Mortal Friends

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  During dessert, the soft piped-in music grew increasingly loud. Suddenly, strobe lights started flashing and a troupe of actors in animal costumes bounded into the room from all sides. Lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and zebras danced around the tables. They were soon joined by human trees, bushes, and flowers. In a few short minutes, we were smack in the middle of a papier-mâché jungle with the entire cast of The Lion King singing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” Bob lowered his head, closed his eyes, and massaged his temples as if he had a major migraine headache.

  We got out of there well before they began the next number.

  On the way home, Bob was totally preoccupied. I wasn’t exactly buoyant myself.

  “So what’d you think of the evening?” I said.

  “On the Richter scale of dismal? I give it a nine,” he said flatly.

  “What are people supposed to do with those golden keys?”

  “Hang themselves.”

  “You watch. Cynthia will wind up giving philanthropy a bad name,” I said.

  “Just as long as she doesn’t give another party I have to go to.”

  “Next year you’ll get a key.”

  “I’m attending a funeral that night, trust me.”

  We pulled up to my door. Bob declined my offer for him to come inside and asked me to sit with him a moment in the car. He raised the partition and spread the green mink blanket over our laps. Clasping my right hand in both of his, he said he had something to tell me. His tone was so serious and his manner so earnest that for one brief and shining moment I actually thought he was going to propose.

  Silly me.

  “So…you sure you like your bracelet?”

  “I wish you’d come in and let me show you how much.”

  “I’d love to, but I’ve got a big day tomorrow, and that evening kind of put a nail in the old coffin. You mind if I don’t?”

  “No, of course not. How ’bout I make you a delicious dinner tomorrow night, and we rent a fabulous movie and just spend a really cozy evening at my house? I won’t wear anything but this,” I said, holding up the bracelet.

  “That sounds fun. But I’ll have to postpone it.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “You really like that bracelet, don’t you?”

  “I love it. Didn’t you see me admiring it all during dinner?”

  “Well, enjoy it. You deserve it. You’re a great gal, Reven. Do I make you happy?”

  “You know you do.”

  He leaned over and kissed me gently on the mouth.

  “Listen, I have to go out of town for a while on business.”

  My heart dropped. “Oh?”

  “I’m looking at a couple of properties.”

  “Where?”

  “An undisclosed location,” he said, teasing. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you every day.”

  “So when will you be back?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Are we talking a day, a week, a month—twenty to life?”

  “Closer to a week, I’d say.” He stroked my hand. “You have such soft skin…. So…enjoy your bracelet and be patient, okay?”

  “Not one of my greatest virtues.”

  “I’ll call you. Promise.” He kissed me again.

  A dark shape loomed up at the window. It was Maxwell. He opened the door and helped me out. Bob stayed in the car. Maxwell saw me to my door. I told him to wait a second. I quickly ran inside and got the tin of chocolate chip cookies I’d bought for him at the farmer’s market.

  “I’ve been meaning to give these to you,” I said.

  “Golly, you’re so kind. Thank you so much,” he said, averting his eyes as though he couldn’t bear to look at me. I sensed he felt sorry for me.

  I waved good-bye to Bob, then went into the house. I stood for a long moment in the dark hall, reflecting on the evening.

  You know that sinking feeling you get when you know you’ve lost something—not just misplaced it, but really lost it? That’s exactly how I felt. I told myself I was being paranoid. I switched on the light and examined the bracelet again. It looked cheaper than it did before.

  Chapter 20

  I didn’t hear from Bob the next day, or the next, or the day after that. I tried calling him at home but there was no answer, and his cell phone went to voice mail. I even got up the courage to call his office, knowing I would have to speak with the icy Felicity. She told me that “Mr. Poll” was “out of town,” but that she would be sure and give him the message that I had called. I clung to that gold bracelet as proof he still cared for me.

  Later on that week I met Gunner at Usherville for a briefing session. Gunner had become like a kind of shrink to me, someone I could confide in without fear of betrayal. When I got there, he was sitting on the stone bench in front of the mausoleum, absorbed in a book. The instant he saw me, he shoved the book into his coat pocket.

  “Whatcha reading?” I asked, sitting down beside him.

  “Nothin’.”

  “C’mon, Gunner, I want to know what detectives read.”

  I held out my hand. He pulled out a ratty little paperback from his pocket and handed it to me reluctantly. It was called The Book of Five Rings.

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “Great book.”

  “What’s so great about it?”

  “For one thing, it teaches you how to have patience.”

  “Boy, I should read it then.” I absently leafed through the pages without really looking at them. “I haven’t heard from Bob in a few days,” I said, glancing at Gunner out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t say anything—purposely, no doubt. “I know you don’t like him, but look what he gave me.” I showed him the gold bracelet. “Isn’t it pretty?” Gunner gave it a cursory look, and still didn’t say anything.

  “He had to go away on business,” I explained.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back soon, and I’ll hear from him then. Don’t you think?” Gunner shrugged. “Tell me something, would you give someone a gold bracelet if you didn’t care about them?”

  He chuckled. “I couldn’t afford to give them a gold bracelet if I did care about them.”

  “But you do think I’ll hear from him, right?”

  “He’s your boyfriend. You tell me…. So how’s your girlfriend Violet doing?”

  “I don’t know what to do about Violet. I can’t talk to her anymore.”

  “I take it you still haven’t told her.”

  “About Grant? No. We were all at the Kennedy Center last week. Cynthia gave Grant this stupid Golden Key award.”

  “Yeah, I saw that in the paper. Nice picture of you and Mr. Wrong.”

  I ignored the comment. “Cynthia put Grant next to her at the dinner. Poor Violet just sat there looking adoringly at Grant with the patented Nancy Reagan stare, totally oblivious to what’s going on right under her nose. It’s excruciating for me. I agonize about whether to tell her or not.”

  “You think he’s still seeing this Rinehart woman?”

  “Absolutely. They didn’t say a word to each other all night. That’s always the tip-off. I’m worried this is going to wreck my friendship with Violet.” I glanced up at the crypt. “I wonder who the Hollises were.”

  “General Matthew P. Hollis was a Civil War hero. Fought for the Union. There’s a lot of Civil War dead buried here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s your neighborhood. Don’t you know about this place?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid.”

  Gunner gave an amused shrug. “It’s interesting how people ignore what’s closest to them.”

  “So tell me about it.”

  “It actually has a connection to your pal Grant Bolton.”

  “How so?”

  “You know the Corcoran Gallery?”

  “Sure.”

  “In the late 1840s, old Mr. Corcoran bought the original fifteen acres this cemetery’s on. Corcoran also founded Riggs Bank, which was ta
ken over by the Briggands in the ’80s, and then by the Bolton family when old Mr. Briggand went to jail. It’s now part of the Potomac Bank, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “That’s exactly right. Grant thinks he’s in a bad-luck building because Mr. Briggand got caught.”

  “You know the little stone chapel there as we come in? That was designed by James Renwick, the guy who designed the Smithsonian Castle and St. Patrick’s Cathedral up in your former neck of the woods. It’s called the Renwick Chapel.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked him.

  “I was interested. Aren’t you interested in the history of Georgetown, owning an antiques store and everything?”

  “I have a few other things on my mind at the moment.”

  “Did you know your friend Gay Harding’s buried right next to that chapel?”

  “Yes, that I knew…. Tell me something, Gunner. Do you think this bracelet’s some sort of consolation prize?”

  “I don’t know. What did the good Mr. Poll have to say for himself?”

  “I have a bad feeling.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I think the bracelet’s his way of breaking up with me.”

  “You should be so lucky.” Gunner smirked.

  His knowing attitude irritated me. “You keep saying that. I know what you’re insinuating, and I just don’t believe it.”

  “Then how come you’re talking to me about it?”

  “You said you wanted to know all the stuff that’s going on. Why are you so fixated on Bob?”

  “And you’re asking me this because…?”

  “I don’t think you’re right, okay? I mean, I really don’t think he’s capable of anything so terrible, but—”

  “But?”

  “Well, it’s just that I don’t feel I really know him, even though we’ve been going out all this time. If he does have this dark side, like everyone says, I’d kind of like to know what it is. I know he goes to that strip club…. I mean, do you have any real proof other than your crazy intuition about him?”

  Gunner bristled slightly. I’d hit a nerve.

  “The other day you told me that story about Ted Bundy. Maybe those girls who escaped being his victims at the lake had an intuition. Intuitions aren’t crazy. In fact, they’re what separate a good detective from a great one.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It’s cold. Let’s walk,” he said.

  We walked in silence for a time. Then Gunner said, “You asked me about that book I was reading…. The author, Miyamoto Musashi, once killed thirty guys with a sword in each hand. One to fend off, one to kill. People always underestimated him. And he always surprised them. Know why? Because he saw through preconceptions and conventional wisdom and bureaucratic tyranny right down to the essence of things. He pierced the lies and got to the truth, even though people in his time thought he was crazy. No proof doesn’t mean a thing isn’t true. You gotta follow your gut. And my gut tells me that Bob Poll is somehow involved in this case.”

  Our custom was to part ways well before the entrance to the cemetery. I tried to hand him back the book before he separated, but Gunner refused to take it.

  “Read it,” he said. “You might learn something.”

  Chapter 21

  After that meeting with Gunner, I decided it was time Violet knew about Grant’s infidelity before this awful secret wrecked our friendship for good. I often dropped in on her unannounced in the morning for a cup of coffee on my way to work. I left the cemetery and walked over to her house, steeling myself for what was arguably to be the most difficult conversation of my life.

  Violet and Grant lived in the same house Grant had when he was a bachelor—a yellow mini-mansion with white columns on the corner of Twenty-eighth and Q. Violet used to refer to it as Tara before she married Grant, when she wanted to show she was not impressed with the grandeur of the place. Maureen answered the door. “The ancient Maureener,” as Violet referred to her, was the old housekeeper who had been with Grant since practically his diaper days. She was usually a sunny, if doddery, old sort. But when I said hello this morning, she eyed me with all the friendliness of an enemy combatant. I paid no attention and walked past her to the back of the house.

  Violet and Grant always had their breakfast on the sunporch, a room drowning in chintz, large china animals, and white wicker furniture about as cheerful as old bones. I expected to see Grant. But Violet was having breakfast with Peggy Myers. Peggy lived in Kalorama, and it was most unusual for her to be there at that hour of the morning.

  “Morning, Peggy. Morning, Violet,” I said.

  Peggy greeted me but Violet ostentatiously turned her back and stared out the bay window facing the back garden. I tried again.

  “Good morning, Violet.”

  Violet calmly sipped her coffee, refusing to turn around. “Is it very cold outside, Peggy?” she said at last.

  “Not as cold as it is in here,” I said, hoping for a laugh.

  Violet slammed down her coffee cup so it clattered on the saucer, and said, “You know, Peggy, if there’s one thing I hate above all other things in this world, it’s a liar.” She spit out the word.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something really bad had happened, and that it somehow involved me. I dreaded to think. I made another stab at communication. Violet not only ignored me, she got up and walked out of the room. Her face looked like tear-stained pomegranate.

  I pitched Peggy a hapless, bewildered look. Peggy said simply: “Grant left her.”

  I sank down in a chair, poured myself a cup of coffee, and asked Peggy to tell me exactly what she knew. She recounted the whole story as it had just been told to her by Violet. Apparently, the night before, Grant announced he was leaving her—just like that. He packed a bag, told her he could be reached at the Four Seasons, and walked out—but not, unfortunately, before dragging me smack into the middle of it. He confessed he’d been having an affair with Cynthia and that I knew all about it. He told Violet I’d come to the bank to confront him. I couldn’t believe it. Grant wasn’t just an asshole. He was the whole intestinal tract.

  “He wants a divorce,” Peggy said softly.

  “Don’t tell me he wants to marry Cynthia?!”

  “Looks that way.”

  I sprang up and headed for the door. “I need to talk to Violet!”

  “Not without a bulletproof vest!” Peggy cried. “She’s furious at you.”

  I whirled around. “Furious at me? She should be furious at Grant, for Christ’s sakes! I didn’t do anything!”

  “You know what they say: the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Why does everyone always forget that?” Peggy mused aloud.

  “I didn’t cover anything up. I just didn’t tell her. An omission is not a lie.”

  Peggy let out this big guffaw and said: “Oh, honey, you’ve been in Washington too long!”

  I stared at her, feeling totally defeated. “What should I do, Pegs?”

  Peggy Myers was the Eisenhower of our little group. Whenever the troops had a dustup, she helped smooth the ruffled egos. She thought for a moment, then said, “I’d let her cool down for a couple of days. She’s going to need her friends to rally around. You above all, Reven. Give her some time. Then call.”

  Very sound, sensible advice. Naturally, I didn’t take it. Peggy left, but instead of going with her like she suggested, I marched upstairs to find Violet. She wasn’t in that stifling Victorian enclave they called a bedroom—a room so full of knickknacks and bric-a-brac it looked like a thrift shop. She was one flight up, in Grant’s dreary green prison cell of an office, sitting staring at a photograph of her and Grant and Tee in a silver frame on his desk.

  “Go away, traitor,” she said, without looking at me.

  “Violet, please let me explain.”

  “Go away. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing!”

  She sounded so forbidding, I figured I’d take Peggy’s advic
e and try this another day. I was just about to leave when she swiveled around and started ranting at me. For someone with nothing to say, she proceeded to really let me have it, hardly drawing breath, telling me what a horrible bitch I was for going behind her back and for conspiring with Grant against her. I could see Grant had learned something from all his years in Washington. He’d spun my visit to him like a veteran campaign manager.

  Violet accused me of being jealous of her and secretly pleased this had happened because I’d never gotten over the fact that Grant had chosen her over me back in the day. This was revisionist history at its most egregious. But I just stood and took it because I felt so sorry for her and so dismayed that my well-intentioned actions had contributed to her distress. Violet was taking out all her frustrations on me because she couldn’t take them out on Grant. I knew I had to be a big enough person to suffer the slings and arrows of a distraught friend, to see beyond the moment to the friendship itself.

  Eventually she calmed down—no person, not even Violet, could have kept up that level of rage without spontaneously combusting. It was good for her to get it all out. I think she appreciated my stoic attitude, because when I walked over and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, she didn’t swat it away. I took that as a sign she was already starting to forgive me. I sat down beside her.

  “I’m so sorry, Vi. I just wanted to spare you finding out about it if I could. I knew how painful it would be for you. I’ve been in agony over whether or not to tell you. And, in fact, this morning I decided I would because I knew it was ruining our friendship. I couldn’t talk to you like I used to, and you sensed something was wrong. So I was going to tell you, no matter how hard it was. You’ve got to believe me. Look, I don’t know what Grant’s told you about our meeting, but I swear to God, I was not on his side. The reason I went to see him was to try and make him give her up. When I left, I thought he would.”

  Violet didn’t respond right away. She looked thoughtful and sad. Finally, she spoke: “This is like when we were back in school, and you protected me. I appreciated it then. And I’ll always be grateful to you. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I came to Washington, because I knew I could count on you. But we’re not in school anymore, Rev. You’re not my nurse, and you had no right to play with my life.”