Now You See Her (26 page)

“Really?”

“And very secret. It involved injections, but that’s all we knew about it. Alan got the shots at his skin laboratory near
Kendall Square.”

“Advent Tissue Science.”

She nods. “Alan signed a consent form and a secrecy agreement too. He wouldn’t tell me or Franzie anything about it. He wouldn’t
tell his dad either. If anything got out about it, he’d be expelled from the program. That was Dr. Dempsey’s rule.” She fingers
the knot of her blouse. “I mean, his skin cleared right up. We couldn’t complain.”

“About the secrecy?”

“About his moods. He got down in the dumps, he couldn’t sleep. We wondered if maybe the shots… then again, it was like a miracle,
and Alan followed the rules. He said that if he told, he wouldn’t get a second chance. He said if he told, he’d be finished.”

“For acne, Reggie, there’s topical ointments. For deep acne, antibiotics.”

“What else?” Impatient, just back home from Woburn, I’ve called Trudy Pfaeltz, who’s about to leave for the hospital. Biscuit
is at my ankles, Stark gone. I’m fighting a cold. “What about shots?”

“If antibiotics don’t work, the last-resort treatment is isotretinoin. Jeez, it’s almost six—”

“Iso… spell it.” Parakeets chirp in the background. Trudy spells. “That drug, is it experimental?”

“No, but the side effects are serious. The trade name is Accutane. It’s been in the news. Can we talk about this tomorrow
morning?”

“What side effects?”

“Dry eyes and chapping are common. Blood and liver disorders too. Cholesterol levels get screwed up, and triglycerides too.
It causes serious fetal damage and psychiatric problems. A few people have died. Patients sign consent forms and get regular
blood tests. Hell, where’s my keys?”

“And this iso… isotretinoin, it’s injected?”

“Oh no, the dosage is oral. Capsules. Damn keys.”

“The particular treatment that I heard about was definitely injected.”

“I don’t know what it could be. Ye gods, this purse is hopeless. You sure the doc’s a dermatologist?”

“That’s what I was told.” I do not reveal the name, sparing Trudy and myself a scorching rerun on Dempsey.

“Great, they’re right here in my pocket. Listen, I have no idea what’s in the syringe, Reggie. Probably it’s a clinical trial.
Trade secrets and all that. I’m out the door. Tell me, do you like the scissors? Then how about the summer barbecue set with
extra-long Wedge-Lock handles, the fork, turner, and tongs. I can show you over this weekend.”

“Maybe next season, Trudy. Bye.”

I feed Biscuit, then phone the Renaissance restaurant to learn that Brenda Holstetter is not working tonight’s dinner shift
and is off tomorrow. “I have something of hers,” I say, “something I want to return personally.”

The good news: Brenda will most probably stop by the Renaissance tomorrow afternoon for her weekly paycheck. I’ll be there
too. Strategy is crucial. Do I confront her at the restaurant door? Or follow her down the street when she departs with her
check? No, she’ll outrun me again, bolt and disappear. Call Stark? Again, no. I need to come up with a way to get to Brenda.
Because one good lead for Frank Devaney can feed the fires of the Dempsey case and lure Frank back to Henry Faiser.

At noon the next day, I’m standing in front of a novelty shop across from the Renaissance, wearing slacks and my spongiest
Nikes because this could be a very long afternoon. It’s overcast and in the low eighties, and my knit top is hot. The novelty
shop window features itching powder, rubber fried eggs, and varieties of plastic animal droppings. I’m on edge, eyeing the
restaurant traffic, which looks steady if not bustling. The minutes drag, each quarter hour a week long. Twice I dash into
the street, mistaking a restaurant patron for Brenda. If she uses a back entrance through an alley, I’d miss her entirely.

Finally, I see her. It’s after 2:30 when she comes down the block in black pants and a white shirt. She goes inside. I quickly
follow, which is my plan. Brenda stands at the hostess desk talking to a sandy-haired manager who shuffles pay envelopes.
Her back is turned, but the manager sees me. “I’m sorry, we’re closed until dinner.”

“I understand, but here’s my favorite server—Brenda. How are you, hon?”

She turns, recognition souring to hostility. “Mitch, this woman came in yesterday—”

“Indeed I did. For my money, Brenda is Ms. Renaissance. That darling tam and breeches, the sweet brocade vest—why, I’d come
for the decor and the authentic toggery. I tell all my friends to ask for Brenda’s table.” I step toward the manager. “So
I was surprised to hear Brenda tell me she’s not so crazy about the Shakespearean costumes.”

He frowns. “Our servers all work in the spirit of the restaurant.” Brenda protests. “I didn’t say…I never—”

“You were just having an off day, right, Brenda dear? You didn’t mean to reflect badly on the Renaissance, not a bit.”

She reaches for her pay envelope. He holds it back. A few lunch customers linger in the dining room. He says, “Whatever the
misunderstanding, we want to make it right.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be a tattletale,” I say. “A bad day, am I right, Brenda? I know deep down you appreciate working
at a distinctive Boston landmark restaurant. You wouldn’t for a minute intend to criticize. How about this: let me treat you
to a dessert, if your good manager here will permit. I see a few patrons lingering. We can both sit down for just a bit.”

“I don’t have time. I came for my check.”

“Oh? My goodness, and to think, I’d planned to urge our book club to hold the Midsummer Night’s Dream banquet dinner here.”

“Brenda, could you give our customer twenty minutes? I’ll bring you both a slice of strawberry cheesecake. And here’s this
week’s check.”

We sit at a far table with the cheesecake. Her eyes are pure fury, her jaw clenched. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s a pressure point moment, Brenda. I need information on Alan Tegier. He was in treatment for his skin. Did he talk about
it?” She pockets the check and presses fork tracks in the cheesecake. “Don’t waste my time, Brenda. What about the acne?”

“He said something once, in a general way.”

“Did he ever mention Dr. Bernard Dempsey?”

“Dempsey?” She shrugs. “I don’t remember.”

“Think hard. Did he talk about injections? Experimental treatment?”

“No. Are you some kind of cop?”

Ignore the question, Reggie. Press ahead. “I understand Alan’s personality changed shortly before his death. Did you notice
any dark moods? It’s a simple question: any moods?”

“I didn’t see much of him the couple months before he died. He didn’t work much for Ambrosia.” She rakes at the strawberries
on the cheesecake and avoids my gaze. “You know how they found him?”

“I do.”

“It’s horrible. Hard to believe something like that could happen to a friend.” She puts down the fork. “But yeah, he got moody.
He had plenty to be moody about.”

“Like what?”

“He was stressed-out.”

“From work?”

“Different things. You know about his jobs, the rug cleaning?” I nod. “One thing led to another. It really got to him.”

“What do you mean?”

She swipes a gooey strawberry with her finger and licks it. “How about that ten from yesterday? From on the table?”

“Sorry, Brenda, it expired when you left the deli. What about Alan’s moods?” She bites her lip. “Or do I show up at your station
every shift you work here, lunch and dinner, day in and day out? Believe me, I’ll do it.”

“That’s a threat?”

“It’s a promise.”

She sighs, frowns, bites a cuticle. “Alan was a great bartender. He got first call. The months before he died, he cleaned
rugs at night. He’d leave a cocktail buffet gig and work straight through till morning.”

“Offices?”

“Mainly, he cleaned at a fancy high-rise. He was making good money, but he got to be a gofer for a certain guy. He was on
the guy’s payroll. It was do this, do that, not one minute to himself. The last time I saw Alan, he was real tense. He said
the red Mustang wasn’t worth it.”

“What’s the name of the high-rise?”

She pauses. “It was L-something.”

“Not Eldridge.”

“Hey, yeah, Eldridge. That’s it.”

I’m on the edge of the seat. “Brenda, the man Alan worked for, who was it?”

“I don’t know. He said the guy was all about hell and damnation. Fancy words for hell, old-fashioned.”

“Dante. The Inferno.” She looks blank. “Did you tell any of this to the police?”

“I went to the memorial service, not the police.”

“The police didn’t question you?”

“Nobody did.”

“The man who talks about hell, he’s the night manager at Eldridge.”

“Managers,” she says with a huff. “They get you one way or another.”

I
’m working on “Ticked Off,” waiting for a callback from Devaney to urge the police to question Brenda Holstetter. The phone
rings. I say, “Frank,” and hear a familiar, unmistakable voice cry, “Regina!”

“Tania?”

“He’s furious. Didn’t I tell you this would happen? He’s never been so angry. He won’t let me out of his sight. I’m watched
every minute.”

“By your husband?”

“The blazer men. Watch them, they wear body armor.”

“From Eldridge? The staff?”

“They could be watching you too. I had to call. Don’t worry, this won’t be traced. I bought a phone card.”

“Tania, where are you?”

But the line is dead. “Biscuit, here, girl.” I want the dog with me as I walk to the front window and peer outside. It’s early
afternoon, and Barlow Square is quiet. It’s less than twenty-four hours since the cheesecake talk with Brenda, and I’m impatient
for a callback from Devaney, who’s gone silent on me. The only person visible is the pipe-smoking man in the argyle sweater
who lives across the square. I watch him walk up the block and cut between two cars recognizable as my neighbors’. Trudy’s
van is directly across the median. My Beetle is two blocks away, not a bad distance in the street parking game we all play
here in the South End.

Biscuit whines, and I take her in my arms. My head is jammed from the dander allergy on top of this cold. The dog and I both
look out. The sun is high, the afternoon shadows just beginning to stretch out. Glare blocks the visibility through several
windshields, but it seems hardly likely that Jeffrey Arnot’s enforcers would stake out my home in a parked car on my block.

Was Tania simply hysterical? “Biscuit, let’s go outside.” I grab her leash and put on a jacket, and we walk around the square.
I stride boldly. The sun feels good. Everything looks normal, not a blue blazer in sight. At the corner, a hefty man with
thick brown hair rolls up the sleeves of his tan flannel shirt and reaches under the hood of his curbside station wagon. His
tools lie on a pad on the walk. I tug the leash and step around. We circle back in about twenty minutes, all okay. The flannel
shirt man is buried in his car’s engine compartment, practically mooning the sidewalk.

How does a person know she’s being watched? By hunch? Intuition? By echoing footfalls? I fill Biscuit’s water bowl and finish
“Ticked Off,” this week’s topic the public nuisance of humming, whistling, and singing aloud. I tap the e-mail “send.”

Devaney still hasn’t phoned back. I decide to go to the Boston Public Library. “No, Biscuit,” I say at the door, “you can’t
go this time. Doggies aren’t allowed in the library.” No one follows me as I walk down public streets that are filled with
plenty of pedestrians.

At this hour of the day, the BPL main reading room feels like a church. Call this my Mission Unfinished. This dreary head
cold, you see, goads me. It’s a pale echo of the icy arctic episode with Tania, that whiteout blizzard days ago in the muggy,
hot June twilight. The polar-white paint of Jeffrey’s limo can explain the incident only to a point. It does not account for
the bone-chilling cold that clutched me in its icy grip. It does not account for the chill that Meg and I felt that first
night, nor Igloo Sue, nor Brenda’s remark on the sudden cold drafts. The Marlborough house harbors secrets, and another bout
of research might pry them loose.

But it’s not to be. For genealogy, I’m directed to the Social Science department, where I find a catalog system worthy of
CIA codes. “I’m looking for the full date of death of Edmund Wight, who died in 1888. The funeral was held on March 20.” A
pleasant young librarian with a whippet waist pulls a microcard and helps me load a machine that throws a gloomy image roughly
comparable to the first TV broadcast in 1939.

“Can you read it?” he asks.

The eye chart from hell. “Barely.”

He shows me how to focus, and I have a momentary flashback to high school biology when the amoeba was nowhere to be seen under
the microscope. But in minutes, I find the death date— March 17, 1888.

“Wight died of the grippe and bronchitis,” I say to the librarian. “I’m looking for specifics. I want to know what happened
in Boston on March 17.”

In the high-ceiling Newspaper Room, I’m offered microfilm reels of historic dailies, the Boston Evening Traveller, the Boston
Daily Advertiser, the Boston Evening Transcript, the Boston Daily Globe. It’s as if March 17, 1888, never happened, because
every one of these papers was consumed with the aftermath of a days-old monster snowstorm. “Crippled” and “paralyzed” are
the words for the entire East Coast from Washington, D.C., to Maine on March 11 to 13. “Everywhere horse cars were lying on
their sides, entrenched in deep snow, jammed together in every conceivable position… The city’s surface was like a wintry
battlefield.”

It was the nineteenth century’s version of a multivehicle interstate pileup. The storm, it seems, began on Saturday night,
March 10, and the next morning Bostonians awakened to a meter of drifting snow. Some managed to reach their places of work
and commerce on Monday but were trapped by the day’s driving snowfall. In the Boston Evening Transcript is a post-storm feature
on “Heroic People and Hat Chasers” who braved the blizzard with impromptu outerwear. “A few men pulled a pair of woolen socks
over their shoes and then covered their legs with leggins.” But the snow and cold were relentless. On Tuesday it continued
to snow, temperatures dropped well below freezing, and wind speed reached seventy miles per hour. Fallen telegraph wires marooned
each seaboard city. Up and down the coast, four hundred people died.