Murder at the Spa (17 page)

The sign brought Charlotte back to the radium controversy. Incited by the Mineral Man and the mayor, the townspeople were up in arms. It seemed to Charlotte that they would be wiser to simply let the issue fade away, but they were deeply offended by the slur against the purity of their waters. Again, she found herself thinking of
An Enemy of the People
. Tom had discovered that it was an investment bank that had been behind the press release. From this, Charlotte had concluded that the radium rumor was connected with the takeover. Perhaps Gary had hired the investment bank to orchestrate the deal. The bank might have planted the rumor in order to depress the price of Langenberg stock. But there was a major flaw with her
An Enemy of the People
theory, which was that by damaging the reputation of High Rock’s mineral waters, Gary was also damaging that of his own product. But perhaps he thought he could redeem the reputation of High Rock water, just as the townspeople in Ibsen’s play had believed the doctor could redeem the reputation of the baths. Hadn’t Gary said as much to the
Society
reporter at the fete?

From the Old Red, Charlotte followed the route down a ferny ravine to the base of the Vale of Springs. A few minutes later, she emerged at the Island Spouter. Crossing over the footbridge, she took a seat on the bench where she had sat with Art only two days before. She had been avoiding dealing with the subject of the recent deaths. But it was again pushing its way to the forefront of her mind. She had gone from feeling numbed to feeling angry. Adele and Art had both died in the bathhouse guarded by a beneficent Asclepius whose snakeentwined scepter was a symbol of man’s ability to shed disease the way a snake sheds its skin. The scepter had now been raised twice over a scene of death. She wanted to find out who was responsible, who had violated their sanctuary. The walk had refreshed her, had given her strength and courage of mind. Or maybe it was the Elixir water. Bending over, she retied her shoelaces. At her feet, an arrow-shaped sign pointed uphill: “High Rock Hotel—.5 Miles.” Only five days before she would have had to take the hill at a slow walk with frequent pauses. Now she was able to take it at a brisk walk without stopping. Tomorrow she would graduate to the next grade, an accomplishment that would earn her a merit pin for her sweat suit. Such was progress. She straightened up and set off. She wanted to check in on Paulina before lunch.

The words hit her the minute she entered Paulina’s bedroom.

“She was there,” said Paulina, pointing at Charlotte with the sandwich she held in one hand. “She’ll tell you what I say is true.”

A much-recovered Paulina was holding court. It was just as Jack had said; on the third day, she had risen again. She sat cross-legged (a position remarkable for an eighty-year-old woman) at the side of her Chinese bed, swaddled in a white cotton blanket under which she was still wearing the cotton duster. Her back was to the opening in the latticework railing, where a young woman in the red smocked uniform of the Paulina Langenberg salons stood brushing her long, blue-black hair. A tray holding a plate with, the rest of the sandwich and a bottle of mineral water sat next to her on the bed. She was conducting business: her black-framed reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck and her lap was full of papers. The man to whom she spoke sat in a chair at her back, while Leon stretched out like an indolent pasha in a chaise longue at the foot of the bed, flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine. Charlotte noticed he was wearing turquoise socks with his conservative gray suit. Were the socks a grudging concession to the flamboyant nature of the beauty industry, or the one expression of exuberance in an otherwise inhibited personality? she wondered.

Jack introduced Charlotte to the stranger, who was a Mr. Bates of Schweppe, Marsden, and Fitt, a New York law firm. Charlotte realized that he must be the estate lawyer, The One with the Blond Wife.

“Come here. Sit,” ordered Paulina. She gestured with the sandwich to a chair on the opposite side of the bed.

Charlotte complied. She could smell the sandwich; it was corned beef, and it smelled delicious, as she would expect it to after having had nothing but vegetables, fish, and lean meat to eat for five days.

“Now tell him,” ordered Paulina. She nodded over her shoulder at the lawyer, and then proceeded to wolf down the sandwich.

“Tell him what?”

“What Sonny said.”

Charlotte hesitated, reluctant to involve herself in the family row.

“Never mind,” said Paulina, waving her arm in dismissal. She picked up the rest of the sandwich. “I’ve got to keep my strength up. I’ve had a terrible shock.” She washed down the sandwich with a swig of mineral water and then reached over for a dill pickle. “I am prostate with grief.”

“Pros
trate
, Aunt Paulina,” said Leon, looking up from his magazine.

“Prostrate,” she repeated.

It was one of Paulina’s more endearing traits that despite more than sixty years as an inhabitant of English-speaking countries, she had yet to master the English language. Her speech was riddled with malapropisms.

“So you’ve come to see me,” she said, biting into the pickle. “A poor old woman, betrayed by her own son.”

Her voice was weak and tremulous. Despite the fact that she was up, she didn’t look well. Even her expertly applied makeup couldn’t camouflage the fact that her usually sharp eyes were dull and were hung with violet circles. Frannie would have said that her aura was dim and shriveled. In color, it would be gray, the color of diminished life force. Or maybe a dark, dull red, the color of discord and vengefulness. For she was seething with rancor. According to Jack, she had spent the morning recounting the tale of Elliot’s betrayal to a string of subordinates who had been summoned to appear before her.

“Yes,” replied Charlotte. “I was here yesterday too. It looks as if you’re feeling much better.”

“Not much. A little. Not so hard,” she chided the girl who was brushing her hair. “Gently.” She returned her attention to Charlotte. “I was just telling Mr.…”—she directed her glance over her shoulder to Mr. Bates—“about Sonny. He called me a despicable old woman.” Her eyes misted over. “Do you believe it?” She continued, her self-pity metamorphosing into outrage: “His own mother.” Setting down the sandwich, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled ball of paper. “His exact words,” she announced, turning to face the lawyer. She unfolded the ball of paper and read: “‘You’re a despicable old woman, always manipulating people with your money. That’s all you care about—money.’ She returned the piece of paper to her pocket. “You see?” She turned to Charlotte. “Tell him. Isn’t that what Sonny said?”

“That’s what he said.”

Paulina snorted. “‘All I care about is money.’ If I didn’t care about it, who would?” She resumed eating, polishing off the other half of the sandwich. Then she replaced her glasses on her nose and picked up the papers in her lap. “Where were we? I’m disinheriting my son,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here. We can use you. We need another witness.” She went on to explain that the document in her hands was the official copy of her will, which had been stored in her lawyer’s vault. Her black notebook, which lay open on Mr. Bates’s pin-striped knees, was the working copy. She was now making the changes in the official copy that she had already made in the working copy.

“We’re still on real estate, but after that we’re finished,” replied Mr. Bates, a round-faced man whose jolly countenance seemed at odds with his choice of profession. He leafed through the notebook. “Let’s see. We’ve finished with the apartment in Paris, the flat in London, and the villa at St. Jean-Cap Ferrat. I guess we’re on American real estate. We’ve done the Palm Beach mansion. Next would be the Greenwich estate. Page twenty-eight.”

Paulina read: “Should my son”—she crossed out the word “son” and inserted the word “nephew”—“Elliot B. Langenberg”—here she crossed out Elliot’s name and substituted Leon’s—“survive me, I give to him …” She went on to describe the Greenwich estate, a Norman-style mansion overlooking Long Island Sound, and then initialed the change in the margin of the document, which was about forty pages thick and bound with a red satin ribbon.

Charlotte was familiar with the procedure as a result of making changes in her own will. For the time being, the changes would be recorded in longhand. If the changes were to be typed in, the new typeface wouldn’t match the old, a difference that could provide grounds for the will’s legitimacy to be challenged. Although it seemed like an antiquated way of doing things, its purpose was to deter any suspicion that the will had been tampered with.

“What about the Park Avenue triplex?” asked Mr. Bates.

“That too,” said Paulina, making the changes. “Everything to Leon.” Looking up, she smiled at him indulgently. “Sonny gets zilch.”

“Shouldn’t we leave him something, Aunt Paulina?” asked Leon. “He
is
your son. What about Palm Beach?”

Paulina dismissed the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “If he wants real estate, he can buy it himself. He’s got plenty of money.” She reconsidered. “No, you’re right. He may have plenty of money now, but if I know him, he won’t have it for long. We’ll leave him an annuity. Five thousand a year—so he won’t starve.” She addressed the lawyer: “Make it so he’s paid quarterly. Otherwise he’ll spend it all at once.”

Five thousand a year—it wasn’t even enough to keep him from starving; it was only enough to be an insult, Charlotte thought. But she kept her mouth shut and looked out at the golf course. From this height, she could see all eight of the pump houses that supplied the water for the baths. It had started to rain, a cold, steady downpour. The trees lining the fairways swayed in the wind, their light green leaves displaying their pale undersides to the sky.

The hair stylist had finished brushing Paulina’s hair and was now plaiting it deftly into a thick, glossy braid. When she had finished, Paulina swung around to face the edge of the bed, disengaged her legs, and lowered her feet onto an antique stepping stool, her legs being too short to reach the ground. From the drawer of the bedside table, she withdrew a tube of lipstick, which she pressed into the girl’s hand. Then she dismissed her.

The girl thanked Paulina and headed toward the door.

“Wait,” said Paulina. She pushed the tail of the turtle buzzer.

Jack appeared at the door.

“Jack, let me see those.” She nodded to a fresh bouquet of red roses that stood next to the bouquet that Charlotte had noticed the day before. The old bouquet was now looking slightly wilted.

Jack brought over the roses and set them on the bedside table.

Reaching over, Paulina pulled out the card, read it, and crumpled it up. “Give them to her,” she ordered Jack. “I don’t want to be reminded of my traitorous son. Are the others from him too?”

Jack nodded.

“Throw them away.”

Jack handed the girl the fresh vase of roses.

“They’re Paulina Langenberg roses,” said Paulina proudly. “They’re named after me. If you’re important enough, you get a rose named after you—Queen Elizabeth, Baroness Rothschild.” She didn’t mention That Woman.

The girl, who didn’t quite know what to make of it all, and who seemed somewhat nervous in the royal presence, thanked her and left.

“Can you imagine? No makeup! A pretty girl like that,” said Paulina after the girl had gone. “Jack, tell her I insist that all Langenberg employees wear makeup. Set up a lesson for her, and make sure she gets some free samples. If she still insists on not wearing makeup, get rid of her.”

Jack pulled out his leather notebook and made a notation.

Paulina then turned to the jolly-faced Mr. Bates and asked if he was still married. When he replied with a mystified “yes,” Paulina again reached over to the drawer and withdrew a tube of lipstick. “Blush Pink: it’s from our new Body Spa line,” she explained. “It will be very nice on your lovely wife.”

For as long as Charlotte had known Paulina, she had rewarded subordinates with a lipstick: beauticians, waiters, estate lawyers—it made no difference. The fact that a lipstick didn’t carry the same value as it had fifty years before hadn’t yet occurred to her. To her way of thinking a Paulina Langenberg lipstick would always be a gift to treasure.

The lawyer thanked Paulina and pocketed the lipstick with a little smirk. Paulina’s gratuities were probably the joke of his office.

Paulina then returned her attention to the will, reviewing the pages one by one. When she was finished, she turned to Mr. Bates. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready. I just sign?”

“Aunt Paulina, do you think he’ll challenge it?” asked Leon.

“Leon, you’re always looking for trouble.”

“I know it’s not likely, but what if he does?”

“What’s to challenge? I have three witnesses right here to declare I’m not a crazy.” She turned to Mr. Bates. “Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t see any grounds on which this will could be challenged,” he concurred. “You’re under no obligation to leave anything to your son. It’s always wise to say that’s what you’re doing so that it’s not considered an oversight, but we’ve done that.” He read from the document: “‘For good and sufficient reasons, I make no provision for my son Elliot, and it is my wish that he not share in my estate in any way, with the exception of the annuity that I have provided for him.’ But,” Mr. Bates added, “people always try.”

“So he can try. He’ll just be throwing his money away. As usual.” Paulina read aloud from the will: “‘I, Paulina L. Langenberg,’” she said solemnly, “‘the testator, sign my name to this instrument on this sixteenth day of June, et cetera, and do hereby declare that I sign and execute this instrument as my will and that I sign it willingly, that I execute it as my free and voluntary act for the purposes therein expressed, and that I am eighteen years of age or older, of sound mind, and under no constraint or influence.’” With that, she signed. But although she did so with a great deal of flourish, Charlotte detected a twinge of regret in her expression.

Taking the document from Paulina, Mr. Bates carried it over to a table, where he initialed each of the twenty-odd changes and instructed Charlotte and Jack to do the same. Then they each affixed their signatures to the document, also making a declaration as to their identities and to the fact that Paulina was of sound mind and under no influence. Finally, the lawyer fixed the red ribbon that bound the pages with a drop of sealing wax, into which he pressed the firm’s seal. The amended will would not be as good as retyping the entire document, but it would serve as a model for the new document and as a reflection of Paulina’s wishes in the unlikely event that she should die before the new document could be prepared.