by Ed Gorman
“What was Nicole doing all this time?”
This time the smile was fond. “Little Nicole? She did what she always did, followed her sister. She got the same clothes and listened to the same music and started spouting the same rhetoric. It was sort of sweet in an odd way. Vanessa would be going on about capitalism and how the pigs had taken over—I was of course one of the pigs. They used to be proud that I’d made my own way in the world and had become wealthy doing it. But now I was a pig. A liberal pig. But I was saying it was sweet—and it was. Vanessa had some idea of what she was talking about when she argued about the capitalist system. But Nicole—she was this innocent little girl with all these big words and big concepts and she had no idea what she was talking about.”
“And where did Eve fit into all this?”
“Eve did the best she could under the circumstances, but obviously it wasn’t enough.”
The words had come from behind the sheer white curtains covering the French doors. Eve appeared in her jodhpurs and white silk blouse. Her brown leather riding boots gleamed. “I only listened for the last few minutes. I thought that since I heard my name mentioned I might as well join you.”
She was the sort of woman you saw in The New Yorker or Town & Country, ruthlessly fashionable and relentlessly beautiful in a cold, poised fashion. The one thing she couldn’t control were the age lines that had begun to mar her elegant features. The closer she came, the less intimidating she was. Her weapon’s edge was being dulled by time. She understood this. She took the chair furthest from me to sit in, blond hair gleaming in its chignon, a bit oversprayed so that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a wig.
She reached over and took her husband’s hand. “Thank you for sticking up for me, darling.” To me she said: “This is why I married him. This is the worst moment of his life—even worse than losing Donna, I think—and he’s still generous enough to defend me.”
She talked in sudsy prose, like soap opera talk, and I didn’t like her at all. When Marsha appeared with our pot of coffee and two cups, Eve snapped, “Don’t I usually have coffee with my husband, Marsha? You only brought two cups.”
Marsha was wise. She wanted to keep her job. “I’ll bring you a cup right away.”
“And food. I assume you made lunch for me. I do need food, you know.”
Marsha looked at me. She had no trouble reading the distaste in my eyes. It matched the distaste in hers. “I made roast beef sandwiches, a fruit salad, and a lettuce salad. I’ll bring them out.”
When she was gone, Mainwaring said, “She does her best, Eve.”
“She’s local. That’s the problem. I wish you’d let me bring in somebody from Chicago.”
“I know her husband. He works in my plant here. I couldn’t face him every day if I fired her. Besides, I like her.”
How strange it was, I thought, that Eve had managed to shift the conversation from the heartbreak of a young girl’s murder to some goddamn maid problem—which wasn’t a problem after all, Marsha being somebody I’d taken to right away. Apparently, on an astronomical chart, in the center of the universe you would find a planet named Eve.
“I’d like to get back to Vanessa.”
“Of course, Sam. I’m sorry.”
“So the girls and Eve didn’t get along.”
“Eve did everything she could.”
“All right. But because of her—blameless as she was—” Her eyes pinched as I said this. Had she heard the slight irony in my voice? “Blameless as she was, Vanessa rebelled and started going around with too many guys.”
“Sleeping with too many guys. You may as well say it, Sam.”
“And taking drugs.”
That froze both of them in their chairs.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’m investigating, Paul. I see people. I ask questions.”
“You may as well tell him, Paul. Vanessa was a dope addict.”
She was a few decades behind in her drug slang but that didn’t diminish the pleasure she took—and tried unsuccessfully to hide—in confirming what I’d said.
Paul’s face grayed with her remark. I wondered if he was going to be sick. “If that’s the way you want to put it, Eve.”
But she was the dutiful and cunning wife. She took his hand in both of hers and said—her first show of warmth—“oh God, honey, that came out much harsher than I meant it. I’m sorry.”
He was all forgiveness; color returned to his cheeks. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s just a hard thing to face. You didn’t mean anything by it.” He eased his hand from between hers. His gaze was that of a teenager wistfully tending to his first love. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, honey.”
I remembered Donna, the mother of his two children. She’d been small, tending to plumpishness, and very much a housewife and a member of such organizations as the PTA and the League of Women Voters. If Eve had a polar opposite, Donna had been it. Had Mainwaring spent his married life pining for the bed of a beauty? Or had he, with his money and his importance, decided that it was time he got a show woman for a wife?
“What did you and Vanessa argue about, Mrs. Mainwaring?”
“I wasn’t aware that we did argue.”
“That’s being a little harsh, Sam. They didn’t have arguments most of the time—they just sort of froze her out.”
“I see.”
“Is this how you conduct most of your investigations?”
“Now don’t get your back up, Eve. He’s just doing his job.”
“Well,” Eve said, “then he can do his job without me.”
She was on her feet, all jodhpur’d and indignant. “I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m not in the mood for this. Vanessa and I had our differences but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love her and consider her my own flesh and blood.”
She had a line of shit that stretched from Iowa to Montana. But she was polished and just good enough at the acting to pass muster if you had the misfortune to be in love with her. Obviously the kids had identified her species as soon as they met her.
Katharine Hepburn had never walked out of a scene with more mannered disdain.
“I don’t know why you had to make her mad, Sam. Maybe this isn’t a good fit. I still can’t believe my daughter’s dead and now I’ve got my wife mad at me.”
“I can quit or you can fire me. But the question I asked her was legitimate. You said yourself that she and your kids didn’t get along. I wanted to get her take on things.”
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “All the arguments I had with Vanessa in the last couple of years—I wish I could take every one of them back.” The purity of sorrow was now being tainted with remorse, making it all the worse for him. I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Marsha appeared bearing a large glass tray. “Where’s the missus?”
I wondered how Eve would like being known as “the missus.” It didn’t go with anyone who wore jodhpurs.
Mainwaring opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Eve had some business she had to take care of right away.” The smile was strained. “This looks delicious, as usual. Thank you very much.”
Marsha glanced at me for some explanation about why Eve had left so suddenly and why he’d been sitting with his eyes closed. I shook my head. She shrugged and said, “If you need anything more, just let me know.”
“Thanks, Marsha.”
After she was gone, Mainwaring said, “I’ll handle Eve. She’ll give me a raft of shit about you but she’ll get over it. She’s a very private person.”
“I can always apologize to her if you’d like.”
“No, no, I’d better handle it myself. She’s very sensitive. Her parents were wealthy people who died in a plane crash when she was seven. She went to a convent school in Paris until she was nineteen and then she came over here and went to Smith. She eventually taught English literature at Dartmouth. So she’s very worldly. But she still gets defensive whenever the subject of the girls come
s up. They made things very tough for her. And now you’ll be investigating and bringing back a lot of bad memories for her.”
I poured myself some coffee. “There’s no other way to do it. Those memories will be important.” I sipped the coffee. Marsha might be local but she sure knew how to make good coffee. “I have another question for you right now.”
“You don’t quit, do you?”
“I’d be wasting your money if I did.”
“Fair enough.”
“Do you know a young man named Bobby Randall?”
“That bastard. I threatened to kill him one night. I had half a mind to do it, too. Right out on our drive he sold Vanessa some drugs. A small envelope. When I saw what was happening I ran out there. Vanessa stopped me from hitting him, otherwise I would’ve pounded him into the ground. All he did was smirk at me. That was when I lost control. I almost knocked Vanessa down getting to him but then she started screaming at me so I finally calmed down. That punk was still smirking.”
“You didn’t call Cliffie?”
“How could I? If I had, he’d have arrested Vanessa, too. She’d never have forgiven me if I’d done anything like that.”
He was a compromised man, beholden to both his children and the wife his children despised. Either way he moved, he was going to make somebody unhappy. There was a plea in his voice when he said, “And now I’m worried about Nicole. I don’t want her to turn out the way Van did.”
As Marsha led me through the house and to the front door, she spoke softly. “I sure hope you can help him.” She looked around. I knew what she was going to say. “His new wife won’t, that’s for sure.” Now she put her mouth close to my ear. “I’m pretty sure she’s happy that Vanessa’s dead. Now all she’ll have to worry about is Nicole.”
I wasn’t paying attention when I made my way to my car. I was sorting through some of the things I’d heard inside. When I focused on where I was going, I was surprised to see Nicole sitting in my front seat on the passenger side.
I got in and closed the door.
It was always said that Vanessa was the beauty and Nicole the brain. Nice and tidy, but not true. Nicole was a nice-looking seventeen-year-old whose problem was acne. I went through a year of bad acne myself so I still had nightmares occasionally of waking up and feeling my face only to find that it was once again corrugated. She was kin to Sarah Powers, Neil Cameron’s sister. Their high school years had to have been hell.
Today she wore a white blouse and blue walking shorts. She held a can of Coke in one hand and a burning Winston in the other. “She’s watching us.”
“Who?”
“The bitch. Eve.”
“How do you know?”
“See that window to the right of the east dormer?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch the curtain. It’ll move.”
I watched. She was right.
“Why would she watch?”
“She always watches. Van and I always joked she was a spy.” She made a face suddenly, leaned forward in the seat.
“Are you all right, Nicole?”
Her fingers touched her sweaty forehead. “It’s just everything that’s happening, I guess.” She took a deep breath. “What were we talking about?”
“You don’t get along with Eve?”
“You met my real mother.”
“Yes, many times. She was a very good woman.”
“Well, compare her to Eve and see why we hated her so much.”
I didn’t say anything.
A cruel smile. “I was listening to you on the veranda. The bitch even cut into you, too. She should’ve died instead of Van.”
“Your father’s in love with her.”
“I know. That’s what’s so sickening. We met two or three of his lady friends, you know, after Mom died. They were all nice women. We would have been happy if he’d married one of them, but then Eve came along.”
“How did they meet?”
“Some party in Iowa City. She was going out with this art teacher there. She dumped him right away, of course. Dad has a lot more money.”
The way her fingers touched her ravaged face I could tell she’d become aware of me watching her carefully. But she’d misinterpreted why I was watching her. Beneath the scarring was an innocent, appealing face that made it seem impossible that she could be capable of so much anger.
“We used to plot how to get rid of her.”
“Anything ever come of it?”
She smiled for the first time. “We were chicken.” Then: “God, poor Van. I try not to think about it but it doesn’t work. I barely slept last night.” She picked up the cigarette she’d put in the ashtray. “I’d never say this to my father but I even feel sorry for Neil.”
“You got to know him?”
“Sure. Dad liked him and Marsha liked him and I liked him. Eve didn’t. She’s such a snotty bitch. She always told Van she shouldn’t go out with ‘lower-class boys.’ Van used to laugh about that. It’s not like we’re living in New York or anything. There are rich people here but it’s not like there’s this big deal when it comes to dating. Everybody goes to public school and goes out with everybody else.” She put her knees up against the dashboard and slumped in the seat and tapped out another cigarette for herself.
I disagreed with her about the town not having a class system but I doubted that people talked about it as crudely as Eve had put it.
“And Van thought she was seeing somebody on the side.” She lit her cigarette, inhaled, exhaled.
“That’s a pretty heavy accusation. What made Van think so?”
“She said one time when Dad was out of town she caught Eve and the handyman looking guilty when they were coming out of that cabana by the pool. She said Eve hurried over to her and was real friendly. Eve’s never real friendly.”
“Who’s the handyman?”
“You know a guy named Bobby Randall?”
Bobby Randall—handyman. I’d forgotten that. He was an excellent carpenter as well. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, he’s real good-looking and he knows it. Van—” She glanced out the window before speaking. “Van was into drugs. Heavy stuff sometimes. I stick to pot. Anyway, Van got her drugs from Bobby. He was always trying to get her into bed. She led him on—she did that a lot. People said she slept around and I guess that was true. But a lot of it was just kind of leading them on. Playing with them. She did it to hurt our dad. You know, because of that bitch Eve. I would’ve done the same thing probably if I didn’t have—” She flipped her cigarette out the window and brought her knees down from the dashboard. “You know, my problems.” The fingers of her left hand went—unconsciously?—to her cheek.
She opened the door. “The curtains just moved again up in Eve’s room.”
I said, “You’ve done a good job of convincing me not to like her. I didn’t take to her right off but you clinched the deal.”
She offered a slender hand and a smile. “Good. Then we’re friends.”
As we shook, I said, “We sure are.”
Then, softly, she said: “Why couldn’t it have been Eve instead of Van?”
She pushed herself out of the car with her foot and jogged back to the mansion.
9
“Would you like half my sandwich, Mr. C? It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”
“I’m not really hungry, Jamie. Why don’t you eat what you want and then stick the rest in the little refrigerator down the hall and take it home tonight.”
“Turk doesn’t like leftover stuff.”
Well, since you’re supporting the family while Turk is loafing, he should be grateful for any food he gets. If I didn’t care for Jamie as much as I did, I would have erupted like that five times a day, every time she unwittingly revealed how Turk took advantage of her. They’d broken up a few years ago because he’d had another girlfriend on the side. The marriage had been called off. But gradually she’d weakened under all his promises to be the man—or punk, in my estimat
ion—he knew he could be. Her parents couldn’t pay for the small, informal wedding so I made a present of picking up the tab. I also got her on a decent low-cost insurance plan because I knew she’d be pregnant soon enough. She’d confided to me through tears—this when she’d discovered Turk’s girlfriend—that Turk didn’t care for rubbers. At that moment her period was late and she was terrified. The period came a few days later. I put Turk on the same insurance plan only because she pleaded with me. I had dreams of running him down with my car just to see how reliable the insurance coverage was.
“Aw, what the hey, Jamie, I’ll take half your sandwich.”
“I always like it when we eat together here. It’s real homey.”
Turk, you son of a bitch, if you ever hurt her again I’ll tear your throat out.
The pastrami on rye she’d gotten from Goldblatt’s deli down the street was excellent as always. We mostly talked about her baby. Jamie was starting a college fund that she was keeping secret from good old Turk because he “sometimes” tended to spend every cent in the house. She said that she wanted her baby to be a doctor or a lawyer—” just like you, Mr. C.”
Then the two phone lines started buzzing and it was back to work.
Without quite knowing why, I called the Wilhoyt Investigative Agency in Chicago. This was a prominent firm that had recently helped bring down a powerful and corrupt politician who fought every civil rights bill that came up, despite the fact that he had a Negro mistress. He didn’t seem to understand the incongruity. He must have thought he was back running the plantation.
My contact at Wilhoyt was an older man named Pete Federman. He’d hired me four times to work on cases he was overseeing in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. The checks were about double what I charged here. Federman had a cigarette hack and a lot of jokes about what it was like living under the burden of being a Cubs fan.