Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  and the hardness of her gaze. "Come in. "

  "No, Vivian," Denning said.

  The woman ignored him. "It's all right. Come in."

  "Thank you," Pittman said.

  "But if it turns out that you are here to make trouble, I'll have George

  summon the police."

  The threat caused a further surge of adrenaline to roil Pittman's

  stomach. He fought not to show his concern.

  As the servant shut the door behind them, the woman directed Pittman and

  Jill toward Denning. They went through the doorway on the left. Pittman

  had expected antiques and a Colonial atmosphere-.

  On the contrary, the large room was furnished in a glinting

  glass-and-chrome modern style. Abstract expressionist paintings hung on

  the walls, splotches of colors communicating a welter of emotions.

  Pittman thought he recognized a Jackson Pollock.

  "May I offer you anything?" the woman asked.

  "No, thank you."

  "Jack Daniel's," Denning said.

  "Bradford, you reeked of alcohol when you arrived. You know how I feel

  about over-indulgence. You've had enough.

  Denning continued to wipe his flushed, glistening face. "Since none of

  the rest of us wants anything, why don't we sit down and discuss why the

  three of you came here?,' "Yes," Pittman said, "I'd like to hear

  Bradford's version of the conversation we had with him. If that's all

  right with you, . . ?"

  "Page. "

  The name meant nothing to Pittman. His lack of appreciation must have

  shown on his face.

  "Mrs. Page is one of Washington I s leading socialites," Denning said,

  his boastful tone suggesting that he thought he gained statute by

  knowing her.

  Obviously our guests still don't recognize the name," Mr,. Page said.

  "Or else they have the wisdom not to be ini,,!,-essed by society." Her

  lips formed a tight, bitter smile. "B-, t perhaps another name will be

  significant to them. its the only reason Bradford ever comes to see me,

  so I assume your visit has some connection with it. I'm Eustace

  daughter."

  The woman's announcement that she was a daughter of one of the grand

  counselors was so surprising that Pittman inhaled sharply. He sensed

  Jill become tense beside him.

  "I didn't know," Pittman said.

  "Obviously. But now that you know, do you intend to continue the

  conversation?"

  "That's up to you, Mrs. Page," Jill said. "Some of what we need to

  talk about may be indelicate."

  Pittman frowned toward Denning, wondering why the man had felt compelled

  to come here. Was Denning's claim to hate the grand counselors merely a

  ploy that allowed him to gain the confidence of their enemies? Was

  Denning a spy for the grand counselors and the first person he'd decided

  to report to was Eustace Gable's daughter?

  "When it comes to my father," . Page said, "every subject is

  indelicate."

  "I'm not sure I follow you," Pittman said.

  "I'll speak truely if you speak freely."

  Still confused, Pittman nodded.

  "I hate my father."

  Again, Pittman was caught off guard.

  "Loathe him," Mrs. Page continued. "If it was in my power to hurt him

  ... truly and seriously hurt him ... destroy him ... I wouldn't

  hesitate for a second. He's repugnant. " The ferocity in her eyes was

  appalling. "Is that clear? Have I communicated my attitude?"

  "Perfectly."

  "I assume that what you and Bradford spoke about tonight is something

  that he believes I can use as a weapon against my father," Mrs. Page

  said. "That's why I invited you in. Am I correct? Do you have biases

  as a reporter? Do you regard my father as an adversary?"

  Pittman nodded again, not sure whether he was being set

  UP.

  "Good." Mrs. Page turned to Denning. "Bradford, I'm disappointed in

  you. If you felt that these people could help me, why did you tell me

  to tam them away? Did you want all the credit, is that it? After so

  many years, are you still behaving as if you're in the State

  Department?"

  Denning fidgeted and didn't answer.

  Despite Mrs. Page's earlier invitation to sit, they had all remained

  standing. Now Pittman eased down onto an unusual-looking chair that had

  severe angles and edges and was made from wood embedded in shiny metal.

  It reminded him of experimental furniture that he had seen in New York

  at the Museum of Modern Ail. Unexpectedly, he found that the chair was

  comfortable. The others sat also.

  "How did ... ?" Pittman felt awkward, not sure how to ask the

  question. "What made you ... ?"

  "Speak directly. My father taught me always to get to the point," Mrs.

  Page said bitterly. "Why do I hate my father? He killed my mother."

  Pittman was conscious of his heart beating.

  "Since you've started, tell them, Vivian," Denning said. "Tell them

  everything. " Mm. Page narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "It's

  not something that outsiders can regard with sympathy, perhaps. You see

  a house of this magnitude-my mother's was even more grand-and you ask

  yourself how can anyone possibly be unhappy living in such luxury.

  Someone working on the assembly line at an automobile factory in Detroit

  would be more than pleased to trade places . But every circumstance has

  its unique liability. My mother was beautiful. She came from a

  traditional southern family that still remembered and retained

  affectations of genteel society from before the Civil War. In that

  world, a woman wasn't meant to do anything. My mother was taught that

  she gained her value simply by existing. She was raised as if she were

  an orchid, to be admired. Then she met my father on one of the last

  ocean cruises to Europe before the outbreak of the Second World War. The

  surroundings were romantic. She foolishly fell in love with him. The

  match was approved. They were married. And to her surprise, she

  discovered that she was indeed expected to do something-to be perfect in

  every regard. TO give the most perfect dinner parties. To provide the

  most perfect conversation. To be perfectly dressed. To create the most

  perfect impression." Mrs. Page's voice quavered. She hesitated, then

  continued. "Again, that hypothetical factory worker I mentioned

  wouldn't have any sympathy for a society woman who claimed to be

  suffering while living in splendor. But what if that factory worker had

  a foreman who criticized every task he did, day after day, month after

  month, year after year? What if that foreman had a way of getting into

  the worker's heart, of making every insult feel like the cut of a knife?

  The worker's nerves would be affected. His dignity would be wounded.

  His spirit would be destroyed. Oh, you might say that the worker would

  have the option of resigning and finding another job. But what if that

  option wasn't available to him? What if he had to endure that foreman's

  abuse forever?"

  Mrs. Page swallowed dryly. "My father is the cruelest man I have ever

  encountered. His need to dominate was so excessive that he ' browbeat

  my mother at every opportunity. He ridiculed. He demeaned.
He

  degraded. I grew up in constant terror of him. Nothing I could do was

  good enough for him. And certainly nothing my mother could do was good

  enough. I used to cry myself to sleep out of pity for my mother.

  Divorce? For a career diplomat with immense ambitions? In those days?

  Unthinkable. My mother raised the subject only once, and my father's

  reaction so terrified her that she never mentioned it again."

  Mrs. Page thought for a long moment. Her perfectly poised shoulders

  weakened. "So my mother began to drink. Neither my father nor I

  realized that she had a problem with alcohol until her addiction was far

  advanced. At the start, she evidently did most of her drinking when my

  father was out of the house and I was at school. She drank vodka, so

  the alcohol would be less detectable on her breath. A vicious cycle

  developed. Her drinking impaired her ability to strive for the perfect

  standards that my father required. Dinner parties weren't organized to

  his satisfaction. My mother's behavior became indifferent. She no

  longer helped organize, let alone appeared at, required society charity

  events. At diplomatic receptions, she showed the boredom she'd been

  hiding. Naturally my father criticized her. The more he criticized,

  the more she drank, and that of course further affected her performance,

  causing him to be more furious with her, and in turn causing her to

  drink more.

  "Eventually my mother's slurred speech gave her away.

  In the days before the wives of public figures had the courage to admit

  their problems with alcohol and other substances, this had the capacity

  to be a major scandal. For a man of my father's strict standards and

  boundless ambitions, the situation was horrifying. Not because my

  mother had a problem, but because she had given him a problem. She

  couldn't be allowed to embarrass him and compromise his image. The

  first thing he did was search the house and find every bottle that she

  had hidden. The second thing he did was hire someone whose sole

  responsibility was to make sure that my mother didn't get near alcohol.

  The tactics worked, but they didn't achieve what my father intended. My

  mother didn't return to her former ways and strive to match his image of

  perfection. Instead, with no escape, feeling even more repressed, my

  mother bad a nervous breakdown.

  "This was equally horrifying to my father. If the diplomatic community

  discovered that his wife was emotionally and mentally unstable, he

  feared that he would be tainted. He worried that his colleagues would

  feel he was too distracted to perform his duties to the maximum. His

  career would be ruined. After my mother managed to break out of die

  house and caused what my father called a drunken scene at a nearby

  tavern, he decided to remove her from Washington.

  "In those days there wasn't any such thing as the Betty Ford Clinic, of

  course, or its equivalent-places where a problem could be dealt with

  openly and thoroughly. But there were clinics of a different sort,

  where problems that the wealthy had were treated with utmost discretion.

  My mother's alcoholism, the instability caused by her nervous breakdown,

  these were addressed through drug therapy-sedatives. It was felt that

  my mother needed a rest, you see. Fatigue had to be the cause of her

  problems. After all, no woman with my mother's advantages of wealth and

  prestige could possibly be unhappy- For three months, as a consequence

  of the sedatives, she was in a stupor, little better than a sleepwalker.

  She needed help to go to the boom. She didn't recognize me when I came

  to visit. When the clinic decided that the alcohol was fully out of her

  system, gradually the sedatives were taken away. She came home. She

  seemed to be more satisfied.

  "Then one day she disappeared. After a frantic search, the servants

  found my mother drunk, collapsed, mumbling next to the furnace in the

  basement. After that, my father's attitude became quite different. The

  excuse he'd given Washington society for my mother's three-month

  absence, her stay in the clinic, was that she had been visiting

  relatives in Europe. Now he concocted a different excuse. This was

  during July of 1953. He rented a summer estate on Cape Hatteras. He

  sent away all the servants. He bought my mother several cases of vodka.

  To this day, I vividly remember the sneering tone with which he told

  her, 'You want to avoid responsibilities? You want to have a drink now

  and then? Here. You're on vacation.' "He poured her a drink, poured

  her another, and another. When the supply of vodka diminished, he

  bought more. He made sure that her glass was always full. If she

  appeared to be losing her taste for it, he would berate and humiliate

  her until she again felt the urge to drink. Sometimes in the night, I

  would hear noises and sneak from my room, to discover that my mother was

  sprawled in the bathroom, where she had vomited. My father would be

  kneeling beside her, calling her disgusting names, pouring vodka down

  her throat. When my father realized that I was noticing too much, he

  arranged for me to visit his parents at their summer estate on Martha's

  Vineyard. I hated to be near him, but I was afraid for my mother, and I

  begged not to go."

  Mrs. Page had been staring toward a violently colored Abstract

  Expressionist painting across from her all the while she spoke in a

  monotone, her flat, bleak voice communicating no hint of the intense

  turmoil that her eyes indicated she was feeling. Now she paused, her

  normally rigid shoulders drooping as she turned her attention to Pittman

  and Jill. "I never saw my mother again. She was dead by the end of the

  summer. I was told that the medical examiner's explanation for the

  cause of death was alcohol poisoning. My father talked to me in detail

  about what had happened. He tried to make me interpret what I had seen

  in such a way that his behavior was understandable. 'Your mother had a

  greater problem than you can imagine,' he said. 'I encouraged her habit

  because I hoped that if she got sick enough, she would stop drinking. I

  made her drink after she'd vomited in the hopes that she would associate

  nausea with alcohol.' My father hired an expert on alcoholism who

  claimed to have advised my father to try this approach."

  The room became silent. Pittman spoke softly. "I'm very sorry."

  Mrs. Page didn't reply.

  "But there's something I don't understand," Pittman said.

  "And what is that?"

  -,If your father was afraid of scandal because of your mother's

  alcoholism, if he wanted to hide it initially, why did he suddenly

  change his attitude and cause her death, especially in that particular

  way? That certainly would have attracted attention and caused a

  scandal."

  "My father is an immensely devious man. He came to realize that if he

  made himse4f appear the victim, he would gain his colleagues' sympathy.

  He told them that the Problem had been going on for quite a while, that

  he had done everything possible for her, that his life had been a

  nightmare. He pretend
ed to be inconsolable, distraught from the effort

  of having tried to control her all summer. He'd done everything

  possible, he kept insisting. And the diplomatic community believed him.

  Then, in his greatest piece of hypocrisy, he created the impression that

  with great pain he was overcoming his grief to devote himself to his

  profession. Each day his colleagues admired him for his strength. His

  reputation grew. He became ambassador to Great Britain, and after that,

  ambassador to the Soviet Union, and eventually, of course, secretary of

  state. But I know him for what he is. He killed my mother, and I'll

  never forgive him."

  "Because we both hated him, Vivian and I joined forces," Denning said.

  "In an effort to help her, I managed to obtain a copy of the medical

  examiner's report. Vivian's father had lied to her. The cause of death

  was alcohol poisoning in tandem with the use of Seconal."

  "Seconal?" Jill straightened. "But that's a tranquilizer."

  Mrs. Page nodded. "The of sedative that my mother was given while she

  was away for three months in the clinic. "

  "Wait a minute," Pittman said. "Are you suggesting that your mother

  wasn't dying fast enough to suit your father, so he helped her along by

  adding sleeping pills to the vodka?"

  "That is correct." Mrs. Page tightened her lips.

  "Either way, it's murder," Jill said. "But the second way, using the

  sleeping pills might be easier to prove." Mrs. Page shook her head.

  "My father somehow discovered that I'd read the medical examiner's

  report. He anticipated my accusation and confessed that there was a

  secret he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell me. He said that