1 Catered to Death (13 page)

“I guess so,” Claudine reluctantly said, opening her door again. “Come in.”

Coughing softly into my sleeve, I followed Claudine inside, my eyes raking back and forth over the inside of the condominium. Claudine’s front door opened directly into the living room, a rectangle with crimson walls, black carpeting and white furniture. Mirrors of all sizes hung on every wall, making me feel like I’d just stepped into the fun house at a carnival.

“You have a lovely home,” I lied, eyeing a zebra rug in front of the gas fireplace. “Is that real?” I asked, nodding at the rug.

“Oh, yes. A relative left it to me.” She chuckled. “He said it’s a tribute to my wild side. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Amazing,” I agreed, trying not to visualize Claudine and Frank lying on the rug naked.

“Wait here. I’ll get you some water.” Claudine disappeared and returned seconds later with a small glass filled with enough water to barely quench the thirst of a gnat. “Here,” she said as she thrust the glass at me.

I took it and drained it, a process that took all of half a second. “Oh, my. That’s better. Thank you, Claudine. I just hate having a tickle in my throat, don’t you? It’s so irritating.”

“You’re welcome,” Claudine replied. “Thank you again for the samples.” She began to walk toward her front door, clearly expecting me to be on her heels.

“I wonder…” I began before letting my voice trail off. Instinct told me that the best way to appeal to a cold fish like Claudine would be to pretend to be a ditzy, middle-aged woman, someone Claudine could feel superior to. It wasn’t too difficult. There was something about Claudine that made me feel at a definite disadvantage, like Claudine was about to start spouting arcane quotes from writers I had never heard of or begin speaking in Latin or Russian.

“Well, what?” Claudine asked impatiently. “What do you wonder?”

I plunged forward. “I’ve been thinking about that terrible tragedy that happened at the school.”

Pain passed over Claudine’s even features but her voice remained harsh. “So? We’ve all been thinking about that. Especially the people who really knew Frank. What’s it to you?”

“Well, you’re right; I barely knew Frank but I liked him. He seemed very warm.”

“He was,” Claudine said shortly. “Although I can hardly see how that would be of any concern of yours.” A timer went off somewhere in the back of the house. “Excuse me,” Claudine said. “I have something in the oven. I’m sure you can see yourself out.”

“Of course,” I agreed. I waited until Claudine left the room again before zooming over to a long table covered with framed photographs. My eyes moved quickly from picture to picture. Claudine was in each and every one of them, starting as a baby and following her life all the way through her school years, college and finally adulthood. I had never seen so many pictures of one person who wasn’t a celebrity in one place at the same time. Claudine had a very healthy ego, that was for sure.

I lingered over the most recent photos, ones that looked like they had been taken in the near past. There were pictures of Claudine at Eden Academy, poised at the front of her classroom like she was modeling for the cover of
Teacher’s Weekly
. She was alone in the picture but smiling so widely at whomever the photographer was I had the impression that the lens man was someone she was pretty darn fond of. Another picture caught my eagle eye. It had also been taken at Eden Academy, in the staff lounge. In it Claudine was sitting at the square conference table talking intently to someone who was out of the frame. Whoever she was talking to had his hand on her knee, just like Frank Ubermann had at Junebug’s lunch. I squinted at the picture. The hand had a very large, somewhat tacky silver and turquoise ring on it, something I couldn’t quite imagine Frank Ubermann ever wearing.

“Are you still here?”

I jumped and turned. Claudine stood behind me, arms crossed across her flat chest and one foot tapping the ugly carpeting impatiently. “Oh, yes, I was about to leave when I saw your lovely photographs. You’re so photogenic, Claudine. Did you ever model?”

It was a good move and apparently better than the ditz role I’d been contemplating. A very small smile touched Claudine’s dark red lips and she all but began preening. “Never professionally.”

“Really? The camera seems to just love you.”

“Well, I have been told on numerous occasions that I could have been one of the greats. Another Cheryl Tiegs if I’d pursued that route instead of academia.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could have!” I said enthusiastically. “Do you have a moment to tell me about it? I’ve always been interested in modeling––”

Claudine’s eyes went over my short and, I’ll admit it, slightly plump frame. I know I could never have been a model but I didn’t need such a rapid affirmation from Claudine. “You?” she asked disbelievingly.

“I know I never would have made it,” I hurried to assure her. “I don’t have the height or the bones, not like you do, but it always seemed like such a glamorous kind of life. I suppose every woman alive must wonder what it would be like to be a model. I’d really love to hear your story.”

Claudine softened even more. “Well, I suppose I could tell you about it. I’m not doing anything too pressing at the moment.”

“Would it be all right if I sat down?”

“Yes, of course. Would you…like something to drink?” Claudine offered with what seemed like a considerable amount of effort, giving me the impression that hospitality and Claudine had only a nodding acquaintance.

“I’d love a glass of wine if you have one,” I said. Something told me—probably the ESP I mentioned to Steve—that Claudine would be a lot more chatty with some vino in her.

“I’ll be right back.”

I settled myself on the long white couch that was just as uncomfortable as it looked, pleased that I’d managed to get this far without being evicted. Glancing up at the ceiling, I was only a little surprised to see another mirror reflecting back at me. Claudine obviously liked to be able to view herself from every angle imaginable. I patted my roots as I stared upwards. From that angle, they were really getting to be quite obnoxious.

A moment later Claudine returned with two glasses and a box of white wine. “I love boxed wine,” she announced. “It’s so much easier than getting up and opening another bottle, don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” I murmured as I wondered how many boxes of wine Claudine went through in a week. Probably enough to build an addition to her condo.

Claudine handed me a full glass and then filled one for herself. Taking a deep swallow, she said, “Now, where we were? Oh, yes, you wanted to hear about my modeling experiences. Well, my dear Dottie––”

“DeeDee.”

“Oops, DeeDee. Sorry.”

“No problem.” I watched Claudine in amazement. It was incredible what a little wine and a few compliments could do to warm Claudine up.

“DeeDee, let me tell you, I know I could have given even Cybil Shepherd a run for her money but my mother was dead set against the idea. You see, not only was I born with an amazing amount of beauty, I also was blessed with an incredibly high IQ.”

Why didn’t that surprise me? “Oh, my!” I said encouragingly.

 
Claudine nodded her head vigorously. “Incredibly high. Off the charts. Mensa material. Naturally, very early on I had to decide whether or not to go for the shallow world of being a model or whether I should pursue something that had more meaning, more of a lasting value. Something that would help other people instead of just myself.”

What a load of crap,
I thought, but smiled as if I believed every word Claudine was feeding me. “That must have been a rough choice.”

 
“Oh, it was,” Claudine assured me as she refilled her wine glass and then held the box up toward me. “Refill?”

“I’m fine,” I assured her.

“Well, let me tell you that I
suffered
while I tried to make up my mind. My mother was the one who convinced me to become a teacher. She told me that there really is nothing nobler than helping mold young minds. Being a model might have satisfied my own needs for fame and material things but teaching satisfied much deeper needs. More global needs, one could say.”

 
“From modeling to teaching, that’s quite a stretch,” I noted.

Claudine nodded. “I’ll say. A huge stretch.”

“When did you start at Eden Academy?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation from Claudine’s feeble brush with fame to what had happened to Frank Ubermann.

“I was one of the charter members,” Claudine replied. “Let’s see, it was, oh, my, twenty years ago! Can you believe that?”

I put Claudine somewhere in her early to mid-forties so she must have been a fairly new teacher when she started working at Eden Academy. “Did Frank Ubermann hire you?” Smoothly, I picked up Claudine’s wine glass and refilled it under the tap. Claudine didn’t seem to mind.

“Yes, Frank hired me. Thank you.” She took the glass I had filled to the top and took a sip. “Would you like to hear about my very first modeling job?”

“Sure.”

Claudine leaned back against the sofa cushions, a faraway expression forming in her eyes. “When I was eight years old, we had a man who was remodeling our bathroom. Mr. Holvenstadt. He took one look at me and asked my mother if she’d ever thought about having me model. She said no, naturally, that although I was quite a beautiful child, modeling was never anything she’d ever considered before. Too pedestrian. Mr. Holvenstadt said that was a shame because I had so much natural potential. Mother said well, I wouldn’t even know how to start with something like that. So Mr. Holvenstadt said that he’d like to take pictures of me and send them to a magazine! We were so excited—I mean
me
on a national magazine. So Mother went out to Montgomery Wards and got me the cutest outfit—little navy blue overalls and a white shirt with red and blue polka dots and a big straw hat. I looked adorable. Then she took me over to his house and he took pictures of me.”

“Did she leave you there alone?” I questioned, appalled by Claudine’s story. “She didn’t, did she? She stayed for the photo session, I hope.”

“I can’t really remember,” Claudine said. “It doesn’t matter, of course. He wasn’t a pedophile. He was our plumber.”

I was about to say that I’d never leave our daughter Jane alone when she was eight-years old with any adult man who wasn’t her father but she stopped herself because I didn’t want to distract Claudine. “Did he sell the pictures to that national magazine?”

Claudine’s face fell. “No, but he had a lot of interest in them. I think I was a little upset that day so the pictures weren’t quite as beautiful as they could have been. I really was an adorable child.”

“I’m sure you were. You’re a very lovely woman.”

“Why, thank you.”

“What was it like to give up a glamorous career like modeling for teaching?” Okay, it was an awkward segue but Claudine didn’t seem to notice.

Claudine fingered a heart shaped pendant hanging around her neck. “Oh, it was hard, although I have to say that I never really had a modeling career
per se.
It was more like I always knew that I had the potential to be a super model, if you know what I mean.”

I nodded as if being a super model had been an option that had been open to me too. “Very difficult,” I murmured.

“Of course, teaching has turned out to be a very rewarding career for me. It doesn’t pay too well but money isn’t everything, is it? There’s more to life than spending scads of money on oneself, going on fabulous vacations and living in a showplace, right?”

From the way her voice took a nosedive from enthusiastic to flatlining, I knew she was lying. “Were you the first teacher Frank hired?”

Claudine nodded. “The very first.”

“How did you two, ah, hook up?”

“There was a group of concerned citizens who wanted to start a private school,” Claudine explained. “People who were fed up with what the students were receiving from the public school. I had just gotten out of graduate school—I have a master’s degree in curriculum—and I saw an article in the paper about Eden Academy. Well, you’d better believe that I hightailed it over to that meeting and sat front row center. Frank was one of the people starting Eden Academy. I introduced myself and he hired me on the spot.” Claudine reminisced, her eyes misting over. She drained her wine glass and I quickly refilled it.

“You two must have had quite a special bond.” I sipped some wine and tried not to sound too curious or too intrusive.