“Oh, my God!” Vivien exclaimed, bursting into tears.
“We received only one tip, an anonymous phone call. The person oscillated between a car similar with yours and a silver Mercedes.”
“And you think I did it?” Vivien asked stupefied, her face flushed from crying.
“I’m sure you didn’t do it, Miss Hopkins,” the detective told her calmly. “But I thought you’d want to know about Igor.”
“Yes, of course I want to know about him,” she barely whispered.
“He’s only a few minutes from here, at Stanford Hospital. I can come with you, if you want to see him now.”
Vivien accepted the invitation. She followed the detective in her car. They arrived at Stanford Hospital reception in no time. A young and heavily built black nurse accompanied them to Igor’s bed. Layers of bandages covered the man’s head, and a network of tubes was attached to his arms.
“Most likely, the impact sent him on the sidewalk. He hit the phone booth with his head. Otherwise, he has only a few contusions, no broken bones or internal bleeding,” the nurse informed them benevolently. “What a pity!” she added, with a sympathetic glance. “He’s such a young and handsome man!”
Vivien stared at him with tearful eyes. Igor was not her type. She didn’t find him extremely attractive. But seeing him lying there hurt and unconscious, with no one by his side, made her feel so terribly sorry for him. The recent memory of his mournful face, as he cried like a child, devastated by the death of his girlfriend, only accentuated her unanticipated and warm affection for him.
The detective’s tough question startled her.
“Did you know that Igor and Miss Morgan were lovers?”
Vivien pondered the answer for a while. In the end, she concluded that she had no real motive to hide the truth.
“I found out a couple of days ago, after Arlene’s death. He told me.”
The detective’s cell phone started ringing, and that saved her from a more elaborated explanation. After half a dozen of repeated monosyllabic responses, Art Leonard announced her briefly that he needed to leave right away.
“Maybe I should stay with him for a while,” Vivien spoke softly, touching Igor’s needle poked arm with excessive finesse.
“I don’t see why. Considering the doctors’ opinion, it’s very possible that he would remain in this state for days or weeks maybe. That of course, if he will ever wake up. I’ll see you to your car, Miss Hopkins.”
Vivien did not insist. She allowed him to escort her out of Igor’s room. They walked silently on those long, highly illuminated corridors that smelled of medications, rubbing alcohol, and sick people. When they reached the hospital courtyard, she was anxious to breath in the outside fresh air.
The detective’s old Toyota turned left at the first intersection. Vivien turned right, but on second thought, she decided not to go home yet. She headed toward Menlo Avenue. A few minutes later, she was casting discreet glances toward Vernisaj art studio.
Igor’s tall and feeble lady colleague was right in front of the entrance, gesticulating nervously and explaining something to a couple of heavily armed police officers. Vivien parked across the street, behind the sportswear shop. She came inside the store and acted as if she were interested in buying cycling gear. However, from that angle, she had the perfect view of the devastated windows of Vernisaj painting studio.
The cops left shortly after Vivien’s arrival. Igor’s skinny colleague wiped her tears with her orange knitted scarf wrapped up negligently around her long and thin neck. She walked hesitantly toward the parking lot. Vivien exited the sportswear store and followed her.
“Miss,” she called out, just as the crying young woman was finding privacy in her small Red Bug car.
Clair turned her head and fixed Vivien with her red and puffy eyes.
“Some miserable gang of jerks destroyed his most beautiful paintings,” she exploded, sobbing and muttering the most colorful expletives that Vivien had ever heard coming out of a woman’s mouth. “He’s almost dead, lying on the hospital bed! You know that?”
“I know, and I’m so sorry,” Vivien said kindly, patting her bonny shoulder. “I am Vivien, do you remember me?”
“I gave you Avon samples. Are you from the police too?” she inquired.
“No, I’m Igor’s childhood friend,” Vivien stated boldly and hoped she wouldn’t blush.
“I don’t know if Ig ever mentioned that to you. I’m a painter too actually. The creams business is for extra cash, if it happens… Not nearly as often as I need it, if you ask. Ig and me rented the studio together. Actually, he pays the rent.” She broke down again. “He’s such a wonderful man. I hope he wakes up from this coma, so I can have the chance to tell him how much I love him.”
“Clair, have you met Igor’s other close friends? Does he have any?”
The young woman flashed a rueful smile.
“Ig has a lot of friends. Men and women. American, French, Spanish, Italian – you name it! Artists mostly. Close friends? I don’t think so. Why do you think he listed me as the only person to contact in case of an emergency? That says it all, to me at least…”
Biting and chewing her cheek and lower lip, Clair treated her with a long, wide-eyed gaze, as if she were trying to make an important decision regarding Vivien’s presence there. The silence seemed like it would never end. Finally, she spoke.
“He left a package for you Tuesday night. He seemed nervous. It was the last time he came to the studio. I was just leaving the place, and I didn’t want to go back inside. I put it in my car. That’s why you stopped by today. Right?”
“Yes, he called me and told me that I would find it with you,” Vivien lied.
Clair bent down and fished a small carton box from under the driver’s seat. Not particularly enthusiastic, she handed it to Vivien.
“Good thing I forgot about it. It would’ve been gone if left in the studio, you can bet on that! The hooligans didn’t leave an inch of that room unchecked. Stupid jerks!” she cursed again.
Vivien took the box and thanked Clair for keeping it safe. Intuition pressed her to believe that, inside the small box, Igor had put that secret tape he had promised to bring at Whole Foods earlier that week. She rushed to her car and then straight home.
Vivien was so anxious to see what the tape revealed, that she inserted it into her VCR the minute she locked the door behind her.
Igor’s short film presented Nadine and Mademoiselle Lili playing on a beach and having sex together in that majestic wilderness. It commenced with both of them in a warrior-like position, releasing arrows from their bows far into the ocean. The round, perfect full moon mirrored fluidly on the dancing waters. In its generous light, Vivien clearly recognized the two women’s beautiful features. However, she had difficulties identifying the person in the dark, efficiently masked by the large hood of a black jacket.
The poisonous worm of suspicion started tormenting Vivien again. It fed on her sanity with a malevolent appetite. She rewound the tape a few times and carefully studied that person. It appeared to be a man. He sneaked like the shadow of death between the picturesque cliffs washed rhythmically by high, foamy waves. The women’s young and fit bodies glowed in the moonlight like bronze statues wrapped up in yellow silk scarves unable to conceal their nakedness. Their colorful laughter enhanced the beauty of the ocean’s melodious capriccio with joyful notes. From his secluded vantage point, it was obvious that the obsessive observer savored the view through his binoculars. He was touching himself. Igor did not have any idea who the mysterious voyeur was, but Vivien remembered sadly well who had been wearing a jacket like that back then. The golden inserts in its large sleeves caught the moon’s rays from time to time. Wounded and in love, Vivien’s heart cried silently…
CHAPTER 12
A soft knock on his office door made Timothy raise his head from his laid out project.
“Mr. Leigh, I apologize for the interruption. Miss Hopkins just called,”
his secretary informed him, popping her big head inside.
The architect’s face lighted up, and he rushed to the phone on his desk.
“Thank you, Miss LaFontain!” he said excitedly.
“Sir, she’s not on the phone right now. She only called to let you know that some unexpected events force her to delay the tonight’s meeting with you by two hours.”
“Ok,” Timothy sighed disappointed, still holding the receiver.
He would have liked to hear her voice. He missed her. Every day he counted the hours until they met again. It was heaven around her. That hour with her, it was like taking his daily pill of happiness. And it was highly addictive!
The secretary was slowly closing the door. Timothy felt an acute desire to talk to someone about his new Vee.
“Miss LaFontain,” he called out. “How could I tempt you to a few minutes of gossip? I know that you don’t usually approve of that. But I also don’t escape the fact that you’re most likely well informed about the lives of at least half of this town’s population. So?” he asked with a waggish smile.
Miss LaFontain’s thin lips reduced to a slim burgundy line.
“A glass of whiskey on the rocks would be enough,” the woman consented with a reserved style. She pushed an invisible strand of her very short hair behind her ear and opened the only button of her manly cut off coat. “But it’s my turn to warn you that it won’t be a second time if a single word leaves this room,” she specified convincingly.
The man accepted without delay.
“It’s a deal,” he said and walked toward the small bar in his office.”Please sit down, Miss LaFontain,” he invited her politely, while preparing two glasses of whiskey and ice. “I’ve never asked you directly, but probably you guessed that I have done it in my mind many times. What was the reason Miss Hopkins’ grandmother fired you?”
Miss LaFontain almost jumped on her chair, and Timothy registered his unintentional lack of tact a couple of seconds too late.
“She didn’t fire me! I quit,” she corrected him harshly. “Everything started fifteen years ago, the week following your wedding. I discovered a check of $70,000 written by Mrs. Carol Hopkins to your ex-fiancée, Miss Nadine. I didn’t dare to say a word, I feared that I could lose my job. I wasn’t handling her financial problems, and I certainly wasn’t snooping through her things. I just happened upon that check by chance. Soon after that, the old woman became more and more involved in a mysterious feminist organization. All I know about it is that they encouraged women not to marry and become slaves of men, their husbands. Ah, and another thing – you had to dye your hair blonde in order to be accepted in this organization.”
Instinctively, Timothy’s eyes fixed on his secretary’s thin hair.
“No! Please, don’t even think about it,” the woman exculpated herself right off the bat. “I dye my hair blonde because I have so much white, and darker colors make me look old and saturnine,” she said, touching her hair self-consciously.
I pray God will forgive me, Miss LaFontain ! But you still look old and saturnine to me, and I doubt any hair color could have the power to change that, Timothy thought amused.
“Mother?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, yeah!” Miss LaFontain exclaimed, nodding repeatedly. “Late Mrs. Leigh was one of them.” She took a couple of sips from her whiskey.
“Now that you’ve mentioned that story, I remember that, right before my wedding, mother dyed her hair blonde for the first time. I found that it didn’t go well with her features and her skin tone. After all, she was a beautiful brunette naturally. I’ve never got used to her as a blonde, God rest her soul in peace! I’ve never voiced my opinion vis-à-vis her new hairstyle. I just didn’t have the heart to ruin her pleasure.”
“Well, it wasn’t a pleasure for many of them, I can tell you that much. It was a request closed to debate,” Miss LaFontain claimed, grimacing like a chimpanzee and batting her short and discolored eyelashes.
Timothy raised the glass to his mouth and smiled melancholically, as poignant memories crowded his mind. The alcohol barely touched his lips.
“But you continued to work for Mrs. Hopkins,” he pointed out.
“For seven more years,” the secretary finished his sentence. She directed her gaze into her glass. “I tried not to get involved in her personal affairs. I was well paid, and I was somehow pretty happy with the job.” She took another mouthful of whiskey. She drank like a pro.
“Then… what was the last straw, the motive of your resignation?”
Miss LaFontain crossed her legs and adopted a more comfortable position. The alcohol seemed to improve her attitude considerably. Timothy Leigh had never seen her so relaxed and voluble. She removed invisible lint from her pants before answering.
“One evening, Carol invited me to a very expensive restaurant. I suspected she had something of a delicate nature to discuss; otherwise, she wouldn’t have done it. She didn’t mingle with middle class, and on top of all, she was pretty tight with her money.”
Timothy didn’t quite like the remark. It was not much he knew about the old Mrs. Hopkins, but he remembered Vee being very fond of her.
“Yes, I heard that she wasn’t extremely close to the people who worked for her, but she was fair, not at all abusing, and she paid extremely well, as you said earlier,” he stated. “I incline to believe that she had so many friends and relatives, she didn’t have time for any more close relationships in her life,” he added, trying subtly to defend Vee’s grandmother. “If I recall correctly, a distorted story about your last dinner with her has reached my ears long time ago. That’s why I assumed – wrongly, of course – that she had fired you,” he finished, studying the reaction of his secretary.
“No way!” Miss LaFontain objected.
In an instant, unrestrained anger diminished her lips to a thin line once again.
“She asked me to recruit young men who were willing to have sexual relations with unknown women without protection. Not any common-type young men, mind you! Tall, handsome, fair skin, blonde hair if possible, intelligent men… You would’ve fit the profile perfectly,” she remarked with a forced smile and finished her whiskey.
Timothy grew thoughtful for a few seconds. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn. He had had other intentions when he had invited Miss LaFontain into his office for chatting, and now he was happy that he had not rushed into things. Something in his secretary’s behavior seemed false, dubious. It raised a few red flags. He wanted to believe her, but he had troubles giving her all the credit. Still, he had a vivid memory-flashback of an incident with one of his ex-girlfriends - a superb blonde - with whom he had had a lengthy and heated argument. All the fuss, just because he had not agreed to have sex with her without a condom. They had broken up shortly after that. Timothy didn’t want to be forced into marriage, and the prospect of fathering children outside wedlock was not appealing to him. He wanted to get married when his heart would tell him to do so. And then, of course, he wanted children. Lots of them, he thought, aching for his lovely Vee again.
“Is Vivien involved with this feminist organization?”
“I don’t think so,” Miss LaFontain expressed her opinion. “I saw her in town a couple of days ago. She looks to be the opposite of women from that organization rather.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But, who knows? Appearances could be deceiving.”
One can never be sure, Timothy reflected. But he was willing to risk anything with Vivien. His heart told him that she was worth it.
With the precious help of another glass of whiskey, Miss LaFontain gave him important information about Vivien. She told him about her ex-boyfriend, a forensic specialist in Southern California, and about lots of other things, that Vivien had left aside or only mentioned briefly. He wondered whether it was because they had not spent sufficient time together yet, whether she was not comfortable talking about it, or she did not trust him enough to reveal everything about her past and present problems. Th
e thing was that every little secret he learned about her only made him want her more. Vivien was conquering his soul more and more each day since their first encounter. An invisible force pulled him toward her, and he had no intention whatsoever to fight the temptation. He wanted to take her in his arms and shield her from any pain that life would throw her way.
The phone rang, and Miss LaFontain answered in a professional manner. She hung up shortly.
“Your rented car has arrived, Mr. Leigh.”
“Oh, yes! The today unprecedented event! I can’t wait to get my hands on Clark.” Timothy could hardly contain his outburst. “I can’t even begin to fathom how he managed to achieve the performance of hitting my Mercedes! I’ve been using this car every day for two years now, and it didn’t have as much as a scratch on it. He takes it for one hour, and he successfully destroys it! The guy is incorrigible. Sometimes, I have a hard time believing that he’s my own flesh and blood.”
“Mr. Leigh, your brother has left already,” Miss LaFontain informed. “The car keys are downstairs with the doorman.”
“Of course, he’s avoiding me now! On top of all, he has the attitude of a genuine coward! Totally à la Clark!”
* * *
Vivien turned on the lights in her living room and closed the blinds. The darkness was falling fast, and she didn’t want to allure the inquisitive, surreptitious glances of passersby or neighbors. Sadness had invaded every corner of her being today. She was in such low spirits that she could not even play the piano. The only good news was that she had actually found two real piano students. She had just met with them and their wonderful mother that early evening. Now she was waiting for Tee to discuss his schedule. She hoped he would be reasonable and accept to change their daily meeting to a later hour.
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