Putting down the phone, she gazed past Adam as if he were not there. “Was that the DA?” he asked.
She blinked, aware of him again. “Yes. He called about the cause of death.”
“Is there something more?”
Clarice drew a breath. “Yes. Your father had brain cancer. A massive tumor, apparently.”
The words hit Adam with a jolt. “Did he know?”
Clarice sat down. “If so, he chose not to tell me.”
Looking away, she held a hand to her face. Another betrayal, Adam sensed her thinking, another secret. Then a further thought struck him: that on the night he died, Benjamin Blaine was looking at the last summer solstice of his life and, perhaps, knew that. A host of implications started running through Adam’s mind, complicating or explaining his father’s last few months, the shocking suddenness of his death.
Who might have known? he wondered, and thought again of Carla Pacelli.
Nine
Dr. Philip Gertz, the Blaines’ family doctor, had gray hair, a thin face, and a judicious manner underscored by thoughtful blue eyes. In ten years, he had changed surprisingly little. But his office in the new Martha’s Vineyard Hospital was a considerable upgrade. Waving Adam inside, he said, “I saw you at Ben’s funeral. But I didn’t have a chance to give you my condolences.”
The remark came wrapped in a dubious tone. Evenly, Adam said, “That’s all right, Doctor. When someone dies, you have the funeral, and once it’s over the man is still dead. All that’s left is how he treated the living.”
Gertz regarded Adam closely. “And you’ve been all right?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” The doctor paused, glancing at his watch. “You said you wanted to ask me something.”
“About my father. We just learned that when he died, he had a very serious brain tumor.”
Gertz sat back, his face slack, then slowly shook his head. “Sweet Jesus Christ.”
“You didn’t know?”
The doctor shook his head. At length, he said, “Late last year he came to me complaining of headaches that disturbed his concentration. I referred him to a neurosurgeon in Boston.”
“And?”
“Ben called me later to say he was fine, and that the headaches were gone.”
“Did he ever see the neurosurgeon?”
Gertz’s brow furrowed. “If he had, I’d have expected a report-a reputable specialist, which this man is, would have performed tests. So maybe not.”
For a moment, Adam tried to enter his father’s mind. “Still, I’d like this doctor’s name.”
Gertz wrote it on a sheet of paper. Shaking hands, he said, “Tell me what you learn. When it comes to Ben, I guess nothing would surprise me.”
A redbrick Georgian structure, the Dukes County Courthouse was located next to the site of his father’s funeral. Since Adam had last been on the island, the county sheriff had installed a magnetometer at the entrance and a conveyor belt on which Adam placed his keys and wallet. Passing through security, he noticed cameras pointed at him from the ceiling, attached to the wires of a new alarm system. The shadow of 9/11 had reached the island.
George Hanley’s office was on the second floor, a cubbyhole jammed with file cabinets and a wooden desk covered with papers. The room was further dwarfed by the local DA himself, a burly man at least six feet four, with thick white hair, a mustache to match, and shrewd green eyes. As Hanley stood to shake hands, he gave Adam a warm Irishman’s smile that did not obscure his keen look of appraisal. On top of his desk, Adam noticed, was an accordion folder marked BENJAMIN BLAINE.
“Mind if we talk outside?” Hanley asked. “The older I get, the more I resent sitting here on a day like this. How many more of these do I get? I’ve started to wonder.”
The remark, though casual, carried a pensive undertone. Adam’s father and Hanley had been friends, at least of a kind, and he supposed that, for Hanley as for others, Ben’s death had left a psychic hole. “Sure,” Adam said. “I’d rather feel the sun on my face and watch the passing parade. I’ve been away for a while.”
“Which was duly noted,” Hanley said good-humoredly. “This island is a small place, you’ll remember.”
With that, Hanley led Adam down the stairs. As they left, Adam noticed a sheriff’s deputy in a room near the entrance, watching a TV monitor that showed a sequence of doors and hallways in the courthouse. As with the camera and alarm system, he filed this away.
The two men found a wooden bench between the courthouse and the Old Whaling Church. Hanley raised his face to the light, breathing in the clean fresh air. Then he cast a jaundiced eye on the tourists who jammed the redbrick sidewalks along Main Street, bobbing in and out of clothing stores, a bookshop, an ice cream dispensary. In his rumbling voice, he said, “God, I hate to see them. Then I hate to see them go. They bring the money that keeps this island afloat.”
Adam nodded. “So,” Hanley ventured, “I guess you’ve got some questions about Ben’s death.”
“A few.”
Hanley turned to him. In the same mild tone, he said, “Frankly, Adam, I didn’t know your father was of any particular concern to you.”
“He wasn’t,” Adam answered in a clipped voice. “But the rest of my family is, starting with my mother. This has left her badly shaken. It isn’t often that one loses a husband and an inheritance in the space of a few days. Nor did it help that the state police treated her like a suspect in his death.”
Hanley shrugged, his expression neutral. “The state police aren’t from here. Someone on the island dies under funny circumstances, they take a boat over from Barnstable-the crime lab to inspect the scene, the medical examiner to take the corpse to Boston, and someone like Sergeant Mallory to work with me and the town police. Mallory doesn’t know your mother, brother, or uncle. What he does know is that this is a high-profile death with several possible explanations. Which can be summarized as ‘jumped, fell, or pushed.’”
Though Adam knew this, the blunt coda carried a disturbing message-this was a homicide investigation, and Hanley and the police had reason to pursue it. “Do you have a favorite?” he asked.
Hanley’s smile was less amused than deflective. “If I did, I couldn’t tell you. And if I can’t, Sean Mallory certainly won’t. Don’t even bother with him.”
“But it’s fair to say you’ve reached no conclusions?”
“That’s fair to say,” Hanley replied in a tone that conveyed vast reserves of patience. “If we had, we’d have closed the case or indicted someone. At some point one or the other will happen.”
“Based on what?”
Hanley drew a breath. “I’m only talking to you as a courtesy, and only to the extent I can. What I will tell you is that you can expect to hear from Sergeant Mallory. For understandable reasons, he’s taken an interest in your family. But then it’s an interesting family, isn’t it?”
For a moment, Adam watched some prototypical tourists-dad, mom, squabbling sister and brother-passing in newly acquired Martha’s Vineyard T-shirts. “All families are interesting,” he said. “It’s just that some are less public. The medical examiner’s report must be of some help.”
The corner of Hanley’s mouth twitched. “Not to you.”
“Not even for my mother’s sake?”
“I admire your mother,” Hanley said firmly. “But we can’t give it up while the investigation is on.”
So the report was completed, Adam divined, and in Hanley’s possession. “Then it’s fair to say that the report doesn’t preclude a homicide.”
Hanley leaned forward, elbows on knees, weighing his answer. At length, he said, “In itself, a fall off that cliff doesn’t tell you much. You get a severe trauma to the head, bleeding around the brain, a fractured skull, and scrapes on the face and body. None of that says why Ben fell.”
“Did he land close to the cliff, or out a ways?”
Hanley laughed briefly. “Kudos for the question. But I’m not telling you anything your uncle Jack couldn’t. Ben landed close to the cliffside.”