door.
Paul was stunned.
He thought about the first time he’d met Vanessa. It was now a year and a half ago. Martin, who represented the Chinese government, was making an effort to block legislation authorizing an American arms sale to Taiwan. Paul, working with Martin, had prepared a report demonstrating that the weapons weren’t needed by Taiwan, wouldn’t be used defensively, and would only exacerbate US-Chinese relations. Martin had told Paul to take his report to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Paul had learned from the committee counsel that Vanessa Boyd was the key staffer on the bill. So he went up to the Hart Senate Office Building to meet with her.
The receptionist directed him to a knockout, drop-dead blonde, whom Paul assumed was one of the member’s mistresses stashed as a “secretary” in a committee office where answering the phone and smiling at constituents was the job description. To his surprise, the blonde was the staffer. Okay, he thought, this is going to be great, explaining these complex concepts to some airhead.
In fact, Vanessa knew more about the arms package for Taiwan than he did.
She also supplied him with data on the recent Chinese arms buildup, showing that the balance of power between China and Taiwan had been adversely affected by Beijing and the new arms were necessary to restore the balance of power. When he made his point about US-Chinese relations, she told him, “Senator Jasper and a majority of my committee members believe we have to be tough with China.” In the end Paul said, “Will you please distribute my report to all of your members.”
