“Don’t be afraid to ask if I’m all right. Yes, I am.”
“Did you watch the tape of Bobby?”
“Twice. Amy watched it with me the second time. Adam, remember how Bobby had just started to say ‘Mom-me’?”
“Yes I do. Why, Men?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Men, they’re boarding. I’ll have to go. See you in a little while.”
Adam hung up and ran for the departure gate. He had watched the tape that he found in the library of the apartment. “Mom-me.” It almost sounded as though Bobby were calling Menley to him. Oh Christ, Adam thought, why didn’t I get back to the Cape before the airport closed.
100
Nat and Bill Walsh, the investigator, carried Tina’s bags into one of the conference rooms. She sat down across from them at the table and pointedly looked at her watch. “If I’m not out of here in half an hour I’ll miss my plane,” she said. “Where’s Fred?”
“He’s down the hall,” Nat said.
“What’s he done?”
“Maybe nothing except be a delivery man. Tina, let’s talk about Vivian Carpenter’s missing emerald ring.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What about it?”
“Then you know about it?”
“Anyone who reads the papers knows about it, to say nothing of all the talk at the inquest.”
“Then you know it’s not the kind of ring that would be mistaken for another one. Here, let me read the description of it from the insurance company.” Nat picked up a sheet of paper. “ ‘Colombian emerald, five-and-a-half carats, fine deep green with no visible inclusions, two fine emerald-cut diamonds, one-and-a-half carats each, on either side, mounted in platinum, value a quarter of a million dollars.’ “
He laid down the paper and shook his head. “You can understand why the Carpenters wanted it back, can’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A lot of people seem to think that ring was wrenched off Vivian’s finger after she died, Tina. If true, that could get whoever has it now in big, big trouble. Why don’t you think about that? Mr. Walsh will stay with you. I’m going in to talk to Fred.”
He exchanged a glance with the investigator. Now Walsh could take the fatherly approach with Tina and, most important, he wouldn’t leave her alone to go through her luggage. Nat had not missed the quick, nervous dart of Tina’s eyes when he mentioned the ring. She thinks it’s in her suitcase, he thought.
* * *
Fred Hendin looked up when Nat came into the room. “Is Tina here?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Nat told him.
They had deliberately left Fred alone for nearly an hour. “Coffee?” Nat asked.
“Yes.”
“Me too. It’s been a long day.”
The semblance of a smile passed over Fred Hendin’s lips. “I guess you could say that.”
Nat waited until the coffee was brought in, then leaned forward, man to man. “Fred, you’re not the kind of guy who worries about fingerprints. My guess is that some of your prints are on that package that someone, and I emphasize someone, in a dark green Plymouth with the numbers 7 and 3 or 8 on his Massachusetts license plates, placed in the Carpenters’ mailbox last night.”
Hendin’s expression did not change.
“The way I look at it,” Nat said, “someone you know might have had that ring. And you remembered seeing her wear it, or maybe you saw it on her dresser or in her jewelry box, and after the inquest and reading all the papers, you got worried. Maybe you didn’t want that person to be tied to what may have been a crime, so you helped her out by getting the ring out of her possession. Help me out, Fred. Isn’t that the way it was?”
When Hendin remained silent, Nat said, “Fred, if Tina had the ring, she perjured herself at the inquest. That means she goes to prison unless she cuts a deal, which is what she should do. Unless she was in on a plot to kill Vivian Carpenter, she’s small potatoes. If you want to help her, start to cooperate, because if you do, Tina will have to follow your very good example.”
Fred Hendin’s hands were folded. He seemed to be studying them. Nat knew what he must be thinking. Fred is an honest man. And proud. Every dollar he makes is earned honestly. Nat also reasoned that Fred knew enough about the law to be aware that, since Tina had said under oath she didn’t know anything about an emerald ring, she could be in big trouble. That was why Nat was hinting that she could get out of trouble if she cooperated.
Nat also thought he had a pretty good idea of the way Tina thought. She would play every angle until she was backed into a corner. Hopefully they would accomplish that tonight. He knew that eventually they would track down Covey, but he didn’t want to wait too long.
“I don’t want Tina to get in trouble,” Fred said, finally breaking the silence. “Falling for a snake like Covey shouldn’t get anyone into trouble.”
It sure as hell got Vivian Carpenter into trouble, Nat thought.
Then Fred Hendin said, “I took the emerald ring from Tina’s jewelry box last night.”
* * *
The investigator, Bill Walsh, kept a sympathetic expression as Tina snapped, “This is like living in Nazi Germany.”
“Sometimes we have to ask innocent people to help in our investigations,” Walsh said soothingly. “Tina, you keep looking at your luggage. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“No. Listen, if Fred can’t drive me to Logan, I have to hire a cab, and that’s going to cost me a fortune.”
“With this lousy weather, I’ll bet your flight is delayed. Want me to check?” Walsh picked up the phone. “What airline and what’s your departure time?”
Tina listened while he confirmed her reservation. When he hung up, he was smiling broadly. “At least an hour delay, Tina. We’ve got plenty of time.”
A few minutes later, Nat rejoined them. “Tina,” he said, “I’m going to read you the Miranda warning.”
Obviously stunned and confused, Tina listened in disbelief, read and signed the paper Nat gave her and waived her right to a lawyer. “I don’t need one. I haven’t done anything. I’ll talk to you.”
“Tina, do you know the penalty for being an accessory to murder in this state?”
“Why should I care?”
“At the very least you accepted a valuable ring that may have been torn from a victim’s finger.”
“That’s a lie.”
“You had the ring. Fred saw it and returned it to the Carpenters.”
“He what?” She rushed to the pile of luggage in the corner and grabbed the carry-on bag. In one quick motion she unzipped it and pulled out a book.
One of those fake jewelry boxes, Nat thought, watching as Tina opened it to reveal the hollowed-out interior. He saw the color drain from her face. “The miserable sneak,” she muttered.
“Who, Tina?”
“Fred knows where I keep my jewelry,” she snapped. “He must have taken . . .” She stopped.
“Taken what, Tina?”
After a long moment, she said, “The pearls and pin and watch and engagement ring he gave me.”
“Is that all? Tina, if you don’t cooperate we have you cold on perjury.”
She stared at Nat for a long moment. Then she sat down and buried her face in her hands.
The stenographer took down Tina’s story. After the tragic death of his wife, Scott Covey had turned to her for comfort, and they had fallen in love again. He had found the emerald in his wife’s jewelry box and given it to Tina as a token of their future life. But when those ugly rumors started, they had agreed that it would look very bad to admit he had the ring. They also agreed that she should keep seeing Fred until everything blew over.
“Do you have plans to join Scott?” Nat asked.
She nodded. “We’re truly very much in love. And when he needed comfort . . .”
“I know,” Nat said. “He turned to you.” He paused. “Just as a matter of curiosity: You visited him at his ho
use late at night sometimes and parked your car in his garage, didn’t you?”
“Fred always left early in the evening. Sometimes I’d pay Scott a visit.”
Tina was crying now. Nat wasn’t sure if it was because she was beginning to see the serious implications of the questions or because she hadn’t gotten away.
“Where is Scott now?”
“On his way to Colorado. He’ll meet me there at my brother’s house.”
“Do you expect to hear from him before then?”
“No. He thought it was better to wait. He said that the Carpenters were powerful enough to have his car phone bugged.”
* * *
Nat and the assistant district attorneys soberly discussed Tina’s testimony. “Sure, we’ve got enough for a grand jury, but if she sticks to that story about how Covey gave her the ring after he found it—and she may well believe that it is true—we’ve got nothing concrete, nothing more damaging than his lying about the ring having been lost,” one assistant said. “After his wife died, it was Covey’s ring to give away.”
The cellular phone in Nat’s pocket began to ring. It was Walter Orr. “So how much do you want to know about that boat?” He sounded triumphant.
Don’t play games, Nat thought. Trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, he asked, “What can you tell me?”
“It’s an inboard/outboard motor, about twenty, twenty-three feet. There’s a guy sunning on the deck.”
“Alone?” Nat asked.
“Yes. Looks like the remains of lunch beside him.”
“Is there a name on the boat?”
The response was just what Nat had been hoping to hear.
“Viv’s Toy,” Orr told him.
101
The plane circled Logan Airport for ten minutes before finally landing. Adam rushed out of the plane, then raced along the corridor to the terminal. A long line of people was waiting at the car-rental desk. It took another ten minutes before he had secured the necessary papers and flagged down a courtesy van to the pickup area. He called Menley again to say that he was on his way.
She was distracted. “I’m holding a flashlight and trying to light candles,” she told him. “We just lost the lights. No, it’s all right. They went on again.”
Finally he was inching his way through the massive traffic that led into the Sumner Tunnel. It was quarter of nine before he was on Route 3, the road that led directly to the Cape.
Menley sounded perfectly calm, Adam thought, trying to reassure himself. But should I phone Elaine and ask her and John to go over and stay with her until I get home?
No. He knew Menley would never forgive him if he did that.
But why do I have this gut-level sense that there’s a problem? he asked himself.
It was the same queasy feeling he had had the day of the accident. He had played golf that afternoon and reached home in time to pick up the phone when the policeman called.
He could still hear that restrained, sympathetic voice: “Mr. Nichols, I’m afraid I have bad news.”
102
After Adam called from the airport, Menley went upstairs and checked on Hannah. The baby was restless, though she did not awaken. Teething or just the noise of the wind? Menley wondered as she smoothed the blankets and tucked them around her daughter. She could hear the mournful shriek of the wind wrapping around the house, sounding more and more like a voice crying, “Rememmmmmberrrr . . .”
Of course, it was her imagination, the powers of suggestion at work, she told herself firmly.
Downstairs, she could hear a shutter flapping. Giving the baby’s back a final pat, Menley hurried down to try to secure the loose shutter. It was on one of the windows in the library. She opened the window, and gusts of rain drenched her as she reached out and pulled both the shutters over the glass and fastened them together.
The driving must be terrible, she thought. Adam, be careful. Had she said that to him? She realized suddenly she had been so busy resenting his concern for her that she had forgotten to show concern for him.
She tried to settle down, but was too restless to watch television. Adam wouldn’t be home until at least nine-thirty, another hour and a half away. She decided to try to arrange the books on the library shelves in some sort of order.
Carrie Bell had obviously dusted them since Menley had looked through them a few weeks ago. But the pages of many of the oldest ones were swollen and torn. One of the past owners of the house had obviously been interested in acquiring secondhand books. The penciled prices on the inside cover of many of them were as low as ten cents.
She thumbed through some of the books as she organized them. The sporadic reading helped her to ignore the weather. Finally it was nine o’clock and time to start dinner. The book she was holding had been published in 1911 and was a dry history of sailing ships, illustrated with sketches. She knew she had glanced at it a few days after they had arrived in the house. And then, just as she was about to close it, she saw the familiar sketch of Andrew and Mehitabel on the ship. The caption read, “A ship captain and wife in the early seventeenth century, by an unknown artist.”
Menley felt a great weight fall from her. I did see that picture and subconsciously copied it, she thought. She laid the book open on her desk under the pictures she had taped to the wall. The lights flickered again, dimming for a moment. In the deep shadows of the room, she had the unsettling feeling that the sketch she had made of Andrew with his ravaged, grief-filled expression in this light somehow resembled Adam.
As Adam is going to look very soon, flashed through her mind.
Ridiculous, Menley thought, and went into the kitchen where she took the precaution of lighting all the candles in case the electricity failed for good.
103
Adam turned from Route 6 onto Route 137. Another seven miles, he told himself. Twenty minutes at the most. Provided you move it, he fumed at the driver several cars ahead who was traveling at a snail’s pace. He didn’t dare try to pass, though. There was moderate traffic coming in the other direction, and the roads were so wet he would probably cause a head-on collision.
Only another six miles, he said to himself a few minutes later, but his sense of urgency was steadily increasing. Now he was driving through whole sections that were in total darkness.
104
Menley switched on the radio, twisted the dial and found the Chatham station that played forties music. She raised an eyebrow in surprise as the Benny Goodman orchestra went into the opening bars of “Remember.” A particularly appropriate song, she thought. She picked up a serrated knife and began to slice tomatoes for a salad. “But you forgot to remember,” the vocalist warbled.
The whooshing sound of the wind was growing stronger again. “Reeememmmmmberrrrr.”
Menley shivered as she reached for the celery. Adam will be here soon, she reminded herself.
There was a sudden noise. What was that? Had a door blown open? Or a window? Something was wrong.
She snapped off the radio. The baby! Was she crying? Was that a cry or a muffled, gagging sound? Menley hurried to the counter, grabbed the monitor and held it to her ear. She heard another throttled gasp and then nothing. The baby was choking!
She rushed from the kitchen into the hall and toward the staircase. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she raced to the second floor, and a moment later she was at the doorway of the nursery. There was no sound coming from the crib. “Hannah, Hannah,” she cried.
Hannah was lying on her stomach, her arms outstretched, her body motionless. Frantically, Menley leaned down, turning the baby as she picked her up. Then her eyes widened in horror.
The china head of the antique doll rested against her hand. The painted face stared back at her.
Menley tried to scream, but no sound came from her lips. And then from behind her, a voice whispered, “I’m sorry, Menley. It’s all over.”
She spun around. Scott Covey was standing beside the cradle, a gun in his hand.
The cradle. Hannah was in it. Hannah, stirring, beginning to whimper. Relief flooded through Menley, followed by a surge of terror. She felt suddenly lightheaded, besieged by a sense of unreality. Scott Covey? Why? “What are you doing here?” she managed to ask through lips so dry she almost could not form the words. “I don’t understand. How did you get in?”
Covey’s expression was the same as it always had been: courteous, attentive. He was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers. But they were dry. Why wasn’t he drenched? Menley wondered.
“It doesn’t matter how I got in, Menley,” he said pleasantly. “The problem is that it took me longer to get here than I expected, but since Adam’s in New York it doesn’t matter.”
Adam. Had he been talking to Adam?
It was as though he could read her thoughts. “Elaine told me, Menley.”
“Elaine? I don’t understand.” Her mind was racing. What is going on? This can’t be happening. This is a nightmare! Scott Covey? Why? She and Adam had befriended him. She had urged Adam to defend him. Adam had saved him from a murder charge. And
Elaine? What did Scott have to do with Elaine? It all seemed so unreal.
But the gun in his hand was real.
Hannah whimpered louder, starting to wake up. Menley saw the annoyed look on Covey’s face. He glanced down at the baby, and the hand with the gun moved.
“No!” she cried. Bending down, she grabbed Hannah from the cradle. Just as she pulled her close, the lights went out, and she ran from the room.
In the dark she rushed for the staircase. She had to focus. She knew every inch of the house. Scott didn’t. If she could only get to the kitchen door before he found her. The ignition key was on the hook beside it. The station wagon was right outside. She only needed a minute. She ran down the sides of the steps, praying they wouldn’t creak.
He wasn’t behind her. He must have turned the other way; maybe he was looking for her in the other bedrooms. Please God, please God, just give me this one minute, she prayed.