Stranger on the Shore - lanyon Josh - Страница 10
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“He didn’t know him at all. Johnson wasn’t from around these parts.”
Maybe Tuppalo hadn’t known Johnson. Maybe he had. Just because Johnson hadn’t been local didn’t mean there was no connection between them. “Where was he from?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Is Mr. Tuppalo still living?”
“No. He passed...” Newland thought it over. “Probably fifteen years now. Maybe more.”
That was too bad. Tuppalo might have made an interesting subject for an interview. “Do you know if Mr. Tuppalo has any family locally?”
Newland said reluctantly, “His daughter May still lives in Syosset.”
“Is she married? Would you happen to know her last name?”
“Chung. But you’re wasting your time. The police went over all this with Tuppalo. They asked the same questions. Tuppalo didn’t know Johnson. The idea of Mr. Tuppalo involved in any crime, let alone kidnapping, is crazy.”
“Oh sure,” Griff said easily. “But it’s my job to go over everything again. It can’t hurt to double-check all the facts, right?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Newland said.
* * *
When Griff reached the house Mrs. Truscott informed him that he was too late for breakfast.
“That’s okay, I already ate,” Griff told her.
This indifference to being snubbed seemed to annoy Mrs. Truscott, who followed her first salvo with the information that Mr. Arlington was too busy to talk to Griff and he was to head straight to the downstairs library where family papers and photo albums had been left out.
Griff was pretty sure Jarrett Arlington had not phrased it “too busy to talk to you,” but he was more than happy to find he would have access to these precious research materials without having to be considerate of anyone’s feelings. He was not exactly sure what the “family papers” consisted of. Jarrett had mentioned at one point that Gemma Arlington kept a diary. It was hard not to imagine something like the journals Anne Morrow Lindbergh had kept—what an incredible resource that would be. There were obvious and painful correlations between the infamous Lindbergh kidnapping and the Arlington family’s tragedy. But there was no guarantee that Gemma Arlington’s diary would be more than a record of her daily appointments or what she consumed on her diet, assuming rich ladies had the same complicated eating habits as the women Griff worked with at the Banner Chronicle.
Mrs. Truscott led the way to the library, clearly not trusting Griff on his own in the house. She did not speak to him, and her heels tapped hollowly down the corridor.
The library was a long, two-tiered room accented with marble and gold leaf. Thousands of books, probably more books than in the entire Janesville public library, were housed on carved walnut paneled bookcases that stretched ceiling-to-floor. A green-and-blue tapestry large enough to serve as a circus tent hung at one end of the room. The tapestry depicted a young man with a single golden apple and three complacent-looking females. On the other end of the room was a fireplace surrounded by a magnificent black-marble mantel. The mouth of the fireplace was taller than Griff. Two chairs and a spindly game table with a delicate ivory and ebony chess set were arranged before the hearth.
“My God,” Griff murmured, gazing up at the ornate marble mantel. It looked like a memorial monument.
Mrs. Truscott cast him another of those condemnatory looks.
Griff bit back the rest of his thought, which was that it was ludicrous that any one family should possess something like this when entire towns, cities, states couldn’t afford to keep their museums and art galleries open. Mrs. Truscott was clearly a willing proletariat slave to her capitalist masters. He asked instead, “Anything by Fitzgerald or Hemingway?” He was half joking, half not. Just to hold a first edition of The Great Gatsby would be amazing.
“The downstairs collection consists of books on literature, history, religion, art, philosophy and sailing.”
“Sailing?”
“Nautical and seafaring books.”
“Right.” Maybe ranking sailing right there with religion and philosophy did make sense for the Arlingtons.
“Some of these books are over a century old.” Mrs. Truscott sounded as proud as if the library was her own.
“I believe it.”
Griff walked toward a long mahogany library table where stacks of leather-bound photo albums had been laid out. The albums were all neatly labeled. He opened the one with a start date of 1975. The youthful, highly photogenic faces of the Arlington sons and daughters smiled up from boats and ponies and armfuls of purebred puppies.
“I didn’t expect anything so well-organized. This is impressive.” His entire collection of family photographs fit in a large manila envelope. In fact, for all he knew, Levi had taken the envelope along with nearly everything else when he left.
The Mrs. Truscotts of the world did not roll their eyes, but without so much as the twitch of a facial muscle she managed to convey her lack of surprise at his abysmal ignorance of all things Arlington.
“Is this something else you’re responsible for?” Griff asked. “It must be a real job keeping the press clippings in order.”
“Certainly not.” But then she softened. “Mrs. Arlington—Mr. Matthew’s wife—put these albums together. She collected all the loose photos back from when the house was first built and then she sorted and cataloged them.” The momentary softening was for the long-dead Mrs. Arlington, not Griff. The next moment Mrs. Truscott said tartly, “Mind how you handle those. They’re fragile.”
“I’ll be careful.” Griff spoke absently because he had noticed the bulging, pale lavender book on the far side of the table. His heart sped up. A plain lavender cover? It had to be some kind of ledger or a journal. Gemma’s diary?
“And you’re not to take any of these things out of this room,” Mrs. Truscott warned him, in a tone that would have done any museum curator proud.
“I won’t.”
Even distracted as he was, he knew she wanted to continue admonishing him but was out of material. He offered his most reassuring smile. Her heavy brows drew together, but she retreated at last, the brisk click of her heels fading down the length of the room and then falling into silence.
Griff snatched up the journal. The moleskin cover felt soft and strangely alive to the touch. He opened it. Please return to: Gemma Macy Arlington read the graceful, feminine script on the inside cover.
But Gemma had been dead for over a decade, and the secrets of the dead were fair game to scholars and journalists alike.
The journal began in 1992 and ended in 1994. Three years. With the crucial year being 1993. Griff sent a mental thank-you to Jarrett and turned the first page. January 1, 1992.
When I lived in New York the constant noise used to get on my nerves.Planes, trains, and automobiles.Barking dogs, yowling cats.The crazies and the bums swearing on the streets.The constipated plumbing in my apartment building, my neighbors’ TV blasting on at all hours.But the silence here in the winter is so complete sometimes I wish an air raid siren would go off.
Even the snow is quieter here.
Right on the dot, Gemma chatting away with the ease of the lifelong journaler. Griff flipped quickly through, and yes, there was an entry for every day. Some were pages long, some were no more than a couple of lines. Happily none of them had to do with daily caloric intake or appointments with hairdressers.
He couldn’t help it. He flipped ahead to Saturday, June 26 but was disappointed to see only a few notes about Gemma’s dress—pale blue chiffon with beaded bodice—and Chinese lanterns for the party. Chinese lanterns?
That was disappointing, but then the kidnapping had not happened until later that night. So of course there would be no mention. Griff turned the page.
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