When Monica left the room with the cake server, Olga reseated herself at the PC; input the letters
A document headed with the name “Johansson, Ellen Swenson,” and filled with dates and book titles spread itself out before her eyes. It was too much to take down—or to take in. Recalling Liz’s instructions, Olga turned on the printer and used the PC’s mouse to click on the print icon. After the page printed out, she followed more instructions from Liz and closed the document until the desktop of icons appeared. Slipping the printed page into her purse, she turned to tidy up the spilled drawer. Along with a few pens and some pads of Post-it Notes, she found a twelve-inch ruler, decorated by Veronica with a hand-painted crown and letters spelling out the statement, “MY MOM RULES!!!” Placing the ruler in her purse, she made a quick survey of the rest of her daughter’s drawers. They contained some drawings by Veronica; a mug sporting a portrait of Virginia Woolf; some feminine supplies; a much-used, folded-up tote bag imprinted with the words, “So many books, so little time”; and a packet of Reese’s Pieces.
The items were predictable, mundane. But the emotions they stirred were not.
Olga Swenson sat down heavily in her daughter’s chair and sobbed.
When, at last, she made her way out of the office, she could hear one voice sounding from the conference room. “Ellen’s mother is a wreck. She’s so jittery, the poor woman can’t open a drawer without pulling it out completely and spilling it all over the floor. She’s so bereft, she’s even going to read
“Really, Monica,” another voice said. Olga recognized it as Lucy Gray’s. “Surely it’s too soon to speak of Ellen as if we’ll never see her again. And as for
“Well, I have that from Mrs. Swenson herself,” Monica said, rising to the conversational challenge. “And she told me Veronica is hopeless unless she’s with her grandmother’s dog, constantly eating chocolate. It’s a wonder Mrs. Swenson had the presence of mind to bring us these cookies!”
Fed up with the whole charade, despite its success, Olga Swenson left the library without going to the trouble of finding and signing out a copy of
Taking off her coat, she made her first uncharacteristic move. Instead of carefully hanging the garment on a hanger in the hall closet, she draped it over the back of an armchair. Then, she did something else that was highly unusual for her. After taking a teacup and saucer into the kitchen with the intention of making tea, she filled the cup halfway with bourbon instead.
Whispering the words “Forget me not,” she then settled into Ellen’s favorite chair in the living room and unfolded the list of books that revealed her daughter’s recent library borrowing habits. Studying the titles, she was glad her cup held bourbon.
Meanwhile, in the
In her work, Liz often found the requirement of noting people’s ages not just a thankless task but one that sometimes caused her sources to balk or clam up. Early on, she learned to ask for ages only after securing the quotes she needed from people. Now, she silently thanked the reporters who had done their duty and reported Mayhew’s age at the time of their writing. On one Internet site, she was able to take the many Douglas Mayhews with listed telephone numbers in the Northeast and narrow the search by age. This left just five, including two in Maine (Douglas Mayhew, Junior and Senior), one in Worcester, one on Cape Cod, and one in Brookline, a city bordering Boston.
The Brookline number, which Liz dialed first, seemed the most promising. “You have reached the infernal machine of Dr. Douglas Mayhew. Please speak loudly after the beep,” the voice-mail message announced. Liz left a message and went on to phone the others. Luck was with her. The first Mayhew of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, said he knew the other, in Port Clyde, since both were in the boat business. Neither of the Maine Mayhews, he said, had ever headed “any school, anywayuh.” The Worcester Dr. Mayhew was a dentist. Finally, Douglas Mayhew of Cape Cod was not in. His message began with a segment of the rock group No Doubt’s song, “Spiderwebs”: “Sorry I’m not home right now / I’m walking into spiderwebs / So leave a message and I’ll call you back.” It finished with a young man’s voice saying, “Hey, I’m not home. So leave a message.” It was hardly the message of a retired headmaster, but Liz left a message anyway. The young man might have a relative of the same name who was the headmaster’s age.
Waiting for replies, Liz looked in her purse for coffee money. She hadn’t been to the bank in such a long time that she was down to a few dollars. Hoping to find change at the bottom of her bag, she dug deeper, only to have her fingers encounter a plastic bag filled with something soft: the cigarette butts she’d collected from the taxi. Scolding herself for forgetting about them, she immediately phoned Cormac Kinnaird.
The man might be unreadable when it came to personal interaction, but he was unreserved in his enthusiasm to get his hands on this evidence. As the two were about to arrange a meeting time and place, Jared Conneely stopped by Liz’s desk. Noticing she was on the line, he wrote on a scrap of paper, “I regret to inform you that you are on the ‘New Year’s resolutions of the rich, famous, and infamous’ beat today. Stop by the city desk at your first convenience.” Liz silently mouthed “OK” and continued her conversation with Cormac
“I’ve just been assigned a story I can at least begin to work on in the newsroom,” she told him. “And I’m hoping I can linger here to receive a return call from a potential source on the Johansson case.”
“Say no more. I know where the
“By the time you get here, I’ll know more about my schedule. If you don’t mind winging it regarding my availability, that would be great.”
After hanging up, Liz noticed the light flashing on the phone, indicating a call had come in while she was on the line. Actually, two calls had come in. One was from the young Cape Codder who said, “Hey, it’s Doug Mayhew. Are you gonna put me in the pay-puh? Cool. Call me back.” And he left his number.
The other was from the much more gentlemanly Dr. Mayhew of Brookline. “Hello, Miss Higgs. This is Dr. Douglas Mayhew, former headmaster of the Wharton Alternative School, responding to your message.” He left his phone number.
Down at the city desk, Jared Conneely was making exaggerated waving signals, urging Liz to approach the desk. Liz raised one finger to indicate she’d be there in a minute. Then she dialed the Brookline telephone number.
After introducing herself, Liz quickly realized why the headmaster had referred to her as “Miss Higgs.” He was hard of hearing. While Jared changed his wide-armed signal to a one-fingered, schoolmarmish scolding motion, Liz said loudly, “I’m writing an article about New Year’s resolutions and whether they actually lead to a genuine kind of resolve in young people. I thought I’d call on you, hoping your years of experience with troubled young people would help to anchor my article.”
“I’m flattered that you ask. I suppose I could make myself available, but I’m not good on the phone. I’m going
