Misfortune (17 page)
Aurelia had no answers. As children, Frances and Blair simply assumed that they had done something wrong, that they were somehow deserving of the disparate treatment they received, even as they struggled to determine what it was they had done. They offered to help around the house, didn’t they? They kept their rooms neat. They did as they were told. They were quiet. They hadn’t damaged anything. Aurelia had tried, over and over, to convince them that they were not at fault. What she couldn’t bear to explain was that Frances and Blair, two well-behaved, studious, adorable girls, were hers, the product of Richard’s first marriage. This simple fact, though totally beyond their control, was enough to condemn them in Clio’s eyes.
“You know, I’ve asked myself over and over again, did I do the wrong thing? Should I have subjected my family to this process, this scrutiny, this judgment? Should I have subjected myself ?” Henry paused for a moment and bit at his lower lip. “I think I fooled myself. In Manhattan, in my profession, I’m treated with respect. People turn to me, they rely on me, to help them. I save lives. But out here, none of that seems to matter. It’s not good enough to be educated. It’s not even enough to be rich.
Everybody
is. Even though the people in this community have every benefit and privilege imaginable, they still find an excuse to hate. I must have been crazy to think attitudes could change.”
“If it’s any consolation, I believe that Clio Pratt is threatened by a lot of things that you and I might not understand.”
Two little girls who love their father
, Aurelia stopped herself from adding. “She’s created a life surrounded by barriers, deliberately insulated from those who are different. Most of the people out here have done the same thing. That, Henry, is what you don’t understand about Southampton. People are rich. People are powerful. They’ve found a place where other rich, powerful people just like them want to come to play.”
“Then why are you here?”
The question surprised Aurelia. She paused, thought for a moment, and tried to answer as honestly as she could. “For purely selfish reasons. The landscape I love to paint. The home that I have been in now for nearly fifteen years, since Blair went off to college, a home that I created only for myself, just exactly how I wanted it. For the reminder of happy times with my girls, even with Richard. Southampton is where I’ve stored my memories. I guess you could say that Southampton is the only future I can envision, and as far as I can recall, it’s the happiest part of my past.”
They were silent. Henry pulled on his lower lip. Aurelia watched him. She had not meant to talk about herself, and her disclosures made her feel funny.
“That’s what I wanted it to be for me, for my family.” Henry’s tone was bitter. “We’re entitled to enjoy this place as much as the next person.”
“What does Louise think?”
“She says she’s mostly upset for me.”
“And you’re upset for her.”
“Louise is incredibly strong, stronger than I am in many ways. I just hate myself for putting her through this. She deserves better.”
“You both do.”
“Clio should be in my place. She wouldn’t have gotten half as far as I have. And yet she’s the one to sit in judgment.”
“Should you try to talk to her?” Aurelia knew this was a futile suggestion.
“What good would that do? A conversation can’t change in-grained attitudes. Besides, she’d probably deny it was her doing.” Henry laughed. “I should kill her, is what I should do. She deserves nothing less than to be removed from this planet.” He paused for a moment, then smiled, a flash of brilliant white teeth. “You must be thinking I’m crazy. Crazy to have tried to belong, and crazier now to be surprised that I don’t, or can’t.”
Aurelia forced a smile. “No more crazy than the rest of us.”
F
rances Pratt kneeled in the fertilized earth, pulling small weeds and stray grasses from the rose bed in front of her and aerating the topsoil with her three-pronged claw. She sprinkled handfuls of Rose-Tone plant food around each bud eye of her seven Grand Finale rosebushes. Working from the ground up, her dirt-covered fingers removed the few yellowed leaves from the thorny stalks. The dead heads of formerly creamy white blossoms she cut off at an angle, just above the closest cluster of five leaves facing away from the center of the plant. These gardening tricks, developed over the years through much trial and error, served her well. Her roses were bushier and healthier than ever.
Frances sat back on her heels, rubbed the small of her back, and pushed her hair off her face. Felonious and Miss Demeanor, her canine companions, lay on the grass nearby, half sleeping, half watching her labor. She surveyed her work. After she finished with the roses, the bed of delphinium, cosmos, and foxglove needed weeding. Then she would turn her attention to her sunflower patch, this year’s experiment. Some kind of bug was eating the thick, fibrous stalks. While Frances could solve most of her gardening problems on her own, these insects had baffled her. She needed to get advice from Sam Guff, her neighbor and the best gardener she knew.
Frances heard the telephone ring inside the house. The dogs pricked their ears but didn’t move from where they lay in the sun. Frances counted the rings, realizing after four that she hadn’t turned on the answering machine. Eventually the caller would hang up and try another time if it was important. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Summer Saturdays were for gardening, and the Fourth of July holiday was no exception. Frances bent over and resumed her work.
The ringing persisted. The caller was someone who knew her well enough to know that she rarely answered the telephone, either her sister, Blair, her mother, or retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Robert Burke, now employed like her by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. The only other possibility was Sam, but he rarely bothered to call. He could walk across the street if he had something to say to her.
Leaving her claw, trowel, and rake where they lay, Frances got up and went inside.
“Hello?”
“Why didn’t you pick up? Goddamn you, Fanny.” Frances recognized Blair’s voice, although the pitch was higher than normal and her words were slightly muffled, as if she had been crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Clio. Oh, my God, you’re not going to believe it.” Frances heard sobs mixed with wheezing breaths at the other end of the line.
“What happened? Where are you?”
Several seconds passed. Frances heard Blair blow her nose and cough before she responded. “I’m at the Fair Lawn Country Club. I found her, found her in the bathroom. Dead. In a stall. It’s horrible, Fanny.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. She’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m sure.”
“Did something happen? Did you hear a gunshot? Is there any sign of a struggle? Is she bloody?” Frances spoke mechanically, asking the series of questions ingrained in her by her law enforcement background. Oh, my God, we’re talking about Clio, she thought for a moment, then forced her mind to stay focused. She couldn’t allow herself to be personally affected and felt frustrated by Blair’s inability to communicate basic information.
“Oh, Frances, how can you even say such things?” Blair started to cry again.
“Who’s with you?”
“Everybody. Everybody’s here.”
Of course, Frances thought. It’s July Fourth. The summer tennis tournament was under way. The Fair Lawn Country Club would be packed with people.
“You’ve got to come. I can’t be here without you. Please hurry,” Blair pleaded.
“Where’s Jake?” Frances asked.
“He’s in Ohio with his family for the weekend.”
The answer didn’t surprise her. Frances couldn’t remember Jake ever being around to help in times of crisis. When Blair’s appendix burst three years earlier, Jake was meeting with some banker about extending their line of credit and didn’t answer his cell phone. When Richard had his stroke, Jake actually stayed on in Hong Kong to deal with his clients rather than accompany his wife on the long journey home. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to avoid bad situations, and today was no exception.
“Does Dad know?”
“This just happened!” Blair screamed. “Just this minute!”
“Have you called the police?”
“I didn’t, but somebody else did, I’m pretty sure. Everyone’s running around. It’s crazy here. They just stopped the tournament.” Frances could hear her sister’s quick, raspy breathing. “You’ve got to get here. You’ve got to tell Dad. I can’t, Fanny. It’s going to kill him.”
Frances tried to sound calm, in control. “Blair, listen to me. Stay right where you are. When the police get there, tell them what you know, and tell them about Dad, his condition. I’m on my way.”
“Hurry.”
“I’m coming as fast as I can.”
Frances dialed the home number for Robert Burke, the first person she’d think to call in a time of crisis. Since his mandatory retirement at age fifty-five from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Meaty,” as he was affectionately known, worked for the state. He ran every major investigation that District Attorney Malcolm Morris chose to pursue, and he oversaw the younger, less experienced investigators assigned to the office from the local police.
While with the FBI, Meaty had worked out of the Manhattan office. He and Frances knew many of the same people, law enforcement officers from the New York Police Department, the United States Attorney’s and Manhattan District Attorney’s Offices, and Meaty was well aware of Frances’s reputation as a serious, hardworking prosecutor before she’d ever set foot in Malcolm Morris’s office. For that reason he exhibited a deference to her that he otherwise withheld from prosecutors. He listened to what she wanted and involved her in the strategic side of investigating more than a dozen cases they had worked on together over the past seven years. In return he never had to worry about the adequacy of her search warrants, the precision of her grand jury presentations, or the efficacy of her direct examinations.
Meaty had told Frances what he considered to be the basic parameters of his personal life shortly after they’d first met. “It’s all you’ll ever need to know about me,” he’d said at the time. “Because what you see is what you get. I’m not a very complex sort of guy.” He had married his wife, Carol, forty years ago, when she was sixteen and he was twenty. They had one daughter, who was, and would remain, an incurable alcoholic. He and Carol had instituted legal proceedings against her to gain custody of their baby granddaughter. Now neither liquor nor their only child was allowed in the house, and they had raised the little girl for the past nine years. Frances also knew that Meaty’s passions were the New York Yankees, deep-sea fishing, and floating island meringue desserts.
In exchange, Frances disclosed that she had once been engaged and that she had family on Long Island. She left her personal life at that, and Meaty had not probed. In seven years Frances had revealed little else.
Carol Burke answered the telephone on the second ring.
“It’s Frances. Is Meaty there?”
Forty years of marriage to an FBI man must have given Carol an intuitive ability to assess a situation without asking a single question. Frances was relieved that she omitted her customary chatter and good cheer and called immediately for her husband.
“Meaty,” Frances said as he got on the line, “I need your help. Clio, my dad’s wife, is dead.”
“How?” he asked in his gruff voice.
Holding the portable receiver in place with her chin, she relayed the substance of Blair’s call. “That’s all I know. I haven’t talked to anyone besides Blair. I need a favor. A blue light to Southampton.” Frances knew that it would take her more than an hour to get from Orient Point to the Fair Lawn Country Club with the speed limit and holiday traffic. Meaty, behind the wheel of his Crown Victoria with his blue light flashing from the roof, could cut the time in half.
“I’m on my way,” Meaty said.
Frances stood for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts, but she felt numb. Looking down, she saw her blackened fingernails, her soil-covered overalls. She went to the bathroom, washed her face, scrubbed her hands, and then changed her clothes. Back in the kitchen, she took several dog biscuits out of the canister, called for the dogs, and rewarded their responsiveness. “Okay, guys, I’ll be back.” She heard her own voice shake.
Waiting for Meaty’s arrival, Frances paced the length of her porch, then leaned against the sagging railing. As she thought of her father, and what she was about to see, she rubbed her eyes to force back tears. Now is not the time to cry, she told herself, but her self-control diminished as she imagined his devastation. He would sink farther into his wheelchair and obscure his face to hide his pain. Lily, his nurse, would hover and flutter about him. The scene would be unbearable. Clio had been the center of his life, even more so in the past year since he had been unable to work. She was his reason to live.
Now this woman, who seemed the picture of health, was dead in a toilet stall. Frances couldn’t recall a time that Clio had been sick. Thin, physically active, she worked to stay fit. Plus, she had spent the last year living amid nurses, health care professionals. It wasn’t possible that something serious could have gone undetected, yet she was dead at fifty-one.
What happened? Frances wondered. What went wrong?
Meaty turned off First Neck Lane and pulled his Crown Victoria into the pillared entranceway of the Fair Lawn Country Club. He slowed down long enough to flash his police badge at the blond teenage boy who sat slouched in a green-and-white-striped folding chair by the gate. The guard glanced up from his bag of potato chips and waved Meaty through.
“What the hell is this place?” Meaty said as they drove slowly up the paved drive. Acres and acres of manicured green lawn divided by white lines and nets spread out before them.
“Grass tennis courts,” Frances remarked absentmindedly. “Tennis where I grew up was a couple of kids on a cement court. This grass looks like a putting green,” Meaty muttered.
