Charlotte completed his sentence: “… because Dr. Sperry’s giving the treatments here.”
Jack nodded. “One difference. In Switzerland, they use fresh cells; he uses dried. He claims they’re only slightly less effective. They’re smuggled in through the Bahamas. They’re sent to a patient of his in the Bahamas who sends them to a patient of his in New York who sends them to High Rock.”
“So it’s not legal,” said Charlotte, knowing it wasn’t.
“No-o-o. It’s strictly a word-of-mouth operation. He got started in the U.K., where the laws are less stringent. When he came here, he started treating the Americans he’d been treating in London. What started as a favor turned into a full-fledged business. He calls his treatments Body Servicing.”
“I hear he had quite a reputation for that,” said Charlotte dryly.
Jack threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, he does.”
“Does Paulina know?”
“Of course. As you know, having been recently drafted into her intelligence service, she has her spies everywhere. That’s one of the reasons she brought in Elliot to replace him as spa director. She was planning to ease him out gradually. Now of course his departure will be more precipitant.”
First Frannie, now Jack. Charlotte decided to see what else she could find out about Dr. Sperry’s illegal operation.
There was a lapse in the conversation as they drank their iced tea. The sun had vanished. In the distance, the sky had turned a menacing gray, and dark clouds were massing over the mountains.
“Speaking of Paulina’s firing people. All the other secretaries I’ve known were fired within a few months, sometimes only a few weeks. I’m curious as to how you’ve managed to stick it out for four years.”
“I haven’t,” Jack replied. “I’ve been sent to publicity at least three times and banished to Siberia—that’s what we call the Houston office—twice. But she always takes me back, just like she does her son.”
“Is she going to take him back this time?”
“I don’t know. She’s threatened to disinherit him before, but she’s never done it. But she’s never asked me to call the estate lawyer before either. I had to cancel that. She’s obviously in no condition to see him.”
“Do you think she might forget the whole thing?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I just know that I better damned well have scheduled another appointment because if she still has it in for Elliot when she comes around, there’ll be hell to pay if I haven’t.”
“It must be a demanding job,” sympathized Charlotte.
“To be more precise, it’s a bitch. I’m on call twenty-four hours a day—usually. Over the past couple of days, I’ve had a little vacation. Or rather, it would be a vacation if I wasn’t worrying about her.”
“Why have you stayed?” she asked. But it was clear he thought a lot of his boss. If she could be imperious and domineering, she could also be merry and warm. And one could hardly expect a woman who had single-handedly built one of the world’s largest companies to be refined and demure.
“I don’t know,” Jack replied. He displayed the sole of a hand-sewn loafer, which was dotted with circles made up of concentric rings, like the rings of a tree. “If I have to have these shoes resoled one more time, there won’t be anything left of them.”
“So it’s not the pay.” The image of Jack as an oppressed laborer wasn’t very convincing anyway. He struck her as savvy enough to take every advantage of his position, holes in his shoes notwithstanding.
“No. It’s the glamour I guess. I’ve grown accustomed to it: the travel, the luxurious surroundings, the celebrities …” He gestured at her. “It’s pretty hard to give up, even if I’m nothing but a glorified lackey.”
Charlotte thought of the Matisse in his bedroom. Hard to give up, for someone with his refined tastes. She looked at him sympathetically. “I hope you’re going to have a queen to be a glorified lackey to.”
“That makes two of us,” he said, a look of concern crossing his handsome face.
A stiff wind had sprung up, turning it inhospitably cool. The flag, which had been flying desultorily over the pavilion, now stood straight out from its staff. It looked as if they were in for a sudden change of weather.
Thanking Jack for the tea, Charlotte said good-bye and left.
8
Charlotte held out her cup under the stream of water that spouted from the horn of a Triton at Ainsworth’s Favorite Spring. Sipping it, she found it tasted faintly briny, like Alka-Seltzer. Her brochure said it was recommended for stomach upset, as well as for hangovers.
Ainsworth’s Favorite was the fourth spring on her walking tour of the springs of High Rock Spa.
She had slept hard the night before and had awakened feeling dopey and lethargic. But Frannie had led her to expect that; it would be the second day before she would feel the invigorating effects of the shiatsu massage. Her mood was matched by the weather. The clouds that had been hanging over the mountains had moved in, cloaking the spa in a dank, dismal shroud of gray. She had managed to struggle through Terrain Cure, the lone member of C-group. But instead of taking exercise class, she had returned to the Vale of Springs for the walking tour. She felt as if she needed a walk to regain her balance, to put her thoughts back in order. She preferred to take her exercise in the form of walking anyway, its virtue being that you could both exercise and think at the same time. Instead of occupying your mind with the agony of aching ankles or searing lungs, you could throw it an old problem to chew on. More often than not, it would favor you with a solution. Solvitur ambulando, the medieval philosophers had called it: a problem that is solved by walking.
As she had expected, the recent deaths had retreated from their disquieting position at the forefront of her mind, which was now occupied by the simple task of locating the springs. In fact, her low spirits had given way to the sanguine expectancy of a child at a treasure hunt. The route of “A Walking Tour of the Springs of High Rock Spa,” as her brochure was called, followed the banks of Geyser Stream, on either side of which were located many of the springs. At intervals, the route crossed the stream over rustic footbridges from which one could look out over the rushing waters. From Ainsworth’s Favorite, she turned to the Elixir Spring, which issued from a twin fountain less than a yard away. Again, she filled her cup from the horn of the Triton. But the water of the Elixir Spring, which the brochure described as “a fine table water of high mineral content, lightly sparkling,” was sweet and clear. Despite the fact that the springs were located only a few feet from one another, their waters were totally different. It was one of the mysteries of the spa that each spring had its own taste, its own chemical composition, and its own therapeutic effects. The educated palate, the brochure said, could distinguish the waters of one from those of another.
Wary of the highly touted purgative effects of the mineral waters, Charlotte had drunk sparingly from the springs she had visited so far. But at the Elixir Spring, she drank deeply, prompted by the century-old claim that Elixir water gave “strength and courage to the mind.” They were virtues that present circumstances put her in need of. Continuing along the route, she came suddenly upon a spring that shot ten feet into the air from the center of a stone well in a picturesque glade. This was the Champion Spouter, another of High Rock’s famous spouting springs. At the hiss of the eruption, Charlotte felt a shiver run up her spine. It was easy to see why the ancients had been inspired to build temples at such springs: there was something faintly supernatural about waters that shot out of the ground of their own volition. She was struck by the similarity of the ancient Greek spas to their modern counterparts. The ancient Greeks had also sought to create an environment that was removed from the everyday world. In their cure, the sick took sanctuary in the temple for the night. In their dreams, they were visited by Asclepius, who prescribed drugs, baths, or diets. Miraculous cures were effected. The visitation from the God triggered the body’s disease-fighting resources—a concept tha
t wasn’t all that different from Anne-Marie’s notion of creating an environment in which “our bad habits give us up.”
The next spring was the Old Red or Beauty Spring, which was recommended for the skin. It was mineral water from the Old Red Spring that was the chief ingredient in the Body Spa line. In fact, the water was probably pumped to the bottling plant from the cement block structure that stood nearby. The spring was covered by an ornate pavilion, evidence of its historical importance. For a hundred years, spa-goers had been visiting this spring for their rashes and complexions. On impulse, Charlotte splashed some water on her face. As Paulina was fond of saying, “Who knows? It might do some good.” Like the waters of High Rock Spring, the waters of the Old Red were high in magnesium. And radium: the Old Red was one of the springs that had been cited in the radium report. On the lintel of the pavilion were painted the now-ironic words: “Clear and transparent are these precious fonts as purest water of the pebbled brook.” Beneath the lintel, a sign warning of the radium danger recommended limiting consumption to one glass per week.
The sign brought Charlotte back to the radium controversy. Incited by the Mineral Man and the mayor, the townspeople were up in arms. It seemed to Charlotte that they would be wiser to simply let the issue fade away, but they were deeply offended by the slur against the purity of their waters. Again, she found herself thinking of An Enemy of the People. Tom had discovered that it was an investment bank that had been behind the press release. From this, Charlotte had concluded that the radium rumor was connected with the takeover. Perhaps Gary had hired the investment bank to orchestrate the deal. The bank might have planted the rumor in order to depress the price of Langenberg stock. But there was a major flaw with her An Enemy of the People theory, which was that by damaging the reputation of High Rock’s mineral waters, Gary was also damaging that of his own product. But perhaps he thought he could redeem the reputation of High Rock water, just as the townspeople in Ibsen’s play had believed the doctor could redeem the reputation of the baths. Hadn’t Gary said as much to the Society reporter at the fete?
From the Old Red, Charlotte followed the route down a ferny ravine to the base of the Vale of Springs. A few minutes later, she emerged at the Island Spouter. Crossing over the footbridge, she took a seat on the bench where she had sat with Art only two days before. She had been avoiding dealing with the subject of the recent deaths. But it was again pushing its way to the forefront of her mind. She had gone from feeling numbed to feeling angry. Adele and Art had both died in the bathhouse guarded by a beneficent Asclepius whose snakeentwined scepter was a symbol of man’s ability to shed disease the way a snake sheds its skin. The scepter had now been raised twice over a scene of death. She wanted to find out who was responsible, who had violated their sanctuary. The walk had refreshed her, had given her strength and courage of mind. Or maybe it was the Elixir water. Bending over, she retied her shoelaces. At her feet, an arrow-shaped sign pointed uphill: “High Rock Hotel—.5 Miles.” Only five days before she would have had to take the hill at a slow walk with frequent pauses. Now she was able to take it at a brisk walk without stopping. Tomorrow she would graduate to the next grade, an accomplishment that would earn her a merit pin for her sweat suit. Such was progress. She straightened up and set off. She wanted to check in on Paulina before lunch.
The words hit her the minute she entered Paulina’s bedroom.
“She was there,” said Paulina, pointing at Charlotte with the sandwich she held in one hand. “She’ll tell you what I say is true.”
A much-recovered Paulina was holding court. It was just as Jack had said; on the third day, she had risen again. She sat cross-legged (a position remarkable for an eighty-year-old woman) at the side of her Chinese bed, swaddled in a white cotton blanket under which she was still wearing the cotton duster. Her back was to the opening in the latticework railing, where a young woman in the red smocked uniform of the Paulina Langenberg salons stood brushing her long, blue-black hair. A tray holding a plate with, the rest of the sandwich and a bottle of mineral water sat next to her on the bed. She was conducting business: her black-framed reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck and her lap was full of papers. The man to whom she spoke sat in a chair at her back, while Leon stretched out like an indolent pasha in a chaise longue at the foot of the bed, flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine. Charlotte noticed he was wearing turquoise socks with his conservative gray suit. Were the socks a grudging concession to the flamboyant nature of the beauty industry, or the one expression of exuberance in an otherwise inhibited personality? she wondered.
Jack introduced Charlotte to the stranger, who was a Mr. Bates of Schweppe, Marsden, and Fitt, a New York law firm. Charlotte realized that he must be the estate lawyer, The One with the Blond Wife.
“Come here. Sit,” ordered Paulina. She gestured with the sandwich to a chair on the opposite side of the bed.
Charlotte complied. She could smell the sandwich; it was corned beef, and it smelled delicious, as she would expect it to after having had nothing but vegetables, fish, and lean meat to eat for five days.
“Now tell him,” ordered Paulina. She nodded over her shoulder at the lawyer, and then proceeded to wolf down the sandwich.
“Tell him what?”
“What Sonny said.”
Charlotte hesitated, reluctant to involve herself in the family row.
“Never mind,” said Paulina, waving her arm in dismissal. She picked up the rest of the sandwich. “I’ve got to keep my strength up. I’ve had a terrible shock.” She washed down the sandwich with a swig of mineral water and then reached over for a dill pickle. “I am prostate with grief.”
“Prostrate, Aunt Paulina,” said Leon, looking up from his magazine.
“Prostrate,” she repeated.
It was one of Paulina’s more endearing traits that despite more than sixty years as an inhabitant of English-speaking countries, she had yet to master the English language. Her speech was riddled with malapropisms.
“So you’ve come to see me,” she said, biting into the pickle. “A poor old woman, betrayed by her own son.”
Her voice was weak and tremulous. Despite the fact that she was up, she didn’t look well. Even her expertly applied makeup couldn’t camouflage the fact that her usually sharp eyes were dull and were hung with violet circles. Frannie would have said that her aura was dim and shriveled. In color, it would be gray, the color of diminished life force. Or maybe a dark, dull red, the color of discord and vengefulness. For she was seething with rancor. According to Jack, she had spent the morning recounting the tale of Elliot’s betrayal to a string of subordinates who had been summoned to appear before her.
“Yes,” replied Charlotte. “I was here yesterday too. It looks as if you’re feeling much better.”
“Not much. A little. Not so hard,” she chided the girl who was brushing her hair. “Gently.” She returned her attention to Charlotte. “I was just telling Mr.…”—she directed her glance over her shoulder to Mr. Bates—“about Sonny. He called me a despicable old woman.” Her eyes misted over. “Do you believe it?” She continued, her self-pity metamorphosing into outrage: “His own mother.” Setting down the sandwich, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled ball of paper. “His exact words,” she announced, turning to face the lawyer. She unfolded the ball of paper and read: “‘You’re a despicable old woman, always manipulating people with your money. That’s all you care about—money.’ She returned the piece of paper to her pocket. “You see?” She turned to Charlotte. “Tell him. Isn’t that what Sonny said?”
“That’s what he said.”
Paulina snorted. “‘All I care about is money.’ If I didn’t care about it, who would?” She resumed eating, polishing off the other half of the sandwich. Then she replaced her glasses on her nose and picked up the papers in her lap. “Where were we? I’m disinheriting my son,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here. We can use you. We need another witness.” She went
on to explain that the document in her hands was the official copy of her will, which had been stored in her lawyer’s vault. Her black notebook, which lay open on Mr. Bates’s pin-striped knees, was the working copy. She was now making the changes in the official copy that she had already made in the working copy.
“We’re still on real estate, but after that we’re finished,” replied Mr. Bates, a round-faced man whose jolly countenance seemed at odds with his choice of profession. He leafed through the notebook. “Let’s see. We’ve finished with the apartment in Paris, the flat in London, and the villa at St. Jean-Cap Ferrat. I guess we’re on American real estate. We’ve done the Palm Beach mansion. Next would be the Greenwich estate. Page twenty-eight.”
Paulina read: “Should my son”—she crossed out the word “son” and inserted the word “nephew”—“Elliot B. Langenberg”—here she crossed out Elliot’s name and substituted Leon’s—“survive me, I give to him …” She went on to describe the Greenwich estate, a Norman-style mansion overlooking Long Island Sound, and then initialed the change in the margin of the document, which was about forty pages thick and bound with a red satin ribbon.
Charlotte was familiar with the procedure as a result of making changes in her own will. For the time being, the changes would be recorded in longhand. If the changes were to be typed in, the new typeface wouldn’t match the old, a difference that could provide grounds for the will’s legitimacy to be challenged. Although it seemed like an antiquated way of doing things, its purpose was to deter any suspicion that the will had been tampered with.
“What about the Park Avenue triplex?” asked Mr. Bates.
“That too,” said Paulina, making the changes. “Everything to Leon.” Looking up, she smiled at him indulgently. “Sonny gets zilch.”
“Shouldn’t we leave him something, Aunt Paulina?” asked Leon. “He is your son. What about Palm Beach?”
Murder at the Spa Page 13