13

THE NEXT MORNING CHARLIE HEADED UP Adams Street, past the Bird Lady’s house and on to the state park. He drove slowly on the park road until he spotted what he was looking for, a place where he could pull off the road, leaving the car parked in such a way that it shielded him and Constance from a passerby. He retrieved the trash bag from the trunk, split open a second one and spread it on the ground, and, after putting on latex gloves, dumped the garbage on the plastic. He picked through coffee grounds, scraps of food, apple cores, bits of paper, and finally lifted a smaller plastic bag and opened it.

“Got it,” he said in satisfaction, peering inside. Constance held another garbage bag open and after retying the one he held, he let it drop into hers. She pulled the ties closed.

#

He gathered up the garbage in the plastic, added the gloves, and returned everything to the trash bag, then walked a short distance to a big can chained to a stand and dumped it in. He put the remaining garbage bag in the trunk of the car, closed it, and they got in.

“Now for Pamela,” he said, driving again, this time through the state park and out to the state road.

When they entered the Bainbridge house, Tricia and Lawrence were in the kitchen. Lawrence faced Charlie and said, “You’ve been around for nearly a week, mostly not here. What the hell are you doing?”

“Making progress,” Charlie said. “Where’s Pamela?”

“Out there,” Lawrence said, jerking his thumb toward the terrace. “What did you find out about the girl Stuart met at the store? What’s the story on that?”

“Not sure yet. See you in a couple of minutes.” He strode past Lawrence out to the terrace. Constance stood by the door.

Pamela jumped up when she saw Charlie, stubbed out a cigarette and started toward the kitchen door. He caught her arm.

“Not yet. Let’s talk.”

“No way. Not here.”

She pulled and he held her arm harder. “Now,” he said. “In a while the cops are going to be here asking you questions. I want to ask the same questions first, and I want straight answers.”

“Why the cops?” she said with a quick glance at the kitchen door. “I’ve got nothing to tell them.”

“You do. It seems you had a ringside seat at the circus last night. Sit down and let’s have it. Who did you see?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” she said, but she sat down and lit another cigarette.

“Knock it off. I know you saw Rasmussen. Who else?”

“Sure I saw her. So what?”

“Who else? Did you see Eve Parish?”

“I never even heard of her.”

“Look, Pamela, if you’re wanted on a DUI or kiting checks or something over in Atlantic City, that’s okay by me, but the cops might want to run a check on you and they might not like it.”

“They don’t have any reason for something like that.”

“Maybe they’ll find a reason.”

“You scumbag. They don’t have anything on me,” she said. “No one wants me for anything. So get lost.”

“They could invent something on the spot,” he said. “Who else did you see?”

“Those bastards! They’d do that, wouldn’t they? Yeah, I saw a girl cross the street and go in the park. I couldn’t see her after that.”

“You just sat out there, swinging away and saw nothing. Bringing back childhood memories of better days. Right. Who else?”

“I thought it was a concert, and those goddamn violins started screeching and I wanted to leave, but my car was blocked by some asshole and I couldn’t, so I sat on a swing and smoked. Rasmussen and a woman, the girl, and that’s all.”

He studied her a moment, then stood. “If that’s your story, you’d better stick to it. If they suggest you might have seen anyone else, you’d better stick to those answers, or I’ll help them invent that other something.”

She was cursing him as he walked back to the kitchen door.

“What was that all about?” Lawrence demanded when Charlie entered the kitchen.

“Not much,” Charlie said. “Where’s Stuart?”

“Television room with Ted,” Tricia said. “What about that girl who was killed? Who was she? Is that going to cause more trouble here?”

“Probably,” Charlie said. “The guy Stuart saw hassling her was Earl Marshall, the local hero who made good. He just might have a different story to tell about that incident.”

Stuart came into the kitchen at that moment. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re an outsider; he’s very much an insider with a family that has some clout in town. As crowded as that park was last night, you couldn’t have gotten to Eve Parish without tripping over people or else passing by Pamela, who just happened to be on the swings most of the time. And I don’t think Pamela is your biggest fan.”

“Well, she didn’t see me, so that’s that.” His hands were clenching and flexing and he glared at Pamela under the shade umbrella.

“Just keep the hell away from her and stick to your own story, and don’t lose your temper.”

“My God, this is all insane!” Tricia cried. “It’s time to call it quits and go home. We aren’t going to find anything and, Charlie, it looks like you’re not, either. I don’t think checks were ever hidden in this damn house in the first place.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Charlie said. “The cops won’t let Stuart leave yet, I’m afraid. They’ll want to ask him some questions, and depending on what story Marshall tells, the questions might eventually lead to wanting a lawyer.”

Stuart shook his head in disbelief. “They can’t think that I—”

“You can’t be serious,” Lawrence said. “They can’t pretend to have a motive or anything else besides a chance encounter.”

“What they had was a quiet little college town, and now they have a murder. Too many campus murders around the country, too much fear among parents and students. Too much bad publicity. They’ll want to close this as fast as they can. Eve Parish was an outsider. Stuart is an outsider. You never know what baggage outsiders will bring with them, what they might do. Wrap it up, put it on the shelf, and get back to the safe little college town. This whole community exists because that college exists and they want to keep it that way.”

There was a stunned silence that endured until Tricia said, “He was with me. He wasn’t gone long enough to do anything except get coffee.”

Charlie nodded. “So tell them that when they come.”

“Maybe they won’t come here at all,” Lawrence said.

“They will. How much do you intend to tell them about why you’re all hanging around? They’ve heard rumors, you know. It seems everyone in town has heard rumors about a hidden treasure.”

“Nothing,” Lawrence said after a moment. “We’re honoring the last wishes of my dead brother, trying to decide what item from the house each of us wants.”

“Wrangling over the car maybe?” Charlie mused. “About the only thing of any value.”

“That’s it,” Lawrence said. “We’re trying to decide who gets the car.”

“And Paley? What do you suppose he’ll tell them?” Ted asked from the doorway.

Charlie had seen him arrive there, but apparently none of the others had noticed. Tricia gave a start and shook her head.

“What do you think Paley will say?” Charlie asked Ted.

“If he’s anything like other lawyers I’ve dealt with, not a damn thing that doesn’t fit his own agenda. And whatever he does say will be so convoluted and obfuscatory that it will take another jerk of a lawyer to decipher it.”

Charlie nodded in silent agreement. “Well, it’s going to be a little hard to explain the need for watchmen around the clock and a lawyer on the premises at all times.”

“What about you? What story will you give them?”

“Constance and I are family friends standing by in a time of bereavement,” he said. “Not convoluted at all.”

“I think we should talk about how much longer the old family friends are needed to lend their support,” Ted said. “It seems like your business is everywhere but here.”

“Your call,” Charlie said. He glanced at his watch, then at Constance, who had not said a word. She nodded. “Since you all have a lot to talk about, we’ll be on our way to see to that business. Give me a call after the sheriff comes.”

Constance got behind the wheel this time when they reached the car. “Where now?” she asked.

“Let’s listen to more of the tapes, and wait for Jenna’s call. After lunch, I want a word with the chief of police.”

“Not the sheriff?”

“Nope. The chief will do. Remember that while you were tending to Jenna, Rasmussen told me about the chief, and a little about the sheriff. He’s a politician who’s been around for three years, and according to scuttlebutt, he wants to move on up the ladder. The chief’s a native son and has been on the job for seventeen years. He’s the one to talk to.”

“Charlie, I want to talk to Andrea’s mother. Teresa Briacchi. We have to find out if she’s still in Newton.”

He nodded. “Me too. Oglethorp might know.”

She drove, and when she drew even with the playground at the park, he said to pull in for a minute, let him get out. Children were on the swings and the seesaws, mothers on benches nearby keeping a close watch, especially on him when he left the car and walked toward the swings. Where the wide, cleared path led down to the waterfront, there were lampposts. This area would be well lighted at night. He looked up and down the street both ways, and lingered over the direction of the establishment houses. No trees blocked his view that way up to the point where Adams Street curved and started up the hill. He returned to the sidewalk and strolled toward Rasmussen’s house, studying the lake side of the street. After the playground and cleared path, there was a scattering of bushes, a maple tree, a couple of cedars, all well separated, and several large rocks, not the most desirable choice for sitting and listening to the concert, but okay if the rest of the park had already filled up. A streetlight was well behind him on the opposite side of the street, and there were none on this side for several blocks after the playground area. Satisfied, he glanced back to see Constance slowly following. He waited for her, got in the car, and they went on to the gingerbread house.

For the next hour, sitting on their small balcony, they listened to the first taped interview with Earl Marshall. When it ended, Constance said, “Now I understand why she wrote ‘Who is he?’”

“You have an answer?”

“No. That novel is sensitive and psychologically on the mark, and he was blatantly seducing her. No insight, no apparent understanding of his own actions and how she might have interpreted them, no apparent self-reflection. Parts of that tape sounded as if he had been reading from a script that held no meaning for him.”

She paused and frowned. “I should have paid more attention, or given her journal a little more time. There were names that didn’t mean anything to me and I skimmed over them. J Joyce, E Pound, W Allen, M Jackson, three or four others. Initials, last names, scribbled fast from all appearances.”

“Honey, I’m an unschooled clod. You know it and I know it, and you’ve lost me.”

“Oh. James Joyce impoverished his mother while living it up in Paris. Ezra Pound was a propagandist for Mussolini. T. S. Eliot was an anti-Semite. Michael Jackson, the others I skipped were all great artists also and they were all guilty of pretty reprehensible behavior in their personal lives.”

“Is Marshall a great artist?”

“That novel is a literary gem,” she said. “Beautifully written and true in every way. She was asking herself, ‘Who is he?’”

“But she didn’t answer her own question,” he said. “She left it hanging.”

“She had an answer,” Constance said. “The next line was ‘I could be wrong.’ She had decided, questioned her decision, and then crossed out the line. She had an answer.”