Mansions Of The Dead (17 page)

As the song ended, Sweeney heard a high keening coming from the front of the church. Someone was sobbing, and she craned her neck to look through the rows of people. It was Melissa Putnam. Drew had put an arm around her and was trying to quiet her, but she would not be quieted, and finally an older woman helped her down the aisle.

The minister announced that guests were invited back to the family home for refreshments and that burial would take place privately at a later date. The reason seemed to hover in the air above the minister’s head.

The family stood in a line in the entryway and as the mourners filed out of the church, they stopped to say a few words, their voices low and polite. Thirty or forty men and women in dark suits, talking seriously among themselves, approached the family as a group and Sweeney heard someone in line behind her say, “See all those state legislators? They love these things.”

Jack saw her before she reached him and gave her a sedate smile and wave. She wondered if he knew yet about her conversation with his mother last night. Perhaps not.

“Jack told us that he saw you last night at Katie’s wedding,” Andrew Putnam said. With his silver hair and perfectly cut dark suit, he reminded Sweeney of the older Cary Grant. “We really appreciate your being with us today.”

As she moved down the line, she shook hands with Drew and Melissa and murmured her apologies. Melissa seemed better, though when she lifted her face to accept Sweeney’s expression of sympathy, a tear squeezed out of the corner of one eye and rolled down her cheek. Sweeney had to resist the urge to wipe it away.

Camille Putnam was another story. A politician through and through, she pasted on a serious smile as Sweeney shook her hand and said it was good to see her again. Sweeney searched her face for signs of grief and found only a sense of quiet, as though the tragedy had happened to someone else and she was trying to be respectful.

Sweeney smiled nervously at Kitty and was turning to go when Jack ducked out of the line and caught up with her in the doorway.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about. You’re coming back to the house, right?”

“I was going to, but . . . ”Sweeney glanced over at Kitty, who was accepting an embrace from an elderly woman. “Are you sure it’s not just for close friends? I feel like I fall more into the acquaintance category.”

Jack grinned at her, a small, sad turn of his mouth. “You haven’t figured us out yet, have you? The Putnams only have acquaintances.”

People seemed to be parking all along the street without worrying about incurring the wrath of the Beacon Hill parking Gestapo, so Sweeney pulled up behind a BMW with a “Putnam for Congress” sticker on it. Her black suit, bought three or four years ago for another funereal occasion, did little to shield her from the chilled May morning, and she wrapped her arms around herself and massaged her
shoulders. She’d chosen sensible shoes, at least, rubber-soled black leather Mary Janes that would shrug off the mud lining the sidewalk. She followed the crowd up to the house and waited while they slowly filed in.

A young woman in a black-and-white uniform took her coat and the German woman whom Sweeney remembered from her first visit asked her to sign a leather-bound guest book. She wrote her name and the date and then went through into a large living room, where a bar was set up against one wall. Sweeney got herself a scotch and wandered around looking at paintings and photographs set on low tables. There was one of Senator John Putnam speaking from the floor of the Senate, and another of Andrew as a much younger man, leaning against the mast of a sailboat. On one low bookshelf was a beautiful bridal portrait of Melissa Putnam; she was wearing a veil and staring off into the distance.

Sweeney staked out a vantage point in the living room and pretended to be absorbed in the Putnam’s art collection while she observed the family. Kitty, Drew, and Melissa were standing at one side of the living room receiving visitors and Paddy Sheehan was next to them in his wheelchair. At the other end of the room, Andrew and Camille were doing the same. Sweeney wondered if the arrangement had been agreed upon beforehand or if they had just naturally gone to stand on different sides of the room. Jack was nowhere to be seen.

She watched them in action. Kitty seemed to have her emotions in check as she comforted a weeping middle-aged woman. Melissa kept dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief as she shook hands. Drew was smiling in an appropriately somber way and shaking hands, but he looked exhausted, Sweeney decided, his eyes underlined with bruised circles and his skin pale. Next to Drew, Paddy Sheehan sat in his chair, offering a shaking hand to the mourners. Sweeney was wondering whether he had an actual physical infirmity or if it was just age when he stood to embrace an elderly woman. His hands shook as he spoke, but he stood on strong legs.

She shifted her gaze to Camille and Andrew. Like her brother, and
as she had in the church, Camille had perfected a sort of regretful smile. Andrew seemed the least together. He kept staring off into space and running a hand through his silvery hair.

She was beginning to feel awkward when Jack waved at her from across the room and came over, holding a highball glass. “Are you doing okay?” he asked. “Do you need anything?” He smelled of soap or perhaps cologne. Something clean and nautical.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good. Let’s go find somewhere quiet to talk. I really appreciate your coming back.”

“No problem.” She smiled up at him. His cheeks were flushed and there was a fine mist of perspiration on his upper lip and forehead. His eyes bored into hers and she stepped back, glancing away.

He steered her toward a doorway and then stood aside to let her climb the wide staircase in the hall in front of him. The walls along the staircase were adorned with huge metal disks that looked like circular-saw blades. Upstairs, he led her down a long hall, their shoes clacking on the hardwood floors, and into a small bedroom she assumed was a guest room. The walls were a tomato red, and the bed had a black upholstered headboard that matched an armchair next to the window.

“Sorry about this,” he said, closing the door. “It’s just that the rest of the house is so full of people. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you because my mother told me about your visit last night. I just wanted to say that we’ve called the police and we’re going to tell them what happened.”

Sweeney wasn’t sure what to do. The room felt small all of a sudden and he was standing very close to her, so she sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. “Good. I’m sorry about all of that. I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think it was important, for Brad’s sake, to find whoever did this.”

“No, no. I’m glad you did.” He looked embarrassed for a moment. “Anyway, the truth is that I was the one who tied Brad up. He called me that night, very drunk, asking me to come over. When I got to the apartment, I found him passed out on the floor. I was worried about
him throwing up and choking, so I did exactly what you figured out that I did.”

Sweeney watched him for a moment, trying to decide if he was telling the whole truth.

“I didn’t say anything because I thought that if I did, it would just obscure the issue of who really did this to him.” He tapped his fingers against the desk. “God, I want a cigarette.”

Sweeney looked up at him again. Was he really that naive? “Didn’t you worry about them finding your fingerprints, footprints, other evidence that you’d been in the apartment?”

His eyes widened and he reached up to wipe a hand across his forehead. “Well, I’d been there before. We were always going over there to feed his fish or whatever. I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think much about it. It’s how . . . it’s how lying happens, quickly. People don’t usually plan ahead when they’re going to tell a lie.”

“Unless they’ve planned a murder,” Sweeney said.

“Well . . . yes. But I didn’t.” He sat down in the armchair by the window and leaned over the side to look at her directly.

Sweeney looked past him out the window. A sparrow was pecking at something on the windowsill. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Was he wearing the jewelry when you left him?” she asked.

“No. I would have remembered that.”

“But you’d seen the jewelry before?”

“Yeah, once you and Detective Quinn showed me the picture that day I remembered it—it was always in my mother’s jewelry box.”

“Did you know that Brad was interested in the jewelry? Did he tell you that he was working on a project on mourning jewelry?”

Jack picked up a red and black Venetian glass paperweight on the desk and turned it over in his hands. “I think I asked him how the class was going and he said that he was doing his final project on some mourning items. He didn’t go into it too much, though.”

Sweeney wanted to ask him more about the jewelry, but he was starting to look bewildered and she didn’t want to set off any alarms.

“I wanted to say thanks for going to my mom about it first. It was really nice of you. I appreciate it.” He got up and came over to sit next to her on the bed.

“That’s okay.” Sweeney took a deep breath. “I should probably let you get back to things downstairs.”

Jack smiled at her. “Probably,” he said. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you first and to tell you that I’ve asked Detective Quinn to let you be there while we tell him about it. It was my mother who asked for it. She said that you understand, that she would feel better if you were there.”

“He’s going to love that,” she said, leaning back on the bed so that she wasn’t quite so close to him. “He thinks I’m much too involved already.”

Jack leaned back too. They were eye to eye. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you involved?” He was staring right at her, his blue eyes steady.

“Well, I liked Brad. I cared about him. In their minds I guess that puts me a little too close for comfort to . . . to everything.” She had been about to say “To you” and she blushed.

He was still staring at her and as Sweeney stood up suddenly, her back to the window; she was sure he had leaned in closer, that he had been about to kiss her or take her hand. But by the time she looked back at him, he had stood up too.

“Thanks for talking to me,” he said formally. He glanced away when her eyes found his. “You’ve been really nice about all of this.”

“No, no. I wanted to. As I said, I cared about Brad.” She let him hold the door for her and they walked silently back down the stairs. The crowd had thinned out a bit, and when they reached the living room, she saw Jaybee, Becca, and Jennifer standing with a girl she didn’t know in a little huddle and she said, too quickly, “There are some of my students. I think I’ll go say hi.”

“I’ll see you,” he said. She watched him make his way to Camille’s side and whisper something in her ear. She looked up, her eyes rushing to Sweeney across the room, and Sweeney turned away.

Becca was wearing a black-and-green-plaid miniskirt and black tights and looked cold. She and Jaybee, Sweeney noticed, were holding hands.

“Hey, guys, it’s good to see you.”

Jaybee and Becca looked up and in the instant before Becca recomposed her face and gave Sweeney an entirely appropriate smile, Sweeney saw something else there: wide-eyed, startled fear. Jennifer smiled.

“Oh, hey,” Jaybee said. “We just got here.” He introduced her to the girl standing with them, a tall, blonde named Alison. She was pretty in a Barbie-doll sort of way and looked vaguely excited, Sweeney thought, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright.

They all stared at her dumbly for a moment until Jennifer, ever gracious, said, “We were just talking about the house. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah, it is.” She turned to Becca and Jaybee. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. And that you shouldn’t worry about class. If you want notes or anything, e-mail me and I’ll be glad to send them along. And take as long as you need to get back to things. I know this must be an awful time for you.”

“Thanks,” Jaybee said. There was another awkward silence. A phone rang from somewhere in the house, but stopped after two rings. Sweeney looked up and scanned the room. Jack was now standing with Drew and Melissa, his slim figure a counterpoint to Drew’s heftier one.

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” the blond girl said. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Yeah, bye,” Becca said, in a falsely cheery voice.

They all watched her head for the front door and Sweeney was about to tell them she wanted to get home when Jaybee said, “That bitch. I can’t believe she came.”

“She wasn’t even friends with Brad,” Becca explained to Sweeney. “She just wanted to come and see the house.”

“I heard her tell Brad’s mom that she and Brad had been friends since freshman year,” Jaybee said.

There was a long silence as they all looked around the room.

“Well, people have their own reasons for doing things,” Sweeney tried to say soothingly. “Death brings out strange behavior. A lot of people feel they want to be part of the mourning, it makes them feel like they belong.”

“No offense, Sweeney, but that’s bullshit,” Jaybee said. She had never seen him this angry. His usually easygoing demeanor had morphed into raw rage. “She just wanted to get inside the house.”

For the first time, Sweeney had a sense of what it must be like to be a Putnam.

The coats had been hung in the closet of the downstairs reception room, she was told when she was ready to go. The uniformed young woman who had taken her coat was nowhere to be seen, but Sweeney followed another guest’s directions and found the little room off a small hallway near the front door. There were two armchairs and a huge closet that ran the length of one wall. The opposite wall was covered with mirrors in various shapes and sizes and Sweeney found herself staring at her refracted face, her green eyes oddly bright. She looked flushed and excited in the glass. Is that what Jack Putnam had seen when he had stared at her upstairs? And had he leaned forward to kiss her before she stood up? It seemed strange that he would kiss her after his brother’s memorial service, but as Sweeney had told Becca and Jaybee, death brought out strange things in people. Jack Putnam wouldn’t have been the first person to look for a little affirmation of his status as a living breathing lusting human being in the face of his mortality.