Conundrum (10 page)

“I am. It’s perfect for our September issue. Norman bent my ear about all the green features. Of course he implied that he did most of the design.”

“
Ri-i-i-ght
,” Iris said. “I just drafted his ideas. You know, he’s dying for this publicity. He thinks it will enhance his swinging bachelor image.”

“And you
don’t
want it? I toured two alternative projects in Connecticut yesterday afternoon before I flew up here, but I like the Lincoln house best. This could be your lucky break, kid.”

Iris noted that C.C. had just alibied herself for the time of Will’s killing. “When are you intending to put Norman out of his misery?”

“Oh, I’ll tell him before I leave. I just love watching that jerk squirm.”

“Can I ask you something? Did you stay in touch with Will or G.B.? You were close with Will at school. Did you talk with him before this reunion?”

“Listen, Nancy Drew, I did not k
ill Will. I loved his amorality—
although I do sympathize with your having had to put up with it. I went to his wedding. Yeah, we stayed friends. He called me last week to say that he’d be here, but we hadn’t set up any specific time to meet. I do want to
know who knocked him off. As for G.B., I was never one of his favorites. I seem to be lacking in some department. So, is that everything you want to know?”

“Almost.
Do you know why Will drugged Carey back at the graduation party?”

“What could that possibly matter at this point, Iris? They’re both dead.” C.C. stared back at her.

“I just
want to know. Why did he do it—
the drugging?”

“It was some stupid joke that Will and Adam thought up to get back at Carey for upstaging everyone for all of graduate school.”

“Did Alyssa know about it?”

“Who do you think made the brownies? Look it was a joke. That’s not what killed him.

“Are you so sure about that?”

For once Iris saw C.C. look uneasy.

Chapter 14

I
ris trudged back to the jeep. Some joke. They should all be put away for life
.

She brightened a bit when she saw that she’d, once again, escaped getting a parking ticket. She called Ellie on her cell phone and filled her in on what she had learned.

Cambridge is notorious for its labyrinth of one-way streets, so from
her spot by the Broadway Market—
now called something fancier
with ‘Gourmet’ in it—
she had to thread her way down Quincy Street, past the
Fogg
Museum, back into the chaos of Harvard Square.

She punched a radio button for WUMB, the folk music station, and listened to Richard
Shindell
while she waited for the light to change on Mass Ave. He was singing one of her favorites, his cover of “Cold Missouri Waters.” She started singing along as she stared out the window, eyeing the line snaking out of Bartley’s Burgers. She could picture the performer at one of his concerts at
Passim’s
, eyes closed, strumming a relentless guitar beat. This song always choked her up.

A loud honk announced that the light had changed. As she edged up to the next light, a short block further, she looked over at the card tables laden with used books on the sidewalk in front of the Harvard Bookstore. A street person seemed to have set up shop. She wondered what the bookstore thought about their competition. From the corner of her eye she spotted a familiar duck-like gait. Norman! Where was he going and why wasn’t he at the panel discussion? Next to him skulked a beige trench-coated figure. Why were Norman and Jerry walking along Mass Ave? She tried to pull into the nearest spot so that she could follow them on foot.

“Miss.
You need to move now. That’s a handicapped spot!” It was the nasal voice of the same meter maid she’d encountered an hour ago. Damnation.

She pulled back into traffic right as Norman and Jerry disappeared down Holyoke, a one-way street going the wrong direction. She made a left on
Dunster
,
then
circled back to Holyoke. They had disappeared. She scanned the block and saw a Thai and a French restaurant. They must have gone into one of those for lunch.
A car behind her honked.

All right already! She tried t
o think fast. What could she do—
try to find them and eavesdrop? They were sure to see her. How would she ever explain her presence?

Oh, hell. She jerked the car into drive and headed home, trying to parse out their possible connection.

Chapter 15

T
here were two messages flashing on the phone by the time that Iris got home at one thirty. In the first, Ellie said she had gotten Rachel’s cell phone number off their home answering machine. She had tracked her down to her Cambridge hotel and, as one of Will’s classmates, offered condolences, asking how she could help. “We set up ‘Beep’”—she was cut off.

Next, Luc’s message said to call him at the Paradise. She called him.

“Iris, are you okay? Why did the cops haul you off?”

“Because I was supposed to meet with
Will
yesterday. His wife told the police about it. Luc, I’m worried that someone’s trying to set me up for his murder. Ellie and Mack are meeting with me tonight to try to figure out who it could be. Any chance you could join us?”

“Sure, of course. But the cops can’t really think that you did it. I can vouch for you being out in Lincoln. Listen, I just got a cancellation for a table tonight, so why don’t we meet here at the Paradise at seven? I wanted to thank you and Ellie for the catering gig anyway.”

“That would be great—
your help and dinner. Thanks. I can’t wait to hear your take on these people.”

Iris called Ellie next and left a message for them to meet at the Paradise.

By now, it was time for Sheba’s walk. She dreaded the thought of seeing where Will’s body had been found, but hoped for the chance to still learn something from the raked-over crime scene.

Fresh Pond, four miles west of Iris’ house, was an anomaly in Cambridge—300 acres of reservoir and park that Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape architect, had cleverly designed to look
undesigned
. Iris and Sheba walked the whole 2 ¼ mile dirt-alternating-with-paved path every day.

Someone had come up with the novel idea of driving the nearby nursing home residents around Fresh Pond in bright yellow bicycle-rickshaws. The first time Iris had seen one of these, she’d been sure she was hallucinating. But
the Cambridge Chronicle
that week had shown a clear photo of it with a caption calling it a
pedi
-cab. They were essentially jogging strollers for those at the other end of the age spectrum. It had been a
pedi
-cab driver, luckily not one of the frail and excitable ‘seniors,’ who had spotted the blue of Will’s jacket near a path through the woods.

After passing the hazards of the parking lot, Iris unhooked Sheba’s leash and the
bassett
hound trotted into the woods as fast as her short legs would take her. Iris kept up a brisk pace knowing the dog would circle around to keep tabs on her mistress. She relished these daily walks and the snippets of conversation from walkers, joggers, and cyclists that washed over her like sounds from the Tower of Babel.

Two women approached, one with a silk scarf draped over her
raincoated
shoulders, the other in an olive quilted vest being led by an arrogant-looking black poodle. The dog cast a disdainful look at Sheba who was sniffing an aromatic clump of weed. The second woman rattled away in French “
mais
les
poissons
sont
si
chers
chez Le Fishmonger.
Moi
, je
prefere
Whole Foods.”

This early June day was a
rarity for New England weather—
neither hot nor cold.
As if they had slipped into a chasm between seasons.
The scrim of trees ringing the reservoir looked flat against a leaden sky.

Iris heard the approach of the chattering Water Department brigade, power-walking three abreast, cell phones clipped self-importantly to the belts of their pleated chinos. What kind of water-related emergency required a constant tether to the Water Department
mothership
nestled so close by next to the parking lot? These soldiers weren’t the ones doing battle in flooded basements. Ah, yes, terrorists. They must represent Cambridge’s first line of defense against anthrax being dribbled into the reservoir. But what we
re they supposed to do about it—
beat the terrorists with their cell phones?

Iris distracted herself with these daydreams about her fellow walkers as she made her way past the dog beach. Sheba sidetracked to take a quick dip and check on which canine friends might be there, then raced to catch up with her.

Up
ahead
Iris made out the loping gait of the Vietnam vet who always wore a multi-colored fez. She tried to veer out of his line-of-sight but was hemmed in to the right by the reservoir’s chain-link fence and to the left by the dog pond. This guy would rant at passers-by on days when he hadn’t taken his meds. As she hurried past today, he shouted at her back, “You can’t HANDLE the truth!”

Rattled, Iris increased her pace to a jog, but swerved to steer Sheba out of the way of a cyclist hurtling towards them. The rider had a phone
mic
dangling from under his helmet and was shouting, “everything I’m saying is confidential.”

Three quarters of the way around the pond, they came to the path leading up toward the nursing home. She steered a reluctant Sheba onto the unfamiliar trail, which edged alongside ‘Butterfly Meadow,’ an open marshland that served as a bird sanctuary. Midway up, in a secluded area, broken branches and trampled underbrush ghosted where Will’s body must have lain. A remnant of yellow crime scene tape fluttered from a low Sycamore branch. The police had worked quickly. Iris looked down and felt an unalloyed sadness. For the first time Will’s death felt real. His life had just vaporized. Had he done anything to make this happen, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? She slumped down onto the matted leaves and Sheba came over to rest her muzzle in her lap.

Iris needed to think. Somehow Will had gotten here from the airport yesterday,
then
wound up dead in these woods. Had he arranged to meet someone? Had someone known what flight he was on and surprised him at the airport? No, the
airport had cameras everywhere—
too risky.
Will must
have arranged a meeting.
But with whom?
And why?
Lost in thought, she didn’t hear the sound of crunching on the path but Sheba started a low growl.

“What are you doing here?” An officious looking man in an olive shirt and pants glared down at her. “You’re trespassing on Neville Nursing Home grounds.”

“Oh, uh… I knew the man who died here yesterday. I wanted to pay my respects.”

“We don’t allow trespassers. We have to think of our residents’ safety.”

“You weren’t the one who found him yesterday, were you?”

“Who are you—
a reporter?”

“No, I told you, I was a friend of the guy they found here yesterday.”

“One of the
pedi
-cyclists found him.”

“Any chance I could talk with him?”

“No, Dave’s not here now. You
gotta
go, lady.”

Iris rose wearily to her feet.
So much
for finding an overlooked clue—
a piece of cloth on a branch, a scrap of paper with a phone number… that only happened on TV.
She and Sheba trudged back down the hill.

Chapter 16

A
fter changing into a sun dress that suggested more than it revealed, Iris threw a sweater over her shoulders and walked the three blocks downhill to the Paradise Café. She surveyed the room for Ellie but didn’t see her. Louise, doubling as
maitre
d’ and waitress, seated her at the café’s cho
icest table—
now white-draped for the Saturday dinner crowd. It was a few minutes before seven, but the restaurant was already half-filled. Luc had opened this restaurant the previous winter on a corner where restaurants had never managed to succeed before. The combination of his inventive menu, the cheerful interior design, and the sexy owner/chef had hit just the right note. When the restaurant critics started raving about Luc’s cooking, it had
became
impossible for the neighborhood people to get one of the ten coveted tables. The initial buzz had died down a bit, and Iris had settled into the place as her local breakfast canteen. But this was her first time here for dinner.

Evening light from the west-facing windows suffused the taupe walls while the Southern pine floorboards added a caramel glow. This month’s display by a local artist consisted of eight oil paintings in fiery tones hung around the two inside walls.