The Society of S

He said, “She wasn’t a synesthete.”



I listened to his story about my mother’s ghost visitor without questioning it. My skepticism had been permanently suspended the night Kathleen stood outside my window.



One weekend when my mother and father returned to her flat after dining out, they both noticed an odd smell in the living room, a smell of mold and mildew. They opened the windows, but the odor persisted. Later, as they were about to go to bed, they saw a wisp of green smoke swirl into the bedroom. It spun around, vortex-like, and seemed to coalesce — but its shape remained indistinct.



The room had grown cold, and my father held my mother as they watched the thing. Finally my mother said, “Hello, James.”



Thus acknowledged, the smoke dissipated. A few seconds later, the room was warm again.



“How did you know his name?” my father asked.



“He’s been here more than once,” my mother said. “I didn’t mention it, because I knew you didn’t believe me when I told you about his first visit.”



My mother was convinced that the thing was the ghost of someone named James Wilde, and next day she led my father to his grave across the street. It was a windy day, and the Spanish moss draping the live oak trees in the cemetery seemed to dance around them.



While my father looked at the gravestone, my mother recited it from memory:



This humble stone



records the filial piety



fraternal affection and manly virtues



of



JAMES WILDE, Esquire,



late District Paymaster in the army of the U.S.



He fell in a Duel on the 16th of January, 1815,



by the hand of a man



who, a short time ago, would have been



friendless but for him;



and expired instantly in his 22d year:



dying, as he had lived



with unshaken courage & unblemished reputation.



By his untimely death the prop of a Mother’s



age is broken:



The hope and consolation of Sisters is destroyed,



the pride of Brothers humbled in the dust



and a whole Family, happy until then,



overwhelmed with affliction



Later, my father learned that Wilde’s brother had commemorated his death in a poem, and he quoted lines from it to me:



My life is like the summer rose,



That opens to the morning sky;



And ere the shades of evening close,



Is scattered on the ground — to die



At the time my father hadn’t been convinced that the ghost was Wilde’s, but my mother felt certain.



“So,” he told me, “I was introduced into a new realm, where facts and science couldn’t account for everything. As Edgar Poe knew too well. ‘I believe that demons take advantage of the night to mislead the unwary — although, you know, I don’t believe in them.’ Do you remember that line of his?”



I didn’t remember it.



Only much later I realized why my father told me the ghost story, and quoted all of the lines: he wanted both to distract me from, and to help me come to terms with, the loss of my best friend.



Chapter Seven



But I couldn’t come to terms with her death until I knew who had killed her. The McGarritts indeed were “a whole Family, happy until then, overwhelmed with affliction,” and they deserved to know — we all deserved to know — what had really happened.



On a bitterly cold day in January, I felt surprised but oddly relieved when my father told me an FBI agent would be calling on us that afternoon.



The agent’s name was Cecil Burton, and he was the first African-American person we’d ever had in our house. Isn’t that hard to believe? Remember, we led sheltered lives in Saratoga Springs.



My father led Burton into the living room, and the first thing I noticed about him was his smell: a rich blend of tobacco and men’s cologne. Burton smelled good, and he looked at me as if he knew I thought so. His suit was beautifully tailored, and it managed to emphasize his muscles without being tight. His eyes had a weary expression, although he couldn’t have been more than thirty-five.



Agent Burton stayed with us only an hour, but during that time he got more information from me about Kathleen than I’d known I had. He asked about our friendship, initially in the most casual way: “How did you two meet?” “How often did you get together?” Then his questions grew more focused: “Did you know she was jealous of you?” and “How long have you been involved with Michael?”



I answered every question honestly, although I didn’t think we were getting anywhere at first. Then I tried to imagine what he was actually thinking as he talked, and I found I was able to read some of his thoughts.



You’re looking into the eyes of another, and it’s as if their thoughts are telegraphed to your mind: you know exactly what they’re thinking at that moment. Sometimes, you don’t even need to look; concentrating on the words alone is enough to bring you the thoughts.



Burton, I realized, was suspicious that my father and I were involved somehow in Kathleen’s death. Not that he had any particular evidence — he simply didn’t like the “setup” (a word I’d never used or even thought before). He’d done a background check on us; I could tell that because he kept making mental references to it, especially when he looked at my father. (Cambridge, huh? Left there all of a sudden. That was sixteen years ago. How old is this guy? He doesn’t look more than thirty. Dude must be doing Botox. Built like a marathon runner. But where’s the tan?)



Burton asked my father, “And where is Mrs. Montero?”



“We’re separated,” my father said. “I haven’t seen her in years.” Burton thought, Check separation agreement?



All of this I knew he was thinking, but at other times, I couldn’t gain access. The interference was caused by a kind of mental static, I thought.



Then I looked across at my father, whose eyes were eloquent. He knew what I was doing, and he wanted me to stop.



“What did you and Michael talk about when he drove you home that night?” Burton’s question cut through my thoughts.



“Oh, I don’t remember,” I said. It was the first lie I’d told him, and he seemed to know that.



“Michael said things got” — his brown eyes seemed to relax at that moment — “a little hot and heavy.” In a second his eyes were alert again.



My father said, “Is this necessary?” His voice, emotionless, somehow communicated distaste.



“Yes, Mr. Montero,” Burton said. “I do believe it’s necessary to establish what Ariella was doing that night.”



I wanted to hear what he was thinking, but I refrained. Instead I tilted my head and looked hard at Burton without reading his eyes. “We were kissing,” I said.



After he’d shown Burton out, my father returned to the living room. Before he’d had a chance to sit down, I asked him, “Do you remember Marmalade? The neighbor’s cat? Do you know who killed her?”



“No.”



He and I exchanged a look of mutual wariness. Then he left the room, headed toward the basement.



Had he lied to Burton? I wondered. If not, why hadn’t he been in the living room when I’d come in that night? He was such a creature of habit, I thought. If he was lying, then where had he been that night?



And beneath all of those questions, the real one: had my father been involved in Kathleen’s death? That was how I phrased it. I couldn’t bring myself to think: had he killed her?



Yes, Burton was with us only an hour, but he altered the atmosphere of our house. He introduced an element never present before: suspicion. As I went upstairs, the sound of my feet on the steps, the shapes of the Moroccan cushions on the landing, even the paintings on the wall — all seemed strange and secretive to me, almost sinister.



I turned on my laptop and did an Internet search for Kathleen. I didn’t find much new, except in the blogs, where someone said that one of the role-players had killed her, and several others responded. Their dialogue struck me as so stupid that I didn’t read it.



On impulse I searched for “Sara Stephenson.” More than 340,000 hits resulted. Adding the word “Savannah” to her name reduced the results to 25,000 hits. I scrolled through page after page of them, but none connected the name Sara and the name Stephenson — both names were mentioned in other contexts.



A search for “Raphael Montero” turned up references to a character in Zorro movies. And “Montero” turned out to be the name of a sport utility vehicle. The indignity of it!



I gave up. I didn’t want to think anymore. On my bureau lay the battered copy of On the Road that Michael had lent me, and I decided to spend the afternoon reading in bed.



An hour or so later, I set the book aside, dazzled by its style. Kerouac had an odd way with characters — none of his female characters struck me as authentic, and most of the men seemed wildly idealized — but his descriptions were beautifully detailed and sometimes almost lyrical. The book made me want to travel, to see the America that Kerouac saw. A vast world awaited me, I sensed, and no amount of reading or Internet research could teach me what experience would.



When I went downstairs again, my suspicions of my father had dissipated, and the house seemed familiar again. For the first time in weeks I felt hungry. In the kitchen I went through the cupboards and found a can of cream of asparagus soup. I looked for milk in the refrigerator, but the carton bought weeks ago by Mrs. McG had gone sour. I’d have to dilute the soup with water.



While it heated, I sat at the table, reading my mother’s recipe book and making a grocery list. This was a first. Mrs. McG had always taken care of the shopping.



When the soup was ready, I poured it into a bowl and, on impulse, stirred in a dollop of honey from the jar in the pantry.



My father came in while I was eating. He looked at my meal and then at me, and I knew what he was thinking: my mother had put honey in soup.



In the living room after dinner that night, my father resumed his story, without being asked.



The year that he turned twenty-seven, he was invited to conduct postdoctoral research at Cambridge University. His friend Malcolm also was invited, and the two of them arranged for Dennis to accompany them as a research assistant.



My father had mixed feelings about leaving my mother, but after some initial qualms, she urged him to go. “This will be the making of you,” she told him.