Apocryphal? Probably. I’d vote for creative recall on the nanny’s part or poetic license by the author. Henry Ford’s appraisal of history is not bunk.
In any event, Belle studied journalism at the University of Southern California and went on to Columbia Graduate School. And from there to the Paris Herald Tribune.
She met her first husband, Oliver Burke, in Paris. He was the third son of a British duke. Burke was an artist out of step with his own era. His paintings were as clear and precise as photographs. No matter that he painted with the lucent clarity of a shaft of sunlight striking a Gothic spire, he was forever dismissed as imitative, unoriginal, passé. Belle and Oliver were married in 1960 and their daughter, Charmaine Celia, was born in 1962. Their first son, Anders, was born in 1963.
In early 1964, Belle was transferred to the Tokyo bureau. Oliver obligingly gathered up his paints and came along. Their second son, Joss, was born in 1965. As American troops swelled to more than 300,000 in Vietnam, Belle took a plane to Saigon and Oliver stayed in Tokyo with the children.
She darted in and out of Tokyo, of course, seeing her family, but always she returned to the shifting, erratic, increasingly bitter and divisive war.
After the fall of Saigon, Belle and her family returned to Europe, living in Italy while Belle wrote a book about her war experiences. Oliver, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer the next year.
Belle and her children came home to America and she authored a weekly column, “Fresh Eyes,” from the perspective of an American returned to these shores after years abroad. It was an immediate success and soon was carried in almost three hundred newspapers. In 1977 she married Quentin Gallagher, a brawling, two-fisted reporter who shut down every bar he ever visited. A widower, Quentin brought to the marriage three children: a son, Wheeler, and two daughters, Megan and Gretchen. He also brought a cocky, flamboyant, fighting spirit and a penchant for one drink too many. Quentin died in a one-car crash with a blood alcohol level of .09.
Belle’s household then consisted of CeeCee, Anders, Joss, Wheeler, Megan, and Gretchen. Belle celebrated her fiftieth birthday by marrying Keith Scanlon, a fortyish tennis pro she’d met at a health spa in Texas. She bought a Tara-style Southern mansion in Dallas’s exclusive Highland Park. That became her primary home and jumping-off spot. She also bought the hilltop vacation home on the Texas shore of Lake Texoma.
Belle plunged into this new life with enthusiasm and became more Texan than most Texans. Stylized bronze armadillos graced the front steps of her Highland Park mansion. People magazine featured the armadillos on the cover and the artist soon had enough commissions to go from a Yugo to a Ferrari. Belle made white leather boots popular in the highest reaches of Dallas society, and she was a staunch supporter of Dallas and Fort Worth museums.
Like bees sticking to their queen, all of her children—natural and adopted—followed her to Dallas.
Whenever Lifestyle editors and tabloids across the country ran out of material, they always had recourse to Belle and her boisterous family.
One July Fourth, Belle’s birthday party had drawn the rich and famous from across the nation to soar thousands of feet above the dusty Texas plain in brilliantly colored hot-air balloons.
The next September she sponsored a charity treasure hunt that ended with a socialite posting bail because she’d crawled up a rain spout to break into the mayor’s home in search of his bedroom slippers.
The kids—as she called her children, whether Burkes or Gallaghers—were good copy, too. Quite close in age, they’d grown up convinced that fun was their own special province and they were endlessly creative in their enjoyments and in their efforts to one-up their siblings. Many of the stories were accompanied by photographs of the family, singly and in groups.
Belle was still lovely, with white-gold hair framing finely drawn patrician features and startlingly brilliant blue eyes. The most-often-used photo was the one that graced the jacket of her autobiography. Slim and elegant, Belle stood beside a huge globe of the world. She wore a cobalt-blue suit, a cream silk blouse and a single strand of pearls.
It might have been a bland photograph. But it wasn’t. There was something in the vividness of her gaze, some
thing in the lift of her chin, something in the way she stood that challenged the viewer, that said, “I’m here, I’m Belle Ericcson and I’m more alive than anyone you’ve ever known.”
I’d also retrieved photos of the children. All of this material was in a zippered compartment of my carry-on. But I didn’t need to get it out to remember. I remembered easily. Because one of the faces might belong to Richard’s murderer.
And I would see all of them soon, very soon. If I got past my meeting with Belle. I jumped up from the chair and walked to the carry-on and yanked up her autobiography. A bookmark marked this passage:
I was bringing up the rear with another correspondent, Richard Collins of Midwest Syndicate. We were following a platoon from A Company, Fourth battalion, Twelfth Infantry, on a jungle trail north of Saigon, seeking an encampment of Vietcong. Suddenly machine gun fire swept across the trail and soldiers sagged to the ground, blood splashing against the brilliantly green ferns, flooding down into the dust. The attack came so quickly, there was hardly
any sound except the clatter of the machine guns. A sunburned captain was hit three times as he tried to make radio contact for artillery support. Collins pushed me off the trail. A corporal with a machine gun held off the attackers. Collins and I were able to hide behind a well, then follow a path to an abandoned rubber plantation. We hid there for four nights, then returned to the trail and found our way back to an American outpost. Every man in our platoon was killed. Our escape was as fortuitous as the lives and deaths of thousands of GIs. Survival or destruction depended upon where you happened to be standing, which direction your patrol took, whether the artillery hit your helicopter or another. Since Vietnam, I’ve never had any sense of security—and I am haunted by the pointlessness of the deaths I saw. Why, dear God, why? They were so terribly, vulnerably young, those GIs. Every few weeks, I flew to Japan—a luxury unavailable to the ordinary troops in the field—and as I left behind the horror and despair, I often recalled the caustic comment of Mary Roberts Rine-hart, the first woman to cover trench warfare during World War I: “Old men make wars that young men may die.”
I closed the book, stared down at Belle’s picture.
Richard was mentioned three more times in Belle’s book. They’d been together the January night the Tet Offensive began and were among the last correspondents out of Tuy Phuoc. They were there when Marines fought through the streets of the old provincial capital of Hue. They covered the siege of Khe Sanh.
I was as impressed by what Belle left out of the book as by what she included. There were very personal, caring vignettes about soldiers: the stubble-faced eighteen-year-old from Dubuque who carried a small terrier with his head poking out of his backpack; the captain from Pittsburgh who died trying to help a pregnant Vietnamese woman escape from her village during a Vietcong rocket attack; the gray-faced major from Toledo waiting for the return of his helicopters, waiting and waiting; and acid-etched portraits of pompous brass in Saigon and “celebrity” reporters who dropped by Vietnam, then returned to the U.S. to parrot the Johnson war rhetoric.
But what was missing was Belle herself. Her chapters on Vietnam were a foreign desk’s dream, clear, crisp, factual. But only occasionally, as in the passage about the platoon, was there a hint of her personal response.
And that was true of all the book. Belle on Belle was her report on the stories she’d covered, the people she’d interviewed, the history she’d observed.
Oh, yes, you can’t read an entire autobiography and not have some picture of its author.
I knew these things about Belle: She was brave, tough, smart, charming, aloof, imperious. She didn’t grandstand. And she didn’t spend much time in bars.
Were she and my husband lovers? Her book didn’t tell me.
<
br /> Richard came home from that war bitter at the dissembling of our government, impressed by the courage of soldiers fighting a war they didn’t understand, and convinced more than ever that reporters—with all their faults and mistakes—are essential to defend freedom.
And he came home from Vietnam with a lifelong link to Belle Ericcson. It was undeniable even though unstated. From that time forward, he responded whenever Belle called.
They’d been together a great deal in Vietnam. Was that their choice—or was it the randomness of a randomly fought war?
God, I didn’t know the answer. I hoped—call me a cow-ard—that I could meet Belle and still not know the answer. What I wanted from this place, from Belle, was the reason for Richard’s death. I must know the truth of Richard’s death.
I owed that—and so much more—to Richard.
And as far as Belle and Richard were concerned, whatever I learned, I had to balance it against the reality of a lifetime of love and trust and caring.
I heard the swift patter of footsteps.
I put the book on the bedside table, stood and faced the open door. I smoothed my hair, straightened my jacket and wished my throat were not suddenly so dry.
The housekeeper bobbed in the doorway. “Ms. Ericcson will see you now.”
six
Belle Ericcson stood next to a waist-high cloisonné vase filled with a spectacular arrangement of yellow ginger, heliconia, and bird-of-paradise. Any other woman would have been diminished.
Not Belle.
My reaction wasn’t simply an exaggerated response because she had been so much a part of Richard’s life and had been, since the arrival of the shocking poster, the backdrop to my every thought. Belle had presence, that magical quality which marks presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, financial moguls. No one could enter a room where she waited and not be immediately brought under her spell, a spell as inescapable and pervasive and intoxicating as that deployed by any ancient goddess. Even in repose, she exuded vitality.
She was startlingly attractive, quite as lovely as all the photographs I’d found. But I was struck most of all not by her beauty but by her fragility. She looked as if she were
sculpted in attenuated ivory, her bones refined to their essence beneath alabaster skin. Her elegant clothes clung to her.
I had a swift, eerie memory of Johnnie Rodriguez’s wasted mother.
Yet, in astonishing contradiction, Belle emanated—without speaking, without moving—such a restless, relentless vigor that the very room quivered with energy. I felt exhilarated, intensely attuned, almost febrile in anticipation, and she had yet to speak a word. She had only to look across the room with her compelling gaze.
Her silver hair was drawn back in a chignon, emphasizing her deep-set blue eyes and high cheekbones. Her skin was lined and had the parchment-fine patina of age. This woman felt no compulsion to grasp artificially after the smoothness of youth. But it was her luminous eyes—as unforgettably, darkly blue as the Hawaiian waters—that mesmerized me.
And frightened me a little.
There was an emptiness in those eyes, a void, a longing, despite their intensity.
Her lips curved upward, but there was no more warmth than in the rosy brilliance of the crimson enamel in the cloisonné vase. It was the echo of a smile, a gesture once familiar and now foreign.
“Henrie O.” Belle’s voice was clear and high, like a silver bell rung as the shadows fall. I suddenly had a faint, ghostlike memory of hearing her say on that dreadful day, “I’m so sorry…Richard’s dead.” Then the memory was gone, like a flash of sunlight on chrome.
She walked toward me, a thin, graceful hand outstretched. It was not until then that I saw the cane in her left hand and her uneven, slightly halting gait. I was startled. An accident? Surgery? But such was her vitality that the cane and the limp immediately receded from notice. I was fascinated by her lovely, haggard, striking, unforgettable face.
The room—her study—was a marvelous backdrop. The walls were a pale, ethereal ivory, punctuated by brilliantly colored canvases. The pecan floors, sensuous as pools of honey, reflected light from globes inset in the ceiling. Chinese Buddhist temple hangings flanked a starkly plain marble fireplace. Crimson anthuriums rose regally from matching silver vases on the hearth. And, as I was beginning to expect in this cliffside home, there was the wide-open access to the lanai and the ever compelling vista of the robin’s-egg sky and silvery falls and verdant ridges—breathtaking, spectacular, ever changing.
But the elegant woman in the orchid silk blouse and white silk slacks would always be the focal point.
She reached me, grasped my hand. “May I call you Henrie O? As Richard did?” Her touch was firm and cool and fleeting. The delicate scent of gardenia wafted over me.
“Of course.” I returned her gaze. I could not return that ceremonial smile.
Those bright lips still curved, but there was no smile in her dark blue eyes. “And I’m Belle.” She studied me.
I knew what she saw, a woman as dark as she was fair, my hair touched, too, with silver, my face lined with a lifetime of both joy and sadness. I don’t claim even a particle of Belle’s charisma, but I am lean and quick and still move with eagerness and energy.
I saw a quick flicker of approval in her eyes and I was surprised that it pleased me. That was even one more indication of the power of her personality.
“Now we meet.” There was a shade more warmth in her voice. “After all these years…Richard spoke of you often.”
I was not able to respond in kind. That was my doing. I was the one who had blocked that expression. But I could honestly say, had to honestly say, “Richard cared for you.”
Her remote smile softened. “I valued him as the best friend I ever had. And now, finally, you and I meet.” She led
the way, moving carefully, the cane clicking against the golden floor, to huge rattan easy chairs on either side of the fireplace. As she eased down onto the oversized cushion, her eyes flickered toward the lanai, and the sharp planes of her face tightened.
It was like a rough hand squeezing my heart. Richard fell near here, I was sure of it.
I took the seat opposite her, but I gazed out at the turquoise sky and emerald canyon. “I’ve never known what happened to Richard,” I said tightly.
Yes, I asked without preamble. It wasn’t what I’d planned to do. But entering this room, meeting this woman, I knew I could not count on anything. She was formidable. I would not easily fool her. Or persuade her. My manufactured invitation was in my purse and I knew it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. Belle Ericcson was neither simple nor credulous. I’d better snatch what I could while I could.
If my blunt opening shocked her, she gave no sign of it. “None of us know, Henrie O.” Her face was somber. “We said good night about ten. The next morning, I thought he’d slept late. You know how tiring it is to come from the mainland. And when the mist burned off, oh, it was late morning, Wheeler looked down from his lanai and saw him. Richard was still dressed and his bed had not been slept in. He must have walked along the cliff path late in the evening. Perhaps he was returning to the main house for a book. We’ll never know.”
Belle clasped her hands tightly together. A bracelet of square amethysts in ornate gold settings glistened like the purpling sky outside. “I’m sorry.” Her silvery voice expressed true grief.
“Thank you.” I stared out at the steep, foliage-sheathed cliffs, beautiful and merciless, as nature so often is.
“It was doubly hard,” she sighed, “because I’d been so pleased to see him. And surprised. It was a wonderful surprise.”
“You had not expected him?” I had to feel my way carefully here.
“Oh, no.” Belle’s reply was swift. “The children were all here. And Stan Dugan, CeeCee’s fiancé. I ask them to come every year. That was the first year. I want them to remember CeeCee. But not in a sad way. I always want this gathering to be cheerful, as cheerful as CeeCee alwa
ys was. I make sure it is a holiday, filled with golf, swimming, boating. Or simply relaxing. I’d played golf that afternoon with Joss and Anders and Wheeler. Richard was here when we returned.” A quick smile quirked her lips. Her eyes brightened. “It was wonderful to see him. At first he said he didn’t intend to spend the night, but I insisted. Now, of course, I wish…” Her voice trailed away.
“Did Richard indicate why he’d come?” I watched her intently.
She frowned and stood, using the cane to lever herself upright. She moved to a cut-glass decanter on a red lacquered table. “Sherry?”
It was hard to be polite, to welcome hospitality. All I wanted was answers. “Yes, yes, thank you.” I forced the words, forced a smile.
She poured the wine, brought a glass to me. Then she stood, leaning just a bit on her cane, her expression thoughtful. She held her wine, but didn’t taste it. “We had only a moment alone that evening. He came into the dining room and we went out on the lanai together. I asked him if he’d come to the island for a holiday. He looked at me and his face was very serious, very grave. He said no, it was a matter he might wish to discuss with me. But he wasn’t yet certain. Then Gretchen and Peggy came out and we talked about their afternoon snorkeling at Anini. Everything after that was very general.”
Richard didn’t tell Belle what he knew—or what he suspected. Richard, always so careful and fair. He must have come with some knowledge, and yet he wanted to ask the person involved first. Had he made plans to see someone that evening, alone, in a quiet place?
I put my wineglass down and gestured toward the lanai. “Can we see where Richard was found from here?”
Slowly, she nodded.
“Will you show me?” I wanted to know. And I didn’t want to know. But I had to know.
Shakily, I stood. For an instant, I thought she was going to refuse. She stared at me, her gaze probing. But I was Richard’s widow. I had every right to want to see where he died.
Belle put down her glass. She walked slowly, the cane clicking. I followed her onto the lanai. The magnificent gold trees at either end of the lanai were in full bloom, their masses of yellow flowers shiny as butter. Hibiscus in a huge wooden tub were bright as a painter’s palette, orange and pink, red and white. The breeze rustled a plumeria shrub with pale pink blossoms, and the most familiar perfume of the islands swept over me.
Death In Paradise Page 8
