CHAPTER 14

The offices of the Evening Crier were not so handsome or so stately as those of the Herald, but they were far more lively. Voices ricocheted along the corridors, bouncing though open doors that smelled of too many frenzied humans working at too frantic a pace. Although Belle could never think under such rattling conditions, she enjoyed her sojourns to her office—if only to watch in wonder as a tide of verbiage and ink flowed down stairwells, up halls, around watercoolers and computer terminals to create a daily newspaper filled with fact and whimsy. Belle was part of the whimsy.

So was Bartholomew Kerr, whose Biz-y Buzz, with its whiff of British elitism, had become the newest staple of Newcastle society. Kerr was so fond of affixing pseudo-royal titles and pet names to those fortunate enough to appear in his columns that a stranger to the city might have imagined that the entire global monarchy had encamped on the Massachusetts shore.

“Naturally, he’s doing everything in his power to connive a means of acquiring those precious photographs,” Kerr was now complaining to Belle, “but I intend to foil those efforts at every turning.” The gossip columnist trained his enormous glasses upward onto Belle’s face as if the lenses were telescopic in intensity. “And that’s all I have to say on a very sordid subject.”

Standing in the Crier’s second-floor corridor, a wide red-and-black linoleum avenue intersected by doors with frosted-glass panels, two elevators, a janitorial supply room, and numerous pendant fluorescent-light fixtures, Belle realized Kerr’s statement was misleading in the extreme. Obviously, he had a good deal more on his mind. And, knowing Bartholomew, he didn’t intend to remain silent for long.

“Simply because the man boasts of a national readership—although of dubious powers of discernment, I might add—doesn’t mean I should acquiesce like some junior scrivener … like some hopeless neophyte …”

Belle hadn’t the slightest idea what had so enraged Bartholomew, but she was enjoying the display. She breathed in the invigorating pressroom scent of waxed linoleum, spilled coffee, and endless reams of inky paper as she listened to Kerr pour forth his disgust. His accent, she decided, must have been created somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic; it wasn’t English; it definitely wasn’t American or Canadian. She wondered if acquiring a new voice and persona could occur mid-flight, like a spy changing clothes and hairstyle in a plane’s rest room.

“… So tawdry, really … attempting to cajole another member of the fourth estate into relinquishing sources and photographic information … Almost demanding the negatives? Well, negatives, my dear girl, is exactly what he received from me, in the form of: ‘No, no, no!’ Now, if he’d requested that I consult with him on the subject … suggested I maintain my own byline … What do you think Annabella?”

“Belle,” she corrected automatically while Bartholomew Kerr just as quickly said, “You know, my dear, it simply makes no sense whatsoever for you to abbreviate your handsome moniker … It makes you sound like someone Ethel Merman would have played—to the hilt, I might add … Belle Starr, the outlaw bandit queen … Besides, Annabella Graham has such a mellifluous—and dare I say germane—association with your craft: ‘Anna-Gram’ is how it would be pronounced in the dear old motherland. Of course, you can appreciate the connection—”

Belle winced. “Please … Bartholomew … I was tortured with that nickname when I was a kid—”

“No matter, then … Tant pis … tant pis … Well, I’m off to do more electronic battle with the odious toad who torments me … I assume his next suggestion is that we meet in some darkened hotel bar to hand off these print negatives—as if exchanging government secrets … I did that once, in Istanbul, you know, but the quarry was the offspring of a prince—and that young gentleman’s bride … Ah, well, giddier times … giddier times …”

Belle had begun to edge her way down the corridor. Bartholomew might be amusing, but she reminded herself that she was on a mission.

“… If I wind up missing like La Nevisson, my dear, tell the constabulary that I’m hors de combat.”

Belle’s ears pricked up. “What’s this about Jamaica Nevisson?”

Bartholomew smiled with the smugness of a man who knows himself superior to all mortals around him. “That’s precisely what you and I have been discussing … This perfectly wretched reporter from The Globe who’s been telephoning and e-mailing me unmercifully, harassing me at all hours simply to obtain photographs of our vanished actress—a series I shot at the Patriot Yacht Club dinner dance … the last known likenesses of her, as it turns out. There are also several of you, Belle, in the not-too-distant background … I must say, you and your swain looked simply splendid that evening—”

“Is this the same man who snapped those bizarre pictures of Jamaica on Catalina Island?”

“I wouldn’t have the foggiest, my dear.”

But Belle recognized the falsity of this statement. Kerr knew very well who the man was. What she didn’t understand was why the columnist would lie.

“Flack is simply another sordid huckster, Annabella … a benighted devil attracted to tragedy … the desire of the moth for the flame—”

“‘The desire of the moth for the star,’” Belle murmured unintentionally while Kerr pivoted his oversized spectacles in her direction. “It’s a line from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley,” she added. “The conclusion is: ‘The devotion to something afar / From the field of our sorrow.’” Belle’s bright eyes flashed with a sudden revelation. “What did you say this man’s name was again, Bartholomew?”

“Who? Reggie Flack?”

“Flack … yes, that’s it …” Her brain raced through a myriad of possible connections to the name or word. Then she remembered the mysterious crossword puzzle she’d received on Wednesday. The word FLACK was one of the answers; the clue had been Antiaircraft fire, var. She remembered it because the constructor could have used another definition—and omitted the ubiquitous var. Flack was the colloquial term for a press agent.

“I see you’re noodling over serious thoughts, Belle—” Kerr began in a prodding tone, but she cut him off.

“And this Reggie Flack wants the photos you shot at the Yacht Club?”

“Dear me! Have I been talking solely to these dreary walls?”

“Why does he want them?” Belle demanded. “What’s in the pictures?”

Kerr’s answer was a flippant: “You, for one thing.”

But Belle ignored the remark. “What does Flack intend to do with photographs of a social gathering in Newcastle?”

“I imagine the man is obsessed with La Nevisson. Whatever else could it be, my dear? Assuming you are not his obsession …”

“His name appeared—” Belle stopped herself—although not in time. Kerr’s sharp ears never missed a single innuendo or inadvertently dropped secret.

“Yes?” he said.

Belle considered her options. She could either confide in Bartholomew or lie; if there were less extreme choices, they wouldn’t have entered her decisive mind. Belle’s thoughts flew forward, gauging possible outcomes. If she maintained secrecy, discovering new information on Flack would be extraordinarily difficult. But, if she confessed all to Bartholomew, what would be the result? On a sudden whim, she decided to share her suspicions about Jamaica’s and Genie’s disappearance.

“I received a peculiar crossword puzzle on Wednesday,” she said. “The word FLACK was in it … So was JAMAICA … and GENIE … and ORION. There were also numerous nautical themes. And, quotations from Much Ado About Nothing—a play Jamaica did in Boston. Very well, too.”

“Oh, my dear,” was all Bartholomew could think to say.

“Rosco felt it was the work of a sick prankster, and I was inclined to agree—until today. Today I received a second cryptic. Not only does the nautical theme continue, but the Shakespeare quotes do as well … Now, I seem to recall that this Globe photographer liked to reference the Bard.”

“Oh, my dear!” Kerr repeated in a burbling gush. “I believe you’re quite right … This is all terribly exciting. What do you—”

But Belle’s brain had spun forward. “I intend to publish this newest crossword, Bartholomew,” she said, “in hopes of flushing the constructor out into the open—sending a message that his voice has been heard … But now I’m wondering if you could do me an enormous favor.”

“Oh, yes!” Kerr’s thick lenses glinted.

“Could you report this conversation? … Drop it into your Biz-y Buzz column as if it were a piece of Newcastle gossip.”

The black-rimmed glasses bounced up and down. “I can picture the lead,” he nearly sang. “And maybe a pull quote—to catch the readers’ attention … Of course I can, my dear! Bartholomew Kerr to the rescue. But …” The glasses drooped; the head sagged.

“But?” Belle asked.

“But the earliest I can get it printed is tomorrow’s edition. This afternoon’s is already trundling its way to the news vendors.”

“Friday is fine, Bartholomew.” Belle beamed down at the tiny man. “And let me know, won’t you, what other information you hear from Reggie Flack?”

“The very moment, Belle. The very instant … Reggie has met his match.”

The woman’s hand shook as she punched in the telephone number. Semidarkness obscured her features and the room around her. All that was visible was the outline of an unmade bed, a low chest of drawers, and a lamp with a dented shade. The lamp had not been lit.

A seemingly interminable amount of time passed before the call was answered, and another several silent seconds elapsed before the woman decided to proceed.

“Is it all right to talk?” she asked. Her voice was low, a monotone created by purposely compressing the larynx. The accent was equally difficult to ascertain; there was an undertone of a Tennessee drawl overlaid with the crisply bitten consonants of Maine.

The male speaker at the other end produced a disturbed, nervous laugh. “Hey! How are ya?” Then the register dropped to a whisper, and the collegial tone became bitten and hard. “You’re not supposed to call me here … It could be traced in a second. That was the deal—”

“That was the deal.” Her voice caught with a sound like unexpressed tears. “But what am I supposed to do? You left me high and dry here—”

“Look,”—the voice was barely audible—“I don’t know who’s nearby … I can’t talk.”

“Then find a time when we can—”

“That’s impossible! You know the rules. No contact until this is over.”

“They found the dinghy.”

“They were supposed to find it, remember?”

In the small bedroom, the woman’s free hand clenched spasmodically against her thigh. She started to speak, but only produced a strangled groan that finally gave way to a gasp of desperation. “Something’s gone wrong,” she said in an accent clearly approaching her own. “Hasn’t it?”

“I can’t tell yet …” Then the man’s voice changed timbre again, becoming loud, robust, and businesslike; he was obviously talking to someone else. “Okay,” he called out. “I’ll be there in a minute … Tell them to hold their horses … Okay … Okay … I get the picture!”

Another moan broke from the woman’s throat; this one was more like a snarl. “I can’t stand this!”

“Well, try!” was the biting response.

“We should have had a contingency plan … I shouldn’t have listened to you!” she spat back.

“Hey, babe, whose idea was this?” was his equally vicious reply.

Her voice descended to a weeping whimper. “I’m going crazy here.”

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“When will you—”

“I don’t know. Don’t call me again. I’ll find a way to contact you … And listen, next time work on your voice—”

“I’m going crazy here,” she sobbed again in response. But he’d hung up before she’d completed the sentence.