Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 06 - Private Eyes

by Private Eyes(Lit)

  Melissa was talking and pointing, a docent in her own home.

  We were in a book-lined, five-sided, windowless room. She indicated a spotlit painting over a mantel. "And this one's a Goya. "The Duke of Montero on His Steed." Father bought it in Spain when art was much more reasonable. He wasn't concerned with what was fashionable this was considered a very minor Goya until just a few years ago; too decorative. Portraiture was de'classe'. Now auction houses write us letters all the time. Father had the foresight to travel to England and brought back cartons of Pre-Raphaelites when everyone else thought they were just kitsch. Tiffany glass pieces, too, during the fifties, when the experts brushed those off as frivolous."

  "You know your stufi," I said.

  She blushed. "I was taught."

  "ByJacob?"

  She nodded and looked away. "Anyway, I'm sure you ve seen enough for one day."

  Turning heel, she began walking out of the room.

  "Are you interested in art yourself?" I said.

  "I don't know much about it-not the way Father or Jacob did.

  I do like things that are beautiful. If nobody gets hurt by it."

  "What do you mean?"

  She frowned. We left the book-filled room, passed by the open door of another huge space, this one ceilinged with hand-painted walnut beams and backed with tall French doors. Beyond the glass was more lawn and forest and flowers, stone pathways, statuary, an amethyst-colored swimming pool, a sunken area, vine-topped and walled with dark-green tennis tarp under chain link. From the distance came the hollow thump of a ball bouncing.

  A couple of hundred feet back, to the left of the court, was a long, low peach-colored building that resembled a stable: ten or so wooden doors, some of them ajar, backing a wide cobbled courtyard filled with gleaming, long-nosed antique automobiles. Amoeboid pools of water dotted the cobblestones. A figure in gray overalls bent over one of the cars, chamois in hand, buffing the flaring ruby-colored fender of a splendid piece of machinery. From the blower pipes, I guessed it was a Duesenberg and asked Melissa for confirmation.

  "Yes," she said, "that's what it is," and keeping her eyes straight ahead, she led me back through the art-filled caverns, toward the front of the house.

  "I don't know," she said suddenly. "It just seems that so many things start off beautiful and turn hateful. It's as if being beautiful can be a curse.

  I said, "McCloskey?"

  She put both hands in the pockets of her jeans and gave an emphatic nod. "I've been thinking about him a lot."

  "More than before?"

  "A lot more. Since we talked." She stopped, turned to me, blinked hard. "Why would he come back, Dr. Delaware? What does he want?"

  "Maybe nothing, Melissa. Maybe it means nothing. If anyone can find out, my friend can."

  "I hope so," she said. "I certainly hope so. When can he start?"

  "I'll have him call you as soon as possible. His name is Milo Sturgis."

  "Good name," she said. "Solid."

  "He's a solid guy."

  We resumed walking. A big, broad woman in a white uniform was polishing a tabletop, feather duster in one hand, rag in the other.

  Open tin of paste wax near her knee. She turned her face slightly and our eyes met. Madeleine, grayer and wrinkled but still stronglooking.

  A grimace of recognition tightened her face; then she showed me her back and resumed her work.

  Melissa and I stepped back into the entry hall. She headed for the green stairway. As she touched the handrail I said, "In terms of McCloskey, are you concerned about your own safety?"

  "Mine?" she said, pausing with one foot on the first step. "Why should I be?"

  "No reason. But you were just talking about beauty as a curse.

  Do you feel burdened or threatened by your own looks?"

  "Me?" Her laughter was too quick, too loud. "Come on, Dr. D.

  Let's go upstairs. I'll show you beautiful."

  The top of the landing was a twenty-foot rosette of black marble inlaid with a blue-and-yellow sunburst pattern. French provincial furniture hugged the walls, potbellied, bowlegged, almost obscene with marquetry.

  Renaissance paintings of the Sentimental School cherubs, harps, religious agony competed with flocked-velvet paper the color of old port. Foot-wide white molding and coving defined three hallway spokes.

  Two more women in white vacuumed the one on the right. The other corridors were dark and empty. More like a hotel than a museum. The sad, aimless ambience of a resort during the off-season.

  Melissa turned onto the middle corridor and led me past five white panel doors adorned with black and gold cloisonne' knobs.

  At the sixth, she stopped and knocked.

  A voice from within said, "Yes?"

  Melissa said, "Dr. Delaware's here," and opened the door.

  I'd been ready for another megadose of grandeur but found myself in a small, simple room-a sitting area, no more than twelve feet square, painted dove-gray and lit by a single overhead milk-glass fixture.

  A white door took up a quarter of the rear wall. The other walls were bare except for a single lithograph: A softly colored mother-andchild scene that had to be Cassatt. The print was centered over a rosecolored, gray-piped loveseat. A pine coffee table and two pine chairs created a conversation area. Bone-china coffee service on the table.

  Woman on the couch.

  She stood and said, "Hello, Dr. Delaware. I'm Gina Ramp."

  Soft voice.

  She came forward, her walk a curious mix of grace and awkwardness. The awkwardness was all above the neck her head was held unnaturally high and tilted to one side, as if recoiling from a blow.

  "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Ramp."

  She took my hand, gave it a quick, gentle squeeze and let go.

  She was tall had at least eight inches on her daughter-and still model-slender, in a knee-length, long-sleeved dress of polished gray cotton. Front-buttoned to the neck. Patch pockets. Flat-heeled gray sandals. A plain gold wedding band on her free hand. Gold balls in her ears. No other jewelry. No perfume.

  The hair was medium-blond and starting to silver. She wore it short and straight, brushed forward with feathered bangs. Boyish.

  Almost ascetic.

  Her face was pale, oval, made for the camera. Strong, straight nose, firm chin, wide gray-blue eyes stippled with green. The pouty allure of an old studio photo replaced by something more mature.

  More relaxed. Slight surrender of contour, the merest sag at the seams. Smile lines, brow furrows, a suggestion of pouch at the junction of lips and cheek.

  Forty-three years old, I knew from an old newspaper clipping, and she looked every day of it. Yet age had softened her beauty.

  Enhanced it, somehow.

  She turned to her daughter and smiled. Lowered her head, almost ritualistically, and showed me the left side of her face.

  Skin stretched tight, bone-white and glassy-smooth. Too smooth the unhealthy sheen of fever-sweat. The jawline sharper than it should have been. Subtly skeletal, as if stripped of an underlying layer of musculature and refurbished with something artificial.

  Her left eye drooped, very slightly but noticeably, and the skin beneath it was scored with a dense network of white filaments. Scars that seemed to be floating just beneath the surface of her skin a suspension of threadworms swimming in flesh-colored gelatin.

  The neck-flesh just below the jaw was ruled with three ruddy stripes as if she'd been slapped hard and the finger marks had lingered. The left side of her mouth was preternaturally straight, offering harsh counterpart to the weary eye and giving her smile a lopsided cast that projected an uninvited irony.

  She shifted her head again. Her skin caught the light at a different angle, and took on the marbled look of a tea-soaked egg.

  Off-kilter. Beauty defiled.

  She said to Melissa, "Thank you, darling," and gave a crooked smile.

  Part of the left side didn't smile along.

  I realized that just for
the moment I'd blocked out Melissa's presence.

  I turned, with a smile for her. She was staring at us, a hard, watchful look on her face. Suddenly, she turned up the corners of her mouth, forced herself to join in the smile-fest.

  Her mother said, "Come here, baby," and went to her, holding out her arms. Hugging her. Using her height to advantage, cradling, stroking Melissa's long hair.

  Melissa stepped back and looked at me, flushed.

  Gina Ramp said, "I'll be fine, baby. Go on."

  Melissa said, "Have fun," in a voice on the verge of cracking.

  Gave one more look back and walked out.

  Leaving the door open. Gina Ramp walked over and closed it.

  "Please make yourself comfortable, Doctor," she said, readjusting the tilt of her face so that only the good side was visible. She gestured toward the china service. "Coffee?"

  "No, thanks." I sat in one of the chairs. She returned to the loveseat. Sat perched at the edge, back straight, legs crossed at the ankles, hands in lap the identical posture Melissa had adopted at my house yesterday.

  "So," she said, smiling again. She leaned forward to adjust one of the teacups, spent more time at it than she had to.

  I said, "Good to meet you, Mrs. Ramp."

  A pained look fought with the smile and won. "Finally?"

  Before I could answer, she said, "I'm not a terrible person, Dr. Delaware."

  "Of course you aren't," I said. Too emphatically. It made her start and take a long look at me. Something about her-about this place-was screwing up my timing. I sat back and kept my mouth shut. She recrossed her legs and shifted her head, as if in response to stage direction. Showing me only her right profile. Stiff and defensively genteel, like a First Lady on a talk show.

  I said, "I'm not here to judge you. This is about Melissa's going away to college. That's all."

  She tightened her lips and shook her head. "You helped her so much.

  Despite me."

  "No," Isaid. "Becauseofyou."

  She closed her eyes, sucked in her breath, and clawed her knees through the gray dress. "Don't worry, Dr. Delaware. I've come a long way. I can handle harsh truths."

  "The truth, Mrs. Ramp, is that Melissa turned out to be the terrific young woman she is in good part because she got a lot of love and support at home."

  She opened her eyes and shook her head very slowly. "You're kind, but the truth is that even though I knew I was failing her, I couldn't pull myself out of my.. out of it. It sounds so weakwilled, but "I know," I said. "Anxiety can be as crippling as polio."

  "Anxiety," she said. "What a mild word. It's more like dying.

  Over and over. Like living on Death Row, never knowing..." She swiveled, revealing a crescent of damaged flesh. "I felt trapped.

  Helpless and inadequate. So I continued to fail her."

  I said nothing.

  She went on: "Do you know that in thirteen years I never attended a single parent-teacher conference? Never applauded at her school plays or chaperoned field trips or met the mothers of the few children she played with. I wasn't a mother, Dr. Delaware. Not in any true sense of the word. She's got to resent me for it. Maybe even hate me."

  "Has she given any indication of that?"

  "No, of course not. Melissa's a good girl too respectful to say what's on her mind. Even though I've tried to get her to."

  She leaned forward again. "Dr. Delaware, she puts on a brave front feels she always has to be grown up, a perfect little lady. I did that to her-my weakness did." Touching her bad side. "I turned her into a premature adult and robbed her of her childhood. So I know it's got to be there anger. All bottled up inside."

  I said, "I'm not going to sit here and tell you you gave her the ideal upbringing. Or that your fears didn't influence hers. They did.

  But throughout it all-from what I saw during her therapy-she perceived you as being nurturant and loving, giving her unconditional love. She still sees you that way."

  She bowed her head, held it with both hands, as if praise hurt.

  I said, "When she wet your sheets you held her and didn't get angry.

  That means a lot more to a child than parent-teacher conferences.

  She looked up and stared at me. The facial sag more evident than before. Shifting her head, she switched to a profile view.

  Smiling.

  "I can see where you'd be good for her," she said. "You put forth your point of view with a... force that's hard to debate."

  "Is there a need for us to debate?"

  She bit her lip. One hand flew up and touched her bad side again.

  "No. Of course not. It's just that I've been working on... honesty.

  Seeing myself the way I truly am. It's part of my therapy. But you're right, I'm not our concern. Melissa is. What can I do to help her?"

  "I'm sure you know how ambivalent she is about going away to college, Mrs. Ramp. Right now she's framing it in terms of her concern about you. Worry that leaving you at this point in your therapy might upset the progress you've made. So it's important for her to hear from you-explicitly-that you'll be okay. That you'll continue to make progress with her gone. That you want her to go. If you do."

  "Dr. Delaware," she said, looking at me straight on, "of course I do.

  And I have told her that. I've been telling her since I found out she'd been accepted. I'm thrilled for her-it's a wonderful opportunity. She must go!"

  Her intensity caught me by surprise.

  "What I mean," she said, "is that I see this as a crucial period for Melissa. Breaking away. Starting a new life. Not that I won't miss her of course I will. But I've finally gotten to a point where I can think of her the way I should have been doing all along. As the child.

  I've made tremendous progress, Dr. Delaware. I'm ready to take some really giant steps. Look at life differently. But I can't get Melissa to see that. I know she mouths the words, but she hasn't changed her behavior."

  "How would you like her to change?"

  "She overprotects me. Continues to hover. Ursula Dr. Cunningham-Gabney has tried to talk to her about it, but Melissa's unresponsive. The two of them seem to have a personality conflict.

  When I try to tell her how well I'm doing, she smiles, gives me a pat, and says "Great, Mom,' and walks away. Not that I blame her. I let her be the parent for so long. Now I'm paying for it."

  She lowered her gaze again, rested her brow in one hand, and sat that way for a long time. Then: "I haven't had an attack in over four weeks, Dr. Delaware. I'm seeing the world for the first time in a very long time, and I feel I can cope with it. It's like being born again. I don't want Melissa limiting herself because of me. What can I say to convince her?"

  "Sounds like you're saying the right things. She just may not be ready to hear them."

  "I don't want to come out and tell her I don't need her I could never hurt her that way. And it wouldn't be true. I do need her. The way any mother needs any daughter. I want us always to be close. And I'm not giving her mixed messages, Doctor believe me. Dr. Cunningham-Gabney and I have worked on that. Projecting clear communication. Missy just refuses to hear it."

  I said, "Part of the problem is that some of her conflict has nothing to do with you or your progress. Any eighteen-year-old would be anxious about leaving home for the first time. The life Melissa's led up till now the relationship between the two of you, the size of this place, the isolation makes moving out scarier for her than for the average freshman. By focusing on you, she doesn't have to deal with her own fears."

  "This place," she said, holding out her hands. "It's a monstrosity, isn't it? Arthur collected things, built himself a museum.

  A trace of bitterness. Then quick cover: "Not that he did it out of ego that wasn't Arthur. He was a lover of beauty. Believed in beautifying his world. And he did have exquisite taste. I have no feel for things. I can appreciate a fine painting when it's placed in front of me, but I'd never accumulate it's just not in my nature.

  "Would y
ou ever consider moving?"

  Faint smile. "I'm considering lots of things, Dr. Delaware.

  Once the door opens, it's hard not to step through. But we Dr. Cunningham-Gabney and I are working together to keep me in check, make sure I don't get ahead of myselfo I've still got a long way to go. And even if I was ready to dump everything and roam the world, I wouldn't do that to Melissa pull everything out from under her."