CHAPTER

twelve

I congratulated myself: The scrawl on the yellow pad was most likely JFLY, not JULY, and it probably referred to your interview with Garrett Malcolm’s cousin, James Foley. You often took notes in a consonant-only shorthand. JFLY = J. FOLEY.

Teddy, as I listened I realized it wasn’t your questions but your silences that made your technique so devastating, those long, unspooling voids during which the interviewee waited for the next question, waited, but heard nothing, and so rambled on almost in desperation, answering the question he heard in his head as the logical follow-up. You got not only what he deemed important in the subject’s life, but what was vital in his own. You got insight.

Your silences worked their magic in your classes and in your office hours as well. How many times, when you were a professor, did you wait your faithful students out, luring them to volunteer? Remember that girl, Doris, the one who was so eager to get an A? She served as your unpaid teaching assistant; she’d volunteer for anything, even chauffeur you around the city. All you had to do was give her the eye. And wait.

If JFLY was shorthand for James Foley and 2nd BST BD meant you’d slept in the second-best bedroom here in the rental house, the one I’m sleeping in now, then what did HMB stand for? I did a quick tally of interviewees and failed to locate a match. Why had you been thinking about the Foley interview, a background piece we’d considered relatively unimportant? He’d mentioned Brooklyn Pierce; maybe that was the reason for your interest.

I called Pierce’s agent and left a detailed message. I tried to keep my tone mild and unaccusatory, but I’m not sure I succeeded. While waiting for a callback, I paced the living room of the rented house and skimmed every other transcript that so much as mentioned Brooklyn Pierce. I Googled him, viewed his fan Web site, checked Wikipedia and the major magazine sites. Not a single gossip site placed him on the Cape; one swore he was filming in Australia, another put him in an L.A. rehab spa.

How essential was it that I get an interview? His star had flickered since the Justice trilogy, but he was still a player. Even if there was currently more speculation about his bedmates than his upcoming movies, a few revelations from Brooklyn Pierce could mean an additional hundred thousand book sales. Hardly as large as the figures you’d scribbled on the yellow pad. I put my cell on the bedside table. It was three hours earlier in Los Angeles; his agent might return my call.

I tried to sleep, but I kept pondering the identity of the man in the blue van who’d peered in the windows and crushed the neighbor’s crocuses. Inured as I was to ambulances wailing along Storrow Drive, the beep-beep of backing trucks, the shuffle of the elderly man in the overhead apartment, the strange and unexpected noises of the isolated Cape house alarmed me. A low hum issued from the heating system, punctuated by an occasional bang.

I got up and rechecked the doors; front and rear were locked and chained. I shoved the backs of kitchen chairs under the handles for good measure, found my purse where I’d left it on the counter, and scrabbled in its depths for my bastard file.

How you used to laugh about the bastard file; when I first mentioned it, you thought I meant “file” as in manila file folder, or possibly computer file. You never considered a metal file, a tool, till I held it under your nose. Clutching the file, admiring its heft in my hand, I climbed the creaky stairs. The wind whistled through the pines, a droning accompaniment to the faint pounding of waves on the shoreline. The ocean felt like a looming presence even though it was out of sight. I placed the file beside the silent cell phone on the bedside table.

“Bastard” in conjunction with “file” refers to the fineness of the teeth, between middle and second cut. My file is technically a smooth knife-edge file, but the mechanically minded foster father who gave it to me termed it “bastard” as a joke, with the recommendation I use it only on its namesakes, of which he certainly counted as one. I drew the thin blanket close and huddled into a cocoon near the edge of the bed, well within reach of the file so I’d be able to grab it in case of emergency. The sheets felt rough and icy against my skin. Someone must have changed them. There was no smell of you on my pillow, but I was comforted by the thought that you’d slept here. The wind rattled as though it wanted to knock out the window glass and invade the room. Irritated by each ping and bump, I finally set the radio in between stations so the white noise would overwhelm the rest of the water torture.

I must have doubled my Ambien by mistake because I woke late and groggy. Ashamed of my midnight fears in the piercing sun, I removed chains and chair backs and restored the metal file to my purse. Wrapped in my bathrobe, I spread peanut butter on toast, using sparse provisions brought from Boston. I made a grocery list that included coffee and orange juice, then worked through a tricky transition in a section about Garrett’s youth, keeping in mind the positive spin he wanted to place on his childhood.

Today’s interview was scheduled for three o’clock. I tried on my sophisticated Manhattan outfit, but it looked all wrong for the Cape. I sniffed the crotch of my jeans. They were ostensibly clean, but when I put them on, they looked unexpectedly grungy, and my all-purpose V-necks seemed worn and drab. Confronting Garrett Malcolm was challenge enough, but when I thought about the additional possibility of facing a heartthrob like Brooklyn Pierce, my heart quailed.

One of my foster mothers wore so much makeup it looked like she pasted a mask over her real face every morning. She wore what she called “foundation garments” that completely altered her actual shape. Another so-called mom regarded makeup and push-up bras as cheating, not only ungodly but a fraud perpetrated on men by girls who lacked character and natural beauty, which came from deep inside or the grace of God, depending. Any man would recognize and disapprove of such fakery, she maintained. That she was dead wrong about men did not deter her one iota.

I patted faint pink gloss on my lips and considered phoning the Dennis Port Police Department, returning Detective Snow’s call. They must have an online presence, a screen displaying a phone number other than 911. I could call the general number and ask for Detective Snow. But if I used my cell, they’d keep a record of the number. I hated the idea of strangers knowing my cell number.

Damn. My list of necessities cried out for more than coffee and orange juice. Hadn’t Malcolm challenged my professionalism with his query about my age? I felt wounded by the encounter, in need of something akin to battle armor, a mail shirt, a corselet of polished bronze. My chances of finding such a powerful garment prior to our afternoon session seemed remote, but once the thought entered my mind, there was no remedy but a quest.

Detective Snow could wait.