Mansions Of The Dead (36 page)

“We’re just trying to get everything pinned down about where everyone was the night of Brad’s death,” Quinn said. “Now, you say you arrived home and went straight to bed.”

“Yes,” Melissa said. She did look better with the lipstick. Drew didn’t say anything.

“And, Mr. Putnam, you went out again. What time was that?” Marino said it so nonchalantly that Quinn almost thought he was going to walk into it. But when he looked up, Drew’s face was red.

“What do you mean?”

“One of your neighbors saw you leaving around eleven on the Saturday night that Brad died. You didn’t tell us this before. Where did you go?”

“Out for a drive. I couldn’t sleep and I was gone for about ten minutes.” Nobody said anything. “Surely you can’t blame me for forgetting about it.”

“Where did you go?” Marino was angry now. Quinn could see the signs, his eyes narrow, the cauliflower ear reddened.

“I drove around the neighborhood.”

Quinn turned to Melissa. “And you said that you took a sleeping pill when you got home and went straight to bed?”

“I took a sleeping pill, yes.”

“So you wouldn’t have known what time he came home?”

“He said he came home ten minutes later.”

“But you wouldn’t really know, would you? Because you’d taken a sleeping pill?”

She looked startled, but didn’t answer him.

“Can I ask why you take sleeping pills?”

“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?” Drew sneered.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of sleeping going on in your house.”

“No, no. It’s okay.” Melissa looked up at him. “I’ve had seven miscarriages in the last four years. The doctors say there isn’t anything wrong, but . . . I have trouble sleeping.”

It was more information than she’d needed to give and Quinn
wasn’t sure if she’d told him because she really wanted him to understand or if she was just trying to shock him.

“So you took a pill that night. Was it before or after your husband came back from his drive?”

She looked almost triumphant. “Before. But as I was going off, I heard him come in. Sleeping pills don’t knock you out immediately, you know. It’s not like it is in the movies.”

“But there’s no reason he couldn’t have gone out again, after you were asleep?”

Drew stood up and went to Quinn with his arms outstretched. For a moment, Quinn thought he was going to embrace him. “But I didn’t, I’m telling you that I didn’t.” He turned away and put his head in his hands. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“Okay, okay,” Marino said. “As far as you know, Mr. Putnam, did Brad take drugs?”

“What?”

“Did Brad take drugs?”

“I don’t know. If he did, he never told me about it. He was in college, for God’s sake. He wouldn’t be the first college kid to try drugs.”

“Yeah,” Marino said. “But unlike most college kids, he got murdered. And we’re just trying to find out by who.”

They were almost back to the station when Quinn’s phone rang. The display listed his home number and he answered it, feeling his stomach seize up.

“Tim, it’s Debbie. I’m sorry to bother you at work, but Maura was acting really weird this morning and I just went up to change Megan and when I came down again she was gone.” Debbie was breathless, and Quinn could tell she’d been crying.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s gone. I don’t know where she is. I took Megan outside and looked around a little, but now she’s gone down for the night.”

“All right, all right. I’m coming home. Just stay with Megan and I’ll be right there.”

“Everything okay?” Marino asked.

Quinn glanced over at him. “Can you drop me at home. I’ll take the T back for my car later.”

“Sure.”

It was six-thirty now and the traffic was light on Mass. Ave. Marino left him and Quinn stood for a moment looking up at his house. Everything looked all right from the outside, just the way he’d left it that morning. The grass needed to be cut, and there was a bag of trash on the porch that he’d forgotten to take out that morning, but otherwise everything looked fine.

“Debbie,” he called out as he came in the door.

She appeared at the top of the stairs, a finger to her lips.

“Shhh. Megan’s gone down.”

“Is she back?”

She shook her head.

He rushed out into the street and took in the darkening, empty sidewalks, the houses illuminated by the bluish light of televisions. She couldn’t have gone too far without the car, he told himself. He started down one side of the street, calling out, “Maura? Honey?” and looking into driveways and side yards as he went. He was almost halfway down the street when Mrs. Maiorelli, a grandmotherly type who had brought them veal Parmesan when they first moved in, came hesitantly out of her front door and said, “Are you looking for your wife?”

“Yes.Is she . . . ?”

Mrs. Maiorelli pointed toward her backyard. Behind her, he could see her television going, could smell fried onions wafting out into the spring air. “She’s back there. I tried to talk to her and she didn’t want to. So I just let her sit.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Maiorelli. Can I . . . ”He pointed to her side gate.

“Yes, yes. Go around.”

Quinn had never been in the Maiorellis’ backyard and he was amazed at what a beautiful little oasis they had made of the eighth of an acre they had behind their house. There were flower beds all around the edges of the lawn and at the back they had constructed a little raised area, faced with a rock garden. At the top was a dwarf cherry tree shading another little garden and under the tree was the statue of an angel and a little bench. Maura was sitting on the bench, looking desolate and in the low light from the fixture perched on the back of the house, he could see the tears streaming down her face.

As he walked across the lawn to his wife, Quinn remembered the first time he had seen her. He had been home from college and had gone to a party with some high school friends. Late in the night, he had gone out into the backyard to get some fresh air and he had seen a young girl sitting on a chair at the edge of the yard, looking forlornly out into the dark. He had been attracted to her because of that, he knew now. He had sought her out that night, and all the other nights he had held her when she was depressed, because he had liked the idea of someone who felt things that deeply.

“Maura,” he said quietly. “I was worried about you.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking up at him and, miraculously, smiling. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I wanted to come and sit with the angel.” She pointed to the little statue.

He didn’t know what to say to that so he just sat down next to her on the bench and took her hand. She let him hold it and just as he was about to suggest that they go back to the house, she turned her face to him and he saw her there, saw the old Maura in her eyes.

“I feel better,” she said, smiling again. “I woke up this morning and I felt new, like I could handle things.”

“Yeah?” He tried to keep the joy out of his voice. The doctor had said he needed not to let her see how much he wanted her to get better.

“It’s so strange,” she said. “It was like I’d given something up. I think I’m going to be okay.”

He looked up and saw Mrs. Maiorelli in a back window of the
house, watching them. The angel statue glowed white in the dusky night.

“I’m so glad.” He turned to her to hug her, stroking her hair, and he realized that he too was crying.

SWEENEY SPENT THE NEXT
day working at home, trying to catch up on grading and on her own work. She got through the first draft of an article on a 1690 stone in a Connecticut cemetery that she’d been working on for a while and by nine, she was exhausted and dazed. She put on her leather jacket against the chilled air and walked over to Easter 1916, hoping there was a traditional music session on. As she walked in, she knew she’d gotten the right night; the steady thump of the bodhran and the high reedy chirping of the flutes came out to greet her as she entered, the music chasing the chill in the air.

While Easter 1916 was one of her favorite hangouts, it had been a long time since she’d come to a session. Consciously or unconsciously, she’d steered clear of the sessions, and now she had a sudden memory of Colm, hunched over in the corner of an Oxford pub, playing his flute while the lovely music rose up around him. He had always played with his eyes closed, his fingers and lips translating the music, his ears taking cues from his fellow players, his eyes not coming into it at all. She had sometimes felt threatened when he was playing. He seemed to go off somewhere else, somewhere she couldn’t reach him. Wanting to be a part of things, she’d even tried to pick up the bodhran, but she wasn’t any good.

He had known all the best places to go, in Oxford, and in London too, and it was something they had loved to do together. The couple of times she’d gone to Ireland with Colm, they’d found sessions in his local pubs, and she had come to love the camaraderie, the way old and new players just wandered in and joined the playing.

The bar was busy and she ordered herself a Guinness and then slipped into the crowded back room where the music was just starting up. A fiddle player, a flutist, and an accordion player had already started and the bodhran player was listening, trying to find his rhythm before jumping in. Sweeney found a seat and set her Guinness down on the table, listening to the tune, trying to tease it out of the lines followed by the different instruments.

Dee Da Da Da, Dee Da Da Da Deedle Dee Dee Da Da, Dee Dee Dee
. What was it? She sipped her Guinness, smiling at an older couple sitting at the next table. The old woman’s foot was tapping away on the table leg. Her husband was holding her hand on top of the table, tapping a finger against her own. Sweeney watched them for a moment. They seemed full of joy, as though there was nothing they would rather be doing at this moment than listening to this music.

Everyone clapped when the players wrapped it up and they moved on to another tune. This one she knew. It was a jig, “The Lark on the Strand,” a tumbling collection of notes, gathering on themselves, doubling back and moving the tune forward.
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na Na Nah. Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na Na Nah
.

She closed her eyes and lost herself in the sounds of the flute, reaching and arching, the notes high and flinty. The fiddler was very good, and a bodhran player kept time while the accordion player jumped in, the whiny, whimsical notes rising and climbing.

The music put her into kind of a trance and she found that her mind cleared suddenly. Colm had always said that when he was having trouble with his thesis, he found that going out to a session helped to get his thoughts in order. She understood what he meant now. There was something about the background of the seemingly disordered but
quite logical notes that allowed her to reach for the facts and tidbits of information that were bothering her.

Brad had been worried about something before he died, perhaps the jewelry, perhaps the Back Bay houses, perhaps something else. That much she knew. And the night of his death, according to Jennifer, he had been angry at someone, or no, scared of someone. Someone he was close to, by the sound of it. Okay, so she had that. Then what had happened? Well, then Brad had been killed. Someone had put a bag over his head and then put the jewelry on him. That was the important thing. There was something about that fact that seemed at the very heart of all this, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

If Brad had figured out that the jewelry was evidence of Belinda’s subterfuge, he might have told someone that he was going to reveal it. And he may have been scared of that person whoever he or she was. That tied in with what Jennifer had said, didn’t it? Brad had been going on and on about how he didn’t have any balls, and how his family never talked about anything. What if he’d been about to talk?

But she’d run up against this before, hadn’t she? If that was what had happened, then why would the killer leave the jewelry there, on his body, pointing police in the right direction?

The tune ended with a flourish and she opened her eyes and clapped with the rest of the audience. As the musicians smiled and accepted the applause, she looked up to see a man holding a drink and looking around for a seat. It took her a few moments to recognize him.

It was Quinn.

He was wearing jeans and a windbreaker and it was a few moments more before he saw her. When he did, she saw something on his face that she couldn’t quite identify. He looked down at the ground. He seemed guilty, she thought. That was it. Once he’d seen her, there wasn’t anything he could do but come over and sit down in the seat next to her.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Yeah, well, I was craving a session. What about you? Are you a
regular?” The new song had started and was getting louder, musicians joining in.

“Yeah, well, it’s not so far from the house. Maura and the baby were both sleeping and this Brad Putnam thing was really on my mind, so I thought I’d get out and grab some music.” He looked guilty again and Sweeney realized that he’d been afraid she’d disapprove of him coming out by himself. “My father was a bodhran player. I have good associations.”