Cassian shook his head. “He doesn’t, really. From what I’ve found out, he’s been doing some ‘consulting’ since he left Chapin Industries. Word is, he essentially runs his ‘office’ out of the Old Colony Golf and Polo Club, waiting for clients to find him.”
Train took one more look through the windows into the sad little apartment. “Even I wouldn’t be happy living here,” he grunted. Then he sighed. “Well, as long as we’re already out here, we might as well head over to the club to see if we might get lucky. Could be interesting.”
T
HE DRIVEWAY UP
to the Old Colony Golf and Polo Club wound endlessly around great centuries-old deciduous trees, up a steep incline to a plateau at the highest point in the area. All around the approach, carefully manicured hedges were punc
tuated by exquisitely crafted stone walls. Beyond them, Train could see an expanse of rolling green out through the fairways and toward the polo ground.
Golf and polo
, Train thought; two more things he would never understand about rich people.
Cassian was looking out the window to the right as they drove, toward a long, low-slung structure gleaming white and red near the polo grounds. “That must be where they keep the ponies,” he said.
“What?”
“The polo ponies. That must be where they stable them.”
Train’s head swam. “I’m still having a hard time getting my mind around the fact that there are still places in the world where they play polo.”
“You kidding?” Cassian said slyly. “In Caucasian circles, it’s still one of the most popular sports around. I was quite a player myself when I was younger.”
Train frowned. “You played polo? Please, Jesus, tell me you’re kidding.”
“I’m serious. All white kids play polo in the suburbs. It’s required.”
Train shot his partner a glare and caught the grin on his face. “You’re fuckin’ with me,” he said. It was not a question.
“Yeah, Sarge, I’m fuckin’ with you.” Train turned back toward the widening driveway that was nearing its end. After a beat, Cassian added, “It’s not just white kids; sometimes we let Asians play, too.”
“Keep it up,” Train challenged. “It’s gonna be a long day.”
“Ah yes.” Cassian locked his jaw, mocking an upper-class drawl. “To be among the right sort of people again. Makes you feel right at home, doesn’t it?”
“You do that so well,” Train commented on the accent. “Practically a natural, I’d say. Careful your voice doesn’t stay that way.”
“Aw, c’mon. You could do it too with a little practice. Just imagine a stick wedged so far up your ass that it’s pushing out your jaw,” Cassian said, drawing a hearty laugh from Train. “Conquer the accent, and even you might be able to join a club like this someday.”
“You think they’ve got an affirmative action program here?”
They pulled up to the front of the clubhouse and parked their car in a spot right in front of the entrance clearly marked “Members Only.” They got out and looked around, taking in the scene. It was a beautiful place, there was no question. The clubhouse, which looked down on everything around it, seemed as though it had been painted that morning. It was a huge plantation-style structure with towering pillars flanking the front door. From there, it stretched out in every direction, running down from the peak of the hill on which it was situated.
“Subtle,” Cassian commented on the impression the structure conveyed.
“As a pointy white hat,” Train agreed. Glancing around he could see men—older white men—ferrying themselves around in neatly ordered groups of four, hanging out of tiny golf carts like circus clowns. Some of them failed to hide their shock upon seeing Train get out of the car, and he wondered whether it was obvious that he was a cop, or whether they simply couldn’t get past the color of his skin. The latter, he suspected.
Train and Cassian walked up the front stairs, onto the wide front porch, through the doors, and into a grand foyer. Thick oriental carpets covered the floor of the entryway, swallowing the sound as they walked through the doors. On the walls, ancient faded watercolors, most of them of dogs and hunting scenes, clung to the false glory of a time long since past. To the left of the doorway, set back toward one of the walls, was a heavy dark wood secretary’s desk, with a prim mousy man in a blazer and striped tie sitting in an uncomfortable-looking armchair. Seeing Train walk through the door, the prig leapt to his feet, clearly under the apprehension that something was dreadfully amiss.
“Can I help you, sir?” The officious little man clearly meant for his inquiry to sound impressive, perhaps even a little bit threatening, but to Train it merely confirmed his administrative impotence.
Train took note of the gold nametag on the man’s lapel with the club logo on it in gold leaf and writing informing him that this was Tad Jennings, Club Manager. Jennings was half Train’s size, and he reacted to the larger man’s assessment of him as though he’d been slapped in the face. Train intensified his stare. “We’re looking for Leighton Creay,” he said slowly, in his deepest voice. “Is he here?”
Jennings wrung his hands involuntarily. “Who are you, please?” It sounded to Train like a plea for mercy.
“We’re the police,” Train responded, his eyes never leaving Jennings’s as he took out his badge and flipped it open for the little man to inspect. He noticed that Jennings hardly even looked at it. Instead, his gaze broke from Train and moved to Cassian, who by that time was wandering around the room slowly, looking at the artwork on the walls. He reached up to straighten a picture that had slipped slightly and was hanging askew, drawing a squeal of agony from the nervous Mr. Jennings.
“Please don’t touch that!” He hurried over and put himself between Cassian and the dim picture on the wall, as if protecting a threatened child. “That’s eighteenth-century! It’s very expensive!”
There was a long silence in the room as Cassian and Train exchanged bemused shrugs. “Right,” Train said at last. “So, is Mr. Creay here?”
“We don’t give out information about our members’ comings and goings,” Jennings said, regaining his composure somewhat. He straightened his back visibly and pointed his nose in the air to reach his full height in defense of what he clearly viewed as one of the guiding principles of his existence. “Ever,” he added for emphasis.
“That sounds pretty firm,” Train said.
“It is, sir. It is a rule that we view as central to our role in providing an escape for our members.”
“That makes sense,” Train admitted. “After all, you gotta have rules, don’t you?”
“We believe so, sir, yes.” Jennings clearly thought he was emerging victorious from the exchange.
“I can see why.” Train turned to Cassian. “Looks like they got a rule against telling us if Mr. Creay’s here, Detective Cassian. That means we made the trip out here for nothing.”
“Damn shame,” Cassian said. “Seems like a huge waste of our time—and of the money that the taxpayers are shelling out for our salaries.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Train smiled at Jennings. “But rules are rules, I guess.”
Jennings began to look queasy. “Yes. You can see why—”
Train cut him off. “You know what might make the taxpayers feel better?”
Cassian shook his head and pantomimed a look of ignorance. “I don’t know, Sarge; what would make the taxpayers feel better?”
“If we could figure out something else we might be able to investigate out here.” Train looked straight at Jennings, who had turned pale. “You think of anything else we might be able to investigate out here, Detective?”
Cassian struck a pensive pose. “Interesting thought, Sergeant Train. Let me mull it over for a moment.” His expression changed, and he looked seriously at Jennings. “I saw some of your members smoking cigars out on the course, Mr. Jennings, isn’t that right?”
“Some of our members enjoy a smoke, yes sir.” Jennings was struggling to keep his back straight.
“I’m just betting you keep a humidor for those who ‘enjoy a smoke,’ don’t you?” Cassian imitated Jennings’s tone. “Rent out space in it to the members.”
Jennings’s expression soured in condescension. “We would never ‘rent out space,’ as you put it, Detective, but we do have a humidor. I don’t see what you’re driving at. This is Virginia— and a private club at that—we have the power to set our own smoking policy. There’s nothing illicit about that.”
“Not unless there are Cuban cigars in the humidor,” Cassian pointed out. Jennings’s eyes immediately dropped to the floor. Cassian continued. “‘Trading with the enemy’ is still the technical charge, if I’m remembering it right. A few years back, there was a big scandal in New York at a couple of the athletic clubs. Turns out the managers were letting the members keep illegal Cuban cigars in the club humidors.”
Train was nodding. “Yeah, I remember that. A bunch of the members had to pay huge fines and got into a lot of trouble.” He paused. “It’s not like any of them went to jail or anything like that, though.”
“That’s true,” Cassian agreed. “They could all afford high-priced lawyers who got them off without any jail time.” He walked over to another of the paintings on the wall that was tipped slightly to one side. He reached up and straightened it, all the while looking at Jennings. “As I remember, only the clubs’ managers spent any time in jail.”
In spite of the climate-control system, little beads of sweat were visible on Jennings’s narrow forehead.
Train leaned in close to the man. “We really need to talk to Mr. Creay,” he said, again in his deepest, most confidential tone.
To his credit, Jennings managed to keep his composure well enough to cause Train to wonder, if only briefly, whether he would crack. He even held off the temptation to wipe the sweat from his brow as his face turned in on itself and he considered his options. Finally, his expression collapsed completely, and his lips tightened into a tiny aperture, drawn in against his teeth in agony. “Members’ bar,” he said quietly in defeat, his mouth barely moving as he spoke.
Train raised a questioning eyebrow, and Jennings drew in a heavy, disgusted breath. He nodded over his shoulder. “Down the hallway, second doorway on your left.”
S
YDNEY DROVE SOUTHWEST
along Interstate 81, the radio in her blue Honda Accord blaring out tunes by Alanis Morissette, But
terfly Boucher, and Mark Knopfler from a D.C. alternative rock station. It felt good to get away, even if only briefly. It had been such an awful, surreal week, and having a moment to herself just to clear her mind was a welcome respite.
She patted the dashboard of her aging car affectionately. She’d thought recently about trading in the vehicle, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. It had been the top-of-theline model nine years earlier when she bought it, and it had taken her from coast to coast and back again—the chariot she’d used to escape the confines of her family’s expectations. It still performed admirably most of the time, though it had recently begun to have trouble with the starter. Still, she felt an undeniable loyalty to the car, and was reluctant to give it up.
She hadn’t told anyone where she was headed, not just because she didn’t want to be disturbed, but because she knew that no one would understand her motivation. Better, she decided, to satisfy her own curiosity and leave everyone else in the dark for the moment. Her mother thought she was clearing up a few things at work, and her boss assumed that she was still dealing with family issues related to her sister’s death. As a result, she had been able to slip away without anyone asking any questions.
She passed the junction with Interstate 64 toward Charlottesville at around noon and kept driving, down into the more rural portion of Virginia, where the suburban sprawl gave way to rambling fields, farmyards, and overgrown forests. Her radio no longer picked up the Washington stations, and even the Charlottesville radio fare began to fade. She flipped around the dial, searching for something to feed her alternative rock appetite, but found primarily an assortment of conservative talk and Christian rock radio stations. She finally settled on a country station and continued barreling down the highway to the sounds of Clint Black and Merle Haggard, being treated only occasionally to crossover artists like Shania Twain and Bonnie Raitt.
As she drove, she let her mind wander aimlessly through the events of the past week, eager to free her mind from the constraints of rational evaluation and find clarity in her unfocused emotions and impressions. As the mile markers flashed by in greater and greater numbers between exits, she began to feel fortunate in a perverse way. She’d spent years waiting for her life to begin, waiting for something of import to happen that would signal that her existence had purpose and meaning and direction. Sometimes, she thought, security and routine are fulfillment’s greatest enemy, lulling us into a patterned stupor that obscures the reality that time slips away faster than we can fathom. It is often only the catastrophic events of our lives that rattle us from complacency and free us to take a good look around to see the importance of things so easily taken for granted: the connections of family; the strength that comes from being relied upon; the excitement of a new romance (even one only beginning to take root).
As she pulled up the long, tree-lined drive, she looked up at the bright blue sign that hung from the stone pillars guarding the entrance to the grounds. “The Virginia Juvenile Institute for Mental Health,” it read.
The Institute
, Barneton had called it.
From the look of the buildings and surrounding fields, it could have been a second-rate boarding school, with its clusters of red-brick structures gapped by swaths of green common. All that seemed missing was a horde of students rushing across the campus to classes or activities or athletics. But here, it seemed, the residents had little for which to hurry.
As she pulled into a parking space in the lot near the main building, she wondered what could have happened in this place that had caused her sister to make the five-hour trek— and from here to Professor Barneton’s office. Looking at the quiet, lonely campus, she was convinced now that she had wasted her own time as well, that there could be nothing important she could learn there.