Mansions Of The Dead (42 page)

“Yeah. Trish something.”

There was a long silence.

Sweeney excused herself to go to the bathroom and once she’d found the little powder room off the patio, she splashed cold water on her face and tried to calm down. All she wanted to do was leave, but she felt like it would be rude. So she dried her face and stepped out into the hallway. Melissa Putnam was waiting there to use the bathroom. She brushed past Sweeney, looking embarrassed.

“Wait a second. Can I talk to you?” Sweeney asked her.

Melissa looked surprised. “Sure. Of course.”

“I never got to talk to you after you left me that message. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Melissa flushed. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry about that. It was silly of me. There was something I realized, but I think I was wrong.”

“Are you sure?”

Melissa’s eyes were wide and she looked from side to side to make sure that no one was listening. “Just forget it,” she said. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Melissa, I . . . I just feel like you should be careful. If someone did try to hit you on purpose, they might try again.”

“Sweeney.” She smiled. “That’s ridiculous. No one’s going to try to kill me.”

“Do you remember anything about the accident?”

“I told them. The last thing I remember is that I couldn’t sleep and I went for a walk. That’s all it was. And thanks, but it isn’t any of your business anyways. I have to go to the bathroom. Leave me alone.”

In the hallway, Sweeney stood for a moment, shaking with anger again. She was happy to leave Melissa alone. She was happy to leave all the Putnams alone.

When she got back to the table, Drew and Jack were talking about their parents again. “It’s so obvious,” Jack was saying as he opened another beer. “I don’t know why he doesn’t just tell her and get it over with.”

Sweeney didn’t sit down. “I think I’m going to go. It’s late and I
should be getting back tomorrow morning. Please tell your parents I said thank you.” She nodded at Drew. “Good to see you.”

“But it’s only ten,” Jack said, looking up at her. “You don’t want to go yet.”

“I do actually. Good night.” She started walking across the lawn toward the driveway.

“Wait, Sweeney,” Jack called out behind her. “Hang on.” But she kept walking. She heard the gravel of the driveway crunch under her feet as he caught up and reached for her arm. “Are you okay? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m just tired and I want to go to bed.” She found her keys and got in, starting the car and buckling her seat belt.

But he was still holding the door open. “Is it what Drew said? I don’t get why you . . . Have dinner with me. Tomorrow. Just the two of us. Let’s just talk and drink and not think about anything, not about my family or your family or anybody’s family. Okay?”

“I’m just tired, Jack. I have to go now.” She shut the door, eased the Rabbit into reverse, and started backing away. Her heart was pounding, but she kept her eyes fixed on the driveway in her rearview mirror, even when she glanced up and saw him standing there, alone in front of the looming profile of the house.

WHEN SWEENEY CAME IN
, Anna was still awake, sitting at the kitchen table and reading the paper. Sweeney nodded at her, went upstairs to change into jeans and a sweatshirt, and came down again, pouring two glasses of white wine and handing one to Anna without a word.

“So what happened tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something must have happened tonight. Otherwise you’d be drinking wine with Jack Putnam instead of me.”

Anna watched her.

“I don’t know,” Sweeney said finally. “I was over there and they figured out who I was . . . I mean, who
we
are. About Paul and Ivy. Besides, it was a really strange evening. There was all this tension.”

“Why did you always insist on calling him Paul? It drove him crazy, you know?”

“They found out about the thing at Bailey’s Beach and when they figured out about Paul, it was like . . . it was humiliating,” Sweeney said, ignoring the question.

Anna sat back in her chair. “I never understood why that thing at Bailey’s Beach embarrassed you so much. So she got drunk and took
off her bikini top. Hell, it was the most exciting thing that happened there since Doris Duke came out of the water in her see-through bathing suit. Sweeney”—she started laughing—”it’s funny. Can’t you see that?”

“I don’t think it’s funny.” Sweeney started to get up.

“Sweeney, sit down and look at me.”

Sweeney frowned, but did as she was told and when she looked at Anna, her aunt crossed her eyes. Sweeney smiled, then tried to keep herself from laughing, and found she couldn’t.

“So what’s going on with your mystery?” Anna asked. “You solved Brad Putnam’s murder yet?”

“No. I don’t think I’ve solved any mysteries at all.” She told Anna about the jewelry and about Belinda Putnam.

“I was sure that I’d figured it out, but the DNA test wouldn’t lie. If the baby was a blood relative of Charles Putnam, then how could it have been born more than nine months after his death? Nowadays, I suppose there would be artificial insemination and all that, but in 1863?”

“Doesn’t sound possible to me,” Anna agreed.

“It isn’t. And what it has to do with Brad’s murder, or with Melissa Putnam’s attempted murder, I don’t have any idea. I’m no clearer on any of it than the day the police called me in to tell them about the jewelry, thinking it had been left by a ritual killer.”

“I wish I could help you,” Anna said. “But I’m afraid all this detective stuff isn’t really my forte.”

After Anna had gone to bed, Sweeney went out into the garden, sipping her wine and thinking about their conversation. It was almost one and she was feeling restless and antsy, so she decided to take a short walk along the Cliff Walk before going up to read. It technically closed at sundown, but there was a bit of light from the moon and she was able to hop over the fence easily. She strolled along, enjoying the cool breeze and the darkness. She’d be going back to Boston tomorrow and there wouldn’t be any more reason for her to be involved with any of the Putnams. She had looked into the jewelry. That was what she had set out to do. There wasn’t anything more for her to find out.

Her mind felt clearer out here and she replayed her conversation with Anna. “And what it has to do with Brad’s murder, or with Melissa Putnam’s attempted murder, I don’t have any idea,” she’d said to her aunt. Brad’s murder. She had a sudden involuntary image of him, lying on the bed, his arms bound, the bag obscuring his handsome face, the jewelry wound around him like strange snakes. Wait. There was something there, something in that image that interested her. She stopped for a moment on the path, thinking. The jewelry. The jewelry. And then she had an image of Melissa Putnam, her bruised and battered face.

“Sweeney,” she’d said. “That’s ridiculous. No one’s going to try to kill me.”

But there was something . . . the jewelry. Wait. Oh God. She had to get back to Cliff House.

She stopped and looked up at the bank of earth to her right. She was almost to the Marble House and the first tunnel. If she were to go back to Anna’s and get the Rabbit, it would be a good twenty minutes before she was at the house. But she was nearly there, almost to the point in the Cliff Walk where it met up with the Putnams’ property. If she could just get over the hedge, she’d be there in a few minutes.

She ran, checking for the house as she went, and when she’d reached it, she stood for a moment, watching the long expanse of lawn. There was no one outside, as far as she could tell, so she hauled herself up over the hedge, scratching her leg, and fell onto the lawn. She lay there for a moment, getting her breath, listening to the pounding of the surf far below.

The house was luminous at night, the pale stone absorbing the moonlight; everything around it seemed darker by comparison. Sweeney looked up at the black windows.

The swimming pool lights were on and they shone green up through the water, casting a strange light up against the house.

QUINN AND MARINO HAD
been talking to Drew Putnam’s neighbors all afternoon and by the time they had finished with the last one, Quinn was antsy and a little depressed. None of the other neighbors had been able to give them anything. No one had seen Drew Putnam leave or return on the night of the murder. When it came down to it, none of the neighbors they’d talked to even knew the Putnams very well.

“They’ve been living here for four years and nobody knows who they are,” Marino said once they were in the car, heading back to the city. “Does that strike you as weird?”

“Not really. Most of those people were new anyway. That’s just how it is in this neighborhood. They’re probably used to sticking to themselves.

“So, what’s next?” Quinn asked. “Should we start in with colleagues?”

“Not right now,” Marino said. “I’m thinking maybe we should go over to the apartment tonight.”

“Brad Putnam’s apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t we get everything out of it?”

“I told the lieutenant about the kid’s friends doing drugs the night he was killed and he said to go back and make sure there isn’t any stuff in the apartment, you know? I mean we checked, but checking when you know something and checking when you don’t are two different things. Might as well do it tonight.”

“All right. Whatever.” Quinn shrugged. He’d been in the apartment about ten times now and it hadn’t offered up anything very interesting, but he was willing to indulge Marino. He headed for Cambridge and they used the key they’d gotten from Jaybee.

Quinn took the bedroom and methodically checked every drawer, every shelf in the closet. He lifted the mattress and looked carefully underneath. Then he checked under the carpet, to make sure there wasn’t a loose floorboard that could be used as a hiding place. When he was done, he moved on to the other bedroom and did the same thing. Nothing.

When he came out into the living room, Marino was standing over the empty fish tank. “This aquarium, Quinny,” he said finally. “It was full when we came in here, right?”

“Yeah, there were a bunch of fish. The sister put them all in a plastic bag, said she was going to take them back to the pet store or something.”

Marino picked up one of the little bottles next to the fish tank and read the writing on the back. “Flakes for tropical fish. Do not over-feed.” He picked up a little green net, waved it at Quinn, and then picked up the pair of rubber gloves folded up next to the tank. “They take a look at these for prints?” he asked Quinn, holding up the gloves.

“I don’t know. He must have used them to clean out the tank, huh?”

Marino looked at them thoughtfully. “My kid’s got a fish tank. Course he begged me for it for Christmas last year and now he can’t be bothered to even feed ‘em once a day.”

Quinn watched Marino turn the gloves over in his hands.

“Hey,” Quinn said, after a minute. “We’ve been trying to figure out all along how the killer got the bag over Brad Putnam’s head without leaving any prints. Maybe . . . ”

Marino looked up at him and nodded.

“That’s what I’m thinking, Quinny. I don’t think my wife ever uses gloves when she cleans out the fish tank. She just takes the fish out, dumps all the water out, washes the little rocks or whatever . . . ”

Quinn walked over to the kitchen. “They’re dishwashing gloves, aren’t they? So what if the killer was looking for a pair of gloves. He finds them by the sink. Uses them and then can’t figure out what to do with them. If he washes them out in the sink, someone’s going to notice that there aren’t any dishes in the drying rack. Besides, a wet pair of gloves next to the sink is going to look awfully suspicious. But a wet pair of gloves next to the fish tank. You’d think that he’d just been doing something with the tank, wouldn’t you?” He thought for a moment. “Wait, the girl, Becca, said one of the fish was dead. When they came in.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah, floating on its back. Belly up.” Quinn remembered Becca Dearborne telling him about it as she sobbed out the details of finding Brad. “I should have known something was wrong,” she’d wheezed. “He never would have left it in there.”