A Hamptons Christmas

by James Brady

  Nicole had a career as well. She wrote (well, a ghost did the actual writing) treacly books on child rearing which, despite their transparent piety and hokum, had been enormously successful. Or were until the divorce got into the newspapers and gullible readers learned Nicole’s own, and only, child, Emma Driver, aka Susannah le Blanc, had been from the age of five bundled in and out of a succession of boarding schools (the books rather quickly stopped selling!), finally settling more or less permanently at the Swiss Couvent de la Tour Sacrée and rarely seeing either self-absorbed parent except in court or when being kidnapped. (The lawyers insisted that “placed in protective custody” was the more appropriate term.)

  One parent, Nicole, needed money; the other parent, Dick, needed to burnish a playboy’s image. And their child seemed the key to both. To escape the reality of her predicament, Emma began to live largely in a world of books (Dickens, Hemingway, J. D. Salinger) and old films (Shirley Temple and horror movies were special favorites), and had become a convincing and very practiced liar. When asked about her parents (especially why they almost never bothered to visit her), she would concoct Walter Mitty-esque identities for each of them.

  Despite their chill disinterest (if the kid couldn’t be used, then what possible use was she?), Emma was proud of her parents. They truly were beautiful people, both of them, and she wasn’t. So she kept scrapbooks. Two cover stories in People, one in Newsweek (more about her father than about Nicole), and numerous National Enquirer coverlines. Some girls at the convent had no press clippings at all about their parents.

  Perhaps her most winning invention was the identity of her mother’s lard-headed, if sexy, latest—the count, whom Emma explained was a linear descendant of Vlad the Impaler, the literary inspiration for the original Count Dracula and known familiarly to her and her mother (though not in his hearing) as the Impaler. When a schoolmate would ask, “What’s an ‘impaler’?” Emma would plunge without hesitation into detailed, deliciously gory descriptions. But a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Especially inside the head of a precocious child.

  Emma was drawn into an even more pernicious habit than card playing, lying, or smoking Gitanes: the careful reading of American magazines to remind her of what home was like. And to remind her that she was still a Yank. In the boarding school’s library, she came across a dog-eared copy of Martha Stewart Living: The Christmas Edition, which had an enormous impact on the impressionable child, and as the Christmas holidays were approaching and the other girls packing to go home until the New Year, Emma evolved a romantic, if not very practical, scheme, starting with a convincing and quite plausible E-mail message to each parent suggesting she would be spending Christmas with the other. And a third E-mail to Rousselot explaining she would be visiting with a classmate’s family in Tuscany. By court order, Dick and Nicole were observing a sullen truce, and neither felt free to raise a voice in protest. And in an instance of slovenly staff work, nobody at Rousselot Frères bothered to check with the “host family” in Tuscany. Once Emma’s falsehood was established, she set off for East Hampton, where childish memory recalled a happier time when her parents were still together and she herself was innocently happy. And where she intended to present herself at the front door of … ta dah! Martha Stewart herself!

  But there was another, naive though fiendishly clever agenda at work here. As with all children whose parents have split, she hoped that Nicole and Dick would one day get back together. No matter that the Impaler had moved in with Nicole or that Dick was sporting with his tootsies. For kids, the world presents endless opportunities and infinite wonders. And Emma came up with a scheme: If her parents thought that she had vanished over the Christmas holidays—not kidnapped yet again by their respective private eyes but by unknown third parties preying on the offspring of the rich—and that she might be in actual peril, wouldn’t they make every effort to track her down? And, as both parents galloped to the rescue, arriving dramatically in the Hamptons amid falling snow and holiday cheer, they would forcibly come together once again as a family?

  So off she went, leaving behind a few cleverly planted clues (plus a few false leads) so that her parents could pick up the scent, just not too quickly. The clues, her bread crumbs, were easily traced credit-card charges and E-mail messages. And being mischievous (and undeniably a bit spoiled) Emma did what kids do in such situations: She played off one parent against the other, sending Nicole and Dick highly imaginative and provocative E-mails: “Just imagine where Daddy’s taking me tomorrow—to a taping of the Letterman show! Then dinner at Le Cirque 2000.” And, “Mommy and I lunched at the Paris Ritz in the Espadon Grill (where, as you know, Princess Di ate her last meal!) and we went shopping on the Faubourg St. Honoré. She bought me an Hermès scarf and the most delicious party dress at Lanvin Jeunes Filles!”

  Armed with her very own platinum card, Emma entrained for Paris, where she boarded the Concorde to New York, a crude map of the Hamptons (and directions to Martha’s house) having been provided by a schoolmate. One transatlantic crossing and Long Island RR train ride later, she got off at East Hampton, hailed a cab to Lily Pond Lane and Martha Stewart’s house, only to find it shuttered and dark in the chill gloom of late afternoon.

  But the kid was nothing if not resilient (not quite Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon, but close), and so she ordered the cabbie to take her back into East Hampton village. Amid the first few snowflakes of early winter, she went to a movie and, while mulling her next move, alone in a strange place, took shelter and a meal at the Blue Parrot, which is where I, Beecher Stowe, encountered our little heroine.

  “Well, Emma …” the Admiral began when she finished.

  “Isn’t that an awful name? Emma?”

  My face may have given me away, butAlix was smoother. “Not at all. Emma’s a smashing name. Can you imagine going through life as Alix? Jane Austen did an entire book about an Emma, as I recall. Or was it Fielding? I like Emma, enormously, don’t you, Beecher? Admiral?”

  My father and I stumbled over each other issuing insincere assurances. But Alix carried the ball.

  “Let me say this, Su—I mean, Emma. Your name is gorgeous. Byronic. Perhaps more than Byronic. Keatsian. I’d say Shakespearean if it weren’t so much more modern. Not twentieth century, precisely. Much more late nineteenth, which is far more interesting. Yes, Emma, decidedly Victorian, better still, neo-Victorian, don’t you agree?”

  Emma Driver rolled her eyes at all this polite rubbish and raised one eyebrow. But she was tolerant, didn’t really put all of us in our place as she had every right to do, restricting herself to a single remark before, blessedly, changing the abhorrent subject:

  “As a name, Emma stinks. But, tant pis! Thanks for being nice about it. Et maintenant, mes amis, can we get on with matters at hand, such as a hand of poker, Admiral, old top? A fifty-cent limit, deuces and one-eyed jacks wild?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Burning churches, shooting priests, raping nuns at a great rate …

  Tom Knowles called. My boyhood pal was now a detective lieutenant on the Suffolk County force. “Beecher, there’s a foreign woman with sinister overtones staying at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor and asking pointed questions.”

  “A novelist,” I suggested. “Got to be a novelist. They don’t rent rooms to anyone who isn’t writing a novel. Ted Conklin has a rule.”

  Mr. Conklin is a great snob who owns the place and in summer won’t permit Bermuda shorts in the restaurant or bar. And there was a local understanding he would not at any time rent rooms to people who weren’t authentic artists or authors. “Novelists are best,” he’d tell you. Ted had only twelve rooms, eight of them permanently occupied by people writing the Great American Novel. It was that sort of place, with an atmosphere of that caliber. Or, if the guests were painters, they were cubists. The occasional neo-impressionist. Ted believed in the artistic traditions of the place and maintained standards. As a result, it was a grand place to eat, to drink, or even to stay (if
you were an artist).

  “Sure, I know,” Tom said. “But this dame is looking for a small girl.”

  “How small?”

  “Beecher, don’t fence. I don’t know what you’re up to on Further Lane, but I hear talk of a kid being seen around, staying with you and the Admiral and Her Ladyship. No skin off my nose at homicide. So I’m not prying, just giving you a friendly heads-up.”

  I told him I appreciated it, and I did. And gave him a conventional out as to Emma. “You mean, Alix’s ward.”

  “Whatever,” the detective said. He saw through me like pane glass. Always could. So I turned the conversation back to the mysterious lodger in the American Hotel.

  “What sort of woman? And what sinister overtones?”

  “That’s the odd thing. Mid-thirties, maybe forty tops. Tall and with bearing, carries herself well. Reasonably attractive in a severe sort of way. European, I’d wager. She identified herself as a nun.” He paused, then added, “Possibly one of Mother Teresa’s flock.”

  Nuns at the American Hotel? Had Ted Conklin wigged out? He might have bent a rule for Mother Teresa herself. But not for “one of the flock.” I thanked Tom and got hold of Emma.

  “Well,” I said, regret and resignation both in my voice, neither of them feigned, “the game’s up, kid. Didn’t take them a week but they’ve tracked you down.”

  Alix and I swiftly convened a council of war in the Admiral’s library. Joining us, as he had in earlier adventures, was Chief Maine of the Shinnecocks, famed as a local poacher and a man you wanted on your side in tight places. Besides, he was there at my father’s house already, replacing dowels in a staircase banister for contractor Dale Uhll, with whom Jesse frequently worked.

  “Mmm,” Emma said, not at all panicked but coolly assessing the situation. “I wonder who sent her.”

  “Your school, of course,” said the Admiral. “Took them a few days to act but, by God, they’ve done it. Mother Teresa’s global networks, I suppose. Got to admire their efficiency even if it is rough on you.”

  “A shame,” Alix said. “We’d been so looking forward to taking Emma to the covered-dish supper at Nick and Toni’s for hospice care. And the iceboating Beecher promised. But now you’ll be back with your mum and pa, I suppose. Or at the convent.”

  I started to explain the covered-dish supper was at the Presbyterian Church, not at Nick & Toni’s, but Emma got there first.

  “Don’t leap so quickly to conclusions, Lady Alix. This may be a transparent ruse.”

  “You mean this nun isn’t from your school?” I said. “You don’t run into that many nuns in the Hamptons, whatever the season. How can you be sure?”

  “First of all, our nuns had nothing whatever to do with Mother Teresa. Hardly the sort to go about begging alms. Mother Superior wouldn’t have it. And besides, Mother Teresa’s dead …”

  “Oh, damn!” said Alix, “how stupid of me. Of course she is. It was in the Times. They had a very decent obituary.”

  “ … and our convent is closed for the Christmas hols. Except for Igor the caretaker that you spoke with, Beecher, and Sister Euphemia, the one who lost her foot to the tram in Zurich, the nuns are all in Paris meeting with couturiers, fingering swatches, getting quotes, and negotiating volume discounts on new habits. Check with Dior or Ungaro if you doubt me. You won’t catch a single Bride of Christ wintering in the Hamptons when she can be sipping a kir in the cafés of the Boulevard St. Germain and chatting up the Paris couturiers.”

  My father, of course, having been for so long chief of Naval Intelligence, and with reliable operatives everywhere (an international city such as Geneva might boast of several!), was the one man in the Hamptons in a position to check. Within seconds over the E-mail he was on to someone in Geneva called Marcel.

  “Concierge at the second-best hotel in all Switzerland, ranked by the Guide Michelin just behind the Baur-au-Lac in Zurich,” my father provided us an aside, “knows bloody everyone. Been on our payroll for years. Used to freelance for the KGB as well. Nice sense of the absurd, which, considering he worked for both sides in the Cold War, was a prerequisite. And you could trust the man. The KGB did as well. Gentlemen’s agreement of sorts. Fine chap, stout fellow. When you bought Marcel, he stayed bought. You like a reliable man like that.”

  It took Marcel about fifteen minutes.

  “Here’s his reply: ‘The caretaker assures me the school is padlocked until January 4 or 5. Local shopkeepers confirm Igor’s account. Their subscription to the International Herald Tribune and scheduled deliveries of Evian water both suspended for a fortnight. Only a crippled old dame who drinks is still on site.’”

  “There, you see,” Emma broke in, “I forgot to mention Sister Euphemia takes a cocktail. Says it deadens the ache in her missing foot.”

  The Admiral continued to read Marcel’s report: “The rest of the nuns are shopping in Paris or skiing at Megeve.”

  “That’s odd,” Emma remarked, wrinkling her brow.

  “Yes, I agree,” said the Admiral. “The very idea, nuns skiing.”

  “That isn’t what I meant, gran maestro. It’s the part about Megeve. They customarily ski at Alpe d’Huez, where they get a very nice clerical discount on the lift tickets. Mother Superior always demands a good discount.”

  So there we had it. The nuns were all off skiing or in Paris dickering with Dior. Who, then, was this woman at the American Hotel? And what explanation could there be other than that she was tracking Emma Driver?

  “A nun suddenly arrives looking for a little girl in the Hamptons in winter,” I protested. “It beggars the imagination that there could be more than one missing child or one nun who—”

  “Cher ami Beecher,” Emma said, “do not upset yourself. I simply suggest this woman may be an outright fraud. The Convent of the Tour Sacrée is very handsomely endowed. No Mother Teresa begging bowls or hanging about with the Untouchables and similar castes, I assure you. This may not be a Bride of Christ at all, but an imposter hired by mercenaries to track me down. Don’t forget my own parents have had me kidnapped previously. It could be that one of them is at it again. Or perhaps this time it’s someone else, a mercenary, in it for pecuniary reasons.”

  “Kidnappers, Beecher!” Alix put in hurriedly. “Recall John Buchan’s Three Hostages, three young people spirited away by that clever fiend Dominick Medina, leaving Sir Richard Hannay and Sandy Arbuthnot to rescue the victims.”

  “But a nun … ?” I challenged her.

  “Recall that Medina, until he was unmasked, had been a confidant of the king and one of the most admired men in parliament. A published poet as well.”

  “Quite true,” my father added. “And Emma did speak of kidnap threats in first explaining her parents’ use of pseudonyms. The child certainly gives you fair warning. Doesn’t spring surprises on you.”

  Jesse Maine shook his head. “It sets my blood to boiling, I can tell you. You’d think we was dealing here with the damned Pequots. After all these years of uneasy peace, they’re back at it. And hiding this time behind holy women dedicated to prayer and good works, out there with their rosary beads, aiding and abetting the Untouchables.”

  “Brides of Christ at that, let’s not forget,” Alix added.

  “Who are the Pequots?” Emma asked. “I’m not up to speed on them.”

  “Mean bastards, forgive my language, miss. But if the Pequot Indians is on your trail, you got problems. They never quit. Relentless as bloodhounds. If you got Pequots, you got countless woes besides.”

  “Oh, dear,” Alix said, recalling earlier Shinnecock difficulties with the Pequots.

  “But then,” said Emma, “please recall that we studied the French and Indian Wars last semester. Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham. Perhaps your Pequots were involved there, too, Chief?”

  “Not at all surprised if they was. Probably they was at the root of it. Usually are. And working with both sides at once, Wolfe and that other fellow, Mount Comb, both. Tricky as
snakes.”

  “It just occurred to me, then, that many of our nuns are French royalists whose minds dwell largely in the seventeenth century, under the Louises. Such women, no matter how saintly, are no friends of democracy.”

  “‘Looies’? What looies might they be?” Jesse inquired.

  “Kings of France, chief. All their kings used to be named King Louis.”

  “Good gawd ahmighty,” Jesse said, perhaps thinking of sowing confusion among the Pequots along those lines. He looked as if he were going to ask how the French told them apart if they all had the same name. But thought better of it. Not my father, who appeared ready to explode.

  “Damned women! Calling themselves Brides of Christ but scheming with royalists, and against democracy. Wasn’t Mother Teresa devoted to the poor, the homeless? How can the Catholic Church encourage such people yet send poor Teresa out begging alms? And how are we expected to fathom them? We’re Episcopalians!”

  He calmed down then, his hearty assertion of Episcopalianism providing comfort.

  “Did your policeman friend tell you what name the nun was using, Beecher?”

  “Why, yes, Emma. Sister Infanta de Castille. Mean anything to you?”

  The girl shook her head. “No, it’s not a name I’ve ever heard at the convent. But it’s clearly Spanish, and the nuns at Tour Sacrée, even the French ones, are historically partial to the Spaniards. First of all, the Inquisition. Which fell in neatly with their notion of discipline and keeping good order. Torquemada and all that. But only the more subtle tortures, not the thumbscrew.” More recently, she said, Mesdames of the Sacred Tower had been all for Franco and the Falange.