McBain and Boston left Brookline and spent a few hours at their office catching up with other business. Their two longest-outstanding cases were ready to settle. Boston continued her due diligence on the philanthropy scam, while her partner put on a dark-gray suit and paid another visit to Drysdale Securities’ chief investment officer just before lunch.
McBain’s blood was up from the new revelations and suspicions that had emerged at the Bakers’. This, coupled with the actress’s recent confession regarding her intimacy with the Drysdale salesman and his peculiar sexual proclivities, had the investigator torturing the investment executive with double entendres and innuendo regarding bonds, stocks, and exotic instruments throughout the meeting. By the time McBain was through, the CIO didn’t feel much like eating anything but his young salesman’s beating heart ripped fresh from his chest. He grudgingly suggested he would call in the next few days with a settlement offer.
After digesting that appetizer, McBain headed back to Columbus Avenue in the South End for a late large lunch at Charlie’s. He enjoyed a cheeseburger and turkey hash, then strolled across Harriet Tubman Square to Pembroke Street, counting the medieval turrets on each brownstone as he looked for the number. He rang the doorbell three times. After a minute, Dennis Abbott opened the door and welcomed him in.
In that first encounter, McBain dispensed with the pleasant pose of the disinterested friend he had used with Richard Roche. He assessed Dennis Abbott visually, searching his bearing for some sign of evasiveness; some signal that he was involved in what was going on. And he wanted Abbott to be aware of it. As Boston had suggested, it was time to drop the nice-guy persona and start rattling some cages.
Perhaps forewarned by Christina Baker, Abbott seemed not to notice or take offense. He was tall and lean, in good condition for a man of almost seventy years, slightly stooped with the bearing of a man who has not slept well for some time. A full head of unkempt white hair sat atop a pleasant tanned and rugged face, though to McBain’s eye, the crags wore the marks not so much of age but of prolonged sadness or depression. His greeting was polite, but he did not smile, and his handshake lacked enthusiasm.
McBain had the scent of something. Finally there was a trail to follow in this case. Despite what they had told their client, he suspected the affair had some relevance to what they were investigating. Maybe that was wishful thinking on his part after coming up craps for days. More important, Boston felt it too. McBain had been aware of it the moment he had seen her fanged smile at the breakfast table. Whether Abbott was involved in any way was something he wanted to flush out at this meeting.
His host led him down the hallway of the brownstone to the rear of the building. The air in the house was close and stale, untroubled by fresh air from the spring breeze outside. They passed a living room and dining room thick with dust but uncluttered and sparely decorated in New England country themes and natural colors. Some of the furniture was covered with white sheets. As they walked through the kitchen, McBain observed that Dennis Abbott was also a fastidious man who liked to cook, though the stove had not seen much use recently. Unopened boxes and packages with overseas shipping labels were stacked on a long wooden side table and island alongside unstored groceries, but otherwise the kitchen was orderly and clean. The white lace curtains were pulled back, and large windows looked out onto a small yard enclosed by a tall wooden fence that preserved the solitude of the owner.
There, beneath the shade of two large oak trees, they sat in a landscaped garden that was beginning to see the first buds of spring. McBain was reminded of the contrast with the barren garden out back of the Baker house in Brookline. It was quiet in the garden, though they were just a football’s throw away from Columbus Avenue. The chirping of birds in the surrounding trees, climbing ivy vines, and scent of flowers carried them outside of the city.
Dennis Abbott poured two cups of afternoon tea from an English tea set on the cast-iron table between their chairs.
“I trust the timing is OK for you, Mr. Abbott,” McBain said. “I wasn’t able to give you any notice. I hope Ms. Baker filled you in.”
His host showed no sign of nervousness, just weariness.
“It’s not a problem, Mr. McBain. Christina told me you would be stopping by to ask some questions related to Phillip and Sarah. I took the opportunity to make us some tea to help me stay awake. I’m still adjusting to being back in Boston and this time zone, I’m afraid.”
“That’s right. You were somewhere overseas for the better part of a year, I understand. Where was that?”
“Oh, a number of countries,” Abbott replied. “I took a long trip to celebrate retirement. One of those trips-of-a-lifetime one plans for and constantly puts off. Parts of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and finally some countries in Central Asia you probably haven’t heard of.”
McBain had heard. “You mean Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mongol hordes, that sort of thing? Kazakhstan, Lake Baikal, Aral Sea, Tajikistan, around there?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”
“None taken, not everybody gets around. That’s a long time to be away. I’m sure you’re jet-lagged. When did you get back? Six, seven days ago?”
“Seven days,” the older man said.
“I gathered that was the first time you found out that Phillip and Sarah Baker had died.” McBain focused on the eyes to see how Abbott reacted with the sound of each name in that quiet garden. “You live by yourself here? No one contacted you overseas?”
“Yes, I live alone,” he answered. “It was one of my goals to immerse myself in the culture of each place I stayed. I had no need to contact anyone back here. For the first day or so after my return, I just slept. I only found out after I checked my answering service and picked up my mail. There were messages from Christina and many of our friends. I called Christina right away. David told me she had had an accident and was in the hospital. I hope she is recovering well. I can’t wait to see her next week.”
“She’ll be her same old self and back at the bookshop in no time,” McBain said. “She was lucky. The car nearly killed her.”
Abbott shook his head and sipped from his cup.
“I know that street very well. People are always going too fast down that road on their way to Beacon. And the driver didn’t stop? They have no idea who it was?”
“Nope. We’re working with the police on that.”
“The thought of losing Christina would be unimaginable after what happened to her parents.”
“Yes, she is something else,” McBain said. “Everyone I talked to can’t stop going on about her. I’ve been working with her for a few weeks to help sort out some confusion in her parents’ affairs, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
Abbott shifted in his chair and took a sip of tea. “Confusion? I’m not sure I understand.”
“That’s OK, neither do we yet. But we’re getting there.”
He took his notebook from his jacket for effect.
“You mentioned ‘our friends,’ Mr. Abbott. But my understanding is that you hadn’t really been in touch with Sarah and Phillip for a number of years.”
“Five, to be exact,” Abbott said.
“Hmm,” McBain said. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to help me, then. The problems seem to have arisen since then. On the other hand, Christina says you and her parents used to be inseparable. I gathered she has missed you since then. What happened?”
The older man shrugged and gazed up at the tree limbs overhanging the back yard with their young leaves.
“Life happened, Mr. McBain. People grow and change, they get busy. They go on to new jobs and meet other friends. They get old. Some relationships just wear out.”
“Like Sarah Baker?”
“All three of us, actually,” Abbott replied. “We drifted apart. It was sad, and I missed them, but I’m afraid it’s as simple as that.”
McBain bored in on the old guy.
“Actually, in this case, it isn’t quite that simple,” he said. “We’ve been investigating the possibility that the Bakers might have been swindled before they died. Now we’ve come across letters written in her own hand suggesting that Sarah Baker cheated on her husband with someone. We thought the two might be connected somehow. That someone wouldn’t be you, would it?”
The blood drained from Dennis Abbott’s face and lips. Moments passed while McBain worried he had caused his host to have a heart attack. The man’s blue eyes were swimming along with his mind and emotions. He seemed disoriented and confused, his breathing labored. McBain gave him all the time he needed but observed him closely, hoping that he hadn’t just killed his only lead in this case.
Finally, the older man reached for his tea and took a drink. McBain was betting he wished he had something much stronger.
“Ye…yes,” Abbott said in a hoarse voice. “I did have an affair with Sarah. No one else knew. After it was finished, I never spoke of it to anyone. We thought it would never come out. To my knowledge, Christina was never supposed to know about it.”
Bingo.
Abbott took a deep breath and looked straight at the investigator. “But you mentioned something about letters. There were never any letters.”
Damn.
“What do you mean no letters? Are you saying Sarah Baker never wrote to you?”
He shook his head firmly. “No, we never wrote to each other. We saw each other on and off for many years. Our friendship had just evolved into something more. When Phillip found out about it, we broke it off. Neither of us wanted to hurt him. Your guess was correct. That was the reason I stopped talking to the Bakers.”
McBain frowned and listened to the birds for a minute in the quiet of the garden. Just when he thought he had someone cornered…Now this thing was on the edge of becoming more complicated rather than less. Abbott may have been lying, but his investigator’s instincts said no. Abbott’s responses to all of this—his explanation, his tone of voice, his body language—didn’t quite add up, but they didn’t point in that direction.
“Any idea who else it might have been?” he asked. “We’re guessing the affair went on sometime over the past few years. Maybe Sarah Baker moved on, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see you. I can tell you it seemed pretty serious.”
McBain was well beyond the point where tact and sensitivity for hurt feelings were going to stand in his way.
“No, Mr. McBain, I have no idea. As I said, I broke off all contact with both Sarah and Phillip when they told me to. As far as I know, there was no one else at the time. I would have hoped that the two of them could reconcile and find happiness with each other instead of some stranger.”
McBain almost smirked at the thought of a former lover wishing the cheating spouse well and a couple picking up the pieces after years of unfaithfulness. What a nice thought.
“Well,” he said instead, “maybe they did in their own way. After all, they died together, in each other’s arms. Christina didn’t know about it until we found the letters, and there’s no indication Phillip said anything about an affair. Maybe she took her secret to the grave with her.”
Dennis Abbott looked away. He wiped at his face with his sleeve. The investigator wondered which memories he was choosing.
“Mr. McBain,” Abbott said. “You mentioned that your investigation was connected with some potential swindle involving the Bakers’ money. What were you talking about?”
McBain considered this for a minute while he measured Abbott’s level of interest. Why not?
“The Bakers seemed to have lost most of their money in the market during the collapse. Their daughter thinks there’s something suspicious about the way the money was handled by their financial advisor.”
“Richard Roche?”
“Yes, you know him?”
“No,” Abbott said, “not personally. I know of him. He met the Bakers and became their investment advisor while I was still speaking with them.”
McBain pictured Roche in his head for an instant. On a hunch, he made a leap.
“He’s a good-looking man. You think he might be the type Sarah Baker would have an affair with?”
Abbott’s eyes dipped for a few seconds, then he shrugged.
“I really couldn’t say. I only met him once, at the party where Doctor Lehmann first introduced him to Phillip. I never spoke with him myself, so I can’t really tell you anything about him. Certainly Sarah never said anything to me about him or any other man.”
McBain kept his eyes on the page.
“So you know Doctor Lehmann?”
“Yes, of course,” Abbott said. “He’s…had been the Bakers’ physician for nearly eight years. I saw him at social events of theirs from time to time. He had become a good friend to both of them, so for a short time I knew him as well, though only through their acquaintance.”
“And you’re saying that the Bakers met Richard Roche through him?”
“Yes, at a party at the house in Brookline. Why? Is that significant?”
McBain flipped his notebook shut. He needed to process and talk to his partner.
“Who knows at this point?” he replied. “We’re still piecing together the details of what happened to the money. Like I said, this is a private investigation, and very preliminary. Let’s not start trashing anybody’s reputation. Thank you for your time, Mr. Abbott, and for the tea. I’ll be in touch. Here’s my card. Please give me a call if anything comes to mind.”
“Anything for Christina,” the old man said.
McBain refrained from rolling his eyes, but the thought occurred to him that the way things had played out, Abbott’s phrase could just as well serve as a theme for this case. Despite the disappointment over the apparent dead end with Sarah Baker’s affair, the conversation had unearthed one new revelation that had the hounds straining at the leash. The dog had just barked.
McBain almost ran back to his office. Boston was not there. He looked at their scheduler and caught a taxi across the bridge to Charlestown. He got out of the cab at the Navy Yard and then walked to the gym near her apartment where Boston trained. Even though they knew him, he paid a guest fee just so he could walk in with a suit and tie. The dojo was on the third floor. He watched his partner finish her Muay Thai session while he munched on a bag of pretzels. He took off his shoes and met her in one of the empty training rooms so they could talk while she finished practicing.
For some people, the sight of a man in a business suit holding a heavy bag in a gym would seem out of place. For others, watching a beautiful redhead kick the crap out of a suit was an inspirational experience.
“You’re hitting a lot harder these days.”
“New teacher,” she grunted.
“Sure it’s not your adrenaline from this new case?”
“’Course not.”
She spun and landed a vicious kick where his throat would have been. McBain steadied the bag again and thought about Boston’s agenda since he had left the office.
“Anything else? What happened with the nonprofit-investment whiz?”
The force from Boston’s next kick nearly took down the heavy bag on top of him. She backed off for a minute. Her breathing had barely picked up.
“The little shit actually thought he could charm his way out of it,” she said with a smirk. “He pitched the same pile of bullshit he gave our client. The punk ripped off a charity and didn’t bat an eyelash. I’m sure he thought I was just some dumb twit who worked for the trust.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah, the prick came on to me toward the end and tried to put his hand on me. I’m going to enjoy costing him his job. For good measure, I might just agree to go out on a date with him, break his knees, and accuse him of attempted rape.”
McBain steadied himself and the bag. When she said things like that, he needed to cool her down and change her focus.
“All right, partner, let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. In the meantime, I’ve got some news that will help take your mind off that asshole for the moment. I met with Dennis Abbott a little while ago.”
Boston put up her hands and hit the bag four times in a second. “Yeah?”
“He admitted to having an affair with Sarah Baker.”
Boston’s face brightened, and she stepped back. “Sweet. Progress. Did he confess to—”
“But he said the letters weren’t for him. He claims that he and Sarah carried on for years but that there was no correspondence. Phillip found out, they broke it off, and he cut off all contact with the Bakers about five years ago, end of story. If true, that means there was another affair after theirs.”
Boston took some deep breaths and then hit the bag again several times. He held the bag steady.
“That’s his story,” she said. “What’s your take on Abbott? Any chance he’s lying?”
“I’ve been thinking about it on the way over,” he said. “I’m not sure what’s going on there. I think I believe him about the affair. But the way he reacted? There’s something he’s hiding. Maybe just the newness of it all, maybe not.”
“Shit, back to square one.” She put her hands up again and focused.
McBain smiled. He liked drawing it out.
“On the affair, maybe,” he said. “On the other hand, as the economists say, something new came up in conversation that might be of interest.”
He held out for a moment, but with Boston already hungry for red meat, he didn’t take chances. McBain mentioned Dennis Abbott’s comments about Richard Roche and how he met the Bakers. His partner digested the information for a moment while she bounced on the balls of her feet. She stepped back from the bag and looked at him.
“I thought you said the doctor barely knew Roche,” she said.
“So he said.”
“Didn’t you say Lehmann seemed a bit jumpy when you first paid him a visit?”
Smash.
“I did. Didn’t think too much about it until this week. I’m jumpy around doctors too. I figured he didn’t want any part of trouble. But he’s been dodging my follow-up calls, which pisses me off. That got me thinking maybe it wasn’t just his poor bedside manner. Now I’m wondering if he doesn’t feel responsible for putting the Bakers together with Roche to begin with. Or maybe there’s more to the story.”
Smash.
“Maybe he was the one having the affair with Sarah Baker,” Boston said. “Abbott said Lehmann was friends with both of them. Maybe he got nervous with you asking questions about the Bakers, having betrayed Phillip and all. A guilty conscience makes most people uneasy, especially when their friends end up dead.”
Smash.
“And he was their doctor. For all we know, Phillip found out his wife was having an affair with the one guy he had trusted with his depression. Might have been the thing that pushed them over the edge.”
McBain didn’t want to imagine Sarah Baker with Lehmann. He couldn’t picture the doctor as the Romeo portrayed in those letters.
“I hope not,” he said. “You didn’t get a look at him. But, like you say, everything’s on the table with this case until we prove otherwise. I’m thinking we should pay him a visit early tomorrow. There’s a whole new round of questions I want to buttonhole him on. Let’s see how high we can ratchet the pressure. Maybe suggest a new autopsy on the Bakers. From what I’ve seen, if he’s hiding something, he might crack pretty easily.”
She shook her head. “Much as I’d like to, I can’t make it tomorrow. It’s Saturday, and I’m going up to Rockport for a family wedding. You hit him tomorrow on his day off, and I’ll follow up on Monday to put more pressure on him during office hours.”
Boston began bouncing again as she rubbed her taped hands together.
“I thought this would make you happy, partner,” he said.
“I didn’t say I was happy about it.”
“You don’t have to. I can tell. Whenever you get that bloodhound scent of the trail, your nostrils flare and your tongue sticks out just a bit between your lips.”
“It does not.”
“If you say so,” McBain said. “It’s almost cute.”
He never regretted the bruises he got that afternoon.
After the workout, the investigators returned to Brookline. Christina Baker was alone in the living room reading through the letters again. McBain relayed the gist of his conversation with Dennis Abbott and his confession. With her inscrutable patrician’s face, it was hard to know what to think. Finally she spoke.
“I think I need a drink.”
“That’s my line,” McBain said. “Maybe you should open a bottle of…”
Boston glared at him as she sat down on the couch next to her.
“Let me ask you a question,” Boston said. “Aside from Richard Roche and your husband, who else knew you were preparing to take legal action in the case?”
Their client thought for a moment.
“Well, I had been to see Doctor Lehmann just before I went to Roche’s office,” she replied.
“That’s what I thought,” Boston said. She looked at her partner.
Another piece fell into place. Boston led them into the planning room. A minute later, she had the new connections mapped out on the whiteboard.
Christina was puzzled. “Why have you moved Doctor Lehmann’s name on the wall?”
“McBain is going to pay the doctor a house call tomorrow,” Boston said. “We’ll know more then. But right now, he’s moved up the list of people whose names keep popping up repeatedly in our search. So as the connections to different people accumulate and thicken, he moves closer to the center of the picture.”
“Ms. Baker,” McBain asked, “did you know that it was Doctor Lehmann who introduced your parents to Richard Roche?”
They could tell by the expression on their client’s face that this was a news flash. “No,” she replied. “When…how?”
“According to Dennis Abbott, it was at one of your parents’ house parties some five years ago,” Boston said. “We thought it strange that it hadn’t come up until now. We need to find out why, and if there is more to the doctor’s involvement with your parents than he’s led us to believe.”
“Surely you don’t think he could have been involved with my mother? Or with Roche?”
She shook her head and tapped a pencil on the planning table. McBain presumed that for her, this was the equivalent of an emotional outburst of distress.
“We interviewed all of the people on the list,” he said. “As far as we know, they all spoke candidly about Richard Roche—those who knew of him, anyway. Lehmann is the only one who we know has lied to us…at least so far. We want to know why.”
McBain turned to his partner, whose fingers were blazing away on her phone.
“In the meantime,” he said, “Boston, can you take care of one other thing before we call it a night?”
His partner put down her phone and turned to him.
“Already done,” she said. “We should have a copy by Monday.”
Christina looked back and forth between them. “What are you talking about?”
Boston looked at McBain, who nodded. They had discussed some darker scenarios on the drive over from Charlestown.
“We need to talk to the police about the death of your parents,” she said in a calm voice. “Given the new prominence of the doctor in our inquiry, I’m going to get hold of the police report from that day, as well as any information we can from the coroner and the autopsy. It’s probably nothing, but we want to cover all bases.”
“We already asked our friends on the force a couple questions,” he added.
“And we thought that given everything you’ve told us,” said his partner, “and all that we’ve learned about them, it was unusual that there was no suicide note.”
“Statistically speaking, that doesn’t normally indicate anything,” McBain said. “But…”
“For two people who would rather write than breathe?” Boston said. “It doesn’t make sense. We told you we look for deviations from patterns. This is a big one.”
When they left the house a minute later, their client was gripping her stylish walking stick much tighter.
****