The Syndrome (53 page)

Their next stop was a trailer park in Bradenton, where Crane’s Jamaican caretaker, Leviticus Benn, lived with a pack of barking dogs. A tall black man with an easy smile, Benn was gracious, but spooked—and a little angry at the way he’d been treated. “First night—Mister Crane’s dead—Five-Oh come through my house with one of them tooth combs. And what they find? A little ganja. Just a taste. I mean,
residue.
From my personal use, you understand. Next thing, I’m in the middle of heavy manners. Like this trailer park is Gestapo Gardens. And I got to ask—I ask the policeman: how’s this gonna solve your bad crime? Tell me that!”

It took a while for Benn to get past his ire and, when he did, there wasn’t much that he could tell them.

“I was his nurse, you know? The human part of the rich man’s wheelchair. So we didn’t talk much. In fact, we really didn’t talk at all. Just, ‘Good mawnin’, Leviticus. Good mawnin’, Mr. Crane.’ Like that?”

“So he wasn’t that friendly?”

“He be keepin’ to his own self, you know?”

*    *    *

Crane’s sister resided at The Parkington, an assisted living facility housed in a lavishly landscaped glass and stone building on one of Sarasota’s wide, pleasant streets. There was a sort of covered terrace out front with a phalanx of white rocking chairs standing along its length. Only one of these was occupied, and that by a ramrod straight lady, her white hair cut into a kind of short pageboy. Her fringe of white bangs
fell into a line so straight that Adrienne thought they must have been trimmed with a ruler. The face under the bangs might once have been pretty, but the small features were lost in a marsh of wrinkled flesh. To Adrienne, she gave the impression of an ancient baby. She wore a blue and white striped shirtwaist dress with a wide white belt and matching white shoes and purse.

The woman levered herself to her feet as they approached. “You must be Adrienne and Lew,” she said in a low and pleasant voice. “I’m Thea—although I don’t insist on that. Mrs. Wilkins will do if you’re uncomfortable addressing someone
quite
so ancient by what used to be called, in the days before political correctness, one’s ‘Christian’ name.”

“Pleased to meet you, Thea,” Adrienne said, extending her hand and introducing herself. She’d been fearful when they learned that Theodora Wilkins was closing in on ninety and living in a nursing home. It had seemed likely that Calvin Crane’s only living relative would not be mentally acute enough to help them. Obviously, that was not the case. “This is Mr. McBride.”

The old lady told them to take a seat, then went inside to see if she could “drum up some iced tea.” After a while she came back, trailed by an Hispanic man with a tray, and lowered herself carefully into her chair. Once the iced tea was distributed, she smiled. “Now,” she declared, “how can I be of help?”

“As I said on the phone,” McBride explained, “Adrienne thinks her sister, Nico, was in correspondence with your brother before he died. Her sister passed away—”

“I’m so sorry,” Thea interjected.

“I was hoping to get the letters back,” Adrienne told her. “As mementos.”

The old woman pushed her lips together and wrinkled her nose. “Oh dear,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m not going to be a big help. Cal and I were never close, you see.”

Adrienne tried to hide her disappointment. “Oh.”

“You’ve got to wonder about that, don’t you? Here we are,
brother and sister, an old biddy and an old codger, living half an hour away from one another, and we saw each other about—” She extended her lower lip and sent up a jet of air that lifted her bangs, a gesture that must have survived from her teenage years. “—every six months. Thanksgiving and Easter. That was all we could take.”

“So you didn’t get along.”

“Not a lick. Cal thought I was a lightweight—and he despised my husband. Called him a dilettante. (Which, I suppose, he was, God rest him.) Still …”

“And what did you think
of him?”
Adrienne asked.

“My little brother?” she said. “I thought he was the most …” She paused, thought about it, and said: “I thought he was the most arrogant man I ever met.”

“Really.”

“Oh yes. He was idealistic, of course, but so was Hitler. They both knew what was right for everyone else.” She raised one elegantly tweezed brow. “It’s terrible to say, but I don’t miss him all that much.”

“Were you shocked when—”

“Oh yes—I mean, it made quite a
splash
after all. Cal would have hated it. After all, it’s so
gauche
—to be shot like that. He would have hated it.”

“Do you have any idea who—”

“Killed him?” she suggested. “No. I’m sorry. A man like that can acquire any number of enemies, though I have to say I wouldn’t have thought any of Cal’s associates would have been such … cowboys.” She hesitated. Leaned forward, and whispered. “Have you talked to Mamie?”

They looked at each other. Shook their heads. “Who’s Mamie?” McBride asked.

The old lady laughed, a deep chuckle, then took a sip of iced tea. “Mamie was Cal’s paramour.”

“Really.”

“Oh yes. And she’s not a bit like Cal. In fact, I quite like her—though what she saw in Cal, I can’t imagine. But they were lifelong friends. Met in London, during the war. He was OSS—she was some kind of liaison. The married kind, as it turned out.” Thea chuckled. “I used to call her ‘the little Dutch girl’ because … well, that’s what she was! Dutch, I mean. Her name is Marijke Winkelman. ‘Mamie’ is just what Cal
called
her.”

“And her husband?” Adrienne asked.

“Oh, he died—I think it was twenty years ago, now. He was with the Red Cross in Geneva. They both were. Refugee relief.”

“I see,” McBride said, though he didn’t, really.

“That’s where it started,” Thea added.

“What did?” Adrienne asked.

“Their affair. He was in Zurich. Geneva wasn’t so far away—though why she didn’t marry Cal after her husband passed, I can’t imagine. Too much bother, I guess.”

“Do you think she’d know about any papers he might have left?” McBride asked.

Thea Wilkins stirred her iced tea and took a dainty sip, patting her lips afterwards with the cocktail napkin. “Well, if anybody
would
know,” she told them, “Mamie would, though … I’ll give you her address, and you can see for yourself.”

“They didn’t live together?” Adrienne asked.

“Oh, goodness no. They always kept separate residences. Mamie has a splendid place, right on the beach. Villa Alegre.”

Villa Alegre
was
splendid, a low-slung pink stucco house with a barrel roof of terra-cotta tiles. It sat amidst lush vegetation in what amounted to a forest of old palms and banyans. And she was nothing like her near contemporary, Theodora Wilkins. She wore shorts and a T-Shirt and Birkenstock sandals. While her neck might have been crepey, and her skin netted with wrinkles, she was still quite beautiful. She had wide-set, pale blue eyes, blond hair gone silver, and a wide, generous mouth. She led them around to the back of the
house, pausing at a small pond filled with koi. “My fêng shui consultant insisted that I have them. He said the house needs motion. Anyway, they
are
terrific looking, don’t you think?”

McBride admired them. Adrienne smiled politely.

“You don’t like them, do you, dear?” Mamie asked.

Adrienne shrugged. “Not much, I guess. I don’t know why.”

“It’s probably the colors,” Mamie guessed. “Do you mind if I ask: are you a big fan of Halloween?”

“No. I’ve never really liked it.”

The old woman tossed out a high-voltage smile, pleased to have her theory confirmed by this sampling of one. “Well, there you are!” She took Adrienne’s arm in a companionable way, and led her up the flagstone path toward the house. There was something about the way she talked, Adrienne thought, the cadence or pronunciation … Then she realized what it was: “half in the bag,” as Deck used to say. Not drunk, but getting there.

She would not talk to them until they were all “settled down” out back. They sat down in white wicker chairs under a vine laden pergola and admired the waves lapping at the nearby beach. A dozen wind chimes trembled all around them as Mamie excused herself, returning a few minutes later with a decanter of martinis and a plate of cheese, fruit, and crackers.

Once she had poured the drinks into traditional stemmed glasses, added olives, and handed them out to her guests, she declared herself ready.

“So,” she said, raising her glass. “Salut.” The first sip almost knocked them over. “Now what is it about Cal you’d like to talk about?”

They stuck to the pretext about Adrienne’s late sister having a correspondence with Crane. Mamie said she didn’t know anything about that.

“He never mentioned a correspondence like that, but then,” she added, “he probably wouldn’t have.”

With the wind chimes tinkling all around them, they talked about the kind of man Calvin Crane was—which paved the way for McBride to inquire about “enemies.”

“Of course the police are asking me this same question,” Mamie told them, “but I have the sense they are just going through the motions, not really interested in my answer. So I don’t think about it. I mean, not seriously.” She took a tiny bite of cheese, and washed it down with a generous sip from her martini. “But I know Gunnar was unhappy with him.”

“Gunner?” Adrienne asked.

Mamie shook her head. “Gunnar Opdahl. He was Cal’s protege at the Institute, but … are you all right, Mr. McBride?”

No, he wasn’t. He felt blindsided by the mention of Opdahl’s name. His heart leapt, and a bolt of panic shot through his chest. He must have flinched because Adrienne put a hand on his arm.

“You okay?” she asked.

A puff of air set the wind chimes clattering.

He nodded, and lied. “I got some dust in my eye.” Adrienne gave him a funny look.

To himself, he thought:
What the fuck was that?
Gunnar Opdahl was … what? Smart and urbane, a pleasant man to have lunch with. And yet, even as he thought this, he knew there was something else, something deeply unpleasant waiting to be remembered. Finally, he cleared his throat, and looked at Mamie. “You were saying …?”

“Yes, I was saying they had a falling out. Gunnar and Cal.”

“Do you know what it was about?” Adrienne asked.

“Not really” Mamie replied. Despite her birdlike sips, she had downed most of her martini. “I left Switzerland before Cal did. The weather gets to you when you reach a certain age.”

“When did Cal retire?”

“In ’93,” Mamie replied. “But their disagreement was
more recent than that. I think it started—oh—maybe a year ago. A little more, perhaps.”

“Was it about the Institute?” Adrienne asked.

Mamie seesawed her head, frowned, and replenished her glass from the decanter. “I think it must have been. That was their only common ground, really. And, even retired, Cal was still active in certain things. As one of the founders, he still had a say.”

“What kind of say?”

“About the fellows, the research—and the clinic, of course. They do such very good work with troubled young people.” She paused, and then went on. “This
contretemps
with Gunnar might—” But then she shrugged, did not finish the sentence. “I shouldn’t say, really. Because I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”

“Tell us. Please?” Adrienne pressed. “We know so little …”

“Well, I was going to say I thought it might have to do with the money, with Gunnar feeling
impeded
in some way. That’s just the sense I got from some of the telephone conversations I overheard.” She fished an olive out of her glass and popped it into her mouth.

McBride leaned toward her. “Is there someone at the Institute who might be able to tell us more about the falling out between them?”

Mamie frowned. “Oh, I don’t think so. Cal was the last of the original group. And the new crowd … well, I don’t even know who they are.”

“Lew was a fellow,” Adrienne volunteered, with a sidelong glance at McBride.

“Oh, really!” Mamie exclaimed, her face cracking into a wide smile. “How exciting!” She reached out, pressed a girlish hand against his arm, and patted it in a proprietary way. “You must be jush … an outstanding young man!”

McBride smiled. Mamie was beginning to look a bit crosseyed, and her words were beginning to slur. Probably the woman had told them all that she knew.

Adrienne noticed it, too. Mamie was down to the olive in
her second martini, which suggested the conversation was about to deteriorate. So it would be best to get to the point. She picked up her glass by the stem, swirled it, and watched the oily bands of liquid curl. Out on the water, a Jet Ski whined, dopplering across the bay, as irritating as a mosquito. McBride was telling Mamie about his fellowship.

What if this was a legal
case?
she asked herself. What would she ask?

“Did Mr. Crane leave any papers?”

The question took Mamie by surprise. “Excuse me?”

“I know his belongings were sold,” Adrienne said, “but sometimes—”

“Well, you’re not the first to ask,” Mamie told her, covering a tiny hiccup. “After he died, a man from the government came, and asked the same thing. Awful little man!” She tossed her head like a teenager. “I told him Cal was always quoting some dead Legionnaire.
‘Pas des cartes, pas des fotos, et pas des souvenirs.’
”

Adrienne gave her a hapless look. “I took Spanish.”

McBride translated. “‘No letters, no pictures, and no souvenirs.’” He smiled regretfully. “Which is not so great for us. Anyway,” he decided, “we’ve taken enough of your time.”

“You’ve been very kind,” Adrienne agreed and, standing, extended her hand to the old woman.

Mamie took the hand and held it for what seemed a long while, scrutinizing Adrienne as if she were a Vermeer. “You have such an aura,” she told her. Then she laughed. “Maybe you’d better sit back down.” Turning to McBride, she added, “Cal was such a bullshitter—
pas des cartes
, indeed!”

She returned a few minutes later, lipstick refreshed, hair newly combed, carrying a battered briefcase and a small photo album. Raising the briefcase, she said, “He liked to do his correspondence here.” Glancing out to the window, she said, “I think we’re going to have some weather. Maybe the Florida room would be a better choice.” Beckoning, she led them down a long hall to a low-ceilinged room with large expanses of old-fashioned, jalousied windows, and a ceiling fan that turned, ever so slowly, overhead.