“Background check, huh? Sounds pretty . . . covert.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Brotherton—”
“Deeb. Lyle Deeb. Brotherton's dead.” Chuckle. “Unloaded this dump on me in lieu of a poker debt, three months before he passed on. Got the last laugh.”
“I'm not at liberty to say more about the details of the position, Mr. Deeb.”
“No prob, Cal, love to help a fellow civil-servicer, 'ceptin' I cain't, 'cause we got no birth certificates in Port Wallace—not much of anything other than shrimp boats, black flies, and wetbacks, and the Immigration playing grab-ass all up and down the river. Records are up in San Antonio—you'd best check there.”
“What about hospitals?”
“Just one, Cal. This ain't Houston. Dinky place run by Baptist naturopaths—not sure if they're even legit. They service mostly the Mexicans.”
“Were they servicing back in '53?”
“Yep.”
“Then I'll try there first. Do you have the number?”
“Sure.” He gave it to me, said, “Your party in question's born down here, huh? That's a real small club. What's the name of this party?”
“The family name is Johnson; mother's first name, Eulalee. She might also have gone under Linda Lanier.”
He laughed. “Eula Johnson? Birth in 1953? Ain't that a hoot, you folks getting all covert and everything? Meanwhile it's public knowledge. Hell, California, you don't need no official records for that one—that one's famous.”
“Why's that?”
He laughed again and told me, then said, “Only question is, which party you talking about?”
“I don't know,” I said, and hung up. But I knew where to find out.
Chapter
32
The same vine-crusted fieldstone walls and mentholated air, the same long, shady stretch past the wooden slab sign. This time I was driving—L.A. legitimate. But the silence and the solitude and the knowledge of what I was about to do made me feel like a trespasser.
I pulled up in front of the gates and used the phone on the stand to call the house. No answer. I tried again. A male mid-Atlantic voice answered: “Blalock residence.”
“Mrs. Blalock, please.”
“Who shall I say is calling, sir?”
“Dr. Alex Delaware.”
Pause. “Is she expecting you, Dr. Delaware?”
“No, but she'll want to see me, Ramey.”
“I'm sorry, sir, she isn't—”
“Tell her it concerns the exploits of the Marchesa di Orano.”
Silence.
“Would you like me to spell that, Ramey?”
No answer.
“Are you still with me, Ramey?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course, I could talk to the press instead. They always love a human interest story. Especially one with heavy irony.”
“That won't be necessary, sir. One moment, sir.”
Moments later the gates slid open. I got back in the car and drove up the fish-scale drive.
The verdigris roofs of the mansion were gold at the peaks where the sunlight made contact. Emptied of tents, the grounds looked even more vast. The fountains threw off opalescent spray that thinned and dissipated while still arcing. The pools below were shimmering ellipses of liquid mercury.
I parked in front of the limestone steps and climbed to an immense landing guarded by statuary lions, recumbent but snarling. One of the double entry doors was open. Ramey stood holding it, all pink face, black serge, and white linen.
“This way, sir.” No emotion, no sign of recognition. I walked past him and in.
Larry had said the entry hall was big enough to skate in. It could have accommodated a hockey stadium: three stories of white marble, rich with moldings, flutings, and emblems, backed by a double-carved white marble staircase that would have put Tara to shame. A concert-hall-sized chandelier hung from the gold-leaf coffered ceiling. The floors were more white marble inlaid with diamonds of black granite and polished to glass. Gilt-framed portraits of dyspeptic-looking Colonial types hung between columns of precisely pleated ruby velvet drapes tied back with beefy gold cord.
Ramey veered right with the smoothness of a limousine on legs, and led me down a long, dim portrait gallery, then opened another set of double doors and showed me into a hot, bright sun-room—a Tiffany skylight forming the roof, one wall of beveled mirror, three of glass that looked out onto infinite lawns and impossibly gnarled trees. The flooring was malachite and granite in a pattern that would have given pause to Escher. Healthy-looking palms and bromeliads sat in Chinese porcelain pots. The furniture was sage and maroon wicker with dark-green cushions, and glass-topped tables.
Hope Blalock sat on a wicker divan. Within her reach was a bar on wheels holding an assortment of decanters and a crystal pitcher frosted opaque.
She didn't look nearly as robust as her plants, wore a black silk dress and black shoes, no makeup or jewelry. She'd drawn her hair back in a chestnut bun that gleamed like polished hardwood, and she stroked it absently as she sat at the very edge of the divan—barely lowering rump to fabric, as if daring gravity.
She ignored my arrival, continued staring out through one of the glass walls. Ankles crossed, one hand in her lap, the other gripping a cocktail glass half-filled with something clear in which an olive floated.
“Madam,” said the butler.
“Thank you, Ramey.” Her voice was throaty, tinged with brass. She waved the butler away, waved me toward a chair.
I sat opposite her. She met my gaze. Her complexion was the color of overcooked spaghetti, overlaid with a fine mesh of wrinkles. Her aqua-blue eyes could have been beautiful but for sparse lashes and deep, gray sockets that made them stand out like gems in dirty silver. Frown lines tugged at her mouth. A halo of post-menopausal down encircled her unpowdered face.
I gazed at her glass. “Martini?”
“Would you care for a splash, Doctor?”
“Thank you.”
The wrong answer. She frowned, touched one finger to the pitcher and dotted the frost. “These are vodka martinis,” she said.
“That will be fine.”
The drink was strong and very dry and made the roof of my mouth ache. She waited until I'd swallowed before taking a sip, but took a long one.
I said, “Nice sun-room. Have them in all your homes?”
“Just what kind of doctor are you?”
“Psychologist.”
I might have said witch doctor. “But of course. And just what is it you want?”
“I want you to confirm some theories I have about your family history.”
The skin around her lips turned white. “My family history? What concern is that of yours?”
“I just got back from Willow Glen.”
She put her glass down. Her unsteadiness made it rattle against the tabletop.
“Willow Glen,” she said. “I believe we used to own land there, but not any longer. I fail to see—”
“While I was there I ran into Shirlee and Jasper Ransom.”
Her eyes widened, squeezed shut, and reopened. She gave a hard, forced blink, as if she hoped she could make me disappear. “I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Then why did you agree to see me?”
“The lesser of two evils. You mention my daughter, make vulgar threats about going to the press. People of our station are constantly subjected to harassment. It behooves us to know what kind of baseless rumors are being circulated.”
“Baseless?” I said.
“And vulgar.”
I sat back, crossed my legs, and sipped. “It must have been hard for you,” I said. “Covering for her all these years. Palm Beach. Rome. Here.”
Her lips formed an O. She started to say something, shook her head, favored me with another hand wave, and gave a look that said I was something the maid had neglected to sweep up. “Psychologists. Keepers of secrets.” Brassy laugh. “How much do you want? Doctor.”
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“I'm not interested in your money.”
A louder laugh. “Oh, everyone's interested in my money. I'm like some bag of blood crusted with leeches. The only question is how much blood each of them gets.”
“Hard to think of Shirlee and Jasper as leeches,” I said. “Though I suppose, over time, you've been able to turn things around and see yourself as the victim.”
I got up, inspected one of the bromeliads. Gray-green striped leaves. Pink flowers. I touched a petal. Silk. I realized all the plants were.
“Actually,” I said, “the two of them have done quite well for themselves. Much better than you ever expected. How long did you figure they'd last, living out there in the dirt?”
She didn't reply.
I said, “Cash in an envelope for people who didn't know how to make change. A dirt lot, two shacks, and let's-hope-for-the-best? Very generous. As was the other gift you gave them. Though at the time, I imagine, you didn't view it as a gift. More of a throwaway. Like old clothes to your favorite charity.”
She shot to her feet, shook a fist that trembled so violently she had to restrain it with her other hand. “Who the hell are you! And what do you want!”
“I'm an old friend of Sharon Ransom's. Also known as Jewel Rae Johnson. Sharon Jean Blalock. Take your pick.”
She sank back down. “Oh, God.”
“A close friend,” I said. “Close enough to care about her, to want to understand how and why.”
She hung her head. “This can't be happening. Not again.”
“It isn't. I'm not Kruse. I'm not interested in exploiting your problems, Mrs. Blalock. All I want is the truth. From the beginning.”
A shake of the gleaming head. “No. I . . . It's impossible—wrong of you to do this.”
I got up, took hold of the pitcher and filled her glass.
“I'll start,” I said. “You fill in the blanks.”
“Please,” she said, looking up, suddenly no more than a pale old woman. “It's over. Done with. You obviously know enough to understand how I've suffered.”
“You haven't a patent on suffering. Even Kruse suffered—”
“Oh, spare me! Some people reap what they sow!”
A spasm of hatred passed across her face, then settled on it, changing it, damaging it, like some palsy of the spirit.
“What about Lourdes Escobar, Mrs. Blalock? What did she sow?”
“I'm not familiar with that name.”
“I wouldn't expect you to be. She was the Kruses' maid. Twenty-two years old. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up looking like dog food.”
“That's disgusting! I had nothing to do with anyone's death.”
“You set wheels in motion. Trying to solve your little problem. Now, it's finally solved. Thirty years too late.”
“Stop!” She was gasping, hands pressed to her chest.
I looked the other way, fingered a silk palm frond. She breathed theatrically for a while, saw it wasn't working, and settled down to a silent smolder.
“You have no right,” she said. “I'm not strong.”
“The truth,” I said.
“The truth! The truth—and then what?”
“And then nothing. Then I'm gone.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, of course, just like your . . . trainer. With your pockets empty. And fairy tales come true.”
I came closer, stared down at her. “No one trained me,” I said. “Not Kruse or anyone else. And let me tell you a fairy tale.
“Once upon a time there was a young woman, beautiful and rich—a veritable princess. And like a princess in a fairy tale she had everything except the thing she wanted the most.”
Another hard, forced blink. When her eyes opened, something behind them had died. She needed both hands to bring her glass to her lips, put it down empty. Another refill. Down the hatch.
I said, “The princess prayed and prayed, but nothing helped. Finally, one day, her prayers were answered. Just like magic. But things didn't turn out the way she thought they would. She couldn't handle her good fortune. Had to make arrangements.”
She said, “He told you everything, the monster . . . He promised me . . . Damn him to hell!”
I shook my head. “No one told me anything. The information was there for the looking. Your husband's obituary in 1953 listed no children. Neither do any of your Blue Book entries—until the following year. Then two new entries: Sharon Jean. Sherry Marie.”
Hands back on chest. “Oh my God.”
I said, “It must have frustrated a man like him, having no heirs.”
“Him! A man's man, but his seed was all water!” She took a long swallow of martini. “Not that it stopped him from blaming me.”
“Why didn't the two of you adopt?”
“Henry wouldn't hear of it! ‘A Blalock by blood, m'girl!' Nothing else would do!”
“His death created an opportunity,” I said. “Brother Billy saw that and seized the moment. When he showed up a few months after the funeral and told you what he had for you, you thought your prayers had been answered. The timing was perfect. Let everyone think old Henry had finally come through—in spades. Bequeathed you not one but two beautiful little baby girls.”
“They were beautiful,” she said. “So tiny, but already beautiful. My own little girls.”
“You renamed them.”
“Beautiful new names,” she said. “For a new life.”
“Where did your brother tell you he got them?”
“He didn't. Just that their mother had fallen on hard times and couldn't care for them anymore.”
Hard times. The hardest. “Weren't you curious?”
“Absolutely not. Billy said the less I knew—the less any of us knew—the better. That way, when they got older and started to ask questions, I'd be able to honestly say I didn't know. I'm sure you disapprove, Doctor. You psychologists preach the gospel of open communication—everyone bleeding all over everyone else. I don't see that society is any better for your vile meddling.”
She emptied her glass again. I was ready with the pitcher.
When she'd finished most of the refill, I said, “When did things start to go bad?”
“Bad?”
“Between the girls.”
She closed her eyes, put her head back against the cushion. “In the beginning, things were lovely—exactly like a dream come true. They were bookends, so perfect. Perfect blue eyes, black hair, pink cheeks—a pair of little bisque dolls. I had my seamstress fashion them dozens of matching outfits: teensy gowns and bonnets, chemises and booties—their feet were so tiny, the booties were no larger than a thimble. I took a shopping excursion to Europe, brought back the loveliest things for the nursery: an entire collection of real bisque dolls, hand-printed wall coverings, a pair of exquisite Louis Quatorze cradles. Their bedroom always smelled sweet, with fresh-cut flowers and sachets that I prepared myself.”
She lowered her arms, allowing the glass to tilt. A rivulet of liquid ran down the side and speckled the stone floor. She didn't move.
I broke into her reverie. “When did the troubles start, Mrs. Blalock?”
“Don't pick at me, young man.”
“How old were they when the conflict became apparent?”
“Early . . . I don't recall exactly.”
I stared, waited.
“Oh!” She shook a fist at me. “It was so long ago! How on earth can I be expected to remember? Seven, eight months old—I don't know! They'd just started crawling and getting into everything—how old are babies when they do that?”
“Seven, eight months sounds right. Tell me about it.”
“What's there to tell? They were identical but were so different, conflict was inevitable.”
“Different in what way?”
“Sherry was active, dominant, strong—in body and spirit. She knew what she wanted and went right for it, wouldn't take no for an answer.” She gave a smile. Satisfied. Strange.
“A wilted flower—ephemeral, distant. She sat and played with one thing over and over and over. Never demanded a thing. One never knew what was on her mind. The two of them established their roles and played them to the hilt—leader and follower, just like a little stage play. If there was a bit of candy or a toy that they both wanted, Sherry would just move right in, bowl Sharon over, and take it away. In the very beginning Sharon put up some resistance, but she never won, and soon she learned that, one way or the other, Sherry was going to triumph.”
That strange smile again. Applauding that triumph.
The smile I'd seen so many times on the faces of ineffectual parents saddled with extremely disturbed, aggressive youngsters.
He's so aggressive, such a tiger. Smile.
She beat up the little girl next door, really demolished her, the poor thing. Smile.
He's a real ass-kicker, my boy. Gonna get into serious trouble one day. Smile.
The do-as-I-feel, not-as-I-say smile. Legitimizing bullying. Granting permission to knock down, gouge, scrape, pummel, and, above all, win.
The kind of off-kilter response guaranteed to get a therapist hmm-ing and noting “inappropriate affect” in the chart. And knowing treatment wouldn't be easy.
“Poor Sharon really did get knocked around,” Mrs. Blalock said.
“What did you do about it?”
“What could I do? I tried reasoning with them—told Sharon she needed to face up to Sherry, be more self-confident. I informed Sherry in no uncertain terms that this was no way for a young lady to behave. But the moment I was gone, they'd revert to type. I do believe it was a little game between them. Collaboration.”
She was right about that, but she'd gotten the players wrong.
She said, “I'm long past blaming myself. Their characters were predetermined, programmed from the very start. In the end Nature triumphs. That's why your field will never amount to much.”
“Was there anything positive about their relationship?”
“Oh, I suppose they loved each other. When they weren't fighting, there were the usual hugs and kisses. And they had their own little nonsense language that no one else understood. And despite the rivalry, they were inseparable—Sherry leading, Sharon tagging behind, taking her licks. But always, the fighting. Competition for everything.”
Silent Partner Page 39