Pretty Dead, page 15
“You don’t want to believe the worst about her, do you?” I said.
“No,” David said. “I always try to think people are good, unless shown otherwise.”
“You must get burned, on occasion.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching for another cookie. “I’d rather get burned once in a while than go through life being suspicious and cynical.”
“You think she was killed by someone she knew?”
David paused and swallowed. “I don’t want to think that, either,” he said.
He clapped me once on the shoulder to end the discussion, then called to Maeve, said they had to get ready to go.
“That’s why we need to get back out on the water, Jack,” David said. “We’ll get away from all this sad stuff. The four of us. We’ll take a week. Take the boat and go to Canada. You ever been to Campobello?”
“Escape,” I said. “It’s aptly named.”
‘Yes, it is,” David said.
“Except sometimes there are things you can’t get away from,” I said. “You can look away, but when you look back, they’re still right there in front of you.”
His eyes clouded and he gave a short, quick sigh, then recovered, like he was fighting off some sickness, mind over matter.
“But you can’t dwell on the sad stuff all the time. Especially things that are out of your control. Things happen, you know? It’s in the past.”
“Not yet,” I said.
He looked at me and then clasped my shoulder once and went inside. It was David’s way, I was learning. Confronted with something unpleasant, he just grinned and walked.
I stayed at the table on the terrace, writing down as much as I could remember of my conversation with Monica. I’d been scribbling for fifteen minutes when Roxanne came out and I told her I was going to go to the bureau and do the story, if that was okay with her. She said of course it was, but then she said she had two things to tell me. She crouched beside me, her hand on my leg.
“Maddie’s all upset,” Roxanne whispered. “I went by their bedroom on the way down and I could hear her crying.”
“Really crying?”
“Yeah. Sobbing. And David was saying it was okay.”
“Maybe she knew Angel better than we think.”
“But he was saying, ‘It’s going to be okay. It’ll be all right.’ Like there was something that could be fixed. How do you fix Angel being killed?”
“You catch somebody, I guess,” I said. “Maybe she’s afraid. You know, that someone else will be next. And she’s in this small circle of people that Angel knew.”
“Maybe,” Roxanne said.
“And maybe it’s all just caught up with her,” I said. “Angel, the funeral, this situation with Maeve. That’s got to be stressful, even though it turned out okay.”
“That was my other thing.”
“What?”
“I just checked my messages. Devlin, the au pair, called.”
“From Ireland?”
“No, Jack. From Maine. She said she never left. She never left Maine at all.”
29
Roxanne said she checked the exchange of the number Devlin left and it was for Castleton, a little crossroads about ten miles inland from Blue Harbor. When Roxanne called, she got a machine with a message that said Gary wasn’t home. Roxanne wondered what Devlin had done with the plane ticket to Ireland, and I said she probably sold it for a hundred bucks. Why hadn’t she gone home? Probably for the same reason she’d left.
We were talking about it when David and Maddie came back outside with Maeve and a couple of duffel bags and a suitcase. Maddie looked like she’d put makeup on to try to disguise her red and swollen eyes. David said they were headed for Maine, that Mrs. Donovan would be glad to make us dinner, and not to hesitate to ask her for anything. She didn’t mind. He said to use the BMW if I needed a car and didn’t want to leave Roxanne stranded. The keys were in the top left kitchen drawer.
I thanked him. Roxanne looked like she was wondering whether to say anything about Devlin, but then there was a flurry of handshakes and hugs and, “Call us right away when you get back to Maine,” and David was carrying the bags to the Suburban.
Maeve climbed in the back, buckled herself in a booster seat. Maddie waved and got in the front. The gate slid open and they rolled out onto Marlborough Street like soldiers leaving the fort on patrol.
“You think we should stay?” I said.
“We’ve been here this long,” Roxanne said.
“But with Devlin here, does that mean your case is, I don’t know, more open?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d prefer to think it’s closer to ending.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The alternative would be—”
“Disturbing. It would be like I was no judge of character at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“No, but what is going on with all of this, Jack?” Roxanne said. “More than we know; I think.”
“But I’m not sure David and Maddie know, either.”
“They do seem like sheep.”
“Surrounded by wolves?”
“No. More like dogs that steal food off the counter.”
“That’s your story, isn’t it?” Roxanne said.
“It’s the story I want to write.”
“In a way it’s the story I hope is true. That David and Maddie and Maeve are all victims, in a way.”
“Then we’ll have to find it,” I said. “If it’s there.”
Mrs. Donovan did make dinner: broiled salmon and green beans and baked potatoes, served at the big kitchen table with the Red Sox on the radio. Mrs. Donovan sat with us and chatted, but guardedly, her loyalty to the Connelly family unflinching. She did say she’d worked for the family for almost forty years, that of the three brothers (Patrick Jr. in Aspen, Michael in London), David was the cheerful one, who always had a good word to say. Maddie was a dear, and Maeve was like both of them, happy like her dad but with a quieter side like her mom. I asked her if it was hard for Maddie to come into the Connelly family and she said no, she didn’t think so, but didn’t elaborate. Roxanne asked where David and Maddie met, and Mrs. Donovan said she wasn’t sure, and were we ready for tea or coffee?
End of conversation.
After dinner we attempted to help in the kitchen, but Mrs. Donovan herded us out. We went upstairs, Roxanne pausing to peer in at rooms along the way. From the guest room Roxanne tried Devlin’s number again, got the same machine, and left another message. I called directory assistance for Dalton’s number. T. A. Dalton III was listed as a resident of Pride’s Crossing, an old-money North Shore town. I called and a teenage girl answered and sounded disappointed that it was only me. She said her dad was at the office and I thanked her and got the number of the Sky Blue Foundation from the operator. I called and a machine answered, giving me office hours, so I called David in the car. I asked him for Dalton’s direct number, and he said he didn’t know it. I asked if Maddie would know and he covered the phone for a very long minute, then came back on.
He gave me the number but he sounded distracted.
“You okay?” I said.
“Bloody traffic,” he said. “Saturday night, too. You’d think half the world was driving to Maine.”
He paused.
“You know, Tim might not be real eager to talk,” David said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “He can always say no.”
I said I’d try Kathleen Kind, too. David said he thought her number in Cambridge was in the book. I hung up, started to dial. Stopped. Put the phone down and looked over to Roxanne, stretched out on the bed, flipping through a magazine.
“I’m going over there,” I said.
“You don’t want him wriggling off the hook, do you?” she said.
“No.”
“Was David trying to shield him or something?”
“I don’t know. I think he was just warning me I might not get a warm reception. Don’t forget that nobody wants their organization in a murder story. David or Dalton.”
“Would it help if I were there?” Roxanne said.
“Maybe if I talk to him in his office, you could just look around a little.”
“For anything in particular?”
“Anything Angelic,” I said.
So we told Mrs. Donovan we’d be two or three hours. She said she was going to a grandson’s birthday party and might be out. She gave us a remote for the gate and a key to the side door. She said she wouldn’t wait up, but there were cookies in the jar on the counter, beer in the refrigerator in the pantry.
We took the Explorer, drove across the city to the financial district, where the office towers were empty but lighted, like ghost ships adrift without their crews. We were looking for Batterymarch, off Milk Street, in the shadowed narrow streets where brokerage firms managed billions of dollars out of sight of the city’s milling masses. Two seventy-eight was on the right, an art-deco building with a small glass-walled lobby. I parked out front and tried the door and it was locked, so I went back to the car and called. On the fourth ring, Dalton answered.
“Yeah?”
“Tim?”
“Who’s this?”
“Jack McMorrow. David gave me your number. I need to talk to you about Angel. Your general impressions as her supervisor—”
“Not direct supervisor,” he said.
“Then indirect supervisor,” I said. “And friend.”
“Listen, Jack, I’m getting ready to head home.”
“I’m right outside. Roxanne and I were out and about. Thought I’d just try you.”
“How long will this take?” Dalton said.
“Not long,” I said.
There was a long pause. I could hear him breathing. Finally he said, “I’ll buzz you in.”
He did. With the car double-parked, flashers on, we stepped in and it was cool in the marble foyer. According to the directory behind the locked glass case, Blue Sky was on the eleventh floor. We took the elevator up and stepped off into a small carpeted foyer, and faced another set of doors, steel with small reinforced windows. There was another buzz and we pushed through into a dimly lighted waiting room.
There were paintings hung on the off-white walls. American Impressionists. Antique wing chairs and couches, or maybe replicas, and Oriental carpets on the floor.
We waited. Heard footsteps, and then Dalton rounded a corner and came toward us. He was wearing a big smile, a dark-green polo shirt and khaki shorts, sunglasses around his neck on a cord.
“Jack. Roxanne. Welcome,” he said, whispering in the hushed, empty room. “Good to see you.”
“Sad circumstances.”
“Oh, awful. Still doesn’t seem real. Were you at the funeral?”
“Roxanne was,” I said. “They didn’t want press in the church.”
“Oh, yeah. Funny, I forget you have a working capacity. Come on in.”
I followed him as he led the way past small empty offices arranged like burial chambers in a tomb. Then we swung through a door and into an office with dark paneling, two couches, and a couple of big chairs, all black leather. The desk was dark red wood like mahogany, and there were bookshelves behind it, to the left. I saw a photo of Dalton and a blonde woman who looked a little like Martha Stewart. In another photo a small girl sat on a big horse, her mouth set resolutely like she was headed into battle. A third had all three of them, dressed up at a party. Only Dalton was smiling.
We sat.
“So,” Dalton said. “Just came in to catch up. Being in Maine and all, things piled up. Can you believe we were all there, having a nice time. Angel—it seems like years ago now.”
“Who could have imagined?” I said.
“It’s unbelievable. I mean, what animal could hurt that girl? My daughter’s a counselor at a camp in Maine, on one of the islands. Makes us think twice, I’ll tell you.”
“So you think it happened up there?” Roxanne said.
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, I don’t know why somebody would do it down here and go all the way up there in the woods.”
“Maybe they thought nobody would find her,” Roxanne said.
“Seems like a lot of trouble. Oh, Jesus. Listen to us. Like it’s some murder on a TV show.”
I smiled, sympathetically I hoped.
“You’re right,” I said. “You have to remember things like this aren’t games. They involve real people with dreams and hopes and people who cared for them.”
“Exactly,” Dalton said, then seemed to draw back. “Her poor parents. The mother at the funeral …”
“Which brings me to this story.”
Roxanne stood and said she’d wait out by the main doors and Dalton didn’t protest. After she’d left, I explained to him what I was doing. He listened attentively, tanned arms folded in front of him on the gleaming desk. I talked about making Angel more than a name and a face from a crime story. I said I was talking to her coworkers, her family, to David, Maddie, and Monica.
“What did Monica say?” Dalton said. His tone was neutral.
I took out a notebook and opened it.
“Let’s see. That Angel liked working here, that she seemed really to take to this world, which was different from what both of them grew up with.”
“That’s true. It was new to her, but Angel was a quick study. Very adaptable. She would have ended up someplace interesting. I mean, you’d put her in a new situation and there was this brief sort of adjustment period and you could see her figuring it out, practically hear the wheels turning. And then it was like she’d always been there. A few of us were at this BSO thing once and I looked around and she’s talking to Derek Bok. I said to her after, ‘Did you know he used to be president of Harvard?’ She said, ‘Yeah. I was asking him, What the hell does the president of a college actually do? Is it the courses or is it all money?’ Angel could do that. It was like it didn’t occur to her that she didn’t belong there.”
“Maybe she did.”
“I think so. Like I said, a very quick study.”
“But she had help.”
“Oh?”
“Monica said she had beautiful new clothes, jewelry, got invitations to parties that Monica didn’t.”
“They’re different. I mean, Monica … well, you met her.”
“Yeah.”
“She doesn’t have Angel’s—and this is totally off the record—her social mobility.”
“Class,” I said.
“Don’t get me wrong. Monica’s a good kid. She’s just more thoroughly rooted in her background. Angel was looking to explore, and this job was her entree.”
“And you assisted her?”
He looked at me warily.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, Monica said you got her into the parties. Bought her things. Dresses, jewelry.”
“There may be a bit of jealousy there,” Dalton said, “between us. But yeah. I bought her some stuff. I mean, it was either that or send her to a black-tie at the MFA in her prom dress. I didn’t want to see the poor kid humiliated.”
“Nobody else stepped up to help her out?”
“No. And don’t put this in, but some of the women here, well, you know how women can be. A little catty. Backstabbers. And David, he’d invite her to come along to some benefit and I’d say, ‘Jeez, David. You think she’s up to it?’ He’d say, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like that. Just because he’s socially gifted, the family thing and all, he’s oblivious to the fact that for some people, these sorts of events can be intimidating.”
“So you helped Angel out?”
“Yeah. A couple of dresses, shoes. I’d say to them at the store, ‘This is the kind of event we’re going to. Make sure she has everything she needs.’ ”
“That was nice of you,” I said.
He seemed to puff up a bit.
“Yeah, well, it was no big deal. I’d say to her, ‘Just be yourself. Smile and chat and don’t chew gum. Go easy on the mascara.”
“So you were Henry Higgins and she was Eliza Doolittle.”
“Oh, God, don’t put it in those terms. If you mention that at all, please put it diplomatically. I don’t want to insult her family. They’re good people. It was just that she was in a new game and she needed the uniform.”
“How’d she look in it?”
“Like a million dollars,” Dalton blurted, and then checked himself. “She looked very nice. She was a very pretty girl, as you know.”
“So she stood out, even at a party full of beautiful people.”
“Oh, yeah. Let’s just say her dance card was full. I mean, guys lined up. She had a great time, too. She just ate it up. The whole scene. She was very open to new experiences. It’s really a shame. What happened, I mean.”
I paused, caught up with him in my notes. And then I said, “Speaking of a million dollars, I’m told Angel seemed to have a lot of money, relatively speaking.”
“Really. Who said that?”
“A friend. She said Angel went on a shopping spree in New York, bought jewelry. Her parents said she sent them on a cruise. She was going to the Caribbean in a few weeks and she was taking Monica.”
“I don’t know. I mean, when I was helping her out, with the clothes and stuff, I assumed she was just living on what we paid her.”
“Which was?”
“I’m not sure. You’d have to ask Kathleen or somebody. Kathleen is our spending overseer. I mean, I’m sure it was a fair wage, but it wasn’t buying her too many cruises. Of course, she could have just started saying yes to all those credit card offers that come in the mail. You could run up a couple of hundred thousand in a hurry that way.”
“Other people have said that. But one source said she kept cash in a safe-deposit box.”
“Huh. I don’t know about that.”
I watched him but it was hard to tell whether he was surprised that Angel had money or surprised that I knew.
“Now, one more thing, Tim,” I said. “And I’ll just come right out and say it. Another source has told me that you and Angel were involved romantically.”
