Claire and Present Danger

by Gillian Roberts

  Havermeyer’s immune system—at least when it confronted his own offensiveness—was iron-clad. He was still around, although since the day I discovered them, he badgered me less often and seldom met my glance directly. I hoped Helga had a record-breaking sexual harassment case going, suing the pants off the man—much more fun, I’d have to believe, than removing them for any other purpose—and that she’d make so much money, she’d never return to Philly Prep to darken my days and hoard my supplies.

  In the meantime, we had a sweet, though dim, replacement for the Witch: Sunshine Horowitz. (“That’s not my real name,” she’d trilled, making me think perhaps her name was actually Sunshine Jones, “but it’s what everybody’s called me since I was a teensy-weensy baby!”)

  “Miz Pepper!” she chirped. At the end of her first student-filled, undoubtedly chaotic day on the job, she didn’t appear frayed or fatigued. “How can I help you?”

  I was so unaccustomed to that kind of response from behind that desk, I was momentarily speechless. “This note?” I finally said.

  She glanced at it, then winked at me. “You like Sunshine-Brand Shorthand? I invented it all on my lonesome, and it’s real easy to read, and fun, right?”

  I tried to strike a casual, nonthreatening pose, but there was no place to rest an elbow or forearm. Sunshine collected tiny metal animals, all polished to a blinding gleam and heavy on unicorns. She made her office “homey,” she said, by lining them up on the center divide.

  “Ah,” I’d said upon first encountering them. “The brass menagerie. By Tennessee’s cousin Pennsylvania, perhaps?”

  Her eyes were the pale blue of empty sky, and my quip produced as much comprehension as a cloudless vista, despite her valiant smile. “States are related?” she asked. “Or is that some kind of joke?” Her smile remained wide and hopeful. Made me feel bad for confusing her.

  “Some kind of bad joke,” I’d said. “An English teacher sort of joke.”

  “Ahhh.” She nodded and gave a conspiratorial wink. Obviously, lots of incomprehensible jokes and comments had been made in her company, but I wasn’t going to add to them ever again if I could help it. She was too innocently, blankly happy, and it would be cruel, like hurting a kitten.

  The cure for Sunshine’s saccharine self was the memory of Helga scowling, refusing to allow me a new red pencil because it would deplete her stock of them. Sunshine didn’t scowl. Not ever.

  She was further confirmation of the wise saying “Be careful what you wish for.” If anybody ever asked for further confirmation.

  “There’s no name on the message,” I said.

  “No?” She wrinkled her nose and put a fake pout on her face. “Why is that?”

  I didn’t think I was really supposed to come up with an answer.

  “I know! I remember! I wasn’t given a name, that’s why!” And she giggled.

  “Maybe you were given initials?” I asked quietly.

  “Could be.” She shrugged and smiled. I let it go and, instead, pointed at the time on the message. The call had come in an hour and a half ago.

  Sunshine beamed that smile at me and nodded, proud, perhaps, to have written down what each line on the little form required.

  “It says ‘While You Were Out,’ but I was here the entire time,” I said.

  “They come from the store with that already written on it,” she said. “Should I have crossed it out?”

  “No, no. I meant . . . the messengers—those children who are here during the day, one or two per hour?—it’s sort of a tradition to have them carry messages. Bring messages up to the teachers. It doesn’t interrupt class or anything, and sometimes messages can be urgent.”

  She looked as if I’d given her a gift. “Thank you!” she said. “I had no idea, but now I do! Thanks again. People here are so incredibly kind!”

  I walked a few steps away and turned on my cell phone. Mackenzie had a class in an hour and was probably en route, but he also had a phone, so there was a chance he could explain what he’d meant—or what he’d actually said. And maybe after that, I’d try to help Sunshine understand that she had to include information even if she couldn’t turn every word into a rebus puzzle.

  “I told it all to that—who was that?” C. K. said.

  “I suspected as much,” I murmured.

  “Except the client’s address and name. Didn’t want to entrust anything serious.”

  He’s a wise man.

  “The woman’s a block from where you are. Other side of the square.” He’d upped the tempo of his sentences. I imagined him checking his watch, driving faster. “If you could do the interview, get all the information she has, a photo if you can—and more important, get a sense why she wants it. I need a feel for her.”

  “Fine. What’s it about?” I loved the unspoken words, that Mackenzie trusted me, was ready to rely on my take on the situation, and my evaluation of what I’d see and hear.

  “Need to make sure this isn’t a stalker case. She wasn’t all that forthcoming.”

  “Hasn’t she seen old movies? She’s supposed to swagger in, sit on the edge of your desk, cross her legs, and spill her guts or con you.”

  “She’s got physical problems. Incapable of swaggering.”

  I didn’t want to break the collegial mood by suggesting that a physically challenged stalker was, possibly, an oxymoron, although the concept of a stalker on a walker was almost entertaining enough to make it a worthwhile risk. “Do you think she didn’t want to meet up with you in person?”

  “That’s what you’ll find out.”

  I liked everything about this. About us. And about a stalker who wouldn’t leave home. Must be frustrating, to say the least.

  “Name’s Claire Fairchild,” he said. “Wants a background check.”

  Even better.

  “On her future daughter-in-law.”

  End of the investigative fantasy honeymoon. I was indignant on behalf of this unknown future daughter-in-law. The back of my neck heated in vicarious outrage as I imagined how I’d feel if I found out that Gabby Mackenzie had hired someone to check me out.

  “You there?”

  “Yes, but I hate the idea of—”

  “Of not being objective? Of taking only clients whose interests and activities dovetail with our worldview?”

  Nice of him to use the word our while he kindly reminded me that I’d vowed to be less judgmental and to understand that few investigators were nominated for the Nobel Prize, and that the Pennsylvania P.I.’s code of ethics doesn’t include “refusing to work with people whose behavior doesn’t appeal to you.” For some reason, they’d also left Honing to Amanda Pepper’s Personal Sense of What Is Right off the list of licensing prerequisites. A P.I. license was a business license, not a higher degree in philosophy.

  I’m familiar with all of this because more than once we’d discussed my likely need to dismount my high horse. But it had been theoretical then, and mostly a joke.

  “You have time for it?” Mackenzie asked with an edge of impatience. “Sorry to be rushed, but my class—”

  Of course I agreed, and I scribbled down the woman’s name and address.

  After I hung up, I was still thinking about pros and cons and ethics and investigating your son’s beloved, and my expression must have shown my disdain.

  “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?” Sunshine asked. This time, her smile was small, filled with hope, but not quite ready to commit. I hated frightening her, casting a shadow on her golden world. I envisioned the landscape of her mind with Disney-style supernatural sunbeams crisscrossing one another and, on each, a bluebird, warbling.

  “Everything’s perfect,” I said. “In fact, I just got some good news.” The good news was: This mother-in-law from hell wasn’t mine.

  Three

  I’D passed this solid old building countless times, and many of those times, I’d stopped to admire its concrete ornamentation—cornucopias and wreaths, stone grape clusters, bouquets of rose
s—an unabashed stony hosanna to abundance and pleasure.

  This afternoon, I didn’t pause for a long examination. It was still too hot to willingly dawdle outside. The air trembled and lay low, vibrating with hidden electrical charges in the dark clouds. But even if I hadn’t been hoping there’d be air-conditioned relief inside, I was eager to see Mrs. Fairchild’s home, having long speculated what the pre–WW II apartments looked like.

  For starters, how lush to have the elevator stop at one’s front door instead of open onto a long corridor. This was Claire Fairchild’s floor, every parqueted inch of it, including the blue and ruby Oriental rug outside a door that looked newly lacquered with layers of a shimmering cream. The brass NO SMOKING plaque next to the buzzer seemed anachronistic in these lush, prewar surrounds.

  When the cream door was opened, Mrs. Fairchild’s condo proved one of the few things that turned out to be exactly as I’d fantasized it. High ceilings, carved crown moldings, mellow wood paneling, herringboned inlay floors with more jewel-toned Persian rugs. And that was only the foyer.

  “Lovely,” I couldn’t help but say to the housekeeper, even though I wasn’t sure whether my private eyes were supposed to notice architectural niceties.

  The housekeeper was the roundest woman I’d ever seen. She was tiny and apparently pregnant with someone huge, and her unborn child occupied all the space available from her chin to her thighs. “Mrs. Fairchild, she waits for you in living room,” she said. “You see no smoke sign, yes? You wear perfume?”

  It took a while to sort out her unmatched facts and questions. “I don’t smoke, no,” I said. “I do wear perfume, but I’m not wearing it now.”

  “Perfume make Mrs. Fairchild sick.” She turned away from me.

  I followed her, amazed she could walk this briskly, or, in fact, move at all. It looked as if it would be easier for her to roll.

  I wondered if Claire Fairchild had environmental allergies, although this carpeted and draped home was anything but the stark-surfaced clean room I thought such sufferers required.

  The living room’s street-side wall was almost entirely tall French windows that, on a nicer day, would probably have been open onto a balcony edged with a filigreed, art deco railing. Despite the gunmetal light this afternoon, the room sparked and glowed with carved and polished surfaces.

  And it was air-conditioned. I took a deep breath and relaxed into it.

  A sandy-haired man in his forties wearing jeans and a plaid shirt sat in a wing chair near the French windows. He looked pleasantly worn out and faded, like much-used leather, but that could have been the light. Across from him, in a matching chair, a woman, shiny dark hair framing her face, smiled at me. She was more elegantly turned out than the man, dressed in a long-sleeved blouse with ruffled lace cuffs and collar, close-fitting black slacks, and soft boots, giving her the appearance of a nineteenth-century poet. I wondered if the two people had arrived together, as they looked as if they’d set out for separate destinations.

  Only then did I notice the older woman in a chair turned away from me, toward the windows and the couple. She leaned sideways, nodding and smiling a welcome. I walked over and shook her hand.

  Claire Fairchild was a delicately made white-haired woman in an ethereal blue dress that looked knitted of fibers so fine, they might sigh and melt away. Her earrings matched a long strand of pearls, and both echoed the tones of her hair, and she wore dainty, impractical blue shoes meant for a night on the town, dancing.

  She seemed a suitable accessory for her environment’s gracious elegance. The only discordant note in the entire room was the portable oxygen tank that stood at the ready next to her chair.

  “Forgive me for not getting up,” she said. “I save my air for talk. Hot day like this—tried to go outside . . .” She shook her head slowly side to side. “Delighted to . . .” She paused, deciding, too obviously, how to address and present me. “. . . see you again, Miss Pepper,” she finally said. “I’d like you to meet my son, Leo.”

  The fair-haired man half-rose and put out his hand, which I shook. “Pleasure,” he said rapidly, ducking his head in a shy bow. A man apparently not overly comfortable in social situations.

  “And I’m Emmie,” the girl dressed like a Romantic poet said. “Glad to meet you. I’m Leo’s fiancée.” She didn’t seem to mind that no one had remembered to introduce her.

  I shook her hand. “I’m Amanda,” I said. “Glad to meet you.” Her smile was so all-encompassing and warm, it felt like a hug of greeting.

  “Sit,” the housekeeper said, not unpleasantly, pointing at a love seat across from Mrs. Fairchild, who, in turn, gestured at the table between us, which had a French press filled with coffee. “You can go now, Batya.”

  The housekeeper waddled out. Claire Fairchild redirected her attention to me. Her movements were slow, and she spoke with deliberation, possibly weighing how much breath any given word required. “Coffee?” she asked, and I nodded and watched her pour.

  She passed me the cup. “My son and Emma—”

  “Emmie,” the young woman said softly.

  “Emmie, then, came to tell me they’ve set a wedding date.”

  “Congratulations.” I glanced again at the poet with the radiant smile, she who I was supposed to investigate. Poor baby. “I wish you all the best.”

  Silence followed. We all knew what was missing: an explanation for who I was and why I was there.

  “Miss Pepper,” Claire Fairchild said, “is my reader.”

  “Your what?” Her son’s eyebrows and general level of interest both rose.

  “Reader. You know how tired I can get. She suggested reading to me, so I could close my eyes and—”

  Bad choice, I thought. Bad, bad choice. Hadn’t she heard of books on tape? And why would she have hired a reader this afternoon when she didn’t seem tired and was handling the coffee service without stress. She could hold a book if she could fill my coffee cup.

  Nevertheless, I nodded and smiled agreement. Her son and future daughter-in-law returned my smile with visible reservations, and I didn’t blame them.

  “We met in the Square.” Claire Fairchild gazed proudly at me as if I were a precocious child or a puppy she’d discovered.

  “Have you two done this before?” Leo asked his mother.

  “Many times.”

  “I never knew you had secrets, “ he said with a smile that he probably intended to indicate humor, but didn’t, quite. “I never took you for a reader, least of all for someone who loved it so much, you’d hire somebody to help with it. What other secrets are you keeping behind our backs?”

  I could have told him a whopper of one.

  Mrs. Fairchild almost laughed, as if his words had been funny, but ridiculous, but controlled the impulse, looking as if laughing hurt her lungs. I considered what a sad lot in life that would be.

  “Is that your line of work, then, Miss Pepper?” Leo Fairchild asked. “You’re a professional . . . reader?”

  “Oh, no. Wish I could be, but it’s simply auxiliary funds. We, uh, met by chance, but it’s a business of sorts. I advertise in that local paper—the throwaway you get? Amazing how many grown-ups still love to be read to.” I was being a bad liar, saying way too much, embellishing the lie in ways that could be exposed.

  “What a clever idea, though,” the fiancée said. “And what a luxurious, delicious way to spend an afternoon.”

  “Quite different, I think, from tape-recorded books,” I said. “This is personal.” Even I didn’t know what I meant. I drank more coffee to keep me from more verbal nonsense.

  “Then what else is it you said you do?” Leo Fairchild was awkward, but smart, and not easily put off track. His concern on behalf of his mother was obvious and sincere.

  “I teach school, and you know how poorly teachers are paid, and I like reading, so—”

  “What is it you teach?” He’d seemed faded and pale when I first saw him, but now I thought he’d simply been withdrawn for some r
eason. Now, his forcefulness and will were obvious. He even looked younger. He didn’t trust me. He probably thought I was here to scam his mother, and he didn’t care if I knew it.

  “English.” I try to lie by telling as much truth as possible.

  “Where?” he demanded.

  “Right—other side of the Square. Philly Prep.”

  “An English teacher! No wonder you like to read, then,” the Poet said. “What a nice thing to do, too. Like having a friend visit, I’d think. You must love it, Mother Fairchild.” She was going out of her way to put me at ease, and of the three of them, I liked her best so far, and realized I was building a grudge against the woman who wanted this sweet woman investigated. My client.

  Leo stood up, and his bride-to-be followed suit. “I hope you don’t think us rude to rush off,” he said in a tone that suggested he really didn’t care what I thought, “but we were about to leave right before you arrived, and given that you and Mother have this . . . well . . . appointment, we’ll say goodbye now.”

  I wished them well again, and watched as they kissed the white-haired woman farewell. Nothing more was said until we heard the front door click.

  “The coffee’s still hot,” Claire Fairchild then said. “You could use a refill.” She leaned forward to pour me a cup.

  “I could serve my—” I said.

  “So can I,” she said carefully, continuing to pour.

  I studied her, and although she was paying attention to the coffee, I knew she was giving me the same careful dissection. “Sorry about that lame excuse,” she said. “But you didn’t seem to have any cover story of your own.”

  “I didn’t know what to cover,” I answered honestly. “I hadn’t known I’d need to cover.”

  “But you did well, once you knew the situation. I like that. Your story about teaching—that was a clever thing to come up with on the spot. Do you think they believed it?”