Gail Bowen - The Glass Coffin

“It is,” I said. “And she’s going to need all the help we can give her. Time for you do your homework. Alex tells me that the night Gabe died, Felix and Claudia spent an hour together in Felix’s hotel room. Is it possible you were wrong about them – that there really is something going on there?”

“I guess anything’s possible,” Jill said. “They’ve known each other forever. Felix came here from Germany when he was twenty-five, and he linked up with the MacLeish family right away. Claudia would have been in her early twenties then. Something could have sparked.” She frowned. “Logical, except I still don’t believe it. From what I’ve seen, Claudia and Felix’s relationship is more like one of those brother-sister rivalries where there’s always a subterranean war going on.”

“They know how to push each other’s buttons,” I said.

Jill looked thoughtful. “All four of them do – or did. Evan and Claudia might have been the only blood siblings in the group, but Tracy and Felix had the rivalry thing down pat too.”

“Whose love was the prize?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Jill said.

“It’s been a while since I took Psych 100, but isn’t sibling rivalry driven by the need for the parent’s love?”

“If that’s what they were after, they had a tough row to hoe with Carolyn. She doesn’t give her love easily. She and Evan were alike in that.”

“The night of your wedding rehearsal Evan told me his mother called him ‘the snowman’ because he was detached from humanity, unable to love.”

Jill winced. “Poor Evan. Poor all of them. Imagine what it would be like to want your mother’s love so much that even as an adult you couldn’t leave her house.”

“Do you think that’s what kept them all there?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Jill said. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Caroline has a crippling illness, yet by the simple device of withholding love she manages to keep everyone around her in her thrall.”

“Thrall is a dramatic word.”

“She’s a dramatic woman,” Jill shook herself. “What am I talking about? I’m making Caroline sound like a monster, and she’s not. She’s never been anything other than cordial to me. I’ll have to admit, she isn’t exactly warm. She didn’t haul out Evan’s baby pictures or ask me to call her Mum, but Evan and I were hardly starry-eyed youngsters.”

“What were you?” I asked.

Jill arched an eyebrow. “We were adults making a deal,” she said. “Not an answer to inspire a love song, but the truth. I was a good career move for Evan. His films are brilliant, but they’re indies – no matter how provocative and smart they were, the number of people who would see them would be numbered in the thousands. The deal Felix and I were putting together with the network would have given Evan access to an audience of millions. That was what he wanted. He didn’t need money. He didn’t need love. He needed people to see his movies.”

“And what did you need?” I asked.

Jill didn’t hesitate. “Bryn,” she said. “From the moment I met her, I knew I could make a difference in her life. At the beginning, I guess I saw our relationship pretty much in Movie of the Week terms: the lonely woman of a certain age rescues the damaged girl, and they both learn to trust and love.” Jill smiled ruefully. “I am now well aware that Bryn’s problems aren’t going to be solved in ninety minutes, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just all the more reason to stick around.”

“I’m glad you’re realistic about her,” I said.

Jill’s eyes were searching. “Is there something else I should know?”

I took a deep breath. “I found Evan’s binder.”

“Where was it?”

“In Bryn’s Birkin Bag.”

Jill tensed. “Why were you going through her things?”

“Angus’s old girlfriend gave Bryn a gift to pass along to Angus. He never got it. Bryn hid it in her bag and stuffed the bag under some camping equipment in the back of the closet.”

Jill was clearly shaken. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But for the moment, let’s just deal with the fact that I found the binder. I only had a chance to give it a quick glance, but almost all the notes refer to a project called The Glass Coffin.”

Jill looked genuinely baffled. “I’ve never heard of it, but Felix must have suggested the title. He grew up in a town called Marburg – same place that spawned the Brothers Grimm. They were as obsessed by the beautiful Saint Elisabeth in her glass coffin as Felix was.”

“And who is the beautiful Saint Elisabeth?” I asked.

Jill rolled her eyes. “The Church may have seared my soul, but at least it gave me a good education. St. Elisabeth of Thuringia was the princess who married her prince at fourteen, died at twenty-four, and spent her short happy life giving alms to the wretched.”

“Will there be a quiz on this?”

“Maybe on Judgement Day. Think how grateful you’ll be to me then.”

“I’m already grateful,” I said. “You and I may have had our problems, but at least we didn’t have to find our prince by the time we were fourteen.”

“True,” Jill said. “But we also missed out on the age of miracles. I doubt if either of us will ever have the bread we’re carrying to the poor transformed into roses.”

I felt a rush. “Now that’s interesting,” I said. “There was a note in Bryn’s bag. It said, ‘For Felix, who turned my bread into roses.’ ”

“Who was it from?”

“Someone who signed herself C.”

“Claudia?” Jill said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But there is another possibility.”

“Caroline,” Jill said. “The woman who’s spent the past forty years in her own glass coffin. Evan never mentioned that he’d been filming his mother. But if his shot book was filled with notes about The Glass Coffin, that has to be the piece he submitted to the network.”

“And he submitted it without telling you and Felix. More secrets.”

Jill frowned. “I wonder why Evan couldn’t let us see it?”

“Maybe because there’s something in it you and Felix wouldn’t like,” I said. “Only one way to find out for sure,” I said. I checked my watch. “Why don’t I give Dan a call? If he’s still up, we could have a private showing of The Glass Coffin.”

“Best offer I’ve had all day,” Jill said. “Let’s go.”

As it always did, Bryn’s entrance changed the energy in the room. Whatever plans Jill and I had for checking out The Glass Coffin receded into the background as Jill helped her stepdaughter off with her coat.

“You look a little pale for someone who just had a walk,” Jill said, touching Bryn’s cheek.

“I changed my mind about the walk,” Bryn said. She stepped in front of the hall mirror, removed her red cashmere beret, and smoothed her hair.

Jill tried a laugh. “At the risk of sounding like a mother hen, where were you?”

“Taking care of business,” Bryn said. She frowned at her reflection, leaned forwards, and removed a speck of mascara from the corner of her eye. “We don’t have to worry about Tracy any more,” she said. “She’s out of the picture.”

Jill hung up Bryn’s coat. “Care to explain?” she asked.

“There’s nothing to explain,” Bryn said. “Dan says I should start taking responsibility for my own life. Tracy was a problem, and I took care of her. I’m supposed to keep a journal too, and I found the perfect one in the gift shop at the hospital.” She opened her purse and removed a notebook splattered with Van Gogh sunflowers. Bryn grazed Jill’s cheek with her lips. “Okay if I get into bed and start writing?”