The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

  “What a good idea,” I replied. “I’ll remember that.” But I was thinking about Brewster’s experience with diabetes. From Tony I’d learned the three fundamentals of criminal investigation: motive, means, and opportunity. As I’d told Piotrowski, Thibault Brewster was a nasty man. And I’d known he was a nasty man with a major motive: Edith’s fortune. Now I was learning he was a nasty man with the means: a probable knowledge of insulin and its administration. Now—what about opportunity? I wanted to talk this new possibility over with Piotrowski; I’d call him in the morning.

  It wasn’t far from the restaurant to Whitlow Street, but I decided to walk my dinner companion home. Will was from a drinking generation, and didn’t appear more than slightly muddled by all the booze. I am from a more Puritanical generation—at least when it comes to alcohol—and couldn’t quite believe someone who’d consumed that much of it was capable of putting one foot in front of the other for a space of five or six blocks without the help of a designated walker.

  We paused at the bottom of the restaurant’s steps; Field Street was fairly well lit, but, after the brightness of the restaurant, the evening shadows seemed dense. With my first breath of the scented June air, Edith’s assessment hit me: A huge untapped reservoir of passion. Jeez! The woman didn’t know what she was talking about. I had a good life. A great job. A wonderful daughter. I was fine. And what business was it of Edith Hart’s, anyhow? No wonder the good doctor’s outspokenness had so often gotten her in trouble.

  Will broke into my musings as we turned off Field and onto Whitlow Street. “You did get a copy of my letter to President Mitchell, Karen? About naming the center?”

  “Yes, Will, I did. But I haven’t talked to him about it yet. So many other issues have come up.” Just in time I recalled Avery’s injunction to keep silent about the impending lawsuit. “But I do think it’s a good idea—the Northbury/Hart Research Center. Edith deserves to be remembered for her generosity, and besides—Northbury/Hart—it’s got a wonderful ring to it. You can count on my support.” And, in the end, I wouldn’t have been surprised if soliciting my support for the new name hadn’t been the primary purpose of our dinner.

  At the gate to the Whitlow house I remembered something my companion had mentioned earlier. “Will, what’s the ‘long story’ you were going to tell me about Helen Whitlow and Gerry Novak?”

  His hand on the half-opened gate, Will turned back to me. “I forgot about that, didn’t I? Well, come in and let Helen tell you herself.”

  I was astonished. “Oh, I couldn’t—it’s so late. And, besides, she’s not expecting me. I—”

  He took my arm. “She’ll be up, believe me. Helen never sleeps. It’ll do her good to see someone besides Gerry.”

  “Besides Gerry—?”

  We passed Will’s maroon Lincoln in the circular driveway, then climbed the stairs to the ornate, peeling double doors. Will fumbled with a key. “Helen,” he called when he’d gotten the door open. “Helen, you’ve got company.” We were standing in a wide central hall with a curved staircase heading up into the darkness.

  “I don’t want company.” The quavering voice floated down from the top of the stairs. “Tell the young woman to go home.”

  “Karen’s not going home, Helen, so you’d better come down. If you don’t, I’m going to bring her upstairs.” Will was grinning, as if this were not an unfamiliar exchange. He lowered his voice as he turned to address me. “She’s been watching us from the upper hall window. She’s got a chair there. When the weather’s too cold or wet to garden, she spends hours reading and looking out the window.”

  “Willis, I feel very uncomfortable about barging in on Miss Whitlow like this. Don’t make her come down if she doesn’t want to.” And, really, weren’t we bullying this poor old woman?

  “Pshaw.” I’d never actually heard anyone say that before. “She’s better off not giving in to her notions. She’ll be down in a minute; just you wait. And she’ll be happy to visit. In her own style, that is. Why don’t you sit in here,” he motioned to a parlor reminiscent of Meadowbrook’s, but smaller and far less well cared-for. Horsehair tufted from one corner of a green velvet love seat, and tattered rose-colored wallpaper gave a Gothic ambiance to the high-ceilinged room. Cat hair covered everything. “I’ll just go get us a nightcap.”

  “Willis, I don’t want—”

  But he was gone. After three or four minutes of restless waiting on the hard settee, I rose and roamed the room. A fluffy gray cat strolled in from the hallway and wound itself around my ankles. It was followed by a yellow tabby, who shot me a contemptuous glance, then proceeded to sharpen his claws on the fraying love seat. As I shooed him away, a dusty photo album on a side table caught my eye. I took it back to the settee and opened the embossed front cover. The sepia photographs commenced with a formal wedding portrait in which a tall, thin man and a tiny, pudgy woman dressed in fin-de-siècle serge and flounces stared somberly at the camera. A number of years later, to judge by the dress styles, an infant made her appearance, then grew to pony-riding size, dressed for Easter services, went away to college in a flapper-style suit, rode out the Depression in a small dark coupe, donned short patriotic skirts during World War II, then, sometime in the fifties, vanished abruptly as the gallery of pictures ended with an empty rectangle where the last photo in the album had been ripped from its black adhesive corners.

  “I’ve seen you before.” The voice from the doorway was creaky, as if with disuse. “You walk by here. You look at my flowers.”

  The heavy album cover slammed shut as I started at the unexpected words. A tiny, white-haired woman walked toward me, followed by Will with a tray of delicate, stemmed glasses and a bottle of sherry. The woman wore decrepit rolled-up jeans and a boy’s plaid flannel shirt. Her face was the face of the photographs, only freeze-dried.

  “Yes, I do,” I replied. “Is that all right?” My sense of trespass was becoming irrationally strong.

  “Will says you want to know about Gerry. If I tell you, will you go away?”

  “I’ll go away now, if that’s what you want—”

  But she had perched on a crewel-worked ottoman and begun talking. And, then, I didn’t think she would ever shut up.

  An hour later, in response to my casual question about how she was acquainted with Gerry Novak, I knew enough about Helen Whitlow to write her biography when I’d finished Serena Northbury’s. Will had sat patiently through a tale he must have heard a hundred times before, and I wondered again about his relationship with these two passionate women.

  Helen had met Edith at Smith College in the late twenties, and then had spent a few heady years living with her in Greenwich Village. While Edith studied medicine, Helen pursued a career in dress design, specializing in scaled-down fashions for the newly impoverished rich. With her mother’s death, she had come back to Enfield to care for her ailing father. Years later, when Helen was in her early forties, she’d fallen in love with a handsome, brooding, immigrant handyman named Karl Novak. Edith had strongly disapproved of this unsuitable liaison. Her interference resulted in Karl’s removal to Meadowbrook and his hasty marriage to the daughter of Meadowbrook’s resident farm manager. Almost immediately, Gerry had been born. Helen’s revenge against Edith for breaking up the romance of her life had been to win the affections of Karl’s son away from her. Edith, it seemed, during the few weeks in each year she was in residence at Meadowbrook, had taken a great liking to the winsome child.

  “She may have had Karl and his son there at Meadowbrook, but I had Karl’s heart. He never said so, but I knew it. And, then, when Karl went away and didn’t come back …”

  Korea, Will mouthed at me.

  “… I won Gerry’s heart. I saw to it he learned all about Edith and her conniving ways. Gerry learned to hate her and to love his Auntie Helen. And to this day he takes care of me like a son, does my shopping, takes out my garbage, helps me with the flowers. Does anything I ask him to do. Gerry’s a good boy, and he loves
me more than anyone,” the old woman concluded triumphantly, in her rusty voice. I glanced back at Will: This woman is sane? Will shrugged.

  My mind was racing. Wasn’t this long-inculcated hatred another nail in Gerry Novak’s coffin? If Gerry had murdered Edith, he’d certainly had a wealth of powerful motives—a half-million-dollar inheritance, a belief that Edith was his mother and that she had abandoned him at birth, possibly the stolen Northbury manuscript—and, now, a lifelong hatred of his benefactor.

  Helen’s creaky voice broke into my thoughts. “Will, bring me that picture,” she commanded, pointing to a black-and-white snapshot in a silver frame sitting alone on the mantel. Posed with a curly-haired child in a cowboy suit, a younger Helen beamed at the camera. “You see that outfit? I bought it for him, the suit, the guns, the boots, the spurs, everything. He loved it; he’d get on that old pony of Edith’s and ride and ride.” The light in her expression dimmed. “I never forgave Edith, though. I thought she was my friend. But she stole the love of my life—”

  “She stole him?”

  But Helen Whitlow’s face had taken on a sour, uncommunicative expression. The story was told; this book was closed.

  I left the Whitlow house sometime after eleven, befuddled by aged sherry, exhausted by aged passions. As I traversed the lawn with its variegated flower beds, the scent of roses hung thick in the air. A huge untapped reservoir … Damn that woman, anyhow!

  Twenty

  “Karen,” Jill said as soon as I picked up the phone, “it’s a girl.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Great.” I paused. “Tell me, Jill: Am I supposed to say great? Are you happy about this?”

  “Happy? Karen, I’m thrilled. Oh, I admit I was shattered when I first knew I was pregnant. But then you and I talked—remember? About Amanda? And how you were only nineteen? And I figured if you could do it, I could do it. And then I saw the sonogram.” Her laugh bubbled. “Karen, she’s so beautiful: all gray and fuzzy, with a little round head and a little round tummy. And toes. Karen, she’s already got toes. Her name is Eloise, and—”

  “You saw that on the sonogram? You saw the name Eloise? Where was it written? On her little round forehead?”

  “Don’t be snide, Karen; I’m ecstatic.” And, indeed, she sounded over the top with happiness. “And I’m giving a party. Tonight. To make the announcement. Can you come? Can you bring food?”

  “A party? Jill, are you sure this is how you want to let people know about your pregnancy? There are more discreet ways—”

  “The hell with discretion. I’m a grown-up woman; I’m going to have a baby; I’m perfectly capable of taking care of her. This kid deserves as much of a celebration as any other rug rat. There’s just one thing.…” Her voice abruptly went flat. “Gerry definitely won’t be in the picture. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with this baby.”

  “Jill—”

  “So, I told him I never want to see him again. Ever. He’s not the person I thought he was.” Her tone grew bitter, as if her natural ebullience had snagged against a particularly distasteful fact. “As a matter of fact, he’s a real jerk. I just found out that the whole time I was seeing him, he was balling someone else.”

  Jeez. “Jill, I’m so sorry—”

  “Karen, it’s not your fault that I’m so stupid. But, listen, no one else knows who the baby’s father is. I didn’t even tell my parents. So …” she phrased it casually, but it was a plea, “here’s an occasion for your famous discretion.”

  “Sure. Teeth buttoned. Lips zipped.”

  “Thanks.” Then she was bubbling again. “So, I’m gonna make a huge salad. What can you bring?”

  “How about my infamous Serbian spinach casserole?”

  “Ohhhh. The one that’s made of nothing but butter and cheese? Terrific! The doctor said I can eat as much as I want to.”

  Jill had put out an all-points bulletin about the party, and by eight P.M. that evening her apartment was packed with Enfield faculty and administrators, their families and friends. A mid-June heat wave had sent the already-warm temperature soaring, then a fast moving thunderstorm had swept through, driving partygoers off the wraparound porch and into the close, nonairconditioned quarters of Jill’s three-and-a-half rooms. The doors and windows were thrown wide open, but the air was stifling. The mood was festive, anyhow; a college town is a dull place in the summer, and the impromptu Saturday night party seemed to delight Jill’s friends and colleagues. As I handed out icy bottles of Michelob Lite and Pete’s Wicked Ale from the open refrigerator, my face was cool enough, but a rivulet of sweat trickled down my spine. Between the clamor of voices and the melancholy angst of R.E.M., the decibel level was high, but nowhere near as high as it was about to be.

  “Boys and girls,” Jill called, as she climbed on a kitchen chair she’d dragged to the middle of the living room. “Boys and girls! Gather round please. I have an announcement to make.”

  That was my cue. I positioned myself by the CD player.

  “Jill. Careful!” Big, blond Kenny Halvorsen elbowed his way out of the crowd. “You don’t want to fall, do you?” He grabbed her arm. Smiling at him, Jill steadied herself on his more-than-adequate shoulder. Kenny glanced over at me and shook his head, disapprovingly. I wondered if The Incredible Blue Hulk, neighbor that he was, knew more about what was going on with Jill than his stolid jock persona revealed.

  When the laughing crowd had hushed, Jill looked over at me and commanded: “Hit it, Karen.”

  “Yes, Jill,” I replied, dutifully. I was not thrilled with this scenario, but pressed the button and started the Madonna track of “Papa, Don’t Preach.” From his position at Jill’s side, Kenny Halvorsen scowled. His expression grew grim. Just as I’d thought—he must have suspected all along that Jill was pregnant.

  With her flushed face framed by the wild golden-red hair, Jill was radiant. Her long white sundress was gathered loosely under the bosom; she looked strikingly like a Pre-Raphaelite angel. A gold heart locket on a long, thin chain gleamed against the filmy white fabric of her dress. I’ve seen that locket somewhere, I thought, and not too long ago. Then it struck me: This was Edith’s locket! The gold heart I’d seen in Willis Thorpe’s hand the evening before. But, how on earth did Jill get it? And when?

  “Boys and girls,” Jill proclaimed, “just about midterm, when most of you dear people will be deeply immersed in the manifold pleasures of grading mid-semester exams, I will be approaching the end of a very different kind of term. So—I’m holding this party tonight to announce—ta dah!—the impending arrival of Eloise Karen Greenberg, at Enfield Regional Medical Center, sometime in late October.”

  My gasp of astonishment—that she was giving the kid my name—was drowned in the general uproar. Kenny, with a grave look on his habitually cheerful face, helped Jill down off the chair, and she was immediately lost to sight in a mob of curious well-wishers. While Madonna wailed about havin’ his baby, Sally Chenille stood at the fringe of the crowd, and stared enigmatically in the direction of Jill’s disappearance. Then Sally looked around, spotted me.

  “So, Karen,” she made her way to my side with a hard, unreadable smile, “who’s the lucky man who got to father this brat?”

  “What’s the matter, Sally?” I responded, “you’ve never heard of immaculate conception?”

  I didn’t catch Sally’s reply. The figure suddenly outlined in the doorway behind her distracted me. “Excuse me, Sally,” I said. Surely that couldn’t be …? I brushed past my scowling colleague and made my way through the crowd to the apartment door. Surely it wasn’t …? Surely …? But with the dusk at his back, and the porch light throwing dense shadows on his heavy, sweating face, it surely was. “Hello, Lieutenant,” I said, “I suppose you caught that announcement.”

  “I did,” he replied, mopping at his face with a blue bandanna. “I did, indeed. And it’s particularly—distressing—in light of my—er—errand here this evening.” Wearing khaki shorts and a black Willie Nelson T-shirt, the lie
utenant looked as if he’d been dragged away from a low-key day at home. His arms and legs were brown and solid. His eyes were intent on Jill, laughing now as she reset the Madonna CD.

  I’d called Piotrowski’s office that morning. I’d wanted to tell him about Thibault Brewster’s experience with caring for a diabetic. I’d decided to keep my suspicions about Gerry Novak to myself—at least for the time being. Jill was my friend, and I didn’t want to interfere in her personal life any more than I already had. When the dispatcher said the lieutenant was off duty until Monday, except for emergencies, I’d decided my bit of gossip didn’t fall into that category. I’d left my name and a message that I’d like to talk to the lieutenant at his convenience. When he materialized in the door of Jill’s apartment, I assumed, stupidly, that he’d gotten the message, wanted to talk to me immediately, and had tracked me down. “Lieutenant, you really didn’t have to come all the way out here. I could have told you on the phone.”

  “You could have told me? On the phone?”

  “Yes, it’s just a little piece of information. You probably know about it already, anyhow. But I thought just in case you didn’t—”

  “Doctor,” he grabbed my arm and drew me out onto the porch, “you and me, we gotta talk.”

  “Well, yes, of course. That’s why I called you.”

  “Oh, you called? I guess I didn’t get that message.”

  My fingertips grew cold. “Then why are you here?”

  He ignored my question. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “It’s probably nothing. First I want to know why you’re here.”

  “My business is with Dr. Greenberg, not with you.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Lieutenant, don’t harass Jill tonight. She threw this party to celebrate her pregnancy.”

  “So I heard.” A troubled expression crossed the lieutenant’s face. He leaned back against a pillar and crossed his arms. He looked as if he were there for the duration. “What’s your info?”