“I live in a lean-to out behind the theater. It’s handy, ya see?”

“Like William Powell in My Man Godfrey.”

“Or the squatters in Tsotsi. But I do it by choice.”

She wasn’t going to budge, so I would have to learn elsewhere where Greene lived and then check the place out – not that the police wouldn’t have been there first.

I said, “ Myra, what do you know about Barry’s personal history? Where’s he from, anyway? I haven’t been able to pick up much background on him.”

“Oh,” she said, “Barry never talked much about his life before he came to the Berkshires. Barry is not someone to be a slave to the past. He’s a kid who’s always looking ahead.”

“But you’re his friend. Aren’t you curious?”

“Oh, sure, curious! But I’m a respecter of anybody’s privacy. And Barry never wanted to talk about certain things.”

She was being so evasive that I could only conclude that Greene was in on the big secret, too. She knew it. Moore knew it. Probably Bud Radziwill, since he may have shared the secret. And they all claimed – or likely would claim – that Fields’ secret had nothing to do with Jim Sturdivant’s murder. I was getting nowhere.

I said, “What do you know about Bud Radziwill?”

“Why do you ask? He’s Barry’s chum.”

“He has an unknown past. Maybe he’s an escaped criminal. That kid with a Texas twang can’t possibly be named Radziwill. What does anybody really know about this guy?”

With a straight face, Greene said, “Bud is a Kennedy cousin. He spends holidays at the compound at Hyannis Port. ”

“Which holidays? Battle of the Alamo Day? Laura Bush’s birthday? Come on.”

She looked at me out of those dark eyes and tried to make a little shrug, but her neck misbehaved again and she grimaced.

“And Bill Moore,” I said. “What do you know about Bill? Your friend Barry’s going to marry the guy, after all.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Greene said. “Who’d’ve thought I’d live to see the day when gays could marry in the United States. I can remember when most people didn’t even know what gay was. I had a cousin, Gabe Yellin, who lived for sixty years with a man named Amos, a plumber from New Rochelle, and people called them confirmed bachelors.”

“Yes, but what about Moore? Is he a good match for Barry? Barry’s so much younger, for one thing.”

Greene grew somber. “It’s not the age difference. I was twenty-six years younger than Dr. Greene, and I had no complaints and neither did he.”

“Uh huh.”

She said, “Isn’t Bill your employer in this? You said he hired you to get Barry off the hook.”

“True. I’m just trying to get a picture of Barry’s life. It will be easier to convince others that he could not have killed Jim Sturdivant once I have convinced myself of this and fully understand the reasons for which I have come to believe absolutely in Barry’s innocence. Myra, Bill Moore is Barry’s fiancé, and you seem to have some reservations about him.”

Her face crinkled up, and she looked her age more than ever. She said, “I don’t know about Bill. I suppose he’s fine if Barry says he is. But… I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated, and said, “Maybe Bill killed somebody once. More than one person.”

What was this? “What makes you think so?”

She looked over my shoulder, puzzling it out. “Bill always seemed depressive to me.”

“Depressive?”

“He gets this haunted look. Especially after he’s had a few beers.

I waited.

“He was drinking over at Twenty Railroad with Hal Stackmeyer one night, and he told Hal he had killed people and it was eating him alive. That’s how he phrased it, Hal told me, ‘eating him alive.’ Hal was so shocked, he didn’t ask any questions. And Bill didn’t say any more. Just that he knew what it was like to take human lives and he didn’t like the feeling. So I think Bill is not a happy person and maybe he can’t ever be a truly happy person. And I sometimes wonder if Barry isn’t making a mistake by hooking up with this depressed man. And Bill is even more depressed when he drinks. Which maybe he does too often. That’s never a good sign.”

I said, “ Moore didn’t give any indication of the circumstances of these murders?”

“Hal said no.”

“Not whether or not it was work-related – military or law enforcement?”

“No.”

“ Myra, have you ever heard that Bill worked in law enforcement before he came to the Berkshires?”

“He’s a computer guy. I thought that’s what he did for the government.” Then she thought about it and said, “Maybe CIA or something, and had to assassinate people. In Afghanistan or somewhere.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Though the timing isn’t quite right for that. Unless it was pre-nine-eleven.”

“Or maybe he killed people… like a criminal and he’s wanted. Or he served time in prison and now he’s out.”

“Possibly.”

“Or maybe he was drunk and he just made the whole thing up.”

“Any of the above,” I said.

Chapter Ten

The police found Barry Fields not in Myra Greene’s house – which, being competent, they had had under surveillance since the night before – but in a summer house on nearby Lake Buel that was owned by a friend of Greene’s and for which she had a key. A neighbor had spotted Fields moving his car into the garage just after dawn – as a Triplex employee, he had a familiar face around town – and when word got out that Fields was wanted in a murder investigation, the neighbor did his duty and called the cops. Fields was taken to the Great Barrington police lockup, pending a bail hearing at his arraignment the next morning.

I learned all this from Bill Moore, who called my cell phone just as I was leaving the Triplex and heading for Bud Radziwill’s apartment, where I was to meet the famed Kennedy cousin.

“Barry was right here in town all along,” Moore said.

To which I replied, “How astonishing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t straight with me about much of anything, Bill. Neither is anybody else I talk to in this town. Is Great Barrington the liars’ capital of the Northeast, or what’s the damn deal, anyway?”

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Strachey.”

“Of course you don’t know which lie I’m referring to. There are so many of them. For one, you never worked for the FBI, Bill. I checked.”

I could hear him breathing. Then he said, “You’re good.”

“Uh huh.”

“But why is any of that relevant?”

“I don’t know that it is relevant, Bill. Nor do I know that it isn’t. How am I supposed to know the difference when everybody involved in this miasma is wearing a mask, and it seems as if just about everybody in town knows who is actually behind that mask except me. This leaves me at a distinct disadvantage. And it annoys the crap out of me, too.”

“I hear where you’re coming from, Strachey.”

“Yeah, and…?”

“We’ll have to talk.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow – say, lunch? But meanwhile, Barry’s being arraigned at nine in the morning in Southern Berkshire District Court. Can you be there?”

“I can. But let’s us get together sooner. I need clarity – clarity and honesty and the truth about all of you – if I am to be at all helpful to you and to Barry. Do you get what I’m saying? Can I make it any clearer?”

“I have to work tonight. I’m behind on an installation job I should have finished today, and I’ll be at the Lenox High School until late tonight. But I’ll see you at the arraignment, and then we’ll have lunch, and I’ll fill you in on a few things. These are things that won’t be helpful in clearing Barry. But if telling you these things relieves your mind, then it’ll be worth it. Deal?”

Now what game was he playing? “Sure.”

Moore said, “I just talked to Ramona Furst, Barry’s lawyer on the assault charge, and she’s agreed to represent him on the murder charge too. She’s sure she can get Barry out, though the bail could be high. Ramona’s good. You’ll need to talk to her. She knows about you and is pleased that you’re on the team.”