Bad Moon Rising

8

“Was Jesus a hippie? I think not. Did Jesus smoke pot? Did Jesus listen to the Rolling Stones? Did Jesus burn the American flag? No, he didn’t. And Jesus never said vile things about the Vietnam War, either.”

Reverend Cartwright’s midday radio show.

It wasn’t really a manor house but it tried to be, a three-story native stone building of twenty-five rooms, nine baths, and two dining rooms, not to mention a fireplace that you could walk into. Not while logs were burning, of course. The home lay on fifteen acres of green trimmed lawn with gasp-inducing hedges and stone-edged ponds on which swans swam, and pines of such sweet perfume you got dizzy. Behind the house was the bright red barn where Eve Mainwaring had the six horses she ran in her white-fenced three-acre domain. All four doors of the garage were open, revealing the fact that Mainwaring didn’t think much of American car making. There was a Porsche, two Mercedes sedans, and a Jaguar. All of recent vintage.

I’d called ahead. Mainwaring had told me to come around to the back veranda where he was having lunch. The day was well on its way to reaching the predicted ninety. From an open upstairs window I heard The Byrds’ version of Bob Dylan’s “Tambourine Man.” As I looked up I saw a young female face, framed by long dark hair, watching me. The youngest of the Mainwarings, Nicole. She leaned back, out of sight.

Mainwaring sat beneath a large blue umbrella at a table of glass and chrome. He appeared to be staring out at the swimming pool. The water was blue and chemically fresh, no doubt. It was also empty.

I was still behind him when he said, “She always swam in the mornings. When it got cold she swam indoors. She rarely missed a morning.”

I didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. I walked across the fieldstone veranda and seated myself at his table. It was cooler under the umbrella. He wore a starched white short-sleeved button-down shirt, tan military-style walking shorts, white socks, and white tennis shoes. Before him was a plate that held two halves of an English muffin and two poached eggs. One half of the muffin, covered with strawberry jam, had been nibbled on. The eggs hadn’t been touched. They looked like the eyes of a comic monster. Next to his coffee cup lay his package of Chesterfields. “I don’t eat breakfast. I run three miles and then have breakfast for lunch.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Good for you or tell him how my day starts. You know, peeing and having a cigarette as soon as possible. But that doesn’t sound quite as impressive as a three-mile run, I guess.

There were no amenities.

“I wanted you to talk to Nicole, Sam. But she and I had a disagreement this morning so she’s up in her room sulking.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. In the shade of the umbrella his silver hair didn’t glow quite as much. “Eve will be joining us in a few minutes.” He paused. His harsh blue eyes showed pain. “She was what we were arguing about, of course. Neither of the girls accepted her. They never gave her a chance.”

“That’s a tough transition sometimes. A stepmother.”

“They never gave her a chance.”

I was expected to agree with him.

“I see.”

Then, appearing in the French doors behind us, was a sight rare even in the upper-class homes of our town. A maid, a real one, in a gray uniform and everything. White and fiftyish and from the looks of her, Irish. If she spoke with a brogue I’d suspect that we’d been transported into a sitcom.

“Will there be anything else, Mr. Mainwaring? I need to get going on the laundry.”

“Marsha, this is Sam McCain. He’ll be working with me for a while. Have you had lunch, Sam?”

I lied. “I have, yes. But I’d appreciate some coffee.”

“Why don’t you bring us a fresh pot, Marsha?”

“Sure. Anything else, Mr. McCain?”

“No. But thanks for asking.”

After Marsha had left, Mainwaring said, “You’re like I was at first. Nervous about having somebody wait on me all the time. Marsha was Eve’s idea. Ironically, the girls like Marsha much more than they do Eve.”

I didn’t correct the tense he was using. It was difficult to get it right when one daughter was alive and the other one was dead.

“Have you started work yet, Sam?”

A breeze carried the scent of the water in the pool. I was trying to say the unsayable. “I’ve been trying to get some background on Vanessa.”

Paul Mainwaring’s eyes narrowed and a bitter smile crossed his face. “Then you know she was something of a tease. Maybe even something of a whore.”

Fathers aren’t supposed to say that about their daughters. Other people say it and fathers say you’re a g.d. liar.

“That’s a little harsh.”

“No, it’s not, unfortunately. She was a very nice young girl even after her mother died. She was an A student, helped around the house and spent a lot of time making sure that Nicole and I were all right. I sent her to a counselor just to make sure that she wasn’t hiding any deep problems. I was afraid that maybe she was really depressed but covering it up. The counselor said she was a remarkably mature fifteen-year-old and that she was dealing with Donna’s death very well. All that changed when I brought Eve here and told the girls that I was getting married to her. They didn’t even pretend to like her. We had the wedding here. The girls went somewhere else. Wouldn’t come under any circumstances. In fact they stayed at their aunt’s in Cedar Rapids for two weeks before they came back. And it was right after that that Vanessa started changing. It was very conscious on her part. She got into the whole hippie thing. Didn’t wear a bra. I could smell the pot in her room. She also started bringing boys up to her room, something I’d never allowed before. I found some unused Trojans on her desk one day. She’d left them there on purpose so I’d be sure to see them. She wanted me to see them. She wanted to hurt me.”

“What was Nicole doing all this time?”

This time the smile was fond. “Little Nicole? She did what she always did, followed her sister. She got the same clothes and listened to the same music and started spouting the same rhetoric. It was sort of sweet in an odd way. Vanessa would be going on about capitalism and how the pigs had taken over-I was of course one of the pigs. They used to be proud that I’d made my own way in the world and had become wealthy doing it. But now I was a pig. A liberal pig. But I was saying it was sweet-and it was. Vanessa had some idea of what she was talking about when she argued about the capitalist system. But Nicole-she was this innocent little girl with all these big words and big concepts and she had no idea what she was talking about.”

“And where did Eve fit into all this?”

“Eve did the best she could under the circumstances, but obviously it wasn’t enough.”

The words had come from behind the sheer white curtains covering the French doors. Eve appeared in her jodhpurs and white silk blouse. Her brown leather riding boots gleamed. “I only listened for the last few minutes. I thought that since I heard my name mentioned I might as well join you.”

She was the sort of woman you saw in The New Yorker or Town amp; Country, ruthlessly fashionable and relentlessly beautiful in a cold, poised fashion. The one thing she couldn’t control were the age lines that had begun to mar her elegant features. The closer she came, the less intimidating she was. Her weapon’s edge was being dulled by time. She understood this. She took the chair furthest from me to sit in, blond hair gleaming in its chignon, a bit oversprayed so that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a wig.

She reached over and took her husband’s hand. “Thank you for sticking up for me, darling.” To me she said: “This is why I married him. This is the worst moment of his life-even worse than losing Donna, I think-and he’s still generous enough to defend me.”

She talked in sudsy prose, like soap opera talk, and I didn’t like her at all. When Marsha appeared with our pot of coffee and two cups, Eve snapped, “Don’t I usually have coffee with my husband, Marsha? You only brought two cups.”

Marsha was wise. She wanted to keep her job. “I’ll bring you a cup right away.”

“And food. I assume you made lunch for me. I do need food, you know.”

Marsha looked at me. She had no trouble reading the distaste in my eyes. It matched the distaste in hers. “I made roast beef sandwiches, a fruit salad, and a lettuce salad. I’ll bring them out.”

When she was gone, Mainwaring said, “She does her best, Eve.”

“She’s local. That’s the problem. I wish you’d let me bring in somebody from Chicago.”

“I know her husband. He works in my plant here. I couldn’t face him every day if I fired her. Besides, I like her.”

How strange it was, I thought, that Eve had managed to shift the conversation from the heartbreak of a young girl’s murder to some goddamn maid problem-which wasn’t a problem after all, Marsha being somebody I’d taken to right away. Apparently, on an astronomical chart, in the center of the universe you would find a planet named Eve.

“I’d like to get back to Vanessa.”

“Of course, Sam. I’m sorry.”

“So the girls and Eve didn’t get along.”

“Eve did everything she could.”

“All right. But because of her-blameless as she was-” Her eyes pinched as I said this. Had she heard the slight irony in my voice? “Blameless as she was, Vanessa rebelled and started going around with too many guys.”

“Sleeping with too many guys. You may as well say it, Sam.”

“And taking drugs.”

That froze both of them in their chairs.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I’m investigating, Paul. I see people. I ask questions.”

“You may as well tell him, Paul. Vanessa was a dope addict.”

She was a few decades behind in her drug slang but that didn’t diminish the pleasure she took-and tried unsuccessfully to hide-in confirming what I’d said.

Paul’s face grayed with her remark. I wondered if he was going to be sick. “If that’s the way you want to put it, Eve.”

But she was the dutiful and cunning wife. She took his hand in both of hers and said-her first show of warmth-“oh God, honey, that came out much harsher than I meant it. I’m sorry.”

He was all forgiveness; color returned to his cheeks. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s just a hard thing to face. You didn’t mean anything by it.” He eased his hand from between hers. His gaze was that of a teenager wistfully tending to his first love. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, honey.”

I remembered Donna, the mother of his two children. She’d been small, tending to plumpishness, and very much a housewife and a member of such organizations as the PTA and the League of Women Voters. If Eve had a polar opposite, Donna had been it. Had Mainwaring spent his married life pining for the bed of a beauty? Or had he, with his money and his importance, decided that it was time he got a show woman for a wife?

“What did you and Vanessa argue about, Mrs. Mainwaring?”

“I wasn’t aware that we did argue.”

“That’s being a little harsh, Sam. They didn’t have arguments most of the time-they just sort of froze her out.”

“I see.”

“Is this how you conduct most of your investigations?”

“Now don’t get your back up, Eve. He’s just doing his job.”

“Well,” Eve said, “then he can do his job without me.”

She was on her feet, all jodhpur’d and indignant. “I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m not in the mood for this. Vanessa and I had our differences but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love her and consider her my own flesh and blood.”

She had a line of shit that stretched from Iowa to Montana. But she was polished and just good enough at the acting to pass muster if you had the misfortune to be in love with her. Obviously the kids had identified her species as soon as they met her.

Katharine Hepburn had never walked out of a scene with more mannered disdain.

“I don’t know why you had to make her mad, Sam. Maybe this isn’t a good fit. I still can’t believe my daughter’s dead and now I’ve got my wife mad at me.”

“I can quit or you can fire me. But the question I asked her was legitimate. You said yourself that she and your kids didn’t get along. I wanted to get her take on things.”

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “All the arguments I had with Vanessa in the last couple of years-I wish I could take every one of them back.” The purity of sorrow was now being tainted with remorse, making it all the worse for him. I said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Marsha appeared bearing a large glass tray. “Where’s the missus?”

I wondered how Eve would like being known as “the missus.” It didn’t go with anyone who wore jodhpurs.

Mainwaring opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Eve had some business she had to take care of right away.” The smile was strained. “This looks delicious, as usual. Thank you very much.”

Marsha glanced at me for some explanation about why Eve had left so suddenly and why he’d been sitting with his eyes closed. I shook my head. She shrugged and said, “If you need anything more, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Marsha.”

After she was gone, Mainwaring said, “I’ll handle Eve. She’ll give me a raft of shit about you but she’ll get over it. She’s a very private person.”

“I can always apologize to her if you’d like.”

“No, no, I’d better handle it myself. She’s very sensitive. Her parents were wealthy people who died in a plane crash when she was seven. She went to a convent school in Paris until she was nineteen and then she came over here and went to Smith. She eventually taught English literature at Dartmouth. So she’s very worldly. But she still gets defensive whenever the subject of the girls comes up. They made things very tough for her. And now you’ll be investigating and bringing back a lot of bad memories for her.”

I poured myself some coffee. “There’s no other way to do it. Those memories will be important.” I sipped the coffee. Marsha might be local but she sure knew how to make good coffee. “I have another question for you right now.”

“You don’t quit, do you?”

“I’d be wasting your money if I did.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you know a young man named Bobby Randall?”

“That bastard. I threatened to kill him one night. I had half a mind to do it, too. Right out on our drive he sold Vanessa some drugs. A small envelope. When I saw what was happening I ran out there. Vanessa stopped me from hitting him, otherwise I would’ve pounded him into the ground. All he did was smirk at me. That was when I lost control. I almost knocked Vanessa down getting to him but then she started screaming at me so I finally calmed down. That punk was still smirking.”

“You didn’t call Cliffie?”

“How could I? If I had, he’d have arrested Vanessa, too. She’d never have forgiven me if I’d done anything like that.”

He was a compromised man, beholden to both his children and the wife his children despised. Either way he moved, he was going to make somebody unhappy. There was a plea in his voice when he said, “And now I’m worried about Nicole. I don’t want her to turn out the way Van did.”

As Marsha led me through the house and to the front door, she spoke softly. “I sure hope you can help him.” She looked around. I knew what she was going to say. “His new wife won’t, that’s for sure.” Now she put her mouth close to my ear. “I’m pretty sure she’s happy that Vanessa’s dead. Now all she’ll have to worry about is Nicole.”

I wasn’t paying attention when I made my way to my car. I was sorting through some of the things I’d heard inside. When I focused on where I was going, I was surprised to see Nicole sitting in my front seat on the passenger side.

I got in and closed the door.

It was always said that Vanessa was the beauty and Nicole the brain. Nice and tidy, but not true. Nicole was a nice-looking seventeen-year-old whose problem was acne. I went through a year of bad acne myself so I still had nightmares occasionally of waking up and feeling my face only to find that it was once again corrugated. She was kin to Sarah Powers, Neil Cameron’s sister. Their high school years had to have been hell.

Today she wore a white blouse and blue walking shorts. She held a can of Coke in one hand and a burning Winston in the other. “She’s watching us.”

“Who?”

“The bitch. Eve.”

“How do you know?”

“See that window to the right of the east dormer?”

“Yeah.”

“Watch the curtain. It’ll move.”

I watched. She was right.

“Why would she watch?”

“She always watches. Van and I always joked she was a spy.” She made a face suddenly, leaned forward in the seat.

“Are you all right, Nicole?”

Her fingers touched her sweaty forehead. “It’s just everything that’s happening, I guess.” She took a deep breath. “What were we talking about?”

“You don’t get along with Eve?”

“You met my real mother.”

“Yes, many times. She was a very good woman.”

“Well, compare her to Eve and see why we hated her so much.”

I didn’t say anything.

A cruel smile. “I was listening to you on the veranda. The bitch even cut into you, too. She should’ve died instead of Van.”

“Your father’s in love with her.”

“I know. That’s what’s so sickening. We met two or three of his lady friends, you know, after Mom died. They were all nice women. We would have been happy if he’d married one of them, but then Eve came along.”

“How did they meet?”

“Some party in Iowa City. She was going out with this art teacher there. She dumped him right away, of course. Dad has a lot more money.”

The way her fingers touched her ravaged face I could tell she’d become aware of me watching her carefully. But she’d misinterpreted why I was watching her. Beneath the scarring was an innocent, appealing face that made it seem impossible that she could be capable of so much anger.

“We used to plot how to get rid of her.”

“Anything ever come of it?”

She smiled for the first time. “We were chicken.” Then: “God, poor Van. I try not to think about it but it doesn’t work. I barely slept last night.” She picked up the cigarette she’d put in the ashtray. “I’d never say this to my father but I even feel sorry for Neil.”

“You got to know him?”

“Sure. Dad liked him and Marsha liked him and I liked him. Eve didn’t. She’s such a snotty bitch. She always told Van she shouldn’t go out with ‘lower-class boys.’ Van used to laugh about that. It’s not like we’re living in New York or anything. There are rich people here but it’s not like there’s this big deal when it comes to dating. Everybody goes to public school and goes out with everybody else.” She put her knees up against the dashboard and slumped in the seat and tapped out another cigarette for herself.

I disagreed with her about the town not having a class system but I doubted that people talked about it as crudely as Eve had put it.

“And Van thought she was seeing somebody on the side.” She lit her cigarette, inhaled, exhaled.

“That’s a pretty heavy accusation. What made Van think so?”

“She said one time when Dad was out of town she caught Eve and the handyman looking guilty when they were coming out of that cabana by the pool. She said Eve hurried over to her and was real friendly. Eve’s never real friendly.”

“Who’s the handyman?”

“You know a guy named Bobby Randall?”

Bobby Randall-handyman. I’d forgotten that. He was an excellent carpenter as well. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, he’s real good-looking and he knows it. Van-” She glanced out the window before speaking. “Van was into drugs. Heavy stuff sometimes. I stick to pot. Anyway, Van got her drugs from Bobby. He was always trying to get her into bed. She led him on-she did that a lot. People said she slept around and I guess that was true. But a lot of it was just kind of leading them on. Playing with them. She did it to hurt our dad. You know, because of that bitch Eve. I would’ve done the same thing probably if I didn’t have-” She flipped her cigarette out the window and brought her knees down from the dashboard. “You know, my problems.” The fingers of her left hand went-unconsciously?-to her cheek.

She opened the door. “The curtains just moved again up in Eve’s room.”

I said, “You’ve done a good job of convincing me not to like her. I didn’t take to her right off but you clinched the deal.”

She offered a slender hand and a smile. “Good. Then we’re friends.”

As we shook, I said, “We sure are.”

Then, softly, she said: “Why couldn’t it have been Eve instead of Van?”

She pushed herself out of the car with her foot and jogged back to the mansion.