by Jane Haddam
What was it, exactly, that she thought she was doing?
When the last step aerobics routine was over, Christie took a shower in the locker room, dried her hair, got dressed in jeans. In the shower she felt for the bubble half a dozen times. Getting dressed, she felt for it half a dozen times more. That was when she started to be afraid.
It wasn’t a bubble. It was a tumor. And it had been there for weeks now. Weeks.
There was a window stuck open somewhere and the locker room was cold, but Christie had sweat running down her back. The skin on her scalp itched, even though she had just washed her hair. Christie put on her turtleneck and her sweater and sat down on the bench. Tara and Michelle were all dressed and ready to go. She was taking too much time. She had taken so much time already, the three of them were the only ones left in the locker room.
What did she think she was doing? she asked herself. She hadn’t talked to David since the beginning of December. She hadn’t gone home for Christmas. She hadn’t kept the appointments Dr. Hornig had made for her. She hadn’t even answered her own phone, just in case it was Dr. Hornig herself on the other end of the line.
“Hey,” Tara said now. “Are you ready? I want a Big Mac.”
Christie’s L.L. Bean Marine Hunting Boots were sitting on the floor with their laces pulled loose. All she had to do was put her feet into them.
“Come here,” she told Tara. “I want to show you something.”
“Show me what?”
“I want you to feel something.”
When Tara came close, Christie pulled up first her sweater and then her turtleneck and began to pull down her bra. Tara looked embarrassed.
“Hey,” she said. “Christie. I mean—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Christie said. She grabbed Tara’s right hand by the palm and pulled it close to her. “Feel that,” she ordered. “Right there.”
“Should I go somewhere else?” Michelle asked.
“No,” Christie said.
Tara’s fingers touched the spot where Christie pointed. She had a puzzled look on her face.
“But what is that?” she asked, taking her hand away. “Is that some kind of cyst?”
“It’s a tumor.”
“But you can’t know that, can you?” Tara said. “Not without a biopsy.”
“Tara, I had a biopsy. Right after Thanksgiving.”
“And they found out it was a tumor?”
“Yes.”
“A malignant tumor?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t understand,” Tara said. “Why is it still there? Why haven’t they done something about it? Are you on chemotherapy or radiation treatments or something?”
“I was supposed to have it out.”
“When?”
“About four weeks ago.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Michelle murmured.
Tara sat down hard on the bench. “But. But—” And then she exploded.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted. “Four weeks ago? Why didn’t you get it done? Why didn’t you tell anybody about it, for God’s sake, what do you think you’re doing here, did they want to take the whole breast, is that what you were afraid of, well, they’ve got implants and things now and for Jesus Christ’s sake—”
“Don’t scream at her,” Michelle said, close to tears. “Why are you screaming at her?”
“I’m not screaming at her,” Tara screamed.
“Listen,” Christie said, and almost laughed, because all of a sudden she was the calmest person in the room. “Listen, the two of you, you’ve got to help me out with this.”
SIX
1
THERE WERE REAL DETECTIVES in the real world who specialized in finding missing persons and filling in the backgrounds of people whose histories were suspect or sketchy. Gregor Demarkian had never been one of those detectives. Toward the end of his career in the FBI he had been very good at backgrounding, but then he’d had the resources of the Bureau behind him, and the resources of the Behavioral Sciences Department particularly. It was one of the truisms of work with serial killers, in the criminal justice system as well as in psychotherapy, that background was everything. The courts read a lot of details into the no-unreasonable-search and no-self-incrimination clauses of the U.S. Constitution, but the bottom line was that it didn’t matter what you did to get the information you needed, as long as you didn’t need to use that information in court. Gregor had never been part of the McCarthyite school of federal law enforcement. He didn’t use wire taps the way high school cheerleaders used dental floss or hidden cameras like Allen Funt. He wasn’t above petitioning phone and credit and bank records when he had to. He tried to keep it to cases where urgency was necessary. Urgency was necessary here, but he didn’t have the resources of the Bureau behind him anymore. Even if he had had them, he wouldn’t have had time to interpret them. What he really needed was an aunt or a mother or a sister or a husband—but like half the other people involved in this case, the late Stella Mortimer didn’t seem to have had them. Maybe it was Fountain of Youth that was to blame. Maybe, if you became a new you with a new body for every new year, you couldn’t have relatives, because they wouldn’t be able to recognize you from one change to the next.
Magda Hale had had to go out, and Traci Cardinale had had to leave a little early, but Magda handed Gregor over to a woman named Faith Keller and told Faith Keller to get Gregor what he wanted.
“It’s not that I ever really knew anything about Stella,” Faith Keller said as she led Gregor to the small room on the west side of the first floor where the records were kept. “I came here as her assistant about three years ago, but we weren’t close. Stella was never very close to anyone.”
Of course not, Gregor thought. It would be against the will of God if anybody involved in any way with the murder of Tim Bradbury was close enough to anyone else to actually tell them anything. The room where Faith Keller was leading him was small and crowded and chaotic. Papers were lined up in stacks on the desk and spilled out of the overstuffed metal files. Faith cleared a stack of papers off a chair and pushed it toward Gregor.
“You sit in that and I’ll sit on the desk.” I know it looks like a terrible mess, but it really isn’t too bad. You can always find what you need if you need it. And it’s all pro forma anyway.”
“Why pro forma?”
Faith Keller smiled wanly. “Because Magda Hale doesn’t hire on credentials, or records, or training. She hires the instructors after seeing them instruct a class. She either likes what they do or she doesn’t. She hires the rest of us on sight. When I came in to interview, she said I was wearing a lovely dress. And then I had the job.”
“You were Stella Mortimer’s assistant but Magda Hale hired you?”
“Oh, I talked to Stella first. I was only sent to Magda to be cleared. It was obvious what she wanted, nonetheless. When Traci Cardinale was first hired, she couldn’t even type.”
“When Stella Mortimer was first hired, could she direct videotapes?”
Faith Keller shrugged. “I think so. She used to make documentaries, you know, out in California. She was a student at the University of California film school in Los Angeles when she was younger. And she worked in New York for a while.”
“Do you know what she was doing in New Haven?”
“Oh, she was from around here, Mr. Demarkian,” Faith Keller said. “That’s the usual reason people move here from places like L.A. or New York. And you mustn’t think it happened the day before yesterday, either. Stella Mortimer had been with Fountain of Youth for fifteen years.”
Magda Hale had said something about this. Gregor thought she might even have said something about it to Tony Bandero on the afternoon that Stella died. “Did Stella Mortimer and Magda Hale know each other before Stella came to work at Fountain of Youth?” he asked.
“You’d have to ask Magda Hale, I’m sure,” Faith Keller said. “But if you want my impression, I’d have to say no. Oh, they might have met informally
before Magda offered Stella the job or Stella asked for it, however that worked, but they were always saying how they had known each other for twenty years. That doesn’t sound like they knew each other before, does it?”
“No,” Gregor said, “it doesn’t.”
Faith Keller rearranged the broad lace collar on her gray-and-white flower-patterned dress. “It’s funny the way you’re asking all these questions now,” she said, “because they’re just the kind of thing Stella was talking about ever since Tim died. Personal questions, I mean, about how we none of us knew much about each other even when we’d been working side by side for years. It was disturbing, in a way. I do value my privacy. In my position, I am forced to.”
“What’s your position?” Gregor asked.
Up until then, Faith Keller had come across as a fluffy, wispy, ethereal woman, the sort who goes into retirement to tend flowers and take up theosophy. Now the look in her eyes sharpened into acid. Gregor thought she was going to tell him to mind his own business.
“My friend and I have been together for the past twenty-two years,” she said tartly. “My friend is not a man.”
“Ah,” Gregor said. “You know, I don’t think most people are as conventional on that subject as they used to be.”
“Some are and some aren’t. My daughter is twenty-six, and she’s extremely conventional on that subject. I have a very nice job here, Mr. Demarkian. I work with very nice people. With Stella gone, I’m going to be moved in here to deal with the records. That will be nice, too. I’d like everything to stay nice.”
“And Stella Mortimer didn’t know—well, how would you like me to put it?”
Faith Keller looked amused. “You can come right out and call me a dyke if you want to, Mr. Demarkian. I don’t know any more about the etiquette of these things than you do. But no. Stella didn’t know. I didn’t tell her.”
“Did she ask?”
“As a matter of fact, she didn’t. I thought she was going to, with all the talk about how we had to connect better with each other and what a terrible thing it was that Tim had died without us knowing anything about him. But Tim seemed to be the only one she was really interested in. Stella even had his personnel file on her desk for a few days. Not that there was anything in it. We only keep personal files to stay in compliance with federal and state employee law. Social security numbers. Yearly medical checkup if relevant to the job. With Tim it would have been relevant, because he gave weight training and that’s strenuous work. Anyway, some companies dredge up extraordinary details on their employees, but Magda and Simon don’t bother. If they like your performance, they think that’s enough.”
Gregor didn’t think this was a bad way to operate. It was the way most of the small businesses on Cavanaugh Street back home operated. “You said Stella had Tim’s file on her desk for a few days,” he asked, “does that mean she didn’t have it on the day she died?”
“Oh, no. She didn’t have it then. I brought it down here myself about a week ago. Like I said. There isn’t really much of anything in it.”
“Can I see it?”
“Of course.” Faith Keller got down off the desk and went to the file cabinet. She went through the second file drawer from the top until she found what she was looking for. She handed the file over to Gregor. It wasn’t much of a file. It couldn’t have had more than three or four pieces of paper in it. Gregor took it out of Faith Keller’s hand and opened it up on his lap.
Workmen’s compensation insurance registration. Social security number. Federal and state income tax withholding information. Salary schedule. Weight trainers, Gregor learned, did not make much more than minimum wage. He pushed past all the official information and went for the piece of paper at the bottom, the official Fountain of Youth employment application. There wasn’t much on that, either. Name, address, phone number. Known medical conditions. Known physical disabilities. Next of kin.
“This really isn’t very much,” Gregor said.
“I warned you. Stella was interested in it anyway. Because of the next-of-kin business.”
Gregor looked down at the next-of-kin business: “Next of kin: Alissa Bradbury. Address: 47 Stephenson Road, Derby, Connecticut. Phone number: (203) 297-7162.”
“It looks fairly straightforward to me,” he said.
“Oh, it was,” Faith said. “But Tim used to tell everybody that his parents had moved out of the area. Stella was quite upset when she found an address in Derby in the file. She thought she’d forgotten to change it, you see, when his parents had retired to Florida or wherever, and now we wouldn’t be able to notify them that he was dead. She even tried calling the phone number to see if they had one of those this-number-has-been-changed-to tapes running on it.”
“I take it you thought there was a different explanation,” Gregor said.
Faith Keller nodded. “Oh, yes. I don’t know what you know about this area, but Stephenson Road—”
“I’ve been to Stephenson Road,” Gregor said quickly.
“Well, then. You see what I mean. I think Tim just lied, Mr. Demarkian. I think he told the truth on the application because he thought he had to, but when he was talking to other people he just lied. Not out of malice. Out of embarrassment. Stephenson Road is an embarrassing place to be from.”
“I can see it would be.”
“Stella couldn’t see it. She was all worked up about it. I told her to go talk to Magda about it, but she said she’d tried and she just couldn’t get Magda interested. If I know Stella, she probably went about it backward—indirectly, you know, so that Magda had no idea what she was worried about or how worried she really was. Stella could get like that.”
There was a red cardboard pencil holder on the desk near the tallest stack of papers. Gregor got a Bic medium point out of it and picked up a piece of blank notepaper from the floor. Then he wrote down all of the information on Alissa Bradbury and stuck the piece of paper in his wallet.
“What about Stella Mortimer’s personnel file?” he asked. “Can I see that?”
Faith Keller took back the file on Tim Bradbury and shoved it into the second drawer from the top of the cabinet without paying attention to just where she was putting it. If this was the way she handled files when she went to work in the records room, Fountain of Youth was going to be in even more of a paper mess than it was already. Faith opened the third drawer from the top of the cabinet, rummaged through it, and came up with another file. This one was thicker than Tim Bradbury’s, but not by much.
“Here you go,” she said.
Gregor opened the file. Workmen’s compensation insurance registration. Social security number. Federal and state income tax withholding information. Salary schedule. Health insurance information for Fountain of Youth corporate plan. Gregor turned to the employment application. It was so old, the paper was brittle and yellowing. The only interesting thing on it was the fact that the next-of-kin information had been left blank. Even fifteen years ago, when Stella Mortimer had only just heard of Fountain of Youth, she had been an isolated woman.
Gregor handed the file back. “I think I understand what Miss Mortimer was so upset about. You people really don’t seem to have any contact with each other.”
“Some of us like it that way.”
There was a time when Gregor had thought he might like it that way. He had changed his mind. It was a crazy way to live.
“That’s all I’m going to need this for,” he told Faith Keller. “Do you mind if I use the phone?”
“Why should I mind? I’m not paying for it.”
Right, Gregor thought. He picked up the receiver of the instrument she pushed across the desk to him, and called Philip Brye.
2
THE NEIGHBORHOOD SURROUNDING THE New Haven morgue and the New Haven medical examiner’s office was much more threatening in the dark than it had been in the daylight—so much more threatening, Connie Hazelwood tried to talk Gregor out of going there and taking her with him. It was only six thirty-
two, but it might as well have been midnight. The streets were no longer deserted and the double- and triple-decker houses no longer looked respectable. In Gregor’s younger days, people who were breaking the law used to try to stay out of the way of the police. Now there were prostitutes working not fifteen feet from a building patrolmen went in and out of all night, and junkies shooting up on porches just across the street from the place where their bodies would eventually end up. Maybe the junkies were all smoking these days. Gregor hadn’t kept up with the fashions in street drugs. Except for a few self-appointed holy knights of the drug war, Gregor didn’t know a cop of any variety, federal, state, or local, who wanted to have anything to do with drugs. Drugs were a black hole that ate time and energy. It was depressing as hell to be confronted daily with the job of protecting the lives of people who were determined to end up dead. Gregor told Connie Hazelwood to go cruise a safer neighborhood for an hour and got out onto the curb. Right here, right next to the morgue building itself, the sidewalk was empty. On the other side of the street, very young girls in very short skirts and very high heels were parading back and forth, trying to keep warm. All of them were under eighteen, and all of them had their hair dyed one shade or another of violently yellow blond.
Gregor went into the relative warmth of the morgue foyer, gave his name to the guard at the desk, and let himself be checked out and buzzed through. This time, though, when he got back to the clerk’s desk, Philip Brye was ready and waiting for him. The clerk was a short, roundish young woman with dark hair and plump hands. She wrote his name in her book and otherwise ignored him. Philip Brye was holding two gigantic Danish pastries. He handed the cheese one over to Gregor.
“It is cheese, isn’t it?” he asked. “You can have the strawberry one if you want instead.”
Gregor couldn’t imagine eating a strawberry Danish. He took the cheese one and began to follow Philip Brye back to his office.
