Desperate Measures (29 page)

“Matt?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Suppose Meecham can’t help us.”

Pittman didn’t answer.

“Suppose he can’t,” Jill repeated.

“Don’t think like that,” Pittman said. “We need to believe that he
will
help us. Otherwise, we won’t be able to keep going.”

Jill studied him. “Your determination surprises me.”

“Why?”

“A man who’s planning to kill himself normally doesn’t worry about the future, about staying alive.”

“Survival? That’s not what this is about.”

“Oh? You sure as hell could have fooled me. What
is
it about?”

“A week ago, I was sitting in my bathtub with a gun in my mouth.”

Jill wasn’t prepared for the change of subject. The stark sentence shocked her.

“I had settled all of my affairs. Every debt I owed had been repaid, every favor returned. Everything was in order. I wasn’t
beholden to anyone. I intended to leave this world with every loose end tied. Then my phone rang and a friend I thought I
was even with asked me to do him a favor. He had done so much for my son that I couldn’t possibly refuse him. Now I have another
debt.”

“To whom?” Jill asked.

“You.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s my fault that you’re involved in this. If I hadn’t gone to your apartment… I have to make sure you’re safe.”

Holding the blanket tightly around her, Jill walked over to him. She touched his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Pittman shrugged, self-conscious.

“And if you’re successful?” Jill asked.

Pittman didn’t know what to answer.

“
Then
what?” Jill asked. “Do you still plan to kill yourself?”

Pittman looked away.

They took longer than they had anticipated. Route 2 was under construction. It ended well before Boston, and they were forced
to take an indirect route, using 495 south, then 90 east into the city, arriving only in late afternoon. Pittman’s bandaged
left hand felt less awkward. He did the driving this time, letting Jill nap in the backseat until he stopped at a rest area
just outside the city.

She sat up, stretched, and yawned.

“These are your old stomping grounds,” Pittman said. “Do you think you can find the address?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“You don’t need to look at a map?”

“Derrick Meecham must have a lot of money. This address is in Beacon Hill. It’s a couple of blocks from where my parents live.”

Rush hour slowed their progress even more, but finally, shortly after six, Jill steered from the Massachusetts Turnpike onto
Columbus Avenue, from there to Charles Street through Boston Common, and then into the historic, exclusive district of Beacon
Hill.

Pittman studied a narrow, tree-lined, cobblestoned street. On one side, a spiked wrought-iron fence enclosed a small park,
while on the other side, nineteenth-century brick town houses cast shadows from the lowering sun. Jill turned a corner, and
here gated driveways separated some of the mansions. Through the metal bars, Pittman saw courtyards, gardens, and carriage
houses converted into garages.

“And this is where you were raised?”

“When I wasn’t at private schools,” Jill said.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It can also be a trap. That’s why I moved away to real life.”

“At the moment, I’d prefer to
escape
from real life.”

Ahead, a Mercedes pulled away from a line of cars parked at the curb, and Jill eased into the space. When she got out, she
straightened her tan skirt and put on her green blazer. “Do I look presentable?”

“Lovely.”

“Just remember, when we knock on the door, whoever opens it is going to make an instantaneous judgment about us, based on
how neatly and acceptably we dress.”

Pittman reached into the car, took his tie from his gym bag, and put it on. He hoped his shirt wasn’t too wrinkled. His slacks
and sport coat were as clean as he could make them.

“If I understand your logic,” Pittman said, “I’d better not identify myself as a reporter.”

Jill nodded. “The kind of wealth we’re dealing with is extremely class-conscious. The press is definitely considered beneath
them.”

“Then what angle are we going to use? What I tried at Grollier? That I’m writing a book about the academy?”

“Better yet, you’re a
history professor
who’s writing a book about the academy. Academics have privilege.”

They went up a half dozen stone steps to a large, polished, weathered oak door.

“It probably dates back to the early 1800s,” Jill said.

Pittman grasped an iron knocker and tapped it against a metal plate secured to the door.

They waited.

Pittman knocked again.

“Maybe no one’s home.”

“I don’t see any lights in the windows,” Jill said.

“Maybe they’ve gone out to dinner.”

Jill shook her head. “Any respectable Boston Brahmin doesn’t go out to dinner this early. Besides, Meecham’s elderly. I doubt
he strays far from home.”

Pittman raised his hand to knock on the door again, but he was interrupted as he heard a lock being freed. The knob was twisted.
The door came slowly open, revealing a short, frail-looking white-haired woman who wore a tasteful high-collared blue dress
that had long sleeves and a hem that almost covered the support hose on her swollen calves and ankles. She had liver spots
on her deeply creased skin.

She opened the door only partially, squinting through her thick glasses at Pittman and Jill. “Yes? Do I know you?” Her voice
was tremulous.

“No, ma’am,” Pittman said. “My name is Peter Logan. I’m a history professor from across the river.” He referred to Harvard.
“I apologize if this is an inconvenient time for me to be calling, but I was wondering if I could speak to your husband about
a book that I’m writing.”

“History professor? Book? My husband?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m doing research about some American educational institutions, the classic ones, and I’m hoping that your husband
can answer some questions that occurred to me.”

“Questions? My husband?”

Pittman’s stomach sank. She keeps repeating what I say, turning my statements into questions. We’re wasting our time, he thought.
She’s senile. She doesn’t have the faintest idea of what I’m talking about.

The woman raised her head. “I don’t know what questions you have in mind, but I’m afraid my husband can’t answer them. He
died a year ago.”

The shock of what she said and the lucidity with which she said it made Pittman realize that he’d severely misjudged her.

“Oh.” He was too surprised to know what to say. He knew he should have considered the possibility that Meecham would be dead
by now, but the fact that the grand counselors, except for Millgate, were still alive had made Pittman hope that those associated
with the counselors would still be alive, as well.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “The alumni association at Yale told me that Derrick Meecham lived here. I assumed that their
records were up to date.”

“They are.” The woman’s voice became more tremulous.

“I don’t understand.”

“Derrick Meecham does live here.”

“Forgive us, ma’am,” Jill said. “We still don’t understand.”

“My son.”

“Mother,” a man’s refined voice said from inside the house. “I thought we agreed that you had to save your energy. There’s
no need for you to answer the door. That is Frederick’s responsibility. Where is he, by the way?”

The door came all the way open, and Pittman faced a distinguished-looking man in his early fifties. The man had a broad forehead,
graying hair, steady eyes, and the solid expression of someone used to giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed. His
three-piece gray pinstriped suit was the most perfectly tailored that Pittman had ever seen.

“Yes, may I help you?” the man asked without enthusiasm.

“This man is a professor,” the elderly woman said.

“Peter Logan,” Pittman added. “I teach history at Harvard. I’ve made a mistake, I’m afraid. I wanted to speak with your father,
but as I’ve just learned, he passed on. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Speak to my father? What about?”

“I’m doing research on the history of Grollier Academy.”

The man didn’t react for a moment, didn’t blink, didn’t seem to breathe. “Grollier?”

“It’s had such a major influence on American government, I thought it was time to investigate what makes it unique.”

“Oh, it’s unique all right.”

Cars drove by on the street. The sun dipped lower, casting shadows. The man continued to stare at Pittman.

Then his chest moved. “Come in, Professor.… I’m sorry, could you repeat your name?”

“Logan. Peter Logan. This is my wife, Rebecca. She’s a historian, also.”

“Derrick Meecham.” The man offered his hand, once more saying, without enthusiasm, “Come in.”

The man locked the door and led the way, escorting his mother along a wide wood-paneled corridor that had landscape paintings,
forests and farmhouses, on the walls. The frames looked old enough to be from the nineteenth century.

They passed a brightly polished maple staircase, its banister beautifully carved. At the end of the corridor, lights glowed
in several rooms, from one of which a tall man wearing a white jacket appeared.

“Where have you been, Frederick?” Meecham asked. “I found my mother answering the door.”

“I thought she was upstairs,” the man in the white jacket said. “I apologize, sir. I didn’t hear the door. I was down in the
wine cellar, looking for the Rothschild you requested.”

“Did you find it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The ’71?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Mother, why don’t you rest until dinner? Frederick will take you up to your room. Perhaps you can watch one of your
television shows.” Meecham’s tone implied that he himself did not watch television.

“
Victory Garden
is about to begin, Mrs. Meecham,” Frederick said.

“Yes,” the elderly woman said with enthusiasm, allowing herself to be escorted into a small elevator.

As the cage rumbled and rose, Meecham turned to Pittman and Jill. “In here, please.”

They entered one of the many rooms that flanked the wide corridor. There were bookcases with leather-bound volumes on them,
mostly law books. The furniture was subdued, correct, and, Pittman assumed, more expensive than he would have dreamed. An
Oriental rug stopped three feet short of the walls on each side, revealing a rich oak floor.

Meecham gestured. “Sit down. May I have Frederick get you anything?”

Pittman and Jill each took a chair across from where Meecham stood by the fireplace.

“Thank you, no,” Pittman said.

“I was just about to have a cocktail,” Meecham said, his hospitality surprising Pittman.

I don’t get it, Pittman thought. He was ready to give us the bum’s rush until I mentioned Grollier. Now he invites us in and
wants us to have cocktails. Either
he
needs the drink, which it doesn’t look like, or else he hopes a little booze might get us to talk more candidly than we normally
would have.

“A cocktail would be nice,” Jill said. “Whatever you’re having.”

“Vodka martinis.”

“That would be fine.”

Meecham walked to the door, opened it, spoke to someone, then shut the door again and sat on a Chippendale chair next to the
fireplace.

He looked steadily at Jill and then Pittman. “Grollier Academy.”

“That’s right. Your father went there, I believe,” Pittman said.

“Oh, indeed he did. But I don’t quite understand. Of all the students who went to Grollier, why would you have chosen my father
for an interview?”

“Because he was a classmate of the so-called grand counselors. Jonathan Millgate, Eustace Gable, Anthony Lloyd…”

Meecham’s features hardened. “I know who the grand counselors are. My father had no relationship with them after he left Grollier.”

“But evidently he was close to them at the time.”

Meecham spoke quickly. “What makes you think that?”

“In his junior year, your father enrolled in a course in political science. The number of students was quite small. Only six.
The five grand counselors—”

“And my father.”

It was the first time that Meecham had volunteered any information. Pittman tried not to look surprised.

“Yes,” Jill said. “Naturally in so close an environment, especially on the subject of political science, your father would
have heard ideas exchanged that might have explained the direction the grand counselors took in their political careers.”

Meecham studied them. “My father never discussed that with me.”

The room became silent. Meecham was through volunteering information.

“Then perhaps he said something about the grand counselors themselves,” Pittman said, “some kind of reminiscence when he read
about them in the newspapers, something that would give insight into their formative ideas.”

“He never discussed that with me, either,” Meecham said flatly.

“No comment at all when he read about something controversial that they did?”

“Only that he’d gone to school with them.”

Yes, Meecham had definitely stopped volunteering information.

The room became silent again.

Someone knocked on the door. Frederick came in carrying a tray that held glasses and a martini pitcher.

“Frederick, we won’t have time for cocktails after all. I just remembered that the San Francisco office is going to be phoning
me in five minutes,” Meecham said.

Frederick paused where he was about to set the tray on a sideboard.

Meecham stood, approaching Pittman and Jill. “I don’t like conducting business in the evening. That’s probably why I forgot
about the telephone call. Let me escort you to the door. I regret I couldn’t be of more help, but my father was a private
man. He seldom talked to me about personal matters. Grollier was a long time ago.”

Pittman stood, as well. “One last question. I wonder if you have any idea why your father didn’t graduate from Grollier.”