“I can try,” she said doubtfully, “but I’m not very skillful sorting out office politics.”
I was about to give her a hearty pep talk, but her words triggered a memory from my encounter with Renee Bayard. “I think you’re up to the job-but there is something you might find on the Web or the SEC or even from Aretha Cummings: Calvin Bayard helped Llewellyn get his original financing. There’s some history there, something that made Renee Bayard think Llewellyn wouldn’t respond to a call from her. See if you can
pick up anything on that. If I manage to see Calvin Bayard, I’ll ask him, too. Let’s talk tonight, okay?”
While I finished my smoothie, I called Mary Louise. We had a quick chat about her new job, which she confided was more work and less excitement than she’d hoped for. As I’d thought, she knew a funeral director whose fees were reasonable and who knew the ropes at the county morgues. First I called Deputy Protheroe, and told her the paperwork on Marc Whitby’s body might be getting ready to show up. Then I called Mary Louise’s funeral director, who set up the transfer for the next morning. Finally, I left a message on Vishnikov’s voice mail to tell him to expect Marc Whitby’s body. Only then did I reenter traffic.
With both hands on the wheel I was the model of the good driver, feeling superior to the people with books propped on steering wheels, cell phones in ears, hamburgers in mouths. As if to reward me, I had an easy run all the way from Kedzie to the tollway, and made it to the Warrenville Road exit well ahead of the afternoon rush.
When I reached the turnoff to Coverdale Lane, I pulled over to inspect my detail map. The woods behind Larchmont Hall belonged to a sort of common area in the middle of New Solway. The Bayard and Larchmont estates were about four miles apart if you followed the road, but only a mile if you went through the woods. I supposed that’s what Catherine did Sunday night-skittered through the underbrush home. Even if I hadn’t fallen in on top of Marc Whitby, I probably couldn’t have kept up with her in the dark through woods she knew well.
All the way out to New Solway, I’d tried to think of a persuasive argument to get me into the Bayard house. Nothing came to me. Maybe I’d park at Larchmont and cut through the woods myself. But when I found 17 Coverdale Lane, the gates to the Bayard estate stood open. I turned through the stone gateposts onto the carriageway. After winding about half a mile through old trees, I came to a four-story mansion, its stone facade aged to a golden gray. Like Larchmont, the Bayard grounds also held a series of outbuildings: garage, stable, greenhouses, a barn. The surrounding gardens and meadows fed into the woods.
In front of the house, the drive split in three, one fork leading to the garage, one to the other outbuildings, and the third along the left side of the house itself, where a discreet sign pointed to a tradesman’s entrance. The main entrance, where I pulled up, faced south; shallow steps led to a porticoed doorway.
I could hear voices from around the north side of the mansion, so I climbed out of the Mustang and followed the sign to the tradesman’s entrance. A van and a small truck were parked there. Three men were unloading supplies while a woman in blue jeans and a black turtleneck and blazer supervised.
In the near distance, someone was doing something with hay and a wagon. How bucolic. Almost justifying calling this spread “rural Illinois,” as Calvin Bayard had done in the testimony I’d watched last night. Out in his overalls at four in the morning like all the other Illinois farm boys who had forty-room palaces to protect from weasels.
“That’ll see you through the weekend, Ruth.” One of the men laughed loudly and handed a clipboard to the woman.
The woman in black signed, frowning at his familiarity, but he laughed again, clapping her on the shoulder, telling her he’d be back first thing Monday. He slammed the back panels of the van shut and jumped into the driver’s seat, whistling “Danny Boy” in a cheerful tuneless way. The back panels proclaimed “Home Body-For All Your Home Care Needs” in green cursive.
The other two men were unloading groceries from the truck. Ruth checked each item before letting it into the house.
“Miss Catherine doesn’t like this brand of yogurt. Why didn’t you bring the Bulgarian? And we specified teriyaki tofu; she won’t touch the Hawaiian.” This was the woman who’d answered the phone when I called pretending to be one of Calvin Bayard’s old interns; I hoped I’d been so much hoarser yesterday that she wouldn’t recognize my voice today.
The man explained that the Bulgarian yogurt was past its shelf date. Ruth told him sharply to bring some when he came back on Friday, even i? he had to go into Chicago for it.
If I’d thought about it, I would have guessed Catherine Bayard would be a vegetarian. She was rich; she could be a picky vegetarian.
Ruth scowled in my direction and told me she’d be with me in a minute. “You’re not with the media, are you? If you are, you’d better leave now: we have nothing to say to you.”
The media. People always say this as if it were some foul disease: you’re not with the cholera pouring out of the sewer, are you? And yet we worship and bow down before the television’s eye. I meekly denied connection to the sewage.
Ruth finished her work with the men, telling them they could have coffee in the kitchen, before turning back to me. “Yes?”
Trying to pitch my voice higher to disguise it from yesterday’s croak, I explained that I was a detective investigating Marcus Whitby’s death. “You know that Mr. Whitby died in the Larchmont pond Sunday night.”
“I watch the news, yes, I saw that story, that he had come out here to end his life, and I fail to see why that means you can bother us.”
“Oh, that’s a story Sheriff Salvi put out to calm down the community” I said carelessly. “We know better than that. 1 can step you through the evidence that shows Mr. Whitby didn’t go into that pond on his own, but you’re probably more interested in his connection to the Bayard family.”
She frowned more deeply but didn’t say anything.
“We know Mr. Whitby came out here to see Mr. Bayard, because-” “That is a lie. Mr. Bayard has seen no one this week.”
“Because Mr. Whitby was writing about one of Mr. Bayard’s authors,” I continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Kylie Ballantine, who had such a difficult time in the fifties and sixties. Perhaps Mr. Bayard didn’t talk to Mr. Whitby, but he did come out here, didn’t he?”
She paused, as if deciding what she could reveal, then said, “The man telephoned, but we don’t allow journalists to talk to Mr. Bayard.”
“So you sent him to Ms. Renee Bayard in Chicago, but she wasn’t helpful and he came out here hoping to gate-crash.”
I held up a hand to forestall a further objection. “We know Catherine was at Larchmont both Sunday and Monday nights. She told me her grandfather-“
“You are full of lies,” Ruth said scornfully. “Catherine was in the city Monday night, as she always is during the school year. And she certainly had no reason to be at Larchmont either of those nights.”
“I talked to Catherine yesterday afternoon. She was certainly out here Monday night. We can call her.” I looked at my watch. “School’s out for the day. Unless she has lacrosse practice, she’s probably with her friends, either at Banks Street or the coffee shop they go to-Grounds for Delight, it’s called. I don’t have her cell phone number, but you probably do.”