Authors: Cecelia Tishy
“Diff-i-cult?” She says it in the Alden Academy voice. “Stevie could put on a real show for everybody. My brother was the
actor. There was a part of him they didn’t see.”
“What part?”
Crystal looks at me, bites her lip, takes two quick puffs, perhaps to gauge what she’s willing to “pay” me in exchange for
the furniture. I lean forward, eager to hear it all.
But just then the baby fusses, and Crystal jumps up, goes to the fridge, pours a refill, then sits in silence.
I try to recover the moment. “Crystal, it could help if I knew anything… unusual about Steven.”
But she kisses Faith, smooths her hair, hands her a ring of plastic keys. “She’s teething. Molars.”
“Poor baby.”
“And she’s gonna be a star. She’s gonna get her chance.” Faith gnaws a blue key and gurgles. “How about the furniture now?”
“About Steve, you were saying—?”
“Lady, you got enough. You want a pint of my blood too? Or a quart?”
With pen and pad, I start a list of the chairs and tables and lamps, everything Stark and I hauled downstairs yesterday, except
for the Lava lamp. And what about the green whiskey bottle? It was Jo’s, now it’s mine. Though maybe Steven swiped it from
home. “Crystal,” I say, “Steven gave my aunt an old bottle from your family household.”
“That ugly old thing? Doris wondered where it disappeared to.”
“Steven gave it to my aunt. Is it a Damelin family heirloom?”
She snorts. “It goes back to the Damelinski times. Amazing it’s not busted. My grandma used to tell about a neighborhood called
the Plains. You know that line about the fruited plains when you sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in school? We thought it meant
the old mill neighborhood here in Lawrence. All I know is, they lived on Brook Street near the Spicket River. The bottle is
from back then. We fooled around with it when we were kids.”
“Are there family stories connected to it?”
“Something about a big strike.” She shrugs. “We don’t want it back, if that’s what you’re getting at. Good riddance.”
“One last thing, Crystal. Do you remember the town where the Voglers live?”
“How should I know? I never went there. I never even met them. They came in a big white Jaguar with black windows. They never
got out. You couldn’t see their faces. But I’ll tell you one thing…” Crystal starts to sniff, wipes her nose. “Stevie
told me once… he was home watching TV and said he never really fit in with them. That’s what he said. All that skiing
and horse riding, he never felt like he fit.” Her eyes mix greed and resentment. “Hey, you gonna send a U-Haul with the furniture,
or what?”
“I’ll let you know. One more thing. Did Steven swim?”
She squints. “You mean when he was a kid? In summer?”
“In water with a heavy current? Did he dive off logs?”
“Mostly in a public pool. Once a summer or so, the old man took us to Hampton Beach.”
“Any logs there?”
“It’s an ocean beach. It’s got fried clams and sand.”
“How about creeks? Or rivers?”
“There was a pond with a float. I got a bad splinter. We were real little. I think a storm wrecked it. That was a long time
ago. Why, what’s this about?”
“Just wondered.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She shrugs, scrapes wet cookie from Barney’s mouth, and spreads fingers across her stomach. “This one’s
gonna be a real kicker. And my Faith here, she’s gonna have dance lessons and go on TV. She is.”
We rise. I get her phone number. “There will probably be a memorial service for Steven. You and your parents might want to
come.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Her hard dry laugh startles the baby. I rise and say good-bye. Outside, the October air hits hard. What
did I expect, the name of Steven’s killer? Or that syrupy moment they call
closure
? At curbside, Stark stands against my car like a sentinel and reaches to open my door. I get out my key to signal I’m the
driver, I’m the one in charge.
T
here’s no Alex or Alec or Alexander on the Web pages of the Boston Ballet or the Fresh Pond Ballet or Jose Mateo’s Ballet
Company. Each of their phones answers with a machine recording.
I want to know whether Charlie Damelin’s anger was turned in murderous rage on the estranged son who refused to finance a
Hummer. And whether the Damelins understood their son was gay. And about the Voglers. And Luis.
I’m also desperate for input about the blood markings on my door, which is why I’m back in the Beetle by 5:30 p.m. heading
south on I-95 toward Providence in open defiance of Maglia’s order. It’s Reggie-in-revolt when I cross the state line and
am welcomed by a big sign for the Ocean State, Rhode Island, and proceed to my Molly’s basement apartment in a colonial clapboard,
a house chopped into a rabbit warren for students—talk about landlord profiteering. She answers the door in black pants and
cut-way-down-to-here tank, her warm smile a mile wide, dark eyes twinkling and clear. When we hug, I feel her heartbeat, which
takes me back to the very beginning. I hold on tight, and for a moment, so does my daughter.
We part laughing. Her raspberry hair looks like scissored shingles. As for the frog tattoo on her ankle, tiny though it is
… I’m thrilled to see her.
“Mom, let’s go eat. I’m starved.” She slips on a jacket.
“It’s cold, Mol. Don’t you want to zip up?”
“You mean I should cover up, your R-rated daughter. Jeez, some things never change, do they?”
That defensive tone. Will I ever learn? Molly directs us to an Indian restaurant with sitar music and rush-bottom chairs at
a wobbly table with a guttering candle. Somehow Indian food always looks like a brownout, and I can’t quite cope with the
menu names. “Curry,” I say to the fine-featured waiter, “not too hot.” Molly orders as if it’s all as familiar as a Happy
Meal. Which I suppose it is. The breads are excellent.
“Yum,” I say.
“Yum.” Then, “Mom, tell me, how are you?”
It’s a role-reversal moment, with Molly as the parental daughter. I try a hot puffy bread. “I’m doing fine. The police are
great. They patrol night and day in unmarked cars.”
“Do they have suspects?”
“Molly, as helpful as they are, the police don’t tell me. Nor should they. But they’re working very hard, and they have their
leads. I’m confident. I really am.”
“Are you working with them?”
“As a psychic? Not just yet. I’m doing some other work. In fact, I need your input after our dinner.”
It’s served, muddy lumps of vegetables with a nice creamy white yogurt. The tandoori bread is lovely. Molly compliments my
ensemble. “That violet top is, like, forefront.”
“Let’s say I’ve got a… personal shopper.”
“And how about the postcard guy? Any more Sphinxes?”
“Not lately.”
“I thought he was hot for you, Mom. What’s his name?”
“Knox. Knox Baker.”
“So when’s the hot date?”
“No idea, dear.” Believe me, it’s downright weird when your daughter asks about the maternal love life. “We’re acquaintances,
Molly, and he travels a good deal. I have a collection of cards… Kuwait, Bahrain.”
“Mr. Frequent Flier.”
Let it go at that. We eat in silence, then I reach into my purse. “Mol, I want to ask you a favor. I got some snapshots developed.
I need your opinion.”
“Sure. What is it?”
My strategic lie is ready as I hand over two photos. “This is kind of a forensic quiz, Mol. The door marks you see in the
pictures were found upstairs on the door of the victim, Steven Damelin.” Molly holds them close to her face.
“The police are trying to figure out whether the killer stained Steven’s upstairs door accidentally or whether the marks are
deliberate. Before his door was cleaned, I took these. I thought you’d know whether they were intentional.”
She holds the pictures near the candle. “No contest, Mom.” She bites her lip. “But maybe a sponge instead of a brush.”
“But deliberate?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re sure? I mean, really sure?”
“It’s deliberate application. Notice how that line swells at the middle, then tapers off?” I nod. “That’s a stroke. That’s
on purpose.”
My stomach is turning to ice.
“So you tell that to the police,” she adds.
I reach for my water, my insides now flash frozen. “I’ll tell them.”
She holds on to the photos. “Of course, it’s calligraphy.”
“Calligraphy, I thought so too. The police are looking for an Asian language specialist.”
“Tell you what, Mom, the more I look at the mark, the more it looks like Chinese characters, but let me ask Tom Chou. He’s
a sculptor. His family’s from Taiwan.” She looks up. “The murdered guy, he wasn’t Asian?”
“No.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Fascinating.” My mouth is dry. No matter how much water I sip in these moments, bone-dry. Molly orders rice pudding. “Mol,
your Aunt Jo never talked about a Chinese connection, did she?”
“Chinese? Jo? No, not to me.” Molly throws me a suspicious glance. “This is from the dead guy’s door, right? Nothing to do
with Jo—nothing to do with you?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Okay. Maybe Tom Chou can come and look. I’ll call his studio right after we finish.” But her phone battery’s low, so we head
back to her apartment. There’s the futon, the chair draped with clothes, her sink full of dishes, an easel at the end of the
room. I know not to look till invited. She makes the call.
No answer from the Chinese sculptor. “Maybe Tom’s away for the weekend. I’ll try him tomorrow. Leave those snapshots here.”
“I’ll leave you with one of them, Mol. Here, take this one. And you’ll contact Tom first thing in the morning, okay?”
“Probably noon. Most artists I know are owls. You want to check out my new painting? Go ahead, have a look.”
I sidestep a mound of books, sketch pads, a pizza box. I’m ready for anything, bugs, animal innards. No longer do I second-guess
Molly Baynes. “Will I be shocked?”
“Mom, you’ll like this one. It’s a little on the dark side, a little dreamy, sort of Ryderesque. You know Albert Pinkham Ryder?
No? Well, you can probably figure it out.”
It’s a moody water scene, somber, murky, even eerie. There’s some kind of driftwood. A canoe?
The longer I stare, the more I feel… dazed. My gaze locks on this canvas, on the scene painted there. Molly speaks, names
the things pictured on the canvas before me. “Water,” she says, and “log.”
The spot on my scalp throbs, and I realize my daughter has painted the very scene I already know in every cell of my body.
M
y daughter’s painting is the clincher: the water-and-log vision must be reported to Frank Devaney, even though it has no relation
to a man drilled to death and nailed like upholstery. Light traffic on I-95 gets me back to Boston in record time. Biscuit
beats her tail on the rug like a tom-tom of welcome. I take her out, refresh her water, wash up, and get ready for bed. The
morning can’t come soon enough. I sleep restlessly, and the dog and I are both up at dawn.
Nine a.m., my phone rings, and it’s Maglia calling me to the precinct house for a talk.
It throws me. “Will Frank Devaney be there?”
“Your go-to guy?” His laugh sounds like a dry cough.
But I’m shaken, guilty as charged for crossing the Massachusetts state line without Homicide’s permission. Maglia had me followed,
or caught my license plate on a highway surveillance camera. I am clearly a “person of interest.”
“Will ten-thirty this morning work for you, Ms. Cutter?”
“I’ll be there, Detective Maglia.”
Summoned or invited, I’m there on the dot. Maglia greets me amid a swirl of blue uniforms. “Appreciate you coming, Ms. Cutter.
There’s someone we want to talk to you. It’s about the blood on your door. We have an expert in the Chinese language, and
there are a few questions.”
Maglia says a name, Hu Lee. That’s how I hear it. I’m weak with relief. It’s not about sneaking off to Providence but rather
about translating the bloody calligraphy.
We enter a side room with a small conference table and chairs with wine-colored cushions. A beefy man rises, about forty and
well over six feet, his hair as golden as wheat, cheeks pink, eyes blue as the sky. In his starched white shirt, he looks
like a football linebacker out of Norman Rockwell as he shakes my hand and says, “Hugh Lee.”
Hugh. So it’s Hugh. He motions me to a seat at the head of the table, which wedges me between him and Maglia. He opens a briefcase,
spreads eight-by-ten black-and-white glossies on the tabletop, and turns them my way. “You recognize these, Ms. Cutter?”
“I believe they’re taken from the door of my home.”
“Yes, they’re police photographs. I’ve agreed to review them. Detective Maglia and I know that you may find them disturbing.
We don’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m eager to know what the marks mean, Mr. Lee. And you’re a law enforcement official?”
“A forensic linguist, Ms. Cutter. Tell me, have you studied East Asian languages?”
“Never.”
“Perhaps you have friends or acquaintances familiar with Japanese or Korean?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“How about Chinese?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“No one at all who knows Chinese? Take your time. We’re in no hurry.”
Seconds pass. I’m on the spot and draw a blank. “My former husband traveled to China and Japan on business. He brought a few
gifts for our children. That’s the extent of it.”
“Does anyone known to you dabble in calligraphy? Perhaps a hobbyist?”
I wait a decent interval. “Nobody I can think of.”
“I’m told that your daughter is an artist, Ms. Cutter.”
“Molly? My Molly?” A cold stab. Was I in fact followed to Rhode Island? Have they probed my family background? Hugh Lee’s
bright blue eyes don’t leave my face, as if he scans every feature, every muscle and reflex. “Molly is a painter,” I say.
“Mostly she sculpts. Nothing that’s Asian. Surely you don’t think my daughter…”
Lee gives me a waxy smile. “Ms. Cutter, we must consider every possibility. Let’s talk for a moment about the language itself.
It’s fascinating. Chinese uses about four hundred sounds. Did you know that?”