Private Eyes

“I don’t know anything, Richard. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

“That make me a snitch?”

“A source.”

“Aha.”

“Her scrapbook?”

“I just skimmed it,” he said. Yawning again. “Basically it was articles- stuff she’d written.”

“Articles on what?”

Shrug. “I didn’t look at it too closely- too fact-bound, no fancy.”

“Any chance of my seeing the scrapbook?”

“Like how would that be possible?”

“Like if you have the key to her apartment.”

He raised his hand to his mouth, a parody of outrage. “Invasion of privacy, Marlowe?”

“How about you stand right over me while I read it?”

“Doesn’t take care of the constitutional issues, Phil.”

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward and putting major effort into sounding ominous, “this is serious. She could be in danger.”

He opened his mouth and I knew he was going to crack wise. I blocked it by holding out a hand and said, “I mean it, Richard.”

His mouth closed and stayed that way for a while. I stared at him hard and he rubbed his elbows and knees and said, “You’re serious.”

“Very.”

“This has nothing to do with collecting?”

“Collecting what?”

“Money. She told me she’d borrowed lots from her sister, hadn’t paid any of it back, and her sister’s husband was getting pissed- he’s some sort of financial type.”

“Mr. Robbins is a lawyer,” I said, “and he and his wife are concerned about Kathy’s debt. But that’s not the issue anymore. She’s been gone too long, Richard.”

He rubbed some more and said, “When you told me you were working for the sister, I figured it had something to do with collecting.”

“Well, it doesn’t, Richard. Her sister- whatever their culture clash- is worried about her and so am I. I can’t tell you more than that, but Mr. Sturgis considers this case a priority.”

He undid his ponytail and shook his hair loose. It was thick and shiny as a cover girl’s, and fanned across his face. I heard his neck crack as he lowered it and continued fanning. When he looked up some of the hair was in his mouth and he chewed it while wearing a thoughtful expression.

“All you want to do is look at it, huh?” he said, pulling strands away from his lips.

“That’s it, Richard. You can watch me every second.”

“Okay,” he said. “Why not? At the worst, she’ll find out and get pissed and I’ll invite her to find a cheaper place.”

He stood and stretched and shook his hair again. When I got up, he said, “Just stay right there, Phil.”

Another trip to the kitchen. He came back too soon to have gone very far, carrying a loose-leaf notebook bound in orange cloth.

I said, “She left it with you?”

“Uh-uh. She forgot to take it back after she’d given it to me to look at. When I realized it, she was already gone, so I stuck it somewhere- got so much junk around here- and she never asked about it. We both forgot. Meaning it probably isn’t that important to her, right? That’s the rationale I’ll use if she gets pissed.”

He returned to the stool, opened the notebook, and flipped pages. Clinging to his treasure for just a moment before yielding, just as he’d done with the mail.

“Here you go,” he said. “We’re not talking racy, Phil.”

I opened the book. Inside were forty or so double-sided pages- black paper sheathed in transparent plastic. Newspaper clippings bearing Kathleen Moriarty’s byline were inserted on each side. There was a flap on the inside front cover. I slid my hand in. Empty.

The articles were arranged chronologically. The first few, dating back fifteen years, were from The Daily Collegian at Cal State Fresno. A score or so, spanning a seven-year period, were from the Fresno Bee. Next came pieces from the Manchester Union Leader and the Boston Globe. The dates indicated Kathy Moriarty had stayed at each of the New England papers for only about a year.

I turned back to the beginning and checked out contents. For the most part, general interest stuff, and all local: Town meetings and personality pieces. Holiday features of the clever pet variety. An investigative trend didn’t creep in until Moriarty’s year at the Globe: a series on pollution in Boston Harbor and an exposE of cruelty to animals at a Worcester pharmacologic firm that didn’t appear to have gone very far.

The last insert was a review in the Hartford Courant of The Bad Earth, her book on pesticides. Small press publisher. Good marks for enthusiasm, points off for poor documentation.

I checked the back flap. Slipped out several folded pieces of newsprint. Skidmore was looking at his toes and hadn’t noticed. I unfolded and began reading.

Five opinion pieces, dated last year, from a paper called The GALA Banner and subtitled “The monthly newsletter of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, Cambridge, Mass.”

Byline change to Kate Moriarty. Title of Contributing Editor.

These essays were filled with rage: male domination, the AIDS plague, the penis as a weapon. A piece on identity and misogyny. Stapled to that one was a scrap of newsprint.

Skidmore yawned. “Almost finished?”

“One sec.”

I read the scrap. The Globe, again, three years old. No Moriarty byline. No byline at all. Just a news summary- one of those “roundup” items papers run on page 2 of the final edition.

DOCTOR’S DEATH TIED TO OVERDOSE

(CAMBRIDGE) The death of a Harvard Psychiatric Fellow is believed to have resulted from an accidental or self-administered dose of barbiturates. The body of Eileen Wagner, 37, was found this morning in her office at the Beth Israel Hospital Psychiatry Department on Brookline Avenue. Time of death was estimated at some time during the night. Police would not speculate upon what led them to their conclusion, other than to say that Dr. Wagner had been suffering from “personal problems.” A graduate of Yale and Yale University Medical School, Dr. Wagner completed pediatric training at Western Pediatric Medical Center in Los Angeles and practiced medicine with the World Health Organization overseas before coming to Harvard last year to study Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

I looked over at Skidmore. His eyes were closed. I pulled off the article, pocketed it, closed the book, and said, “Thanks, Richard. Now how about giving me a look at her apartment.”

His eyes opened.

“Just to make sure,” I said.

“Sure of what?”

“That she’s not there- hurt or worse.”

“No way is she there,” he said, with genuine anxiety that was refreshing. “No way, Marlowe.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I saw her drive away a month ago. White Datsun- you can get the plates, run some kind of trace, right?”

“What if she came back without the car? You might not have noticed- you yourself said the two of you didn’t see each other often.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Too weird.”

“Why don’t we just check, Richard? You can stand there and watch- just like with the scrapbook.”

He rubbed his eyes. Stared at me. Got up.

I followed him into a tiny, dark kitchen where he picked a ring of keys out of a pile of junk and pushed open a rear door. We walked across a backyard too small for hopscotch to a double garage. The garage doors were the