She was the sort of woman you saw in The New Yorker or Town amp; Country, ruthlessly fashionable and relentlessly beautiful in a cold, poised fashion. The one thing she couldn’t control were the age lines that had begun to mar her elegant features. The closer she came, the less intimidating she was. Her weapon’s edge was being dulled by time. She understood this. She took the chair furthest from me to sit in, blond hair gleaming in its chignon, a bit oversprayed so that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a wig.
She reached over and took her husband’s hand. “Thank you for sticking up for me, darling.” To me she said: “This is why I married him. This is the worst moment of his life-even worse than losing Donna, I think-and he’s still generous enough to defend me.”
She talked in sudsy prose, like soap opera talk, and I didn’t like her at all. When Marsha appeared with our pot of coffee and two cups, Eve snapped, “Don’t I usually have coffee with my husband, Marsha? You only brought two cups.”
Marsha was wise. She wanted to keep her job. “I’ll bring you a cup right away.”
“And food. I assume you made lunch for me. I do need food, you know.”
Marsha looked at me. She had no trouble reading the distaste in my eyes. It matched the distaste in hers. “I made roast beef sandwiches, a fruit salad, and a lettuce salad. I’ll bring them out.”
When she was gone, Mainwaring said, “She does her best, Eve.”
“She’s local. That’s the problem. I wish you’d let me bring in somebody from Chicago.”
“I know her husband. He works in my plant here. I couldn’t face him every day if I fired her. Besides, I like her.”
How strange it was, I thought, that Eve had managed to shift the conversation from the heartbreak of a young girl’s murder to some goddamn maid problem-which wasn’t a problem after all, Marsha being somebody I’d taken to right away. Apparently, on an astronomical chart, in the center of the universe you would find a planet named Eve.
“I’d like to get back to Vanessa.”
“Of course, Sam. I’m sorry.”
“So the girls and Eve didn’t get along.”
“Eve did everything she could.”
“All right. But because of her-blameless as she was-” Her eyes pinched as I said this. Had she heard the slight irony in my voice? “Blameless as she was, Vanessa rebelled and started going around with too many guys.”
“Sleeping with too many guys. You may as well say it, Sam.”
“And taking drugs.”
That froze both of them in their chairs.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’m investigating, Paul. I see people. I ask questions.”
“You may as well tell him, Paul. Vanessa was a dope addict.”
She was a few decades behind in her drug slang but that didn’t diminish the pleasure she took-and tried unsuccessfully to hide-in confirming what I’d said.
Paul’s face grayed with her remark. I wondered if he was going to be sick. “If that’s the way you want to put it, Eve.”
But she was the dutiful and cunning wife. She took his hand in both of hers and said-her first show of warmth-“oh God, honey, that came out much harsher than I meant it. I’m sorry.”
He was all forgiveness; color returned to his cheeks. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s just a hard thing to face. You didn’t mean anything by it.” He eased his hand from between hers. His gaze was that of a teenager wistfully tending to his first love. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, honey.”
I remembered Donna, the mother of his two children. She’d been small, tending to plumpishness, and very much a housewife and a member of such organizations as the PTA and the League of Women Voters. If Eve had a polar opposite, Donna had been it. Had Mainwaring spent his married life pining for the bed of a beauty? Or had he, with his money and his importance, decided that it was time he got a show woman for a wife?
“What did you and Vanessa argue about, Mrs. Mainwaring?”
“I wasn’t aware that we did argue.”
“That’s being a little harsh, Sam. They didn’t have arguments most of the time-they just sort of froze her out.”
“I see.”
“Is this how you conduct most of your investigations?”
“Now don’t get your back up, Eve. He’s just doing his job.”
“Well,” Eve said, “then he can do his job without me.”
She was on her feet, all jodhpur’d and indignant. “I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m not in the mood for this. Vanessa and I had our differences but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love her and consider her my own flesh and blood.”
She had a line of shit that stretched from Iowa to Montana. But she was polished and just good enough at the acting to pass muster if you had the misfortune to be in love with her. Obviously the kids had identified her species as soon as they met her.
Katharine Hepburn had never walked out of a scene with more mannered disdain.
“I don’t know why you had to make her mad, Sam. Maybe this isn’t a good fit. I still can’t believe my daughter’s dead and now I’ve got my wife mad at me.”
“I can quit or you can fire me. But the question I asked her was legitimate. You said yourself that she and your kids didn’t get along. I wanted to get her take on things.”
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “All the arguments I had with Vanessa in the last couple of years-I wish I could take every one of them back.” The purity of sorrow was now being tainted with remorse, making it all the worse for him. I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Marsha appeared bearing a large glass tray. “Where’s the missus?”
I wondered how Eve would like being known as “the missus.” It didn’t go with anyone who wore jodhpurs.
Mainwaring opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Eve had some business she had to take care of right away.” The smile was strained. “This looks delicious, as usual. Thank you very much.”
Marsha glanced at me for some explanation about why Eve had left so suddenly and why he’d been sitting with his eyes closed. I shook my head. She shrugged and said, “If you need anything more, just let me know.”
“Thanks, Marsha.”
After she was gone, Mainwaring said, “I’ll handle Eve. She’ll give me a raft of shit about you but she’ll get over it. She’s a very private person.”
“I can always apologize to her if you’d like.”
“No, no, I’d better handle it myself. She’s very sensitive. Her parents were wealthy people who died in a plane crash when she was seven. She went to a convent school in Paris until she was nineteen and then she came over here and went to Smith. She eventually taught English literature at Dartmouth. So she’s very worldly. But she still gets defensive whenever the subject of the girls comes up. They made things very tough for her. And now you’ll be investigating and bringing back a lot of bad memories for her.”
I poured myself some coffee. “There’s no other way to do it. Those memories will be important.” I sipped the coffee. Marsha might be local but she sure knew how to make good coffee. “I have another question for you right now.”
“You don’t quit, do you?”
“I’d be wasting your money if I did.”
“Fair enough.”
“Do you know a young man named Bobby Randall?”
“That bastard. I threatened to kill him one night. I had half a mind to do it, too. Right out on our drive he sold Vanessa some drugs. A small envelope. When I saw what was happening I ran out there. Vanessa stopped me from hitting him, otherwise I would’ve pounded him into the ground. All he did was smirk at me. That was when I lost control. I almost knocked Vanessa down getting to him but then she started screaming at me so I finally calmed down. That punk was still smirking.”
“You didn’t call Cliffie?”
