I wondered vaguely if Gail Calloway’s strange behavior was symptomatic of some deep need to reacquire a full-time male partner.
From what Amanda had told me, her acceptance of Jackie Merlot had been so quick, so unquestioning that it had the flavor of panic. Maybe she was reacting to some powerful internal drive that was deeply coded. I’d heard the wartime stories of total strangers desperately copulating in bomb shelters. To be abandoned by a husband of many years had to be no less traumatic, no less terrifying than war.
Tomlinson was right. Divorced middle-aged women were easy targets indeed. I’d never given it much thought before, but I’d seen enough of them to know. And there is no shortage. More than half of America’s marriages end up in divorce and, in a generation of Baby Boomers, it means there are a lot of forty-something women out there going it alone. By the dumb measure of generations past, too many of these women see themselves as failures because they failed to maintain a marriage and “keep their man.”
What nonsense.
Women between thirty and fifty-five are at the height of their intellectual and physical powers. That they and their former mates have separated effectively obscures that fact. Nor are they necessarily victims. What these women illustrate is the changed dynamics of a changing society. Yet their sense of desperation proves that the self-image of modern women has yet to catch up with the realities of modem times. That’s why they are so very vulnerable… and way, way too eager to reprove their worth.
Why else would a woman like Gail Calloway give herself to a man that her own daughter had described as a pile of mashed potatoes beneath a face that made her skin crawl?
Clearly, she was troubled, desperate. The question was, what kind of man was Jackie Merlot? And to what degree would he try to take advantage?
Frank Calloway called me the next morning, Tuesday, talking at first on a speakerphone-the bad audio was distinctive-but picked up the handset when he realized that he had me on the line.
“Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday, Dr. Ford. It’s a busy time of year in my business.”
In a state that attracts nearly a thousand new out-of-state residents a day, I wondered if there was such a thing as a slow time of year in the land syndicate business.
“No need for the prefix, Frank. I’m not a physician.”
“Then is Ford okay?”
“Ford’s just fine.”
“In that case, Ford, I apologize for not getting back to you. I gather you’re in a rush. I should have made time.” Very easy, very congenial, not at all like when I interrupted his dinner party.
“Amanda’s the one in a rush. I’m not so sure what my approach should be. You apparently know Jackie Merlot, so help me out: Should we be in a hurry to find your ex-wife?”
“Aside from a recent and unpleasant reintroduction, I haven’t spoken to Mr. Merlot in fifteen years.”
“Was he a patient of yours?”
“I really can’t comment on that.”
“Frank, I’m trying to help your stepdaughter and your ex-wife. If you won’t answer the easy questions, what’s going to happen when we get to the hard ones?”
“It’s frustrating, yes, I understand that, but there are professional considerations here that I can’t-and I’m talking about state and federal laws-that I can’t breach. I’d tell you if I could. The law won’t allow me. My professional conscience won’t, either. When psychologists begin to breach the confidence of patients, psychology will no longer be a valid tool.”
“Would it make a difference if we met privately, just you and I?”
“It would make no difference whatsoever.”
“The inference is that, yes, Merlot was once a patient of yours.”
“If that’s what you infer, I won’t argue. The thing I can and will talk about is business dealings I’ve had with Merlot in the past. That might be useful.”
“He’s in development and construction?”
“No… what he now does for a living, we can talk about later. But back then he sold real estate. That, and he was involved with making… souvenirs? Something like that. T-shirts and hats, maybe. Some kind of cheap tourism scam. This was more than fifteen years ago. Merlot signed a note to invest in one of the first land packages I ever put together. It wasn’t for a lot of money. Five thousand. Not much. I let him in as a favor. He practically begged me to get involved.”
I said, “It was that good.”
“Yes, it really was. It was a beautiful little project. A kind of mini gated community; half a dozen duplexes built with enough taste and sufficient screening to give the impression of total privacy. At the center was to be a courtyard: nice little pool, Jacuzzi, propane grills, a small workout room with weights and sauna. This was before the fitness craze. We’d lowballed a chunk of riverfront near Wauchula that abutted a small state park and couldn’t really believe it when the sellers accepted.
“You ever hear of Highlands Hammock? Beautiful place and you can’t find a nicer town than Wauchula. So we had immediate land equity, a built-in buffer, guaranteed appreciation on the land and plenty of eager investors. But believe me, even a project as small as that one, five thousand doesn’t buy much of a piece. Like I said, I was trying to do the guy a favor.”
“Because…?”
“Because I felt it would be good for him. Good for his… well, let’s just leave it at that. Even in those days I occasionally tried to be a nice guy.”
“So what happened?”
“The gas shortage, that’s what happened. Remember how it was? An ineffective president, interest rates were close to twenty percent, national confidence was nose diving. Then all of a sudden you had to get up at four A.M. and wait in line for an hour, sometimes more, just to get a tank of gas. No one knew how long it was going to last. Maybe a couple of months… or maybe the United States of America really was on its last legs and economic collapse was just around the corner.
“Panic is contagious and people panicked. The contractor we’d subbed to clear and grade the property was only a week or two from being done, but he had to stop because he couldn’t get diesel. The construction guys had two of the units all framed and inspected, but they couldn’t buy gas for their cars. Most of them lived near Sarasota, fifty, sixty miles from the job, so how were they going to get to work? Same with our potential buyers. We planned to draw the young, upwardly mobile types; professionals who wouldn’t mind commuting twenty or thirty miles to work. Today, no problem. But back then, no way, not after a fuel panic like that. My investors got scared and the project died on the vine. We lost everything. The only project I ever did where my backers lost money. But it was good experience, a good lesson for me.”
“How did Merlot take it?”
“That’s what I’m getting at. Merlot didn’t. He refused to make good on his note. He hemmed and hawed and finally said, hey, it was all my fault, I should have planned a little better, so why should he have to pay?”
“You’re telling me the kind of guy he is.”
“Exactly. I’m telling you the kind of guy he is. Or at least was.”
Calloway went on. “I told Merlot that if he refused to honor his debt he could forget investing with me ever again or, for that matter, anyone else in Broward County. I also told him I was going to sue. Which I did. He didn’t even bother fighting it, but I never collected a cent. Not that I expected to. Turned out he’d passed bad paper to other investment groups around the state, and my little suit pushed his reputation over the edge. The district attorney got after him, and I think Merlot actually spent some time in prison. Four or five months, not much. I was deposed but never actually testified.”
“He blamed you for sending him to prison?”
“Probably me among others. But without good cause. My suit was one of many. I never spoke with him again after that. I didn’t know he was still around until Amanda told me that he was involved with Gail.”
“How’d you take it? When you heard that Merlot was dating your ex-wife?”
“Is that question pertinent to finding Gail?”
“It might help give me a clearer picture of how it was between you and Merlot.”
“Before I answer that, I really need to ask: Have you done this sort of thing before? I mean, you say you’re a biologist, so what’s a biologist know about finding missing people? I appreciate your intentions, sure. You’re an old
