Torch

9

According to Beth, Donna Winship had little outside life other than aerobic workouts, which was where Beth had met her, and tennis lessons at the Del Moray Country Club. The first name on Beth’s list of Donna’s friends and acquaintances was Ellen Pfitzer, also a club member.

The Del Moray Country Club was on the ocean, just north of the marina. It was a complex of low buildings made of pale cast concrete with lots of tinted glass and with blue-shingled roofs that were the exact color of the sea on a sunny day. The grounds were neat and green, especially around the largest building, a clubhouse containing a restaurant and lounge and windows looking out on the swimming pool and tennis courts, and beyond them the ocean. On the wide sand beach was a pavilion with a thatched roof that lent shade to a bar and a dozen round tables with high-backed wicker chairs. To the right of the pavilion, closer to the water, were white lounge chairs and wide blue umbrellas with white fringe. There was a scattering of sunbathers on the beach, men in trunks and loose-fitting shirts, women in one-piece suits, a few younger ones in bikinis. A few older ones almost in bikinis. Their actions were slow and deliberate, as if they’d become drunk from the sun.

Carver had visited the place several times last year with a wealthy client who thought his daughter might be engaged to a fortune hunter. He’d been right, but the marriage had taken place anyway, and for now, anyway, daughter and fortune hunter were living happily in Miami, maybe even in love with each other.

Before driving here, Carver had phoned Ellen Pfitzer, and she’d agreed to meet him in the club lounge for a drink and to discuss Donna’s death. He was fifteen minutes early, so he chose a table by the window and ordered a Dewar’s and water, then sat watching a mixed doubles match in the nearest court. The woman at the far end of the court was a leggy redhead in a white and blue tennis outfit with a skimpy skirt. The other woman was a short blond, sturdily built, in a plain white outfit, who played with single-minded ferocity but was obviously the least accomplished of the four players. Both men were much younger and much smoother on the court, and seemed to be playing with some reserve. Carver guessed they were the women’s instructors. He wondered if either of the women was Ellen Pfitzer.

The short blond hit a forehand rocket, yelling with effort, but it was long and the redhead stood smugly, holding her racket back with both hands and watching the ball drop behind the line.

It must have been game point. The redhead’s partner gave her a big grin and a hug, then they and the other man walked off toward the part of the clubhouse containing lockers, saunas and exercise equipment. The blond woman backhanded sweat from her forehead and trudged toward the clubhouse. Despite her stockiness she had a graceful walk, the muscles in her firm, tan legs rippling with each step. Large breasts bounced slightly beneath her white pullover shirt. She had a figure made more for pinup calendars than for tennis. Her head was bowed and she was gazing at the ground in concentration as she passed from sight.

She must have stopped to freshen up. Ten minutes passed before she entered the lounge and stood looking around, ignoring the speculative glances of some of the men at the bar. She saw Carver, saw the cane where he’d leaned it against the table, and came toward him.

She had an open, friendly face with blue eyes and a slightly turned-up nose, and she was even shorter than she’d appeared on the court, probably under five feet.

“Ellen Pfitzer?” Carver asked.

She nodded, and he introduced himself and motioned for her to sit down.

When she was settled, the waiter appeared and she ordered a Tom Collins. Needed to cool off after the hotly contested tennis match in the sun.

“I was watching you play,” Carver said.

She smiled. “So what did you think?”

“That it was too hot for that kind of thing.”

“I only play because it’s great exercise and burns a lot of calories. I’m always fighting to keep my figure.”

“You’re winning,” Carver said.

She gave him another wide grin and took a long pull on the drink the waiter had placed in front of her. She lowered the glass and said, “Ah!” the way actors say it in TV commercials. Carver waited for her to sell him something.

“Donna’s funeral was this morning,” she said.

“I know. I didn’t go. I have a thing about funerals. They seem superfluous.”

“They are, of course,” Ellen said. “There weren’t many people there. Donna’s mother and daughter, a few of the people from the insurance company where Donna worked. I was a pallbearer, along with your friend Beth. The mortuary supplied most of the others.”

Carver hadn’t talked to Beth since early that morning. He wondered if there would be many mourners at Mark Winship’s funeral. “Did you know Donna’s husband?” he asked.

“We met a few times, but I wouldn’t say I knew him. Donna talked about him a lot, though. They were unhappy lately, but I guess that’s no secret.”

“She say why they were unhappy?”

Ellen took another sip of her drink, just nibbling at the ice this time, while her blue eyes sized up Carver as if he were a tennis opponent. She placed the glass back on its coaster. “I talked about you with Beth after the funeral. In a sense, I guess you’re still working for Donna.”

“In a sense. I want to know the reason for what happened.”

“You’re the kind of guy who can’t let go. That’s what Beth said.”

Great, Carver thought. More of that obsessive talk.

“Donna confided in me several months ago that she and Mark were having problems,” Ellen said. “Then, about a month ago, she told me she was having an affair.”

“Did she say who she was involved with?”

“She said it was nobody I knew, and she just referred to him as ‘Enrico’ every now and then. I think she wanted me to know it wasn’t anyone at the club, any of the tennis pros. That kind of thing happens a lot around here, you know, but Donna wasn’t the type.”

“What type was she?”

Ellen ran a blunt, unpainted fingernail up and down her tall glass and thought for a few seconds before answering. “She was a nice woman. I know ‘nice’ is a word used too frequently, but in Donna’s case it applies. She was friendly toward everyone, but also a little shy. This is a fairly exclusive club-I’d even say snotty. Donna and Mark were members only because of Mark’s affiliation with people through his investment counseling. He seldom came here at all. Donna was aware she didn’t travel in the same circles as a lot of the members and didn’t seek out people. She didn’t mind not associating with some of the snobs around here. She was actually the homebody type and was content until her marriage started to go bad.” A serious light entered Ellen’s blue eyes and she leaned toward Carver earnestly. “I’ll tell you what type she wasn’t. She wasn’t the type to have an extramarital affair. I don’t know exactly what Mark Winship did, but the marriage must have been hopeless for Donna to get mixed up with another man.”

“Do you remember what she said about Enrico?”

“She said she was happy only when she was with him, and it was positively eerie how compatible they were, how they loved and hated the same things. You know the phase, when endorphins take the place of reason. She said it almost made her believe in fate or astrology. If it helps you any, I’m sure she was totally hooked on this guy. I wish I’d met him.”

“Be glad you didn’t.”

Her eyes widened over the rim of her glass. “Have you met him?”

“Briefly,” Carver said. “We didn’t get along.”

“Maybe you caught him at a bad time.”

“If I did, he reacted badly. He threatened me with a knife.”

Ellen shook her head. “Well, Donna wouldn’t be the first woman to gravitate toward the wrong man when her marriage was breaking up. Her husband was right for her at one time, when she was thinking straight, but under the strain, with things coming unglued, she might have been temporarily attracted to someone who was more or less his opposite.”

That sounded pretty good to Carver. He was becoming impressed by Ellen Pfitzer.

“But suicide,” Ellen said. She shook her head no as if she’d been asked to throw a tennis match. “That wasn’t like Donna, either.”

“Had she acted strange lately?”

“She was nervous and depressed, but I wouldn’t describe her as suicidal.”

“It was an impulsive thing,” Carver said.

Ellen scowled. “Probably thanks to Enrico.”

“Do you remember anything in particular Donna said about her husband?”

“She mentioned that he’d withdrawn from her, that he’d become cold. She said he acted as if the marriage was already ended and he was just marking time until the divorce. Exactly what you’d expect to hear about a marriage on the rocks, when one of the partners has given up completely.”

“Did he turn cool toward her for a reason?”

“None that she knew. She told me she asked him what was wrong. Begged him to tell her. All he’d say was that he was unhappy. He’d refuse to be specific. They hadn’t really talked about a divorce yet. When she asked him if he wanted one, he wouldn’t give her an honest answer. She thought he was stalling, even though he seemed to have made up his mind she was no longer going to be a part of his life. He’d dismissed her from his existence. She told me she felt like a ghost when she was in the house with him.”

Carver looked out the window at the sunbathers on the beach. Beyond the pavilion’s thatched roof, he could see a few of the luxury cruisers docked at the club’s private marina, their white hulls bobbing in the gentle, sheltered water, their navigational antennae and painted brightwork gleaming in the sun. Everything and everyone at the club was bright and clean and rich.

“Was Donna a good tennis player?” Carver asked.

“Not really. She was too timid, didn’t seem to mind if she lost. Yet for some reason she’d occasionally become ferocious and go to the net more than anyone. She’d still lose, but you had to watch out or she’d take your head off with one of her forehands.”

He showed Beth’s list to Ellen. “Who else should I talk to on here?”

She pointed to the name beneath her own, then sat back. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I think I knew Donna as well as anyone. We shared . . . you know, women’s confidences.”

“What about the name below yours? Beverly Denton?”

“Yeah, Donna mentioned her. I think she’s a friend of Mark’s, really. The three of them used to spend time together, but Donna said she and Beverly never saw each other anymore, what with the way Mark had been acting. I doubt if she’d be of much help.”

“What about the possibility of Mark and Beverly having been romantically involved?”

“Anything’s possible. But I think Donna told me not long ago that Beverly was engaged to some guy who refurbishes yachts.” Ellen brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen over one eye; it had to bother her playing tennis. “Anyway, like I said, Donna and I shared confidences. If she’d thought Mark and Beverly had a thing going, she’d have told me.”

Wishing Donna had shared even more confidences with Ellen, Carver thanked her and stood up.

She glanced at his cane. “That a temporary thing?”

“As temporary as I am.”

“Well, there are worse things in life than a stiff leg. You seem to do okay for yourself.”

“I haven’t curled into a ball and cried for a long time.”

“Me, either. Not since last night.” She smiled in a way that suggested she wouldn’t mind if he sat back down.

He laid one of his business cards on the table. “If you hear anything more about Enrico Thomas,” he said, “call me and let me know.”

“So that’s his last name. Thomas.”

“No,” Carver said, “I was getting to that. His real name is Carl Gretch, and he seems to have disappeared.”

Ellen looked surprised. “Donna was going with a guy who used an alias?”

“And a knife,” Carver said. “See, she didn’t share as many confidences with you as you thought.”

“It makes me wonder,” Ellen said, sounding a little mystified, “what else she didn’t tell me.”

As Carver left the rarefied, moneyed atmosphere of the club lounge, he tried to imagine Carl Gretch there and couldn’t.

What had nice Donna Winship been thinking?