Back Bay (55 page)

“So you see,” she concluded, “there may be a basis in fact for the
old man’s story. But I must emphasize to you that it’s still a legend. Uncle Artemus, who was two years old when Horace Pratt’s daughter died, has told me that neither his father nor his grandfather really believed the story. But it remained in the family and has been passed down the generations.”

“Why are you telling me all this now? On Sunday, I was convinced that the Pratts had nothing to do with the Back Bay treasure. Now I know enough to start looking for it myself.”

“I want to convince you not to print it, Mr. Ferguson, and the truth is often the best deterrent. If you were to mention our family with reference to a buried treasure, or if you were to tell your readers that various descendants of Horace Taylor Pratt held clues to the location of the treasure, we would be overrun with crackpots of every species and variety.”

Ferguson hated to bury a good story, and from what she had just told him, this one was a winner. He frowned.

She touched his hand.

A man and an older woman engaged in whispered conversation behind a pillar in the Gardner Museum. To someone else, thought Ferguson, they probably looked like lovers. He wondered fleetingly what she would be like.

“I beg of you, Mr. Ferguson, for my peace of mind, put that story in your deepest drawer and forget about it.”

“This thing sounds like a real work of art. Shouldn’t the world have a chance to see it?”

“I have never had any desire to keep it hidden. In fact, during the Depression, I tried to find it. I was going to give the tea set to charity and be done with it. But I could find only four of the quotations. I think that if a member of the family can’t find the tea set, it will not be found. I buried my knowledge of this thing many years ago. For the safety of my family, I’m asking you to do the same.”

Jack Ferguson knew he was a good reporter. He also considered himself a reasonable man. “You did me a favor once. I guess I owe you one.”

“What did I ever do for you?”

“You gave a twelve-year-old boy the biggest piece of pastry he’d ever seen.”

She tried to recall the face or the name. She couldn’t.

“The Pratt Winter Ball, February 1933.”

She remembered. She smiled, then her expression darkened. “You’re not the little boy whose father was killed in jail, I hope.”

“No. That was my buddy.’

“Then you were the hungry one.”

“I still am.”

“You ate the Napoleon.”

“The cops arrived before I ever took a bite.”

“A most frightening night. Whatever happened to your friend?” She seemed genuinely concerned.

“He joined the army and became a war hero.” Ferguson didn’t tell her about the black market.

“That’s wonderful. Wonderful.” She looked at her watch. “I must be getting upstairs to the recital room. Can I count on you, Mr. Ferguson?”

“I’ve given you my word.”

She took his hand in hers. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, please let me know.”

“How about having dinner with me tonight?”

The offer surprised her. A strange man hadn’t asked her to dinner in many years. “Well, I really must be catching the train back to the North Shore. I…” She realized that she was stammering like a schoolgirl. “Oh, hell. Henry’s off in New York on business. I’d love to.”

“Can you meet me at the Parker House? Six o’clock?”

“On the dot.”

“See you then.” Ferguson put on his topcoat. “What are you hearing this afternoon?”

“I’m playing. Chopin.”

Katherine Pratt Carrington and Jack Ferguson did not have dinner together that night. When he returned to his office, Ferguson found a phone message waiting for him on his desk. Katherine Carrington said that she was sorry, but she had overlooked a previous engagement. She said she hoped they could dine together at another time.

Ferguson crumpled the note and threw it in the wastebasket. It was just as well, he thought. He’d look pretty foolish making a pass at a married woman twenty years older.

A few weeks later, Jack Ferguson and Bill Rulick went to a hockey game. The Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens. Halfway through the second period, after a few beers and three Boston goals, Rulick asked Ferguson if he had talked to the Pratts. Ferguson said that he had and that there was nothing to Cawley’s story. He was not a good liar.

William Rulick decided to visit the Pratts himself. On the following Sunday afternoon, he went to the Back Bay house, now the home of Artemus Pratt IV, his wife, his ailing father, and his son Philip. Rulick told John Holt, the butler, that he was a serviceman soliciting Christmas contributions for the children of soldiers killed in Korea. Holt told him to wait in the receiving room. Rulick said that he would prefer to sit in the downstairs study. Holt led him into the room where the Pratts had discussed Peter Rulick twenty years earlier.

Rulick didn’t stop to admire the oak paneling, the vaulted ceilings, or the fine leather bindings on the backs of the books. He went straight for the copy of
Paradise Lost
on the shelf behind the desk. He opened it and read the bookplate; the book belonged to Artemus Pratt III. At page one, a bookmark fell out. Rulick glanced at it.

“So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,/Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell/On the proud Crest of Satan, that no sight,/Nor motion of swift thought, less could his Shield/Such ruin intercept: ten paces huge/He back recoil’d, the tenth on bended knee/His massy Spear upstayed; as if on Earth/Winds under ground or waters forcing way/Sidelong, had push’t a Mountain from his seat/Half sunk with all his Pines.” Rulick’s eyes fell on “ten paces huge.”

Rulick stuffed the bookmark into his pocket and flipped through the book, but there were no other surprises. Rulick had been hoping to find underlined passages or marginal notes, but
every page was clean and the binding was stiff, as if the book had never been read.

Holt returned with a ten-dollar bill from Artemus Pratt IV and a half-dollar from his own pocket. Rulick put Holt’s coin in a Salvation Army box and had a steak dinner on the Pratts.

Bill Rulick was on leave for five days over Christmas. He spent most of his nights with his mother and brothers, who now lived in the suburb of Roslindale, and afternoons with the attractive young wife of an overaged colonel from Fort Devens.

Three nights before Christmas, he visited Searidge. He had not been invited. He had read in the paper that Katherine Pratt Carrington would be accompanying a choir in a program of Christmas music at Harvard. It would be a good night to tour the library without the interference of the family or the butler, who would probably be in his room watching Milton Berle.

Rulick parked a few blocks from Searidge and walked onto the Pratt grounds. It was a crisp, cold night. He was dressed in dark clothing and black cap. He was not nervous. He had led commando raids during the war. Except for a single light in the living room, Searidge was in darkness. Rulick watched the house for a full fifteen minutes before he decided that it was safe to approach.

He broke into the library through the French doors that opened onto the tennis court. He closed the doors behind him and began to search through the bookshelves for
Paradise Lost
. A light came on in the hallway. Rulick heard someone moving around upstairs. Rulick started for the door, then decided to gamble. He had come this far, and he’d broken in so quietly that no one could have heard him. He ducked behind a leather chair in the corner of the room.

Someone walked down the stairs, and the lights came on in the library.

Rulick’s muscles tensed. He had survived Africa, Italy, and Normandy. In a French barn, he had strangled a Nazi with a length of rope. If threatened, he would survive now.

Jeffrey Carrington, in robe and slippers, strolled into the library. He and his family were spending the holidays at Searidge. They had not gone to the concert because his wife was ill. Instead, they had retired early. But Carrington couldn’t sleep. He walked over to the bookcases, which ran the length of one wall.

Rulick was hiding on the opposite side of the room, his body coiled behind the chair.

Carrington was in the mood for adventure. He chose one of the Horatio Hornblower books from his father’s complete set and turned to leave. He glanced toward the corner. He wouldn’t have noticed anything, except that Rulick was wearing his army-issue shoes, spit-shined every day, and the toe of one of them was showing.

“What are you doing there?” he demanded in the instant before terror turned his stomach inside out.

Rulick followed his instincts. He flew at Jeffrey Carrington. One forearm caught Carrington in the throat, the other hand behind the head. Rulick brought his arms together quickly and efficiently. He heard the snap of Carrington’s neck. He dropped Carrington to the floor. Without finding what he had come for, Rulick left Searidge.

From his years in the military and the black market, Bill Rulick had learned never to make sloppy mistakes. He had been careful to cover his tracks, and the colonel’s wife would make an excellent alibi if he ever needed one. He didn’t. The police found no evidence and no apparent motive beyond robbery. Jeffrey Carrington’s killer would never be apprehended.

Jack Ferguson visited Katherine Carrington a few weeks after her son’s death. It was one of those unusual days in January when the temperature pushed past fifty and people begin to wonder if it won’t be such a bad winter after all. He parked on the crushed stone and walked around the house.

Katherine Pratt Carrington, wearing a lumberjack’s black-and-red-checkered shirt and a kerchief, stood near the edge of the cliff. She was raking leaves. In the middle of January, on the top of a windswept cliff, fallen leaves are scarce, but she had collected a small, crumbled pile.

The leaves, he thought, looked almost as forlorn as the raker. “Hello, Mrs. Carrington.”

“Oh. Hello, Mr. Ferguson.” Her voice was weak, her expression stiff and lifeless, as though a plaster mold had been made of her features. She stared at him and waited for him to speak.

He could think of nothing to say.

“I know, Mr. Ferguson,” she said after a long silence. “You’ve come to tell me how sorry you are that my son is dead, and if there’s anything I need, I shouldn’t hesitate to call you.” The weakness in her voice was replaced by something else. At first, it sounded like boredom. Katherine Carrington had heard the condolences before. Then, it evolved into bitterness that Ferguson felt was somehow directed at him.

A gust of wind whipped the pile of leaves apart. She watched them swirl about the yard, then she began to rake again.

Ferguson guessed that she had been working on the same pile of leaves all morning.

“Mrs. Carrington.” He stepped close to her and took her hand. “You can’t explain why a young man dies and his parents are left to mourn him. It’s unnatural, as unnatural as a warm day in January. But it happens, and when it does, you can’t stop living. I’ve only met you a few times, Mrs. Carrington, but I respect you and admire you. I know you’ll live through this.” Jack Ferguson rarely made speeches. He hoped he didn’t sound like a damn fool.

“Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. You’re very kind,” she said coldly. “But you must permit me the irrationality of grief. You invaded our world a month ago and unearthed something which I had long ago forgotten. You promised that you would not reveal it to anyone.”

“I didn’t,” he said evenly.

“And yet, my son is dead. I know that you didn’t kill him, and when I can think clearly, I believe that the burglar was looking for furs or jewels or some other meaningless extravagance. But the feeling persists, deep in the pit of my stomach, that my son died because of the legend in which you seemed so interested. I have no proof, no evidence, and I am accusing you of nothing, but I do not wish to see you again.” She began to rake once more.

“Mrs. Carrington.”

She did not respond. She had shut him off.

“I promised you that I would never reveal what you told me. I kept that promise. I’ll continue to keep it.” He returned to his car and drove back to Boston.

Bill Rulick had been discharged, and he was living in an apartment in the Back Bay.

Twenty years earlier, most of the buildings in the Back Bay were single-family homes. But the Depression, World War II, and the slow deterioration of city life had driven many of the finest families off to the North Shore permanently. By 1952, half the homes in the Back Bay had been sold to universities or to landlords who converted the townhouses and mansions into apartments. William Rulick lived on the second floor of a Marlborough Street French Academic.

Although he had been out of the army for two weeks, he was still seeing the colonel’s wife every afternoon. It was a discreet affair. She wanted only one thing from him; he had only one thing to give, and he sometimes gave it to her three or four times in an afternoon. Rulick was on top of her, with her fingernails dug deep into his shoulders, when the doorbell rang. Neither of them heard it, but Jack Ferguson could hear them.

He knew that Rulick made a lot of noise; they’d shared a few whores when they were younger. But the girl was a banshee. He waited until they were finished and rang again.

Rulick answered the door in his bathrobe.

“Hello, Bill.”

“Hi, Jack. How about comin’ back later? I’m busy.” He winked.

Ferguson stepped inside. “I just want to ask you something, Bill, then you can get back to work.”

Ferguson heard the bathroom door slam. He heard footsteps, then another slamming door.

“You scared her, Jack.” He smiled. “She’s real skittish.”

“I’ll be gone in a minute.” Ferguson paused and lowered his voice. “What do you know about Jeffrey Carrington’s death?”

Rulick blinked once. That was all. “Why are you asking me?”

“Call it my newsman’s intuition.”

“I call it shit,” snapped Rulick. “You think that because I knew a little about the story, I killed one of the Pratts to find out more. You sure don’t stand by your friends, do you?”

Ferguson realized he had lit the fuse. “I just asked you a question, Billy. I’m not sayin’ you had anything to do with it.”