Misfortune

by Nancy Geary

  “What happened? Where are you?”

  Several seconds passed. Frances heard Blair blow her nose and cough before she responded. “I’m at the Fair Lawn Country Club. I found her, found her in the bathroom. Dead. In a stall. It’s horrible, Fanny.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. She’s dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m sure.”

  “Did something happen? Did you hear a gunshot? Is there any sign of a struggle? Is she bloody?” Frances spoke mechanically, asking the series of questions ingrained in her by her law enforcement background. Oh, my God, we’re talking about Clio, she thought for a moment, then forced her mind to stay focused. She couldn’t allow herself to be personally affected and felt frustrated by Blair’s inability to communicate basic information.

  “Oh, Frances, how can you even say such things?” Blair started to cry again.

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Everybody. Everybody’s here.”

  Of course, Frances thought. It’s July Fourth. The summer tennis tournament was under way. The Fair Lawn Country Club would be packed with people.

  “You’ve got to come. I can’t be here without you. Please hurry,” Blair pleaded.

  “Where’s Jake?” Frances asked.

  “He’s in Ohio with his family for the weekend.”

  The answer didn’t surprise her. Frances couldn’t remember Jake ever being around to help in times of crisis. When Blair’s appendix burst three years earlier, Jake was meeting with some banker about extending their line of credit and didn’t answer his cell phone. When Richard had his stroke, Jake actually stayed on in Hong Kong to deal with his clients rather than accompany his wife on the long journey home. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to avoid bad situations, and today was no exception.

  “Does Dad know?”

  “This just happened!” Blair screamed. “Just this minute!”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “I didn’t, but somebody else did, I’m pretty sure. Everyone’s running around. It’s crazy here. They just stopped the tournament.” Frances could hear her sister’s quick, raspy breathing. “You’ve got to get here. You’ve got to tell Dad. I can’t, Fanny. It’s going to kill him.”

  Frances tried to sound calm, in control. “Blair, listen to me. Stay right where you are. When the police get there, tell them what you know, and tell them about Dad, his condition. I’m on my way.”

  “Hurry.”

  “I’m coming as fast as I can.”

  Frances dialed the home number for Robert Burke, the first person she’d think to call in a time of crisis. Since his mandatory retirement at age fifty-five from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Meaty,” as he was affectionately known, worked for the state. He ran every major investigation that District Attorney Malcolm Morris chose to pursue, and he oversaw the younger, less experienced investigators assigned to the office from the local police.

  While with the FBI, Meaty had worked out of the Manhattan office. He and Frances knew many of the same people, law enforcement officers from the New York Police Department, the United States Attorney’s and Manhattan District Attorney’s Offices, and Meaty was well aware of Frances’s reputation as a serious, hardworking prosecutor before she’d ever set foot in Malcolm Morris’s office. For that reason he exhibited a deference to her that he otherwise withheld from prosecutors. He listened to what she wanted and involved her in the strategic side of investigating more than a dozen cases they had worked on together over the past seven years. In return he never had to worry about the adequacy of her search warrants, the precision of her grand jury presentations, or the efficacy of her direct examinations.

  Meaty had told Frances what he considered to be the basic parameters of his personal life shortly after they’d first met. “It’s all you’ll ever need to know about me,” he’d said at the time. “Because what you see is what you get. I’m not a very complex sort of guy.” He had married his wife, Carol, forty years ago, when she was sixteen and he was twenty. They had one daughter, who was, and would remain, an incurable alcoholic. He and Carol had instituted legal proceedings against her to gain custody of their baby granddaughter. Now neither liquor nor their only child was allowed in the house, and they had raised the little girl for the past nine years. Frances also knew that Meaty’s passions were the New York Yankees, deep-sea fishing, and floating island meringue desserts.

  In exchange, Frances disclosed that she had once been engaged and that she had family on Long Island. She left her personal life at that, and Meaty had not probed. In seven years Frances had revealed little else.

  Carol Burke answered the telephone on the second ring.

  “It’s Frances. Is Meaty there?”

  Forty years of marriage to an FBI man must have given Carol an intuitive ability to assess a situation without asking a single question. Frances was relieved that she omitted her customary chatter and good cheer and called immediately for her husband.

  “Meaty,” Frances said as he got on the line, “I need your help. Clio, my dad’s wife, is dead.”

  “How?” he asked in his gruff voice.

  Holding the portable receiver in place with her chin, she relayed the substance of Blair’s call. “That’s all I know. I haven’t talked to anyone besides Blair. I need a favor. A blue light to Southampton.” Frances knew that it would take her more than an hour to get from Orient Point to the Fair Lawn Country Club with the speed limit and holiday traffic. Meaty, behind the wheel of his Crown Victoria with his blue light flashing from the roof, could cut the time in half.

  “I’m on my way,” Meaty said.

  Frances stood for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts, but she felt numb. Looking down, she saw her blackened fingernails, her soil-covered overalls. She went to the bathroom, washed her face, scrubbed her hands, and then changed her clothes. Back in the kitchen, she took several dog biscuits out of the canister, called for the dogs, and rewarded their responsiveness. “Okay, guys, I’ll be back.” She heard her own voice shake.

  Waiting for Meaty’s arrival, Frances paced the length of her porch, then leaned against the sagging railing. As she thought of her father, and what she was about to see, she rubbed her eyes to force back tears. Now is not the time to cry, she told herself, but her self-control diminished as she imagined his devastation. He would sink farther into his wheelchair and obscure his face to hide his pain. Lily, his nurse, would hover and flutter about him. The scene would be unbearable. Clio had been the center of his life, even more so in the past year since he had been unable to work. She was his reason to live.

  Now this woman, who seemed the picture of health, was dead in a toilet stall. Frances couldn’t recall a time that Clio had been sick. Thin, physically active, she worked to stay fit. Plus, she had spent the last year living amid nurses, health care professionals. It wasn’t possible that something serious could have gone undetected, yet she was dead at fifty-one.

  What happened? Frances wondered. What went wrong?

  Meaty turned off First Neck Lane and pulled his Crown Victoria into the pillared entranceway of the Fair Lawn Country Club. He slowed down long enough to flash his police badge at the blond teenage boy who sat slouched in a green-and-white-striped folding chair by the gate. The guard glanced up from his bag of potato chips and waved Meaty through.

  “What the hell is this place?” Meaty said as they drove slowly up the paved drive. Acres and acres of manicured green lawn divided by white lines and nets spread out before them.

  “Grass tennis courts,” Frances remarked absentmindedly. “Tennis where I grew up was a couple of kids on a cement court. This grass looks like a putting green,” Meaty muttered.

  They drove past several tennis courts, a soccer field, and rows and rows of Mercedes, Range Rovers, BMWs, and Jaguars, parked in perfect lines. “Could feed a small country for a year off the sale of this lineup,” Meaty said,
chuckling. “Impressive. Quite impressive.”

  “Over there,” Frances directed, pointing toward the gambrel roof of the main clubhouse. The sun shown down on its darkened shingles. Three police cars, a fire truck, and two ambulances were parked near the building. Meaty pulled up alongside one of the ambulances.

  “Meaty,” Frances said grabbing his arm before he could open the driver’s-side door. “Do me one favor.”

  “You bet,” he replied.

  “Let me be anonymous today, just an assistant DA along for the ride.”

  “It’s your stepmother.”

  “I want to know what’s going on, to hear what the cops have to say.”

  “You don’t need to be a professional, kiddo.”

  “Just let me do it my way?” Frances asked.

  “You got it.” He squeezed her hand, then opened his door. Frances felt relieved that he hadn’t resisted. She wanted to focus on what had transpired and wasn’t prepared to deal with the panoply of police officers well schooled in the removal and consolation of grieving family members.

  The porch that ran the length of the clubhouse was filled with people. Most were dressed in tennis clothes, white shorts, skirts, and dresses, and held tennis rackets emblazoned with the Wilson or Prince logo. People clutched drinks in clear plastic cups as they milled about on the grass. An elderly man in a bright green blazer packed several belongings from the umpire’s chair into an athletic bag. In the distance Frances could see a group of small children chasing each other around in a circle. Beyond them a tennis game was still in progress.

  Despite the crowd, the place was relatively quiet. People spoke in hushed tones. Seated in canvas director’s chairs, several women slumped forward, crying. Frances kept her eyes down, not wanting to be recognized by someone from her past. It had been more than a decade since she had set foot at the Fair Lawn Country Club, but she feared her face hadn’t changed enough to protect her anonymity. She watched Meaty’s sneaker-shod feet taking long strides toward the main entrance.

  What an odd place this must seem to him, she thought for a moment. A private tennis club, impeccably groomed, filled with suntanned families dressed in white. Timeless. In fact, little had changed that she could notice since she had spent July here as a child, participating in morning tennis clinic, running drills, practicing ground strokes. She had played her share of challenge matches on the ladder, competed in the tennis tournaments year after year, even won the best sportsmanship award when she was thirteen. Her father had the small silver-plated bowl she had won engraved with her name and date: “Frances Taylor Pratt, 1973. ” Meaty could never understand a place like this. She wouldn’t believe it herself if it hadn’t been such an integral part of her childhood.

  Frances felt disoriented. She wanted to reach out for Meaty, to feel his muscular arm, to have him support the weight of her body, which felt too much to bear, but she didn’t dare touch him. If he thought she was in pain, or that her emotions might hinder her objectivity, he would protect her by keeping her out of the investigation. She quickened her step to stay in stride behind him.

  The interior of the Fair Lawn Country Club clubhouse was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Meaty and Frances stood at the barrier. A lean man with a buzz-top haircut and wire-rimmed glasses stood just inside, smoking a cigarette. His ash dropped onto the rose-colored pile carpeting.

  “Hank,” Meaty said to the man.

  “Meaty, what brings you to these parts?”

  Omitting her last name, Meaty introduced Frances to Detective Hank Kelly of the Southampton Police Department. “She’s with the district attorney’s office,” Meaty added. “What can you tell us?”

  “Female. Probably late forties. Apparent heart failure.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “Name’s Clio Pratt. She’s well-known around here.”

  “Where is she?” Meaty asked.

  “The bathroom.”

  “Can we take a look?”

  “Be my guest.” Detective Kelly led Frances and Meaty through a door marked “Powder Room” in gilt lettering. They stepped into a small, windowless room with green-and-pink floral wallpaper, coordinated plush carpet, a large gilded mirror, and twin marbled sinks on which sat stacks of hand towels, each embroidered with a green “FL.” The air smelled of freshener.

  “This way,” Detective Kelly said, pointing into a larger room beyond.

  The floor and walls of the larger bathroom were similarly decorated. Several pink toilet stalls lined the far wall, and the bottled smell of gardenias thickened the air. Frances saw two Tretorn sneakers, red-and-white-checkered panties, and a pair of thin crumpled legs protruding from the center stall. “We need a minute here,” Detective Kelly announced. Two police officers wearing rubber gloves stepped out of the stall and backed away.

  Frances moved forward. Clio’s body lay partially draped over the toilet bowl. Her short tennis skirt was hiked up around her waist, exposing a perfect bikini-waxed triangle of dark pubic hair. Clio’s arms hung limp by her side, her manicured fingers just touching the floor. Her head tilted back on her neck, eyes wide, mouth agape. The ends of her dark hair, pulled back into a ponytail behind her head, dangled into the toilet.

  Frances raised her hands to cover her mouth. She was used to the police photographs that filled the office, images of dead bodies, knife wounds, gunshots, all the gore of a crime scene captured in Technicolor, but she felt unprepared for this nonviolent death. The toilet paper had come unrolled from its gold dispenser, as if Clio had grabbed on to it for support as she slid to the floor. Otherwise, little had been disturbed. Frances stood and stared. She tried to discern what besides Clio’s awkward body position made her look different. Was it the paleness of her skin, the emptiness of her corpse? Clio would have hated the humiliation, the exposure to the gawks and gasps of her fellow club members.

  Frances wanted to feel sad about her father’s wife, the woman he had loved for almost as long as Frances could remember, but the sight seemed too surreal to evoke emotion.

  She felt Meaty touch her back.

  “You okay?” he whispered. “Yeah.”

  “Her stepdaughter, a Blair Devlin, found her,” Detective Kelly said matter-of-factly as he checked his spiral notepad. “I spoke to her briefly, but the paramedics had to take her to Southampton Hospital for sedation. The poor woman’s hysterical. As she’s getting in the ambulance, she gives me her car keys. Says just leave them in the car.” He shrugged, flipped the page, and continued, “We got the call at eleven oh-three. A guy named Jack Von Furst called it in. He said he was out on the porch watching a tournament—there was a men’s doubles match going on—and heard a scream. Von Furst said he ran inside and found Blair screaming right here. Another guy, a George Welch, arrived about the same time. He’d been doing some paperwork in the lobby of the clubhouse when he heard the screams. Nobody else was in the bathroom at the time. Von Furst knew the deceased. Said they were close friends. ‘Close’ was his word.”

  “Did anyone try anything, CPR, anything like that?” Frances asked.

  “Von Furst said they checked Pratt’s wrists and neck, but there was no pulse. They knew enough not to move her. Then he left to call 911, and Welch stayed with the body. That’s pretty much it. Von Furst said he would hang around in case we need him.”

  “Have you talked to Welch?” Frances and Meaty said in unison.

  “Yeah. He didn’t have much to add.”

  “Is Forensics going to do any work here?”

  “We’ve secured it for now, as you can see. We’re trying to reach Lieutenant Batchelder to find out what he wants us to do. He hasn’t returned my page. Probably playing golf with your boss,” Detective Kelly said, nodding to Frances. “If anyone asks my opinion, which they don’t, I’d say we’ve got to let Crime Scene do their stuff. It’s now or never.”

  “Any reason to think there’s been a crime?” Meaty asked, echoing the question in Frances’s mind.

  “Look, I don’t want to be the
guy accused of botching the job if facts turn up. These are fancy people here.”

  Meaty raised his eyebrows.

  “I dunno,” Detective Kelly said. “But if you ask me, she looks pretty healthy. I’d sure want to know what got that specimen of a woman.”

  “Has Mr. Pratt been notified?” Frances asked.

  “The husband? Not yet. We understand he’s in pretty bad shape himself.”

  “I’d like to talk to him,” Frances said.

  “You?” Detective Kelly asked.

  Meaty nodded.

  “I should’ve said something earlier. I’m with the district attorney’s office, as Meaty told you, but I’m also…” She paused to clear her throat. “This is my stepmother. My sister called me at home. That’s why Meaty and I are here.”

  Detective Kelly took a step back from Frances. “I’m real sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” Then, remembering Detective Kelly’s words, Frances added, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my sister’s car. I can find it in the lot. I need to go see my father.”

  “Sure.” Detective Kelly handed her the set of car keys.

  “You want me to follow you?” Meaty asked.

  “No. I’m okay. Just let me know if anything happens. I’ll be at home by this evening.” She turned to Detective Kelly. “We’ll want an autopsy. If you need authorization, I can get it.”

  Frances turned away from Clio’s corpse and walked out of the powder room, leaving Meaty and Detective Kelly behind.

  The crowd had begun to dissipate, and Frances watched as people walked to their cars. She wondered where they were going on this beautiful holiday Saturday now that their scheduled event, the tournament, was ruined by the death of a friend, an acquaintance, a fellow club member. Perhaps they’d go over to the exclusive Bathing Corporation, informally known as the Beach Club, just a quarter of a mile away. Most Fair Lawn Country Club members also belonged there. The Beach Club served lunch, and it was almost that time.

  Frances found Blair’s Mazda Miata parked at an angle near a high privet that concealed a practice backboard. The door was unlocked, and Frances settled herself into the soft leather seat, adjusting it a few inches to accommodate her slightly shorter legs. In the passenger seat next to her she noticed a thick stack of papers. Instinctively she picked them up and flipped through the loose pages of what appeared to be draft legal documents and several architectural drawings. She paused to read the single-spaced text. According to the documents, the Devlin Gallery planned to lease ten thousand square feet of commercial space at an annual rent of $1 million. She looked again at this startling sum. She had no idea her sister’s gallery was doing that well. Surprise, and a pang of jealousy, distracted her momentarily. Then she forced herself to remember that she had no business snooping into her sister’s affairs and that she had more pressing matters to deal with. She started the engine.