“It’s a mild laxative; it contains sodium sulfate and magnesium bicarbonate. Not that you have any problems of that nature. If you did, I’d prescribe Union water.” He smiled. “It produces what the local people call action-within-fifteen-minutes.”
So that’s what Adele had been talking about. “I hope the Union Spring isn’t far from the hotel,” said Charlotte.
He laughed. “No. It’s not. Actually, fifteen minutes is overstating it a bit; it usually takes about an hour.”
Charlotte was reminded of the old saying about knowing a man by his drink; it took on a special significance at a mineral spa.
Dr. Sperry went on to explain that the waters of the spa fell into three categories: the saline waters, such as Union water, were highly cathartic. They were generally taken before meals and warmed. The saline-alkaline waters, such as High Rock, were mildly cathartic, and were prescribed as a tonic for the kidneys, bowels, and digestion. They were also taken before meals, but at room temperature. The third type, the alkaline-saline, of which Sans Souci was the best example, were digestive aids. They were generally taken after meals by people with digestive disturbances or liver disease.
“Then I presume I’m taking High Rock water as a tonic,” said Charlotte as Dr. Sperry recorded the prescription in her booklet.
“Exactly,” he replied. “But many guests also find that it helps their arthritis. To say nothing of diabetes, gout, rheumatism, neuritis.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Frankly, we don’t know. Mineral water is like acupuncture: we know it works, but we don’t know how. A lot of studies have demonstrated that the waters help certain conditions, but identifying the chemical that’s responsible is like finding a needle in a haystack. High Rock water, for instance, contains more than nineteen thousand different chemicals.”
“I see,” said Charlotte.
“The baths are different. There we know that most of the benefit comes from simple relaxation. As far as the baths go, we’ll start you out with a daily bath and massage, what we call our ‘ninety-minute unwinder,’” he said, making another notation in the booklet. He studied her chart again. “Frannie indicates here that your shoulders are tense. Is that true?”
“Yes.” She accumulated tension in her shoulders the way others did in their faces or their guts, but she wouldn’t have thought it obvious. She gave Frannie credit for her perspicacity and wondered if she was walking around with hunched shoulders. “I’m surprised Frannie noticed it.”
“Are you?” He smiled, wrinkling his nose. “I’m also going to prescribe a hot pack for your knee and fango for your shoulders.” He made another notation in the booklet. “Fango is mud therapy: mud has excellent heat-retention properties.” He leaned back. “You shouldn’t be. We can tell a lot about a client’s physical and mental condition from her appearance.”
“So I see,” replied Charlotte.
“For instance,” he continued, “I can tell that you’re a happy, well-adjusted person.” He wrinkled his nose again.
Charlotte raised a dark, winged eyebrow in the skeptical expression that was one of her screen trademarks, along with her clipped Yankee accent and her starkly tailored suits.
“You are open, vibrant, alive,” he continued, staring at her appreciatively. “I can tell just by looking at you that you are beautiful in your soul as well as in your person.”
She returned his stare. She wanted to tell him to cut the crap.
“Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for a lot of our guests,” he went on. “Many of them are very unhappy. They’re often going through widowhood, or divorce. Their faces are masks of anxiety and depression; their skin has sagged; their lips are compressed. We can’t do anything about their personal situations of course, but we can help them feel better about themselves.”
If outward appearance were the key to character, Charlotte thought, Dr. Sperry’s narrow, thin-lipped mouth and long, pointed teeth put him in the wolf family. The kind that prey on lonely, middle-aged women.
He paused to offer her another cigarette, which she turned down, and then lit one himself from the tip of the one he was smoking.
“Some of our guests are in very bad shape indeed. Like that woman who was just in here. Her biological age is about the same as yours, but she’s actually twenty-four years younger. She doesn’t need a spa, she needs a detox program. We get a lot of guests like her. We ask our guests to refrain from using drugs or alcohol, but we can hardly search their luggage, can we?”
His voice had taken on an intimate tone, as if they belonged to an elite of which Adele was not a member. Charlotte’s mild dislike was progressing to outright hostility. What he said about Adele was no doubt true, but it was unprofessional to be talking with her about it.
“Dr. Sperry, I’m not interested in discussing the medical histories of the other guests,” she said firmly.
She could imagine him telling the next patient: “Oh, yes, Charlotte Graham. Well preserved, I’d say, for a woman of sixty-two. Wouldn’t expect it with the life she’s led. Four husbands would take its toll on anyone. To say nothing of those notorious love affairs.”
“Oh, quite right,” he said, startled at her rebuke. “Well, do you have any questions?”
“What is the pack for my arthritis?” she asked, studying the booklet he had returned to her.
He described the hot pack, and then, their interview at an end, she rose to leave. He walked her to the door, his arm draped familiarly around her shoulders. She wanted to shake it off, like a surly adolescent.
As they reached the door, she felt him gently squeeze the muscle at the back of her neck. “We’ll take care of those shoulders for you,” he said.
After leaving Dr. Sperry’s office, Charlotte crossed the quadrangle to the Bath Pavilion, which was a mirror-image of the Health Pavilion except for the relief on the pediment, which here depicted Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. An inscription read: “A gentle craftsman who drove pain away/Soother of cruel pangs, a joy to men,/Bringing them golden health.”
At the reception desk, she was directed to the women’s wing, where she was greeted by the director of the women’s baths, a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Murray who wore a white nurse’s uniform and the firm expression of someone who was used to dealing with difficult guests. A starched white nurse’s cap floated on the stiff waves of her charcoal-gray hair like a paper boat on a stormy sea. Mrs. Murray introduced her to Hilda, who would be her bath attendant. Hilda was a stocky woman with a round face encircled by the platinum curls of an ill-fitting wig. Her face had a hint of the Tartar about it, with prominent cheekbones and fierce yellow eyes above which eyebrows had been penciled on in a perennial expression of surprise. She bobbed her head and smiled broadly, revealing a wide gap between her protuberant front teeth. Then she shuffled off down the corridor in her corduroy slippers, leaving Charlotte to follow behind.
Charlotte found the bath cubicle to which she had been assigned to be surprisingly utilitarian by comparison with the rest of the spa. It was large, with a high ceiling, glossy white-tiled walls, and a black-and-white-tiled floor. It was simply furnished with a white wicker table and chair and a white-painted metal cot covered by a starched white sheet. The walls above the tile, which looked as if they once had been painted a depressing hospital green, were now papered with a gay floral print. On the table stood a pot of red geraniums. One corner was occupied by the treatment tub, which was both wider and deeper than an ordinary tub. Charlotte noted with pleasure a heated towel rack of the type that was the one redeeming feature of British bathrooms.
She felt right at home. Except for the matter of bath etiquette. Was she supposed to disrobe in front of Hilda? She was about to ask when Hilda led her into an adjoining bathroom and handed her a white terry-cloth robe and what appeared to be a towel, but was actually a turban. Emerging a few minutes later, she took a seat while Hilda drew the bath, using fishtail faucets for the mineral water that bubbled up from a well at t
he bottom of the tub and ordinary faucets for the tap water that was used to adjust the temperature.
“It smells rusty,” observed Charlotte.
“Ja,” replied Hilda. “The iron in the water. It’s what clogs the pipes.” She spoke with an accent that Charlotte could identify only as eastern European.
“How long does the bath last?” Charlotte asked.
“Fifteen minutes. Then I check you. If you want, you stay in another ten minutes. If the water is too cold, I add more hot. Then I wrap you in warm sheets and you rest—thirty minutes. I turn the lights out. After the rest, you have a massage.” She looked back at Charlotte and smiled. “Okay?”
“Okay.” It sounded wonderful. “Where are you from?” she asked.
“Budapest.” Hilda explained that she was a refugee of the 1956 revolution, one of many to whom Paulina had given jobs. For twenty years, she had worked as a maid at the Chicago salon. But when the spa opened, she had moved east. She came from a long line of bath attendants. In Hungary, she explained, spa jobs were passed along from mother to daughter.
Raising herself onto one knee, she gestured for Charlotte to step into the tub. Above her hemline, Charlotte could see the bulge of flesh that overflowed the thickly rolled top of her cotton lisle stocking.
Charlotte removed her robe and gingerly dipped a foot in the water. Hilda supported her, gripping her tightly by her upper arm.
“Your arms are strong.”
“Ja,” said Hilda. She flexed her biceps like a body builder. “Very strong. In Budapest, the spas are used for physical therapy—cripples, amputees. The attendants have to be strong to lift them in and out of the tub. Is too hot, the water?” She checked the bathometer that bobbed on the water’s surface. It read ninety-four point five. She explained that the temperature of a mineral water bath is lower than that of an ordinary bath because the water feels hotter. “The bubbles are insulation,” she said. “If you want, I can adjust.”
“No, thank you,” said Charlotte, gently lowering herself into the water. She liked her bath water hot. “It’s fine.”
The tub was recessed a foot or more below the level of the floor. Sinking into it, she found herself up to her chin in the warm, effervescent water.
Hilda had disappeared into the bathroom. She returned momentarily with a white plastic pillow, which she placed under Charlotte’s head, and a linen hand towel, which she floated on the water under Charlotte’s nose.
“What’s the towel for?”
“The gas,” replied Hilda. “The carbon dioxide; it can make you woozy.” She revolved her head in a circle, her eyes rolled upward. Then she leaned over to dip her hand in the water. “The temperature, is okay?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Would you like a glass of mineral water? Is good to drink the mineral water in the bath—you don’t get dehydrated.”
Charlotte replied that she would, and Hilda shuffled off to fetch a glass of High Rock water from the fountain in the lobby.
The bath was incredibly soothing. The waters of High Rock spa were unique, she had read. Not only were they among the most highly mineralized in the world, they were also the most effervescent. The waters emerged from the earth supersaturated with carbon dioxide gas. During a bath, the carbon dioxide penetrated the skin, dilating the capillaries and relieving pressure on the heart. The result was supposed to be a deep feeling of relaxation.
Hilda returned with the glass of water and handed it to Charlotte. “I come back in fifteen minutes,” she said, and left.
Charlotte leaned back, glass in hand. Her body was totally sheathed in tiny iridescent bubbles; they made her skin tingle. She felt like the swizzle stick in a giant champagne cocktail. Every time she moved, clouds of bubbles floated to the surface. The water was unexpectedly buoyant. Her hands and feet floated as if they were made of rubber. Noticing a toe hole at the end of the tub, she tucked her toes under it to keep them from rising. Then she set down her glass and surrendered herself to the waters. For a while, she thought about the spa, then about her work, and finally about nothing at all. Sounds too faded from her consciousness. At first, she heard the sound of splashing in the next cubicle. Then the dull thud of a door closing and the light tread of footsteps. After that, only the gentle murmur of bubbles breaking on the water’s surface and the soft sough of her breath.
She dozed off, soothed by the massage of a million tiny bubbles.
It was the sensation of cold that awakened her. Fifteen minutes had surely elapsed, but Hilda hadn’t returned. She waited awhile, and then decided to get out of the tub. She was drying herself when she heard a door slam. The slam was followed by the sound of someone running down the hall. And then more footsteps, a general commotion. From the next cubicle came the anxious murmur of voices. She heard someone in the hall ask: “What happened?” And then other voices: “Is she all right?” and “Has someone called a doctor?” She quickly threw on her robe and opened the door. A small cluster “of white-uniformed staff members and white-robed guests stood solemnly outside the cubicle adjoining hers. At the front was Hilda, her yellow Tartar eyes gleaming with the thrill of calamity. A worried-looking Mrs. Murray stood with her arms outstretched in front of the door like a school crossing guard.
As they stood there, a young man in a white lab coat appeared at the far end of the hall. Charlotte recognized him as Frannie’s husband, Dana. Behind him came two other men in white lab coats. They were carrying an olive-green metal case of the type used for storing oxygen equipment. All three were walking rapidly, almost running. As they reached the end of the corridor, their pace slowed and the onlookers parted silently to let them through. Then they disappeared into the cubicle with Mrs. Murray.
Spotting Corinne’s pale profile, Charlotte edged her way through the crowd to her side. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
“It’s Adele,” she replied. “They think she’s drowned.”
4
Charlotte found out what the Terrain Cure was the next morning. It was a series of walks at increasing gradients. The idea was to start with the most gradual grade and move up to the steeper grades as your spa stay progressed. The Terrain Cure route began on the esplanade and headed down a wooded path to the Vale of Springs, a gorge that followed the fissure in the earth’s crust through which the mineral waters escaped to the surface. At the base of the gorge, the route joined a winding stream and followed if for some distance before turning back up the hill toward the esplanade. It was on the ascent that the Terrain Cure routes varied. The most difficult route ascended via a steep ravine nicknamed Heartbreak Hill after the famous hill in the Boston Marathon. All three groups began with the easiest route, the difference being the pace at which they took it—the A’s at a run, the B’s at a jog, and the C’s at a brisk walk. At regular intervals, participants paused to take their pulses at benches that were provided in scenic spots for this purpose. The aim was to reach, but not exceed, a target heart rate. When a certain fitness level was achieved, participants moved up to the next grade, an accomplishment that earned them a merit pin for the lapels of their sweat suits.
The idea of the Terrain Cure was explained by a muscular young man named Jerry D’Angelo, who then jogged his charges slowly around the esplanade in close-order drill formation (it was this that Charlotte had witnessed the day before) before sending them off down the hill. Charlotte had risen at six in order to drink two glasses of High Rock water at six-thirty, take Awake and Aware at seven, and eat breakfast at seven-thirty. By the time Terrain Cure rolled around at eight, she felt as if she’d already put in a day’s work. As did Art, her comrade in white. They brought up the rear of the two-by-two formation. By now they were fast friends, having shared a table at dinner the night before, glum meal that it was. They had both been shaken by Adele’s death. Dr. Sperry, who had arrived on the scene shortly after Charlotte, had unofficially attributed the cause of death to drowning subsequent to a drug overdose. He had tried unsuccessfully to revive her. As
had the ambulance crew that arrived not long afterward. Her body had been taken away, and that was that. Where had the body been taken to? Would there be a funeral? Who would make the arrangements—the friend who had paid for her spa stay? Charlotte knew next to nothing about Adele—not even where she was from. Her death was strange in that respect; it was as if she had just been spirited away in the night.
With Adele gone, the only other C left (she didn’t count Corinne, who hadn’t shown up yet anyway) was Nicky, who’d already fallen so far behind the group that he might as well be considered a dropout. As the group headed down the path toward the Vale of Springs, they had left Nicky circling the esplanade for the first time. “At least,” said Art, “we’re not D.F.L.” It was, he explained, with apologies for the language, a sailing term for dead fucking last. Charlotte smiled; without Nicky, they would have been D.F.L. for sure. They were walking briskly along a broad flagstone-paved path bordering Geyser Stream, a winding, boulder-strewn ribbon of green that gurgled under bridges and through pine glades to its terminus at Geyser Lake. Ahead was the spring from which the stream took its name: the Island Spouter, a geyser that spouted twenty feet into the air from the center of an island formed of the same mineral as the rock at High Rock Spring. Drawing near a bench overlooking the geyser, they stopped to take their pulses. Or rather, Charlotte stopped to take her pulse, Art sat with his head hanging between his knees, gasping.
Charlotte hadn’t realized he was in such bad shape. His appearance was alarming. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He removed his baseball cap, revealing a bald spot like a monk’s tonsure. “I will be in a minute. Jesus,” he said, his voice tense with frustration. “I can’t even take a damned walk.” After a minute, he went on: “Every time a pain hits my chest, I think it’s the big one. But do you think I’ve done a damned thing about it? Nope. I’ve just been sitting around on my fat ass.”
Murder at the Spa Page 5