This Enemy Town

CHAPTER 22

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I suspect Paul and our daughter, Emily, are in cahoots. How else-other than the most unlikely of coincidences-to explain her phone call on Monday evening.

Plans for the spa were proceeding apace, Emily said. Dante and Phyllis Strother, the woman who was his major investor, were meeting on Wednesday, along with an architect and a platoon of lawyers. They had found a piece of property. Would I care to come see it?

“I’m supposed to be laying low,” I reminded my daughter.

“I can really use your help, Mom. I feel like shit in the morning.”

“Pregnancy can do that to you,” I offered helpfully.

Emily groaned.

It would have been nice to see my grandchildren, of course, but I didn’t feel like driving for hours and hours to Virginia just to pat Chloe and Jake on the head, turn right around and come back.

That wasn’t going to be a problem, Emily said, because Phyllis was footing the bill. Food, hotel rooms. There’d be a separate room for Grandma, too.

It was tempting, but I was already in enough trouble with the law. “Emily, I’d love to, but I’m out on bail. I’m not supposed to leave the state.”

“Oh pooh, Mother. They’ll never know.”

“Oh, yes they will,” I said, and told her about my Sunday adventure, caught red-handed by the FBI, hot-footing around northern Virginia.

Emily listened, oh-ing and ah-ing and laughing at all the right places. Then the little scamp played her trump card. “Well, you’re not off the hook yet, ha-ha-ha, because the property we’re looking at is in Maryland, so you just can’t say no. Pleeeeeeease?”

I’d heard that tone of voice before. When Emily just wanted to go to a rave. When she only needed $150 for a ski trip. When all her friends were spending the weekend in Ocean City and I was the meanest mommy in the world.

And then I did what mommies down through the centuries have done. I weakened. “Tell me about it.”

Emily knew she had me. “Oh, thank you!” she gushed. “It’s in a development called Charlesmeade, down in Indian Head, Maryland. The realtor says it was built as a country club for one of those golf course housing developments. The developer built the club first, to attract buyers for his homes, I suppose. But then his company went belly up.”

Indian Head is a charming waterfront community in southern Maryland, about twenty-five miles south of the Capital Beltway, where Mattawoman Creek meets the Potomac River. I’d visited several times, most recently when my father-a retired naval officer with decades of experience in the aerospace industry-had been considering a job at NAVSEA. “How come nobody’s bought the developer out?” I asked.

“Phyllis says there have been a number of interested parties, but nobody’s come up with the money so far. The realtor thinks they may be willing to sell the club in a separate parcel. Oh, Mom, it’s perfect!” she raved. “It’s twenty-five acres, and right on the water! You should see the pictures!” Emily was in full exclamation mark mode.

Truthfully, I loved to look at model homes and homes under construction. And visiting with the grandkids was an added incentive.

Once I had agreed to go, Emily got serious. “Mom, do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Now don’t take this wrong.”

Don’t take this wrong. I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

“Phyllis doesn’t know anything about your present, um, predicament, so I’d appreciate your not mentioning it.”

I felt as if I’d been slapped, and considered reneging on the spot. “You think I’m proud of being arrested, Emily?” I sputtered. “What do you think I’d say? ‘Good morning, Mrs. Strother. So pleased to meet you. I’ll very much look forward to having tea with you after I get out on parole.’”

“Mooooother!”

“Well?” There was a long silence during which I was left to fill in the blanks.

“Okay. Maybe I’m being silly, but I don’t want anything to jeopardize this deal. Dante has worked soooooo hard to put it together, and Phyllis is soooooo enthusiastic.”

I bet. Even the name Phyllis Strother sounded like it belonged to an astute businesswoman who recognized a good thing when she saw it. Whatever else you may say about my son-in-law, Daniel Shemanski, Haverford College dropout, from shiatsu to rolfing, the man knew his massage. New Life Spa had hired him away from the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, one of the most prestigious spas in the country. At New Life, nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, he’d gone on to make himself quite a reputation, attracting a regular Who’s Who of clients, including Exhibit A, Phyllis Strother.

I had no idea what went into running a health spa. My only qualifying experience was the occasional massage that I managed to squeeze in while on vacation.

Thinking about Indian Head, I said, “Emily, southern Maryland is kind of provincial. Do you think there’ll be enough customers who are willing to pay-”

Emily cut me off. “I know what you’re thinking, but the place is growing by leaps and bounds. And the Navy’s got all kinds of things in the vicinity.”

“But what if Congress cuts Navy funding?”

“Not going to happen. NAVSEA’s been there for over a century. Besides, there’s Pax River, and the Weapons Center Testing Facility, and the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Activity…” She ticked them off so skillfully that I suspected she was reading from a brochure.

“But think about the kids. How about the schools?”

“Charles County has great schools,” Emily claimed. “But for heaven’s sake, Mom, we’re just looking. It’s not a done deal.” She lowered her voice. “Besides, if Phyllis doesn’t like it, the deal’s dead.”

So, early Wednesday morning, I packed an overnight bag, tossed it into the backseat of my LeBaron, and two hours later found myself checking into the only motel in town, a Super 8 on Indian Head Highway, with my grandchildren for roommates. The roommates were my idea.

The green Taurus had followed me as far as the Capital Beltway, but when I turned south on 210, I was handed over to a dark blue Crown Vic. I smiled when I noticed the switch in my rearview mirror. Smooth as clockwork-the Taurus continuing straight across the Wilson Bridge into Virginia, the Crown Vic easing into traffic from the breakdown lane.

After a potty break at the Super 8, we lunched at McDonald’s while the Crown Vic idled in the parking lot, envying us our french fries, no doubt. Then we piled into my son-in-law’s SUV and drove to Charlesmeade with the Crown Vic staying a discreet twenty car lengths behind.

Dante glanced in the rearview mirror. “Who’s that following us?”

“My bodyguards,” I said. “They won’t let me out of their sight.”

Emily turned her head so suddenly I feared she’d get whiplash. “Mother! I thought you were kidding about being tailed.”

“Not kidding. Frankly,” I added, with a casual wave to whomever was keeping tabs on me from the comfort of the Crown Vic, “I’m kinda flattered by the attention.”

“Well,” commented Emily matter-of-factly, “at least nobody will be kidnapping you, not while the FBI is on the job.”

With my shadow bumping along behind, we turned right onto a narrow one-lane country road and rattled along for about half a mile before Dante brought the SUV to a stop in front of a sign, still bright with new paint. I rolled my window down for a better look. CHARLESMEADE GOLF CLUB AND COUNTRY ESTATES, the sign said, 250 SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES. LOTS STILL AVAILABLE! LAND, WATER AND GOLF. IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME NOW.

“This is it!” he announced. After Emily had read the entire sign out loud to Chloe, Dante eased his foot off the brake and accelerated up the winding drive that led to the club, a sprawling one-story colonial-style building, painted white. The driveway was edged with boxwood alternating with saplings that had been so recently planted, they were still supported by stakes. Dante pulled under the pillared portico behind a black Lincoln town car and a Honda Civic. It didn’t take much detective work to figure out which vehicle belonged to Phyllis Strother.

The minute the emergency brake went on, Chloe unfastened her seat belt and was hot to trot. As I struggled to extract Jake from his car seat, Dante slid open my door and offered me his hand. I hopped out, plucked Jake from his seat, and stood beside the van, holding the children’s hands while Dante helped his wife out of the passenger side. The Crown Vic, I noticed, was idling at the bottom of the hill.

We found our realtor, Guy Winebarger, just inside the club, behind revolving glass doors that had been beautifully etched with sketches of Chesapeake Bay flora and fauna. He was dressed in dark blue chinos, a blue oxford shirt, and a yellow power tie, but in spite of the cold weather, wore no jacket. I hoped he’d left it in his car.

Phyllis Strother, on the other hand, was sensibly dressed for late February. As she approached from the end of a long hallway, I took in her gray A-line skirt, white blouse, and gray and pink boucle jacket under a Burberry raincoat that flapped open as she chugged our way. From her knees down, Phyllis wore dark gray tights and a pair of no-nonsense stacked heels.

“Dante!” she exclaimed. She grabbed his hand, her bronze-colored page boy swinging from side to side with the vigorousness of the handshake. “And this must be your family.” Under her bangs, her green eyes twinkled as she smiled at me, then turned to Emily and shook her hand, too.

“Phyllis, this is my mother, Hannah Alexander.”

Alexander? Emily had used my maiden name. For a moment I stood there speechless, amazed that nobody heard my molars grinding. Was Emily afraid that Phyllis would recognize my name? Call the deal off? If she hadn’t been my only child, the mother of my grandchildren, I’d have flattened her on the spot. Instead, I shot her a look-we’ll talk about this later-and stuck out my hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Strother,” I managed, dredging up some of the southern charm I’d inherited from my mother.

“Oh, do call me Phyllis,” she boomed in a voice so robust that I thought it’d be accompanied by a vigorous whump on my back.

“And I’d be pleased if you’d call me Hannah, Phyllis.”

“My pleasure, Hannah. And these must the grandchildren.”

Jake chose that moment to go down on all fours on the inlaid marble, while Chloe cowered behind me, grasping my leg, as if not sure what to make of this other grandmother-type who loomed over her.

“Come on, children,” Emily chirped. “Let’s go look at the big house!” With the ease of experience, she grabbed each child’s hand, swung Jake into her arms, and marched off in the direction Phyllis had just come from, with Chloe skipping happily by her side.

The four of us followed at a more leisurely pace. I listened while Guy Winebarger droned on about title abstracts, conveyances, escrow and points, but tuned out sometime during the discussion of how the seller proposed to prorate the property taxes and utility bill. Instead, I concentrated on what might soon be the place where my daughter and her family would be spending most of their time.

Although the floor where we stood had been covered with alternating squares of black and white marble, and several of the rooms that led off the lobby had been carpeted, there was not a speck of furniture anywhere. As we walked and talked, our voices and footsteps echoed hollowly off tile floors and ricocheted off the empty walls.

Dante turned to me and said, “You see what I mean, Hannah? The place has real possibilities.”

My son-in-law was right. But as far as I could figure out, those possibilities all depended upon the largesse of a certain Phyllis Strother of Charlottesville, Virginia. After listening to her for a while, I hoped her pocketbook was as grand as her ideas. “The lobby, of course, will be the central reception area. The receptionists will sign you in, discuss treatments, arrange for payment, and so on, then escort you to the appropriate dressing room.”

“There’ll be a men’s wing and a women’s wing,” Dante explained as we moved down the hallway of what would become the women’s wing.

“The locker rooms already exist,” Guy Winebarger informed me. “They were intended for the golfers, of course. Perfect, huh?”

In each wing, I learned, there’d be a hot tub to accommodate ten, each with its own lounge chairs, fresh towel cabinets, and refreshment centers. A sauna room and a steam room would be adjoining.

As we stood in the future hot tub area for women, Phyllis waxed almost poetic about it. “You’ll wait here,” she mused, “tubbing, reading, sipping a fruit smoothie, whatever, and when it’s time for your appointment, a uniformed attendant will appear to fetch you and take you to a private cubicle-I see walnut paneling, don’t you, Dante?-and you’ll have your massage, or facial.”

“Botox, too?” I asked as we passed through a set of double doors and stepped into the dining room. I had noticed Phyllis’s smooth, seamless forehead and was feeling frisky.

“Botox, too,” she said, not skipping a beat. “And when you’re ready to face the world again, you can take a plunge in the indoor/outdoor pool.” She waved an arm, indicating an expanse of glass that had been intended, I felt sure, to give the dining room a panoramic view of the Potomac River. “The pool will have to be built, of course,” she hastened to add, “but I see it starting here and ending…” She waved a hand toward the river. “… there.”

“With a vanishing edge, right?” I asked. If money were to be no object, might as well go for broke.

“Of course.”

The former club room and its thirty-foot bar, I soon learned, would become the spa’s dining room, where nutritious, low-carb lunches would be served, prepared by a master chef-Dante already had somebody in mind. “We won’t serve alcohol, of course, only a full range of designer waters and approved fruit juices.”

“If you want a blended drink,” Phyllis chortled, “it had better be a smoothie!”

At the end of the men’s wing, in a large room Winebarger said had been intended for a pro shop, we caught up with Emily and the children. When we pushed through the double doors, Emily spread her arms and spun around like Julie Andrews on the mountaintop in Sound of Music. She wound to a stop and grinned. “And this is going to be the day care center. I’m going to run it! Won’t it be wonderful?”

Chloe, who had been imitating her mother, kept spinning around the room like a dervish until she collided with a pillar and fell over. Jake pounced on his sister, and in a tangle of arms and legs, the two children giggled until they got hiccups. Just watching them made me laugh, too.

“But you’ll have to have a gift shop, right?” I pictured ball caps and bathrobes and T-shirts emblazoned with the spa’s logo; gift baskets of health care products; designer sunglasses; self-help books.

“That will be off the main entrance, where the developer’s office used to be,” Dante said.

They seemed to have it all worked out. And if Phyllis Strother’s check had cleared, there didn’t seem to be any financial impediments, either.

“Do you think Dad will approve?” Emily wanted to know.

“I don’t know why not.” I smiled, thinking of Paul’s measly five percent share. Looking around the building now, I figured we might end up owning the coat check room, or perhaps a restroom or two.

“Aunt Ruth is going to help with the decor.”

Why was I not surprised? Emily and my sister Ruth were soulmates. I could see it all now: banzai, meditation gardens, fountains, and wind chimes all over the place. With Ruth involved, everything would be perfectly feng shuied.

While Dante huddled with Phyllis and Guy, discussing what offer they were prepared to make on the property, I, “Hannah Alexander,” wandered the facility with Emily and the children. Outside the dining room windows, snow began to fall, dusting the tufts of brown winter grass with white.

“Emily, what are you going to name the spa?”

“‘Paradiso,’” she told me. “Dante’s Paradiso. Do you like it?”

“Yes,” I said truthfully. “I really do.”

Leaving Emily to play tag with the kids, I opened the door and stepped out on the patio. The future spa was set high on the riverbank, with no trees to break the wind that came roaring across the creek, tossing my hair about my ears. I pulled my coat more tightly around me. In addition to the renovations, the place would need serious landscaping.

I circled the building, making a mental list of all the work that needed to be done before the golf club became a spa. I grew discouraged, and more and more concerned that Emily and Dante might be overextending themselves, both physically and financially.

I’d forgotten about the Crown Vic until I heard its engine rev. I turned in the direction of the noise just in time to catch sight of the vehicle as it roared down the road, spewing slush and gravel in its wake, emergency lights flashing.

What’s that all about? Had the FBI lost interest in me?

“Paradiso.” I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sky. Plump snowflakes fell on my cheeks, lingered there for a brief second before melting away. Paradiso.

O Lord, I prayed. Let it be so.

Paradise, after all, sometimes had a way of turning into hell.

After dinner at the Golden Star, where Chloe pronounced the shrimp with snow peas “yummy” and Jake worked the fried rice thoroughly into his hair, we returned to the Super 8 for baths and bed. With the children asleep in the queen-size bed next to me, I nestled under the covers and had just turned the channel to HBO when my cell phone rang.

I picked up, thinking it’d be Paul, but according to the Caller ID, it was Dorothy.

“Dorothy. Hi,” I whispered, not wanting to wake the children.

“Oh, Hannah, I just had to talk to somebody!” Dorothy was weeping so copiously I could barely understand her.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Ted,” she wailed. “He’s being investigated. People are crawling all over his office and he’s being transferred!”

I leaned back against my pillows. It was happening. At long last it was happening. The feds had closed in on Ted Hart. If all went well, the spotlight would be trained on him now, not on me. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders, but it had been placed squarely on Dorothy’s. With her health so precarious, I worried she’d not be strong enough to support it.

Dorothy was saying something about Norfolk.

“Norfolk?”

“Ted’s going to Norfolk, Virginia. They’re assigning him as Special Assistant to the Commander, Fleet Forces Command. You know what that means.”

I did. It meant that the Navy was kicking him out of Washington, D.C. with a rocket tied to his tail. While they investigated the allegations against him, Admiral Hart would drive a desk. He’d plan menus, address invitations, and write place cards for Navy Relief balls. As much as I wanted the Navy to dress Theodore Hart in cammies and drop him off in downtown Falujah with a target strapped to his back, there was no way they’d give the man anything important to do.

“Oh, Dorothy, I’m so sorry.” And I was sorry, too, but for her, not for the admiral. He’d made his bed and would have to lie in it. Eventually, there’d be a courtmartial. Chances are, Hart would do hard time in Leavenworth.

Dorothy wept quietly into the phone and I waited her out. “I have a migraine like you wouldn’t believe,” she sobbed.

“Don’t worry about checking the set this week,” I told her. “You just stay home and get well.”

“But I want to stay involved,” she choked. “What else am I going to do now that-that-”

“Does Kevin know?” I asked.

My question set off another crying jag. It was over a minute before Dorothy was able to speak to me again. “Kevin’s so angry, I thought he was going to kill his father.”

“Is Kevin with you?”

“No.”

So Kevin was laying low, too. I wasn’t surprised. Until this happened, he’d been the pampered son of an admiral, cocky, behaving as if the stars his father wore were his own. When the news broke, it’d be payback time. The brigade would not treat him kindly.

“Dorothy? I’ll call you later, okay?”

Snuffle.

“If you need anything, you just let me know.”

Sniff. Sniff.

As I hung up the phone, I realized that Dorothy’s worst fears had come true. Except for me, she was utterly, completely alone.