by Amanda Cross
By the time I got to Kate’s, she had reached Georgiana on the telephone and was obviously listening to some long explanation; she motioned me to sit down and keep quiet. Unobserved I would have picked up an extension and listened in, but Kate thought eavesdropping on telephone calls on the order of poisoning wells (it poisoned trust), so I waited for her to hang up and start telling me what was going on.
As it turned out, there wasn’t much to tell. The last time Georgiana saw Flavia, they had had dinner with some friends, and sat around together for a while talking of this and that. Then Flavia and Georgiana had gone to bed. A perfectly ordinary evening. Georgiana always breakfasted in her room and stayed there throughout the morning attending to business. Flavia had breakfast in the breakfast room–nothing in the least unusual. When Georgiana came downstairs preparatory to going out to lunch, she learned that Flavia had already left for her own luncheon engagement. From which Flavia never returned.
“That’s the last anybody heard from her?” I asked. “How many days ago?”
“Three days ago, four if we count today,” Kate said. “Georgiana heard from Flavia once, on the evening of the day she didn’t return. She sounded rather breathless, and simply said: ‘Don’t worry about me if you don’t see me for a while. I’m just away for a few days. I can’t call because they’ll probably listen in on your telephone. Don’t worry.’ Georgiana insists that was the whole and exact message, and I’ve never seen any reason to doubt what Georgiana says.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked Kate.
“I’m going there, of course,” Kate said. “I have a horrible feeling I’m responsible for all this.” I knew Kate wouldn’t let me come, and she didn’t, but she did promise to call me every evening from a phone booth, in case Georgiana’s telephone was tapped.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Leighton,” Kate said sternly, while throwing things into a flight bag (Kate is not one of your neat packers), “if you don’t think we live in a total surveillance society, you had better wake up. Have you any idea the watch that can be kept on people?” she added darkly. “Please try to be home each day at six in the evening.” And with that she was gone.
KATE WENT RIGHT to Georgiana’s from the airport and heard the whole story again while drinking lemonade on the porch. Georgiana said she had informed the police about Flavia’s disappearance, and they had made all the usual inquiries–the morgue, hospitals, reports of vagrants, old ladies hanging around bus and train stations or airports–all to no avail. “No avail,” Georgiana repeated, sighing. She had always feared Flavia would do something impulsive and foolish, and clearly Flavia had gone and done it.
“Was there anything unusual about her this time?” Kate asked Georgiana. “Was she noticeably different than on her previous visits?”
“Yes and no,” Georgiana said, in her slow, Southern way. Kate had long ago discovered that Southerners do not think as slowly as they talk, but Northerners have to train themselves not to snatch the ends of sentences out of the mouths of their Southern friends. “Flavia seemed more, you might say purposeful, than I remembered her. She asked more questions, and read the papers more intensely. She even seemed more interested in my Merryfields day. Before, she always refused to go with me, saying she saw enough old folks without looking for them.”
“Merryfields?” Kate asked.
“The old people’s home, nursing home really, but we don’t like to call it that. For old folks who can’t care for themselves anymore, and haven’t any family hereabouts. It’s a nice place, for a place like that. Not like the nursing homes I read about in New York.”
Kate merely nodded. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to get Georgiana started on the merits of the South and the horrors of New York, not what Kate thought of as a productive conversation at the best of times. “Flavia seemed more interested in–er–Merryfields this time?”
“Much more interested. She surprised me right at first by offering to come with me for my weekly visit when I hadn’t even asked her–she’d always refused and I thought the question of her coming was moot. Then she asked all sorts of questions about it, and talked to many of the women patients. There are many more women patients than men, as you might expect. She even wanted to stay on when I was ready to go. I was quite concerned. ‘You aren’t thinking you might end up in a place like that, I hope, Flavia,’ I said, ‘because I wouldn’t allow it. You’d make your home right here with me,’ I said.”
“And what did she say to that?” Kate asked when Georgiana’s pause was longer than could be accounted for by the speech habits of the South.
“She said: ‘You’re a dear, Georgiana, and you know there’s always a place for you in New York with me, if the situations should be reversed.’ Now that’s about as likely as a blizzard in Alabama, but I appreciated the thought. Anyway, she wasn’t looking at Merryfields in a personal way, so I paid the matter no more mind. When Flavia’s here she always goes her own way until teatime, and I was glad she seemed occupied and busy. Mostly when she visits she reads a whole lot, but this time she seemed to spend hours in the town noticing things. I took that as a good sign; lack of interest is bad in the old. I was glad not to have to worry about Flavia on that score. I couldn’t have known, could I, that she would disappear and worry me just when I was easy in my mind?”
Kate nodded her understanding of Georgiana’s worry.
“Do you think I ought to consult the family lawyer, Matthew Finley?” Georgiana asked Kate after a time. “He’s the son of our old family lawyer, and his granddaddy was Papa’s lawyer before that. He’s young, but he understands how to deal with the world and with old folks like me. Maybe he could give us some good advice.”
“We ought to keep him in reserve, anyway,” Kate said. “In case we actually have some facts to deal with. Meantime, I think I’ll just poke around a little on my own. Try not to worry too much; the old saw about no news being good news was invented for situations just like this. Besides, I can’t imagine Flavia doing anything foolish, not really.”
“That’s the difference between us,” Georgiana said. “I can.”
KATE STAYED SEVERAL days with Georgiana, hoping for a sign from Great Aunt Flavia, but there wasn’t the breath of a sign. Kate called me each day at six from a phone booth as she had promised, but she had nothing to report. The police, egged on by Georgiana’s influential friends and relations, had stepped up their search, but they’d found nothing. Kate was ready to retreat back to the North, since there seemed little anyone could do down there among the magnolias or verbena or whatever it is, when the most extraordinary story appeared in the papers with the sudden force of a powerful explosion. The minister of one of the most successful of the fundamentalist churches, who had collected millions of dollars in the service of God at His explicit direction, was photographed entering a motel in Georgiana’s town with a prostitute. There was no question of the woman’s profession, nor of her understanding of her client’s intentions as they entered the motel. By that evening, the minister himself was on television–most of his congregation were reached in this way–pleading for forgiveness of his sin and promising to reform. Kate, for reasons she could not explain to herself let alone to Georgiana, decided to stay on for a bit.
When she called me that evening, she said she was talking from Georgiana’s phone, since there wasn’t any more anyone could learn by listening in. At Kate’s insistence, Georgiana had called Matthew Finley, the family lawyer, and urged him in her gentle but firm manner to discover from the newspaper that had first printed the picture where they had got it. Georgiana told Finley she would wait by her phone for an answer but could not give a reason. She made it clear, however, that her future legal business depended on prompt action: this disappearance of Flavia had gone on long enough, and if Kate thought this information would hasten Flavia’s return, she, Georgiana, would supply it.
Finley stopped asking questions and went to work. He rang back with the infor
mation in a remarkably short time. Kate, listening to Georgiana receive it on the telephone, fought the impulse to grab the receiver from Georgiana’s gentle hands.
“I don’t know what you expected, my dear,” Georgiana said when she had hung up after thanking Finley in her deliberate way, “but the photograph was dropped off at the paper anonymously; that is, it was left at the reception desk, and no one remembers who left it. It was marked ‘urgent,’ but bore no message other than the name of the minister in the picture.”
“An invisible person left it,” Kate announced. “Didn’t they check out the picture?”
“I was just coming to that, dear,” Georgiana mildly said, while Kate wondered if stressful impatience could shorten one’s life by decades, as seemed likely. “The newspaper sent out an ‘investigative reporter,’ ” Georgiana ever so lightly emphasized the phrase, “and he found the–er–woman in the picture. She admitted readily enough that it was indeed she, and that the man with her was indeed the minister, whose photograph the reporter showed her. She had not known who her ‘client’ was, but this was not the first time she had ‘serviced’ him. Poor Matthew Finley was quite embarrassed at having to report this unseemly business. When they had verified all this, the newspaper people decided to print the picture.”
“The rest is history,” Kate said. “Georgiana, may I stay on a day or two more? I think I may be able to find Flavia. But I’m going to have to visit your old people’s home, Merryland, as soon as possible.”
“Merryfields, dear. We’ll go this very minute, if you’ll just let me get ready. Surely you don’t think one of those old people did Flavia in?”
“I think they did the naughty minister in,” Kate said. “But only time will tell.”
“If you want any information from the old people, Kate,” Georgiana said, pausing on the staircase, “perhaps you had better let me try to elicit it. Your rather, well, Northern manner might just confuse them, and take more time in the end. Besides, they know me. Now what is it you’re trying to discover?” Kate, who could not but see the force of Georgiana’s words, had to consent, but she wondered if she would survive waiting for Georgiana to return with her information. I told Kate later that now, at last, she knew how I felt when she left me so cruelly suspended in the course of investigations.
Georgiana allowed Kate to go with her to Merryfields, but not to accompany her upstairs on her visits to the old people. “You’ll just upset them; even if you don’t speak (and we know how unlikely that is, dear), just the presence of a stranger may very well put them off their stride. Now you just sit in the waiting room and wait.” No one but Georgiana could have got away with it.
But when she came down again a considerable time later, it was clear that she thought she had got what Kate wanted. And Kate, when she heard it, thought so too. “Though what this has to do with Flavia’s disappearance, I cannot imagine,” Georgiana announced in the face of Kate’s excitement.
Georgiana reported that the dear old ladies had told her all about the visits of her dear friend from the North: Flavia. They tended to wander and to repeat themselves, but there was no doubt the conversation had certainly turned to the Divine Church of the Air, which they watched assiduously. Surely, they told Flavia, their dear Minister was talking to each of them personally, because he had read their letters, had answered them personally, and was grateful that their contributions, slight as they were, were helping to spread the word of God and lead others to be born again to Christ. Each lady had shown Flavia her letters, typed of course but addressed to her personally, with the minister’s promise to pray for her with special fervor and by name. Each old person, however deserted in this world, was not forgotten by God or by His minister on earth and the Divine Church of the Air. The ladies had even trusted Georgiana with a few of their letters, which Georgiana produced.
“How much money did they send?” Kate asked. Of course Georgiana didn’t like to ask the exact amount, but it had been as much as the poor dears could afford. They didn’t have much left over after paying for their care: just a little for personal use, most of which they were honored to give to the dear Minister.
“Flavia must have felt like throwing up,” Kate said without thinking. Georgiana, firm in her breeding, ignored this. Kate saw her into her car, and left, saying she would return soon, and assuring Georgiana that Flavia too would soon be back.
“BUT HOW DID you know where to look?” I asked Kate when she had returned to New York, bringing Flavia with her. Flavia had thought she owed it to Georgiana to stay on a few days, but Kate wouldn’t hear of it. “You can never be as invisible as all that, not in Georgiana’s house,” Kate said, and to this they all had to agree.
“I began with camera stores,” Kate said. “Flavia hadn’t taken a camera down with her, so she had to have acquired one. Oddly enough, the only place an old lady is noticeable is in a camera store, particularly if she asks for a special kind of camera to do a special kind of thing, money no object. There were three large camera stores in town, and Flavia turned out to have got her camera in the third, naturally. The young man at the counter remembered her perfectly: Northern, perky, knew exactly what she wanted. He tried to fob her off with an Instamatic, but she wanted a camera with a telephoto lens and great clarity of focus. That wasn’t the way she put it of course; she said she wanted to take pictures from a distance and have them come out well. The man sold her an expensive camera with a telephoto lens and fully expected to have it back on his hands the following day, but he never saw her again. Asked to describe her, he said that she looked like any other old lady, neat, grandmotherly but firm. She paid with cash, which surprised him, but she explained that she was too old to learn to use credit cards.” Kate smiled at this, since she had often seen Flavia use credit cards in restaurants and comment on their usefulness: so much easier to figure out the tip. Flavia had been covering her tracks.
Finding Flavia herself was a little harder, but not much. She had stolen one of Georgiana’s credit cards and one of her suitcases, and simply checked into the town’s largest hotel as Georgiana. Naturally, the police didn’t think of that. They had checked hotel registrations, looking for Flavia’s name, or at least an obviously phony name. They had interviewed the help in all the hotels, but there were far too many old ladies to make further investigation practical. None of them, in any case, were reported as looking the least bit “lost.” When Kate finally tracked her down, Flavia was relieved, but also frightened. “I fear for my life,” she said, “which is rather silly since I had been thinking of flinging it away. That Divine Church has lost millions of dollars because of me, and they may decide not to leave vengeance to the Lord.” Kate agreed with her.
When we were all discussing it later in Kate’s apartment, armed with fortified refreshment, Great Aunt Flavia was full of praise for Kate for finding her and especially for realizing that she had been responsible for the photograph. “You recognized your advice about invisibility, didn’t you, dear?” she said. “How right you were. I loitered around that motel for days, and no one even saw me. People are afraid to speak to old ladies for fear they won’t stop talking, and they aren’t afraid we’re going to be burglars or gunmen. It worked like a charm.”
“That’s all very well,” Kate said, keeping a firm grip on Flavia’s exuberance, “but how did you know he would show up, with or without a prostitute?”
“I saw him with her on the street, and I followed him. They were in a car, but I recognized him when they stopped for a light. They turned into the motel a few yards further on. I suppose he thought he was safely distant from his usual stamping ground. They didn’t even glance at me when they went into the motel, intent upon what seemed a familiar routine. So I waited until they came out, just to see where they would go. I had called a taxi, and when it came I waited in it, with the meter going, until the Divine Church and his companion emerged. Then I said: ‘Follow that car.’ I think if I’m ever asked, I’ll say that was the high point of my life. Af
ter that I bought the camera.” Flavia took a long sip of her Scotch and soda.
“How could you be sure the woman was a prostitute?” Kate asked.
“He dropped her off, so I saw where she lived. I asked a man working in her building if he knew her name, because I thought she might be the daughter of a dear friend but I hadn’t really seen her very clearly. The man said he thought I must be mistaken, since she wasn’t the sort of woman a lady like myself would know. ‘Do you mean she’s a fallen woman?’ I asked him in my most elegant way.”
“Flavia, you didn’t!”
“I did, and very convincingly too. He told me you might put it that way. So I went off and bought a camera. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to get my picture; he was clearly in town for several days. But after I got the picture back and sent it to the newspaper, I thought I’d better hide out. I didn’t want to bring any danger on poor Georgiana. I just went right on being invisible in that hotel until you found me. I’m glad you did, Kate; I was getting very tired of that life.”
“What set you off on this adventure,” I asked, “apart from the thrills of being invisible?” I glared at Kate.
“Hypocrisy and greed, dear. I can’t bear people ranting on about sin and old-time values and being born again, when they’re just trying to make money like any inside trader on Wall Street. And then, to take money from those poor, old ladies, and pretend you are writing personal letters, when it’s all done with computers. Taking advantage of loneliness: I was shocked, really shocked. I thought if the old ladies all over the country knew what sort of man he was, they might think again before sending him money. Really I was just lucky that he picked that place to sin in. Or do you think the Lord was getting tired of him?”