In-Laws and Outlaws (8 page)

“Where would you like to go?” Annette asked me. “Do you remember any of the stores here?”

“About all I remember is Filene's,” I told her. “Stuart and I didn't spend much time in Boston.” New York three-fourths of the year, the Vineyard in summer.

Annette was standing in “the twin pose”—hand on hip, one foot forward, head raised. “Well, there's a Nieman-Marcus in Copley Place, and an Yves St. Laurent. Newbury Street has a few places we could go—Louis, or Rae Brewer. Connie, where do you think we should start?”

Forced into making a decision, Connie managed to come up with the name of a shop. Annette chatted about our proposed excursion with an enthusiasm she couldn't possibly be feeling, but Connie eventually began to show some interest. In due course, the three of us set out.

Annette steered us to only those places that delivered so we wouldn't be burdened with packages. Swim suit, short pants, long pants, sporty attire of all sorts. Several sets of underwear. Reeboks and sandals, thank god. A couple of longish cotton dresses, one of which was so defiantly feminine with all its ruffles and embroidered rosebuds that I could barely keep a straight face when I tried it on; I bought it only because Connie liked it.

Shopping is tiring (that's one reason I don't like it), and only Annette seemed to keep up her energy level as the time passed. Connie's tranquilizer must have worn off because she started talking a blue streak, babbling on about nothing at all. And the more Connie babbled, the slower Annette's own speech became. The difference in the ways those two women spoke told a lot about them. Connie talked in a rush, in half-formed thoughts and sentences that started off on one course and then midway through veered off in a totally different direction—all of which made her sound a bit foolish in contrast to Annette's calm, deliberate, precise speech. Annette was a woman who expected to be listened to; Connie was not.

It was getting on toward two in the afternoon by the time we had everything, and we were all famished. Connie, who was looking quite tired by then, either couldn't or wouldn't express a preference for a restaurant, so Annette chose the Bay Tower Room.

We sat at a table high up in a building overlooking the harbor. I liked being up high; it was restful, sitting above the hubbub, looking down on it and sequestered against its dangers. When the food arrived, Connie began to perk up a little. “Michelle and Rob bought a new sailboat,” she said to me. “You'll enjoy that.”

“Mm, maybe. Remember, I never learned to sail,” I said. “I always just hung on for dear life and let somebody else pull on the ropes.”

“They're called lines,” Annette laughed. “Sailing isn't all that difficult. Connie could teach you, if you want to learn.”

“Yes, I could teach you,” Connie agreed. So she was thinking about going to the Vineyard; that was progress.

We'd almost finished eating when a slightly too fashionable man in his forties stopped by our table to express his sympathy for Raymond's death. He told Connie how much he'd miss knowing her husband was there; Raymond had been an important part of a lot of people's lives, and all of them shared her grief. That seemed to be the right thing to say, because Connie actually mustered up a smile for him. The man's name was Patrick Underwood; he didn't look the sort of person who'd have a nickname. Connie introduced me as “Stuart's wife.”

I stuck out a hand. “Gillian Clifford,” I said without thinking.

We shook hands, enjoying a little friendly eye contact in the process. “Clifford?” he asked, leaving the obvious question unspoken.

“Her professional name,” Annette said smoothly. “So, Patrick—what are your plans for the summer?”

I didn't hear his answer; I was too embarrassed by the gaffe I'd just made. Under any other circumstances I'd have maintained that my name was whatever I said it was; but now was no time to insist on an identity separate and apart from the family.
In Illinois you're a Clifford
, I told myself;
in Massachusetts you're a Decker
.

“Perhaps I'll see you there,” Patrick Underwood was saying to me.

“Perhaps so,” I answered, wondering where
there
was. Martha's Vineyard, I supposed.

During my mental absence Patrick had seated himself at the table with us. Over our postmeal coffee it came out that Patrick owned several radio stations and cable TV companies; possibly he was one of those Uncle Oscar had pressured into leaving the family alone? But Annette had not cold-shouldered him when he first appeared at our table; obviously she didn't consider him part of the enemy camp. A family friend? A lover? No, not a lover; there was neither intimacy nor awkwardness between them. They were just two people who'd known each other a long time.

Then Patrick said something that knocked me for a loop. “Do your detectives have a lead on the killer yet?”

Annette shot a warning look in Connie's direction.

Patrick picked it up. “I suppose the police detectives are doing all they can,” he covered. “Waiting is the hard part, isn't it?”

Connie hadn't caught on; she was only half listening, off in some world of her own. Annette saw the expression on my face and made a little hand gesture that I translated as
I'll explain later
. Damn right she would.

Patrick very neatly turned the conversation to me, wanting to know why I had a professional name as well as a “real” one. I told him briefly of my years in New York theater and of my present position as the curator of a theater museum. “It was under the name Clifford that I did my directing, and it was that name that got me the curatorship in Chicago. My introducing myself as Gillian Clifford—well, that was just habit, I'm afraid.” That last was for Annette's benefit. She smiled, barely.

Patrick seemed interested in all this for some reason, and it turned out that he'd actually seen one of the off-Broadway plays I'd directed. He didn't remember much about the play—but that was all right; neither did I. You'd never have known from the polite attention Annette paid to what we were saying that theater bored her to tears. Connie just sat there listlessly, waiting for the conversation to end.

Eventually it did and Patrick Underwood left. Annette immediately signaled for the check and bustled Connie and me out, leaving no time for an awkward silence to develop. Connie did look tired; as soon as we were home I suggested a nap. She agreed. The minute she'd gone upstairs I turned to Annette.

“For heaven's sake, Gillian, don't look at me like that!” she said sharply.

“You won't tell Connie you've hired private detectives, but you do tell a man who owns radio stations and cable TV?” I didn't even try to keep the indignation out of my voice.

“It was a defensive move … an ounce of prevention, you might say. Oscar suggested it. He said keep the man at the top informed of what's going on—off the record, of course—and he'll keep the reporters off our backs. So we told Patrick Underwood and a few other people we trust, and they've kept
their
people in line. Everything has been done in strictest confidence. It's how these things are handled, Gillian.”

The way she said my name told me how irritated she was. But I wasn't ready to give it up yet. “Tell Connie. Today. She has a right to know.”

Annette shook her head. “Michelle wants to wait until you've taken her to Martha's Vineyard. You'll all be close together there, not spread out the way we are here. Connie's going to need a lot of support.” She sighed, half in annoyance and half in regret. “Gillian, you just don't know what she was like the weekend Raymond died. It was as if a raging tiger had been living inside this pussycat for all these years. We handled it the best way we could. She will be told, I promise you.”

It looked as if I was going to have to settle for that. And Annette was right about one thing; I didn't know what it was like when Raymond died, I hadn't been there. If I'd had to watch Connie going crazy right in front of my eyes, I surely would have tried to calm her too. Annette was telling me to shut up because I didn't know what I was talking about. All right. But I had another reason for keeping quiet.

So far as I knew, neither of the twins had ever lied to me—until now. But I was as sure as I was that my name was Gillian Clifford that Annette had lied just then; I know acting when I see it. She hadn't told me the truth about why they'd confided what was supposed to be a family secret to a kingpin in the world of mass communication, the last sort of person in the world I'd think they'd trust with a matter they wanted kept quiet. Something else was going on here, something they didn't want me to know about. All the family had appeared so frank and open, welcoming me, sharing their grief, accepting me back into the fold … but Annette had lied to me.

Connie Decker wasn't the only one they were keeping in the dark.

6

Annette left for Paris. Connie's mood began to lighten. I did not know if those two events were related or not.

But one thing was certain, and that was that Connie was indeed coming out of her funk. Her period of mourning was by no means over; she'd still burst into tears whenever thoughts of Raymond grew too strong. Nights were the hardest for her; she took to sleeping in a bed other than the one she'd shared with him. But that enervating numbness that had surrounded Raymond's death and funeral was dissipating; I could feel it slipping away from me as well.

Before Annette left I tried to get her to tell me about Theo Decker's kidnapping; I didn't have the heart to ask Connie. But Annette made me feel I'd committed some inexcusable faux pas even by asking. That was an ugly and frightening period in all their lives, she said, and they'd coped with it by not dwelling on it. It was over and done with.

Sure it was. Like hell.

For one thing, it would never be over for Connie; even the more recent death of her husband couldn't blot out the earlier heartache of losing a child. And losing a child in that particular way put the whole thing into the realm of nightmare. The pain of Theo's death had been magnified by all the publicity it had received, but that disaster seemed unrelated to what was happening now. On the other hand, I didn't really know that was true. I didn't
know
anything, not even the details of the kidnapping. Annette was right; I should have called.

So when Connie's friend Marcie stopped by for a visit, I told them I had an errand to run; I could at least make an effort to bring myself up to date. Connie didn't think to offer me a car, but that was just as well. From what I remembered of Boston traffic and the rarity of parking spaces, I wasn't any too eager to drive anyway. I called a cab.

My destination was Boylston Street and the Boston Public Library, which turned out to be two separate buildings. My know-everything cabdriver told me the newer building was the circulation library, while the older one housed research materials. I pushed through the revolving door of the old building and came upon the first-floor periodicals section. After a little hunting, I found what I was looking for.

The first account of the kidnapping had appeared in the Boston
Globe
only after the whole tragic story was over; not a word had been leaked to the press while there was still some chance of getting Theo Decker back alive. Theo had been fifteen years old at the time, the same age Joel Kurland was now. A picture in the paper showed a boy who'd even looked like Joel—the face was a little broader, perhaps, the lips fuller, but still a Decker face.

At the time of the kidnapping Theo and his parents had been living in Norway for five months … Norway? The
Globe
said Raymond was there watchdogging an outfit drilling for offshore oil that he'd sunk a lot of Decker money into. (And being Raymond, naturally he'd want his family there with him.) The kidnapping had taken place while Theo was away from home spending the weekend with an American family living in Kristiansand.

Theo and the fourteen-year-old girlfriend he was visiting had been hanging out at the picture-pretty harbor, watching the ships, when a car squealed up to them out of nowhere. Two men had jumped out and wrestled Theo into the back seat, yelling something unintelligible at the girl; a third man had driven the car away. According to the girlfriend, all three were “Mediterranean-looking” and spoke a language she couldn't understand. Immediately everyone thought:
Arabs
.

Whoever they were, they made no move for forty-eight hours, just long enough to push Theo's anxious parents right to the edge of collapse. Then a small box arrived; it contained a school ring Theo wore a lot. The ring was still on Theo's finger. The finger was still attached to Theo's hand.

I had to stop reading for a bit when I came to that. They'd cut off his hand. Just to show they meant business, just to prove they could. A power trip, that's what it was—a sick, dirty power trip.
See, we can do anything to your family we want, and you can't stop us!
What kind of people would do a thing like that? Only animals, the worst kind of predatory animals, with no humanizing restraints to keep them from inflicting harm wherever and whenever they liked. They must have gotten a lot of excitement out of cutting off a fifteen-year-old boy's hand, the three of them.

My mental name-calling didn't make things any better, so I went back to the story. In the box with Theo's hand had been a ransom letter, demanding “an undisclosed amount” of money, the
Globe
said—undisclosed to the public, the writer meant. Raymond paid the ransom, following the instructions in the letter (no details given in the newspaper account). Then Theo was returned to his parents.

One piece at a time.

First a leg arrived, then an arm, and so on. The head was the last body part to be sent. The kidnappers had obviously never intended to let Theo live, but the act of dismembering him spoke of so much hatred at work that my stomach started churning. Was it hatred of Raymond Decker in particular or of ugly Americans in general? Oh, Theo! My god, what he must have gone through
before
they dismembered him!