Eden in Winter (27 page)

Nathan Wright, Adam knew. Feigning curiosity, he asked, ‘Man, or woman?’

‘He couldn’t say.’ Ferris’s tone became more assertive. ‘But the crime lab found a hair on your father’s shirt that matches Teddy’s D.N.A.’

This Adam had not known. ‘Anything more?’

‘Your brother’s cell-phone records. About eight fifteen, well before sunset, he received a call from the landline in the main house – no doubt from your mother. At nine fifty-one, after the neighbour saw this unknown figure, Teddy left a message with an ex-lover—’

‘Concerning what?’

‘It wasn’t specific, though he sounded distraught. But the time between calls leaves an hour and a half for Teddy to go to the promontory, and push your dad off the cliff. Maybe in response to something your mother told him.’

‘Or,’ Adam interjected, ‘maybe she and Teddy gave him a shove together. He was pretty big, after all.’

For an instant, Ferris was silent.

‘You see my point,’ Adam said with the same indifference. ‘You’re still awash in maybes. So are the police.’

Ferris crossed her arms. ‘Then why did Teddy lie? Not only did he say he hadn’t gone there that night, but that he never went at all. Just like he claimed not to remember Clarice calling him at eight fifteen. How could
that
be?’

‘Maybe because the phone call was so ordinary. And, even assuming the footprint was Teddy’s, we don’t know whether he left it before eight fifteen, or after – or any time near the time my father died. You haven’t given me a murder, let alone a murderer.’

Once more, Ferris hesitated. But she did not know, as Adam did, about the bruises on Ben’s wrists. ‘Let me ask you this,’ he pressed. ‘Did the crime lab find any D.N.A. under Teddy’s fingernails?’

‘No.’

‘So let’s catalogue what you don’t have. First, definitive proof of a murder. Second, a murderer. What you do have is this boot print, the drag marks, the shadowy figure, the phone records – all subject to multiple interpretations. A first-year lawyer could defend Teddy in his sleep.’ Adam paused, then prodded, ‘So, now that we’ve acquitted my brother, what do you have on Carla Pacelli?’

‘Her D.N.A. on the dead man’s clothes and face. But is she strong enough to throw him off a cliff?’

Adam envisioned Pacelli at dinner. ‘She looks pretty fit to me.’ His voice became sharp. ‘On the question of strength, my dad was dying. He might even have had a stroke – in which case, an average woman could have tossed him overboard. That would explain the drag marks. So you can add Carla to the list of suspects.’

Ferris shook her head. ‘She’s a dead end. I can’t find anyone she told about the will. Present company excepted, she’s the
most guarded person in America. You tell me what
that
means.’

I’ve only lied to you once
, Carla had told him,
for reasons of my own, and not about Jenny or the will
. ‘Maybe she’s in mourning,’ Adam rejoined. ‘But every instinct I have says she’s hiding something serious. According to my mother, a few nights before he died, she saw my father on the promontory with a woman. Who else but Pacelli?’

‘Quit trying to divert me,’ Ferris said in a relentless tone. ‘I’ve got more than enough for a story. We’re going to print that Edward Blaine is the prime suspect in his father’s murder, and spell out the evidence against him.’

In the half-light, Adam looked into her face. ‘Actually,’ he told her softly, ‘you’re not.’

Ferris gave a short laugh. ‘Can I ask why?’

‘Several reasons. Unless Teddy’s indicted, he’ll sue you and the
Enquirer
for libel—’

‘Don’t try to threaten me,’ Ferris shot back. ‘We have lawyers for that.’

‘I’m counting on it. You’re the one who gave my friend money for information. He and I never talked at all.’

‘You led me to him.’

‘So go ahead and confess to bribing a cop so he’d slip you documents and information critical to a murder investigation. Then ask how long it will take the police to indict you for obstruction of justice. Because, if you print another word about my brother, I’ll make damn sure they do.’

‘That’s bullshit. You told me your cop friend needed money.’ Suddenly her voice was shrill, uncertain. ‘Go to the police, and you’d go down with me.’

‘Would I? You’re the one who passed the money, not me.
You have no evidence we’ve ever spoken. And if you try to trace your calls to me, you’ll find out that you can’t. That also goes for the anonymous call I’ll place to the police.’ Deliberately, Adam muted his voice. ‘You lose, Amanda. All you can do is leave this island for good. But before you go, you’re going to give me the piece you’re still holding out. Something about an insurance policy.’

She looked away, caught, then met his eyes again. ‘If you already know, why ask?’

Ask Teddy about the insurance policy
, his guileless friend, Bobby Towle, had said. ‘Because you’re telling me what
you
know. So that you remain in my good graces.’

Ferris’s face twisted, a study in stifled anger. ‘Four months ago, according to your friend, your mother took out a one-million-dollar insurance policy on your father’s life, with her and Teddy as beneficiaries. They collect unless Ben committed suicide, or one or the other killed him. Or,’ she added spitefully, ‘if they knew he was terminal, and bought it to cash in.’

Jarred, Adam mustered an air of calm. ‘From which you conclude …?’

‘That they knew about his will, and lied to the police. And that one or both knew that he was dying, and lied about that, too.’ She gave him a sour smile. ‘Any comment?’

Adam shrugged. ‘So many questions, so few answers. The only person who knows what they knew is dead.’

‘Conveniently so.’ Ferris’s tone became chill. ‘Your brother will be indicted by summer’s end. Then I’ll print my story, and there’s not a damned thing you can do. Especially from Afghanistan.’

That much was true, Adam realized.

‘We’re through now,’ Ferris finished with palpable bitterness. ‘I don’t need a lawyer to know that you poison anything you touch.’ She laughed. ‘Poor Carla.’

She turned from him, walking swiftly away as though fearing for her life. A good thing, Adam supposed.

*

An hour later, he had found Jack and his mother on the darkened porch, sitting in Adirondack chairs beside a radio tuned to the Red Sox game. ‘I thought they’d invented television,’ Adam remarked.

This drew a wispy smile from Clarice. ‘Memories,’ she answered. ‘When I was a little girl, I’d sit here with my father listening to the games. We had Ted Williams then, and always finished behind the Yankees. But it felt magical – just my dad, me, and the crickets, the announcer’s voice in the darkness, and the sounds of a game far away. This may be the last summer I can relive that.’

Turning, Jack regarded her with avuncular concern. ‘It’ll work out, Clarice. This place is meant to be yours.’

There was something old-fashioned about this scene, Adam thought – not just the radio, but that his mother and uncle seemed like actors in a play from another era. Amanda Ferris had curdled his mood.

‘I need to talk with you,’ he told his mother.

As she looked at him in surprise, Jack regarded him more closely. Then Clarice said, ‘You can help me make fresh coffee.’

He followed her into the kitchen. Stopping by the sink, she poured out the scalded coffee, then carefully ladled more beans into a grinder. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘The insurance policy.’

Glancing up, she asked in a thinner voice, ‘Where did you hear about that?’

‘Not from you. Or Teddy, for that matter.’

‘Don’t reprimand me, Adam.’ She paused. ‘The police know, of course. But it isn’t that important. After all, it won’t let me keep the house, and with Ben having cancer when we applied for it, I don’t know that I’ll collect. At least that’s what my lawyer tells me.’

She made not telling him sound innocent enough, Adam thought, but this was not the real problem. Evenly, he said, ‘The police must wonder why you took it out. So do I.’

Clarice put down the bag of beans. ‘So now you’re looking at us like you’re George Hanley?’

‘Please don’t try guilt, Mom. I outgrew it. What concerns me is the answers I’m not getting. Did you expect that something would happen to him?’

‘Not anything specific. But when you’ve lived with someone for forty years, you notice not-so-little things, like drinking too much, or losing one’s balance for no reason. Or Ben’s indifference to being caught out with this actress.’ She paused, as though finding her own answer. ‘I didn’t imagine him falling off that cliff, or changing his will. Nor did I know that he had brain cancer. Except for worrying he might drive his car into a tree some night, it was nothing that concrete. More a sense that the ground was shifting under us in ways I couldn’t identify. When you’re as afraid as I was, and as defenceless, you become good at reading tea leaves.’

‘Did you discuss this with Teddy?’

‘In a general way, yes. But the initiative for the insurance was mine.’ Her voice became clipped. ‘Are we quite done with this now? We’ve left your uncle sitting there.’

‘One more thing,’ Adam said. ‘Why did you call Teddy the night he died?’

Clarice cocked her head. ‘Did I? When?’

‘About eight thirty.’

‘I really don’t remember. So it can’t have been significant.’ Clarice frowned. ‘I certainly didn’t call him to predict your father’s death. Which leaves me wondering why you seem to know more about me than I can remember.’

‘Because Teddy’s in trouble,’ Adam said curtly. ‘Do you recall anything else about that night? Specifically, anything that would make it harder for the police to suspect my brother?’

‘I know this much,’ Clarice responded firmly, ‘as a mother: no doubt Teddy feels protective toward me, but he’s the last person on earth capable of killing Ben. You’re imagining Teddy as yourself.’

Turning, Clarice had foreclosed any further discussion, leaving Adam with still more questions, the ones George Hanley must have had. But only Adam had learned the truth.

When Adam reached the guesthouse, the long Vineyard night, spitting rain, was a deep black relieved only by the light glowing in Carla’s window. He felt a moment’s disbelief; the last time he had been here, the landscape had been green and verdant, and he would soon be returning to a harsh terrain he might never leave. Now there was life ahead of him, a future he could not define.

Carrying French bread and a container of clam chowder, he knocked on the door. When Carla answered, she stood back, and for a moment they gazed at each other in silence. She was very pregnant, he saw at once; following his eyes, she lowered her gaze as though to conceal a smile, shaking her head with a kind of wonder – perhaps at herself, perhaps simply that he was here. In a gesture of mock surrender, she opened her arms and, when he reached for her, rested her face against his shoulder. Huskily, she said, ‘I’m so glad you’re back.’

Adam could smell the womanly freshness of her. ‘Was there a question?’

‘I thought so. In most jobs people don’t get shot.’

Her soft voice carried a hint of another question, perhaps the hope that he would leave the agency. But he had no answer for this, or for anything else. Instead, he kissed her gently. ‘I brought dinner,’ he said. ‘I gather you’ve lost some mobility.’

She leaned back, her eyes much graver. ‘Teddy told you.’

‘Yes. I wish I’d known.’

Once more, Carla shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to worry you. And what could you have done?’

Softly but firmly, he answered, ‘Not the point.’

Her expression became questioning.
Do you really want to be part of my life?
he imagined her wondering.

‘I should probably sit down,’ she told him. ‘These days I’m only good at occupying space. But all I can do is give this baby every chance.’

She did not need to say that he might already be doomed, or how devastating that would be for her. Sitting beside him on the couch, she reached out with curled fingers and touched his shoulder. ‘How is it?’

‘A little tender still, but healing nicely. As wounds go, I lucked out.’

She looked at him intently. ‘Tell me what happened – all of it. Dinner can wait.’

With some reluctance, he complied, dwelling on Steve Branch’s courage rather than his own ordeal. He did not tell her that, in the moments of his desperation, he had imagined coming back to her.

‘There’s one part you’re leaving out,’ she prodded. ‘Weren’t you the least bit scared?’

‘Sure. When I felt the earthquake.’

Carla gave a rueful laugh. ‘Great. I waited all this time to have dinner with John Wayne.’

All at once, Adam needed to tell her the truth. ‘You heard my nightmares, Carla. The best I can do is try to put all that behind me. Trust that I appreciate being alive, never more than at this moment.’

‘Please keep that in mind,’ she said, then glanced down at her stomach with a look which told him everything. ‘I just felt the baby move,’ she added softly. ‘I never thought I’d be so grateful to be kicked by a man.’

*

After dinner, Adam started a fire with logs and kindling from the covered porch outside. They sat on the couch watching the orange yellow flames spit and flicker in the darkness, Carla sitting between his legs with her back against his chest, her hair grazing his face. She should not like this too much, she told herself, or imagine other nights with him.

‘I really enjoyed your emails,’ Adam told her, then added more softly, ‘Actually, they meant a lot.’

Carla smiled to herself. ‘I’m relieved to hear it. I worried that they were exhibit A in the annals of narcissism – first, last, and always about me.’

‘Only because I asked. Anyhow, I’ve seen true narcissism at first hand. Along with the damage to other people, the casualties include honesty and self-reflection. You’re more than capable of both.’

Carla chose to avoid the clear reference to Benjamin Blaine. ‘If so, it’s only because I learned the hard way. There were countless times when I wish I had known myself earlier and better.’

She felt him pause again. ‘Including with men?’

He was asking about Ben, she was now quite certain. But that was a hard conversation, to be reserved for another time that might never arrive. ‘The subject of men,’ she finally answered, ‘begins with my father. You know the essence of it – he was physically and verbally abusive. Not to mention frighteningly unpredictable, especially on the all too frequent evenings when he was drunk. Just for fun, throw in harshly judgmental: if I got an A, I was great; if I got Bs or Cs, I was worthless.