The Woman Who Fell From Grace

by David Handler

  She gulped. The woman positively gulped. “Do you … do you really think so?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I do.”

  “My brothers think I am mad.”

  “Naturally. They’re businessmen. Earthbound, so to speak. You can’t expect them to comprehend you.”

  “But you do?”

  “I do.”

  “And you agree that this belongs in Sweet Land?”

  “May I speak frankly, Mavis?”

  “Please. Hold nothing back.”

  “I think it’s powerful stuff. Too powerful. I see Sweet Land as a traditional, old-fashioned American vehicle — a Schwinn one-speed with foot brakes. Strap a jet engine onto it and you’ll only total it.”

  “But —”

  “This is another book, Mavis. Your own book. Not your mother’s. Yours. And you will write a book, a book even bigger than Oh, Shenandoah. I believe that. And I think you do, too, deep down inside. But Sweet Land, I think you have to leave it be. This book is hers.” Mavis said nothing. “Vangie and Napoleon. What an idea.” And just think of the casting possibilities — Hoffman, Pacino, Michael J. Fox … “What a child they’ll have.”

  “A girl,” she insisted. “It’s a girl.”

  “Perfect.”

  Mavis tapped the gleaming surface of the writing table impatiently with her fingernail. “I don’t know … ”

  “I do,” I said. “Trust me. I’m on your side.”

  She let out a short, humorless laugh. “That would be a first. It has been me against everyone else for as long as I can remember.”

  “No longer. You have me now.”

  She gave me her steely stare. I met it. Then she turned away and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’ll be taking over the writing?”

  I nodded. “Just leave everything to me.

  “What shall I be doing in the meantime?”

  “Thinking about your own book. Let those ideas percolate. Let yourself go. We’ll go over what I’m doing chapter by chapter. I’ll be around if you need me.”

  Again with the stare, a bit more wide-eyed now. This was new for her — being bossed. She wasn’t sure how to respond. “Very well,” she finally declared airily. “I place myself in your hands.”

  “You won’t be sorry.”

  She gave me her frozen smile. “When you get to know me better, Hoagy, and you shall, you will learn something about me.”

  “And what’s that, Mavis?”

  “I am never sorry.”

  Frederick and Edward were waiting for us in the east-wing peacock parlor wearing matching gray flannel suits and apprehensive expressions. Frederick was chain-smoking. A man and woman I didn’t know were also in there. All four of them looked up at us when we came in. Mavis’s eyes went directly to the man’s and flickered a message his way. He then turned to the brothers and relayed it. They both exhaled with relief and came toward me with their hands out, beaming.

  “So nice to see you again, Hoagy,” exclaimed Frederick.

  “Glad everything seems to have worked out,” added Edward. “Thrilled. May I introduce you to Charlotte Neene, Mave’s treasured assistant?”

  Charlotte was a thin, anemic-looking little woman in her thirties, complexion sallow, short brown hair lank, dress drab. She wore no makeup or lipstick or jewelry. Her hand was bony and gelid. “Mr. Hoag,” she murmured, careful not to make eye contact.

  “Miss Neene,” I said. “Would that be your red LeMans out there in the courtyard?”

  “Why, yes,” she replied, chewing nervously on her lower lip. She had pointy, rather feral little teeth. Her lip was pulpy from being chewed on. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve been thinking of getting one. How does it handle?”

  “Okay, I suppose,” she replied vaguely.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “And this fine gentleman,” interjected Frederick, with more than a hint of derision in his voice, “is Mave’s husband, Lord Lonsdale.”

  “Richard Lonsdale, Hoagy,” Richard said heartily, after he’d shot Frederick a quick, dirty look. “Do ignore the title bit. Freddy’s just having you on. Welcome, and so forth. Damned decent of you to make it down.”

  Richard went at the ruddy English country-squire bit a little much for me, though I must admit it doesn’t take much to be too much for me. He had the clipped, regimental voice, the brush mustache, the robust vigor. He had the tweed Norfolk jacket, the leather-trimmed moleskin trousers, the wool shirt, the ascot. He didn’t completely pull off the ascot, but then no one has since Orson Welles died. His hair and mustache were salt-and-pepper. His shaggy brows were coal black and in constant motion. He had an involuntary blinking twitch that kept them squirming around on his forehead like two water bugs pinned to a mat. Evidently his drinking didn’t subdue it, and he did drink. The red-rimmed eyes and burst capillaries in his nose said so. He was a big-chested man, so big he looked as if he were holding his breath all the time. But he wasn’t tall. His legs were unusually short. His hands were big and hairy. They were also bandaged.

  “What happened to your hands?” I asked.

  “Tripped in the courtyard last night after I’d put the car away,” he replied, twitching at me. “Those bricks get damned slippery. Fell flat and scraped them both raw. Stupid, really.”

  Edward leaned in toward him and softly inquired if perhaps Mavis would like a sherry before lunch. Richard glanced at her. She raised her chin a quarter of an inch.

  Richard immediately flashed his large white teeth at me. “Sherry, Hoagy? To celebrate your undertaking?”

  I said that would be fine and watched him fill a set of cordial glasses from a cut-glass decanter, marveling at the fine, civilized heights to which the Glazes had elevated sibling loathing. It was a subtle business, really, but it was undeniable — Mavis and her brothers never actually spoke to each other, or even made eye contact. They communicated only through Richard. He was their go-between, their envoy. He kept the peace. Or perhaps “truce” was a better word for it. Whatever, they had it down so pat they must have been existing this way for years.

  Mercy breezed in the door from school as Richard was handing out the glasses. She sang out, “Hello, all,” and started up the stairs.

  “You’re just in time to help us celebrate, Mercy,” Mavis called after her. “Come.”

  She did, though Richard didn’t fill another glass for her. I got my own special hello and smile. I could almost feel Mavis’s eyes boring into the back of my head. We raised our glasses.

  “Hoagy and I,” began Mavis, “it is my great pleasure to announce, have arrived at a creative meeting of the minds. … ”

  “And here, ladies and gentlemen,” Mercy cracked brightly, “we go for the ninth time.”

  “Mercy, either hold your tongue or leave this room at once,” snapped Mavis.

  “Now, Mave … ,” said Richard consolingly.

  “Quiet, Richard!” she ordered. Mercy started out of the room. “Mercy, stay.” There was no need for the lady to have dogs around. She had her family.

  Mercy stayed, her eyes twinkling with amusement. Richard stood there twitching. Everyone else seemed quite used to this.

  “Let us drink to Sweet Land of Liberty,” continued Mavis. “And to Mother.”

  “To Mother,” toasted Frederick.

  “Mother,” toasted Edward.

  We drank. It wasn’t very good sherry. It tasted like children’s cough syrup. When mine was gone, I turned to Charlotte and said, “Do we throw our glasses into the fireplace now?”

  “Why, no,” she replied, a bit goggle-eyed. Whimsy obviously wasn’t her forte. Or maybe I was just losing my touch. She excused herself and scurried off to the kitchen.

  “Best of luck to you, Hoagy,” said Edward genially.

  “You’ll need it,” added Frederick under his breath. “And if there’s anything you need — information, advice, a horse whip — Just let us know.” He went over to refill his glass.

 
Edward lingered. “I certainly do envy you, Hoagy,” he said wistfully.

  “You wouldn’t if you knew me better.”

  “I would. You do something creative. I always wanted to. As a young man, I even dreamt of following in Mother’s footsteps. But it was never meant to be. No talent — of any kind. I’ve come to accept it. One of the last stages of maturity, I suppose, is coming to grips with one’s own lack of uniqueness.”

  “Writing is the least amount of fun you can have with your clothes on. You’re really a lot better off practicing law.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not, Hoagy. Believe me.”

  The dining table was set for seven.

  Mavis, high priestess of American home entertaining, immediately took charge of the seating. “Richard, you’re at that end, I’m at the other. Let’s see, that leaves us with an odd man out.”

  “That would be me,” I said.

  “Charlotte, you will sit on Richard’s left.” Mavis gripped her assistant by the shoulders and gave her a firm shove in the right direction. “And next to you … no, that’s no good. We’ll have two men sitting next to each other. You’ll have to sit between my brothers, Charlotte, with Hoagy and Mercy across from you. Yes, I believe so. No, wait … ”

  “I appear to be fouling up the seating somewhat,” I suggested to Mercy.

  “No, you’re just giving her an excuse,” she murmured.

  “To do what?” I asked.

  “Move me to a different chair. Mother won’t allow me to sit in the same chair for very long for fear I’ll get comfortable. She thinks comfortable people are soft people.”

  Mercy seemed to accept this with good grace. I found myself thinking how sorry I was she had Mavis for a mother.

  The lady was still playing musical chairs. I started for the kitchen.

  “Wait, Hoagy,” she commanded. “Where are you going?”

  “I want to tell Fern to start churning,” I replied, smacking my lips. I could practically taste that homemade licorice ice cream.

  “Churning? Churning what?”

  “She’s not in there,” Charlotte informed me. “She went to the old house for a second.”

  I went to the old house after Fern. I had my priorities. I found her in the entrance salon. She was lying there on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Her neck was at a very funny angle. At least I thought it was funny. She thought it was funny, too. She was grinning up at me. She hadn’t lost her jolly sense of humor. Just her life.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  POLK FOUR WAS SO clean you could eat off him.

  There wasn’t a wrinkle in his crisp khaki uniform. There wasn’t a smudge on his wide-brimmed trooper’s hat. His black leather holster gleamed. His square-toed blucher oxfords gleamed. He gleamed. Polk was in his late twenties and stood several inches over six feet and didn’t slouch. He had the trim athletic build and flat stomach of a high school basketball star. His hair was blond and neatly combed, his eyes sincere and alert and wide apart over high cheekbones, a thin, straight nose, and strong, honest jaw. He had no blemishes on his face. I doubted he’d ever had any, or ever suffered from excess stomach acid or insomnia or the heartbreak of psoriasis. I hated him on sight.

  He got there in ten minutes in his shiny-gray, sheriff’s-department Ford, a deputy trailing behind him in another just like it. He took charge right away. There was nothing youthful or indecisive about Polk Four. He was the sheriff of Augusta County. The deputy kept himself busy taking photographs of Fern’s body. The paramedics came, but there wasn’t much for them to do except stand around. The body couldn’t be moved until a doctor looked her over and signed the death certificate.

  We all waited for him in the old parlor. Mavis was exceptionally still and composed. If there were tears in her, she would not allow them out now. Mercy wept openly into one of my white linen handkerchiefs.

  The brothers had sharply contrasting reactions. Frederick was in total command — it was he who had called Polk Four and herded us into the parlor. Edward was unconsolable.

  He rocked back and forth in his chair, sobbing and moaning. “I keep thinking of the night Mother died, Fred,” he cried. “I was at Fern’s when I got the news, remember? She was the one who actually told me.”

  “Let’s not go into that, Ed,” Frederick said sharply. “Come on, now.”

  “She was a rock, Fred, is all I meant.”

  “That she was.” Frederick patted his brother gently on the shoulder. “That she was.”

  Richard had gotten himself a large brandy and sat there sipping it and furtively trying to make eye contact with Charlotte, who sat in a corner wringing her hands, her own eyes firmly fastened to the floor.

  The doctor arrived in half an hour. He was weary and elderly. He examined Fern where she lay. Cause of death: broken neck. Then Fern O’Baugh was lifted onto a stretcher — it took three strong men to do that — and wheeled out.

  Polk joined us in the parlor. “My deepest condolences, Mavis,” he said, hat in hand. “It’s a terrible loss. Just terrible.”

  “Thank you, Polk,” she said softly.

  “She was a real fine old lady,” Polk went on. “Almost like another mother to Mercy.” He looked over at her, coloring slightly. “Hi, Mercy.”

  “Hello, Polk,” she said, sniffling.

  “She was family, Polk,” declared Mavis. “Family.”

  “Speaking of which … ”

  “We’ll be handling the funeral arrangements,” Frederick informed him.

  “Fine, sir,” Polk said. “We’ll need some additional information for the certificate. Date and place of birth, social security number, parents’ names … ”

  “Of course, Polk,” Frederick said, lighting a cigarette. “Whatever you need.”

  Richard got up and started out of the room with his empty brandy glass.

  “Sit, Richard,” commanded Mavis.

  He stopped. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “I merely wished to —”

  “I know what you merely wished. Sit!”

  He drew himself up, steaming. But he didn’t erupt. He submitted. Sat back down, twitching.

  “What do you think happened, Sheriff?” I asked.

  Polk’s clear blue eyes took me in for the first time. “We haven’t met, sir.”

  “He’s Stewart Hoag, the author, Polk,” said Mercy. “Going to be living here for a while.”

  Polk Four looked me over, measuring me unsurely. I guess he didn’t meet many fizzled literary icons. “Welcome to the Shenandoah Valley, Mr. Hoag,” he said, “though I suppose this isn’t what you’d consider a nice hello. She fell, in answer to your question. Those stairs are quite steep and narrow. That’s how they built them in the old days. If you’re not real careful on your way down, it’s easy to take a tumble. Fern was a big lady. She tumbled hard.”

  “The guides always have to warn the tourists to watch their step,” pointed out Charlotte.

  “She must have gone up and down them a million times,” I reasoned.

  “That’s true,” Polk agreed with a reassuring smile. “But accidents do happen.”

  “Oh, Polk, must you be so banal?” demanded Mercy.

  He reddened. “I realize you folks are upset. I’ll not intrude on your privacy any longer.”

  “Thank you for everything, Polk,” said Mavis. “And you’re not intruding. You’ve been most kind. Hasn’t he, Mercy?”

  “Yes, Polk. You’re always most kind,” Mercy said hotly.

  He walked out, singed at the ears. I followed him.

  The ambulance and the doctor were gone. Polk’s deputy was lingering.

  “Any chance Fern’s fall was something other than an accident, Sheriff?” I asked him.

  Polk stopped and stood there looking at me with his hands on his hips. “Such as?”

  “Something other than an accident,” I repeated.

  He frowned and scratched his chin. He had the closest shave I’d ever seen. It looked as if his whiskers had been surg
ically removed. “You mean like was she pushed or something? Everyone here loved Fern, Mr. Hoag. She was a fine old lady. And this is a fine old family. Mavis, her brothers, Mercy, they’re not that sort of people.”

  “We’re all that sort of people, Sheriff.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You have some mighty strange ideas, Mr. Hoag. Where are you from?”

  “New York City.”

  He nodded, as if this told him all he needed to know. Everyone from New York was crazy. Not like here, where the valley’s biggest luminary wanted to turn her lead character into an alien. “You’ll find things are a little different here, Mr. Hoag. This is a county where justice still has the upper hand. Fern O’Baugh’s death was an accident, plain and simple. Take my word for it.” He started for his cruiser, stopped. “I hope you won’t be upsetting these good people.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it, Sheriff.”

  “Good.” He squared his shoulders, not that they needed squaring. “Mercy … she’s a spirited lady, like her mother.”

  “She is.”

  “She and I … ”

  “I wouldn’t think of that either, Sheriff.”

  He tipped his big trooper’s hat to me. “Good day, Mr. Hoag.”

  “See you later, pardner.”

  He stuck his chin out at me. “Don’t call me pardner.” Then he got in his car and drove away, his deputy on his tail.

  The man was right. Ferns death gave every appearance of being an accidental fall. Except to me. She’d told me Sterling Sloan was murdered. She’d told me she knew something about it. And now she was dead. That’s how it looked to me.

  I took the driveway around back to my guest quarters. Lulu was out cold in her easy chair, paddling her paws in the air, whimpering. Bad dream. I roused her. She woke with a start. Grudgingly, she followed me back to the old house. It was empty now. Everyone had gone back to the east wing.

  We went up the stairs. They were steep. Creaky, too. There was a short central hallway on the second floor. Two bedrooms were open for public view, both of them furnished with lovely old canopy beds, washstands, wardrobe cupboards. One was the master bedroom, the other the room that had been Vangie’s in the movie. There was a definite air of familiarity to it. The brocaded-silk bedcover upon which lay Vangie’s most trusted confidante — Miss Penelope, her porcelain doll. The mirrored dressing table where Vangie sat each night combing out her wild mane of red hair. The vast double-doored wardrobe from which she chose her most tempting outfits. There was also a definite air of weirdness. Because Vangie wasn’t a real character out of history. Vangie was fiction. And this was a movie set.