“Is that what you wanted?”
“Absolutely. Why not? I was single at the time. And hey, it was the best sex I’d ever had. But it wasn’t just sex. I mean it was, but it was more than that. It was a transcendent experience.”
Rafferty paused but didn’t comment. “Did you ask to see them again?”
“Several times. But they declined, which was probably a good thing. I might never have finished law school if they had said yes.” A shadow of sadness passed over his face. “Terrible, what happened to them.”
“It certainly was.”
“There’s a double standard, don’t you think? If men had behaved like they did, a group of them with one woman, it would be called gang rape.”
“Are you saying they forced themselves on you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Not against your will, then.”
“Hardly.” The man laughed.
“Then it’s not gang rape, is it?” Rafferty saw too much of that these days. Cell phone postings with drunken young women and alcohol-fueled men.
“No, that wasn’t the case with the Goddesses. But make no mistake, they were definitely in control.” He paused. “At least they were for a while.”
“Did you know any of the other men they were involved with?”
He shook his head. “They were actually pretty discreet about their conquests.”
Rafferty thanked him, and the two men shook hands. The lawyer started toward the door, then turned back, remembering something. “There was one guy who was at the house quite a bit,” he said. “I only know this because I heard them talking about him. He was the one who painted their portrait, the one on the wall. That one might have been a stalker.”
“Who was that?”
“H. L. Barnes.”
“Any relation to Helen?”
“Her husband.”
Rafferty did a double take. H. L. Barnes was Helen’s husband? He’d never imagined Helen had ever been married. Everything about the woman said spinster.
“But you won’t be able to talk to him.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s dead.”
Rafferty had never been inside Helen’s Chestnut Street house. It seemed more museum than home, with chinoiserie and Federal-style pieces crowding every available space. The architecture featured the understated elegance of the Loyalists, in particular Samuel McIntire, whose woodworking defined the entire eponymous historic district. From what Rafferty could tell, nothing but the reproduction rotary phone in the front hall was less than two centuries old. Definitely old money, he thought.
He had been directed to wait for her in the parlor and had been sitting for twenty minutes on a chair that was far too delicate for his large frame, trying not to move for fear of breaking the damned thing.
“It’s four o’clock. May I offer you some tea?” she asked, arriving at last, her springer spaniel at her heels. The tray arrived as she spoke.
“Yes, thank you.”
She directed her housekeeper to leave the silver service and poured the tea herself, asking how he took it, then handing it to him. He could not get his fingers to grip the delicate flowered cup, and so he held it with two hands, sipping as she did, putting it down on the side table carefully so as not to rattle the saucer.
He had the childish urge to brag to her that he and Towner lived in a more elegant mansion than this one, down on Washington Square, that it was in the Jeffersonian style, had twin marble fireplaces and a hanging spiral staircase, and that if and when he took tea at all, it was at the tearoom, where they brewed a better cup. Nothing she could do to intimidate him would work.
“Your message said you wanted to talk about my husband,” she said, her expression pinched.
“H. L. Barnes,” Rafferty said. “Until recently, I had no idea you had a husband.”
“I suppose you also learned of his demise?”
“I did.”
“Then you should know that poor Henry wasn’t well. He is the last person I want to speak ill of.”
“I would never expect you to speak ill of anyone,” Rafferty said. Yet somehow it seems to happen with regularity.
“You have questions for me?”
“I have several,” Rafferty said, handing her the photograph of the portrait Henry had painted on Rose’s wall. Underneath the portrait, he had signed his initials: H. L. B. She looked it over briefly, a pained but not surprised expression on her face. She’d seen the photo before, he realized. She handed it back to him and walked to her desk. “There are different kinds of bewitchment,” she said, her tone implying that he, of all people, should understand what she meant.
Rifling through papers in a hidden compartment, she returned with an envelope, stamped and hand lettered. Rafferty could see from the condition of the paper that it had been reread many times. She handed the letter to him. “Keep it,” she said. “I’ve seen quite enough of it for one lifetime.”
My Dearest Helen,
I cannot go on.
Forgive me…Henry
Rafferty sat for a long moment. “Why in the world did you insist on the exhumation? You must have known it would bring attention back to Henry and yourself—”
“Henry didn’t kill those girls.”
“I haven’t suggested he did. But by insisting we reopen this investigation, you identified yourself and your husband as prime suspects.”
“Not my husband, certainly.”
“Why not?”
She handed him the envelope. “Look at the date.”
The letter was dated October 13, 1989, a few weeks before the murders.
“My husband was a very sick man, Detective Rafferty.”
He was surprised by the empathy he heard in her voice.
“That letter was sent from a hotel in Boston. He was kind enough not to take his life here, knowing I would never have been able to stay in the house with the memory.”
“I still don’t understand your motivation, Helen,” Rafferty said. “Why did you call attention to yourself this way? Why cause yourself trouble? As well as a probable scandal—”
“She killed my grandnephew.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“She confessed to the crime!”
“There was no crime.” Rafferty took a deep breath before continuing. “You know as well as I do, Helen, that your nephew died from a cerebral hemorrhage as a result of narcotics.”
Helen sat for a long moment before she replied. “The girls she took in and protected, those so-called Goddesses, killed my husband. Rose may not have done it directly, but make no mistake: Rose Whelan was responsible. My husband had AIDS, Detective.”
Rafferty stared at her.
“Given to him by those girls at the brothel Rose Whelan was running over on Daniels Street.”
The turning is almost imperceptible. One day you watch yourself perform a tiny act of revenge. Or you notice an excitement at the horrors of the evening news. You will be shocked to find yourself picking up the blade. You will be far less surprised on the day you finally use it.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees