Three Can Keep a Secret

CHAPTER EIGHT

Given that Vermont’s major roads to the north had suffered less at Irene’s hands, Joe and Lester, instead of returning home, went back to the interstate after meeting with Bonnie Swift for a quick trip to Montpelier and access to one of the local police department’s computers. The off chance that their missing person had a sister was too good not to act on immediately.

They weren’t holding their breath, however. The reference had been oblique; there’d been no implication that Barb Barber lived in the area, was still alive, or even existed. And, even if they found her, she’d still never visited Carolyn at the hospital or made an effort to reach out. Would she be likely to help now?

Those caveats made Lester’s satisfaction all the sweeter when he dropped his hands from the computer’s keyboard and announced, “There you have it. I’ll be a son of a gun.”

Joe circled around to peer at the screen. Lester had typed in the name Barbara Barber, gotten a hit straight off, and then opened up her involvements. There, listed under a traffic accident, he’d found where she’d recently been the passenger in a minor crash outside of Burlington. The officer called to the scene had taken the appropriate but often ignored extra step of recording the identities and birth dates of all the people in both vehicles. Finding Barb Barber’s name now was a textbook example of how such diligence could pay off.

“How long ago was that?” Joe asked.

“Two years.”

“She list an address?”

“Yup. Shelburne. From what it says here, she lives with her son. He was the driver.”

Joe patted his shoulder. That was a town just below Burlington, not more than sixty minutes from where they were now. “It’s getting late. Want to knock on her door tonight or in the morning?”

Lester twisted around in his seat. “You kidding?”

* * *

It was just dark by the time Lester rolled to a stop on Hillside Terrace, in the middle of Shelburne Village, opposite a modest, rectangular box of a house with an anemic interior light smudging a pair of heavy curtains. Through the car’s open windows, they could hear the constant rumble of the heavy Route 7 traffic a block to the west.

They walked up the cracked driveway and cut across the patchy lawn to the front door, where Joe rang the bell. The house’s siding had started life as white vinyl, but its color and integrity had faded over time, becoming yellowed and marred by chips and fissures, making the entire house look like an old and sleeping dinosaur.

The door opened to reveal a turnip-shaped man in baggy shorts and an untucked, faded Hawaiian shirt. He wore thick glasses and had a hank of thinning gray hair draped across his forehead, as if a once carefully applied comb-over had undergone a landslide.

“Yes?”

Spinney spoke first, having read the old traffic report. “William Friel?”

The man’s voice was a monotone, devoid of curiosity. “Yes.” Behind him, a television was spilling a game show into the room.

“Son of Barb Barber?”

Even then, he didn’t flicker. “Yes.”

“I’m Special Agent Spinney, of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This is Special Agent Gunther. We were wondering if we could come in and chat with you a bit. Would that be all right?”

Friel finally registered a small modicum of emotion by responding unexpectedly. “Wait a minute, okay? I gotta prepare my mother.” Without further ceremony, he shut the door in their faces.

“Okay,” Spinney said slowly. “That was weird.”

A minute later, however, Friel was back, pulling open the door and ushering them in, muttering, “Sorry ’bout that. I don’t like her surprised.”

Unsure of what to expect, Lester crossed the threshold, looking around. Joe followed him into a living room with little furniture, shabby wall-to-wall carpeting, a cheap and garishly bright overhead light, and an old woman in a wheelchair, staring at the TV set, her legs covered with a thin blanket. The walls were bare, the only bookshelf had some clothes and a pile of old newspapers in it, and the air smelled stale.

Spinney straightened slightly at the sight of the woman. “Hi,” he said with artificial brightness. “Sorry to barge in on you like this.”

She didn’t so much as blink. Friel said nothing.

“Is this Barb Barber?” Joe asked softly.

“Yes. My mother,” Friel explained. “That’s what I meant.”

Joe cast her a quick glance from across the room before asking, “How long’s she been afflicted?”

Friel’s eyes seemed to settle on him for the first time. He hesitated and then answered, “Three years.”

“So it came on fast?”

Her son pressed his lips together, blinked once, and conceded, “Pretty quick.”

Joe reached out and touched his arm. “That’s a shame. Hard to bear.”

Friel nodded without comment.

“Is she reachable at all?” Joe asked. “We were hoping to ask her a couple of questions.”

He hesitated before saying; “No. She’s gone. I still talk to her, like just now when you were at the door, but it’s mostly out of habit. She doesn’t really need warning anymore.”

Friel didn’t seem even vaguely curious about why two cops would be standing in his house, wanting to speak to his mother. As it was, they were still standing as they’d entered, awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“Maybe we could ask you, instead,” Joe suggested. “You have a place where we could talk and not bother her? A kitchen, perhaps?”

Friel considered that before admitting, “Yeah.”

Joe had by now understood the implicit rules of engagement with this man. “Great,” he said, taking their host’s elbow and pointing him toward the back hallway. “Lead the way.”

They trooped toward the rear of the small house, passing two bedrooms and a bathroom, and entered a dingy, worn kitchen with rusting appliances, including a stacked washer/dryer. A small metal table with two chairs was shoved against one wall, a cluster of medications corralled in its middle. Joe pulled out a chair and positioned Friel to sit in it. He took the one opposite while Spinney leaned against the counter near a sink piled with dirty dishes.

“Is this your house or your mother’s, William?” Joe asked first, following an instinct.

He had it right. “Hers,” Friel answered.

“And you’ve lived here how long?”

Friel seemed a little confused by the question. “All my life,” he eventually replied, adding, “Almost.”

Joe nodded. His own brother could have made the same claim, the dynamics there being admittedly much different. Still, he had often wondered how Leo would fare once their mother died-just as he now wondered about this man, given the same inevitability. His bets were on Leo coming out of it far better than William.

Joe rubbed his forehead, as if chasing away such distractions. “Good to know,” he said. “That probably means you knew Carolyn Barber. Is that correct?”

Friel’s eyes widened a fraction as he stopped staring at the table’s surface and looked at his questioner. “Aunt Carolyn?”

“Right. She and your mother were sisters, weren’t they?”

“Yeah.” He paused before asking, “Did she die?”

It was asked without affect, as if read from a script.

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put that in the past tense.” Joe expanded his response by adding, “I’ve actually never met her. That’s all I meant.”

Friel nodded slightly. “Oh.”

“Would that mean anything? If she had died?” Joe asked.

“Mean anything?” Friel replied questioningly, a furrow between his eyes.

“Yeah. You know. Inheritance, maybe? Or just the passing of the family’s black sheep. I don’t know. Anything-like I said. I don’t know the woman.”

“Is that why you’re here? Aunt Carolyn?”

Joe sidestepped answering. “You haven’t seen her mentioned on the news, on TV? We just released a bulletin on her-should be all over.”

He responded. “We don’t watch the news. Too depressing. Why is she on TV, if she’s okay?”

“I didn’t say she was okay. When did you last see her?”

Friel was shaking his head. “When I was a kid. She’s been in the nuthouse most of my life. What happened to her?”

“Why was she put there?”

Friel scowled. “I don’t know. She was off her rocker.”

Again, his voice was flat.

“Did your mom ever talk about that? Why it happened?”

“Not really. She had other things to worry about.”

Joe didn’t speak. The silence grew heavy in the small, battered room. Finally, as hoped, Friel sighed and added, “My dad was a drunk. Kicked us around pretty good. Aunt Carolyn was the least of our problems.”

This was sadly familiar to the two detectives.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Joe said gently.

Friel sat back in his chair and gave Joe the most direct eye-to-eye contact he’d delivered so far. His half smile was rueful and heartbroken.

“I got married once,” he volunteered. “Didn’t last long. Lucky we didn’t have kids. It was a mess.” He glanced at the hallway door, toward the sound of the distant TV set, and murmured, “So I came back. Figured what the hell.”

He straightened, ran his fingers through what was left of his hair, and addressed them in an artificially stronger tone. “Look, I know squat about Aunt Carolyn, but Mom kept some items in an album. Maybe they’ll be useful.”

His and Joe’s chairs screeched on the scarred linoleum as they stood, and Friel led the way back toward the hallway and one of the bedrooms.

It was pitch black until he switched on the overhead light, revealing as in a flash photograph what looked like a crime scene, barring a body. The bed was large, old, unmade, and surrounded by several fold-up tray tables cluttered with half-empty glasses, a stained pizza box, crumpled tissues, bags of candy, and assorted junk. The floor was populated by small tepees of piled clothing. The furniture consisted of a single dresser and a makeup table so covered with belongings that only its spindly legs gave it an identity.

Friel crossed to the dresser, wrestled open one of its top drawers, making about a dozen dusty figurines grouped haphazardly across its surface tremble and rattle, and dug around until he extracted a cheap, pink plastic photo album stamped in gold with the logo, MEMORIES OF YOU.

This he handed to Joe. “Ton of crap in there-me, the old lady, my dad, Aunt Carolyn, bunch of other people. Postcards, too, newspaper clippings. Like I said…”

Joe took it from him and looked around. “Mind if I take this back to the kitchen?”

Friel shrugged. “Knock yourself out. I’ll go keep Mom company.”

“Before you go,” Joe asked him, “what’s the story behind your name being different from your mother’s and Carolyn’s?”

“Friel was my dad’s. After he left, Mom went back to her maiden name.”

Joe nodded. “Thanks. Just wanted to confirm my assumption.”

He and Lester returned to the kitchen and sat at the small table, Joe imagining Friel and his mother sharing meals here in total silence every night, whether they actually did so or not. It was a Norman Rockwell nightmare.

William Friel had been accurate in his description of the album’s contents. There were no labels to help them decipher the assortment, but in most cases, none were needed. The shots of small, stiff groupings facing the camera didn’t call for more elaboration than the body language in evidence. Plus, having met Barb Barber and her son, Les and Joe could easily decipher not just those two, if younger and occasionally more animated, but they could also see elements of the son’s features in the face of the brutal-looking man often posing with them.

“Fun bunch,” Lester nevertheless murmured, leafing slowly through the book.

Joe stopped him with an extended finger. “That must be Carolyn,” he commented, tapping on a smiling young woman standing beside Barb, their arms interlinked. “She’s cute.”

“Like a slimmed-down, brightened-up version of her sister,” Les agreed.

Joe pointed to another shot. “She’s certainly the only one who smiles any.”

Les came to a page with a folded news clipping, which he gingerly opened until it was about twice the size of the page to which it was attached. The glue had darkened a quarter of it, but it was still legible, and the grainy photograph of a beaming young Carolyn spoke for itself. She was waving at the camera next to a straitlaced man in a business suit, under the headline, GOVERNOR-FOR-A-DAY! The date at the top was just under fifty years ago.

“Who’s the guy?” Les asked, squinting at the caption.

“‘Young Caroline Barber,’” Joe read, adding as an aside, “they misspelled her name, ‘had her time in the spotlight as Governor-for-a-Day on Thursday, when Senator Gorden Marshall, R-Chittenden, introduced her to a joint session of the legislature as part of the Administration’s newly launched effort to bring the people closer to state government’s inner workings.’”

“Who in their right mind came up with that one?” Lester asked, peering at the picture. “Sure doesn’t look like Gorden Marshall thought much of it.”

“Is there an article that goes with it?” Joe asked, peeling the page back a bit to study the flip side.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Lester confirmed. “Guess the caption did it all.”

Joe took in the image for another few seconds before refolding the clipping and sitting back so that his colleague could resume turning pages.

“Oh, here you go,” Spinney said. “Maybe.”

He’d uncovered a pale blue envelope, mounted squarely in the middle of the page. It was addressed to Barb, with a return address of Carolyn’s. He eased it open and extracted a single sheet covered with small, childish writing. He handed this over to his boss.

Joe positioned it under the overhead light, the sound of the distant TV still filtering back like a thin fog. Lester sat quietly and watched him work through the letter’s contents.

Finally, Joe placed it flat on the table, next to the album, and rested his fingertips on it as if to monitor its pulse.

“Sounds like a sweet girl,” he said thoughtfully.

“She talk about her big day?” Lester asked.

Joe sat more comfortably and crossed his arms, looking at the letter. “Yeah. You can really feel her happiness with it all-like a kid at a birthday party. Really like a kid.”

Lester kept quiet, knowing when Joe was mulling things over. He took a stab at interpreting what was on the older man’s mind. “You want me to ask William back in here?” he asked, standing.

Joe glanced up at him in surprise. “Huh? Yeah-good idea.”

Smiling, Lester stepped down the short hall and fetched their host. Friel stood in the doorway as Lester resumed his position by the counter.

“Mr. Friel,” Joe asked, “did you know your aunt at all? You said that you last saw her when you were little.”

“Sure-before they put her away.”

“How would you have described her personality?”

Friel frowned at him. “Her personality? I don’t get you.”

“I don’t want to put words in your mouth,” Joe explained. “But what I’m looking for is how you might’ve described her to someone who’d never met her, like us, for example.”

Friel tilted his head slightly. “Nice,” he said. “She was always real friendly. Talked a lot, too. And laughed. I mean, she was simple, so that’s not too surprising. She wasn’t much given to serious thinking.”

Joe nodded, as if hearing a confirmation. “How do you mean, ‘simple’?”

Friel’s voice dropped, as if his mother could hear them from the front room. “Just that. Not too bright. That’s why she was fun company for a kid, I guess. She was still one herself.”

“What did she do for a living, back when she was made Governor-for-a-Day?”

For the first time, Friel smiled. “Was that in there?” He pointed at the closed album on the table. “The governor thing?”

“Yeah. What can you tell us about it?”

“It was the biggest thing that ever happened to her, but I don’t know much about it. I remember her saying to everybody, ‘I was governor once,’ again and again. It drove my mom crazy. She used to yell at Carolyn that it was just a publicity stunt, but Aunt Carolyn didn’t care.”

“How did it happen? Do you know? Or did your mom tell you afterwards, maybe?”

“Nah. Mom didn’t talk about it at all. Like I said, she hated it. Maybe she hated that Carolyn got the attention, when all she got was me and Dad. I don’t know.”

Joe returned to his original question. “So, what was Carolyn doing when she was put in the limelight?”

“Working in Montpelier. That’s all I know. I would hear them talking about it. But it was like when somebody says, ‘He works in Washington,’ you know? It means the government. That’s what I always thought. I can’t swear to it, though. What would they find for her to do, you know what I mean-given how sharp she was?”

“Right,” Joe said without conviction, thinking that there were plenty of things a pretty young woman might be asked to do in government, especially back then.

“Did Barb and Carolyn get along? You make it sound like they didn’t,” Joe asked, almost as an afterthought.

Friel surprised him with his answer. “Mom loved her. Same way I did. There was no getting Carolyn down. With all the bullshit my dad pulled, we needed every laugh we could get, and Carolyn was good for it. She may’ve been a loony, but she was fun. My mom and her were like joined at the hip. Maybe that’s part of what got to Mom about that governor thing-it split them apart a little.”

A softness had settled on his face with the reminiscence.

Joe picked up the album and asked, “Do you think we could borrow this for a while? We’ll get it back to you.”

“I don’t care,” William Friel said, sad once more. “You can keep it. That’s all done and buried.”

Joe understood the sentiment, although he felt in his bones that it was utterly inaccurate.