The Perfect Ghost

by Linda Barnes

  A rap at the door punctuated my remark. The PA stuck his head in again.

  “I agreed to this book because Teddy talked me into it,” Malcolm said before focusing on the intruder. “What, Darren?”

  “I’m sorry. Someone to see—”

  Before the PA could finish, Brooklyn Pierce was in the room, saying, “Hey, sorry, Mal, gotta talk to you, okay?”

  If I hadn’t been watching Malcolm’s face closely, I wouldn’t have seen the mixture of distaste and despair that crossed it.

  At close quarters, I could see how wrong I’d been about Pierce not aging like the rest of us. He wore a wrinkled suit instead of rolled-up khakis, and the skin around his eyes looked puffy and dark.

  “Sorry, sorry, thought you were alone.”

  “Mr. Pierce,” I said boldly. “I’ve been trying to reach you through your agent.”

  Malcolm stood. “We’ll have to stop.”

  I jumped to my feet as well, determined not to let the movie star escape again. Quickly, I introduced myself and started stammering out an interview request.

  “Hey, yeah, sorry about Teddy,” Pierce interrupted. “Great guy, great interviewer. Hey, since she’s leaving, I’ll walk her out, Mal. Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” The movie star’s arm was under my elbow and I found myself hustled from the room, practically jogging to stay on my feet. As soon as we were outdoors, the star spun me around to face him.

  “Listen, sorry and all that, but I’ve gotta have that tape back. Hell, just destroy it, if that’s easier, but forget about using it.”

  I didn’t deny possessing the tape, only because he didn’t give me the chance.

  His hand clamped down on my shoulder. “No, never mind destroying it. I want the original. And no copies. Understand?”

  “That hurts.”

  Kalver, the PA, slammed the door, stomped down the walk, and glowered at Pierce, who, having heard him, immediately turned on the charm, smiling and shifting his hand so it looked like he was giving me a gentle farewell pat.

  “Great meeting you.” Pierce’s grin was boyish and sincere, just like in the movies, and he waved as he headed up the path to the house. “Catch you later.”

  CHAPTER

  seventeen

  As I keyed the ignition it came to me: Pierce wasn’t here to rekindle the Justice franchise; he was here for Hamlet, to play the madman, his wrinkled suit a stand-in for Hamlet’s “doublet all unbrac’d” and “stockings foul’d.” The thought evaporated like mist, dwindled along with my delight in my haircut and Malcolm’s compliments. Panic hardened slowly, like gelatin in cold water, and took its place. If Pierce had meant the scene as part of some bizarre audition, he’d have played it for Malcolm’s benefit, in Malcolm’s view. I was no casting agent. An iron band tightened across my chest.

  The sun flamed on the horizon and made my eyes water. I veered into the breakdown lane, determined to compose myself, dabbed my streaming eyes with a tissue, rested my head against the steering wheel, counted the rapid pulse beating in my temples. My sunglasses were nowhere to be found. I twisted and grabbed my laptop off the backseat, booted it, and searched my junk-mail file to make sure my computer hadn’t relegated one of your communications to the electronic trash heap. I checked my deleted e-mail file, then reviewed all my e-mail, hunting for any mention of Brooklyn Pierce. The only hits occurred in old messages sent near the beginning of the project when his name turned up on a list of obligatory interviews or in correspondence with his agent and his manager.

  How could I return a tape I’d never heard of? That was a valid question, but the question that really intrigued me concerned content. What could the tape reveal that would make Pierce demand its return so urgently? When did you tape it? Did you spot the elusive star marching over a rise like I did, grab notebook and recorder, pop your questions there and then? Even if it were a serendipitous meeting, a spontaneous interview, what could have kept you from phoning me, e-mailing, boasting? You were supposed to tell me everything.

  I sucked in a breath, checked the mirrors, and pulled back onto the road. The dunes, the ocean, the quaint Cape scenery made no more impact on my senses than the speed limit signs.

  At a red light I tapped my hand impatiently against the wheel. The Pierce tape might be piggy-backed onto the Sylvie Duchaine interview, stuck onto the end of the tape Caroline had held hostage, the same tape I’d recovered from the Bloomie’s bag. Yes, that could work, that made sense, if you’d been running low on blank tapes. The Duchaine interview was a short one.

  I felt light-headed, faint, my stomach queasy with relief. I’d eaten nothing since breakfast. For a moment, hunger reassured me. Far from heading for a panic attack, I was merely starving. Deliberately relaxing my hands on the wheel, I indulged in a pep talk. The session with Malcolm hadn’t gone badly. He’d spoken about Jenna, confided the story of his father reciting Shakespeare to the pregnant Claire. I’d definitely include that. Teddy, I never realized how much the interviewer relied on constant, quick revision, on what seemed to me almost a mystical process, like mind-reading, the interpretation of pauses, gestures, the shift of tiny muscles beneath the skin.

  I smiled in anticipation of hearing the Duchaine tape again, listening to Sylvie sing Malcolm’s praises now that I knew him so much better, so much more intimately. I wished you’d flat-out asked whether or not she’d slept with him, Teddy. Warmth crept up my neck as I recalled Malcolm telling me I didn’t need to dress up on his account. Sweet, he’d said, like a schoolgirl.

  The minute I got in the house, I gulped sufficient peanut butter to quiet my stomach and fast-forwarded my way through the Duchaine tape, listening carefully to Sylvie’s brief response to your final question, then silence, silence, more silence, nothing but silence till the end. Nothing, nothing, no hint of where the missing tape might be.

  I breathed deeply and began the search methodically. I delved into the corners of every drawer and cupboard you might have opened. The Pierce tape might have tumbled to the floor from the bedside table, somehow concealed itself under the bed. It could have fallen off the desk. I searched the shag carpet on hands and knees, combed the rough fibers with my fingers, sneezed at the disturbed dust.

  I checked the list of tapes and transcripts. You were methodical, Teddy. Each tape bore a label; each was numbered. We were over a hundred and thirty tapes deep on Garrett Malcolm; I’d packed the most recent thirty in my duffel, along with a few of the early tapes, in case I had a question on transcription or needed to check a key quote. When I lined the tapes up in order, Number 128 was absent.

  I could tell Pierce I didn’t have it. He might believe me, he might not. He might tell Malcolm, and “ay, there’s the rub,” for I’d assured Malcolm I had all your tapes, that I’d listened to each and every one.

  Was this one of your surprises, Teddy, one of your little games? A pop quiz, as it were? I called your house, waited through four long rings before your voice, alive on the answering machine, shocked me so thoroughly I pressed “end call” without leaving any message. Oh, Teddy, your voice with its faint burr on the deepest notes. Heard unexpectedly, it killed me with sadness.

  I sucked another deep breath and phoned Henniman’s, punching Jonathan’s extension as soon as the automated message started bleating.

  “Did Teddy send you a tape?”

  “Em? Are you okay?”

  It was like waking in the middle of a dream. I carefully adjusted my tone from desperate to curious. “Oh, Jonathan, sure, I’m fine. I just wondered whether Teddy sent anything in the mail.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine, Jonathan, it’s going so well. Malcolm is absolutely cooperating.”

  “So you’re on schedule? You’re ready to send the manuscript?”

  “I will be. Soon.”

  “I didn’t get any mail from Teddy, but do you know somebody named McKay, McCann, something like that? He left a couple of messages, mentioned Teddy? No?” He rushed on briskl
y. “Well, now that I’ve got you, why don’t I transfer you over to Ellie? I know she wants to set up some publicity dates.”

  “No, Jonathan, I really don’t have time now.”

  I ended the call, punched your home number again, listened stone-faced through your greeting, and left a message for Caroline. Please, could she call as soon as possible?

  I reconsidered Brooklyn Pierce’s mad scene: No, don’t destroy it, give it back, no copies. He hadn’t ordered me not to listen to the tape before returning it. He hadn’t said I couldn’t use the material.

  What could he have told you? What could have slipped out? Was Caroline devious enough to bait the Bloomie’s bag with the Duchaine tape, hide the Pierce tape? Did you talk to her, give her a hint that the tape contained potential dynamite? Talk to her, not to me? The more I considered the scenario, the more likely it seemed. How she must have laughed. How she must be laughing now.

  There was nothing for it. I’d have to see her, make some kind of deal for the missing interview. I’d have to disrupt the schedule I’d painstakingly set with Malcolm, plod the bus back to Boston, find transportation to suburban Lexington, confront her. The idea of all that travel made the peanut butter churn in my gut.

  I roamed room to room through the unfamiliar house, tried to focus my restless energy on the book, conjure the blinders I needed to work at anything near full capacity. I kept imagining the summoning trill of the phone, the ensuing argument with Caroline. At the apartment, in my tiny kitchen, I’d have brewed chamomile tea and sweetened it with honey; I’d have sipped from my flowered china mug while I turned out finished pages, adding them to the tidy pile on the right-hand corner of my desk. Here, I spooned peanut butter from the jar, licking the utensil slowly while I stared out the kitchen window into darkness. The silent phone seemed to shout Caroline’s triumph. She must have played the tape. God knew what she’d do with it, what she’d done with it already.

  I could leave for Lexington now, drive myself, brave the terror of crowded highways. I had a car; I could drive. I checked the clock. Too late to make Lexington before Caroline went to sleep, but I could break the journey in Boston, spend the night in my own bed, surrounded by my own possessions, untouched in their orderly ranks, waiting like good children for their mother to return.

  The thought of sleeping in my own bed decided me. Determination hardened into action. I folded my new periwinkle sweater, tucked it into an unfamiliar closet, changed into my uniform, and crept out of the darkened house, negotiating the porch steps by the light of my cell phone, wary of the neighbor’s prying eyes.

  The whoosh of wheels on pavement soothed my ears. Route 6 was a ribbon of straight moonlit road with surprisingly little traffic. Driving felt good, purposeful, a task to complete in a discrete chunk of time, a solace and a comfort. Given reasonable luck, I could deal with your precious wife first thing in the morning and return in plenty of time to keep my appointment with Malcolm.

  CHAPTER

  eighteen

  Massachusetts isn’t California; it’s not prone to earthquakes, but when thumping jarred me awake, “earthquake” was the word that shrieked though my brain. The thumping continued, mild and rhythmical, while I peered quizzically at the familiar face of the round clock on the bedside table. I’d set the alarm for six thirty, I was certain of it, but six thirty was past and the floorboards shuddered with thuds that came in clumps, three, then a pause, then three more. Melody downstairs. My sleep-drenched brain made the leap and I successfully connected the noise to Melody downstairs, who’d once declared she’d tap on her ceiling with a long-handled broom if she needed me. She’d said it years ago; I’d considered it a remote possibility, almost a comic one. If Melody needed help, she’d ring 911.

  I dragged myself out of bed, feeling disoriented and disgruntled. The alarm had failed. It was almost half past seven. I threw on last night’s jeans and tee and plunged down the steps.

  You always called her Melody Downstairs, as though that were her name, as though it never occurred to you that she might have a proper last name that you might learn by checking the listing in the foyer. Not that I knew much more about her than you did. She never volunteered information and I never asked; she had a right to a private life.

  How you’d have laughed at that, I thought, fingers skimming the handrail. You’d have called it an antiquated concept. But the people we wrote about weren’t private souls. They were different; they’d entered into a public space via their special accomplishments. Our subjects were volunteers and they set their own limits, revealed what they chose to reveal. Yes, you urged them to tell more; that was your job, our job, and some did and later regretted it. But to a large extent, they painted and framed their own canvases, got to shield awkward or intimate doodles from the public gaze.

  “I thought I heard you last night. Hope I didn’t wake you.” Melody’s musical voice heralded her unlovely presence. Frizzled hair, parted in the middle, yanked into a tight bun, a dun-colored shift billowing over a shapeless body. When she didn’t invite me in, I felt relieved rather than offended. I’d never entered her domain, had no desire to witness pulleys or bars or whatever arrangements she’d installed to cope with her condition.

  “The police were here.” She lowered her voice to a confidential murmur, seeming delighted to break the news and eager to gauge its effect on me. “Two of them. Plain clothes. From the Cape, about that man you worked with, the one who died?”

  I found myself suddenly obsessed, wondering whether she’d always lived in a wheelchair, if she suffered a disastrous accident or had some dire progressive illness, how she’d come to live in that apartment, how she survived. Why was her life unworthy of a book? A film?

  “They were looking for you.” Her words dripped portent, as though she imagined herself the oracular figure in some Greek tragedy. “They wanted to interview you about the car crash. Ask you questions? Like on a TV cop show, where you’re a witness?” Her eyes, rounder than usual behind their heavy frames, peered up at me.

  I should have returned Snow’s call immediately. Policemen didn’t understand, didn’t care about shyness or panic attacks or the need to meet deadlines. They needed answers to their questions so they could fill out their forms. I could sympathize with that, but why they would imagine there were answers to an accident eluded me. An accident was an accident, sui generis, inexplicable.

  It would be a matter of forms, filling in boxes, ticking off items on an official list.

  “I suppose you told them I’d be back?” I had a vision of Melody savoring and sharing every word Caroline and I had shouted at each other, detailing the nights you’d spent at the apartment as well as the days.

  “I didn’t tell them when you’d be back.”

  “Because you didn’t know.”

  Her round eyes gleamed through her thick lenses. “I wouldn’t tell them, anyway. What right do they have to ask? They wanted to know if I had a key. To your apartment. I mean, suppose I did? They could have grabbed it, used it, poked through all your belongings, pawed through your underwear drawer. And then they could have said I’d given it to them, offered it. There were two of them, big, loud men. They’d lie for each other, no problem, back each other up, their word against mine. Nobody would believe me.”

  Surely some story lurked behind her anger and paranoia.

  “Good thing you don’t have a key,” I said.

  “I’d never tell them anything. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  I had a sudden sense, almost a vision, of Melody’s living room: a huge TV for viewing crime-scene investigation shows and late-night film noirs, mismatched shelves packed with vintage murder mysteries. I saw her huddled under a shawl on icy evenings, flipping channels, turning dog-eared pages. The policemen’s visit was most likely the highlight of her month.

  “I won’t,” I said gravely. “Are you still good on milk and juice?”

  CHAPTER

  nineteen

  The drive to Lexington
took longer than the entire journey from the Cape, jangling my nerves from the moment I crossed the BU Bridge onto Memorial Drive, a nightmare of honking anger that roiled and oozed with barely suppressed rage onto the Fresh Pond Parkway. I stopped at the rotary near Fresh Pond for gasoline I didn’t need, just to slide out of the car, stretch, and ease the tendons in my neck. Traffic was less congested on Route 2, but cars whizzed by at high speed on either side till I pulled into the right-hand lane and crept along doing fifty-five.

  The missing tape haunted me. What could you have learned from Brooklyn Pierce that you would have withheld from me, your scribe, your amanuensis? A delicious tidbit of gossip, a tale you wanted to confirm before sharing? Did you have reason to distrust Pierce, discount his information? Had the two of you been drinking heavily, sharing a blunt? Jonathan hadn’t gotten the tape in the mail, but he’d mentioned the name of a man who’d been trying to reach you. McKay. I wracked my brain. Did you work with a McKay? Teach with him? Could you have given the tape to McKay?

  Your house took me by surprise, Teddy. How odd that I never visited, that you never held a dinner party to which I was invited. I parked in front and checked the street number twice. The place was unexpectedly large, the light gray paint tasteful and fresh. Blue shutters contrasted nicely with the gray, the sheltered entryway was attractive, but it was a standard-issue Colonial, a blip of conformity, with little to distinguish itself from its neighbors. I’d assumed something stark and modern in keeping with Caroline’s coldness.

  That you would choose to live behind that bland front door seemed odd, if not impossible. You were the rebel; you’d always be the rebel, but it came to me in a rush that I hadn’t truly known you, Teddy. I mean, I knew you biblically, of course, in that “Abraham knew his wife” sense. I knew you as a teacher and a mentor and an interviewer, but this house was the home of a suburban paterfamilias.