Cold Case (46 page)

I said, “He was alive when someone drove him out to Marblehead. You must have had help. You couldn't have carried him by yourself. You didn't drive. He was alive when you took off your clothes and buried them in the sand and dove into the sea.”

“Garnet,” she said. Two syllables and all the accusation in the world. “What did you do to me? What have you done to me?”

“It was Father,” Garnet countered, never taking his eyes from Thea's face. “Dad killed him. Once he knew you were pregnant, there was no stopping him.”

“Dad wasn't there!”

“It was a lifetime ago. Maybe you repressed it, Thea. How can you remember? For sure?”

“I remember, Garnet. I remember so well. I remember every moment of my last day on earth, Garnet. And you were the only one. You sold my dreams for yours. You took my reputation for yours. You took my talent and my voice, and everything I had. You stole my life—”

“I had to protect Father.”

“Two with one stone,” Thea said bitterly. “That's your gift, Garnet, your only gift: killing. You killed Beryl's soul, you and Father. You killed Alonso—you were always jealous of him, I see that now; you must have been jealous of every other man I slept with.
Did you think you were so special, Garnet? Did Daddy give me to you? Were the rights supposed to be exclusive?
When you finished Alonso off, you conveniently got rid of me, convinced me I had to disappear, die.
Was I getting to be a problem, Brother dear?
You must have killed Drew after I spoke to him, after he guessed the truth about what you and Father had done to Beryl and me, and then you set up my son to take the blame. Just as you set me up so long ago. I'll see you dead for that. I'll kill you.”

“Take him to court instead,” Mooney said.

“Oh yes,” Garnet said lightly. “Do. Judges and juries adore tales like this. Institutionalized witnesses, twenty-year time gaps, recovered memories! At the moment recovered memory syndrome may have some scientific credence, but it's a day-to-day thing. Go ahead. Let's do this in court.”

“They won't need to, Garnet,” I said softly. “It's over. Once you're accused, what will you do? Keep running for governor while your sister tells her stories, the way only Thea Janis can spin a tale? Face it, Garnet. You're no one. When you killed Alonso, you might as well have killed yourself—”

I could have gone on speaking, but he was walking, walking quickly down the path. With all the cops present you wouldn't think he'd have been able to get to his chauffeured car, order Henry out into the lazy stream of afternoon traffic.

But he did.

Later, the chauffeur said he thought it odd for Garnet to order him out to the old Marblehead house, to raise the glass divider. He especially thought it strange when Garnet opened the rear window, tossing his cellular phone to the pavement, where it shattered on impact.

But Henry was accustomed to obeying orders.

He pulled over on command, saw Garnet walk around the back of the old Ocean Avenue property, barefoot. He'd left his tie and briefcase in the car, and his city shoes, socks neatly rolled within. So curious was Henry that he followed, at a distance.

Garnet set a steady pace, shedding clothes as he walked, his shirt, pants. He flung his key chain into the sand, the motion almost joyous. His underwear followed.

When he ran into the sea, it was no more than knee-high, but he started swimming immediately. Swimming straight out from shore, letting the waves break over his head, never looking to the left or the right, never looking back.

Henry said he never thought Mr. Garnet intended to kill himself until his head was a tiny dot, far away, tossed on the waves, gulls reeling and calling in the air.

57

In Thea's second novel, the character named “d” sleeps with her brother, and bears a child by him. I wondered if Alonso had read it closely, understood what he was reading. I'd watched his eyes move at the graveyard, searching first his uncle's face, then the photo of his long-dead namesake.

Fiction? I hoped so. I recalled Thea's taped confession—she'd told Alonso Senior she was uncertain who the father was.

I hoped Alonso Junior would never hear that particular tape. He looked too much like his mother, like his uncle.

Better he shouldn't know. Maybe his mother was right when she said she gave him the best father she could.

I spent most of the night in Mooney's spartan office, listening to uninformed brass criticize him via telephone. According to various “superiors,” he should have immediately issued an all-points on Garnet Cameron, initiated a high-speed car chase through five cities and towns, endangering pedestrians and drivers alike. I sat nearby, offering quiet support with my presence, rolling my eyes whenever the phone rang. Supplying doughnuts and coffee.

I thought he'd done the right thing. A trial would never have resolved the issues at stake. Garnet's death might make reconciliation possible, once Tessa finished grieving. If she ever did.

About the FBI: Alonso Nueves Rojas, subject of the elusive missing persons file #902869432, itinerant gardener, was a Cuban national under FBI surveillance. Ten years after the Bay of Pigs, Cuba was a hot spot for the Bureau. They'd traced Nueves as he made his way north from Miami, deciding whether to approach him as a prospective counterintelligence agent. Although he'd once fought for Castro, he now declared himself an anti-Castro patriot. The Bureau had inconclusive paper concerning his whereabouts on November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy died. The FBI hadn't made up its collective mind, friend or foe, when Nueves abruptly disappeared.

That was all. That was why MacAvoy had been afraid to dump the Nueves file entirely, perhaps why his shaky eraser had failed to obliterate the number. Simple fear of Big Brother FBI.

Gary Reedy got to stamp “Case Closed” on #902869432. He was a happy man. He shook Mooney's hand when he left, actually smiled at me.

58

It was over, but I didn't feel like celebrating.

Tessa'd found her lost child, but at what cost? Her peace of mind … her lover … her son …

We finished up late Tuesday night—all the charges and countercharges, the handshakes, the stares of enmity. I'd put in a lot of night driving lately, but I knew I'd never sleep. I didn't see how a last long haul could hurt.

I got in my Toyota and headed north in a drizzle that grew heavier as I traveled, north to New Hampshire and Paolina.

I wondered whether Thea would keep writing. I doubted she'd publish her second novel, even if she continued to revise it. Despite its promise, it had brought such pain. Shoved too many faces, both innocent and knowing, into the unforgiving truth.

As to truth, I couldn't plumb the depth of her talent. Maybe she
had
lost the gift. A prodigy's talent is often like that. It doesn't mature with the person, just stays as it was. Thea's words echoed: “I'm no longer ‘talented for my age.'”

I found myself driving faster the closer I got to Paolina's campsite. Turning up the music, singing along with Les Sampou on “Sweet Perfume,” trying to shut down my thoughts.

Paolina must have been scared or she wouldn't have called, wouldn't have begged me to pick her up as quickly as possible. But I'd had Pix in the car, another child clinging to me for help. Roz had answered the phone. Had Paolina willed her voice calm, not to worry me?

Some things can't be undone
. Thea had said it, screamed it as the police continued to search for Garnet's body.

What if I wasn't there? Wasn't there when Carlos Roldan Gonzales came for Paolina?

Some things can't be undone
.

I heard the phrase with every swipe of the windshield wiper across the rain-splattered glass.

I don't think I took a breath till I saw her, lying on her left side, curled tightly into a sleeping ball. The girls slept six to a cabin, and I had to tiptoe for silence, and bend at the same time to allow for the low ceiling. The counselor on duty had given me permission to wake her, take her home. The counselor had said she'd been fine—active and happy—until last week, until a phone call.

But campers weren't allowed to receive calls, I'd protested.

“He said it was an emergency.”

An emergency.

Paolina wakes slowly, full of stretches and yawns and small secretive smiles. She squirmed into clothes laid ready at the end of her bed. Ready for what?

She didn't speak till she was beside me in the car, her tote and backpack in the trunk, her farewell letter written, weighted by a rock to the long kitchen table where her summer friends would find it when they woke.

Paolina talks when she's ready. Five minutes or five hours. Or not at all.

The rain beat steadily on the roof.

When she spoke her voice was guarded. She could have been talking about archery practice or a soccer game. “My father called,” she said, her face turned away, staring into the darkness outside the passenger window. “My real father.”

Usually she called him Carlos. Since she found out he existed. “Father” had always been the man her mother had married, a Puerto Rican absentee who'd given the family legal-immigrant status and not much else.

“He wanted me to go with him,” she said.

Dear God, I could have lost her
. The thought was an alarm clanging in my ears. How had he known where she was?

“He changed his mind,” she said softly. I couldn't take my eyes off the narrow road, couldn't tell if she was hiding tears of sorrow or relief.

I waited, but she seemed to have run out of words.

“Did you want to go?” I said, trying so hard for nonchalance I could barely spit out the question.

“I'm … not sure. But he didn't give me the chance. I'm not sure.”

“I'm sorry I didn't come sooner,” I said.

She fell asleep with her head resting against the window. I reached over to reassure myself that her seat belt was fastened.

When I turned the car into the driveway, she woke again, and helped carry her things up the walkway. We peeled off our damp rain gear in the foyer. The red light flashed on my message machine.

Carlos Roldan Gonzales's voice, his deep sonorous accented voice, dominated the room.

“Little one,” he said, as if he knew Paolina would be with me, listening, “I am sorry if I disappointed you. I will come when it is safe. It may seem foolish, perhaps, in your country, but I have enemies who may have learned of you, who would not hesitate to use you to get to me. I don't want you hurt,
querida
.

“Señorita,” he said, his tone changing to speak to an adult. “Take care of her. She will be safer with you. For now.”

I knelt and held her in my arms till she wriggled her protest.

What would I do if Carlos came for her? What would I do if she chose to go with him?

To lose my brilliant child
.

The next day, Wednesday, because I felt rich with Paolina beside me, granted permission by her mother to stay with me till camp's official Friday end, I hired myself to find a tiny blond girl named Pix.

I put an ad in
The Phoenix
begging her to call. I signed it “Alonso.” I sent Roz into all the best-known Cambridge and Somerville squats. I went myself, tacked up a hundred posters on bulletin boards and walls, drawn by Roz, copied by Xerox. I offered a generous reward. I tracked her through the Missing Children's Center, through the prison and probation systems, through the Internet.

I never found her.

perhaps as penance,

i must walk,

barefoot and holy,

through snow-wax camellias

Pix visits my dreams. My penance, perhaps.

Afterword

He said, “She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace
,

The Lady of Shalott.”

A
LFRED
, L
ORD
T
ENNYSON

Author's Note

The poetry herein attributed to the fictional Thea Janis was actually written by Nancy Linn Pearl in the summer of 1963. It is used with the consent of the poet. Because I needed a poem as evidence of Thea's current liveliness, I attempted to capture Nancy's early style in “berlin, now.”

Acknowledgments

The author thanks her faithful first reader, Richard Barnes, for his kindness, generosity, and unflagging belief. The early readers also deserve great credit for their collective insight, patience, and tolerance; they include James Morrow, Morgan Rose, Chris Smither, and Cinda Van Deursen. To each, a heartfelt thanks.

Gina Maccoby, my agent, did double-duty on this one, joining the reading committee in addition to admirably performing all the other tasks that smooth the path for Carlotta and me.

Officer Daniel J. Daley of the Boston Police, and Thomas G. Gutheil, M.D., answered all my questions—concerning police procedure and memory respectively. Books and articles written by Dr. Lenore Terr and Dr. Elizabeth Loftus also helped illuminate various aspects of memory.

Cynthia Mark-Hummel and John Hummel remain active on the ever-important T-shirt squad.

And at Delacorte, Carole Baron kept the ball rolling while Tracy Devine held my hand.

About the Author

Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries. Her witty private-investigator heroine has been hailed as “a true original” by Sue Grafton. Barnes is also the author of the Michael Spraggue Mysteries and a stand-alone novel,
The Perfect Ghost
.

A winner of the Anthony Award and a finalist for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, Barnes lives in the Boston area with her husband and son. Visit her at
www.lindabarnes.com
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.