Before shutting down my system for the day, I opened my message from Morrell. It wasn’t as much of a treat as I’d hoped.
Darling, I’m sorry it’s been so long, but my phone isn’t working. I’m borrowing a hookup through Giulio Carrera at Humane Medicine, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to you again. I love you, I miss you, I wish you were here with me-it would be a help to have someone on my wavelength. I’m doing a tricky investigation, won’t say more on an open line, but it’s not physically dangerous, scout’s honor. Giulio and I don’t go anywhere alone-we’ve made friends with some local toughs who seem to know their way around both literally and metaphorically, so don’t worry, darling, although it may be a week before I can get back to you.
His e-mail left me feeling hollow and lonely-irrationally, I suppose he wasn’t any further away now than he’d been ten minutes ago. But a week before he could write again … somehow the hopeful anxiety of thinking each day might be the one with the message that he was coming home was better than knowing there would be no message at all.
“Okay, Penelope, time to start weaving that tapestry,” I muttered-and realized that underneath my loneliness, I felt a spurt of anger-toward
Morrell, and also myself. I was acting like the woman of tradition, home alone and anxious, while my hero lover wandered the globe seeking adventure. “That is not the story of my life,” I croaked loudly. “I do not sit around waiting, for you or any person, Morrell.”
I called up my phone log again, determined to work my way through the whole backlog before I left my office. I returned a dozen calls from reporters who had learned I’d found Whitby’s body, and even got back to Murray.
By then my cold and my sore legs made me long for bed, but in the end I decided to make one last call. A maid answered Geraldine Graham’s phone. “Madam” was resting. I was Ms. Warshawski? “Madam” wanted to speak to me.
When Geraldine Graham’s high flutey voice came on, I croaked out my name.
“Are you ill, young woman? Is that your excuse for not returning my phone calls sooner?”
“I return calls as I have time, Ms. Graham. I did speak to Darraugh this afternoon, since he’s my client. Did he tell you what happened at Larchmont last night?”
“Young woman, I know what happened, since I had a visit from an extremely impertinent policeman this morning. He called himself Schorr; I should think it would be `Boor. I was seriously annoyed that you had not seen fit to advise me of what happened in my pool last evening.”
“The Larchmont pool, ma’am. By the time I finished with the police myself and reached home, it was four in the morning. I doubt whether even someone of your restless sleep habits would have welcomed a call then-even if I’d had the stamina to make it. Which I didn’t.”
When that answer seemed to stop her, I asked what Schorr had wanted. I kept my eyes shut, massaging my sinuses.
“That a Negro man had drowned there. He wondered if it was someone who used to work on the estate, but we have had no Negro employees during the last twenty years. And I don’t believe I ever saw one working there after I sold Larchmont. Mexicans, yes, but no Negroes. This Boor, or Schorr, showed me a photograph, but the man’s own mother wouldn’t have known him from it. Who was he?”
“A journalist named Marcus Whitby. I don’t suppose he wanted to interview you?”
“About what, young woman? Journalists lost interest in me after my marriage. I haven’t talked to one since then, not even during a time when I might have had something newsworthy to tell them. Was this man using the Larchmont attics for some purpose?”
“It’s possible.” I wondered what newsworthy events she’d concealed. “It’s hard to know how he would have bypassed the security system.” “What’s that? You have to speak up, young woman: you are not speaking clearly. My hearing is not sufficiently acute to understand mumbling.” I made a face at the phone. “This is as good as I can do tonight, Ms. Graham. We’ll talk later in the week when I feel better.”
She tried to bully me into coming out to New Solway to see her in person, but I deflected that as well. And what should she do if she still saw the lights in the attic?
“Call the cops, ma’am. Or that nice young lawyer who handles your affairs.” I squinted, conjuring up his face, his name. “Larry Yosano.” “What? Who? I know no such person. Julius Arnoff handles my affairs, as he has done for decades.”