In I went, following her across pink terrazzo floors to a patio beyond a living room, dining room, kitchen and a big, cozy-looking library. The patio was under a room above it that provided a roof. There was none of the screened-porch look to this house. It was open. The bugs that plagued the houses inland did not come in from the gulf on the keys. In front of the broad terrazzo patio was a swimming pool with a Jacuzzi and a small waterfall from it to the pool. Beyond the pool was a broad inlet. I stood watching a long-necked white bird glide through the rain, looking down for a feast of fish brought to the surface by the rain.
I was feeling poetic. I was feeling as if I had just eaten a large breakfast. I was feeling like not thinking about what I knew I had to do.
The table was white wicker with a glass top. The chairs were matching wicker.
“Will this take long?” she asked. “I’m running late.”
“Nice house,” I said.
“Thank you,” she answered, making it clear that the opinion of a short, balding Italian process server would not make her day. “Please have a seat. Coffee, tea, juice?”
“No, thanks,” I said, sitting.
She toweled off and sat.
“Well?” she said.
“Why did Dr. Green tell me to come see you again about Melanie Sebastian?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d ask him when I see him, but we’re not really on social speaking terms.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think he’s given Melanie particularly good advice,” she said. “Excuse me.”
She got up nervously, went into the house and left me sitting and looking at the rain now coming down more reasonably but still hard. The rain had not cooled the morning. When she came back, Caroline Wilkerson was without towel and carrying a glass of clear, white liquid.
“Water,” she said, seeing me look. “I don’t drink.”
“None of my business,” I said.
“You’re quite right,” she said, sitting and looking at me.
“Mrs. Wilkerson,” I said. “I’m trying to find your friend. I think she’s in some kind of trouble. The way she’s acting just doesn’t make sense. Does she have a history of emotional problems?”
“Did you discuss this with Carl?”
“Not yet. I’m just following up Green’s suggestion.”
“Why not ask him, then? He’s the psychiatrist.”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Patient confidentiality. That may be why he sent me to you.”
“Oh God,” she said, looking into the sky. “I hate this.” Pause. “Melanie was depressed, profoundly depressed, probably still is. She even talked to me several times about suicide. She was supposedly working through it with Geoff Green.”
“What was she depressed about?”
Caroline Wilkerson ran a finger over her moist upper lip, looked at the moisture and said,
“I don’t know. Maybe something from her past. She didn’t talk about her past much. Just before she ran away she had visited a relative up north, an aunt or something, her last living relative I think. Melanie’s older brother had died in Vietnam. Her father died when Melanie was a baby. Her mother, I don’t know, Melanie didn’t talk much about her but from a few things she dropped from time to time I got the impression that her mother had some serious mental problems.”
“You think Melanie may be…”
“Disturbed,” she said.
“Suicidal?”
Her head went down.
“Yes. I talked to a doctor friend. From what little I could give him, he thought the problem might be chemical imbalance, inherited. I think it very possible that Melanie might do something to herself if you don’t find her soon.”
“And Carl Sebastian loves his wife?” I asked.
She gave me a look that suggested she was examining a demented lower species.
“Adores her,” she said. “You should have seen them together. Melanie is Carl’s life. He’s a remarkably strong and resilient man for his age, but I think if Melanie… if you don’t find her, he won’t survive long or, if he does, he’ll be a broken man. My husband always said Carl was a genius, that Carl had an instinct for the right deal, the right moment. Carl helped make my husband wealthy. Find Melanie, Mr. Fonesca.”
“You have no idea where she might be?” I asked.
“None,” she said. “I have no idea why Geoffrey Green sent you to me.”
“You know a little man who looks like a bear, not much hair, tough face, drives a blue Buick?”
“No.”
“When did you lose your driver’s license?”
She turned her head away and then back to me.
“How did you know I lost it?”
“My job.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Melanie used it. Got her picture pasted over yours, laminated it. She’s you when she wants to be.”
Caroline Wilkerson tapped the red fingernails of her left hand on the glass top of the table.
“What does Melanie Sebastian like to read?” I asked.
“Like to read? I don’t know. What has this got to do with…?”
“She have a favorite food?”
“I really never noticed,” she said with some irritation.
“Maybe if I know these things I can check them out, see if she’s bought a new book, gone to a restaurant where they serve her kind of food.”
“I see,” she said.
“Her favorite movie or movies?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is she a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian? None of the above?”
Caroline Wilkerson shook her head.
“I wish I could help, but we never talked about such things.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Clothes, people, you know, gossip, what happened at a party. It sounds superficial, but we had more substantial things we did on our own.”
“Like what?”
“What do I do?”
“Yes.”
“I do volunteer work at the Women’s Center. I serve on the boards of… This is really none of your business.”
She was definitely not pleased with me.
The rain was stopping. I wished it wouldn’t.
“What did Melanie do? Substantial, I mean.”
“Children, she worked with children. Raised money, gave money to local groups that support abused mothers, children. She couldn’t have children of her own.”
“Why?”
“Some illness,” Caroline Wilkerson said, running a narrow manicured finger around the rim of her water glass. “I don’t know what it was. She didn’t talk about it. I have to go.”
I got up and said, “That’s about all I have for now. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I hope so.”
Now she got up and looked at me without the contempt I’d felt since she first opened the door.
“Find Melanie,” she said. “Find her quickly.”
“I will,” I said.
