Jack was seriously considering placing a call to “Eddie”—hard as it was to imagine someone calling the UK Mission’s security chief “Eddie”—and telling him to button his lip. Jack always appreciated referrals, and it was nice to know he’d made such an impression on the man, but Burkes was getting just a little bit too free with his name.
“I’m flattered by your confidence, but—”
“Whatever your usual fee is, I daresay I’ll gladly pay it.”
“It’s a question of expertise rather than money. I just don’t think I’m the right man for the job.”
“You’re a detective, aren’t you?”
“Sort of.” That was a lie. He wasn’t any sort of detective; he was a repairman. He could feel Gia staring at him. “The problem is, I’m not licensed as a detective, so I can’t have any contact with the police. They mustn’t know I’m involved in any way. They wouldn’t approve.”
Nellie’s face brightened. “Then you’ll help?”
The hope in her expression pushed the words to his lips.
“I’ll do what I can. And as far as payment goes, let’s make it contingent on success. If I don’t get anywhere, there’ll be no fee.”
“But your time is surely worth something, dear fellow!”
“I agree, but looking for Vicky’s Aunt Grace is a special case.”
Nellie nodded. “Then you may consider yourself hired on your terms.”
Jack forced a smile. He didn’t expect much success in finding Grace, but he’d give it his best shot. If nothing else, the job would keep him in contact with Gia. He wasn’t quitting yet.
The iced tea arrived and Jack sipped it appreciatively. Not a Lipton or Nestea mix, but freshly brewed from an English blend.
“Tell me about your sister,” he said when the maid had left.
Nellie leaned back and spoke in a low voice, rambling now and again, but keeping fairly close to hard facts. A picture slowly emerged. Unlike Nellie, the missing Grace Westphalen had never married. After Nellie’s husband was killed by an IRA bomb in London, the two sisters, each with one-third of the Westphalen fortune, moved to the States. Except for brief trips back home, both had lived on Manhattan’s East Side ever since. And both were still loyal to the Queen. Never in all those years had the thought of becoming US citizens ever crossed their minds. They very naturally fell in with the small British community in Manhattan consisting mostly of well-heeled expatriates and people connected with the British Consulate and the United Kingdom’s Mission to the United Nations—“a colony within the Colonies,” as they liked to call themselves—and enjoyed an active social life. They rarely saw Americans. It was almost like living in London.
Grace Westphalen was sixty-nine—two years older than Nellie. A woman of many acquaintances but few real friends. Her sister had always been her best friend. No eccentricities. Certainly no enemies.
“When did you last see Grace?” Jack asked.
“Monday night. I finished watching The Tonight Show and when I looked in to say good night, she was propped up in bed reading. That was the last time I saw her.” Nellie’s lower lip trembled for an instant, then she got control of it. “Perhaps the last time I shall ever see her.”
Jack looked to Gia. “No signs of foul play?”
“I didn’t get here until late Tuesday,” Gia said with a shrug. “But I do know the police couldn’t figure out how Grace got out without tripping the alarm.”
“You’ve got the place wired?” he asked Nellie.
“Wired? Oh, you mean the burglar system. Yes. And it was set—at least for downstairs. We’ve had so many false alarms over the years, however, that we had the upper floors disconnected.”
“What kind of false alarms?”
“Well, sometimes we’d forget and get up at night to open a window. The racket is terrifying. So now when we set the system, only the downstairs doors and windows are activated.”
“Which means Grace couldn’t have left by the downstairs doors or windows without tripping an alarm…” A thought struck him. “Wait—all these systems have delays so you can arm it and get out the door without setting it off. That must have been what she did. She just walked out.”
“But her key to the system is still upstairs on her dresser. And all her clothes are in her closets.”
“May I see?”
“By all means, do come and look,” Nellie said, rising.
They all trooped upstairs.
Jack found the small, frilly-feminine bedroom cloying. Everything seemed to be pink or have a lace ruffle, or both.
The pair of French doors at the far end of the room claimed his attention immediately. He opened them and found himself on a card-table-sized balcony rimmed with a waist-high wrought iron railing, overlooking the backyard. A good dozen feet below was a rose garden. In a shady corner sat the playhouse Vicky had mentioned; it looked far too heavy to have been dragged under the window, and would have flattened all the rose bushes if it had. Anyone wanting to climb up here had to bring a ladder with him or be one hell of a jumper.
“The police find any marks in the dirt down there?”
Nellie shook her head. “They thought someone might have used a ladder, but there was no sign. The ground is so hard and dry with no rain—”
Eunice the maid appeared at the door. “Telephone, mum.”
Nellie excused herself and left Jack and Gia alone in the room.
“A locked-room mystery,” he said. “I feel like Sherlock Holmes.”
He got down on his knees and examined the carpet for specks of dirt, but found none. He looked under the bed; only a pair of slippers there.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for clues. I’m supposed to be a detective, remember?”
“I don’t think a woman’s disappearance is anything to joke about,” Gia said, the frost returning to her words now that Nellie was out of earshot.
“I’m not joking, nor am I taking it lightly. But you’ve got to admit the whole thing has the air of a British drawing-room mystery about it. I mean, either Aunt Grace had an extra alarm key made and ran off into the night in her nightie—a pink and frilly one, I’ll bet—or she jumped off her little balcony here in that same nightie, or someone climbed up the wall, knocked her out, and carried her off without a sound. None of them seem too plausible.”
Gia appeared to be listening. That was something at least.
He went over to the dressing table and glanced at the dozens of perfume bottles there; some names were familiar, most not. He wandered into the private bathroom and was there confronted by another array of bottles: Metamucil, Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia, Haley’s M-O, Pericolace, Surfak, Ex-Lax, and more. One bottle stood off to the side. Jack picked it up. It was clear glass, with a thick green fluid inside. The cap was the metal twist-off type, enameled white. All it needed was a Smirnoff label and it could have been an airline vodka bottle.
“Know what this is?”
“Ask Nellie.”
Jack screwed off the cap and sniffed. At least he was sure of one thing: It wasn’t perfume. The smell was heavily herbal, and not particularly pleasant.
As Nellie returned, she appeared to be finding it increasingly difficult to hide her anxiety. “That was the police. I rang up the detective in charge a while ago and he just told me that they have nothing new on Grace.”
Jack handed her the bottle.
“What’s this?”
Nellie looked it over, momentarily puzzled, then her face brightened.
“Oh, yes. Grace picked this up Monday. I’m not sure where, but she said it was a new product being test-marketed, and this was a free sample.”
“But what’s it for?”
“It’s a physic.”
“Pardon?”
“A physic. A cathartic. A laxative. Grace was very concerned—obsessed, you might say—with regulating her bowels. She’s had that sort of problem all her life.”
Jack took back the bottle. Something ab
out an unlabeled bottle amid all the brand names intrigued him.
“May I keep this?”
“Certainly.”
He looked around awhile longer, for appearances more than anything else. He didn’t have the faintest idea how he was going to begin looking for Grace Westphalen.
“Please remember to do two things,” he told Nellie as he started downstairs. “Keep me informed of any leads the police turn up, and don’t breathe a word of my involvement.”
“Very well. But where are you going to start?”
He smiled—reassuringly, he hoped. “I’ve already started. I’ll have to do some thinking and then start looking.”
He fingered the bottle in his pocket. Something about it …
They left Nellie on the second floor, standing and gazing into her sister’s empty room. Vicky came running in from the kitchen as Jack reached the bottom step. She held an orange section in her outstretched hand.
“Do the orange mouth! Do the orange mouth!”
He laughed, delighted that she remembered. “Sure!”
He shoved the section into his mouth and clamped his teeth behind the skin. Then he gave Vicky a big orange grin. She clapped and laughed.
“Isn’t Jack funny, Mom? Isn’t he the funniest?”
“He’s a riot, Vicky.”
Jack pulled the orange slice from his mouth. “Where’s that doll you wanted to introduce me to?”
Vicky slapped the side of her head dramatically. “Ms. Jelliroll! She’s out back. I’ll go—”
“Jack doesn’t have time, honey,” Gia said from behind him.
He winked at her. “Maybe next trip, okay?”
Vicky smiled and Jack noticed that a second tooth was starting to fill the gap left by her missing milk tooth.
“Okay. You coming back soon, Jack?”
“Real soon, Vicks.”
He hoisted her onto his hip and carried her to the front door where he put her down and kissed her.
“See ya.” He glanced up at Gia. “You, too.”
She pulled Vicky back against the front of her jeans. “Yeah.”
As Jack went down the front steps, he thought the door slammed with unnecessary force.
12
Vicky pulled Gia to the window and together they watched Jack stroll out of sight.
“He’s going to find Aunt Grace, isn’t he?”
“He says he’s going to try.”
“He’ll do it.”
“Please don’t get your hopes up, honey.” She knelt behind Vicky and enfolded her in her arms. “We may never find her.”
She felt Vicky stiffen and wished she hadn’t said it, wished she hadn’t thought it. Grace had to be alive and well.
“Jack’ll find her. Jack can do anything.”
“No, Vicky. He can’t. He really can’t.” Gia was torn between wanting Jack to fail, and wanting Grace returned to her home, between wanting to see Jack humbled in Vicky’s eyes, and the urge to protect her daughter from the pain of disillusionment.
“Why don’t you love him anymore, Mommy?”
The question took Gia by surprise. “Who said I ever did?”
“You did,” Vicky said, turning and facing her mother. Her guileless blue eyes looked straight into Gia’s. “Don’t you remember?”
“Well, maybe I did a little, but not anymore.”
It’s true. I don’t love him anymore. Never did. Not really.
“Why not?”
“Sometimes things don’t work out.”
“Like with you and Daddy?”
“Ummm…”
During the two and a half years she and Richard had been divorced, Gia had read every magazine article she could find on explaining the breakup of a marriage to a small child. There were all sorts of pat answers to give, answers that were satisfying when the father was still around for birthdays and holidays and weekends. But what to say to a child whose father had not only skipped town, but left the continent before she was five? How to tell a child that her daddy doesn’t give a damn about her? Maybe Vicky knew. Maybe that’s why she was so infatuated with Jack, who never passed up an opportunity to give her a hug or slip her a little present, who talked to her and treated her like a real person.
“Do you love Carl?” Vicky said with a sour face. Apparently she’d given up on an answer to her previous question and was trying a new one.
“No. We haven’t known each other that long.”
“He’s yucky.”
“He’s really very nice. You just have to get to know him.”
“Yucks, Mom. Yuck-o.”
Gia laughed and tugged on Vicky’s pigtails. Carl acted like any man unfamiliar with children. He was uncomfortable with Vicky; when he wasn’t stiff, he was condescending. He’d been unable to break the ice, but he was trying.
Carl was an account exec at TBWAChiatDay. Bright, witty, sophisticated. A civilized man. Not like Jack. Not at all like Jack. They’d met at the agency when she’d delivered some art for one of his accounts. Phone calls, flowers, dinners had followed. Something was developing. Certainly not love yet, but a nice relationship. Carl was what they called a “good catch.” Gia didn’t like to think of a man that way; it made her feel predatory, and she wasn’t hunting. Both Richard and Jack, the only two men in the last ten years of her life, had deeply disappointed her. So she was keeping Carl at arm’s length for now.
Yet … there were certain things to be considered. With Richard out of touch for over a year now, money was a constant problem. Gia didn’t want alimony, but some child support now and then would help. Richard had sent a few checks after running back to England—drawn in British pounds just to make things more difficult for her. Not that he had any financial problems—he controlled one-third of the Westphalen fortune. He was most definitely what those who evaluated such things would consider a “good catch.” But as she’d found out soon after their marriage, Richard had a long history of impulsive and irresponsible behavior. He’d disappeared late last year. No one knew where he’d gone, but no one was worried. It wasn’t the first time he’d decided on a whim to take off without a word to anyone.
And so Gia did the best she could. Good freelance work for a commercial artist was hard to find on a steady basis, but she managed. Carl was seeing to it that she got assignments from his accounts, and she appreciated that, though it worried her. She didn’t want any of her decisions about their relationship to be influenced by economics.
But she needed those jobs. Freelance work was the only way she could be a breadwinner and a mother and father to Vicky—and do it right. She wanted to be home when Vicky got in from school. She wanted Vicky to know that even if her father had deserted her, her mother would always be there. But it wasn’t easy.
Money-money-money.
It always came down to money. She couldn’t think of anything in particular she wanted desperately to buy, nothing she really needed. She simply wanted enough so she could stop worrying about it all the time. Her day-to-day life would be enormously simplified by hitting the state lottery or having some rich uncle pass on and leave her fifty thousand or so. But there were no rich uncles waiting in the wings, and Gia didn’t have enough left over at the end of the week for lottery tickets. She was going to have to make it on her own.
She was not so naive as to think that every problem could be solved by money—look at Nellie, lonely and miserable now, unable to buy back her sister despite all her riches—but a windfall would certainly let Gia sleep better at night.
All of which reminded Gia that her rent was due. The bill had been waiting for her when she’d stopped back at the apartment yesterday. Staying here and keeping Nellie company was a pleasant change of scenery; it was posh, cool, comfortable. But it was keeping her from her work. Two assignments had deadlines coming up, and she needed those checks. Paying the rent now was going to drop her account to the danger level, but it had to be done.
Might as well find the checkbook and get it over with.
“Why don’t you go out to the playhouse,” she told Vicky.
“It’s dull out there, Mom.”
“I know. But they bought it especially for you, so why don’t you give it another try today. I’ll come out and play with you in a few minutes. Got to take care of some business first.”
Vicky brightened. “Okay! We’ll play Ms. Jelliroll. You can be Mr. Grape-grabber.”
“Sure.” Whatever would Vicky do without her Ms. Jelliroll doll?
Gia watched her race toward the rear of the house. Vicky loved to visit her aunts’ place, but she got lonely after a while. No one her age around here; all her friends were back at the apartment house.
She went upstairs to the guest bedroom on the third floor where she and Vicky had spent the last two nights. Maybe she could get some work done. She missed her art setup back in her apartment, but she’d brought a large sketchpad and had to get going on the Burger-Meister place mat.
Burger-Meister was a McDonald’s clone and a new client for Carl. The company had been regional in the south but was preparing to go national in a big way. They had the usual assortment of burgers, including their own answer to the Big Mac: the vaguely fascist-sounding Meister Burger. But what set them apart were their desserts. They put a lot of effort into offering a wide array of pastries—eclairs, napoleons, cream puffs, and the like.
Gia’s assignment was to come up with the art for a paper place mat to line the trays patrons used to carry food to the tables. The copywriter had decided the sheet should extol and catalog all the quick and wonderful services Burger-Meister offered. The art director had blocked it out: Around the edges would be scenes of children laughing, running, swinging and sliding in the mini-playground, cars full of happy people threading the drive-thru, children celebrating birthdays in the special party room, all revolving around that jolly, official-looking fellow, Mr. Burger-Meister.