Private Eyes

16

Milo said, “If you don’t like the way I’m treating you, I’m sure you’ll let me know. In terms of payment, work it out with him.”

He pulled out his pad again and looked around the sitting room. Went to the gray couch. Poked at the pillows, ran his hand under them. “What is this, a waiting room for visitors?”

“A sitting room,” said Melissa. “She didn’t have visitors. My father designed it this way because he thought it was genteel. It used to be different- very elegant, lots more furniture- but she cleaned it out and put this in. She ordered it from a catalogue. She’s basically a simple person. This is really her favorite place- she spends most of her time here.”

“Doing what?”

“Reading- she reads a lot. Loves to read. And she exercises- there’s equipment back there.” Crooking a finger in the direction of the bedroom.

Milo peered at the Cassatt.

I said, “How long’s she had that print, Melissa?”

“My father gave it to her. When she was pregnant with me.”

“Did he have other Cassatts?”

“Probably. He had lots of works on paper. They’re stored upstairs on the third floor. To keep them out of the sunlight. That’s why it’s perfect for here. No windows.”

“No windows,” said Milo. “That doesn’t bother her?”

“She’s a sunny person,” said Melissa. “She makes her own light.”

“Uh-huh.” He went back to the gray couch. Removed the cushions and put them back.

I said, “How long ago did she change the decor?”

Both of them looked at me.

“Just curious,” I said. “About any changes she might have made recently.”

Melissa said, “It was recent. A few months ago- three or four. The stuff that was in here was Father’s taste- really ornamental. She had it put up on the third floor, in storage. Told me she felt kind of guilty because Father had spent so much time picking it out. But I told her it was okay- it was her place; she should do what she wanted.”

Milo opened the door to the bedroom and stepped through.

I heard him say, “She didn’t change this too much, did she?”

Melissa hurried after him. I walked in, last.

He was standing in front of the canopied bed. Melissa said, “I guess she likes it the way it is.”

“Guess so,” said Milo.

The room seemed even bigger from the inside. At least twenty-five feet square, with fifteen-foot ceilings embroidered with crown moldings fashioned to resemble braided cloth. A six-foot white marble mantel was topped with a gold clock and a menagerie of miniature silver birds. A gold eagle sat perched atop the clock, eyeing the smaller fowl. Groupings of Empire chairs upholstered in olive-green silk damask, a baroque threefold screen painted in trompe l’oeil flowers, a scattering of tiny gold-inlaid tables of doubtful function, paintings of country scenes and bosomy maidens with uncertainty in their eyes.

The braids snaked toward the center of the ceiling, terminating in a plaster knot from which a crystal and silver chandelier dangled like a giant watch fob. The bed was covered with a quilted off-white satin spread. Tapestry pillows were arranged at the head in a precise overlapping row, like fallen dominoes. A silk robe lay neatly across the foot. The bed was set on a pedestal, adding to its already considerable height. The finials of the posts nearly touched the ceiling.

Weak light shone from crystal wall sconces beside the bed, transforming the off-white color scheme to the color of English mustard, and turning the plum carpeting gray. Milo flipped a switch and flooded the room with the high-watt glare of the chandelier.

He looked under the bed, straightened, and said, “You could eat off it. When was the room made up?”

“Probably this morning. Mother usually does it herself- not the vacuuming or anything strenuous. But she likes to make her own bed. She’s very neat.”

I followed his glance to the chinoiserie nightstands. Ivory pseudo-antique phones on both. Bud vase with red rose centered on the one to the left. A hardcover book next to it.

All the draperies were drawn. Milo went to one of the casement windows, pulled aside the curtains, cranked, and looked out. Fresh air puffed in.

After studying the view for a while, he turned, walked to the left side of the bed, picked up the book, and opened it. Skimmed a few pages, turned it upside down, and gave it a couple of shakes. Nothing fell out. Opening the door of the stand, he bent and peered in. Empty.

I went over and looked at the book’s front cover. Paul Theroux’s Patagonia Express.

Melissa said, “It’s a travel book.”

Milo said nothing, kept looking around.

The wall opposite the bed was occupied by a nine-foot walnut-and-gilt armoire and a wide carved fruitwood dresser inlaid with marquetry herbs and flowers. Perfume bottles and a marble clock sat atop the dresser. Milo opened the top section of the armoire. Inside was a color TV, a Sony 19-inch that looked to be at least ten years old. Atop the television was a TV Guide. Milo opened it, flipped through it. The bottom of the armoire was empty.

“No VCR?” he said.

“She doesn’t go in for movies much.”

He moved down to the dresser, slid open drawers, ran his hands through satin and silk.

Melissa watched for several moments, then said, “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Where does she keep the rest of her clothes?”

“Over there.” She pointed to carved swinging doors on the left side of the room. Indian rosewood doors inlaid with vines of copper and brass and topped with a motif that conjured up the Taj Mahal.

Milo shoved them open unceremoniously.

On the other side was a short, squat foyer with three more doors. The first opened to a green marble bathroom accented with champagne-tinted mirrors and equipped with a sunken whirlpool tub expansive enough for family bathing, gold fixtures, green marble commode and bidet. The medicine cabinet was camouflaged as just another mirrored panel. Milo pushed, looked inside. Aspirin, toothpaste, shampoo, lipstick tubes, a few jars of cosmetics. Half-empty.

“She take anything as far as you can tell?”

Melissa shook her head. “This is all she keeps. She doesn’t use much makeup.”

Beyond the second door was a room-sized closet outfitted with a makeup table and padded bench at the center and organized as precisely as a surgical scrub tray: champagne-colored padded hangers, all facing the same way. Two walls of cedar, two of pink damask. Double-hung hardwood dowels.

Clothes organized by type, but there wasn’t much to organize. Mostly one-piece dresses in pale colors. A few gowns and furs at the back, some still bearing their sales labels. Perhaps ten pairs of shoes, three of them sneakers. A collection of sweats folded in storage compartments along the back wall. No more than a quarter of the dowel-space filled.

Milo took his time there, checking pockets, kneeling and inspecting the floor beneath the garments. Finding nothing and going into the third room.

Combination library and gym. The walls lined floor to ceiling with oak shelves, the floor high-lacquer hardwood tile. Interlocking rubber mats covered the front half. A stationary bicycle, rowing machine, and motorized treadmill sat on the rubber along with a free-standing rack of low-weight, chrome-plated dumbbells. A cheap digital watch hung from the handlebars of the bike. Two unopened bottles of Evian water stood atop a small refrigerator alongside the weight rack. Milo opened it. Empty.

He moved to the back and ran his finger along some of the bookshelves. I read titles.

More Theroux. Jan Morris. Bruce Chatwin.

Atlases. Books of landscape photography. Travelogues dating from the Victorian age to modern times. Audubon birding guides to the West. Fielding Guides to everywhere else. Seventy years of National Geographic in brown binders. Bound collections of Smithsonian, Oceans, Natural History, Travel, Sport Diver, Connoisseur.

For the first time since he’d arrived at the mansion, Milo looked troubled. But only momentarily. He scanned the rest of the bookcases, said, “Seems like we’ve got a theme going here.”

Melissa didn’t answer.

Neither did I.

No one daring to put the obvious into words.

We went back into the bedroom. Melissa seemed subdued.

Milo said, “Where does she keep her bankbooks and financial records?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure she keeps anything here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Her banking’s handled for her- by Mr. Anger, over at First Fiduciary Trust. He’s the president. His father knew mine.”

“Anger,” said Milo, writing it down. “Know the number offhand?”

“No. The bank’s on Cathcart- just a few blocks from where you turn off to get here.”

“Any idea how many accounts she keeps there?”

“Not the foggiest. I have two- my trust account and one that I use for expenses.” Meaningful pause. “Father wanted it that way.”

“What about your stepdad? Where does he bank?”

“I have no idea.” Kneading her hands.

“Any reason to think he’s in any financial trouble?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What kind of restaurant does he run?”

“Steak and beer.”

“Does he seem to do pretty well?”

“Well enough. He brings in lots of imported beers. In San Labrador, that’s considered exotic.”

“Speaking of which,” said Milo, “I could use a drink- juice or soda. With ice. Is there a refrigerator up here with something in it?”

She nodded. “There’s a service kitchen at the end of the staff wing. I can get you something from there. What about you, Dr. Delaware?”

“Sure,” I said.

Milo said, “Coke.”

I said I’d have the same.

She said, “Two Cokes.” Waited.

“What is it?” said Milo.

“Are you finished in here?”

He looked around one more time. “Sure.”

We passed through the sitting room and went out into the hall. Melissa closed the door and said, “Two Cokes. I’ll be right back.”

When she was gone, I said, “So what do you think?”

“What do I think? That money sure don’t buy no happiness, brutha. That room”- cocking a thumb at the door-“it’s like a goddamn hotel suite. Like she came in on the Concorde, unpacked, went out to see the sights. How the hell could she live like that, not leaving a piece of herself anywhere? And what the hell did she do with herself all day?”

“Read and toned her muscles.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Travel books. It’s like a bad joke. Some shlock movie director’s version of irony.”

I said nothing.

He said, “What? Think I’ve lost my sense of compassion?”

“You’re talking about her in the past tense.”

“Do me a favor, don’t interpret. I’m not saying she’s dead, just that she’s gone. My gut feeling is she’s been planning to fly the coop for a while, finally gathered enough courage and did it. Probably jamming that Rolls along Route 66 with the windows open, singing at the top of her lungs.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t see her abandoning Melissa.”

He gave a small, hard laugh. “Alex, I know she’s your patient and you obviously like her, but from what I’ve seen, the kid grates. You heard what she said about Mommy never raising her voice to her. That normal? Maybe Mommy finally blew her stack. See the way she treated Ramp? And suggesting to me I investigate him without any solid reason to? I couldn’t put up with that shit for very long. Course, I don’t have a Ph.D. in kiddy psych. But neither does Mommy.”

I said, “She’s a good kid, Milo. Her mother’s disappeared. Time to cut her a little slack, don’t you think?”

“Was she sweetness and light before Mommy split? You yourself said she pulled a fit and ran out on Mommy yesterday.”

“Okay, she can be difficult. But her mother cared about her. The two of them are close. I just don’t see her running out.”

“No offense,” he said, “but how well do you really know the lady, Alex? You met her once. She used to be an actress. And in terms of their being close, think of it: never yelling at a kid. For eighteen years? No matter how good a kid is, they’re gonna bear some yelling once in a while, right? The lady must have been sitting on a powder keg. Anger at what McCloskey did to her. At losing her husband. At being stuck up here because of her problems. That’s one giant keg, right? The fight with the kid was what finally lit it- the kid mouthed off one time too many. Mom waited a long time for her to come back, and when she didn’t, she said fuck it, to hell with reading about distant places, let’s go see some.”

I said, “Assuming you’re right, do you think she’ll come back?”

“Yeah, probably. She didn’t take much with her. But who knows?”

“So what’s next? More placebo?”

“Not more. The placebo hasn’t started yet. When I scoped out the room it was for real. Trying to get a feel for her. As if it were a crime scene. And you know, even with all the bloody rooms I’ve been in, that place ranks up there on the Freaky Scale. It felt… empty. Bad vibes. I saw jungles in Asia that made me feel like that. Dead silent, but you knew something was going on beneath the surface.”

He shook his head. “Listen to me. Vibes. I sound like some New Age asshole.”

“No,” I said. “I felt it, too. Yesterday, when I was here, the house reminded me of an empty hotel.”

He rolled his eyes, flashed a Halloween mask grimace, clawed his hands, and scraped at the air.

“The Rrrich Motel,” he said in a Lugosi accent. “They check in, but they don’t check out.”

I laughed. Totally tasteless. But it felt cruelly good. Like the jokes that flew around at staff meetings back in my hospital days.

He said, “I figure the best thing to do is give it a couple of days of my time. Chances are she’ll be back by then. The alternative is for me to quit right now, but all that would do is spook both the kid and Ramp and send them rushing to someone else. At least with me they won’t get ripped off. Might as well be my seventy an hour.”

“Meant to ask you about that,” I said. “You told me fifty.”

“It was fifty. Then I drove up and saw the house. Now that I’ve seen more of the interior, I’m sorry I didn’t make it ninety.”

“Sliding scale?”

“Absolutely. Share the wealth. Half an hour in this place and I’m ready to vote socialist.”

“Maybe Gina felt the same way,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You saw how few clothes she had. And the sitting room. The way she redecorated. Ordering from a catalogue. Maybe she just wanted out.”

“Or maybe it’s just reverse snobbery, Alex. Like owning expensive art and storing it upstairs.”

I was about to tell him about the Cassatt in Ursula Cunningham-Gabney’s office but was interrupted by Melissa, returning with two glasses. At her heels were Madeleine and two stocky Hispanic women in their thirties who came up to the Frenchwoman’s shoulder, one with long plaited hair, the other with a short shag cut. If they’d removed their white uniforms for the evening, they’d put them back on. Along with fresh makeup. They looked hyper-alert and wary, travelers passing through Customs at a hostile port.

“This is Detective Sturgis,” Melissa said, handing us the Cokes. “He’s here to figure out what happened to Mother. Detective, meet Madeleine de Couer, Lupe Ortega, and Rebecca Maldonado.”

Milo said, “Ladies.”

Madeleine folded her arms across her bosom and nodded. The other two women stared.

Melissa said, “We’re waiting for Sabino- the gardener. He lives in Pasadena. It shouldn’t take long.” To us: “They were waiting in their rooms. I couldn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be able to come out. Or even why you shouldn’t get started right now. I already asked them-”

The doorbell cut her short.

She said, “One sec,” and ran down the stairs. I watched her from the top of the landing, followed her descent to the front door. Before she got there, Ramp was opening it. Sabino Hernandez walked in, trailed by his five sons. All six men had on short-sleeved sports shirts and slacks and stood at parade rest. One wore a bolo tie; a couple had on sparkling white guayaberas. They began glancing around- awestruck by circumstances or the scale of the house. I wondered how many times, after all these years, they’d actually been inside.

We assembled in the front room. Milo standing, note pad and pen out, everyone else sitting on the edges of the overstuffed chairs. Nine years had turned Hernandez into a very old man- white-haired, hunched, and loose-jawed. His hands had a permanent tremor. He looked too frail for physical labor. His sons, transformed from boys to men by the same stretch of time, surrounded him like stakeposts protecting an ailing tree.

Milo asked his questions, told them to search their memories very carefully. Got wet eyes from the women, bright stares from the men.

The only new development was an eyewitness account of Gina’s departure. Two of the Hernandez sons had been working in the front of the house at the time Gina Ramp had driven out. One of them, Guillermo, had been pruning a tree near the driveway and had actually seen her drive by. Seen her clearly, because he’d been standing to the right of the right-hand drive Rolls-Royce, and the tinted window had been rolled down.

The seÑora hadn’t been smiling or frowning- just a serious look.

Both hands on the steering wheel.

Driving very slowly.

She hadn’t noticed him or said goodbye.

That was a little unusual- the seÑora was usually very friendly. But no, she hadn’t looked frightened or upset. Not angry, either. Something else- he searched for the word in English. Conferred with his brother. Hernandez Senior looked straight ahead, seemed cut off from the proceedings.

Thinking, said Guillermo. She looked as if she’d been thinking about something.

“Any idea what?” Milo asked.

Guillermo shook his head.

Milo addressed the question to all of them.

Blank faces.

One of the Hispanic maids began crying again.

Madeleine prodded her and stared straight ahead.

Milo asked the Frenchwoman if she had something to add.

She said Madame was a wonderful person.

Non. She had no idea where Madame had gone.

Non, Madame hadn’t taken anything with her other than her purse. Her Judith Leiber black calfskin purse. The only one she owned. Madame didn’t like a lot of different things but what she had was excellent. Madame was… trÈs classique.

More tears from Lupe and Rebecca.

The Hernandezes shifted in their seats.

Lost looks from all of them. Ramp stared at his knuckles. Even Melissa seemed drained of fight.

Milo probed gently, then more insistently. Doing as deft a job as I’d ever seen.

Coming up with nothing.

A tangible sense of helplessness settled over the room.

During the course of Milo’s questions, no pecking order had emerged, no one stepping forth to speak for the group.

Once upon a time it had been different.

Looks like Jacob’s a good friend.

He takes care of everything.

Dutchy had never been replaced.

Now this.

As if the big house were being assaulted by destiny, allowed to crumble, piece by piece.