Lady Vanishes

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  “All she said was ‘Pain,’” I said, my voice still choked with tears. “But I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?”

  “I do indeed. And breathing without the ventilator?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve been praying for her, asking our dear Lord to bring her back to us.”

  I nodded again.

  “She’s the backbone of this place, Rachel. She knows everything, and quietly, never tooting her own horn like some might, she keeps things running smoothly. She’s there for us, too, for the staff. But her way with the patients, it’s uncanny, always knowing when a person can handle more responsibility. She’s always had more faith in them than anyone. I myself tend to baby them. It’s not good for them, she’d say to me. Now Molly, you know they need to do every possible thing, every possible thing they can for themselves. It’s what gives a body self-esteem, she told me many a time. Because I needed to be told it more than once, that’s for sure.

  “She was hired to take the phone calls, that one, to see who was coming in the front door. No one knew what else she’d be doing for us all.”

  “Molly, do you think she’ll be—”

  “Hush, you. Don’t you even think anything else. What would happen to the lot of us without her? Of course she’ll be all right. She’ll be returned to us. And look at you, shaking like a leaf. What are you doing up all night, worrying about everyone else and not taking a lick of care of yourself?”

  I couldn’t answer. I drank some more water instead.

  “He knows what’s best,” she said. I thought she was talking about God again, our Lord, but when she stopped talking, all there was besides the whir of the air conditioner was the wheezy sound of Dashiell snoring, and I knew that Dashiell was the he she’d been referring to because she was laying me down in her bed, still warm from her body, and pulling the blanket over me. I thought I should be asking her where she would sleep, but I don’t think I did. All I remember was the sensation of going backward, as if I were falling in my sleep.

  When I opened my eyes, I could see the little room, neat as the dollhouse of an obsessive-compulsive child, light coming in from the windows washing over the pale blue cotton blanket that covered me. There was a small bureau covered with framed photographs opposite the bed, a rocking chair with a small table and a lamp in the corner, and not an article of clothing or a scrap of paper anywhere to be seen.

  I lay there for a moment, just gathering my thoughts, and when I stretched my arms and legs, I felt something large and warm at the end of the bed. Molly wasn’t here with me, but Dashiell was.

  I pushed the blanket back, saw my shoes lined up next to the bed, and, ignoring them for the moment, walked over to the bureau in my stocking feet to look at Molly’s photo collection, which turned out to be pictures of the boys: Nathan graduating from college, holding his diploma and looking straight at the camera, Nathan the serious; and Samuel, his eyes closed, his brow covered in sweat, leading an orchestra, or more likely, a small band of developmentally disadvantaged singers. Samuel with rabbit ears?

  I took the photo with me and turned on the lamp as the door opened and Molly appeared, still in her robe, holding a tray of food.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” she said.

  “Where did you sleep?”

  “On the couch in Venus’s office. It’s very comfortable, and there’s a blanket and pillow in the cabinet because sometimes Venus stays over. You’re not to worry about putting me out, Rachel. I was fine, and I’m glad you didn’t go back out in the night at that hour. It’s not safe out there.”

  It’s not safe in here, either, I thought as Molly turned to put the tray down in the middle of the bed.

  “Come and sit here with me. We’ll have some tea. Do you feel a bit better, child?”

  The photo still in my hand, I walked over and sat at the foot of the bed, next to Dashiell, who hadn’t gotten up.

  “I’m sorry about this. He does it at home, so—”

  “You’ve nothing to apologize for, neither one of you. It’s where Lady slept, and no doubt he knew that. She slept right where Dashiell is, keeping my feet warm, the dear thing.”

  Molly sat at the head of the bed. The tray was between us. I thought she’d pour the tea, but suddenly her face screwed up, and she was reaching under her hip, fishing around, and then pulling something out she’d sat on, holding it up so that the light of the lamp made it glitter and shine.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  For a moment, I froze.

  Clearly, it hadn’t been in Molly’s bed before I’d spent part of the night there.

  But had she ever seen it on Venus?

  There was only one way to go with this, I thought, leaving the necklace in Molly’s hand instead of reaching for it. Instead, I looked down at the tray, then poured a cup of tea.

  “Is this yours?” she asked.

  “No,” I told her. There was no cream or sugar on the tray, so I held out the cup of black tea, meeting her eyes now. “It belongs to Venus.”

  “Is that so?” she asked, taking the heart between two fingers and turning it over. “It’s hers, Venus’s, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  Molly looked up at me, still holding the diamond heart, the chain dangling down from her hand, the cup of tea between us in my outstretched hand.

  “It’s very much like one Mrs. Dietrich had.”

  I put down the cup and glanced at the photo I’d put on the bed next to me, at Samuel, in what I’d thought were rabbit ears, perhaps doing Easter songs with the kids. Then I poured a cup of tea for myself, taking a sip and reaching out for the necklace.

  “It is hers, Mrs. Dietrich’s,” I said. “Rather, it was.”

  “But how did—”

  “Harry gave it to her.”

  “I don’t—”

  “They were in love, Molly. They were married.” I watched her doughy cheeks flush and tremble, saw the disbelief in her eyes.

  “Venus and Mr. Dietrich.”

  I nodded. If Venus thought it was Molly who might be listening when she was on the phone, well, unless she’d studied at the Actors Studio, I’d say it wasn’t.

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “There’s a lot going on here that’s hard to understand, Molly. The fact that two lonely people with the same devotion fell in love is the easiest thing to comprehend. Why he’s dead and she’s in the hospital, that’s another story.”

  “But—”

  “Here’s the question that I believe you could answer best, Molly. I found the necklace in David’s hand last night. He was holding it in his sleep.”

  “David?”

  I nodded.

  I could see Molly struggling with all the new information.

  “Nathan says David is the one who hit Venus, that he’s been violent before. Venus also told me that he gets violent sometimes. In fact, she said that if he made me uncomfortable, I didn’t have to work with him.”

  “But he’s never hurt anyone intentionally. With the exception of himself, that is.” Molly picked up her cup and drank some tea. “He’s pushed people, who’ve then fallen. But it was only to defend himself from what he thought was danger. Not too many people can understand how easily he goes on overload, how frightened he is most all of the time. I suppose he could have pushed Venus,” she said, as much to herself as to me. Then she looked me right in the eye. “No—impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Venus knew him better than anyone. She’d never go that route with him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’d never pressure him. It’s when he’s pressed that he reacts.”

  “Like when he was questioned by the police?”

  “Exactly. And who did he hurt? The officer? No—himself.”

  “So he’s never attacked anyone.”

  Molly shook her head.

  “Then how do you explain the fact that he had this?” I held up the necklace.<
br />
  “Well, I can tell why he’d want it, but not how he got it.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s the sparkle. That’s why he stands at the front door all day, looking up. It’s the stained glass he loves, the way the light comes through the colored glass. It seems to mesmerize him. Perhaps it gives him a way to block out all the rest, the jumble that makes no sense to him.

  “All of them, those with autism, they create rituals, patterns of behavior that give them a little peace. For David, it’s watching the light dance. That’s what works for him. That, and the dog.”

  “You mean Lady?”

  “Yes. She helped, too. She was the best thing that ever happened in that man’s life.”

  “So you don’t think David would have struck Venus? Not even to get the necklace?”

  “No, Rachel, I don’t.”

  “Would he have taken it from her after she was hit, when she was lying on the ground?”

  “The catch looks broken. Pulled apart.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Then your answer is no. He wouldn’t have pulled it from her neck like that. But if he saw it on the rug, if the light hit it and made it shine, then he would have picked it up and taken it, yes.”

  “Nathan didn’t tell you it was David?”

  “No, he didn’t. He said she’d fallen. He’d know better than to tell me a story like that.”

  I nodded. The story had been for my benefit. What did that mean? Was it part of the policy of protection? If so, and it wasn’t David who’d hit Venus, then who was Nathan protecting?

  I reached behind me for the picture of Samuel in his rabbit ears.

  “He made those himself,” Molly said. “Anything to make the music sound better.”

  Easter songs, I’d thought. Rabbit ears. So they were headphones with antennae sticking up from each ear. That’s what the artist had drawn in that funny-looking picture on the back of Venus’s door, the one in which I thought someone had spoons sticking out of his or her head.

  I looked at the picture and smiled. It’s amazing what you can come up with when you don’t know what you’re looking at.

  “He should have studied music, not medicine,” Molly said. “But like most boys, he wanted his father’s approval. He wanted to be like him, anything to get closer, to feel accepted.”

  “And Nathan? What did he do to win his daddy’s heart?”

  “Nathan? Why, not a thing. It was always his. He was always the favorite. You know how that is.”

  I put down the photograph and picked up my tea, cold by now, and bitter too. Then I opened my hand and looked at Venus’s necklace, seeing something I hadn’t seen before. I got up and moved over to the lamp, holding my hand right in the light. Yes, there was a part of the chain that wasn’t shiny. It was dark.

  “Do you have a tissue, Molly?”

  “I do,” she said.

  She opened the top drawer of her nightstand and took one out. I took it, dipped it in the water glass, and pulled the damp tissue along the dark part of the chain, Molly and I both watching closely as the chain got shiny again and the tissue came away brownish red.

  “Molly,” I said, “how is it you recognized this necklace?”

  “It was her favorite, Rachel, Mrs. Dietrich’s. Leastways, she wore it all the time.”

  “But I thought she hardly ever came here.”

  “She didn’t. But she and Mr. Dietrich used to come to the house, in Brooklyn, back when I lived there and took care of the boys.”

  “You mean they socialized with Dr. Kagan?”

  “Not often. Just for the holidays, birthday parties, special occasions, like family. The boys called them Uncle Harry and Aunt Marilyn, just as if they were blood relations.”

  “And recently?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve been here since the boys grew up and moved out on their own.”

  “Where do they live, the boys?”

  “Oh, still in Brooklyn,” she said, sitting down on the bed. I sat next to her. “It’s too pricey around here. Did you see the signs on those new buildings going up? Everything’s a luxury building now, and I wonder where they find all those folk with so much money to spend on housing, half a million dollars and more, just for a place to live. Must be all those Wall Streeters, young people that make more money than they know what to do with. No, the boys still live in Brooklyn, just like their father. Why, it’s only three-quarters of an hour or so on the subway. Half a million dollars. My word.”

  “They’re sensible.”

  “Indeed they are.”

  I slipped the necklace back into my pocket and tossed the wet tissue into Molly’s wastebasket.

  “Molly, were you here the day Harry got hit by the bicycle?”

  “I’m always here, Rachel. Well, most always. But I didn’t see the accident, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I was wondering something else. I was wondering who else might have been around during the day, you know, before the accident.”

  “The boys were both in. In fact, the others were here, too, come to think of it.”

  “Which others?”

  “Marilyn’s sister, Mrs. Poole, and her son and daughter. They’d come to see Mr. Dietrich about something.”

  “Did you overhear any of what they were talking about?”

  “Oh, I don’t go around repeating—”

  “I wouldn’t tell a soul,” I whispered.

  “I mind my own business,” she said, drawing her robe tighter. “I wouldn’t know what they were yelling about.”

  “They were yelling?”

  Molly leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Both times it was coming from Mr. Dietrich’s office.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the first time was after lunch. Charlotte had brought her gloves and earmuffs down with her. She was just dying for a little walk. It cheers her so. So I’d gone to tell Venus that I was taking her out. She asked us to do that, to always let her know when we were leaving the building with one of the kids. But when I knocked, she wasn’t there. It was Mrs. Poole’s voice I heard that time, from all the way down the other end of the lobby.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. She was shouting. All I heard was, ‘Well, she was my sister. I’m sure she meant—’” She stopped in midsentence.

  “That’s all?”

  “Mr. Dietrich interrupted her.”

  “How?”

  “By bellowing, ‘How would you know what she intended?’”

  “And then?”

  “Well, that was all. You certainly don’t think I stayed around to hear more?”

  I shook my head.

  “Of course not. Anyways, nothing else was said for a while.”

  I looked at her.

  “I was merely making sure the child’s earmuffs were on properly. If they don’t cover her ears, they can’t do her a bit of good, can they?”

  “And there was another time that day? Was that also Mrs. Poole?”

  “I’d gone to fetch David away from the front door. And again there was shouting coming from Mr. Dietrich’s office. It’s not like I was trying to hear what they were saying. It’s just that—”

  “What?”

  “Well, he was so loud. You couldn’t help hearing him. It even made David more tense. It was lucky I’d come to take him upstairs before dinner.”

  “Who? Who was so loud?

  “Mr. Dietrich. And he was normally so soft-spoken, that one. He hardly ever raised his voice.”

  “What did you hear that time?”

  “Well, on the way to get David, I heard him say, ‘It’s out of the question.’ It sounded like something fell when he said it.”

  “Could he have hit the desk with his fist?” I asked, thinking about the thick carpet in Harry’s office, which would deaden the sound of something falling.

  “Yes—it could have been that.”

  “Was that all you heard?”
r />   Molly shook her head. “When I was passing the office with the lad, I heard him shout again. ‘Not even when hell freezes over and gets as cold as your calculating little heart,’ is what he said that time.”

  “And who was in there?”

  “I don’t know, Rachel. I didn’t stay around to find out. I wanted to get David away from the shouting as fast as I could. I took the elevator, so I never heard another word. His loss must be even more painful for them.”

  “For whom?”

  “Why, for the two he fought with on the last day of his life. They’ll never get the chance to make up.”

  “Are you sure it was two different people, Molly? Couldn’t Mr. Dietrich have been fighting with Mrs. Poole again, or still, the second time?”

  “Oh, they’d gone by then, those three.”

  “You saw them leave?”

  “Couldn’t help it. When I was coming back in with Charlotte, she nearly knocked the two of us over, rushing out the front door with those two spoiled brats of hers. And not a word of apology from herself, not to me and not to Charlotte neither.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone come out of Harry’s office the second time you heard the shouting?”

  “No,” she said. “I was up with David.”

  I stood up to go. “Thanks for last night, Molly. You were right. That was no time to be walking around outside.”

  But Molly wasn’t listening to me.

  “It could have been anyone,” she said. “He might have even been on the phone, for all I know.” She reached up and wiped her eyes. “It was the last I heard of him,” she said, tears running down her old face. “An hour later, there was that terrible accident, and he was gone and now I canna’ take back the awful thing I said to him.”

  “What awful thing?”

  She flapped her hand at me.

  “You’ll feel better if you tell someone.”

  “It was about the phones, Rachel. He put in some sort of device, he told me, that would track the outgoing calls.”

  “Harry did that? Why?”

  “Cheapness,” she shouted. “He said I had free room and board and plenty of money besides, and he wasn’t going to have me calling my relatives in Ireland on his nickel. He was obsessed about it, the phone and the electric. You could break your neck walking around in the dark so he could save a penny, running around shutting off lights the way he did.”