Social Crimes

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  Much as I tried to deny it, I couldn’t escape the clincher: She was living in my old apartment building. That was certainly no coincidence. I chuckled rather grimly when I thought back at how Monique had reminded me of myself. Little did I suspect then how much she was like me, including being my replacement. I remembered how Lucius had complained to me about Ruth and I wondered if he had complained the same way to Monique about me.

  The truth is, I had neglected Lucius a little, particularly in our last few years together when we became increasingly tangled up in social life. We were like two actors who got dressed up every night and went out on stage. But in private, the magic cord that bound us together had turned into a fraying rope. We lost the cozy sense of conspiracy we once had. In an odd way, social life became a way for us to avoid each other. We gave our allegiance to other people over and above ourselves. If I’d purposely ignored signs we were drifting apart, it was because I figured—quite mistakenly as it turned out—we’d always drift back together again. What is marriage, after all, but constant drifting back and forth? I saw nothing unusual in our pattern. Yet I knew it was skewed. Through all of it, however, I loved him. And I thought love would carry the day.

  The one bright side to Lucius’s heart attack was that his sudden incapacitation brought us very close very quickly, like my father’s stroke had done with my parents. Or so I thought.

  Looking at the white marble staircase that spilled out onto the foyer like a wedding train, I tried to understand just what had happened to my life. The persona I’d created for myself suddenly seemed as fragile as a candle flame. As I trudged up those wide white steps, I remembered how often I had glided down them to receive my guests at dinner parties. Shades of my glory days crowded in on me like a parade of mummers, silent and sinister. It had taken me twenty years to create two magnificent houses and a great collection of eighteenth-century art and furniture. Now, in a matter of months, I was being shown the door. I felt, suddenly, very lonely and slightly ridiculous, the butt of a terrible joke.

  I retreated to my bedroom. I was going to lie down but I was drawn instead to the secluded little stone balcony where I used to greet the sun unobserved on warm spring mornings. I opened the French doors. A blast of cold air hit me as I walked outside onto the narrow half-moon of stone. The light was fast fading to a wintry sunset. I looked down over the low balustrade, staring at the deserted back alleyway fifteen floors below. In a moment of pure self-pity, I thought how easy it would be to jump. One wrong move in that cramped little space and all my worries would be over.

  I moved precariously close to the edge, peering further over the railing. The cavernous drop, hemmed in by the brick walls of neighboring buildings, yawned in front of me, beckoning me to fall into its jaws. At that moment it seemed clear to me that my current fate was an expression of some kind of divine retribution. Ruth was getting even from the grave.

  Just then I heard a voice cry, “Jo!”

  I was startled. I almost lost my balance and had to grab hold of the transom to keep from falling. A dark shape, silhouetted against the bright light of the hallway, stepped into the bedroom and flicked up the light switch on the wall. It was Monique.

  “You . . .” I whispered.

  It had been almost six months since we’d clapped eyes on each other—not since that fateful day in Southampton. I had trained myself over the years never to display unseemly behavior, particularly not to those whom I loathed. I straightened up and stood my ground.

  “How are you, Jo?” she asked in a farcically melodramatic voice.

  “As well as can be expected, thank you.”

  Her face darkened. She looked as if she were about to burst into tears. “Jo, you must believe me when I tell you how terrible I feel about what has happened.”

  “How kind of you,” I said with a frosty smile.

  “Would you sit down and let me talk to you for a moment?” She walked across the room and closed the terrace doors.

  “Why?”

  “I want to explain.”

  “What? How you and Lucius set me up? Spare me, please.”

  Monique sat down on the bed.

  “Please, Jo, sit down.”

  I was tempted to simply walk out of the room, but a feeling of intense curiosity came over me. What was she up to? I wondered. I decided to oblige her. I sat down on the dressing table stool, which was a fair distance from the bed. We faced each other across the room, challengers on the playing field.

  “Jo, I want you to know that it was all his idea, not mine.”

  “Oh? Was it his idea for you to kill him, too?” I inquired, articulating my suspicions for the first time.

  Monique looked shocked. She crossed her hands over her breast as if I’d just delivered her a mortal wound.

  “My God, Jo! What are you saying?”

  “Spare me the theatrics. We both know what happened.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that I . . . ? Oh please, Jo, you don’t really think that I could have—?” She stopped short, and when I met her imploring gaze with a look of utter disdain, she burst into tears and sobbed into her hands.

  What a performance. It was no use pressing her. I knew she’d never admit it. But I wanted her to know that I knew.

  After a time, she looked up, sighed heavily, and said, “Lucius Slater deserved what he got.”

  “I won’t argue with you there. But surely you don’t think you deserved what you got, do you? Two hundred million dollars after a year’s work?”

  “Jo, I would give anything if we could be friends again. I worship you. Please don’t hate me.” She brushed the tears off her cheeks with her fingers. She looked like a little girl.

  I addressed her in an even, measured voice, as devoid of emotion as I could manage. “Monique, let me be perfectly clear about something. I don’t hate you. You simply don’t exist for me anymore. If we should accidentally run into each other somewhere, I’ll be civil. But that’s it. From now on, we live in different worlds.”

  “But I want to be in your world, Jo. You are my mentor. You said so yourself.”

  There was something absurdly naïve about her. After all her scheming and treachery, she just didn’t get it.

  “We can’t always have what we want in life.”

  “I know, but people in New York and Paris won’t speak to me because of you,” she said.

  “You have to take that up with them,” I replied.

  “I don’t expect Betty and June or your friend Ethan or Trish to talk to me yet. But I saw Roger Lowry at a party and he refused to shake my hand. He barely said hello.”

  A tinge of elation pierced my gloomy mood. It was gratifying to think New York was not rushing to embrace the woman who had usurped my life.

  “Roger’s an old friend.”

  “But you have so many friends, Jo. I mean, if Clara Wilman had suddenly dropped you, what would you have done?”

  I ignored this ridiculous question. “New York’s a very big city, Monique. With two hundred million dollars, I doubt you’ll have much trouble finding new friends of your own.”

  “But you know all the right people.”

  “Look, I’ve explained my position. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave now. This apartment is still mine until tomorrow.”

  “Jo . . .” She paused theatrically, looking at me with her big sad eyes. “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “A favor? And what might that be?” I was riveted to hear what she had in mind.

  “I would like very much to go on the board of the Municipal Museum. And I know you could help me if you wanted to.”

  This time I was unable to stifle a contemptuous guffaw. I looked at her in utter and complete astonishment.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “You don’t even have to propose me. Just don’t block me.”

  I shook my head from side to side in grim amusement. Collecting my thoughts before speaking, I drew myself up to my full height on the st
ool and addressed her in a calm, measured voice.

  “Monique, let me put this as delicately as I can: You have absolutely no connection with that institution whatsoever, so the only possible reason you could want to go on the board is in order to use it as a stepping stone to social power. And take heart, dear, you’re not alone, believe me. There are many others who’ve tried it. Some have even succeeded with enough money. But that’s another story . . . Your question to me is, will I block you from such an effort . . . ? Let me respond: If there’s a choice between blowing up the Slater Gallery and seeing you go on that board, I, personally, will supply the dynamite. I will refuse to so much as enter the museum if you ever have anything to do with it. And I intend to make that perfectly clear to anyone who asks—or who doesn’t ask. In short, I will do anything and everything in my power to see that you never, ever achieve that particular goal. Does that answer your question?”

  “If you knew what I have been through, you wouldn’t be so cruel, Jo,” she said, her eyes welling once more with tears.

  I finally lost my temper. Enough was enough.

  “What you’ve been through?” I shouted. “How about what I’ve been through?! Twenty years of being the best wife I knew how and this is my reward! Chucked over for some little upstart? How dare you? How dare you? How dare you?”

  Monique’s lip quivered as I yelled at her. I refused to let up.

  “I was his wife, for Christ’s sake! His wife! His loyal and loving wife! And you . . . you . . . You were nothing but his, his—”

  “I was going to have his child!” she cried, interrupting me with a grand air of vindication.

  The word “child” hit me like blunt force trauma.

  “What?”

  “Yes. I was pregnant.”

  “Not with Lucius Slater’s baby you weren’t.”

  “Oh yes. It was his baby.”

  “Really? He couldn’t make love. He was impotent.”

  “Not with me,” Monique said with infuriating smugness.

  “I don’t believe you. So where’s the baby?”

  “I was so upset at what happened that I had a miscarriage. That’s why I didn’t come to the funeral.”

  I burst out laughing. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Believe what you want. It’s the truth.”

  “Where exactly did you have this miscarriage?”

  “In New York. In my apartment.”

  “The apartment Lucius set you up in.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see a doctor?”

  “No. I just stayed alone and cried.”

  She was lying, of course. Still, this was a painful subject for me.

  “Lucius never wanted another child. Why do you think I never had one?”

  “He wanted one with me,” she said.

  I hated her more by the second.

  “And just when did you tell him you were pregnant?”

  “Two weeks before he . . .” She paused for effect.

  “And he fell for it?”

  “I know you don’t believe me, Jo, but it’s true. I swear it! He promised to take care of me. We loved each other so much . . . I’m sorry, Jo. I really had no idea what he was going to do. Oh, Jo, please forgive me,” she said, her dark eyes glittering with tears.

  Whether her story was true or not, there was nothing I could do about it now. I felt utterly defeated. “When did all this start?” I asked her.

  “Two years ago, in Paris. We met at a party at Michel’s gallery. Lucius came by the next day and asked me out for lunch. I went.”

  “So you were married when you started having an affair with my husband.”

  Monique bit her lip. “I was very unhappy, Jo, and I am not proud of what happened. Michel and I were having a bad time. Lucius was very sympathique. He begged me to confide in him. And as you know, it’s so much easier to tell your problems to a stranger. We fell in love. And after Michel died, he brought me to New York.”

  “He set you up in an apartment in New York?”

  “Like he did with you,” she said. I ignored the comparison. She went on. “He told me that you and he were not happy.”

  “He said we weren’t happy?” I repeated, thinking that was exactly what he’d told me about himself and Ruth when I first met him.

  “That’s what he said . . . Then, after he had his heart attack, he wanted to be with me even more. I went to visit him in the hospital—”

  “What? When? I was there almost every minute.”

  “I dressed up as a nurse. I waited until you left. And then I went in to sit with him. He said that he didn’t want to wait any longer. He told me he wanted to divorce you and marry me before it was too late.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said impatiently.

  “You don’t believe me, Jo, but it’s true. He was going to ask you for a divorce this summer, but it was so difficult for him. He didn’t want to hurt you. He thought that maybe he could persuade you to ask him.”

  “What? For a divorce?” I stared at her, uncomprehending. “Why on earth would I have done a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. He told me you might, that’s all.”

  All at once, Lucius’s refusal to honor my pledge to the Muni became clear. Perhaps, in some twisted, obsessed way, Lucius thought that if he denied me the things I was accustomed to I’d get fed up and leave him. It was a ridiculous notion but I knew from my own experience that he had a dark, secretive side and that when he became obsessed with a woman or even a deal, for that matter, he began to think in strange ways. Nothing could stop him.

  “Let me ask you something. How do the Watermans figure in all this?”

  “Lucius got me invited to a big party in New York. Gil and Michel were old friends, you know. I went up to Betty and she very kindly invited me out to Southampton.”

  “What would you have done without Betty’s convenient invitation—not to mention my own?”

  “That was just a stroke of luck. Actually, we had a different plan.”

  “Which was?”

  “Lucius said he had to have me near him in the summer. He had already booked a room for me in a motel near Southampton. He told me that he paid your old secretary to leave suddenly so I could come and take her place. He was going to tell you that I was from his office.”

  It was true that Nancy, my social secretary, had left abruptly. And, indeed, I’d wondered at the time where she’d gotten the money to go around the world. I didn’t want to let Monique see how upset I was, however. I continued questioning her in a cool, businesslike manner.

  “I see. So you planned to get into our house as my social secretary?”

  She nodded. “In a way, that’s what happened. Only you asked me there yourself.”

  I shook my head in amused despair, knowing I probably would have fallen for Lucius’s ruse. He very well could have brought Monique into our house that way. Indeed, he had managed to bring her into the house without my suspecting a thing. I loathed him more and more by the second, and myself for being so naïve.

  “I wanted to tell you the truth, Jo.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you did.”

  “No, really. I did. But Lucius promised me he would tell you himself before the end of the summer. He promised.”

  I got up and paced around the room, hardly able to think straight. Even though I believed Lucius Slater capable of anything at that point, there was still something about Monique’s story that didn’t ring true.

  “You knew how dangerous it was for Lucius to become overstimulated, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. He said the doctors were too cautious. He was thrilled when I told him we were going to have a child.”

  I felt physically ill. It was all I could do to maintain my composure.

  “In the pool house, I told you to call an ambulance. You just stood there.”

  “Jo, I was in shock. Lucius was gasping. You were so upset. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Forgive me. I kno
w I reacted badly . . . Later on, I was certain that you would blame me for his death in some way. I blamed myself, even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. Nothing was going on between us in the pool house that day, I promise. It was when you walked in on us that he became so upset.”

  “I see. So it’s my fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault, Jo. It just happened. I loved him. I adored him. I was so distressed about everything that I had a miscarriage . . . Yes . . . I know that’s what caused it. It’s horrible. The worst thing you can imagine. I was so frightened and so sad. I felt so alone. I was desperate to have his child just so I could have a part of him with me always.”

  I stared at her without flinching. It must have been clear I didn’t believe a word she’d said.

  “You do have a part of him with you always,” I said. “Two hundred million dollars.”

  She flinched. “Jo, I swear to you on my life that I didn’t know anything about the will. I swear it!”

  Then she did an astonishing thing. She got up, ran across the room, and knelt at my feet.

  “Forgive me, Jo. Your friendship means everything to me.”

  The scene was awkward and embarrassing, like having some sort of demented captive begging for mercy in front of me. I got up and moved away as quickly as I could. Monique stared up at me from the floor with cow eyes. She failed to make a good impression.

  “Well, this has certainly been an education,” I said matter-of-factly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I still have some time left in my apartment and I’d like to spend it alone.”

  “Can’t we please be friends again, Jo?” she said, rising from the floor.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not . . . ? Monique, I’m not sure I believe you and I certainly don’t trust you. You can’t be friends with someone you don’t trust. As I told you at the beginning of this conversation, I intend to lead my life as if you don’t exist. You and I will simply go our separate ways in this city. And that’s the end of it.”

  “All your friends will follow you.”

  “Why are you so interested in my friends?”