She herself, Millie said, proceeding with her saga, had happily managed to escape her mother's domination.
"I was lucky. I broke away. I didn't need Mama so much, so I was able to stand up to her and make my break. But Bev couldn't do that. She needed Mama desperately. And so she got her, perhaps more of her in the end than she ever bargained for. I think Bev paid an awful price for her need. Mama used her terribly. She twisted and distorted whatever possible chance at happiness Bev might have had. I'll say it again because I believe it's true. Victoria, our mother, truly ruined Bev's life."
There was, Millie said, a kind of bizarre "contract" between her older sister and her mother, a contract which, although unspoken, was as binding and as forceful as if it had been cut in stone. Its basic terms were starkly simple: Victoria would live her life to the hilt, laugh, be beautiful, glamorous, thin, successful, and, most important, a sexually active and satisfied woman. Beverly, on the other hand, would be depressed, unhappy, plain, mousy, fat, mediocre, and asexual so as never to compete. And as in any personal services contract, there was a schedule of compensation: In return for not competing with her mother, Beverly would be "loved." "It was a real lousy deal," Millie said. "The love Bev got was second-rate. Because the only person Mama was capable of loving was-yeah, you guessed it, Mama."
Millie excused herself. When she returned a few minutes later, it was with a tray, several glasses, bottles of beer, and a bowl of nuts.
"Have you met Bev, Lieutenant?"
Janek nodded. "I interviewed her a couple of times."
"How did she strike you?"
"Unhappy, plain, asexual-pretty much the way you just described."
"Well, you may find this hard to believe," Millie said, "but she was quite handsome as a girl. Still, I bet it's been twenty years since she's had a date. See, the more time she spent with Mama, the fatter and plainer she got. Then, when she dyed her hair red, it came out blah rather than glossy like Mama's. When they'd stand together near the end of Mama's life, they looked more like sisters than even Bev and me. Mama had had her face lifted several times, and Bev had really let herself go. Beautiful Vicky and drab Bev-the Archer girls. God!" Millie believed that even though Bev worshiped their mother, she at times also hated her for imposing the awful contract. But every time Bev tried to break away, Victoria would pull her back.
"Can you imagine?" Millie asked. "Can you imagine how wasteful and stupid it is to allow your mother to rule your life?"
It was a rhetorical question, Janek realized; he made no effort to respond to it.
"I think that was Bev's tragedy," Millie said, "that she had a chance to live for herself, and in the end she wasted it."
Their father, Jack Archer, had been a distant figure. He and Victoria had married young and split up early, just after Millie was born. Jack, an engineer, had moved to Chicago, remanied, and started a second family. The girls had had very little contact with him, though Victoria had received substantial child support. Both girls were bright and had no trouble getting into Ashley-Bumett.
Meantime, Victoria launched her career as a singer. Her success was instantaneous.
"Mama had an excellent voice. She was an accomplished singer. But there's plenty of good singers around. What Mama had that was extra was her incredible style. She could take a standard, a song everyone knew, and dramatize it, make it passionate. She knew how to reach people, put a song across. The glamorous nightclub singer-that was her public face. But there was so much more to her than what she showed her fans. Behind all the beauty and glamour there was one very hard-boiled lady. She was a great injustice collector, you know.
Cross her and she'd never forgive. She had a kind of personal code, the gist of which went something like: If someone wrongs you, don't ever forget it. Nurse your anger and your hurt until it turns to bitterness and hate. But (and this was probably her most important tenet) never, never let your hatred show."
Millie sat back on the couch, her arms hanging limply. She had expended great energy describing her sister and mother; now she seemed exhausted.
Janek decided it was time to focus the interview. "Could Bev have inherited your mother's code?"
"Possibly." Millie smiled. "Oh, hell! I've told you this much. Why not the rest? Sure, she inherited it. Mama taught it to her. It became her code, too, for God's sakes."
In the last few years of her life Victoria started going mad. At least Millie thought she did. Beverly did not agree. For all her sister's background in psychology, her training and experience as a therapist, she refused to see what was obvious to all Victoria's friends-namely, that the singer was being eaten up by her hate.
"Eight years ago, when Mama died suddenly of a stroke, she was only fifty-five years old. But in the last five years of her life she carried on sometimes like a lunatic. At the lounge she'd be fine, her glamorous self. But in the afternoons before work she'd lie out on the chaise in her living room at the Alhambra Hotel, ranting and raving at the world. Out of nowhere she'd bring up someone's name, an old ]over maybe or someone else she thought had done her wrong. Then she'd start in.
Curses, pronouncements, spiteful value judgments. 'He's a pfick.'
'She's a shit.' That kind of vulgar talk. And when she said something like that, it was usually about someone who really hadn't done anything particularly wrong. A man might have forgotten to send flowers, or one of her girlfriends might have forgotten to return a call. Trivial offenses to which she had these ludicrous reactions.
It was truly awful to listen to. Meantime, there was Bev flying in from New York practically every weekend, rushing over to Mama's, listening to all her garbage, taking it all in, nodding her agreement.
Sometimes Bev would stop by to see me afterwards. 'Isn't Mama wonderful!' she'd say. 'Aren't we lucky to have such a talented and brilliant ma!' God! The sick way she worshiped that woman, the weird way they fed off each other's madness." Millie peered straight into Janek's eyes. "I guess by now you know that's what I think: that Bev got as crazy as Mama in the end…
The time had come, Janek thought, to put some tough questions to Millie.
"Did your sister ever have a run-in with a teacher at Ashley-Bumett?"
Millie smiled. "Sure. An old spinster English teacher. She was my teacher, too."
"Bertha Parce?" Aaron asked.
Millie nodded. "I'm amazed you know her name."
"What about two men named MacDonald-did she ever have any trouble with them?" "Jimmy and Stu MacDonald? You call them men! they were just boys when I knew them. I think they moved east. That's what I heard anvwav." "What happened?" "God oniv kno%,t-s. lt'*'hate%@er it was. Bev v%-as sensitive about it. Whenever their names came up, she'd start to act real antsy, then try and change the subject."
"Cynthia Morse?"
"Her roommate at Bennington. Yeah, they had a big falling-out. But I don't understand- Lieutenant." Millie smiled curiously. "How do you know about all of these people?"
"Let's hold off on that for now. I want to ask you about some others." Millie nodded. "Do the names Laura and Anthony Scotto fing a bell?" "I don't think so. No."
Janek glanced at Aaron. "What about Wexler-Carla and Robert Wexler?"
Millie shook her head. Then she stopped shaking it. "Wait a minute!
There was a Bobby Wexler."
Aaron smiled slightly. "Who was he?"
"A musician. Mama's accompanist one summer. There were so many of those guys. She went through them pretty fast. But I remember Bobby. It was the summer Mama sang at Cavendish. He was practically a kid. Actually I think he and Mama were involved. She usually screwed her piano players. That's probably why she tired of them so fast. "
"Do you think you'd recognize this Bobby Wexler if you saw him again?"
"I might," Millie said.
Aaron showed her a photograph of the Wexler fwnily taken several months before they were slaughtered. Millie studied it. "Yeah, that's him," she said. "It's been years, but the smile's the same, the old
lecherous smile." She looked up at Janek. "Yeah, it's him, I'm sure. Now are you going to tell me what this is all about?"
"While you're at it, show her the picture of the Scottos," Janek gently instructed Aaron.
Aaron showed Millie the picture. they both watched as she studied it. "I may have seen the woman," Millie said. "What's her first name again?" :,Laura." 'And she was married to this guy?" Aaron nodded. "Do you know her maiden name?"
Aaron checked his notebook. "Laura Gabelli."
Millie nodded. "I may have seen her. Around Tufts University, I think. Bev transferred there from Bennington. Did you know about that?" they didn't know. Millie filled them in. It was after the big falling-out with Cynthia Morse. Bev took a year off, came back to Cleveland, took a job as an aide at a psychiatric hospital, then for the next two years attended Tufts, where she majored in psychology. After that she moved back to Cleveland to et her doctorate at Western Reserve.
"Do you know of any falling-out she might have had with this Laura Gabelli?" Aaron asked.
"No. But it wouldn't surprise me. Just like Mama, Bev had fallings-out with damn near everyone." Millie paused. "Look, guys-all these questions about the two of them, then all these old names of people Bev didn't like. You're scaring me a little bit. I think the time's come for you to explain."
She looked to Janek, then to Aaron, and then back to Janek again. There was something so open and vulnerable about her that Janek was hesitant to fill her in. But he knew he had to. He owed her that, and he could see that she was the kind of person who'd rather know the truth, no matter how harsh, then be lied to or kept in the dark.
"Bertha Parce, the MacDonalds, Cynthia Morse an her two daughters, the Wexler family, and the Scotto family all had one thing in commofi," he said. "they all were murdered within the past fourteen months by a woman named Diana Proctor, who also happened to be your sister's patient."
Millie, mouth partly open, gazed at Janek. For a moment she appeared to be relieved. Then, abruptly, she sat up, as if the implications of what he'd said had hit her like a blow.
"But you don't really think-! I mean, you couldn't possibly believe-!" Her forehead creased; her pupils dilated. "You think Bev had something to do with… that Bev may have directed-?" And then: "You do think that, don't you? Yes, I see you do." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh, my God!" Millie Cannaday began to scream. Her shrieks of anguish echoed through the house. they stayed with her until she calmed down. Then Janek explained to her that yes, Beverly was a suspect, although so far no more than that.
He and Aaron had come to Cleveland, he explained, on account of the portrait of her mother, which they'd seen in Beverly's bedroom. Certain objects, taken from the homicide victims, had been arranged in what seemed to be votive offering style before the painting. Thus the question arose as to whether Victoria Archer had in some way been the inspiration for the Wallflower murders. Janek readily admitted that such a theory must seem farfetched; he was certainly not prepared to tell Millie her sister was a murderess. Still, the case remained open. By the way, did Millie know anything about the portrait?
"The full-length one of Mama in her red dress? Sure, I know about it. A man named Peter Aretzsky painted it about twelve years ago.
It took up a whole wall of Mama's bedroom."
"Your sister inherited it?" Millie smiled. "Bev wanted that picture something awful. That, Mama's red dress, her miniature piano, and her big old four-poster bed." Millie rolled her eyes. "Bev always had her eye on the picture. She loved it, said it showed Mama the way she really was. Which is pretty funny… considering. You see, there's a story behind that painting." Millie turned to Aaron. "Are you taking him to see Melissa Walters?" Aaron nodded. "Ask her about the painting, Lieutenant. She can fill you in about that and a lot of other stuff. She was Mama's best friend..
. if in fact, Mama ever had one."
"Shit! She knew Bobby Wexler and Laura Scotto. That's proof she lied to us, Frank. So we got her, don't we?" Aaron hit the steering wheel with delight. "I'm starting to feel good about this case." they were back in their rental car, driving to their final appointment of the day. The snow had stopped falling. Although it was only four-thirty, the sky was already turning dark.
Janek wasn't sure that proof of Beverly's lies quite meant that they'd "got her." But he did think it might be enough to persuade Kit to grant them more time. So far the trip to Cleveland was working out.
Now how the hell am I going to get a confession? he wondered.
The lobby of the Alhambra Residential Hotel was a Moorish fantasy, a pastiche of thick walls, Arab col umns, C6rdoba arches, a central courtyard embracing a fountain, and a rectangular tiled pool stocked with carp.
Built in the late 1920s as a luxury establishment, the hotel was so well constructed that even now, after years of wear, it still emitted an aura of luxury and class. Palms planted in large teffa-cotta pots occupied the comers. Ceiling fans,- still now that it was winter, stood poised to whirl and cool perspiring guests. A creaking elevator, paneled in mahogany and trimmed with brass, took them to the fifth floor. Here they followed a corridor, one side open to the courtyard, until they reached the door to Melissa Walters's suite.
A short old lady opened up, a lady who clearly did not wish her visitors to find her old. Her hair was blued, her forehead was powdered, her cheeks were rouged, her eyebrows were drawn, and her lips were waxed bright scarlet. Melissa Walters showed the soft smile and refined social mannerisms of another era.
It was so exciting to meet real live detectives! Would the gentlemen like something to drink? Port? Sherry? She had some fine old Madeira@ould she tempt them with that? And she had taken the liberty of ordering in some prepared cana@s, as well as a good selection of cookies from Damons, Cleveland's finest bakery.
Melissa Walters settled into her favorite chair.
Oh, yes, she remembered Vicky Archer. My goodness, they'd been the best of friends! Impossible to forget her. A great entertainer, a great personality. She'd been the life of this city for a time. Had the gentlemen been to the Fairmount Club Lounge? Perhaps they should go down there and take a look. Not that the place was anything now but a shadow of its former self. Still, at one time, not too long ago either, the lounge had been Cleveland's premier night spot and Vicky Archer had been its most glittering star. But please forgive her. She was rambling; she knew she was. She apologized for that. She had so few visitors these days, most of her friends having passed away. Vicky had been one of the first. It was tragic the way she died so suddenly and so young. They'd been confidantes even though she, Melissa, was fifteen years Vicky's senior.
Oh, they'd had some great times together, wonderful times…
What? What was that they were asking? The painting, Aretzsky's painting? Of course, she remembered it! She'd seen it practically every day. Whenever she visited Vicky's suite, just two doors down the hall. A story? Oh, yes, there was a story about that picture, a scandal if they wanted to know the truth. Oh, they did, did they? What sly devils they were! Well, certainly, she'd tell them about it. In fact, it would be a pleasure. But would the gentlemen take a glass of Madeira first…?
Janek and Aaron accepted her glasses of Madeira. they even licked their lips over her delicate canap6s and grinned foolishly as they nibbled on her tasty little cookies. Anything to keep the old lady talking.
Janek, who'd conducted thousands of interviews over the course of his career, recognized that Melissa Walters was a potential gold mine of information. If there was a secret about Beverly and Victoria, a secret even deeper than what he and Aaron had managed to dig up so far, this lady might reveal it if she were handled carefully enough. The way she sang Victoria Archer's praises suggested a profound ambivalence.
He had picked up on undertones of anger, envy, even dislike.
"Aretzsky! Ha!" Melissa's scarlet painted lips parted in a smile. "He was smitten by her, of course. Utterly smitten! He would come around the lounge every night just to see her, watch her move, liste
n to her sing, perhaps be so fortunate as to be the recipient of one of her ravishing smiles. He was an excellent painter as it happened, probably Cleveland's best. But so temperamental! He'd refuse to paint a person he didn't like. He lost out on a lot of lucrative corporate work on account of that little peccadillo. Still, Aretzsky was your first choice if you wanted your portrait done. That's how he got Vicky's attention… although he didn't hold it very long." Melissa asked if she could refresh their drinks.
When they shook their heads, she shrugged and poured herself a double.
"I remember the night Aretzsky presented her with some drawings, quick little sketches he'd made of her right there in the lounge. She liked them, of course. She was no fool. And when he told her he wanted to paint her in oil, big, life size, maybe even bigger than life size, she certainly did not refuse him although she may have pretended to waver a little bit. Well, then he had her; at least he thought he did, the idiot! She began going to his studio to sit every afternoon. That dreary dump he lived in, near the lounge down at Camegie and One Hundred Fourth, up four flights to a big, undusted room with his easel and messy paints at one end and his awful, smelly unmade bed at the other. they made love on that bed, of course.
Vicky always knew how to inspire a man! I know he made nude sketches of her. She showed them to me once. But the big painting was the thing. Vicky in her red dress surrounded by a halo of reddish light. That's how they always lit her down at the lounge, you see. Oh, he made her look terrific-vibrant, bursting with energy and life. She was always glamorous, but he doubled her glamour. He idealized her. It was a picture painted by a lover. You couldn't look at it and fail to see that."
Melissa spread her arms. "Poor Aretzsky! That ugly, little, shrunken waif of a man with his bad skin and little wisp of a mustache@id he really think he was good enough to hold the interest of the Great Victoria Archer? Poor idiot! She ditched him, of course, soon as she got her mitts on his painting. Then he was hearthroken, or perhaps worse-a man destroyed. He started to become a nuisance, too. Long, reproachful, beseeching stares at the lounge. Silent phone calls to her suite in the middle of the night. He must have sent her fifty letters drenched in tears. She didn't bother to open them; just a glance at the envelopes and she'd toss them in the trash. I remember seeing him hanging around the stage door at the lounge or here, in front of the Alhambra, hoping to beg a precious moment of her time.
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