lemongrass tea bag, and took it into my office.
On an impulse, while my system came up, I phoned Morrell’s editor in New York. Don Strzepek and Morrell had known each other for years, since their Peace Corps days in Jordan, and I hoped Don might know what Morrell was up to. When I only reached his voice mail, I didn’t bother to leave a message.
I wanted a human voice. I wanted Morrell. E-mail is too remote. A traditional letter has more intimacy-you can hold the paper that someone else touched, but with e-mail, you type and send but never touch or hear. Morrell himself was beginning to seem so distant it was hard for me to feel that he was real. I studied the photo I had on my desk, his wiry curly hair, his thin face, the mouth that had kissed me, but I couldn’t summon his voice or the touch of his long fingers.
Ulysses chose his path, Penelope: don’t let that control you, I adjured myself sternly. “Don’t weep over yourself,” my mother had told me-I was eight or nine, and wrapped in misery because the girls I usually played with had gone to a birthday party I wasn’t invited to-“Do something.” That afternoon she’d abandoned dinner preparations and let me play dress-up in her concert gown, weaving an improbable story for me as Signora Vittoria della Cielo e Terra. Today I began searching the Web for stories about Calvin Bayard. Maybe I could find out why no one was allowed to talk to him. Or had Renee been spinning me a line?
When my Web search brought me the Bayard phone number, I called out to the New Solway estate, and my heart beat a little faster: What if I did get through to him? What would I say to my hero?
When a woman answered, I said I was one of Calvin’s old interns. “I’m in town this week; it would mean a lot to get to see him.”
“He isn’t scheduling that kind of appointment now,” the woman said in a deep rough voice.
“I’d settle for a chance to say hello on the phone,” I wheedled.
He couldn’t come to the phone. There wasn’t a good time to call back. I should try Mrs. Bayard at the company number if I had business with the Bayards. Her good-bye was truncated by the clicking of the handset.
So what was going on? If he was sick, why didn’t they just say so? Something about New Solway made me imagine Gothic scenarios: Calvin was dead, and to keep control of the company, Renee had organized a massive conspiracy to make the world think her husband was still alive. Calvin’s embalmed body lay in a giant freezer in the estate’s old icehouse. Marc had found it there, and Renee had murdered him.
Making things up was more fun than research, but research gets the job done. I started reading news stories on Nexis, hoping to find out when Calvin had last been seen in public. Five years ago, he’d stepped down from formal leadership of Bayard Publishing and Renee had assumed the CEO spot. The Herald-Star and the New York Times both did big stories on it. Industry scuttlebutt said she’d been in charge for a good four years already.
That was all the Web could tell me. Calvin hadn’t been at charity balls or any other public event, at least not any reported in the press, since his retirement. To find out anything more, I needed to do old-fashioned legwork, talk to friends and neighbors. For which Darraugh would definitely not pay me. Although come to think of it, he probably knew-that would be an easy question to slip in when we next spoke.
When I switched my search to Olin Taverner, I picked up a slew of hits. I chose the National Public Radio report, which had the advantage of being something I could absorb with my eyes shut. I logged onto
Taverner had died in Anodyne Park-but he had grown up in New Solway. So not only were he and Calvin Bayard old enemies, they must have been old playmates; they were roughly the same age, after all. They used to gallop around New Solway on their ponies together or knout the servants, or whatever it is that very rich children do to amuse themselves.
Perhaps Marcus Whitby had been on his way to see Taverner when death stopped for him. I was getting up to find my detail map of the area, to see if there was a way for a man going on foot to Anodyne Park to end up in Larchmont’s pool, when the Bayard name arrested my attention again.
In recent years, publications like the Washington Times and the Wall Street journal have tried to change public perception of Taverner, Bushnell and other leading McCarthy era figures. Many on today’s right say that the left damaged the reputations of true patriots, and they have sought to revisit that history. One of the greatest oddities of this attempt at rehabilitation is provided by Edwards Bayard, son of Renee and Calvin Bayard, who jousted with Taverner in front of the House committee. Some years ago, Edwards Genier Bayard joined the ranks of liberal- turned-conservative pundits. He now works for the inf uential Spadona Foundation, the rightwing think tank that has set the agenda for much contemporary political discourse. Our political affairs correspondent Jolynn Parker spoke with Mr. Bayard in his Washington office.
Jolynn’s throaty voice came on, explaining the highlights of Bayard’s career: Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, a stint at the International Monetary Fund running the program to sell Bolivia’s water supply to U.S. and French engineering firms, and now heading the Spadona Foundation’s economic policy division.
“Your father is a legend in liberal political circles. How did he feel about your taking a position with Spadona, which has opposed so many of his policies and politics?”
“We had a number of interesting Christmas dinners,” Bayard said, “but both my parents are great respecters of free speech, as I am, and we all believe there is room in America for many different public opinions.”
“How did your views come to differ so greatly from your father’s?” Jolynn asked.
“It was my work at the University of Chicago, which coincided with the end of the Allende government in Chile; I became convinced that supporting a Communist like Allende-as my parents did-was damaging for U.S. interests there, and not fair to the Chilean people, either.”
“Some people would say that the United States intervening to overturn another country’s election was unfair, especially in light of the many
thousands of people the Pinochet government imprisoned and killed during the eighties.”
Bayard gave a dry laugh. “I’ve heard those complaints many times, Jolynn, but the Chilean economy is stronger today than ever.”
I clicked the stop icon. I wondered what form those interesting Christmas conversations had taken, and why Catherine had adopted her grandparents’ values instead of her father’s, and where her mother was. None of my Web researches gave any private gossip about Edwards’s marriage. I left Nexis and switched to my phone messages.
To my surprise, Geraldine Graham hadn’t called again. However, Amy Blount had phoned to say that Whitby’s housekeeper would come to his house in the morning to let us in.
Darraugh had phoned from New York, just to say he had heard from his mother as well as his PA, Caroline; he had full confidence in my abilities, but he thought we’d put enough energy into his mother’s problems for now.
My answering service has a neat little program that identifies the phone number of incoming calls; they include that in the report they e-mail me. Darraugh was staying at the Yale Club in New York, which tracked him down in the bar.
“What is it? Didn’t you get my message?” he demanded.
“Yes, two minutes ago, and I’ll wrap up my report in the morning. Two things, though: the first is that the dead man’s family has hired me to look into his death, so I will be continuing my inquiries out in New Solway.” “I would rather you didn’t-“
“I’m telling you as a courtesy, Darraugh, because you’re one of my most valued clients. You know I normally never reveal one client’s business to another.” I paused to let him digest that before adding, “The second thing is that I talked to Calvin Bayard’s granddaughter this afternoon. She says Mr. Bayard has a key to Larchmont. Is that possible?”
“Possible? Possible that he has a key to my family’s house? You had damn well not be spreading that story around town.” His anger made the receiver vibrate.
“Darraugh-take it easy. The kid told me he had a key.”
“She’s wrong. She’s lying for whatever reason teenagers lie.” His voice retreated from fury to mere wintriness.
“I see.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing I did see. “I tried to talk to Mr. Bayard, but was soundly rebuffed. Do you know why?”
“Not for any nefarious reason. He’s in poor health; Renee protects him with her usual energy. Send in your bill for the hours you’ve put in on my mother’s complaint. I hope you will remember as you look for this dead man’s murderer that I’ve paid your bills for many years now. I expect you to keep that in mind if you feel your inquiries must take you out to New Solway for any reason. You should realize you could fall into quicksand faster than anyone
