Cold Case (12 page)

“Well, at first, we didn't know it was
her
book. It was Thea Janis, not Dorothy Cameron, after all. But we soon found out. It was in the newspapers. We bought every copy in the Square, trying to see if she'd nailed anyone we could identify.”

“Had she?”

“Not really. I mean, she used the school cleverly. Her characters had some of the traits of one master or another, but she'd done a good job of changing names and faces. I was just a kid, but I doubt there was talk of legal action. Thea was practically famous. Notorious. And she seemed suddenly different.”

“How different? In what way?”

“We stopped calling her Dorothy immediately, called her Thea instead.” He stretched out both vowels, gave the name a foreign caress. “It was so romantic. We started watching the way she moved. She
was
different from the other girls. We knew that.”

His eyes had taken on their naughty-boy look again.

“By ‘different,' do you mean Thea was sexually experienced?” I asked. “Is that what we're dancing around here?”

He sat in his chair. His lips moved as he considered what to say, how best to clothe his thoughts in words.

“She was certainly not a whore,” he said finally. “‘Make love, not war,' was the slogan of the times, and free love had obviously found her. She was its exponent. She was—”

“Avon Hill's free-love poster girl.”

“That seemed to be one of her ambitions in life, yes.”

“You slept with her?”

He lowered his voice as though he expected his words to carry from the great stone house to the smaller Victorian nearby, disturb the dreams of his pregnant wife.

“We were an entire school of virgins waiting to be deflowered,” he said, avoiding the singular pronoun.

“And she was the experienced one. At fourteen?”

“Fifteen. She seemed to know what she was doing.”

“Who taught her?”

“It seemed to me she had a natural talent for it, as pronounced as her literary talent. A talent for sex.”

“Did her teachers grade her highly?”

“There was speculation. I have no idea what was true and what was fantasy, but the gossip didn't seem to hurt her. She was beyond us, older than we were in some fundamental way. None of our lies and exaggerations seemed to touch her. We made up Thea stories. Thea and the aged algebra master. Thea and the gym master. That one was very popular. Thea and the gardener, Thea and the captain of Harvard's football team. She was our group fantasy.”

“Was she promiscuous?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“She was fourteen when she wrote the book, fifteen when she died!” I said sharply, wanting to knock the self-satisfied grin off his face.

It only spurred him to self-defense.

“Not like any fifteen-year-old you've ever met, lady. I'm sorry, but you won't make me feel guilty. I slept with her. She seduced me and not the other way around. She abandoned me and not the other way around. I didn't drive her from this school. And none of us had anything to do with her death. That animal who slaughtered her had no idea …”

“Had no idea what?”

“He must have thought her an ordinary—”

Words seemed to fail him.

“An ordinary whore,” I supplied. “Tart? Wench?”

“Girl,” he said softly. “He couldn't have known what a terrible loss, what a terrible thing he did.”

“Worse than killing the two other girls?”

“This may sound wrong; it may sound like elitist snobbery, it probably is. But Thea was special. I grieve for Mozart's early death in a way I do not grieve the ordinary peasant's death.”

“You were here, at school, when you found out she was dead?”

“It knocked the breath out of me. We had placed her center-stage in so many exotic locales, in so many bizarre fantasies …”

“And afterward? After her death?”

“What do you think? Thea became a living lesson to us. Don't take rides from strangers. Don't take walks late at night. Don't. Don't. Don't. In a way, her death marked the end of our innocence.”

“I thought she'd already stolen that,” I said.

“I never meant to say she corrupted me. She didn't corrupt anyone. She was a wonderful girl. Troubled. Generous. Confused, and confusing.”

A helpful assessment, I thought.

I wished I knew more about the circumstances of Thea's death. I should have grilled Mooney. As if he'd have kept his ear glued to the phone just to indulge me.

I said, “I understand Thea called home, said she was spending the night with a friend who lived near school.”

“Now that was a giant laugh.”

“What do you mean?”

“Said she was staying with Susie Alfred, stuck-up little bitch wouldn't have let Thea in her hallowed home.”

“Why not?”

“The prim and proper disapproved of Thea.”

“So why the phone call? Was it a hoax?”

He shrugged.

Kids don't usually call home and set things up so they won't be missed. Not kids who get killed
.

I pressed harder. “So what did Thea do from the time she left Avon Hill till the time she died? What was it, two, three days? More?”

“No one knows.”

“No one knows,” I repeated.

I hate answers like that. Solemn, pompous, asinine. Emerson's office seemed to close around me and choke me. I said my farewells as politely as I could. He asked for my phone number and I told him he could reach me at the number he had. Let him filter his salacious fantasies through Gloria.

I felt used, dirty. He'd wanted to tell someone that he'd had a fling with a beautiful girl when he was the same age as his incoming students. His pregnant wife was probably not an appreciative audience.

“Did you read her book?” I asked him as we walked toward the front door.

“Parts of it,” he said lightly.

I could bet which parts.

“If you hear from the kids again, the ones who asked about Thea, would you give me a ring?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said with an easy grin, opening the door to usher me out.

Lying, ten to one.

13

In my dreams an engine revved, sputtering to a loud and angry whine, close and threatening. The Windbreaker Man rode a red motorbike, perfectly balanced, arms outspread like some gigantic bird of prey. Soundlessly he swooped up girls in his path—teens in pleated navy skirts, crisp white blouses—dropped them at my feet, broken and bleeding, their heads lolling like rag dolls.

I woke up sweating. Heat and light seared my eyelids. Half-waking, half woozy, I panicked, unable to open my eyes, afraid to peer into the fiery abyss. I blinked. Just the sun burning through gauzy curtains, eating the morning haze.

The toothpaste oozed from the tube like a melted candy cane. I washed my hair, not because it was dirty, but because the cold water felt so good.

I hate the heat.

I hated the fact that Adam Mayhew had chickened out. I hated the glorified guiltlessness of Avon Hill, the easy innocence of its headmaster.

I unlocked my desk drawer and reread Thea's thirty-six pages. A perfect family sits down to a beautifully laid table. Fine china, crystal, and silver gleam in the candlelight. An elaborate multicourse dinner is served, and although insects crawl over their bare feet and snakes twine about their ankles, no one is so gauche as to mention the invasion.

It reminded me of something written by one of the South American magical realists—a Colombian whose books I'd studied in an effort to understand the land of Paolina's heritage.

In Thea's work, the character dubbed “d” was a poet, shunned by the gracious family. “b” spoke in an unheard monotone, telling herself endless repeated stories that made no sense. “b” alone admitted the existence of the reptiles, but seemed unaware of the bugs.

Roz tripped downstairs in a short excuse for a dress, possibly a tunic. Her sandal laces crisscrossed to her knees. She appeared unfazed by the weather. Before I could stop her, she plunked a bulging file folder on my desk, planted her feet in an approximation of ballet's third position, and began her recitation.

“First thing,” she said, “I don't have quite as much crap as they wrote about Chuck and Di, but that's probably because most of this stuff is older. I mean, it dates back to when the press was still sharpening its canines.”

Maybe if I hadn't just reread “Thea's” chapter, if I hadn't been buoyed by the magic of her words, I'd have stopped Roz cold. Mesmerized, I let her speak.

“Old man Cameron, that's the Honorable Franklin Cameron, the late U.S. representative from the Fourth Congressional District, was some big deal. Old money, fleets of ships, China trade—You want to know about his mom and dad?”

“Not particularly.”

She ignored me, a not unusual state of affairs.

“His dad married money, twice. Had a knack for it. So we got China trade money comingling with Robber Baron money. Nice combo. Enough to get their kid—that's Franklin, father of Garnet—a major league law school education. We're talking Yale here, maybe buy the family a little something, like the presidency. But it seems our Franklin balked at a life of public service. Did a stint in the DA's office, served on the Governor's Council, but couldn't win the big ones. Lost the governorship once, the Senate three times, finally made it to the House of Representatives in 1962. A one-term guy.”

“Scandal?” I inquired automatically. Once elected to the House from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it's a rare bird who returns north.

“Not a breath,” Roz answered. “Not a hint. Not a murmur. The man said he didn't like living in D.C.”

I wondered what the real story was. In the early sixties, some matters weren't fit to print in a family newspaper.

“And he never ran for district rep?”

“Nope. Governor or nothing far as local stuff went.”

“Kids,” I said. “It's the kids I'm mainly interested in.”

“No kids from his first marriage. Had it annulled. Three from his marriage to—get this—the Contessa de la Montefiore, aka Tourmaline Montefiore.
Tourmaline
, right. Family calls her Tessa and I, for one, forgive them. Even if she did give her own kids weirdo names. Beryl's the oldest, born 1950. Then Garnet. Then just plain Dorothy.”

Odd. I'd imagined Dorothy—Thea—as the oldest child.

“Which one are you interested in?”

“Dorothy.”

“The dead one. Too bad.”

“Yeah,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “Too bad.”

“It was a four-week wonder. A total circus. I don't think I copied all the news articles, but I got most of them.”

“Summary?”

“Headlines: ‘MISSING!'; ‘RUNAWAY WRITER!'; ‘SUICIDE?'; ‘HEIRESS KIDNAPPED!'; then ‘HEIRESS MURDERED!!!' They didn't run with the suicide more than a day, just long enough to mention that there was family precedent. It was big-time stuff. I mean, when they nailed the killer, a couple papers ran her photo with a black border around it, like she was the President or something.”

“Go back to the suicide.”

She shuffled paper. “Veiled suggestions that someone else named Cameron had given it a try. Then the kidnapping stories swamped it.”

Beryl? I wondered. “b” for Beryl, who sat at the perfect table and mumbled under her breath? The one who saw the snakes. Or Tessa. Had she found an effective way to keep her husband front returning to Washington?

I guess I shouldn't have dismissed Garnet or Franklin Cameron from the suicide sweepstakes, but statistics bear me out. Men succeed at suicide more often, but a greater number of women try it on. The classic “cry for help.”

“Family reaction to Dorothy's death?”

Roz frowned, searching for a word. “Muted. I got the feeling the family was holed up, saying ‘no comment' for all they were worth, and the journalists were writing whatever the hell they felt like writing. You ought to read the bilge.”

She tapped the folder. Maybe I would.

“I got some great stuff on the funeral. It was like a fashion show, swear to God, an all-white funeral. If the family'd wanted to feed the press frenzy they couldn't have done a better job. Here's this kid who's written a scandalous book, and she's getting the ‘virgin special' funeral. Not one, but two cardinals presiding.”

I glanced at the page of flowing script in my hand, gently closed the calligrapher's notebook. “Adam Mayhew” couldn't have missed such an ostentatious funeral.

“Well, don't get all excited and tell me what a great job I did,” Roz said, finally sensing that she wasn't getting the desired reaction. “Just pay me and tell me what else I can do. I bought a videocam. On credit.”

“I didn't know you had a credit card.”

“I do now. I listed you as a reference. If they call, can you tell them you pay me, like, three hundred a week?”

“In your dreams, Roz.”

“Come on. Let me dig more on this totally pseudo Mayhew chump. He's lying like a rug. Thea's mom—La Contessa—she's still alive, and she never had any brothers, step, half, or otherwise. There's no Mayhew comma Adam in any local phone book.”

“There's an Adam Mayhew in Mount Auburn Cemetery.”

Roz's eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“I took a field trip.” I bit my lower lip, glanced through Roz's scrawled notes and news clippings. “What can you tell me about Beryl Cameron?”

“Beryl? For the past twenty years, she might as well be dead.”

“The brilliant Thea's only sister? She must have done
something
newsworthy. Her marriage would rate a Sunday Magazine special feature.”

“Yeah, you'd think. She's in all the press photos, all the late great Franklin Cameron's campaign stuff, throughout the sixties. She's in there stumping with the family, the girls wearing those god-awful matching puffy white dresses and little heels with anklets. I mean the socks are so retro I might give 'em a try. With stiletto heels—”