Natural Causes (5 page)

"Why didn't Quentin divorce her?"

"He was afraid to divorce her," she said.
"Afraid she'd really kill herself, instead of indulging in one
of her melodramatic charades. For some reason he held himself
responsible for Marsha's drunkenness and her tantrums, as if it were
their marriage that had unhinged her. He wasn't ... rational when it
came to Marsha. But then people in love seldom are. He loved her, you
know. Quentin married her when she was very young-scarcely
nineteen--and I don't think he ever stopped thinking of her as if she
were the same beautiful little girl that he'd picked up in a bar. She
was his version of
nostalgie de boue
.
Also, she's got quite a build."

I smiled.

The woman poured the coffee into two cups. "She
changed once she began to live here. Money changed her. License
changed her. I warned Quentin it would happen. I told him she wasn't
ready for this kind of life. I begged him not to marry her just to
keep her if he must. But ..." She waved her free hand gently in
the air. "He was very headstrong, my son. A very emotional, very
impetuous man. He wanted the little hick and she was Baptist enough
to get him to marry her first. Of course, after the ceremony, she
turned as Episcopalian as the rest of us. She took one look inside
the country club and decided that good manners meant getting drunk
and sleeping around. It would have been funny, if she hadn't been
part of the family. I never saw anyone change so fast. From a shy
child who couldn't say two words without tripping over her own tongue
to ... well, to what you saw by the pool."

The woman brought the coffee over to the table and
sat down across from me. "The last time I saw Quentin was right
here at this table," she said softly. "On Friday afternoon.
He and I had lunch at the house. It was a lovely meal. But then lunch
with my son was always a joy. He was very excited that day. He was
about to embark on a new project and that made him happy. That was
why he was going to L.A.--to discuss the project."

"A project for United?"

"Probably. He didn't say. Personally, I was
hoping it was the novel he had been working on for so long. But it
was undoubtedly some TV thing. They're always so secretive about
their little ideas."

"Did he go out west often?"

"Every week," the woman said. "His
team was out there, near the studio. He'd fly to Hollywood on Sunday
night, do the week's blocking for 'Phoenix', then come back home on
Tuesday evening. Of course, I thought all that travel was too hard on
him. You know, he was not in the best of health. But Quentin seemed
to enjoy it. And, of course, he enjoyed coming back here. Coming
home. His roots are in this city. Our family has lived here for
generations."

"In this house?" I said.

"Close by."

I took a sip of the coffee. It was quite good.
"Quentin left for California on Sunday?"

"No. He made a special trip that Friday night."

"Did he call you from L.A.?"

"He called me when he got in, from the Belle
Vista, late Friday night. He always called when he went on a trip. He
knew I'd worry if he didn't"

"What did he say?"

"That the flight had been bumpy, but that he was
feeling fine. He said that he would probably be out of touch for a
few days and not to worry if he didn't call again until Monday."

"Did he say where he was going to be?"

"I assumed a series of meetings. I remember that
the last thing I said to him was not to forget to take his pills with
him if he was going to be away from the hotel." She stared sadly
into her cup. "The last thing he said to me was that he loved
me."

There was a sound from the hall. We both looked up.
Marsha Dover was standing in the kitchen door. She had wrapped
herself in a bedsheet.

"You should be in bed, Marsha, darling,"
Connie said, making her face over into a cold mask.

"I was all alone up there and I had a bad dream
about Quentin." The girl began to sob. "And I've hurt my
goddamn feet."

"Mr. Stoner told me about that," the older
woman said.

"Mr. Stoner?" The girl looked right through
me, as if she'd never seen me before in her life.

The mother smiled in vindication. "You see,"
she said. She turned back to the girl. "We'll look after it in
the morning, Marsha."

"I feel like shit," the girl said. "Will
you come upstairs with me, Connie? I don't want to be alone. I'm
scared I'll have more bad dreams."

"Of course, I will," the woman said
briskly. "Aren't I always there when you want me to be?"

"Yes, Connie," she said in a subdued voice.

The Dover woman stood up. "I'm afraid I'm going
to have to leave you, Mr. Stoner. My daughter-in-law needs me."

She walked over to the door and took Marsha by the
hand, as if she were a child. I watched them walk off into the dark
house--Marsha trailing her bedsheet behind her--and felt like
laughing. But what had seemed funny in the kitchen didn't seem so
funny when I got back to the car. On the way home, I was bothered by
the feeling that I should have said something to Marsha
Dover--something hopeful or kind. But for the life of me, I couldn't
think of what there was to say.
 

6

Jack Moon called at eight the next morning. "Did
everything work out last night?" he asked.

I really didn't know how to answer him. I was still
feeling like a derelict for not having said something to Marsha Dover
the night before.

"Quentin's mother came over," I finally
said. "The girl was all right when I left."

Moon laughed uneasily. "You say that like you
think she's not all right now."

"It's just a feeling."

"Well, put your mind to rest. I talked to Connie
a few minutes ago, and Marsha's fine."

"Good," I said.

"There's a flight out at eleven. You think you
can make it?"

"I'm already packed."

"Great. Would you mind picking me up at home?
Liz, my wife, needs the car this morning. The kid has Little League
practice--some damn tournament in Fairmount. Some silliness."
But he sounded as if he was going to miss seeing it.

I told him I'd pick him
up.

***

At ten I picked Jack up at his house in Hyde Park. It
was a modest little two-story with a brick porch and a small yard in
front. There was a child's bike sitting in the middle of the cement
walk. I pushed it onto the grass and walked up to the stoop.

A short, jolly-looking, red-headed woman in a
Dartmouth sweatshirt and blue jeans answered the door.

"He'll be right out," she said cheerfully.
"My, you're tall, aren't you?"

"Six three."

The woman shook her head. "That's not what
you're supposed to say."

"No?"

"You're supposed to say, 'I try to be.' That's
what Bogie said to Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep. "

When I didn't say anything, the woman looked
embarrassed. "I go to a lot of movies," she said with a
shrug. Moon came out the door, dragging a kid on a leather valise.

"Ride's over," he said and gave the boy a
pat on the butt. The boy hopped off and grinned at his father.
"Ho-kay," Jack said, running both hands down the front of
his suit coat. "Got everything, right?"

"Everything I need," the wife said
affectionately. They kissed and then Jack bent over and kissed the
boy. "Have you two met?" he said as he stood up. "We
compared heights," the woman said with a grin. Jack gave her a
confused look, then made a face at me, as if to say, "That's the
way she always is."

"This is my wife Liz. Liz, Harry Stoner."
We shook hands.

"What about me?" the little boy said,
tugging at his father's pants leg.

"You?" Jack said, staring at him. "What
about you?"

"I'm Nick," the boy said.

"I'm Harry."

"You a real detective?"

I glanced at his mother and said, "I try to be."

She laughed. "Take good care of my boy, Harry."
She herded her son back in the house, and lack and I walked down to
the car.

"Shit," he said as he got in. "The
kid's going to be mad because I didn't make his game. That sort of
thing's important to kids."

"To fathers, too," I said.

"It's a dog's life, ain't it?" he said
morosely. "I'm in New York or L.A. three or four days out of
every week. I tried to get Frank to transfer me to one of the coasts.
But ...no dice."

"How come?"

"United's office is here in the city. A
multibillion dollar corporation and they don't even have a New York
or L.A. branch. Not even a storefront." He settled back on the
car seat and sighed. "Oh, well. There'll be other games, I
guess."

He didn't say another word on the trip to the
airport. In fact, it wasn't until we were airborne, somewhere over
Indiana, that he shook off his melancholy and began to warm up. He
was an odd man--a lot softer and a lot more the United type than he'd
pretended to be. I wondered if he knew that about himself or if it
was something he didn't want to know. If he didn't, it was a shame,
because it was a large part of his charm.

"I'm sorry about Marsha," he said. "I
don't really know her, and I never pegged her for a loon. A dumb
hick, yes. A drunk, for sure. But not a psycho."

"She didn't even remember that you had called,"
I said dryly.

He shook his head. "Ah, Quentin. What the hell
do you think he saw in her?"

"Are you kidding?"

"I mean beyond the T & A," Moon said.
"How far can that take you, anyway?"

"You knew the man. I didn't."

"Yeah, I guess. But Marsha .., she never quite
fit into the grand scheme. I could see him marrying that body. But
living with what was inside it--I don't know how he did it. Most of
Quentin's prize possessions didn't talk dirty or throw up on the
rug." He stared out the tiny window at the green, jigsawed
earth. "She'll crack up one of these days. Right over the edge."

"Quentin's mother said that he'd loved the
girl."

Jack shook his head again. "Quentin didn't know
what the word meant. It was all self with him. You know the sin of
lust? Lust of the flesh? Lust of the eyes? Pride of life? That was
all Quentin knew about love or anything else. He was a creature of
lust and doubt." Moon laughed. "Listen to me, I sound like
the late Father O'Malley, my seventh-grade religion teacher. That's
what comes of a Catholic boyhood. And that's why Nick goes to public
school. What the hell, maybe he did love her. Maybe having to put up
with all that shit was a kind of love. Or penance for not being able
to love. You might talk to Helen about that. She's fairly shrewd
about other people. And then she didn't have to count Quentin's pills
for him or clean up his messes. You should talk to Walt Mack, his
breakdown man, too."

"I'll want to talk to them both," I said.
"And I'll also want to talk to the cops."

"I think we've worked something out on that
score," Jack said. "It's going to have to be confidential,
but there's a guy named Sy Goldblum in the Hollywood Division who's
willing to fill you in on things."

I smiled at him. "How'd you manage that?"

"Just a little soap and elbow grease. Frank
arranged it. He's been in the business a long time, and he's got a
lot of pull."

"I'm impressed."

"We're an impressive outfit," Jack said.
"We've got you booked into the Westwood Marquis. I'll be there,
too. Walt and Helen are at the Belle Vista, holding a panicky meeting
to decide what to do about 'Phoenix.' We've got to find another head
writer this week. I'll have to sit in on some of the meetings. But
I'll be around in case you need me. And I'll make sure that Helen and
Walt are available at some point or other to talk to you."

The plane made a grinding noise and lurched. I
flinched and Moon laughed.

"Take it easy, Harry," he said. "This
is a 727--the safest plane in the skies. That was just the ailerons
being lowered."

"Wasn't it a 727 that went down in New Orleans?"
I said.

"It got hit by lightning in a hurricane, for
chrissake. I thought you detectives were supposed to be tough guys."

"On the ground, Jack. Not in midair."

"White knuckle city, huh?" He leaned back
in the seat. "I used to be like that--a couple of years ago. But
I've logged so many air miles now that I look for the seatbelt when I
go to the john at home. You'll get used to it. And if you don't. .."
He pointed at the air sickness bag tucked in the back flap of the
seat in front of us. "This is my best suit, Harry. So don't wait
for the light to go on, you know? They don't have one for Vomiting
and No Vomiting."

"I'll manage," I said.
 

7

We landed at LAX at three-thirty Cincinnati time.
After kissing the ground, I followed Jack to the luggage pick-up,
where we got our bags. Then we took a cab north on the San Diego
Freeway to Westwood. The Marquis was located across from UCLA on
Hilgard. It was a swanky, modern-looking place with a smoked glass
elevator tube running from the street to the lobby entrance--a matter
of a few feet. When I asked the black doorman why they'd bothered to
install an elevator that only went up one short flight, he grinned
toothily and said, "Some people like to ride rather than walk."