32

Roz, cowed by my vengeful mood, decided that research at the Liberty might be more fun. I can’t say I was sorry to see her go. I needed to concentrate.

First, I attempted and finally produced a brief and cheerful postcard to Paolina, informing her that the bird, cat, Gloria, and myself were all well and looking forward to her return. I walked four blocks to stick it in a mailbox. Just to use up nervous energy, I told myself. Not to look for an armed man wearing an unseasonably hot windbreaker. Not to listen for the sound of a distant motorbike.

As soon as I got back to the house, I had another thought about Andrew Manley and phoned the AMA. I got a recorded message with a classical music background for my trouble. Honestly, when the American Medical Association can’t afford full-time secretarial help, you’ve got a crisis on your hands.

What kind of crisis? What did I have? What did I know? I twisted a strand of hair around my index finger and yanked till it hurt.

It was after 3 P.M. I tried to recall when I’d last eaten. What. Some folks wouldn’t call peanut butter on a stale bagel breakfast, but when that’s all the stuff in the fridge that isn’t sprouting mold, it’s breakfast.

I rummaged till I found an apple in the fruit bin, cut off the bruised hunk. Lunch. Yum.

I sat at my desk, fidgeting till I got comfy.

It looked like extortion; it smelled like extortion. Someone—besides Roz—coveted a considerable chunk of Garnet Cameron’s wealth. Now a lot of people on planet Earth want money, so that didn’t narrow the field much, but in this case it would have to be someone who knew something that would make Garnet fork over wads of cash. He or she couldn’t march up to Garnet and demand the dough for reasons unknown.

I’ll make Tessa tell me how to find Manley. I gritted my teeth while I punched phone buttons. Mrs. Cameron was unavailable.

Manley and Tessa burn the extortion note. No sale. Next step: Kidnap Marissa.

I finished the apple, returned to the kitchen to seek other edibles. A package of cellophane-wrapped bread sticks was stuck at the back of the silverware drawer. I dunked them in peanut butter. One cracked, one held.

Maybe the beautiful and argumentative Marissa was behind it all, I thought. Maybe she’d signed a prenuptial agreement she now regretted. She’d know to a penny how much cash Garnet had raised for the election. Maybe she was desperate to leave him, but felt some of his wealth should accompany her …

Wouldn’t she need an accomplice? The digitized voice had sounded deep—definitely male—but couldn’t gadgetry account for the bass notes?

Why hadn’t I heard from Gloria?

I tugged at my hair and chewed stale bread. I was forgetting Thea. Thea was at the heart of everything, at the heart of the maze.

And who was Thea?

Her mother’s perfect daughter? A hellion bent on seducing every male at Avon Hill? Manley’s young woman of piercing intellect and prodigal prose? A suicide? A homicide? A victim, yes. A victimizer as well?

I unlocked my desk, removed the manuscript copy from the self-addressed envelope. Genuine? Fake? Old? New? I flipped through it, read:

perhaps a word shall fall

and then another

(silent as heat strangling

a cry

dark as a panther

whispering lullabies

to jungled dreams)

It seemed to me most likely that the extortionist would be a figure from the past, someone who knew that Thea Janis hadn’t died at the hands of Albert Albion.

Woodrow MacAvoy?

I considered Al-Al’s simple words: The five-oh starfish said Thea belongs in the sea. I pondered three scenarios.

One: Woodrow MacAvoy coaching Albert Ellis Albion to commit murder. I discarded it. Unlikely in the extreme.

Two: Woodrow MacAvoy, finding Thea’s body—dead of a drug overdose, possibly with slit wrists—suborned by the Camerons into forcing a murderer to knife the already dead girl, dump her remains in the ocean. Why? So her death wouldn’t be labeled “suicide”? Because some insurance policy might be invalidated by suicide? So she could be buried in holy ground?

Number Three: With no body on hand and no likelihood of ever finding Thea, Woodrow MacAvoy, given complete control of the Cameron case, convinces Albert Ellis Albion to confess to another murder. Why? So someone wouldn’t have to wait the required seven years for her death to become official?

But there was a body in Thea’s grave …

If MacAvoy had gone out on a limb for the Camerons, had they sawed it off? Or were his angry accusations a front? Had the Camerons made it worth his while to cooperate? If so, why the crummy cottage?

With the giant-sized TV.

MacAvoy had laid down two twenties in the bar. Forty bucks might represent a sizable chunk of his monthly pension.

Dammit. I felt tugged in all directions. I had to get back to MacAvoy, find out what the five-oh starfish had really said to Albert Albion, why, and when. I needed to dig up enough dirt on MacAvoy to get him to talk to me. I needed to locate Drew Manley, to find sister Beryl. I wanted to know if Heather Foley’s body had ever been found. I had the feeling that pieces of the puzzle were slipping through my fingers, plunging into my dream abyss.

My sleeping hours had been erratic of late, not to mention my meal intake. I rested my head on the blotter, just for an instant, because my hair seemed so inexplicably heavy.

The phone jangled. I opened my eyes into darkness. The street lamp down the block glowed yellow.

“Señorita, por favor, sin nombres.”

I’d heard the voice before. Once. Deep, drop-dead sexy, from far, far away. This time it sounded as if Carlos Roldan Gonzales, Paolina’s biological father, were in the next room.

“Hello,” I managed.

“It is a good trick you play with Señor Miami, but muy peligroso.”

“I needed to know—”

“Now you know.”

“Señor—”

“Adios, señonta.”

The line clicked. Paolina’s father was alive. Alive where? Alive how? Alive for how long?

I stared at my watch, flicked on the desk lamp. It couldn’t be, but it was past ten o’clock. I’d slept a full night’s worth.

The phone rang underneath my hand, startling me. Maybe I’d get to hear the voice again. I inhaled, sucked in a good deep breath. I don’t know why, but certain voices affect me in ways I can never understand.

“Miss Carlyle.” It was certainly not Carlos Roldan Gonzales. “This is Drew Manley.”

All the questions I had to throw at him, and he hardly gave me a chance.

“Listen, carefully,” he said. “I’ve found her.” His voice wavered, but a touch of the playful puppy quality was back.

“Where are you?” I asked quickly.

“The summer house. Marblehead. Can you come, please?”

“Why? Why not go to Dover, tell Tessa. If you’ve found Thea Janis, alive, they’ll kill the fatted calf, the whole bit.”

“It—the situation—is not uncomplicated.”

“Call the police.”

“Please, Miss Carlyle. Help us.”

“Help me. Where is Beryl Cameron?”

“We’ll discuss that when you get here. Please come.”

“Thea’s really there?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve lied to me before.”

“I’ve lied,” he said. “I’ve been misled.”

“Are you lying now?”

“No. I need you. Thea needs you.”

It’s easy to dissemble on the telephone.

He gave directions so clearly he must have read them off a printed card.

“There’s a shack, a small shed, on the beach. Let’s meet there,” he said.

“Why? Why not the big house?”

“No key,” he said easily. “Please hurry.”

“A public place,” I said. “A doughnut shop—”

He’d hung up. I was talking to myself.

“Roz,” I shouted up the stairs.

Nothing. Ten’s too early for her to come home. She’d still be at the Liberty, if she hadn’t already picked up a mate for the night.

I should have waited for morning. I considered writing down everything I knew about the case, locking my scribbled thoughts away as a life insurance policy. They do that on TV. I knew so many oddly assorted farts; I’d guessed at so many others. For all I understood, I might as well write my journal on toilet paper, flush it.

Before I left the house I loaded the S&W 40, checked the safety and the extra magazine, stuck them in a paper bag along with my waist clip. I wasn’t planning to sit on hard metal all the way out to Marblehead.

At the last minute I grabbed the phone and dialed Gloria.

“ITOA,” she answered. “Where are you, and where can I take you?”

“It’s me,” I said, because she can identify any voice she’s heard before. “Who runs cabs in Marblehead?”

“North shore, north shore. Outfit called Clancy’s. There’s no Clancy to speak of.”

“Can you give me the garage address, call and tell them I might want to borrow a cab for a couple hours?”

“I know a few drivers there. Maybe I could work something out.”

‘I’ll pay double rates.”

“Don’t tell ’em that; it’ll just make ’em think you’re planning to bust up their cab.”

“Fix it for me, Gloria.”

“Consider it done.”

“Nothing on Marissa Cameron?”

“Not yet. Lots of cabbies at Logan. You take care now.”

Take care. I glanced at my desktop, grabbed Paolina’s postcard, rubbed it against my cheek, and stuck it in my pocket. A talisman, a warning.

If I get hurt, who’ll care for Paolina?

The sky was hazy, the air still. I started the engine.

Off to Marblehead, where remnants of cotton and linen clothing had been discovered twenty-four years ago.