Deep Pockets (28 page)

Paolina said, “When I was like a baby—”

“You were nine.”

“I poured it all over me. I must have used a tablespoon.”

“A shovel,” I said. “She had to take two baths,” I told Aurelia. “We could have bottled the bathwater and sold it as eau de cologne.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” my sister said, but she was smiling. It’s one of her favorite tales. She’s always loved retelling the stories of her childhood with me, the time she almost got lost at Fenway Park, the day she crashed her bike into a rosebush. Once, she told me she didn’t think her mother remembered any stories about her, just stories about her brothers.

“You remember what I said?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” She knew; she was teasing.

“Come on,” I said.

“ ‘A little bit goes a long way.’ ” We spoke it together, singsong. She said it in Spanish and I stuck to English.

“I think we’ve hit another one of those moments, honey. You are beautiful. You are both so beautiful.” Girls, especially girls who grow up without fathers, need to hear those words often, I think. I tell Paolina how beautiful she is at every opportunity, but I’m afraid she’ll never believe it until she hears it from a man old enough to be her father. “But right now, the way you’re dressed is like way too much perfume.”

“The boys like it.”

“You like a guy wears his shirt open to his belly button, his pants so tight that you can see everything he’s got?”

Aurelia giggled.

“It’s better to be cool,” I said. “Understated. Sophisticated. Give them a hint, a little taste.” I wanted to wrap them both in heavy overcoats, but I knew it wouldn’t fly. “Paolina, if you wash your face and start over, pick some clothes that whisper instead of shout, you can wear my perfume tonight. Just a touch.”

God knows it wasn’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to lock her in her room and forbid her to ever wear anything half that revealing. I wanted to preach at her, warn her to be careful what she pretended to be, because when you dress up for a role and play it in the real world, it’s a role you can get stuck with forever. I remembered my father’s angry red face as he yelled similar phrases. I remembered how little they’d meant to me then, and I held my tongue.

“Could I still wear this blouse? With a black bra?”

“A white one would look better. But different pants, maybe those pale blue ones. And sandals? You’ve got such pretty feet.”

Aurelia asked my opinion on her outfit then, and the conversation loosened up. They scrubbed off the mascara and started over. I let them use some glittery powder I’d gotten as a free sample, and they took turns sniffing my special-occasion perfume. Finally I took charge of the flask and told them that if they passed muster when they came down to my office, I’d instruct them in the art of perfume application.

I paused in the hallway and inhaled deeply, aware that I’d escaped a potential disaster, escaped to fight another day. Why, I wondered as I made my way downstairs, do I keep my temper in check when I deal with Paolina, let it rip when I’m with Leon? I care about my little sister. We’ve been together a long time. I love her and I need our relationship to last. I guess I didn’t feel that way about Leon, not yet. Maybe I was testing him in some way, trying to see what he’d put up with. Maybe I was good with kids, lousy with men.

I didn’t fight with Sam Gianelli. That’s not how I lost him. I could go back to him tomorrow; he’d be there. I almost laughed, almost. There I was, a grown woman, telling myself a fairy tale as “happily ever after” childish as any the girls in my bedroom could have invented. If I went back to Sam, he’d still be who he was and I’d still be who I am. He’d still be mob and I’d still be a cop.

Downstairs, I phoned Geary, but he wasn’t in. I didn’t leave a message, decided to bypass the lawyer completely, place a call to Albert Brinkman in Lausanne, Switzerland, instead. Hear it from the horse’s mouth.

It was six hours later in Switzerland, night. I might haul old Monsieur Brinkman out of a soft bed. I had a picture of him in my head, white-haired and frail, too ill to attend his niece’s funeral. I didn’t want to alarm the man. I twisted a strand of hair around my index finger, yanked, decided to risk it. I punched fifteen digits, the phone rang five times, and then the answering machine addressed me in rapid-fire French. I left a message in English, kicked back in my chair, crossed my legs on my desk, and closed my eyes.

I imagined Paolina showing up at the Harvard Admissions office in her ill-chosen party clothes, the glances she’d attract. How did kids learn to present themselves when they came from backgrounds like Paolina’s? What chance did they have? And yet, should everyone have to march to the same drummer, pass through the same cookie cutter, buy the same black suit in order to enter the hallowed portals?

How Denali Brinkman’s application must have delighted Harvard’s Admissions officers. Here was no cookie-cutter kid. What could be better, a smart athlete, a student from a nontraditional background who could be counted as a minority to boot, part American Indian? Harvard keeps track of all sorts of statistics on the makeup of its freshman class, from racial background to the state from which they hail. Where was Denali from? The rower at the Weld had mentioned a western state, Idaho or Wyoming. Not many applied to Harvard from those big open-air states, nothing like the stacks of applications from New York and Massachusetts. Harvard tried for balance in its freshman class, and with so many applicants, it could pick and choose. Denali was tailor-made, a perfect fit, I thought, and the phrase was still in my head when I opened my eyes and noticed the new and unusual paperweight on my desk.

The statuette was small, no more than six or seven inches high. It had a base of silver, topped by crossed oars in gold. It was battered, the rightmost oar bent. I touched it hesitantly, thinking that Denali Brinkman, the beautiful woman in the photo, the terrible corpse in the morgue shots, had touched it as well. Her fingerprints were on the statuette, but what did that matter now? I picked it up.

The note underneath was in Roz’s eccentric hand. “Got this from Jeannie St. Cyr at Phillips House. She says thanks. Likes her doctor. Hopes this will help you remember your friend Denali.”

I turned it in my hand. It didn’t look like a reward for winning a major race, an Olympic qualifier, more like a high school or camp trophy. Maybe it had been a big race, but a third-place finish, an honorable mention. I checked the silver base for printing, had to pick up a magnifying glass to make it out.

Harsha Lake. Junior Women’s IX. 1987.

I read it a second time, fingering the engraved letters. In 1987, Denali Brinkman would have been five years old. Someone else’s trophy? Who keeps other people’s trophies? You might keep your mother’s cherished awards or your sister’s. If Denali’s mother had been old enough to bear a child in ’82, she would hardly have been a junior rower in ’87. Denali had no sister.

I considered Denali Brinkman, the Admissions officers’ dream come true, recalled the fairy-tale quality of Chaney’s reveries. So sophisticated, so mature. Not like the others. Amazing for a girl her age.

What if Denali wasn’t a girl her age?

I stared at the silent phone. The entire house, seemed eerily quiet and I wondered what Paolina and her friend were up to now. Why had Albert Brinkman dropped the lawsuit? Because the people at the Admissions office had finally done some belated research, knew that Denali had falsified her application, threatened a countersuit for theft of services? It was certainly possible that Denali Brinkman had falsified her application, that she was older than she claimed to be. I reopened the autopsy file, shuffled through the pages. Yes. “Approximate Age,” it said, “20–30 years.” No one had made a note of the discrepancy because they saw what they were meant to see: Denali Brinkman, Harvard freshman. And what was a year or two in the scheme of things?

I thought of the girls upstairs, striving to look older, more sophisticated, then considered the opposite: a woman dressed as a girl. It would be easy, especially for a woman as slight as Denali Brinkman.

“Roz,” I yelled. No answer.

I grabbed the statuette, holding it tightly, as though it were the only solid thing in this whole damn case, and maybe it was. What else did I have? A fistful of blackmail notes hidden between the layers of T.C.’s litter box. What was the term Roz had used to describe Chaney’s clinical trials?
Double-blind
, that was it. I felt like I was groping in the dark. If Denali hadn’t been the person she claimed to be, was my client off the hook? I didn’t think so. No. He might be off the hook for screwing a student under twenty, but that was the least of his problems now. He was in danger of getting caught on a sharper hook — for running down Benjy Dowling.

Footsteps. I glanced up as Roz came pounding down the stairs, her hair dyed a brassy gold, which looked almost normal till she turned around and displayed the blue stripes in back. She started talking as soon as she entered the living room: “Mrs. Guzman knew all about the
quinciana
. Leon called and wanted to know whether you could—”

“Where is Harsha Lake?” My inquiry stopped her.

“Is there a prize?”

“Find an atlas,” I said. “My aunt had one. It’s in the guest room, I think, or—”

“Find it faster on-line,” she said.

“I don’t care how you do it. Just find out where it is, what race was held there in 1987, and who won this trophy.”

“Right now?” she asked. “But I was going to—”

“I’ll try the atlas; you go on-line.”

My great-aunt’s old
National Geographic Atlas
, which I found after a lengthy search under a clump of laundry in Paolina’s room, went straight from Harsewinkel, Germany, to Harskamp, Netherlands. When I hurried back to the living room, Roz was still hunched over the screen and the girls hadn’t appeared to claim their perfume. I tried the New Hampshire number again, left another message for Helen Orza, used the word
urgent
again. I considered calling Leon, leaving him a message, too, saying I was thinking of him but was too busy to talk, too busy to meet. I knew what he’d think of that. I wished we’d known each other years ago, maybe when I was in school, when life wasn’t so hectic.

I didn’t know how to tell him that finding out who’d won a race in 1987 on a lake I’d never heard of took precedence over spending time with him. I only knew it was true. I could pretend it was otherwise, but who the hell would I be pretending for? I ate leftover Chinese food, drank a Rolling Rock. The phone rang just as the two girls came parading down the stairs. I waved them off, holding up my index finger to indicate I’d only be a minute, and answered.

A man. I’d been hoping so hard for the female PI, I’d convinced myself it would be her. If this guy was selling aluminum siding, he was going to get an earful.

“Hey, Miss Carlyle, right? You called to speak to Helen Orza?” If I’d had to pick one word to describe his voice, it would have been
gravelly
. If I’d gotten a second choice, I’d have gone for
annoyed
.

“Yes.”

“From Massachusetts, right? Six one seven?”

“Yes.”

“You seen her?”

“I want to speak to her. I’m a private investigator, and I’m wondering if we might be tugging on ends of the same case.”

“Oh. She come to see you when she was there?” He also sounded like he’d had more than one beer.

“No.”

“Well, thanks for calling.”

“Wait a minute. Who are you? When can I speak to Ms. Orza?”

“Hell if I know. Sorry, sorry. It’s been a long day and I thought maybe—” His voice drifted off.

“When do you expect Helen in?”

“I dunno. Long time since she’s gotten a call.”

“Who are you? Do you work with Helen?”

“Not all the time, but sometimes. I’m freelance, pretty much.”

“Would you know if Helen was working for a woman named Chaney? Margo Chaney?”

“Name’s not familiar. Don’t ring a bell, ya know? If you’ve got something you want Helen to work on, maybe I could help you out. Anything Helen could do for you, I could do. Pretty much. I’m not licensed like her, but I’m good. I’m Phil. Phil’s my name.”

“Phil what?”

“Gagnon.”

I wrote it down. “Phil, you have a number for Helen down here?”

“Ah, no.”

“You have access to her files?”

“Well, yeah, but I — I don’t know if I should—”

Shit. He sounded dumb as a brick, and slow to boot. “Phil, what’s your address? What city are you in?”

He rattled numbers and streets. Epping, New Hampshire.

“Listen, Phil. I’m going to be in your office in an hour, maybe less.”

“What?”

“You or Helen should be there to meet me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“What’s that mean, worth my while? I’m not sitting on my fanny no hour.”

“Solid money,” I said, “for solid information. I need to know who Helen’s working for in Boston. You’d be able to tell me that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Phil Gagnon allowed.

“An hour.” I drive fast, and New Hampshire’s not far. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Epping was near Exeter. Had a speedway. Near Rockingham Park, too.

“It’s gonna cost you at least a C,” he said.

“Fine.” I hung up before he changed his mind. If he were smart, he’d have waited and let me make the first offer.

Paolina still looked old enough, sexy enough to bring a lump to my throat, but she’d toned the tramp factor way down. I convinced her that she’d look better with her hair styled differently, then finished her off with a light touch of perfume. I gave Aurelia only a cursory glance before anointing her as well. I didn’t want Gagnon to get tired of waiting and leave.

I could have dialed Leon, arranged to eat
dinner at Centro, quiet, with a candlelit table, savory soup, flavorful pasta. We could have hashed out our troubles over martinis or a bottle of Italian red, come back to my place, spent a very agreeable night. I could have driven to New Hampshire in the morning.

Instead I took Cambridge Street to the Monsignor O’Brien Highway and the O’Brien to the Gilmore Bridge, all the while trying to isolate the concrete facts, the line-by-line justification for jumping behind the wheel now, at the tail end of rush hour, but all I could locate was a deep and undefined sense of urgency, a cloud of menace, a visceral tug.