A Bookmarked Death Page 7

  Only it had never happened. Once partitioning was a reality and India had rid itself of the British pestilence, the government was reluctant to allow other white faces in. They were no doubt sick of being told how to live. By then the idea of foreigners coming to convert the “natives” was losing traction all over the world. If my father had had a specific skill, medicine or engineering, he might have had an entree. But he had been a scholar, and a religious scholar at that.

  All I know is that it did not work out. My sister and I were born when they were still actively trying to get to India. They named me Delhi, and my twin Patience, as if to remind themselves where they wanted to go and the attitude they needed to cultivate.

  Mairee Jontra answered her phone brightly. “Mairee here!”

  “Hi. My name is Delhi Laine. I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

  “If it’s about engaging me, I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to the agency directly. You can ask them for me, I’ll be pleased if you do, but they do all the hiring. I can give—­”

  “No, I need to ask you about some ­people you worked for.”

  I could feel her wariness crackling across the line. “I really can’t discuss our clientele. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I’m asking on behalf of Elisa Crosley.”

  “Elisa? Oh, my God, what a terrible thing to happen! Unbelievable. I can’t get my head around it, Ethan was one of my favorite ­people. How is poor Elisa doing?”

  I sighed. “She’s holding up. But she has some questions she wanted me to ask you. And since I live out here . . .” I let my voice trail away.

  “You were a friend of the family?”

  “Not exactly. But Elisa is my daughter’s best friend. She was with her when she heard the news.”

  “Oh, my God. What do you need to know?”

  “It would be better if I could see you for a few minutes.”

  “Oh, Lord, today is crazy. So’s tomorrow for that matter. And probably the rest of my life.”

  “Just five minutes?”

  “Okay.” She seemed to be thinking. “I’m due out on Meadow Lane to let some painters in. They aren’t coming until nine, so if you could get there immediately . . .”

  “Just tell me where.”

  MEADOW LANE RUNS parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, which can be glimpsed if you are driving only in snatches between mansions, guesthouses, garages, and greenhouses. My twin sister Patience’s vacation home is in the opposite direction, east on Dune Road, and more modest—­if you can consider a house that has seven bedrooms and multiple bathrooms a cozy hideaway.

  This house I braked at did not look like the typical gray-­shingled homes that Southampton was known for. It was more recent, no doubt the work of a well-­known architect, and had round ends like fat silos with a recessed middle section. The windows in the center part of the house were very large and lined up with those on the beach side to give a view of the ocean.

  The slender figure standing on the slate steps waved.

  I waved back, surprised. The title “caretaker” had evoked the image of an old family retainer coming to the house in advance to make sure everything was in order, and stocking the refrigerator with provisions from Barefoot Contessa. In my fantasy she would leave a plate of homemade muffins and jam, perhaps even have dinner in the refrigerator for whenever the family arrived.

  Mairee upended my fantasy. She was my age, with a mop of dark red curls and an expressive mouth. She managed to look elegant in a peacoat and jeans—­elegant and harassed at the same time, her iPhone an extension of her arm.

  “Hey there! You’re a book dealer?”

  I glanced back at my dented white van with its blue logo, “Got Books?” on the doors. “Right.”

  “Great! Give me your card. ­People are always looking to downsize and they never know what to do with the books.”

  Perfect. I was always looking to upsize my collection. Quickly I reached into my bag and extracted one. My sister’s husband, Ben, was always urging me to get a more professional-­looking business card but I was too attached to mine to do so. It showed Raj sniffing at a stack of leather-­bound books with my “Got Books?” slogan. My information was on the other side.

  Mairee unlocked the door and brought me into a living room that overlooked the ocean. We sat side by side on a pale cream leather sofa. The furniture was understated, neutrals and glass tables, a stone fireplace built into a wall to work from both sides. I saw from the plastered walls and some of the woodwork that the house was older than I’d first thought.

  “We haven’t had a fatal fire out here in years,” Mairee announced. “An artist died recently in a house fire in Sagaponack, but that’s miles away. You think Elisa will rebuild?”

  “I never thought about it. It’s hard to imagine she’d want to be out here by herself.”

  “It’s a great location.”

  “The house may need to come down.”

  Mairee nodded, but she seemed to be listening for the crunch of vehicles arriving on gravel at the same time. “That house was in the family forever.”

  “When did the Crosleys let you know they were coming?”

  “They didn’t! That’s what’s so weird.” She put her head back on the leather and closed her eyes as if she had already put in a long day. “The first I knew they were even out here was when I heard about the fire.”

  “Was it unusual that you wouldn’t get things ready for them?”

  “Unheard of.” She considered, straightening up. “At least, let’s say it never happened before. But they’ve never come out this early before either.”

  I hesitated. Did she have scruples about talking about dead clients? I decided to find out. “You got along with them okay?”

  Mairee sprawled back against the sofa and closed her eyes again, red curls against cream. “I thought so. Ethan was a doll. Sheila was . . . difficult. I never saw where she got off being so fussy, wanting everything up to these impossible magazine standards. It was an older house and had the problems you’d expect. Unless you ripped out the bathrooms, which Ethan refused to do, you’re going to have off-­color grout. It’s a fact of life. But she blamed the cleaning ser­vice for not getting it snow white.”

  I thought of Lady Macbeth, obsessively trying to whiten her hands, haunted by bloodstains no one else could see. “Out, out, damn spot,” I murmured.

  “Exactly! She was hipped on everything looking perfect. Here her father was a construction worker. Ethan was the one with the background.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’ve said too much.”

  “What kind of marriage did they have?”

  “Not my kind. I mean, he was away a lot, totally focused on his career. When he was home they were never alone, the guys who worked for him stayed here too. Craig, he was a few years older than Elisa, and I forget the other one’s name. But Sheila was the one who kept the home fires burning. Oof. My bad.”

  She looked at me and I laughed. “How long were they your clients?”

  “Probably ten years?”

  “What did you think of Will?”

  Mairee was off and running again, a colt that refused to be confined in the paddock. “That poor kid? He tried, he really did. But it was tough to be a Crosley. Ethan was disappointed that he wasn’t a better student and Sheila was always comparing him to their friends’ kids. And not in a good way. Elisa was the one they thought was perfect. Yet even with her—­Sheila wasn’t exactly the affectionate type. All she cared about was how things looked to other ­people.”

  “Do you think Will was into drugs?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. What else was there for him? He was good at making things, but nobody cared about that.”

  We heard the rumble of the truck at the same time. Mairee jumped up. “Speaking of perfect, we have until Memorial Day to get everything in
shape here. We still have to install the scent diffusers.”

  “The what?”

  She laughed at my expression. “It’s the latest thing. The air goes through the house’s ductwork and gives off a different scent in every room. Sandalwood in here, Fresh Linen in the bedrooms.”

  “Pumpkin Pie in the kitchen?”

  “Exactly.”

  I thought of my own house. Book Dust in the barn, Cat Box when I wasn’t paying attention.

  Outside, pushing through the sand to my van, I saw workmen sliding the ladders out of a large truck. They didn’t have a clever business name or a cartoon character printed on the side of their van, just heavy-­duty tools and no-­nonsense faces. These guys were the real deal. I hoped I was too.

  AS LONG AS I was out east, I decided to visit my favorite Hamptons booksellers—­the WOOFF (Welfare of Our Furry Friends) thrift shop, the old Bridgehampton Fire Department that now housed rooms of books, and the Ladies Village Improvement Society in Easthampton. They accepted donations from the community and over the years I had picked up some prizes. The prices weren’t the most reasonable—­nothing beats an estate sale where every book is fifty cents—­but like most dealers, I was mindful that it would take only one treasure to change my life.

  My hopes had just been refueled by the story of a scrap metal dealer who nearly melted down a Fabergé egg for the gold, then decided it was too pretty to destroy. For his good taste he went on to collect millions. That’s what I fantasized happening to me. Nothing on such a grand scale, but perhaps a short story handwritten by Edgar Allan Poe or a missing Massachusetts Bay hymnal inscribed by Cotton Mather.

  That day I found no Russian eggs, no trillion-­dollar manuscripts, but I turned up some vintage art catalogs. Three were inscribed by the artists, which alone made the trip worthwhile.

  I WAS WRAPPING books to mail in the early afternoon when there was a quick knock at the barn door. ­People rarely came here looking for books, but when they did I invited them in to browse. I kept the books that were already cataloged on the downstairs shelves.

  When I opened the door it was not a bibliophile but Ruth Carew. She was by herself today and wearing a pantsuit the pale yellow of Long Island corn. This jacket seemed a little grimy around the cuffs, but at least there were no food stains on the lapels.

  “We’re interested in examining your van and your computers,” she told me bluntly.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We can get a warrant, of course.”

  Why don’t you do that?

  “This just seems easier.”

  “You can look at my van in the driveway,” I said. “It’s unlocked. But I need my laptop for my book business.”

  “Is that your only computer?”

  “Yes.”

  She eyed me as if dubious that I could conduct a business with just one laptop. “Do you have a smartphone?”

  Did a phone keep a record of Internet searches? Or was she looking for calls to the Crosleys? “Yes, but I need that too.”

  “We can get a warrant,” she repeated.

  “Do whatever you have to.” With no evidence of any criminal activity on my part, I doubted a judge would give her one.

  I didn’t slam the door in her face. I waited until she had turned and was walking down the gravel path before closing it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “MOM, ELISA’S NOT answering my texts!” Hannah’s voice on my phone sounded frantic.

  It was Thursday morning, the day before graduation at St. Brennan’s College. Jane was scheduled to take the train out from Manhattan tonight and we would be on the ferry to Connecticut early tomorrow morning. The plan was for Hannah to drive over from Ithaca and meet us at there.

  “She has a lot on her mind,” I reassured Hannah, as I poured extra dried food into the dish for the cats. Yet even this small twist ramped up the tension I was already feeling. One more thing to worry about.

  “She’s just going to be staying on in the dorm, they told her she could. And her classes are over. Why isn’t she answering my texts? She doesn’t want us to come.” My daughter was veering into tragic mode.

  “Don’t be silly. She definitely wants you there. She probably just forgot to charge the battery on her phone. Are you all set for tomorrow?”

  “I put gas in the car over the weekend.”

  “Are you sure it will get you there?” That would be tragic, if her car broke down and she missed everything. “Maybe you should take the bus.”

  “Mom. It’s fine. I always use it to go to Boston.”

  “Okay. I figure we’ll get to the parking garage about ten so we can get good seats in the stadium. Where should we meet?”

  “By the big eagle?”

  “Fine.” I remembered the large bronze statue from the day I found Elisa, when I’d gone to the college in late January.

  “Is—­Dad coming?”

  Something about the way she asked, the question mark in her voice, made me wonder if Elisa had told her about Ethan’s letter,

  “No. He can’t get away.” The old family pattern of trying to shield the children from bad news. Most famously, we had repressed all mention of Elisa and her drowning when they were growing up, believing that they had been too young to remember and that they were better off not being raised in the shadow of death. Now I wondered if it had been more Colin’s and my attempt to bury the pain rather than anything to do with the children.

  “And Mom? They still haven’t released her parents’ bodies! How can she plan a funeral without her parents being there? I mean—­”

  “I know what you mean. I know one of the detectives in the department and I’ll talk to him.”

  After I hung up with Elisa, the next call I made was to England, to the Stratford-­upon-­Avon police constabulary about Nick and Micah Clancy. I had forgotten to do it yesterday until it was too late. As I dialed, I imagined DCI Sampson with his precise salt-­and-­pepper mustache, his military posture, seated in his office surrounded by his antique prints of fish and birds, and his tea-­brewing paraphernalia. He had been the policeman involved both in Elisa’s initial disappearance when he was a young constable, and when I had returned to Stratford last December. He hadn’t believed my story initially, though after interviewing Nick Clancy he became more convinced.

  I asked for his extension and listened to the pulsing tone. Had it been only five months since I had walked into the constabulary in Shakespeare’s hometown? Perhaps it was because it had been winter—­snow icing the stucco half timbers and curling wrought-­iron signs—­that it felt like something from a storybook.

  “Sampson here.”

  “Good afternoon!” I said, surprised at how happy I was to hear his calm voice. Somewhere in the world there was sanity and orderly procedure rather than grasping at any debris floating by. “This is Delhi Laine.” Your American pen pal.

  “Ms. Laine.”

  “Things have been happening here. The Crosleys—­my daughter’s kidnappers and Priscilla Waters’s killers—­died here in a house fire over the weekend.”

  “Really. No news of it here.”

  “So it means you don’t have to pursue extradition. If you were going to. The police here think it was arson, that the fire was deliberately set.”

  Silence as he waited for me to go on.

  “When they were trying to figure out a motive, I remembered Nick Clancy. I did tell Micah about the Crosleys and he asked me where they lived. I know Nick was vowing to get revenge on them for killing his mother . . .” I trailed off, waiting for him to pick up what I was suggesting.

  Finally he did. “And you’re thinking that one of them hopped a plane, set the fire, and came home again?”

  Would that it were that easy. “They may still find out it was a local arsonist. But is there any way to find out whether either of them left
the country last week?”

  “You mean check remotely without their knowledge? Yes, I can do that. All travel itineraries in and out of the UK are computerized now. Since 2009, and held for ten years.”

  “Can you let me know?”

  “Hadn’t I best be talking to my American counterpart?”

  “Yes, of course.” He still seemed to find my version of the drowning and kidnapping as insubstantial as a paper chain glued together by a clumsy child. He had agreed that certain events had occurred but they were open to interpretation. No doubt he wanted to check with his “American counterparts” as to whether the arson story was even true.

  “Wait.” I looked up the number of the Suffolk Homicide Bureau and gave it to him. “The detective in charge is Ruth Carew.”

  “I’ll speak with her forthwith.”

  “Thank you.” It was not really appropriate to thank him for doing his job, but it came out automatically and I left it between us.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MY LAST CALL was to Detective Frank Marselli. I told myself I had every right to talk to Frank. I had met him when he was investigating the deaths at what was now Port Lewis Books. The second time, after another murder in an artist’s home where I was working, I had insisted on calling Frank. Our relationship was a one-­way street, of course. He never phoned me for my insights.

  My call went to his voice mail and I pressed the extension to talk to someone else. The young officer who answered told me Frank was out on a homicide. I persuaded him to tell me where by saying I had some important information on an arson case that I could only give him in person, information he needed to have as soon as possible. I can’t lie directly, but I can expand the truth when it’s necessary.