Grave Surprise

Page 6

Diane, who had seemed very fond of the boy and in fact had largely raised him--she'd married Joel when Victor was very young--said, "If he needs to talk to me, I'm okay," as Joel rose to walk a few feet away, his back to the room, to punch in the number.
"How's Victor done here in Memphis?" I asked Felicia, just to be saying something. Victor and I had shared a strange moment when I'd been trying to find his half sister. The boy had come into the living room of the Morgenstern home and begun to curse a blue streak, evidently thinking he was by himself. When I'd moved, he'd clutched me, crying on my shoulder, having to bend a little to do so. People weren't given to touching me, and I'd been startled. But I knew grief, and I knew release, and I'd held him until he was through. When he'd done crying and my blouse was a blotched mess, Victor had drawn back, appalled at his breakdown. Anything I said would have been wrong, so I'd just given him a nod. He'd nodded back, and fled.
Felicia was giving a surprised look. I supposed she was astonished that I remembered Victor at all. "He's done... middling," she said. "Diane and Joel have sent him to a private school. I help them out a little. He's such a fragile kid, hanging in the balance. At that age, they can go either way, you feel, at any moment. And with this new baby coming..." Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn't imagine how to finish the sentence without criticizing Joel and Diane for their ill-timed fertility.
Joel came back and sat down by his wife, and he was frowning. "Victor isn't holding together very well," he said to us in general. Diane's face simply looked exhausted, as if she had no energy to spare for maintaining someone else's spirits when her own were so fraught with misery. "He came home from school early, after we called. We didn't want anyone to see it on the news at noon and tell him when they got back to campus," he explained.
We all nodded wisely, but my mind was on something entirely different.
"We never knew you moved," I said, wanting to get that absolutely clear, "so we were astonished when the police said they were contacting you. You don't have anything to do with the faculty at Bingham, do you? You're not an alumna, Diane?"
"No, I went to Vanderbilt, and Joel did, too," she said, bewildered. "Felicia, didn't you go to Bingham? With David?"
Felicia said, "More years ago than I care to remember. Yes, David was in my class. I don't believe you met him in Nashville, Harper. Joel's brother."
"Felicia's parents are here in Memphis, too," Diane said. "They both went to Bingham. And so did Joel's. It was quite a scandal when he decided to go to Vanderbilt. Why are you asking?"
"Just trying to think of some connection between you and the school. Someone put Tabitha's... Tabitha there, and someone made sure we were hired for this job."
The couple sat and looked at me wide-eyed. I had the uncharitable thought that this increased Diane's resemblance to a lemur. Though the pregnant woman looked as though she were about to bolt, Joel was alert and intense. The man had an overabundance of energy, and it boiled around him, even under these circumstances. Behind them, Felicia was staring at me with an incredulous face.
"Surely it's just a coincidence," Felicia said, finally, looking at me as though I were delusional. "You don't think... you can't imagine that someone created such an elaborate plot? How could someone have put Tabitha there, and then find you, get you here, make sure you found Tabitha? That's just incredible."
We all spent a second or two staring at each other. Art was looking from me to Felicia, as if we were playing Ping-Pong.
"I agree," I said. "But I can't make sense out of any other scenario. Actually, there's not much sense in that one."
"We have to issue some kind of statement to the press," Art said, when he realized the conversation had reached a stalemate. "It has to be a statement that treads a fine line. We can't rule anything out, like Diane just did. We can't make any fantastic claims, like Harper did. We have to regret everything and admit nothing about our personal feelings about what might have happened."
Tolliver was the only one who nodded his head in agreement.
"You know, our own lawyer is downstairs," Diane murmured.
At the same moment Joel erupted. "No!" he said. "No! We have to condemn whoever did this to our daughter in the strongest possible terms!" Diane and Felicia both nodded their agreement.
"Oh, of course," Art said. "Naturally, that, too."
Chapter four
WE turned on the television in the living room of the suite to watch Art meet the news cameras. There were three stations in Memphis, and all three had sent representatives to the press conference, which was held on the sidewalk outside the Cleveland. By that time, the Morgenstern family lawyer, a chic fortyish woman named Blythe Benson, had arrived on the scene. Joel and Diane had told us that Benson had insisted on the Morgenstern family issuing their own separate-but-equal statement. The local lawyer and Art made an impressive duo. Art had that older-man gravitas thing going, and Blythe was cool and blond and WASP-y to the nth degree.
Blythe had consulted with the Morgensterns at their home about what she was going to say on their behalf, Diane told us. Felicia shot me a glance as Diane said this, and I wondered what was coming. Felicia Hart, as I've said, seemed way smarter than Diane. It made me wonder what Felicia's sister, Joel's first wife, had been like.
Downstairs and outside, Blythe Benson prepared to make the first statement. The family was most important, we had all agreed.
"Diane and Joel Morgenstern are devastated at the news that the body that may be that of their child, Tabitha, has been found in St. Margaret's cemetery. Though closure is something they have sought for many months, Diane and Joel Morgenstern had hoped that closure would come with the return of their living daughter. Instead, they have recovered what may well be her body." The blonde lawyer paused for effect. The newscasters were fairly quivering with the desire to ask questions, but Blythe plowed on. "The Morgenstern family would like to urge anyone who may have knowledge of the disappearance of Tabitha to come forward at this time. Though the reward for the discovery of her body is most likely out of consideration now, there is still a reward standing for the submission of facts about Tabitha's abduction."
I wasn't sure what that meant. I hadn't known there was a reward, since we hadn't maintained contact with the Morgensterns (naturally) after our failure to locate their daughter in Nashville.
Thinking that was the end of the statement, I'd turned to look at Tolliver to get his reaction when I heard Blythe Benson's precise voice continue. I looked back at the screen.
"As to what police have termed an 'amazing coincidence'--that the psychic Diane and Joel Morgenstern hired to find Tabitha's body actually did find the body, though in a different location..."
She's losing control of that sentence, I thought.
"The fact remains that there are coincidences in life, and this is one of them. Diane and Joel Morgenstern did not hire Harper Connelly to come to Memphis. They have not seen her or her manager since Miss Connelly arrived in Memphis. They did not know that Miss Connelly was scheduled to give a demonstration at the old cemetery of St. Margaret's this morning. Neither of the Morgensterns attended Bingham College. Neither has ever been connected with the college department that arranged Harper Connelly's visit to St. Margaret's cemetery. In fact, no member of the Morgenstern family has contacted Harper Connelly or her brother and manager, Tolliver Lang, since her unsuccessful attempt to find Tabitha over eighteen months ago. Thank you."
Though Art hadn't moved physically, the cameras caught him staring at Blythe Benson as though she'd just sprouted horns, and I didn't blame him for the look.
Just for openers, Benson's voice had emphasized "psychic" and "giving a demonstration" as if they were words for something far nastier and more disreputable. Then she'd gone on to sever her clients from us in every possible way. She'd all but said we were implicated somehow in the death of the girl.
We'd been hung out to dry.
As one, Tolliver and I turned to look at the couple on the couch. The Morgensterns seemed oblivious to the implications of the speech Blythe Benson had just read. They were staring at the television, waiting for Art's speech, in a kind of numb silence. Behind them, Felicia gave us a significant look that meant, "Ha! I told you so!" I exchanged a look with Tolliver, a look of sheer incredulity. He half-opened his mouth, and I reached over to touch his arm. "Not now," I said, very quietly.
I wasn't sure why I chose to be quiet, rather than confront Joel and Diane. God knows, even Diane was smart enough to realize that they'd just dumped us publicly, while sitting in our very own (temporarily) living room. They'd said, in effect, "Whatever these people claim, we're not responsible for it. We don't know them, we haven't seen them, we'd never collaborate with them, and they failed the first time we asked them to find our child."
Art took his place before the microphones. It's just strange seeing someone you know on television, not that it's an experience I've had often. The fact that the person who was just in the room with you is now on-camera, for the moment an icon, is weird and unsettling. It's as if they've become translated by the screen into another being--someone less flawed and more knowledgeable, someone smoother and smarter.
Art had our statement, the one Tolliver and I had written, but he was doing yet another rewrite in his head at just this minute; a hasty and public one. I could see it in the long downward focus of his eyes before he began speaking.
"My client, Harper Connelly, is astounded and grieved by the events of the day. At this moment Ms. Connelly is with Tabitha's parents, who came here to thank Harper, from their hearts, for her part in the discovery of a body we believe to be that of their missing daughter."
Ha! Ball in your court, Blythe!
"Ms. Connelly is deeply saddened by the tragic end to her search for Tabitha Morgenstern. Though she did not maintain any contact whatsoever with the family during the months since her original employment, and though she had no knowledge that the Morgenstern family had moved to Memphis, Ms. Connelly is glad that circumstances brought about the discovery of the long-lost child the Morgensterns have been seeking. Perhaps, thanks to my client, the Morgensterns' long time of uncertainty has come to an end."
"When will Harper Connelly meet with us?" said a reporter, in a voice that was not awfully loud, but extremely piercing.
Art gave the reporter a wonderful look; it combined reproof with resignation. "Ms. Connelly does not talk to reporters," he said, as if that were a well-known fact. "Ms. Connelly lives a very private life."
"Is it true..." began a familiar voice, and the camera swung around to frame the shining Shellie Quail.
"For God's sake," I said. "She's everywhere."
Tolliver smiled. He thought the reporter's doggedness was a little funny, maybe even admirable.
"... that Miss Connelly charges a fee for finding bodies?"
"Ms. Connelly is a professional woman with an unusual gift," Art said. "She does not like to be in the spotlight of media attention, something she has never sought."
That's true enough, I thought. Evasive, but true.
"Is it true that your client will be claiming the reward for finding Tabitha's body?" asked Shellie Quail, and Tolliver's smile vanished in the blink of my eye.
"That's not a subject we've discussed," Art concluded. "I have no more to say at this time. Thank you for coming." And he turned to pace back inside the Cleveland's front door. The Morgensterns' lawyer was nowhere to be seen. Blythe Benson had slipped away in the preceding moments, apparently.
I hoped she didn't plan on coming up to the suite.
The cameras cut back to the scheduled program, and in a moment Art returned to the room, in actual reality. Again, I felt that curious jolt.
"That went well," Joel said without a touch of irony. Tolliver and I had to struggle to keep our faces neutral. "And of course, you'll get the reward." Joel got up, checked his watch. "Diane, we have to get home. We have people to call. I wonder how long it will take for them to be sure they've got... Tabitha's remains. When we can have them."
Felicia picked up her purse and Diane's, ready to help the pregnant woman return to their car.
With a heave, Diane got to her feet. She was absently rubbing her hand across her gravid stomach, as if to keep its contents calm. I remembered my own mother's pregnancies with Mariella and Gracie. I also couldn't help recalling Rosemary's Baby, Tolliver and I had watched it the week before on an old-movie channel.
"Thanks, Felicia," Diane said.
"Let us know how Victor's doing," Tolliver asked out of the clear blue sky.
"What?" Felicia turned, and her eyes pinned Tolliver to the wall. "Why, of course." There was a bite to her voice that I simply didn't understand. I looked from her to Tolliver, but didn't get an explanation.
"This has been harder on Victor than just about anyone," Joel said. "Kids can be so cruel."
"Victor's what, now? Sixteen?" I asked brightly, trying to ease the atmosphere. I don't know why. I should have stood in absolute silence until the party left.
"He's just turned seventeen," Diane said. Suddenly her face lost its Madonna-like sweetness. She had struck me, even when I'd first met her after the abduction, as a woman fed up to the teeth with her stepson's moody teenage behavior, and now her jaw had a certain set that gave her simple words a real edge. "I love that boy, but everything they say about teenagers is true, as far as Vic's concerned: he's been secretive and sullen or talking back for the past three years. When Tabitha began to show signs she was entering the same phase, I just wasn't ready for it. I overreacted."