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of
Macbeth
the year before. His interpretation had been set in a 1980s New York crack house. Privately Sweeney believed it not to have been a success. She recalled with a cringe the opening scene—three homeless addicts mumbling “Double, double, toil and trouble” around a grate fire. But Brad had done sets and Toby had gotten to know him a little.
    “You know Jaybee Mitchell and Becca Dearborne, right?”
    Sweeney nodded. They were both in her seminar, Jaybee—a long-go approximation of J.B.—a smart but somewhat lazy kid who, she suspected, had chosen Sweeney’s classes because his friends had, and Becca, a more motivated scholar, who had often worked with Brad on group projects. She had even wondered once if Brad and Becca were dating, but their casual way with each other had offered her no clues.
    “Well, Jaybee lives . . . lived with Brad. They’ve been friends since they were kids and went to prep school together and I think Becca’s family knew Brad’s from Newport. Apparently he and Becca foundhim when they came home this morning. They slept at Becca’s and came back to the apartment because the shower at Becca’s dorm wasn’t working. Anyway, they came in and found him. The police told them not to say anything about how he looked when he was found, but Becca called a bunch of people before the police got there and it seems like everyone knows at this point. When they came in, he was wearing only his underwear and his arms were tied to the bed with neckties. He had a bag over his head and he was wearing the jewelry. Well, you know that part of it.”
    Sweeney felt guilty all of a sudden for telling Toby about her conversation with Quinn. Quinn had asked her not to say anything, but she had been so shaken when she left the station that she’d called Toby and blurted out the whole thing.
    “Yeah, you know what? Don’t tell anyone about the jewelry. I was supposed to . . . ” She closed her eyes for a moment, her head pounding. “Toby, what do you think happened to him?”
    “I don’t know. It seems like it must have been someone he knew, to let them tie him up like that. Maybe he met somebody and brought them home and they killed him.”
    “Was he gay? I don’t think he was gay. That’s silly, I guess, but it’s just hard to imagine a woman tying him up like that. He was pretty tall.”
    “I don’t know.” Toby was preoccupied with the dumplings.
    “And putting a bag over his head? Why wouldn’t they use a knife or a gun or something. It seems weird.”
    “Apparently, Jaybee and Becca had come home earlier that night and found him really drunk. Maybe someone came along, found him passed out, and tied him up and put the bag over his head so they could rob the apartment.”
    “But that doesn’t explain the jewelry,” Sweeney said, sitting up on the couch. “I think the police believe he was killed by some kind of ritual killer who uses the jewelry as a calling card or whatever you call it. They were trying to find out from me whether the jewelry had significance.When I told them that he’d been working on a project on mourning jewelry for my class, they almost seemed disappointed.”
    “Had you seen it before?”
    “No. And I can’t figure out where he would have gotten it. I told the class to go out to museums and antique stores and see if they could find examples of mourning jewelry. I didn’t mean for them to go out and buy it.” Sweeney took a bowl of rice and chicken from him.
    “God, that poor family. You knew his younger brother died a few years ago, right?”
    “What? I didn’t know that.”
    “You knew who he was, though?”
    “Yeah, I mean when I heard the last name I wondered and then I think one of the other kids in the class asked me if I knew that he was a Putnam, of
the
Putnams.”
    There were a handful of families who were synonymous with the history of Brahmin Boston and the Putnams were one of them. An early ancestor had come over from England to make his