So I told myself I wouldn’t get involved, I would just take a look around. If there was information that Joan Grieve had used Seddon to do her killing for her, then I would find a way to pass that information along to someone in authority.
But the real reason I was driving north was because I owed it to Henry. If I had a chance to help him, I would take it. He was deserving of that.
I drove through Harvard Square then, after a few wrong turns, made my way to Oxford Street. Henry’s office was easy to spot, surrounded by yellow police tape, the second-floor windows blown out, the small yard still littered with blackened glass and dislodged vinyl siding. I had expected the building to look more like an office building, but it was a converted Victorian. The sign out front advertised a dentist’s office, plus a massage therapist. I kept driving, making my way to Henry’s apartment. I’d found the address online, as well. After crossing Massachusetts Avenue, I found Henry’s tree-lined street, the buildings a mix of cheap-looking apartments and well-kept single-family homes, most with mansard roofs and tidy gardens. Henry’s address was in one of the cheap apartment buildings, a utilitarian triple-decker that, based on the number of mailboxes affixed by the front entryway, had six inhabitants.
There was a small convenience store across the way and I parked in front of it, got out of my car, and went in to buy a cup of coffee and five one-dollar scratch cards. I got back inside my car, cracked the window, held one of the cards in my lap, and sat and watched Henry’s building.
I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for, but it seemed wiser to watch for a little while before trying to figure out if there was a way to get inside of the apartment. It turned out to be a good move because at just around noon a Honda Civic pulled up, and I watched a woman with long, glossy black hair go up the front steps that led to the porch. She peered through one of the panes of glass that lined one side of the front door, then took out her cell phone and made a brief call. Then she sat on the top step, looking at her phone and waiting.
She was wearing jeans tucked into high brown boots, and a down-filled puffer jacket. Even from a distance I could see she resembled Henry, with a thin face and high cheekbones. I suspected she was his sister. She waited on the top step for about five minutes before a white Chrysler pulled up to the curb. A short, round man got out and the woman greeted him. Together they entered the apartment building. I got out of my car and walked slowly toward the building, climbing the front steps to look at the names on the mailboxes. The six apartments all had a number and then a letter. 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, and 3B. Henry’s apartment was 2A, so I assumed he was on the second floor, but didn’t know which side he was on.
I walked down the steps and turned right, peering down the alleyway between Henry’s building and the large brick apartment building immediately next door. There was just enough room for a fire escape, with a door at each level, plus a large window. The window on the second floor was cracked open about six inches at the top, but I couldn’t make out any movement behind its dark facade. I walked to the other side of the apartment, where there was another fire escape, this one with more space around it. Both the door and the window on the second-floor landing were closed, and there was a venetian blind pulled down behind the window. I kept walking for a block then turned right. Two more rights brought me back to my car. I ducked back into the convenience store and bought myself a package of granola mix for my lunch, then sat in my car again.
Ten minutes later the dark-haired woman and the short man exited the building, the man getting back into the Chrysler and the woman getting back into her Civic. There was an empty child’s seat strapped in behind her, which cemented my guess that she was his sister, and she had contacted the building manager to let her into his place since he was in the hospital. I knew Henry had a cat named Pyewacket, and maybe she’d fed him. I waited about twenty minutes then drove my car about two blocks away. It was mainly residential parking in this part of Cambridge, but I found a parking meter that took quarters and put in enough for two hours. Then I walked back to the building, trying to figure out what side was the B side and what side was the A. It made sense, somehow, that the A side would be on the left, and it was confirmed for me when I looked up at the window that had been open and saw that it was now closed. Henry’s sister and the building manager must have closed it.
Moving as fast as I could I climbed the fire escape up to the second-floor landing, trying the door first, which was locked, then checking the window, which slid open. I straddled the windowsill, stepping into a kitchen, and closed the window behind me.
My eyes adjusted fast and I saw Henry’s cat saunter into the kitchen. “Hi Pye,” I said, and crouched down, putting out my fingers. The cat came over and sniffed them, then circled me, rubbing up against both of my ankles. His bowls were in the corner of the tiny kitchen, the water bowl filled to the brim, as was the food bowl. It looked as though he’d just been fed.
I made my way through the small apartment, the bedroom only large enough to contain a bed and a bureau. The largest room was the living area, and it was the only room that seemed decorated in the place. One wall was lined with bookshelves, and above a dark green sofa was a framed poster for the film Withnail and I. Henry’s desk was in the living room, covered with paperwork that looked mostly like bills, plus a few stacks of books. There was no laptop, and I assumed that he had brought it with him to his office, and that it had been blown up in the explosion. I sat down at the desk and pulled out the top drawer. His passport was inside, along with a checkbook, about a hundred scattered paperclips, and two blank notebooks. I pulled them both out. One was completely filled, mostly with the starts of poems, and an occasional drawing or diary entry. There were a few dates, and the filled notebook seemed to have been completed more than a year ago. The other notebook was only partly filled so I started at the last completed pages and read backward. Most of it was poetry, some were fragments of original lines, and some were other people’s poems that Henry had transcribed out, including a rather long poem by Anthony Hecht called “The Ghost in the Martini.” The only completed poems that had been written by Henry were limericks. The last one he’d written told me everything I needed to know.
There once was a Joan and a Rick
Who had mastered just one magic trick.
Their friendship anonymous,
Their victims were numerous,
They murdered, and no one knew dick.
Chapter 30
Joan
Whenever she became angry, and boredom always angered her, Joan remembered the trick she’d learned when she’d been a young girl, probably no more than eight or nine. She’d had a psychiatrist then, named Brenda, and what she remembered most about those trips to Brenda’s office, with its thick carpet and kiddie art on the walls, was that after the session was over Joan would be allowed to take a whole roll of Spree candies home with her. She always picked Spree because it was her sister Lizzie’s favorite candy and she liked to eat them in front of her.
Brenda had been the one to suggest the anger box. She’d told Joan that feeling angry was perfectly okay, but that acting out that anger was not the best solution. She said that sometimes it was fine to simply pretend to be a different sort of child, a child that did not become angry, that wanted to please people, that wanted to be good. And the easiest way to do that was to find a place to put the bad feelings. After agreeing to try this, Brenda gave Joan a cardboard box, designed to look like a treasure chest, and told Joan that she could use this box if she wanted to. Back in her room, Joan had pushed the box under her bed, but she decided to follow Brenda’s advice. From now on, she would pretend to be a good girl, not talking back to her parents, not being mean to her sister. It didn’t matter what she felt; it mattered how she acted.