Hearts of Sand(55)

She picked up the receiver and said, very cautiously, “Yes?”

There was a low chuckle on the other end of the line, and Kyle said, “Ah. Worried I’m going to be somebody from the Stamford Advocate?”

“Oh, God,” Virginia said. “How did you know I was here?”

“I guessed. It’s Fourth of July weekend coming up and you’re running for the Senate. Even if you weren’t, you’d have to be here.”

“That’s true,” Virginia said. “Do you remember if people made a big fuss out of the Fourth of July when we were growing up? I was thinking about it in the shower this morning. I can’t remember a single parade.”

“The parade didn’t go down Beach Drive,” Kyle said, “and we didn’t belong to the kind of organizations that participated in it. There were no Boy and Girl Scouts at Alwych Country Day.”

“I think I always thought of that stuff as being part of the Midwest,” Virginia said. “Little towns where nobody ever makes much of anything of their lives and all the men are trying to relive their youth as high school football stars. Did you play football in high school?”

“It was prep school, and I rowed crew.”

“I didn’t do anything. They made me play field hockey and I spent all my time wanting to kill somebody. I never actually made a team. There’s something nobody ever talks about. The way private schools make everyone run around doing sports as if they were going to make the Olympics.”

“It’s in the aid of physical fitness, and nobody talks about private schools. Have you or your people been in touch with Jason Battlesea?”

“No, of course not,” Virginia said. “Why would I be?”

“Because there’s about to be something of an issue, and if you’re not aware of it, you should be.”

“If you’re talking about this thing with Tim’s clinic, I am aware of it. And I’m staying out of it.”

“I’m not talking about Tim’s clinic.”

“What is it, then?”

“The body of Chapin Waring.”

“What,” she asked, “do I have to do with the body of Chapin Waring?”

Kyle let out another of those enormous sighs. “Of course you don’t have anything to do with it,” he said, “but it’s going to be an issue, and things being what they are, you’re going to be asked about it. It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with you anymore. It had something to do with you once.”

“It had something to do with you, too.”

“I’m not running for anything,” Kyle said. “But yes, it had something to do with me once, too. Not the least of which being that it’s a damned miracle that I’m not dead. Maybe it’s a damned miracle that we’re all not dead.”

“I was in the backseat,” Virginia said. “I was in no danger of being dead.”

“Tim was in the backseat, too, and I broke my arm upfront,” Kyle said. “But no, that’s not the point. The point is that the police are ready to release Chapin Waring’s body to her family, and her family is refusing to take it.”

“Seriously?”

“Definitely seriously,” Kyle said. “I’m working on sources here, you understand. I don’t have a direct link into the Alwych Police Department. I never thought I’d need one. But from what I hear, the coroner’s office called Caroline Waring Holder and she said that she didn’t care if they left it out for carrion. Then they called the other two sisters, and they said that of course Caroline would be handling it. They don’t live in the area anymore.”

“What in the name of God is Caroline thinking of? She’s got to know that everybody on the planet is going to hear about this. And the publicity is going to be awful.”

“It is if it isn’t handled. I thought you might like to get your people working to handle it.”

“Handle it how?”

“The story doesn’t have to be how awful the Waring family is,” Kyle said. “It could be how awful Chapin was. It doesn’t have to be about how the family was cold and heartless and turned Chapin into a criminal. It could be about how Chapin was always such a sociopath that even her family couldn’t handle her. If it runs as how the family made Chapin a criminal, you know what’s going to happen. They’re going to start in on all our families, and we’re going to sound, all of us, as a group—”

“Yes,” Virginia said. “I know. Why won’t Caroline take the body?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Caroline thinks that Chapin ruined her entire life.”