The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

  “The Reverend Edmund Pinkworth.”

  “Ah—a founder. Yes. That makes sense, then. I had no idea what the connection was—this bequest from out of the blue. Not that we can’t use the money.…”

  “Enfield College? Having financial problems?” My smile let him know I was joking; the college is noted for the amplitude of its endowment. We turned the corner to the Meadowbrook drive.

  “Well, not so you’d notice; our financial base is quite solid. But every once in a while something comes up.…” His vague tone told me that was as much insider information as I was going to get. Then he exclaimed, “Christ! This is magnificent!” We had just topped the ridge and gotten a glimpse of the house. “Is that Meadowbrook?”

  “Yes.” The woods were in first leaf, now, and daffodils dotted the fiery verdancy of early spring grass. Meadowbrook rode its sea of green and yellow like a stately ship voyaging through time rather than through ocean waves.

  “Very, very nice.” Avery’s assessing gaze as he pulled up under the porte cochere and allowed an attendant to open the car doors impressed me with its air of acquisition. Was it possible Edith had left Meadowbrook itself to Enfield College? True, she had mentioned no living relatives, but that didn’t mean she had none. And why Enfield? She hadn’t showed any particular fondness for the school—or for the Reverend Mr. Pinkworth—in our brief conversations. She’d been much more interested in what I’d told her about Mrs. Northbury’s work—and about women’s writing in general. Walking up the steps to the porch, I sighed. Them that has, gets: business as usual. And college presidents, by job description, were in the business of getting. Avery held the front door open for me, and I gave him a long, appraising look; occasionally my rational mind pierced the erotic cloud, and I realized how very little I really knew about this gorgeous man.

  The Brewsters had preceded us to Meadowbrook, and Thibault met Avery and me at the door. “Avery. Karen.” His expression was guarded. “I wasn’t aware either of you were acquainted with Aunt Edith.” Aunt Edith? Brewster was Edith Hart’s nephew? Well, that would explain the Brewster family presence at the funeral, but, still, it was almost impossible for me to conceive of a family connection between this stiff patrician and the vital woman I had come to know. “How very nice of you to attend the service,” Brewster continued. His words were not a welcome, but a coded interrogation: What the hell are you doing here? Is it possible either of you has your hooks in dear old Aunt Edith’s estate?

  Avery smiled coolly at Brewster. “Hello, Thibault. Sorry for your loss.” If he was just now learning of the family connection, it didn’t show. I emulated his WASP aplomb, nodded, offered soft condolences.

  Brewster introduced us to his wife, who, strained and pale under her hostess demeanor, motioned us toward a table in the dining room. Mrs. Brewster was even thinner than the time I’d seen her in the college coffee shop with Tibby. Was this wan emaciation the newest wrinkle in Fifth Avenue chic? Or did this woman suffer from something more severe than trendiness? Perhaps an eating disorder? I shrugged. The afflictions of the elite were of no concern to me.

  Before Avery and I reached the dining room, Thibault waylaid my companion with a hand on his arm, and I went into the room alone. There I found Tibby, loading a plate with small triangular ham sandwiches, and salmon mousse on wheat bread fingers. “Professor,” he said in cool acknowledgment. He had earned a C-minus in my course, and grades had been mailed yesterday. Had he gotten his yet? One of the first pieces of wisdom I’d been offered at Enfield College was that, in this fortress of intellectual prestige, a C was a “suing grade.” And, indeed, Enfield students were a bright lot; I hadn’t been obliged to give anything lower than a B-minus in my four semesters there. Until now. And that to the son of the Chairman of the Board. This could be a problem.

  Tibby moved away without saying anything more, and I was left alone. The lace-covered table was laid as it had been on my first visit, with a proper English afternoon tea, a ritual Edith seemed to have followed with both elegance and appetite. And why not? Life is difficult, and if small rites smooth the way … I poured myself the clear, flower-scented tea and added a splash of cream. Whose rituals get to be considered valid, I wondered. If you could down a dram of whiskey in remembrance of the dead, why not a cup of tea and a buttered scone? I sliced the scone, slathered it with butter and jam, and raised my thin china cup in silent tribute: This one’s for you, Edith. She was beyond her illness now; she could have anything she wanted—even a scone and strawberry jam. But, then, of course, she was also beyond desire.

  We were a group of almost a dozen when everyone had gathered: the Brewster family trio; Gerry Novak; Willis; Avery; Kendell Brown, a woman in her forties whose multiracial appearance gave her an intriguing ethnic ambiguity; Mary and Hector Menendez, a married couple of the same age as Kendell who had taken over Edith’s inner-city medical practice; and William Margolis, Edith’s attorney—a stocky, graying man in an impeccable blue suit. Piotrowski wasn’t there, but he might as well have been. His big, ghostly bulk hovered beside me, looking everyone over twice, suspecting everyone.

  My eye snagged on Gerry Novak as he carried a plate of cream cakes from the kitchen. Where was Jill? She’d sat with him at the services, but here, at Meadowbrook, Novak was as enigmatically solitary as ever.

  Mrs. Brewster—Joyce, was it?—came up beside me at the tea table in her size three black linen. “Are you finding everything you need?” she murmured, fussing with the placement of the sugar bowl and the creamer. Her hair formed a stiff blond parenthesis for her pale face.

  I nodded, smiled. I know the social rules. Then Joyce Brewster turned from rearranging the table setting and looked directly at me. Something in my vision shifted; the large, dark eyes and hollow cheeks suddenly became symptom rather than style. Was it possible this woman was ill?

  “About Tibby,” she began, earnestly. “I—”

  Kendell Brown, in her floaty green Indian print, appeared beside us. Her unanticipated presence silenced whatever Tibby’s mother had been about to confide. Kendell watched curiously as the dark-clad woman moved abruptly away. Then she turned to me.

  “Did I interrupt something?”

  “I have no idea what that was all about.” Then, perhaps in reaction against an entirely unexpected spurt of sympathy for this elegant matron, I went on to say, “Maybe she was counting the silver teaspoons.” Sometimes I can be really nasty.

  Kendell laughed. “Well, anyhow,” she gestured toward the table, “this is a perfect setup. Just as Edith would have wanted it.”

  “I was thinking that exact thing.”

  “She loved doing this,” Kendell said, with a reminiscent smile. “When I was a kid in the city, she’d have me and my cousins and some others over on a Sunday afternoon, maybe once a month, and she’d put out a spread like this. I remember the first time—my eyes were bugging out of my head. I’d never seen anything like it; East Harlem isn’t given to afternoon tea. But on those Sundays, the sandwiches would be a lot thicker than this, and the cakes a good deal heftier—and there’d always be enough left over to take home.” She shook her head, sadly. “I’ll miss her.”

  “She was a terrific woman.”

  “Woman? Well, yeah. And a lady, too.” She poured tea, stirred sugar into it.

  I cocked my head at Kendell. She understood my look. “Yeah, I know, I know. Lady: a complicated word. But Edith was a complicated person. After my mother died, Edith saw me through a rocky childhood—and made certain I got to college, too. Even though I didn’t really want to go at the time.” She laughed. “I was gonna run to Hollywood, be the first biracial Charlie’s Angel, ya know? But I’m not the only one Edith bullied into higher education. You see Mary over there? And Hector? She put them both through med school. We keep in touch. And there’s others, as well. But, Edith could be pretty high-handed about getting you to do just exactly what she thought was good for you. Like me—she just knew that teaching in an inner-city school was what
I should be doing with my life.” Kendell laughed again. “And she was right—as she usually was. But she could be pretty damn lady-of-the-manor about it. I loved her, but, like I said, at times she was infuriating.” Kendell lifted the cup to her lips. “Here’s to you, Edith Hart,” she said, “a great lady.”

  “To Edith.” I raised my teacup again.

  “Are you one of her hardscrabble kids, too?” Kendell’s question caught me off guard.

  I laughed. “I wish. I could have used a patron, believe me. I only met Edith this spring, but I liked her right away.”

  We were interrupted by a somber announcement from Lawyer Margolis. “Ladies and gentlemen. We are here this afternoon to pay tribute to one of the great ladies of twentieth-century America.”

  Kendell’s eyes met mine, and we both looked down before we disgraced ourselves with giggles. In Kendell’s mouth, lady had been a vivacious tribute; in Margolis’s, the word dripped with pomposity. But what he said next, jolted me into instant sobriety.

  “As each of you has, in one way or another, been mentioned in Dr. Hart’s last will and testament, I would ask you now to gather in the parlor for the reading of the will.”

  Me? Mentioned in Edith’s will? Couldn’t be. I’d scarcely known the woman. An image of Piotrowski’s guarded expression flashed through my mind. He must have known about this. Flabbergasted, I followed the buzzing crowd into the parlor and chose an inconspicuous seat in a corner. I felt excited. Had Edith left me something for the biography? The Northbury papers, perhaps?

  On the chintz-covered sofa, the Brewsters spaced themselves widely apart, Thibault at one end, Joyce as far at the other end as possible, and son Tibby smack in the middle. Idiotically, I resented the trio’s appropriation of the piece of furniture upon which Edith had reclined the last time I’d seen her. Gerry and Willis sat on the love seat. The Menendez couple and Kendell grouped themselves together on chairs by the French doors. And, at the last minute, Avery slipped into the room and sat by the door. As Margolis began the reading, “‘I, Edith Leonore Hart, being of sound mind…” Thibault Brewster scanned the inhabitants of the room with a sharp, calculating eye.

  Edith had left the following: to Gerald Novak, five hundred thousand dollars and lifelong occupancy of the tenant house (an enigmatic scowl); to Ms. Kendell Brown, five hundred thousand dollars (a shriek of joy); to Dr. Willis Thorpe, her gold filigree locket, the photograph in the red frame, and whatever other memorabilia he wished from among her possessions (a wistful smile, a tear dashed from the eye as Will received the locket, taken from Edith after the ceremony); to Drs. Mary and Hector Menendez, ten million dollars to set up an inner-city medical clinic specializing in family medicine (smiles and a satisfied inclination of the head; they had obviously known of the bequest in advance); to Enfield College, the Meadowbrook house, contents, and grounds and an endowment of ten million dollars, to establish a permanent library and research center to be called the Northbury Center for the Study of American Women Writers. This bequest was offered on the condition that Professor Karen Pelletier be appointed Director of the Northbury Center for as long as she chose to serve. From Avery, a discreet whistling intake of the breath, followed by a gratified nod and a speculative glance in my direction. From me a stunned, frozen silence.

  The lawyer hesitated, then went on: to her sister’s son, Thibault Jameson Brewster, “‘whose expectations have previously been fulfilled in numerous ways,’” the residue of the estate. A choked exclamation from Brewster drew the eyes of everyone in the room, eliciting what seemed to be an involuntary tsk from Avery in his chair by the door: A public expression of anger over a financial disappointment: such ungracious behavior! But something about Thibault Brewster’s expression didn’t precisely strike me as angry. In the brief glimpse I got of Mr. Brewster’s reaction before the patrician mask fell, I thought I discerned something a good deal more like cold, pale shock.

  But I didn’t pay much attention to Thibault Brewster; I was too stupefied by the implications of Edith’s will for me. I was a legatee! Or almost as good as one. So that was what Piotrowski had meant by the number three! Now I had been endowed with a motive for the murder of Edith Hart. A good solid ten-million-dollar motive. Money: the best incentive for homicide, according to Piotrowski. Edith, how could you do this to me?

  Twelve

  Edith’s letter arrived the next morning.

  Dear Karen,

  I have done something impulsive. I do hope you have no objection, but, as I have not been feeling at all well, I wanted it done and over with before anything could interfere. Would you please come see me—very soon. You have brought me a new interest, one about which I feel quite excited. It’s time for restitution, I believe—in any number of ways. Mrs. Northbury’s novel is quite wonderful! I can’t wait for you to read it. That dense, brooding, Victorian storytelling brings back my childhood pleasure in fiction. And you have given me an ancestor of whom I can be proud.

  With gratitude and best wishes, Edith Hart.

  The letter had been sent to my home address, and I sat at the kitchen table and stared at this message from the dead until the quavery handwriting on the thick cream paper began to blur. A tear splattered down before I could grab for a paper napkin, causing a fat gray blotch right over the words come see. A passionate, imperious woman to the end, this Edith Hart. And I had landed smack in the middle of one of her passions.

  Avery had expected me to be thrilled with the terms of Edith’s bequest, but I wasn’t—not by a long shot. Oh, I was happy about the Northbury Center—it’s time there were more serious resources for studying American women writers—but I didn’t want to head it. I was a teacher and a scholar, not an administrator. If a few committee meetings could make me as irritable as, say, Curriculum Revision meetings did, I could just imagine what day-after-day center organizational activities would do to me. Now I understood what Kendell Brown had been telling me about Edith: She was the kind of woman who would do you good—even if it killed you.

  The thought of killing temporarily distracted me from my quandary by reminding me of Piotrowski. I should let him know about this letter.

  “Whew,” the lieutenant whistled through his teeth when I showed it to him. He had responded with almost frightening immediacy, showing up at my house within twenty minutes of my call. And this time he had come by himself. That, I chose to interpret as a good sign. If he seriously suspected I was a killer, he wouldn’t have showed up alone. Would he?

  The clear May sunshine fell at an angle through the kitchen window, illuminating the left side of Piotrowski’s face as he stirred his coffee and pondered the note in front of him. Again, I was reminded that the lieutenant was an interesting-looking man, not classically handsome in the manner of Avery Mitchell, but rugged and big-boned with high, flat Slavic cheekbones, deep-set brown eyes, and beautifully molded lips he was right now chewing in contemplation. His half-lit face and the intensity of his concentration gave him the air of an enigmatic seer, and he contemplated Edith’s last words as if they were runic messages from the dead. If he read any occult meaning in them, however, he wasn’t about to share it with me.

  “May I take this?” he asked, cautiously, motioning toward the letter.

  “Certainly,” I responded, with marked composure. “But I would like it back when you’re done.”

  “Of course.”

  This was an exquisitely polite interaction; the police search of my premises two days earlier shadowed each word. If I didn’t voluntarily give this document to the lieutenant, he could get a warrant, and we both knew it. But I was still furious about having had my privacy invaded.

  As if he could read my mind, Piotrowski spoke. “Doctor, I’m really sorry about the other day. I know it wasn’t nice for you. But, you gotta understand, we had to do it. And it was all for the best—now you’re in the clear.”

  “Does the sergeant think so?” I strove for a complete lack of inflection in my tone. I failed.

  The l
ieutenant’s gesture was complicated: half dismissal, half apology. There was a third half, too, but I couldn’t quite read it.

  “The sergeant was thinking within the framework of information we had received about Dr. Hart’s will,” he replied, stiffly. “We weren’t free at that time to tell you what it was, but I understand now you know. So you can see her point, can’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  When he didn’t get any further response, Piotrowski continued. “We hafta have evidence, Doctor; you know that. Everyone’s in the clear until we’ve got good forensic evidence that’ll hold up in court. There was no sign of a manuscript—or anything of Dr. Hart’s—in your belongings. So you’re clear. Okay? Ya got that?”

  I nodded, reluctantly. I don’t easily give up a grudge. And I suspected Felicity Schultz still had it in for me.

  The lieutenant finished his coffee. Taking Edith’s letter and its envelope by their edges, he inserted them carefully into an evidence bag, which he slipped into the pocket of his Red Sox windbreaker.

  With his hand on the doorknob, Piotrowski stopped. “By the way, Doctor, congratulations on your good fortune. No one deserves it more than you do. I mean that.” Then he gave me one of his infrequent supercharged smiles, squeezed me lightly on the shoulder with a large hand, and was out the door and gone before I had a chance to tell him that his congratulations were misdirected.

  I watched his shiny red jeep pull out of my driveway. This was the kind of inarticulate, musclebound, good-hearted man I’d been brought up to love; why the hell was I wasting my time mooning around over that effete intellectual snob, Avery Mitchell?

  That effete Avery Mitchell sat at the polished conference table in the president’s office with the rest of us intellectual snobs, not quite at the head of the table, but close enough to matter. I sat somewhere toward the foot, next to Shamega and across from Jill. Other committee members completed the group of curriculum reformers. It was our first working meeting, and probably the last full session before school broke up for the summer recess. We were forming subcommittees by specialization, and Jill and I exchanged rueful glances as she rose from her chair and followed half a dozen male colleagues to the Social Sciences corner. Along with Miles Jewell and Ned Hilton from English, Latisha Washington from Black Studies, Joe Gagliardi from Romance Languages, Sally Chenille from Comp Lit, and Shamega, I was a member of the Literature Subcommittee. Our goal was to see if subcommittee members could meet at least once during the summer months to sketch out divisional priorities. Miles sat scowling at his date book as Sally attempted to fit in a two-to-three-hour meeting between book tours, TV interviews, and publicity photo shoots.