Slightly Abridged (8 page)
Authors: Ellen Pall
Instead, “How did she die, can they tell?” she asked, her voice even smaller than usual.
“Well, it's nothing official yet, but it looks to the guys like someone strangled her. She's got what they call petechial hemorrhages, which you get if the jugular vein is obstructed, on her face. And there are marks on her neck consistent with manual strangulation. Also, the way she was lyingâ”
“No, no. That's okay,” Juliet interrupted faintly. She tried to smile. “Sorry I asked.”
The rest of the way, they drove in silence. At the morgue, Murray parked and came around to her side of the car to lead her in. She checked on the doorstep, then forced herself forward. Juliet suffered from hyperosmia, an abnormally keen sense of smell; for her, the world was a constant barrage of odors she could not ignore. Murray, for example, smelled of Mennen deodorant, Ivory soap, and the coffee he had had that morning; the car he came in held the lingering scent of someone else's sweat and a pork sandwich that had probably spent part of the night in the glove compartment. She had been dreading the odors of the morgue.
But only the faintest chemical scent, if that, reached this administrative floor. Murray ushered her into a drab little room off the lobby. Still, as she filled out a form testifying to her own identity, Juliet braced herself for a visit to a nauseating room full of oversized file drawers, from one of which Ada's corpse would be rolled out.
But that was in olden times, Murray informed her.
“We found some people had problems with trauma after a thing like that, so nowadays we just show you a Polaroid. Which I'll go and get.”
He was gone a few minutes, then returned with a square, very recent snapshot (Juliet imagined she could smell the developing solution on its surface) of an old woman's very dead but only slightly distorted face. Ada Caffrey's sojourn under the snow on Riverside Drive had preserved the little flapper nicely. Juliet recognized her at a glance.
Her stomach gave an alarming lurch, and she felt the color drain from her face. Tactfully, Murray took the picture away.
“It's Ada,” Juliet said. “Poor woman. Poor woman.”
Juliet asked for the ladies' room, stumbled down a corridor, and washed her face with cold water again and again. The chemical undertone in the morgue's air, whether real or imagined, seemed to bang at her head like a little hammer.
“Poor old lady,” she said, when she rejoined Landis in the office. “Imagine living eighty-four peaceful years out in the middle of the country, only to come to New York and finish up a victim of random violence.” And she shuddered with shame that the city, her city, could do this to a guest.
“Oh, I don't think this was random, Jule,” Landis said. He eyed her strangely. “Her purse was with her, with cash in it, but that manuscript wasn't. Anyway, street thugs don't generally stuff their victims into bags for neat disposal. And the ME says she was strangled. That's up close and personal. Unless it's a maniac, like a serial murderer or something, I believe we'll find Mrs. Caffrey was killed by somebody she knew.”
Dennis Makes Dinner
Dennis Daignault was poaching raspberries in a sauce of chicken
stock, crème fraîche, and crushed tomatoes. He had insisted on cooking dinner for Suzy and Juliet, despite the kind of day all three of them had had.
stock, crème fraîche, and crushed tomatoes. He had insisted on cooking dinner for Suzy and Juliet, despite the kind of day all three of them had had.
“Cooking makes me feel better,” he had said. “When I cook, I am king. Vegetables accede to my slightest whim.”
“If they do, who am I to quibble?” said Juliet, who rarely felt so out of place as when in front of an oven.
An hour later she and Suzy arrived at his place to find a silver cocktail shaker on the coffee table, ready with gin and dry vermouth, next to it tiny bowls of olives and translucent cocktail onions. The candlelit dinner table that sat at one end of his long kitchen was set with rose-and-white Wedgwood china. Real roses, pale pink and peach, had been strewn over the starched white tablecloth.
Juliet and Suzy exchanged a glance. Juliet had complained to Suzy about Dennis's habit of setting the scene, and Suzy had accused her of trying to think of reasons not to let him get close to her. But Suzy had never been to Dennis's house, nor even spent more than a few minutes talking to him. Now Juliet could see her mind changing. Dennis's apartment
was
stagy. It was weird, the result of insecurity on his part about being himself, probably, but hard to relax around even so. Of course Juliet, too, could put on a showâthe tea
with scones she had served to Ada Caffrey, for exampleâbut that really was a show, the Angelica Kestrel-Haven Show, trotted out for visiting fans and journalists on a regular basis.
was
stagy. It was weird, the result of insecurity on his part about being himself, probably, but hard to relax around even so. Of course Juliet, too, could put on a showâthe tea
with scones she had served to Ada Caffrey, for exampleâbut that really was a show, the Angelica Kestrel-Haven Show, trotted out for visiting fans and journalists on a regular basis.
Dennis gave them cocktails and sat them down at the dinner table. Until dinner was finished, he forbade any discussion of criminal matters. Suzy and Juliet watched him roll the berries in the simmering sauce, then gently drizzle the concoction over the waiting chicken breasts. With a proud flourish, his cheeks flushed from the kitchen's heat, he set the resulting platter down in front of them.
“Suprêmes de volaille aux framboises,”
he announced. “A soupçon of summer in the dark of winter.”
he announced. “A soupçon of summer in the dark of winter.”
He removed his denim apron and sat down, pushing a few damp strands of his fair hair back from his forehead. Dennis Daignault was blond and thickset, with the pink complexion of a Gainsborough subject and sharp blue eyes. He was not, in fact, athleticâperhaps his clubfoot was to blameâbut he looked as if he ought to be. Like Byron, he worried a lot about his weight, dieting often. Juliet recognized that he was an attractive man, although, unfortunately, she herself was finding him less and less so.
“Bon appetit,” he said.
The women thanked him and plied their flatware with a will. They spoke of the weather, of the snow turning to slush, of the economy likewise, of the war on terrorism and the legacy it might have for civil rights. Dennis entertained them with a long, intricate story concerning a nineteenth-century translation of the Bible, then another about a new means of detecting seismic activity. Only when the last bite had been consumed, the last fork set down, did he agree to let the others raise what was on all their minds. All three had been questioned by the police that afternoon, the women relatively briefly, Dennis for more than three hours.
“That Skelton guy,” he said, while water for coffee boiled in an electric kettle. “Wow, I thought I was going to pop him one. âGo over your movements again, sir,' he kept sayingâyou know that
sneering âsir' the police use, that means âyou piece of human scum.' âWould you just take us through your movements last Friday one more time, sir.' âI'm going to give you a paper and pen, sir. Would you write down your movements, please, for me and Detective Crowder?'”
sneering âsir' the police use, that means âyou piece of human scum.' âWould you just take us through your movements last Friday one more time, sir.' âI'm going to give you a paper and pen, sir. Would you write down your movements, please, for me and Detective Crowder?'”
For reasons Juliet didn't yet understand, Murray was no longer in charge of investigating what had happened to Ada. Instead, a Det. Jeffrey Skelton and his partner, Det. LaTonya Crowder, were on it. Skelton was in his middle thirties, a bear of a man with reddish hair and green eyes that glowered fiercely from his long, jowly face. Crowder was younger by a decade or so but almost as tall, with flawless, dark chocolate skin and fine, elongated features.
“Oh, Detective Crowder,” Suzy put in, “that's the one I didn't like. She kept trying to butter me up, you know, play the female solidarity card. Smarmy.”
“No one tried to butter me up,” said Dennis bitterly. “âDetective Crowder and I are not conversant with the fine points of rare manuscript dealing, sir.' Sarcastic bastard. âWould you enlighten us as to the nature of your work, please? Could you explain again, please, why you obtained no receipt from Mrs. Caffrey when you returned the manuscript to her? Sir, could you describe to us what you made of the missing document? Sir, when youâ'”
“Why didn't you get a receipt?” Juliet broke in. She knew Dennis wanted sympathetic indignation, but curiosity got the better of her.
“I tried, believe me,” he said, immediately exasperated. “But she started to make such a fuss. I didn't want to throw fuel on the fire, especially with Fitzjohn standing there. Well, not standing there, actually,” he corrected himself, “he was in the bathroom. But I knew he'd be out any minute. So I figured since she didn't have a receipt from me anywayâthe receipt I gave you said I was receiving a manuscript belonging to her
from you,
not her, remember?âlike an idiot, I figured we were friends, you knew me, you'd just tear it up. Then
when everything went so haywire with Mrs. Caffrey missing and all, I really forgot about it.”
from you,
not her, remember?âlike an idiot, I figured we were friends, you knew me, you'd just tear it up. Then
when everything went so haywire with Mrs. Caffrey missing and all, I really forgot about it.”
“Oh.”
Juliet was quiet a moment as she thought this over. She had been obliged to tell the police that she did, indeed, still have a receipt verifying that Dennis Daignault had received from Juliet Bodine three pages, apparently written by Harriette Wilson, belonging to Ada Caffrey. She had stuffed it into her jeans pocket after Dennis had signed it, then left it on her dresser, where all such bits of paper from her pockets spent a month or two before being noticed and discarded. She probably would have forgotten all about it if Ada had not disappeared. She saw now that it rather left Dennis holding the bag, but did not see how he could blame her. She felt uncomfortably, though, as if he might.
“AndâAnd what did you make of the manuscript?” she asked.
“Ah, the manuscript.” Dennis sighed deeply. “I guess we can safely throw professional discretion out the window now. Wait a minute.”
Pushing his chair back, he stood and vanished into the living room. Soon he returned, holding three photocopied pages.
“Have you seen these?” he asked Suzy.
Suzy shook her head, and Dennis handed them to her. She bent her head and read avidly while he went into the kitchen to grind coffee beans. When Suzy looked up from her reading, he sat down again and resumed his explanation.
“Here's what I figure,” he began. “Those pages were certainly written by Harriette Wilson. I found the place in the published memoirs where they were initially meant to appearâyou can tell by the words “a dozen annuities” crossed out at the top. The phrase occurs in a passage about attending the opera while Harriette's protector, Lord Worcester, went off to war with the Duke of Wellington. The passage that was to follow, about Quiddenham, would have been a
digression, quite out of chronological order. But that was typical of Harriette. In any case, it didn't appear.
digression, quite out of chronological order. But that was typical of Harriette. In any case, it didn't appear.
“If it had, it certainly would have embarrassed the intended victim, Edward Hertbrooke, the future fourth Viscount Quiddenham. Edward was born in 1784, so he would have been quite young when he wasâwell, cross-dressing over at Harriette's place, and just over forty when she tried to blackmail him. He came from a solid family, not wildly rich, but well-to-do, and he married a woman with a substantial settlement. When his father died, he came into quite a bit of money.”
The kettle boiled and Dennis went into the kitchen again to make the coffee, still talking.
“But young Edward was a gambler,” he said. “There's a reference to his addiction to faro in Greville's diary. It was a lifelong problem for him, and I imagine that when Harriette made her demand for payment, he was at a low point and not able to come up with it. By the time she'd written his section, though, he must have won or borrowed enough to pay her off. He sent the money to her where she was living in Paris, and she sent back the pages concerning him. She was as good as her wordâthere's no reference to Quiddenham at all in the memoirs. But instead of doing the sensible thing and burning the pages Harriette had written, Edward hid them. Who knows, maybe reading them still gave him a charge.”
He came back to the table, bringing with him a tray of mugs. His tone, his whole demeanor, had become professional now. Juliet saw again what had initially attracted her about him. He was completely focused, absorbed. Even after all that had happened today, his face was lit with enthusiasm for the snippet of history that had been in his hands.
“I spoke to a furniture dealer about Mrs. Caffrey's rosewood bed,” he was going on, “and we tracked it down to a catalog of items auctioned off in 1851, after Lord Quiddenham died in considerable
debt. Obviously, his survivors were unaware of the hidden compartment in it, not to mention its contents. Such compartmentsâmeant for hiding jewels and papersâwere often built into desks of that period. It's less common to find one in a bed, though the dealer did know of at least one other, at a Louisiana plantation mansion called Nottoway; legend has it that important documents were hidden there during the Civil War. Anyway, Mrs. Caffrey's bed was purchased by a traveling American, a prosperous Connecticut shipbuilder who was spending a year in England with his wife and oldest daughter. He must have had it brought over here, because it was sold about thirty years later to someone in Woodstock, New York. That's who Mrs. Caffrey's husband bought it from in 1952. It's all quite legitimate.”
debt. Obviously, his survivors were unaware of the hidden compartment in it, not to mention its contents. Such compartmentsâmeant for hiding jewels and papersâwere often built into desks of that period. It's less common to find one in a bed, though the dealer did know of at least one other, at a Louisiana plantation mansion called Nottoway; legend has it that important documents were hidden there during the Civil War. Anyway, Mrs. Caffrey's bed was purchased by a traveling American, a prosperous Connecticut shipbuilder who was spending a year in England with his wife and oldest daughter. He must have had it brought over here, because it was sold about thirty years later to someone in Woodstock, New York. That's who Mrs. Caffrey's husband bought it from in 1952. It's all quite legitimate.”
“And the handwriting matches Harriette Wilson's?” asked Juliet.
“Oh, definitely. That was the easiest thing to check. In 1975, an English scholar named Kenneth Bourne published a book called
The Blackmailing of the Chancellor,
which details the correspondence between Harriette and one of her many lovers, Henry Brougham. Besides being a literary manâas it happens, he was the Scots critic who lambasted Byron's first published book of poems in the
Edinburgh Review,
prompting Byron to retaliate with the satirical
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
âBrougham was an extraordinarily able lawyer. In 1820, when George IV tried to divorce Queen Caroline, Brougham successfully defended her. He was an influential member of Parliament and, years after his liaison with Harriette, Lord Chancellor of England. According to Bourne, he kept on Harriette's good side by acting, however unwillingly, as her de facto legal adviser during the hysteria the memoirs set off. There areâ”
The Blackmailing of the Chancellor,
which details the correspondence between Harriette and one of her many lovers, Henry Brougham. Besides being a literary manâas it happens, he was the Scots critic who lambasted Byron's first published book of poems in the
Edinburgh Review,
prompting Byron to retaliate with the satirical
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
âBrougham was an extraordinarily able lawyer. In 1820, when George IV tried to divorce Queen Caroline, Brougham successfully defended her. He was an influential member of Parliament and, years after his liaison with Harriette, Lord Chancellor of England. According to Bourne, he kept on Harriette's good side by acting, however unwillingly, as her de facto legal adviser during the hysteria the memoirs set off. There areâ”
“Hysteria?” Suzy interrupted.
“Oh. Well, the main part of the memoirs, the first four volumes, were published in installments, you see, twelve installments between January and April of 1825. At the end of each, there were hints about who was going to be exposed next. People lined up in
the streets to get the first glimpse of each new sectionâsuch big crowds that traffic was brought to a halt. The publisher had to put up barricades in front of his store on the days new installments appearedâyou know the kind of madness. Like at Madison Square Garden when a Springsteen concert is announced. They were translated into French and German; they appeared in dozens of pirated editions; the newspapers were full of outraged and amused accounts of themâthey were even mentioned in Parliament. If you think of what happened when the transcripts of Monica Lewinsky's testimony on Clinton appeared in the
Times,
you'll get a pretty fair idea of the stir Harriette's memoirs caused. And hers went on appearing for months. Harriette and her publisher, John Joseph Stockdale, made a huge amount of moneyâabout ten thousand pounds. That's hard to convert into current U.S. dollars, figure maybe a couple of mill. But there were also lawsuits and disagreements between author and publisher, and that's where having Henry Brougham in your pocket came in so handy, you see.
the streets to get the first glimpse of each new sectionâsuch big crowds that traffic was brought to a halt. The publisher had to put up barricades in front of his store on the days new installments appearedâyou know the kind of madness. Like at Madison Square Garden when a Springsteen concert is announced. They were translated into French and German; they appeared in dozens of pirated editions; the newspapers were full of outraged and amused accounts of themâthey were even mentioned in Parliament. If you think of what happened when the transcripts of Monica Lewinsky's testimony on Clinton appeared in the
Times,
you'll get a pretty fair idea of the stir Harriette's memoirs caused. And hers went on appearing for months. Harriette and her publisher, John Joseph Stockdale, made a huge amount of moneyâabout ten thousand pounds. That's hard to convert into current U.S. dollars, figure maybe a couple of mill. But there were also lawsuits and disagreements between author and publisher, and that's where having Henry Brougham in your pocket came in so handy, you see.
“Anyway, in his book about Harriette and Brougham, Bourne includes transcriptions of some of her lettersâone written from the very same address as Mrs. Caffrey's letterâas well as a couple of photostats. It's certainly Harriette's writing.”
“And the Byronâ?”
“Ah, the Byron.”
Dennis leaned forward, his hands cupped around the red-and-white mug before him. Everything in Dennis's apartment was color-coordinated, and the mugs matched not only the dishes but the curtains, the throw pillows on the couch, and a couple of lampshades.
“Well, there are existing letters from Wilson to Byron. But we have only her word for it that he wrote back. As to the couplet, I've been in touch with a Byron scholar, a former professor of my own, in fact,” he went on. “The word âunseam' does appear in Byron's
Childe Harold.
And in the first canto of
Don Juan,
he rhymes âvirtue' with âhurt you.' But did he ever say what Harriette reports him as
saying, or was she or someone around her clever enough to invent a plausible couplet? That is the questionâand unless some hitherto unknown letter or diary or suchlike comes to light, it isn't likely anyone will ever be able to answer it.”
Childe Harold.
And in the first canto of
Don Juan,
he rhymes âvirtue' with âhurt you.' But did he ever say what Harriette reports him as
saying, or was she or someone around her clever enough to invent a plausible couplet? That is the questionâand unless some hitherto unknown letter or diary or suchlike comes to light, it isn't likely anyone will ever be able to answer it.”
Other books
Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds by Geoffrey Arnold
Stepbrother Master by Jackson, Ava
Aryn's Desire: A BOLD Security Novel (Finding Submission Book 1) by Derrick, Zoey
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley
Sisters of Misery by Megan Kelley Hall
A Theft: My Con Man by Hanif Kureishi
The Eagle of the Ninth [book I] by Rosemary Sutcliff
Golden Girl by Mari Mancusi
Then Sings My Soul by Amy K. Sorrells
A Wilder Rose: A Novel by Susan Wittig Albert