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  Having already introduced myself, I asked, again, “May I come in?”

  “Why?” she asked. “You’re working for the lawyer Jeff’s father hired. I have no say in all of this.”

  “I am trying to do everything I can to help your son beat a very serious charge. The more I know, the more I can help.”

  “Did you talk to his father?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And I want the boy’s mother’s take, too.”

  “He’s not a boy. Not any more.”

  “Well, frankly, ma’am, from what I’ve seen, he’s not a grown man either. He’s a kid caught somewhere in between and I’m not sure he’s even able to fully comprehend how much trouble he’s in.”

  She said nothing.

  I said, “His lawyer just learned this morning that the state’s attorney is going for first-degree murder. Premeditated.”

  “Premeditated?” she said loudly. “Based on what? They can’t unseal those court records. He was a juvenile.”

  “The ELF fliers in Jeff’s backpack apparently have the state’s attorney believing he doesn’t need to unseal those records. Though don’t think he won’t try. He thinks he can beat a self-defense plea. If he does, it won’t be manslaughter. Jeff could get life in prison. Or lethal injection.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, but still didn’t move from the front door.

  “The clock is ticking,” I said. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with Connecticut judges, but this is not California and these are not TV courts. Connecticut judges demand a clean, quick, disciplined trial. As good as Attorney Roth is, he fears Jeff will be facing a jury very, very soon. Can you help me?”

  She gave an angry sigh. “Jesus Christ. All right, talk. Come in. Do what you want.”

  Her furniture, rugs, and draperies were worn and beaten down and on no surface or any object did I see the sheen of hands laid regularly, appreciatively, or lovingly. The windows were dirty. She led me to the kitchen. It was fairly clean, but not at all cheerful, despite the sun pouring in. An older television sat on the counter. “Look out for the wires,” she said and I stepped over the cable and electrical connection. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Talk to me. Tell me anything about Jeff that might help me help his attorney defend him. Could we start with when he drove away that morning?”

  “He had no car.”

  “I thought his father bought him a Jeep.”

  “He gave it away.”

  “To whom?”

  “Somebody out west.”

  “Okay, so that morning, did you drive him somewhere?”

  “He wasn’t staying here.”

  “Where was he staying?”

  “I don’t know. He had been gone for two weeks.”

  “Where?”

  She shrugged. “Probably on one of his ‘expeditions.’”

  “What do you mean? ELF?”

  “What do you think I mean? When they announced those indictments out in Oregon, I thought, oh God, he got caught at last.”

  “He told me he didn’t know that bunch.”

  “They always say they don’t know each other,” she cut me off angrily. “They’re like Alcoholics Anonymous.” Her face twisted with a bitter expression. “I thanked God it wasn’t him. Now I wish it been him. He wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Suddenly, tears trembled in her eyes. They ran down her face. She lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her chest. I moved back, not sure what to do. Her shoulders heaved, violently. It was wracking her whole body and I knew I had to do something. I stepped slowly closer, laid my hand on her shoulder, then my arm, and gradually drew her into both arms.

  “Oh God,” she gasped. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

  But she was crying like someone who had put it off a very long time and she could not stop. She cried and cried and cried. She began shaking so hard I started to fear for her life. She was having trouble breathing. I held her even tighter and patted her head like you would comfort a kid or a dog, which didn’t help at all. I tried to edge her toward the sink to pour her a glass of water, but small as she was, I couldn’t move her.

  She tried to speak, several times. But all that came out was something that sounded like, “He,” as in Jeff, and she could not form a sentence. She started hiccupping uncontrollably, and for some reason that started her laughing. I thought, Oh my God now we’re exploding into complete hysteria, but it was not hysteria. It was just the laugh of someone finally blessed with the ability to see some small, unexpected relief from her misery.

  “Water?”

  She reached blindly. I filled a glass and closed her hand around it. She took a sip. It slipped from her hand. I was almost quick enough to catch it, but it slipped from me, too, and shattered at our feet, which proved to be a godsend. Suddenly we had a job to do mopping up broken glass. By the time we had wiped gingerly with paper towels, then mopped the water with more towels, then found the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed for shards, she had returned to something like normal.

  She splashed cold water on her face and I handed her the last towel from the roll.

  “Oh my God. I’m sorry, Mr. Abbott. I just—I don’t know what hit me.” Her face, reddened, clouded. Her voice grew dull. “I guess it all hit me. Whew.” She sat the kitchen table, staring at the back of the TV.

  “Why don’t I make you coffee,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  I found some coffee in a can and a cafetiere that hadn’t been used in a long time and boiled water while she sat in silence, dabbing her face with the paper towel. After it had brewed and I pressed it and poured, she said, “Jeff is very brave.”

  “I suspected that,” I said.

  “There is something in him that won’t let him turn his back on what is wrong. And it is a terrible thing that he will be locked up for the rest of his life for being brave.”

  “He’s not locked up, yet, in that sense. He’s awaiting trial. He’s got the best lawyer in Connecticut.”

  “His father always demanded the best. Even when he couldn’t afford it.” She sipped the coffee, then looked up at me. “Where does a child develop passion?”

  “Home?”

  “Not in this home.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Deathly sure. Before Jeff went away, when he was younger, he used to ask, ‘Why did Dad leave?’ What was I supposed to tell my child? Your father left us to become rich and famous which he couldn’t do when he was tied to us? In this home all he found was anger.”

  “The set to he had with Billy Tiller. Was that when his father left?”

  She didn’t hear me. “My anger scorched this house. I used to love this house. It was my parents’ country house when I was growing up. But my husband poisoned it for me. I only stayed because Jeff wanted to. Then when Tiller destroyed the woods, he was heartbroken. His anger—against his father for leaving, against me for letting it happen, or making it happen, God knows—all came out at Tiller. Tiller became everything that went wrong in Jeff’s life. He couldn’t help it.”

  I looked away to hide my face. She thinks Jeff killed him, I thought. Same as his father. They both think he did it.

  “I tried to find a boyfriend to find Jeff a father. But I couldn’t pull it off. And by then, he didn’t even want a father. He found an enemy that took the place.”

  Chapter Eight

  Although I routinely scanned the tour reports published on the MLS website for Newbury’s brokers’ and agents’ open houses, I never expected much. The places I show either come exclusively to me or, if they haven’t, from listing agents who figure I have a lock on weird clients.

  Speaking of weird, here was a listing so weird that I read it out loud: “Builder’s own manor.”

  It took me a moment to recognize the latest twist on the old “Builder’s own home” mystique, where the customer was encouraged to hope that
a builder’s personal residence had to be superior to those he built for the average slob. Ignoring the reality that he was only living in it until he could sell the turkey.

  Fred Gleason was showing it, which surprised me because Fred had never been the sort to allow comically pretentious language in his ads. On the other hand, he had just sold his agency to a national franchise. I read on, to see which builder was unloading the turkey Fred had dubbed a manor.

  “Jesus H! That was fast.”

  Fred was selling Billy Tiller’s house less than two weeks after he was killed.

  ***

  Ten o’clock in the morning, I was the first to knock on the ugly front door.

  The only car in the driveway was Fred’s, a magnificent silver Phaeton.

  From the outside, this house was so awful that I had taken to driving out of my way not to look at it. Spurning New England materials like stone, wood shingles, or clapboard, Billy had located a railcar full of glazed yellow brick somewhere, and put it in charge of a Florida architect who had apprenticed on self-storage units.

  “Fred,” I said, when he answered the door, an amalgam of wood, steel, and stained glass. “I do not envy you.”

  Fred, a jolly fifty-year-old optimist in a checked jacket and sprightly yellow bowtie, said, “All I need is one tasteless fool with a checkbook.”

  I pretended to admire the entryway, from which one could see wide-screen TVs in three directions and a living room fire-place made out of what looked like burnt sauce pans, but which Fred assured me was an “art material.”

  “How did this come on so fast? What about probate? Did he have a will?” As I had suggested to Ira Roth, it would be interesting to learn what heir gained from Billy’s untimely demise.

  “First thing I asked. Turns out Billy didn’t own it. Total Land Rape—Scape—owns it. Apparently he didn’t keep private accounts.”

  Nobody gained? Nobody inherited? “Do you mean the company owned Billy’s own house? Who owns the company?”

  “Partners, I guess. Or investors. Or Billy’s estate.”

  “How can they liquidate assets if they haven’t read the will?”

  “The company doesn’t need permission to sell company assets. The powder room is solid nickel. Want to see it?”

  My old friend was pumping himself to excite his visitors, so I said, “But of course,” even as I wondered who was getting the money. We admired it and moved on to the kitchen, which Fred’s handout described as “A showcase of timeless beauty.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Total’s lawyer. With promises.”

  “Of what?”

  “The condos. If they get it approved.”

  “Condos in Newbury?”

  “There’s a need. Older people want to unload the big old place, but stay in town. Total Landscape might pull off a zoning change.”

  “Somebody should shoot those sons of bitches.”

  Fred shrugged. “Everybody’s got to make a living somehow.”

  The doorbell rang and the door opened and a pack of women agents came in calling, “Yoo hoo. Fred. Are you here?”

  “Look around, Ben. I’ve gotta—”

  “Go. Go. I’m fine.” He hurried to the door. I waved to the women, all of whom I knew, and wandered into what Fred’s handout called “A master suite fit for Kings and Queens.” God knew what Kings and Queens went for these days, but Billy had gone first and foremost for size. There were his and hers dressing rooms, of course, a bathroom big enough to play half-court basketball, and a workout room fitted with a some very serious machines. One whole wall was curtain, and I found a switch to make it magically pull open and saw immediately why Fred had closed it. It covered a glass wall that looked onto a courtyard garden overgrown by several seasons of weeds—tall ones brown from last year, fresh green ones shooting for the sky.

  The phrase “poor lonely bastard” skipped through my mind. It looked like the kind of project a guy living alone would get an idea to do, only to get overwhelmed by it. I was surprised that Total Landscape employees hadn’t been drafted to keep it up. One of the pleasures of owning a construction company had to be the free labor standing by. But did he actually own it? I had to run this by Ira.

  “Hey, Ben.”

  “Sherry!”

  We hugged. Sherry Carter was married to my childhood friend Bill Carter, a one-house-at-a-time builder. She sold real estate, when she wasn’t helping Bill, and was one of my favorite competitors. She looked like a gazelle, a very attractive gazelle, a very attractive flirtatious gazelle. A mutually ego pleasing (brief) grope at a beer picnic a while back had cemented our friendship.

  “What is that?”

  “Used to be a garden.”

  “Pull the drapes before you knock fifty thousand off the price.”

  As they slid shut again Sherry said, “Billy should have put the pool in there instead of those weeds. It would be really cool all walled in like that. Instead of where he put it. You could swim naked and no one could see.”

  “Maybe he was designing for exhibitionists.”

  Sherry, who was one, and knew it, grinned, rose up on her toes and stretched her long arms so we could both imagine her morning dive.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.

  “I try to keep up with the latest and hottest.”

  “But you don’t know anybody who wants a house like this.”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Somebody’ll love it. How much is Fred asking?”

  I consulted the handout. She rested a pleasant hand on my shoulder as she leaned close to look at the price.

  “Jesus H,” I said.

  “Oh, Fred’ll get it— So how’ve you been, Ben?”

  “Ummmm. Okay. I’m tangled up in the Billy bulldozer thing.”

  “That horrible ELF kid.”

  “He’s not a bad kid. Or at least he doesn’t seem like one.”

  “Not a bad kid? He killed Billy Tiller, not my favorite person, but—”

  “Except maybe he didn’t kill him.”

  “If they’re going after builders any of us could be next.”

  “They?”

  “The ELF nuts.”

  “Nuts they are, but they don’t kill people.”

  “I heard you were kind of obsessed about this.”

  “From whom?”

  “I don’t know. People were saying you’re obsessing on the kid who did it.”

  “Because I don’t think he did it.”

  “Ben.” She took my hands and looked in my eyes.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you ought to take a little time to re-think what you’re doing?”

  “I’m not hurting anybody, I’m just helping his lawyer establish his defense.”

  “What if you’re hurting yourself? Come on, if you saw me doing something like what you’re doing, wouldn’t you say, ‘Hey, Sherry, what’s going on? What’s wrong.’ You know?”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  She grabbed both my hands in hers. “I’m talking to you like a friend, Ben.”

  I said, “I’m touched by how sincere you sound. And how much you care.”

  “Don’t be touched. Just listen.”

  One of our competitors, a woman new to town who had arrived with the national that bought Fred Gleason, walked in, saw us holding hands and said, “Oh, excuse me.”

  Sherry released me with a final squeeze. Then, smiling very little, she said to the woman, “If I hear a silly rumor I’ll know where it started.”

  Quietly, I said to Sherry, “Thank you. I know what you’re saying. I appreciate you saying it. I’m just going to run this whole thing through my head a couple of more times and that’s it.”

  “Good. Thank you. Come to dinner Saturday.”

  “What can I bring?”

  “A smile.”

  She gave me a very nice kiss and sashayed out to the living room,
where I heard her saying, “Great house, Fred. I’ve got a couple of clients who will love it.”

  ***

  Homeowners huddled on metal folding chairs in a low-ceiling room in the basement of Town Hall, waiting for the bi-monthly Planning and Zoning hearing to begin. Some clutched papers; others, notes for speeches; Penelope Collins, horse breeder, set up an easel and spread out a colorful hand-drawn map of her neighborhood that depicted density, traffic patterns, watercourses.

  Most sat in gloomy silence; a few gathered in quiet conference with neighbors drawn into alliance against development of woods and fields they had cherished all their lives. One group even had a lawyer, Tim Hall. But whether they were upset, indignant, angry, determined, or frightened, all looked as unhopeful as cows trudging up a ramp into a dark building marked Beef.

  The P&Z commissioners met on first and third Tuesdays to hear builders explain how their proposed developments adhered to Newbury’s building and zoning regulations or, if they didn’t, why the regulations should be modified in their case. People whose property would be affected by the proposed developments were invited to speak in support or against the projects, which pitted homeowners against builders. Nearly everyone was against the builders. But those against were hoeing a tough row. The ninety-nine percent of the population not trained in public speaking were further flummoxed by a P&Z hearing rule that allowed the presenter for the builder to rebut the protestor, while the protestor’s sole means of rebuttal was to look aggrieved.

  Among the one percent of the population who did know how to hold an audience or sway the P&Z commissioners, all were employed by the builders. Of that elite, the best was E. Eddie Edwards, who coupled an engineer’s precision logic to a lawyer’s dislike of facts that did not advance his cause.