Snow White and Rose Red

8

There is no Gold Coast, as such, in Calusa, Florida.

You will not find any exclusive area here where mansions or estates nudge each other cheek by jowl. The closest thing to a preserve for the very rich might be Flamingo Key, a man-made island in the bay south of the Cortez Causeway. But even here, although many of the homes are in the $500,000-and-above range, the ambience is more of a carefully manicured and expensive development than of a luxurious enclave. You can see your neighbor’s house from any window on Flamingo Key. What the very rich buy is space — and you can’t realize that luxury on a sixty-by-a-hundred plot.

Instead, the homes of the wealthy often come as surprises in Calusa. You will be driving through what appears to be a collection of shanties constructed of tarpaper and wood, and you will turn a corner and suddenly come upon a vast lawn surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, underground sprinklers going, and set far back at the end of a long drive the main house itself, pristinely white in the sunshine. Or you will drive through a sixty-thousand-dollar housing development to come upon a secluded waterfront spot protected by a high wall, and you will know for certain that beyond that wall is a million-dollar house and a swimming pool and a tennis court. Like Topsy, Calusa just grew, and it continues to grow.

My partner, Frank, insists that one day it will be nothing more than a shabbily elegant, sun-washed slum. He isn’t even too sure of the “sun-washed” part. He says (and he’s right) that January and February down here can be worse than anyplace else in the country because you expect it to be warm and when you get temperatures dropping to the high thirties or low forties at night, you’re not prepared for taking in the brass monkeys. He maintains, moreover, that once the so-called greenhouse effect is fully realized, New York City will be as mild as Calusa sometimes is. (The “sometimes” is Frank’s word.) Whenever I ask him why he doesn’t go back to New York now, since he can’t seem to come to terms with living here, he says, “What? And freeze my kishkas?” Frank isn’t Jewish, but he is fond of sprinkling his speech with Yiddish expressions because he feels they identify him immediately as a displaced New Yorker. This is only one of his inconsistencies; he has many.

The Whittaker mansion on Belvedere Road was a Calusa oddity. Situated on six acres of bayfront property, it was surrounded by another six acres of undeveloped land, all of it purchased by Horace Whittaker when he was busily gobbling up real estate back then in the fishing-village days. Deliberately, the surrounding acres had been left in their natural state, so that once you passed a neighboring development of houses in the hundred-thousand-dollar range, you entered a sort of time warp and found yourself in what the city must have looked like before the schemers and planners took over. It was still possible to buy twelve (or even twelve hundred) acres of undeveloped land out in the cattle country just twenty minutes or so beyond Calusa’s city limits. But such unspoiled terrain was impossible to find in the city itself — at any price. The mind boggled at the thought of what twelve acres of bayfront property would be selling for today.

There was no identifying sign outside the Belvedere Road mansion. The road led you through the housing development, and then suddenly the development was behind you, and the road dead-ended at a forest of oak and Cuban laurel. Nothing cultivated here, everything in its wild and natural state, the only sign of civilization being a macadam driveway wide enough to permit the passage of a single automobile. The driveway curved leisurely through stands of eucalyptus and hummocks of slash pine, still-water ponds glistening under the shade of the trees. And then the road widened to become a two-car passage flanked by bougainvillea and hibiscus, winding past the bay itself to end at last in a circle before a magnificent structure perched on the shore.

The house was in the Spanish style cherished by the first wave of rich settlers in Calusa, massive tan stuccoed walls and orange tiled roofs, chimneys standing like sentinels, arches and niches wherever one looked, the whole lushly embraced by a staggering variety of palms and blooming plants.

I parked the Ghia in a paved area a short distance from the front entrance, walked to it, lifted a heavy black cast-iron knocker, let it fall, lifted it again, let it fall a second time.

The woman who answered the door looked like a prison matron — the sort of attendant you expected to find on the violent ward of a mental hospital. I made an immediate association with the attendant Sarah had dubbed Brunhilde. She was perhaps five feet six inches tall, a stocky woman with iron-gray hair and eyes to match, wearing a white uniform and white rubber-soled shoes, the overall effect being one of a sudden winter chill.

“Yes?” she said.

I had almost anticipated a German accent.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said. “Mrs. Whittaker is expecting me.”

“Yes, please come in,” she said. “I’m Patricia, the housekeeper.”

I followed her into a courtyard surrounded by the various wings of the house, arched, green-awninged windows overlooking a fountain and blue-tiled pool in the center of the airy space. Goldfish swam in the pool. The fountain splashed in the sunlight. Patricia opened a pair of French doors at the far end of the corridor, and suddenly we were on a wide, emerald-green lawn that sloped downward toward a swimming pool perched on the bay itself, sparkling in the sunshine and stretching interminably toward the distant horizon.

“Mrs. Whittaker?” Patricia said, and a woman sitting near the pool turned to look at us.

Sarah had told me her mother was sixty-three years old; she looked ten years younger. She was wearing elegant white hostess pajamas, sashed at the waist with a gold rope belt that echoed the gold of her sandals and the sunlit blondeness of her hair. Her eyes were as green as Sarah’s, and she had the same narrow-boned, somewhat frail appearance. She rose at once.

“Mr. Hope,” she said, coming toward me, her hand extended, “how kind of you to come.”

I had phoned her earlier this morning to ask whether she could see me sometime today. She had sounded reluctant when I spoke to her. Now she made it sound as if she had extended an unprompted invitation to visit.

“It’s kind of you to see me,” I said, and took her hand. Her handshake was firm and strong.

“Nonsense,” she said. “I understand you’re trying to get Sarah out of that dreadful place. Nothing would suit me better.”

I looked at her.

I could see neither guile nor deceit in her frank green eyes.

“Shall we sit by the pool?” she asked. “It’s such a glorious day. I’ve asked Patricia to bring us some tea and cookies.”

A blue-tiled patio surrounded the swimming pool. A flight of pelicans hovered gracefully against the intense blue of the sky. At the water’s edge, a white heron preened for a moment, and then stalked off elegantly. We sat at a glass table, I in the sun, Mrs. Whittaker opposite me in the shade of an umbrella.

“You’ve been talking to Sarah, have you?” she said.

“Yes, I have.”

“She seems fine, doesn’t she? I can’t imagine why they insist on keeping her there.”

“Have you visited her recently, Mrs. Whittaker?”

“Last month sometime, I suspect it was. I’d visit more often, but the doctors there tell me it isn’t good for her. Can you imagine anything as nonsensical as that? A girl’s own mother not being good for her — whatever that’s supposed to mean. Actually, we got along beautifully on my last visit. I took her some books she was eager to read — she’s an omnivorous reader, you know. Some spy novels, the latest Ludlum — whatever it’s called, his titles are impossible to remember. She adores spy novels, with all their intricate double- and triple-crosses, she simply dotes on them. Le Carré, too, I took her the one that’s in paperback now. She seemed pleased and grateful. I imagine it must get terribly boring there, don’t you think? Sitting around all day with people who are... well, you know,” she said, and abruptly folded her hands in her lap. “Where can Patricia be?” she wondered aloud. “I asked her to bring hot tea because it’s supposed to have a more cooling effect than iced tea. It has something to do with perspiration and evaporation, I’m sure I don’t understand it at all, but that’s what the Chinese drink when it’s very hot. Not that I find today’s temperature the slightest bit uncomfortable. In fact, it’s really quite pleasant, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. And this is such a lovely spot.”

“Ah yes, Horace had a fine eye for beauty. He bought so much land when he first came to Calusa, you know, but he always had this location in mind for his future home. For when he married. I met him only later, of course. Horace was a good deal older than I, you see — and a good deal richer, too.” She smiled. Her smile reminded me of Sarah’s. “We didn’t travel in quite the same circles. In fact, when I met him I remember telling my mother he was far too old for me. And far too ugly as well. He wasn’t ugly at all, as a matter of fact, quite handsome. But I was a young girl — nineteen when I met him — and he was ten years older than I, and, well, he seemed ancient to me. I kept putting him off — ah, here’s Patricia now, she undoubtedly went by way of Boston.”

The maid who’d let me into the house came out onto the terrace carrying a tray loaded with a silver tea service, cups, saucers, spoons, napkins, a small bowl of fruit, and a platter of cookies.

“Ah, You’ve brought fruit as well, Patricia, how clever of you,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “Did you remember spoons? Ah yes, there they are. Mr. Hope? Do you take milk or lemon?”

“Milk, please,” I said.

“Sugar? One lump or two?”

“One, please.”

“Now do help yourself to the cookies and fruit,” she said, pouring. “Thank you, Patricia, this is lovely.”

Patricia nodded and started back for the house. At the French doors, she paused and looked out over the bay. I followed her steady gaze. A cruiser was on the water, standing dead a hundred yards offshore. I looked at Patricia again. She was still staring out over the bay, oblivious of the fact that I was watching her.

She opened one of the French doors leading into the house. Her hand still on the knob, she hesitated before entering. She angled the door. Sunlight splintered on the glass panes, reflecting out over the water. She adjusted the door slightly. Jagged lances of sunlight glanced out over the water again. She stood near the door a moment longer, and then went into the house.

“Now where were we?” Mrs. Whittaker asked, putting down the silver teapot. “Or rather, where was I? I seem to be monopolizing the conversation. Then again, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To hear me talk?”

“You were telling me that at first you kept putting off Mr. Whittaker...”

“Oh my, did I!” she said, and laughed. “I drove the poor man frantic, I’m sure. You’d have thought he was offering me a life of bondage in an Arabian seraglio, rather than marriage. But, as I say, I was only nineteen, and he was pressing thirty, and the discrepancy in our ages was more than I could effectively cope with at the time. He persisted, though — oh, he was quite a persistent man, my Horace.”

I glanced out at the cruiser offshore and saw the unmistakable glint of sunlight on the lenses of uncoated binoculars. Someone was studying the house. Someone was looking at Mrs. Whittaker and me. It was not unusual for Calusa Bay boaters to ogle whatever houses on the shore might catch their fancy. Rarely, however, were they brazen enough to do their house- and people-watching through binoculars. I listened only vaguely now to Mrs. Whittaker as she told me of the many years Horace Whittaker had courted her, and of her continuing reluctance to marry an older man, and of how finally she’d succumbed to what she’d recognized as a vital life force, an energy lacking in most men half his age. I kept my eyes on that blinking flash of sunlight coming from the cruiser.

And I thought, oh Jesus, I thought...

Patricia had signaled to them.

Patricia wanted them to know I was here.

I was expected, and now she wanted to let them know I’d arrived.

She had fiddled with the French doors to signal them. The way one would signal with a mirror.

And now whoever was out on the boat was watching us.

Dr. Schlockmeister was undoubtedly on that boat. And perhaps the Prime Minister of Justification, Mark Ritter. Both out there, watching. Trying to eavesdrop visually on Mrs. Whittaker and me. Maybe they had someone who could read lips out there on that cruiser. Read what we were saying. They knew I wanted to get Sarah out of Knott’s Retreat, where they were keeping her for whatever reasons I could not yet discern. Someone who could read lips was trying to hear what we were saying, the binoculars trained on us. Mrs. Whittaker had told me she wanted Sarah out of that place, but that was a lie, and now they were checking on us to make certain she was playing her part, the role they had assigned to her, the Loving Mother wanting her Poor Pitiful Daughter to regain her senses so that she could be returned to the home where she’d been nurtured for so many years. Lies, all lies. The Harlot Witch’s henchmen spying on the White Knight. Snow White locked away. The binoculars trained on us still, sunlight glinting. The steady drone of Mrs. Whittaker’s voice — married him when she was twenty-three and he was thirty-three, well, almost thirty-four. Didn’t give birth to Sarah till she was thirty-eight years old, supposed to be a dangerous age for childbearing, but, oh, what a lovely baby she was, and what a sweet child, never would have expected anything like this to have happened, never in a million years, oh my poor dear daughter — while the binoculars stayed trained on us and the boat stood motionless on the water.

“Sightseers,” she said suddenly, breaking her narrative. “They aren’t often this bold, but, oh how sick to death I am of them! We’re quite protected here, you know, except on the bay side. And, of course, the boaters always come in as close as they can to get a look at what is, after all, a Calusa landmark. It’s so irritating, you have no idea. I sometimes choose to swim naked in the pool — that’s my privilege, isn’t it? Naturally, I’m careful to do it when the servants are away. But, oh, those damned boaters! Forgive my language, they irritate me so.”

The binoculars suddenly winked off, as though Mrs. Whittaker’s words had magically stopped the flash of sunlight on glass.

Had she, too, signaled to them in some way? Exactly as Patricia had? Had she somehow warned them that I was aware of their surveillance and—

And all at once I realized how utterly convinced I was of Sarah’s own beliefs, and how deeply I’d been drawn into — but was it?

Her delusion.

Oh Jesus, could delusions be shared?

The cruiser was suddenly moving.

“Good riddance,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “They’re such a nuisance. I’m sometimes tempted to call the Coast Guard.”

I watched the boat. I turned back to her.

“Mrs. Whittaker,” I said, “I know you must be reluctant to discuss Sarah’s illness, but really — that’s why I’m here. Anything you can tell me...”

“It’s just that she seems so much better now,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “Doesn’t she? Well, of course, you wouldn’t know. You didn’t see her then.”

“Back in September, do you mean?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “When she tried to kill herself.”

“Can you tell me a bit more about that?”

“Well, it’s such a painful memory...”

“I know, but...”

“So very painful,” she said, and turned away to look out over the water again. The boat was moving rapidly southward. In a moment it would be nothing but a speck in the distance. Almost as if it had never been there.

“Where were you when it happened?” I said. “What part of the house?”

“I wasn’t in the house at all,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “I was at the museum — the Ca D’Ped — I’m on the board of directors there, we were making plans for an exhibition of Calusa sculptors, long overdue, I might add, we have so many talented people here. I got back to the house along about — oh, it must have been four in the afternoon, perhaps a bit later.”

“Was anyone here at the house?” I asked. “Besides Sarah?”

“No, the twenty-seventh was a Thursday. All the help had the day off.”

“By ‘all the help’...”

“The maid, cook, and gardener. That’s all the help we had,” she said, turning to me. “Does that surprise you, Mr. Hope? No upstairs maid, no downstairs maid, no chauffeur, no personal maid to rinse out my underthings and help me dress? I’m afraid we never were that ostentatious. Three in help is the most we ever had.”

“And all three were gone that day?”

“Yes.”

“Then Sarah was alone.”

“Yes. I saw her car in the driveway as I pulled in, and I called to her as soon as I entered the house. There was no answer. I called again. The house was very still. I suspected at once that something was wrong... Do you know the feeling you sometimes get when you enter a house and know that everything isn’t as it should be? I had that very feeling then, that something was terribly wrong. I suppose I called her name again, and again got no answer, and then... I started up the stairs to the second floor of the house. The door to Sarah’s room was closed. I knocked on it. It’s always been a rule in this house never to invade anyone’s private space. Sarah was taught as a child that one knocks before entering. And Horace and I observed the same rule. There was no answer from inside her bedroom. I knocked again, I called her name again, and then I became really alarmed and — I broke my own rule, Mr. Hope, I opened the door to her room without being invited to enter.”

She brought her hand to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, as if closing them against the memory of what had awaited her in that room on that day last September. I waited. I thought she might begin crying. She seemed to be gathering the courage to go on with the story. When at last she opened her eyes, she focused them on the bay, looking out over the water, and began speaking as if I were no longer there, her voice very low.

“She... was standing naked in the bathroom. The dress she’d been wearing was on the floor, the bathroom floor, in a heap on the floor with her undergarments and sandals. A yellow dress, I remember. She was holding a razor blade in her right hand. There was blood on her left wrist — three narrow lines of blood, what Dr. Helsinger later identified as hesitation cuts. I’d come home just in the nick of time, you see. Five minutes later, perhaps only a minute later, she might have mustered the full courage to really open her wrist. Her hesitation — and my arrival — saved her.”

“Dr. Helsinger told me the cuts were superficial. Did they seem—”

“Oh yes. But terrifying nonetheless. You come into your daughter’s room, you find her with blood on her wrist and a razor blade in her hand...” She shook her head. Still staring out over the water, she said, “Sarah looked at me, her eyes wide, the razor blade trembling in her hand, and I... I said, I said very gently, ‘Sarah, are you all right?’ and she said, ‘I went looking for her.’ I had no idea who she meant at the time. I simply nodded and said, ‘Sarah, don’t you want to give me that razor?’ and she said, ‘I have to punish myself,’ and I said, ‘Whatever for? Please give me the razor, Sarah.’ I don’t know how long we stood that way, looking at each other, not three feet apart from each other, Sarah standing just inside the bathroom door, I in the bedroom, the razor blade still in her hand. A drop of blood oozed from her wrist onto the white tile floor. She looked down as if in surprise, and then said, ‘So much blood,’ and I said, ‘Please give me the razor, darling,’ and she handed it to me.”

“What happened to that razor blade, Mrs. Whittaker?”

She turned her eyes from the bay.

“What?” she said.

“The razor blade. What did you do with it?”

“What an odd question,” she said.

“Do you remember what you did with it after she handed it to you?”

“I have no idea. Mr. Hope, my daughter was bleeding—”

“But not seriously—”

“It seemed serious to me at the time. My only concern was to administer to her, take care of her. I’m sure that once that razor blade was out of her hand, I didn’t give it a second thought.”

“What did you do?”

“I examined her wrist, that was the first thing. I’d done some Red Cross work during the war — World War II–I knew how to fashion a tourniquet if one was needed. But I saw at once that the cuts — there were three of them, parallel cuts on her left wrist, none of them deep, rather more like scratches, except for the one oozing blood. Even that one was superficial. There was no need for a tourniquet. I simply wiped her wrist with a cotton swab and put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I took her with me to my bedroom — I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, although she seemed very calm, too calm, in fact. I can’t describe the... the... I don’t even know what to call it. A coldness. A withdrawal. A feeling of... it was as if she had completely isolated herself from me — or even from herself. I’m sorry I can’t explain it more intelligently. I had never seen anything like it before, and I hope I never have to see it again. She became... a zombie, Mr. Hope. I was holding her hand as I led her down the corridor to my bedroom, but the hand in mine was lifeless, and her eyes were glazed and there was an expression of such terrible anguish and pain on her face... it had nothing to do with the cuts on her wrist, they were not what caused the pain. It was pain such as I’ve never seen on the face of a human being. It shattered me, that pain. It broke my heart.” She paused. She took a deep breath. “There was a bottle of Valium in my bathroom medicine cabinet. I took two from the bottle, and then I filled a glass of water from the tap and I said, ‘Take these, Sarah.’ She said, ‘I’m Snow White.’ I said, ‘Yes, darling, please take these.’ ”

“Did she accept them?”

“Yes. She swallowed both tablets, and then she said, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ It made no sense to me at the time. We’re not Catholics, Mr. Hope — that’s what Catholics say to a priest when they go to confession. I realized later, after I’d talked to Dr. Helsinger, that this was a part of her delusion, the... the belief that she had offered herself to Horace. To her father. Offered herself sexually. And was asking his forgiveness for it. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ ”

“What happened after she took the Valium?”

“She fell asleep. It took hold in about twenty minutes, I should say.”

“Fell asleep where?”

“In her own bedroom. I took her back there, I made certain she was comfortable.”

“What time was this? When you put her to bed?”

“Five, five-thirty? I’m not certain.”

“What did you do then?”

“I called Nathan. Dr. Helsinger, that is.”

“A psychiatrist.”

“Yes.”

“And a friend of the family.”

“Yes.”

“Not a general practitioner.”

“No. My daughter had just attempted suicide. I felt a psychiatrist was needed.”

“And he came to examine her, did he?”

“Yes.”

“Was she asleep when he got here?”

“Yes.”

“He awakened her?”

“Yes. And she immediately began ranting. Talking about the Harlot Witch and... oh God, it was dreadful. Accusing her father of the most horrible things, telling Dr. Helsinger that she herself had... had asked her father to... I can’t repeat this, Mr. Hope, it was all too terribly awful. We realized at once, of course — Dr. Helsinger and I — that she, that Sarah, was... that she’d lost her... that she was very sick, Mr. Hope, mentally ill, Mr. Hope. That was when Dr. Helsinger advised me to seek emergency commitment under the Baker Act.”

“And came back later that night, did he? With the signed certificate and a police officer?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Whittaker, I’m not doubting your memory,” I said. “But the police officer told me he saw no razor blade.”

“I had probably thrown it away by then.”

“Then you do remember what you did with it.”

“I’m sure I threw it away.”

“Officer Ruderman didn’t see any blood, either.”

“There wasn’t much to begin with. As I told you, these were only hesitation cuts.”

“You mentioned a drop of blood oozing onto the—”

“Yes, that.”

“Only that single drop of blood?”

“Well, perhaps several. But all from that one cut. The third cut on her wrist. The lowest of the three. But even that was nothing more than a scratch. As I told you, a Band-Aid—”

“Did Dr. Helsinger look at these cuts, scratches, on her wrist?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And agreed they were superficial?”

“Yes, he was the one who told me they were hesitation cuts. Common in that type of suicide attempt.”

“But there was blood on the bathroom floor.”

“I’m sure I wiped it up before the police officer arrived.”

“Was there any blood on her clothing, Mrs. Whittaker?”

“Her clothing?”

“You said her clothes were heaped—”

“Oh. Yes, on the floor. No. No blood.”

“She’d removed her clothing before she tried to slash her wrists, is that correct?”

“Yes. She must have. There was no blood on her clothing.”

“What did you do with the clothing?”

“Put it in the laundry, I’m sure.”

“By the laundry—”

“The hamper, I suppose. I’m not certain. Everything was so confused, so—”

“I’m sure it was. And your daughter was out of the house, was she, before any of the servants returned?”

“Yes, of course. The police officer arrived shortly before midnight. None of the help returned until the next day.”

“That would have been the twenty-eighth.”

“Yes.”

“By which time Sarah was already at Good Samaritan.”

“Yes. In the Dingley Wing.”

I hesitated a moment.

Then I said, “Mrs. Whittaker, Sarah insists that none of this happened. She did not attempt suicide, she was not examined by Dr. Helsinger, he simply arrived at the house with a signed certificate and—”

“You mustn’t fall into Sarah’s trap,” Mrs. Whittaker said.

“What trap is that, ma’am?”

“You mustn’t believe that she knows what happened that night. Because she doesn’t, you see.”

“She seems to recall everything about it.”

“Everything she chooses to recall. I know the trap well, Mr. Hope, I almost fell into it myself. That night, after she’d taken the Valium, as she was beginning to drowse, she began rambling — talking not to me, actually, but almost to herself. And listening to her, I started believing that she actually had gone searching for someone that morning and afternoon, someone she believed was her father’s lover. Listening to her, I became almost convinced. I fell into the same trap that has now ensnared you. Because, you see, Mr. Hope, Sarah was quite mad that night. She’s much better now, I see considerable improvement, and I wish with all my heart that she can soon come home from that dreadful place. But not until she’s entirely well — and I’m not yet sure that she is. You must be very careful, Mr. Hope. Sarah can be most persuasive. I wouldn’t want you to effect her release, only to have her make another attempt at harming herself.”

“I assure you I won’t make any precipitous moves.”

“I would appreciate that enormously.”

We fell silent. There was a question I wanted to ask, a question that needed to be asked, and yet I was hesitant. Mrs. Whittaker’s pain seemed as genuine as the pain she’d described on Sarah’s face that night so long ago, and I had no desire to add to it. But the question had to be asked. I wished — but only for an instant — that I was Detective Morris Bloom, to whom such questions came routinely and easily.

“Mrs. Whittaker,” I said, “you told me a moment ago that you were almost convinced by what Sarah was telling you that night. When she was beginning to drowse. When the Valium was taking hold.”

“Yes?”

“That she had gone searching for your husband’s supposed lover—”

“Yes, that’s what she said.”

“Mrs. Whittaker, did you have any reason to believe — do you now have any reason to believe — that Sarah’s allegation might possibly be true?”

“That Horace had a lover, do you mean?”

“Yes. Forgive me. I need to know.”

“Horace was a faithful, decent, loving man.”

“You never had reason to suspect—”

“Never. I trusted him completely.”

“Then... although Sarah told you she’d been out searching for this other woman—”

“Yes?”

“You now believe this to be part of her delusion as well, is that correct? She did not actually get into her car—”

“She got into her car. I believe she got into her car.”

“You do?”

“Yes. And went searching for another woman.”

I looked at her, puzzled.

“And found this other woman,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “Found her father’s lover.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You just told me—”

“Found herself, Mr. Hope. Recognized herself as the phantom lover she had created. And could not bear the horror of it. And tried to kill herself.”

I nodded.

“The car she was driving that day,” I said. “Where—”

“I sold it,” Mrs. Whittaker said.

“When?”

“Immediately.”

“Why?”

“I could not bear to look at it again. It was a constant reminder of what Sarah used to be and what she had become. Her father gave her that car on her twenty-first birthday, you see. A happier time for all of us.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“A Ferrari — a Boxer 512. It cost eighty-five thousand dollars.” She paused. “A generous man, my Horace. The car he drove was a battered 1978 Chevrolet. I kept asking him to get a better car, a more expensive car. But no, that’s what he drove. And he drove it himself. Toward the end there, when he knew his heart wasn’t quite right — we’d had several scares before, you know — I suggested that he really should hire a chauffeur. He said he’d feel silly, someone driving him around town.”

“Would you remember who bought the car from you? Sarah’s car. The Ferrari.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t. I’m sure I have the bill of sale here someplace, if you’d like to see it. But, frankly, I don’t see what Sarah’s car has to do with your attempt to have her released from Knott’s. Mr. Hope, I caution you again. Tread carefully. If you’re successful in getting her out of that place, and if she later harms herself, you will have made an enemy for life. And I can be a most formidable foe.”

She lifted her teacup.

“The tea seems to have grown cold,” she said.

I took this as a signal that our interview was over.

“Thank you for your time,” I said. “I appreciate all You’ve told me.”

“It was my pleasure,” she said. “Patricia will show you out.”

I left her sitting by the bay, looking out over the water. I went in through the French doors. Patricia was just coming down into the living room from the staircase that led upstairs.

“Were you leaving, Mr. Hope?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.”

We were crossing the room together toward the front door. She opened the door for me and stood aside. Just before I stepped out into the sunlight again, I said, “Patricia — was something wrong with the door?”

“Sir?” she said.

“The French door. Something seemed to be troubling you...”

“The French... oh. No, no, sir, nothing wrong with it at all. I thought I saw a smudge on one of the panes, I was simply moving the door to get a bit more light on it. The pane. Sometimes sunlight can show dirt if you angle the glass a bit.”

“I see,” I said. “And was there a smudge? Was there any dirt, Patricia?”

“It was spotless, sir,” she said.

My partner Frank is an expert on women. He is also an expert on marriage and divorce. Frank tells me that many married men — himself excluded, of course — fantasize about other women while they are making love to their wives. Frank says he has known some men to fantasize about three, four, sometimes even five other women during the ten minutes they are making love to their wives. He got on this conversation because I asked him to look over the settlement agreement Susan and I had signed. I asked him to do that as soon as I got back from the Whittaker house that afternoon.

My motive was really quite simple. I had read the agreement myself, and I wanted Frank to contradict my findings. I didn’t tell him I wanted a contradiction. All I said was that Susan was threatening to send Joanna away to a school in Massachusetts, and I wanted to know if the settlement agreement gave her the right to do so. That was when Frank started talking about marriage and divorce and about men fantasizing about other women.

“When you were married to Susan, did you fantasize about other women?” he asked.

“That’s none of your business,” I said.

“I realize you were involved in an affair—”

“That, too, is none of your business.”

“—and I’m not asking whether you fantasized about Aggie while you were making love to Susan. I’m asking if you fantasized about other women, women other than Aggie.”

“Yes,” I said. “I fantasized about Leona.”

Leona is his wife.

“I do not find that comical, Matthew,” Frank said, and snatched up the settlement agreement and walked out of my office.

Later that night, in bed with Terry Belmont, I began fantasizing about Sarah Whittaker.

My partner Frank might have been amused; I wasn’t even married to Terry.

I was not amused.

I felt... I don’t know. Duplicitous? Unfaithful, somehow? Certainly rotten. By all reasonable standards, Terry Belmont was a beautiful, desirable, and passionate woman. But as I held her in an embrace, it was Sarah whose lips opened to mine, Sarah whose breasts yielded to my questing hands, Sarah whose legs...

When the telephone rang, I was almost grateful.

“Don’t answer it,” Terry said.

I lifted the receiver from the cradle on the bedside nightstand.

“Hello?” I said.

“Matthew?” Frank said.

My partner Frank says I do not know how to handle women. He says that is why people always phone me when I am in bed with a woman. If I knew how to handle women, he says, people wouldn’t always be calling me up at inopportune moments. I do not see what the one thing has to do with the other, but I must admit that I am frequently called while I am in bed with a member of the opposite sex.

“I cannot believe you signed this thing,” Frank said. “Are you a lawyer or are you a plumbing inspector?”

I said nothing.

“A lawyer would not have signed this thing,” Frank said. “Is this a bad time for you?”

“No, no,” I said. “Just sitting here reading.”

In bed beside me, Terry rolled her eyes.

“In that case, I refer you to page one, paragraph first of the separation agreement. Are you listening, Matthew?”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Page one, paragraph first,” Frank said. “Titled ‘Separation.’ I am about to quote, Matthew. Quote: It shall be lawful for each of the parties, at all times, to live and continue to live separate and apart from each other, to reside at such place or places as either may select for himself or herself, and each party hereto shall be free from any and all interference, restraint, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, unquote. That means that Susan can live wherever the hell she damn pleases.”

“Except as hereinafter provided,” I said.

“We’ll get to the hereinafter hereinafter,” Frank said. “You are aware, of course, that you gave Susan custody of the child.”

“I am aware of that, yes, Frank.”

“Then I needn’t read from page six, paragraph tenth, regarding custody and visitation.”

“No, Frank, you needn’t read that.”

“Are you sure this isn’t a bad time for you?” Frank asked.

“No, no, just sitting here,” I said.

Terry rolled her eyes again.

“I call your attention then to page three, paragraph fifth, titled ‘Additional Child Support,’ and again I quote: In addition to the aforesaid payments, the husband does further agree to pay for all education costs of the child as hereinafter set forth. The husband shall pay for all private school education, which shall include tuition, fees, books, stationery, uniforms, and transportation if public transportation is not available. The private school as hereinbefore referred to is deemed to include any private day school or any boarding school.’ Now, Matthew, that is the first real knot in the hangman’s noose around your neck. I can’t believe you actually signed this thing.”

“But I did.”

“Yes, apparently you did.”

“Yes.”

“Did you really fantasize about Leona when you were married to Susan?”

“No.”

“Good. The second knot is in that same paragraph, on page four this time. The language reads, “The wife shall consult with the husband on the choice of boarding school or college—’ ”

“That’s exactly it, Frank. I hardly think that Susan announcing she’s about to send Joanna off to school is consul—”

“Hold your horses, friend. May I continue?”

“Please.”

“ ‘—shall consult with the husband on the choice of boarding school or college for the child.’ Are you ready? Here it is. ‘The husband shall not object to any choice of the wife on the grounds of geographical location.’ Period, end quote. Leaving Matthew Hope dangling in the air above the scaffold.”

“I’m sure there’s something in there about negotiating in good faith if—”

“Yes, the ‘hereinafter’ you mentioned earlier. But Matthew, that only pertains to visitation rights in the event that Susan should move beyond fifty miles from Calusa County. She is not moving, she is merely sending Joanna off to school. And you cannot object to her choice of a school on the grounds of geographical location. She can send her to the North Pole if she likes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m only the king’s messenger,” Frank said. “you’re the one who signed this fucking thing.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Matthew, I’m sorry. Truly. But I don’t think You’ve got a leg to stand on.”

“Okay, Frank. Thanks. Really.”

“Good night,” he said. “Sleep well.”

I put the receiver back on the cradle.

“About your daughter again, huh?” Terry said.

“Yeah.”

“She sounds like a real bitch, this ex of yours.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Why don’t you come kiss me?” she said. “Take your mind off all this.”

I kissed her.

I kissed Sarah Whittaker.

Terry Belmont was a woman who said whatever came to her mind.

She pulled away from my kiss.

“you’re not really with this, are you?” she said.

I did not answer.

“What is it?” she said. “Somebody else?”

“Terry...”

“No, listen,” she said, “that’s okay, I mean it.”

She was already getting out of bed.

“I mean, there’re no strings here, really.”

She was dressing now. There was not much to put on. She was wearing neither panties nor bra. She simply slid into her sheath dress and stepped into her high-heeled shoes.

“You call me when you think You’ve got it sorted out, okay? I’d like to see you again, Matthew, but not if you’re a million miles away with somebody else, okay?”

She came to the bed and kissed me on the cheek.

“I hope you sort it out,” she said, and looked at me a moment longer, and then left.