“Stalking? Absolutely. ”
“No. I meant
—
‘freak/ ”
There was a brief hesitation. Nat glanced over at the reporter, who had just gone up a notch in her estimation of him as an interviewer.
“What else would he call. . . her? ‘Him’? ‘It’?”
“But I thought Mattheiv Slater didn’t know Lynn Ingram ivas a transsexual.”
“Because that’s what she said at her trial? Matt knew, all right. And that’s why he stopped going to that pain clinic. Once he found out, he wanted absolutely nothing more to do with the freak."
“But before your brother-in-law found out, he did see her outside of the pain clinic. ”
“Matt and my sister had a very solid marriage, Mr. Walker. It was built on devotion and trust. ”
“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Bartlett.”
“If they were seen together, I can assure you it was completely innocent. ”
Walker paused the tape. “If you recall, at Ingram’s trial, several witnesses gave testimony about seeing Ingram and Slater together in public places—a romantic restaurant on Charles Street, a bar near the clinic, and the Slater maid gave a statement about Ingram'coming to his home on several occasions for ‘pain treatments.’ ”
Having recently gone over the trial notes, Nat remembered the maid’s statement in particular—the most meaningful part of which was that Jennifer Slater was never at home during these “professional” home visits. .
Walker resumed the tape.
“Your sister believes Lynn Ingram got what was coming to her. I’m speaking about the recent attack, not her manslaughter conviction. ”
A harsh laugh.
“Manslaugher. I guarantee you, if Ingram was your typical grotesque-looking transsexual, he’d have got what he deserved. He should have been charged with and sentenced for first-degree murder. My sister got no justice. She was destroyed by this monstrosity. ”
“Destroyed?’’
“Do you have any idea of the humiliation she suffered? Friends
—
let’s say people she thought were friends—dropped her like she had leprosy. Just when she needed all the support and comfort she could get. Jen was abandoned. Even members of our own family avoided her. ”
“But you stood by her through thick and thin.”
“You’re damn straight I did. If I hadn’t, she probably wouldn’t be here today. ”
“Are you saying she might have killed herself.?”
There was a longer pause. Nat was listening intently.
“I don’t want to betray my sister’s trust.”
Walker hit the
off
button. “That’s pretty much it. He danced around all the rest of my questions. But I did some digging. Actually, I haven’t been to bed yet.” He stretched languidly.
“And what have you found out?”
Walker tapped his fingers on the top of the mini-tape recorder. “Now we’re at the moment of truth, Superintendent.” He slowly lifted his eyes to her face.
“The cops can track down whatever you’ve unearthed, Mr. Walker.”
“Yes, they can. I guess it depends on how patient you are, Superintendent.”
Nat felt disquietingly transparent—the reporter had so easily spotted that patience was not one of her virtues.
“All right, I’ll make a brief statement,” she conceded, knowing that Leo was going to have her head for agreeing to this. He was rightfully big on keeping the media at bay during an investigation. The waters got muddied enough without leaks, misinformation, and biased slants.
“That’ll be fine. For now,” Walker added pointedly.
Nat let it slide, figuring she’d deal with later, later.
Walker popped in a new cassette tape and hit
record.
Nat not only made her statement about Lynn Ingram, model inmate, she also tried to make the most of it by publicizing the many benefits of prerelease programs such as Horizon House. When she went into overdrive about the need for funding, et cetera, Walker stopped the tape.
“I think we can skip the sermon.”
She arched an eyebrow. “For now, anyway.”
This garnered a smile from the reporter.
“So what did you dig up, Mr. Walker?”
“Bill. Every time you say Mr. Walker, I feel like my father. And believe me, Fd just as soon not feel like him.”
“Okay, Bill. So what did you dig up?”
“Jennifer Slater spent three weeks in a private hospital-cum-sanatorium in March of ninety-eight. That was less than a month after the trial.”
“And it didn’t hit the papers?”
“She entered under an assumed name. And the place is pricey and private with a capital
P.
Fortunately, I have a few friends in powerful positions who I can lean on.”
“So, she was in this sanatorium. And?”
“She swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. According to my sources it was more than merely a cry for help. She was trying to kill herself. And not for the first time.”
“She attempted suicide before her husband’s murder?” “Around four years ago, Slater’s devoted hubby had a brief fling with one of the associates in his office. A pretty young tax lawyer by the name of Amanda Bergman. A couple of months into it, Amanda walked into Slater’s office and handed in her resignation. She was not only leaving the firm, she was leaving the city. Pronto. A friend of Amanda’s claims Amanda had been getting anonymous threatening calls. Then her tires got slashed. The final straw was when her apartment was broken into and ransacked.”
Nat felt a chill streak down her spine.
“Amanda freaked and took off for the West Coast.”
“And this friend thinks Jennifer Slater was behind all this?”
“This friend witnessed a very emotionally charged scene between Jennifer and Matthew the day before Amanda handed in her resignation. Which was also the afternoon before the break-in. Amanda’s name was bandied about during this heated scene.” “When was the suicide attempt?”
“Ten days later. As I understand it, Matthew Slater was in a bad way after Amanda fled the coop, and he started spending his nights at a hotel near his office. Until, according to one of my confidential sources, the missus swallowed several dozen Valium. If you check out the incident in the papers, what you’ll read is that Jennifer Slater was admitted to Boston General for food poisoning and was released two days later. That was also the day Hubby returned home.”
“Sounds like Mrs. Slater suffered from some serious emotional problems.” The question was, was she suffering still? Had she gotten worse?
And had she been hanging around Boston General that morning?
eleven
Before I was put in protective custody there was a young ivoman two rooms down. She committed suicide.
'
Cut her wrists with a knife she stole from the dining hall. Rumor was, she’d filed a complaint about sexual harassment a few weeks before that.
L. I.
"SICK?"
“My period,” Suzanne muttered. “Bad cramps.”
Suzanne Holden was lying under a blanket on her twin-size bed in the two-bed room she had been sharing with Lynn. Nat couldn’t help but feel an ache in her chest as she glanced over at Lynn’s crisply made-up bed. On the wall over her bed was a framed Picasso print, an abstract of a woman.
By contrast, Suzanne had a wide array of children’s drawings Scotch-taped on her wall. They were all by the same young artist, Jacob Coscarelli. Seeing these drawings garnered an altogether different but equally distressing ache.
Nat tried to push her pain aside and concentrate on Suzanne’s, although she was far from convinced the inmate’s pain was legitimate.
“You’ve never needed to take time off from work before because of your period, Suzanne. Are you sure there isn’t something else bothering you?”
Nat saw a flash of anger shadow Suzanne’s face, but it disappeared quickly. “I have cramps,” she answered flatly. “Do you give all your inmates the third degree if they get sick?”
“I’m not giving you the third degree, Suzanne. I’m trying to . . Nat stopped. She wanted Suzanne to talk about Lynn’s journal. She wanted the inmate to confide in her. But why should she? Not only was Nat the “authority,” she was Suzanne’s son’s father’s lover. Nat was probably the last person she’d open up
Suzanne was not waiting for Nat to finish her sentence. She had closed her eyes, and Nat knew she was hoping she would leave without another word. A strong part of Nat wanted to do just that. She was unnerved in there, surrounded by all of Jakey’s drawings. Oh, she had many of his drawings as well, plastered all over her refrigerator, held up by little magnets. But it wasn’t the same. They were not
her
child’s drawings.
Stop,
Nat told herself.
Stick to the reason you came up here.
“Did Lynn ever talk to you about what she was writing in her journal, Suzanne?”
Suzanne’s eyes stayed resolutely closed, but Nat could see her body stiffen under the thin cover.
“No,” she mumbled. Only after she uttered the response did she realize Nat had tricked her. Her eyes sprang open, and Nat could see fear there. “I don’t know anything about a journal,” the inmate said, too late.
Nat wasn’t listening. She was busy thinking about what else Suzanne knew. And what it would take to get her to share it. Fear was a great silencer. There was no question that Suzanne Holden was very frightened.
It was close to noon when Leo phoned Nat.
“Nothing on the envelope. It’s one of those self-stick kinds. The ink used in the drawing is being analyzed. We’re not holding out much hope. Most likely one of those dollar-a-dozen pens you can g^t in a million stores. We’re also getting one of our shrinks to look at the drawing. See if he can come up with some kind of profile. It’s a long shot, but we can’t leave any stone unturned. What’s happening at your end?”
Nat filled Leo in on her meeting with Bill Walker, summarizing the tape he’d played for her. Leo listened intently, saying little.
“I’d certainly like to know where both Jennifer Slater and her brother Rodney were when Lynn was attacked,” Nat said.
“Yeah,” Leo grunted.
Nat knew Leo well enough to know he wasn’t discounting what she’d been saying, but she also knew something else was on his mind. And it was troubling him. He didn’t keep her guessing very long.
“When were you going to tell me about Suzanne?”
“How did you know she . . . ?” But Nat knew the answer before she finished the question. “You went over to the boutique to see her.”
She could hear Leo’s weighty sigh. “It wasn’t a social call, Natalie.”
“I didn’t say it was. She says she’s got cramps, but I suppose her boss already told you that.” Now Nat was the one feeling disgruntled. “What was this, Leo? A test? You already knew she was here. And, as a matter of fact, I was about to tell you. I just thought my information about Slater and her brother took precedence.” Her tone was deliberately cool.
“Have you talked to her?”
“Briefly,” Nat said. She felt suddenly very adolescent, ashamed of herself. “Leo, Suzanne knows Lynn kept a journal.” The coolness was gone from her voice.
“I’ll talk to her,” he said.
“When?”
“Probably not until late this afternoon. I want to drop by Rodney Bartlett’s office and have a little chat with him, then I’m heading out to Westfield to have a chat with Lynn’s father.” “Mind if I tag along?”
There was a brief pause. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
“You were planning to question Rodney Bartlett before I told you about that tape, weren’t you?”
Leo smiled at Nat. “He’s been on my list from day one. That tape only puts him up a few notches.”
“What about his sister? Did you hear what she told Bill Walker the other day?”
Leo nodded. “Jennifer Slater’s got an alibi for yesterday. She was at home in Martha’s Vineyard. She’s got a housekeeper, a gardener, and her stockbroker to back her up.”
“Stockbroker?”
“Gerald Gleason of B. F. Martin was having lunch with her that day. Arrived on the noon ferry. Didn’t leave the Vineyard until four o’clock.”
They pulled up in front of a beautifully maintained nineteenth-century three-story brownstone on Marlborough Street in Boston’s posh Back Bay district. Most of the buildings on the street were of similar design and upkeep, the majority of them private residences. There were, however, a smattering of offices discreetly tucked in.
As they approached the intricately carved front door of number 1604, Nat saw a discreet brass placard to the right that read,
bartlett foundation.
Leo tried the door. It was locked. He pressed a buzzer on the left.
“What do you know about this foundation?” Nat asked, certain Leo had already done his homework.
“Lots of bucks that get spread around mostly to arts and health-care groups. The original dough was made by Lionel Bartlett, Rodney and Jennifer’s great-grandfather. Oil and steel. Subsequent generations invested wisely. Rodney seems to be keeping up the family standards. He—”
Leo stopped abruptly as the door opened. Nat was expecting to see a secretary or maybe a security officer. Instead, she immediately recognized Rodney Bartlett himself. He hadn’t changed much in the three years since she’d seen him on television during Lynn’s trial. If anything, he was a bit thinner. And there were a few threads of gray in his dark hair that he wore combed straight back from his aquiline face. He was dressed in a navy-blue suit that could never have fit so perfectly if it hadn’t been custom-made for him. But, what the hell, he could afford it.
Rodney eyed Nat and Leo like he recognized them as well. Which Nat found both surprising and a bit jarring.
“Won’t you come in?” He spoke with an impeccable Boston Brahmin accent. You’d almost think you were listening to JFK.
Rodney stepped aside and they entered a large, sunlit room fitted with beautiful antique Victorian pieces and an exquisite Oriental rug. The room would have been taken for an elegant front parlor save for the prim middle-aged secretary sitting behind a large cherrywood desk in the far corner of the room, busily working at her computer. She didn’t so much as glance their way as they entered.