The Affliction Page 23

  There was a silence in the living room. Avis said eventually, “Forgive me—are you connected to Paul Detweiler? Is that how we met?”

  “He was my husband,” said Maggie. “He bought me a very beautiful Rembrandt print from you for my birthday one year.”

  “Ah,” said Avis. “Cows in a village lane? I remember. I hope you still have it.”

  “My prized possession.”

  “And—Paul?”

  “He was killed in the Middle East. It’s a long time ago now.”

  “That’s right,” said Avis thoughtfully. “That’s right. I knew that. He was a lovely man. I was very fond of him.”

  “I was too,” Maggie said, and smiled.

  “Forgive me for losing track of the details.”

  “Don’t worry. You are completely excused. Things get lost in the fire.”

  “Yes. Well—how can I help you? Are you interested in a purchase? Or a sale?”

  “Neither at the moment. I need some art world education, if you’re willing.”

  “Of course. I’ll do my best,” said Avis.

  “I’m hoping you can tell me a little about Hugo Hollister.”

  Avis sat very still for just a beat too long to conceal her feelings although she was deeply averse to idle gossip. When she spoke, she said blandly, “He’s a charmer, isn’t he? Oh, thank you, Ursula. Put it right here. Bless you.”

  The tiny woman had come in with a tray bearing a coffee service and a plate of thin mints.

  “He is charming, yes,” said Maggie. “And very bright, I think.”

  “Yes,” said Avis. She poured coffee, asked about sugar and cream, offered the mints. “How have you happened across him? I haven’t seen him in years.”

  Interesting. If Avis liked him, and cared, Maggie would have expected her to ask how Hugo was. That she didn’t ask suggested much.

  “He’s married to a very nice woman, and has a daughter at the Rye Manor School. You may have heard, they’ve had some trouble up there.” She watched closely as Avis Metcalf digested this and worked at balancing some internal weights and counterweights.

  “I had heard something,” she said.

  “Hugo is on the board of Rye Manor. I’ve been consulting with the young school head, coaching her while she gets the ship back on course.”

  “Ah,” said Avis. “And whom has Hugo married?”

  “A woman named Caroline Westphall. That was her maiden name.”

  Avis looked startled. “Angus Westphall’s little sister?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a silence. Maggie didn’t want to rush Avis. It was better, when people were wrestling with principles, to let them work it out without distraction.

  Eventually Avis said, in a different tone, “I do know Hugo Hollister. How can I help?”

  “The trouble at the school is serious, and confusing. You know what schools are like; a million things going on at once. In this case, we’re trying to sort out what’s relevant and what’s not. Hugo and Caroline have a daughter who is involved.”

  “Involved in what way?” Avis asked, perhaps more sharply than she meant to.

  “We’re not sure. Probably by mischance, but—I need to know whom I can trust.”

  “I’d bet you can trust Caroline Westphall from here to the moon,” said Avis.

  “I agree with you. And Hugo? He’s been very helpful to us so far. Are they a pair?”

  Avis rang her little bell and the tiny lady appeared again. “Ursula dear,” Avis said, “I changed my mind about the coffee. Could you bring me some ginger ale?”

  “The coffee isn’t good, missus?” Ursula looked as if she was ready to rush back to the kitchen and fall on her sword.

  “It’s absolutely perfect, I’d just love some ginger ale with it. Thank you. Maybe Mrs. Detweiler would like—?”

  “I’m fine,” said Maggie.

  After this diversion had given Avis the time she needed, she began again.

  “I don’t know if you knew my stepmother, Belinda Binney.”

  Maggie had. Belinda had been a beauty, and as a wealthy youngish widow, a very well-known woman about town. A philanthropist, a fashion plate, a woman who loved a party, Maggie had known her mostly by reputation and liked everything she knew about her.

  “Hugo walked Belinda for several years. You know what I mean?” Maggie did, of course. In Avis’s parlance, a walker was a gentleman available for whatever reason to accompany a lady to performances and benefits her husband wouldn’t or couldn’t attend. A walker was a companion and friend, not a suitor. She provided the invitations, the expensive tickets, the social entrées; he provided company, amusement, and social cover. No one, no matter how beloved or secure, enjoyed walking alone into a crowded ballroom.

  “He’s from a good family, but not the branch with the money,” Avis was saying.

  “So he told me,” said Maggie.

  “He was younger than Belinda, but he was single and straight, mostly. He had beautiful manners, and he was fun. Belinda was having a grand time with him. He knows a lot about art and music; Belinda loved all that. She introduced him to everyone she knew. Opened a lot of doors for him.”

  “What kind of doors?”

  “He was a private art dealer. Probably still is, I guess that’s why you’re here. When I knew him, he was making friends with people who collected, or could afford to collect if they could be persuaded to, and then advised them. He made it seem as if he was just doing social favors, for the pleasure of being useful. Belinda’s friends thought he was a marvelous resource.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  Avis fell silent again. One of her old-fashioned qualities, Maggie saw with interest, was a true dislike of speaking ill of someone. What a disruption that would cause in this reality TV world, if it ever came back in fashion.

  “You said he was straight mostly,” said Maggie, meaning a question.

  “Oh, that part was all right. I think very few people are altogether one way or the other,” Avis said. “I thought he had a right to his private life. At that point I didn’t realize that he was paying court to Belinda.”

  Maggie was startled. Hugo was decades younger than Avis’s stepmother had been. She had been a beautiful woman, but . . .

  “With hindsight I think he’d been shopping for a rich wife for some time. Since his golden promise had failed to develop into whatever he thought the world owed him. No, the problem was that he was warning Belinda’s friends against his competitors, totally trustworthy dealers. One of Belinda’s cronies told me in hushed tones that he’d had to stop buying from Colnaghi in London because of irregularities Hugo had mentioned in a slip of the tongue. He thought I’d want to know. Colnaghi! It was ridiculous.”

  “So you . . .”

  “I’m sorry to say, I did nothing at first except pay closer attention. Belinda was a grown-up. But.” She got up and left the room, returning with a framed piece, which she handed to Maggie.

  It was a sepia ink drawing of the head and torso of a woman, her arms outstretched, a filmy transparent cloth covering one shoulder and breast. Her hair was carelessly wound around her head, tendrils escaping, and the face was turned to the side, eyes downcast. The paper was pocked with age.

  “It’s absolutely beautiful,” Maggie said, after careful study.

  “It’s a fake,” said Avis.

  Maggie was shocked.

  “Hugo Hollister sold it to Belinda, for I don’t want to know how much. He knew she wouldn’t know the difference. What he didn’t know was that she had bought it as a present for me. And I would.”

  “But . . . how did you . . . ?”

  “It’s a Claude Lorrain study. Date should be about 1640. The real one is in the Vatican. I’ve seen it. This frame is old—he gets the details right. But I had it unframed, and sure enough, the paper is nineteenth century.”

  “But did Hugo know it was a fake?”

  “He knew, all right. This drawing has changed hands onc
e before, in the 1960s. A Berlin dealer sold it to an American museum, I forget which one. They took it off its old mount, discovered the paper was wrong, and the dealer had to buy it back. Where Hugo got it I don’t know, but no legitimate dealer would have sold it as anything but a decoration. The provenance was a crock. When I confronted him, he claimed he’d bought it from a Swiss family that had owned it for centuries. When I proved that he hadn’t, we made a deal. He’d bow out of Belinda’s life, I didn’t care how, without hurting her feelings, and I wouldn’t call the police.”

  Maggie was silent. Avis Metcalf seemed stunned at herself, that she had told the story. Wordlessly, she reclaimed the drawing and took it back to wherever she kept it.

  “I hope Caroline Westphall is all right,” she said when she returned.

  After a moment, Maggie said, “I do too.” She thanked her hostess and stood to leave, just as a lithe bouncing child with sleek dark hair in a ponytail charged through the door and headed for the kitchen. Avis called, “Hello, Lindy!

  “Hi, Birdy!”

  “Could you say good afternoon to Mrs. Detweiler?”

  Lindy could. She came and greeted Maggie prettily, then, dancing from one foot to the other, added, “May I be excused?”

  Avis released her, and she charged off toward the kitchen. Avis smiled after her.

  “Thank you,” Maggie said, gathering her things. “May I call you again if I need to?”

  Avis opened the drawer of a small antique desk in the corner of the room, and brought Maggie a card with her private contact information on it.

  “Greet Caroline for me, if you see her.”

  “I will,” said Maggie.

  * * *

  Greta Scheinerlein was sitting in her office in the pool building. The natatorium, the donor had wanted to call it. She had her grade book in front of her, and her laptop open; she wasn’t a particularly fluent writer, so she tried not to leave her student comments to the last minute, as so many teachers did because they could. She knew the head read all of them, fixing grammar and spelling before they went to the parents, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself.

  She was stuck on Melissa Boardman, new to her class this semester. “Melissa has only chosen the breaststroke because she doesn’t like getting her hair wet” was not the kind of thing either the parents or Christina wanted to hear, but what else could she say?

  Not saying what was true was emerging as a theme in her life. It was almost six o’clock. She should have locked up and gone home an hour ago, but she hadn’t. Now why, exactly? And if she admitted why, what was she going to do about it? She deleted what she had written about Melissa and was staring at the blank screen when she heard a door open and close somewhere out in the locker room.

  A natatorium is a place of bright impervious surfaces. An echo chamber. There were footsteps now. Footsteps made by someone in leather shoes. No one wore leather shoes in the pool house. This was a place of athletes, or at least of athletics. The footwear here, if any, had rubber soles.

  The footfalls were neither heavy nor light. The person walking was not trying to be quiet. Was that good or bad? She was alone here. That was obvious to any passerby who knew the school rhythms and saw her light burning. She looked around the office. There was a trophy on a shelf across the room. It had a heavy base. It would make a good club if she could get to it.

  But she could not. The footsteps were right around the corner. She sat bolt upright with her eyes fixed on her open door when Honey Marcus stepped into the door frame. They looked at each other. It was months since Honey had been in this building.

  “Were you hiding from me?” Honey asked. Her voice was cool. Maybe angry, Greta couldn’t tell.

  “Were you trying to give me a heart attack?” Greta answered, annoyed that she’d been frightened.

  “I came to see if you were ever coming home for dinner, or should I make other plans.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t coming home.”

  “You haven’t said much. I’ve hardly seen you.”

  Greta didn’t reply. Sometimes their fights were sun showers, fierce bouts of rain from some localized cloud while the sun shone, the storm pelting and stinging but soon over. And afterward, the air had a cleaner, loamy smell and everything felt better.

  But sometimes, the fights felt like the world coming to an end and she never knew which it would be until they were into it, teeth and claws bared. Neither of them wanted those, but neither seemed to know how to head them off, or stop them once they started.

  Honey had still not relaxed her posture or stepped into the room.

  “When were you going to tell me that Lily Hollister had a key to this building?”

  Greta’s heart moved in her chest, a sickening feeling.

  “Who told you that?” It was a childish response. Diversionary, defensive. Though it often worked.

  But not this time.

  “Is that what you’ve really been afraid of all this time? Lily Hollister? Not Ray?”

  Greta hadn’t moved, but she felt as if she were backing away, soon to be flattened against the wall by the quiet force of what Honey was pushing on her.

  “You used to talk about her all the time, but not anymore.”

  “It’s been a terrible time,” said Greta, suddenly fearing she would cry. Her emotional core had long since gone from solid to molten.

  “Don’t cry, it won’t work. You told me more times than I can count that Lily is so driven you found it scary. You. Found it scary, you who competed with a cracked collarbone in Dubai and almost won.”

  “She’s impulsive. It’s different.”

  “Reckless is the word you used. More than once. So she has a key to the building. So she could come here and practice even when no one was here. Even though you’d have to kick her off the team if you found out? And you did find out?”

  “I . . .”

  “You what?”

  “I . . .” Greta had heard the expression “tongue-tied” but thought it was just an expression. Now she was afraid of so many things, some of them mutually contradictory but all seeming equally terrifying, from losing Honey to being the next one found in the pool, that she couldn’t speak. They stared at each other, and it wasn’t softening Honey in the least.

  “You what? You think she’s not just reckless, she’s a Bad Seed? You think she’s the one who killed Florence? Then decided to put the body in the pool, to give you an idea of who could be next?”

  “No! I mean—no, I don’t think that, I thought that Ray must have taken the key from her!” Which was plenty scary enough, but now that she’d been asked point-blank, she had to admit that there was a tiny part of her—like the part of you that knows there isn’t anything waiting for you in the dark when you’re alone in the house but is terrified of it anyway—that believed reckless, driven, ambitious Lily might be capable of that, and that was so much worse . . .

  Finally Honey came toward her. She stood about three feet from her, her eyes hot and focused on Greta’s face.

  “And were you ever going to tell me? What was really going on with you?”

  “I didn’t want to get Lily in trouble! I didn’t really think she could . . .”

  “Yes. You did. You didn’t want to get her in trouble, or you’re afraid of her?”

  “I didn’t want to get her in trouble!”

  “When did you find out about the key?”

  “Months ago. In the winter. I came in on a Sunday morning and caught her here. She swore the building was unlocked, and I knew it hadn’t been.”

  “Then what?”

  “I demanded the key and she dared me to search her.”

  Honey saw instantly why that was something Greta couldn’t risk. The nervy little bitch.

  “I told her I didn’t want to know anything about it, I just didn’t want her to drown or break her neck with nobody here and she said she was sorry. And I believe her! She never did it again!”

  “That you know of. You knew this m
onths ago and never mentioned it? Not even after what happened to Florence?”

  Honey stood watching Greta’s face for what seemed like hours. Finally she said, softer, “You didn’t want to get your star in trouble. But how about the trouble we’re in?”

  Greta, fearing tears again, said, “I don’t know what you mean. Ray, the threats, or . . .”

  “This. I mean this. How did you think it was going to help if you didn’t talk to me? If you stopped coming home, if you tried to handle this like a fucking twelve-year-old?”

  Greta gave a kick and spun her chair so her back was to Honey. She sat like that staring out the window at the darkening lot where Honey’s car was parked next to hers. After a long time, she said, “Go on home. I’ll lock up and meet you there.”

  Honey said after a beat, “Jesus, Greta.” But she didn’t sound angry anymore. Greta listened to the sound of Honey’s loafers on the tile floor as she left the office and walked away.

  Chapter 16

  Thursday, May 7

  Maggie and Hope, bundled against the unusual chill of the early May morning, were race-walking along the track that skirts the Central Park Reservoir. The sun was just beginning to warm the world, and there were plenty of fiercely fit New Yorkers running as if pursued, or loping, or pushing jogging strollers before them. Hope wore a navy-blue fleece tracksuit, a visor, and a pashmina looped around her neck. Maggie wore mismatched sweat clothes from the Winthrop School lost and found and was thankful to have recovered from an earlier charley horse.

  Hope was looking for real estate in the city. “Just to see what’s out there,” she said as they chugged along, arms pumping. What she had found were staggeringly high prices, but also new neighborhoods in what used to be fringes of civilization, now home to wonderfully built-out conversions with soundproofing and central a/c that the prewar buildings in more fashionable neighborhoods often lacked, and new buildings surrounded by interesting new restaurants. There was a Frank Gehry building down on the edge of Chinatown that looked as if it had been partly melted, with fantastic views of the East River, the downtown bridges, and Brooklyn. Maggie didn’t even want to tell Hope how pleased she was.