Mystery

by Peter Straub

  Tom felt a small explosion deep in his chest, and remembered his nightmare. “Sure I do.”

  “Always a problem with that young woman’s attitude, you may remember.”

  “She was hard,” Gloria said. “I remember her. Very hard.”

  “And insubordinate,” the doctor said. “I’ll keep in touch, Glen.”

  Tom’s grandfather blew out cigar smoke and nodded his head.

  “Give me a call if you still have trouble sleeping, Gloria. Tom, you’re a fine boy. Looking more like your grandfather every day.”

  “Nancy Vetiver was one of the best people at the hospital,” Tom said. The doctor frowned, and Glen Upshaw tilted his massive head and squinted at Tom through cigar smoke.

  “Well,” the doctor said. “We shall see.” He forced himself to smile at Tom, made another short round of goodbyes, and left the room.

  They heard Kingsley walking the doctor to the entry and opening the door to the terrace. Tom’s grandfather was still squinting at him, moving the cigar in and out of his mouth like a nipple.

  “Boney’ll straighten everything out. You liked the girl, eh?”

  “She was a great nurse. She knew more about medicine than Dr. Milton.”

  “Ridiculous,” his mother said.

  “Boney is more of an administrator—could be,” said his grandfather with dangerous mildness. “But he’s always done well by me and my family.”

  Tom saw a thought move visibly through his mother’s face like lightning, but all she said was, “That’s right.”

  “Loyal man.”

  Gloria nodded grimly, then looked up at her father. “You’re loyal to him, Daddy.”

  “Well, he takes care of my daughter, doesn’t he?” The old man smiled, then looked speculatively at Tom. “Don’t worry about your little nurse, boy. Boney will do the right thing, whatever it is. A little flap at the hospital is nothing to get excited about. Mrs. Kingsley is making us a nice lunch, and after I smoke some more of this cigar, we’ll go out and enjoy it.”

  “I’m still worried about Nancy Vetiver,” Tom said. “Dr. Milton doesn’t like her. It would be awful if he let that influence his judgment, no matter what’s going on—”

  “Be hard not to let it influence your judgment,” his grandfather said. “Girl ought to know better, in the first place. Boney’s a doctor, no matter what you think of his medical skills, he did go to medical school and he does take care of us and most of our friends. He is also the top man at Shady Mount—been there from the beginning. And he’s one of our people, after all.”

  And that was how it worked, Tom thought.

  “I don’t think he’s one of my people,” he said.

  His mother shook her head vaguely, as if bothered by a fly. His grandfather drew in a mouthful of smoke, exhaled, and cast a glance toward him that only appeared to be casual. He wandered over to the couch with the same false casualness and sat down near his mother. She waved smoke away.

  “You seem to care about this nurse.”

  “Oh, Daddy, for Pete’s sake,” his mother said. “He’s seventeen years old.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “I haven’t seen her since I was ten.” Tom sat down on the piano bench. “She was a good nurse, that’s all. She understood how to treat patients, and Dr. Milton just sort of came in and out. To have Dr. Milton decide whether or not Nancy Vetiver is in trouble just sort of seems upside-down, that’s all.”

  “Upside-down.” His grandfather uttered the words neutrally.

  “I’m not trying to be rude. I don’t dislike Dr. Milton.”

  “And of course you have no idea what is going on at Shady Mount. Which is serious enough to call Boney all the way back down-island.”

  Tom began feeling resentful and trapped. “Yes.”

  “Yet you unthinkingly take the side of this hospital employee over the doctor. And you assume that this same doctor, who delivered you and came out to help your mother a few nights ago, has no right to criticize her.”

  “I’m just going on what I saw,” Tom said.

  “When you were ten years old. And scarcely in a normal frame of mind.”

  “Well, I could be wrong—”

  “I’m glad to hear you say it.”

  “—but I’m not.” Part of him wondered what was making him say these things.

  Tom looked up and saw that his grandfather was staring at him. “Let me remind you of certain facts. Bonaventure Milton grew up two blocks from where you now live. He attended Brooks-Lowood. He went to Barnable College and the University of St. Thomas Medical School. He belongs to the Founders Club. He is Chief of Staff at Shady Mount, and he is going to be Chief of Staff at the multimillion dollar facility we’re going to build out here. Do you still think it would be upside-down, as you say, for Dr. Milton, with his background and qualifications, to criticize or judge this nurse, with hers?”

  “She has no background,” Gloria said in a faint voice. “She came to our house and expected a tip for nursing Tom.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Tom said. “And—”

  “It was in her eyes,” Gloria said.

  “Grand-Dad, I just don’t think Dr. Milton’s background has anything to do with what kind of doctor he is. Cops and jitney drivers deliver babies. And all he does for Mom is give her shots and pills.”

  “I had no idea you were such a hot-blooded revolutionary.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  He regarded Tom for a moment. “Would you like me to inform you of what this so-called situation at Shady Mount is all about? Since you are so interested in this nurse’s career?”

  “Oh, no,” said Gloria.

  “I’d like that. She was a great nurse, that’s all.”

  “I will telephone you when I know what has happened. Then you can make your own determination.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said.

  “Well, I’m not sure I have any appetite left, but let’s go through to lunch.” He placed what was left of his cigar in an ashtray and stood up, holding out his hand to his daughter.

  The dining room at the back of the bungalow opened out on a wide terrace. The table had been set for three, and Kingsley’s wife stood beside it as they came out. She was wearing a black dress with a lace collar and white apron, and, like her husband, she visibly straightened when she saw them.

  “Will you be having a drink today, sir?” she asked. Mrs. Kingsley was a thin old lady with sparse white hair skinned back into a tight bun.

  “My daughter and myself will have gin and tonics,” Upshaw said. “No. I want something stronger. Make that a martini. You too, Gloria?”

  “Anything,” Gloria said.

  “And get Karl Marx here a beer.”

  Mrs. Kingsley disappeared through the arch into the dining room. Tom’s grandfather pulled out Gloria’s chair and then sat at the head of the table. Tom sat opposite his mother. It was cool and shady on the terrace. A breeze from the ocean stirred the bottom of the tablecloth and the leaves of the bougainvillaea growing along the divider at the end of the terrace. Gloria shivered.

  Glendenning Upshaw glanced sourly at Tom, as if blaming him for his mother’s discomfort, and said. “Shawl, Gloria?”

  “No, Daddy.”

  “Food’ll warm you up.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” She sighed. Her eyes looked glassy to Tom, and he wondered if he had missed seeing Dr. Milton give her a pill. She sat waiting for her drink with parted lips. Tom wished he was sitting at the long table in the Shadow’s house, having a conversation instead of whatever this was.

  Then the memory of the leather-bound journal reminded him of something his father had said.

  “Grand-Dad, didn’t you give Friedrich Hasselgard his start?”

  Upshaw grunted and frowned. He still looked sour. “What of it?”

  “I’m just curious, that’s all.”

  “That’s nothing for you to be curious about.”

  “Do you think he killed himself?”
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  “Please,” said Gloria.

  “You heard your mother, do her the honor of obeying her,” Upshaw said.

  Mrs. Kingsley came back with a tray of drinks and passed them out. She did not seem to expect thanks. Glendenning Upshaw took in a mouthful of cold gin and settled back in his chair, tucking in his chin so that his face turned into a landscape of bumps and hollows. He had begun to look less unhappy as soon as he had tasted his drink. Friedrich Hasselgard had just disappeared, Tom thought: he had climaxed his career of government service by taking a three hundred thousand dollar bribe and killing his sister, and then he went out on his boat, and Glendenning Upshaw took a little swallow of a martini, and Friedrich Hasselgard watched himself disappear.

  “Anyhow, I suppose he killed himself, yes. What else could have happened?”

  “I’m not too sure,” Tom said. “People don’t just disappear, do they?”

  “Upon occasion they do.”

  There was a silence, and Tom swallowed a mouthful of pale, slightly bitter Pforzheimer beer. “I’ve kind of been thinking about a neighbor of ours lately,” he said. “Lamont von Heilitz.”

  Both his mother and his grandfather looked at him, Gloria in an unfocused way that made Tom wonder what kind of pills Dr. Milton gave her, his grandfather with a quick astounded irritation.

  Gloria said, “Lamont? Did you say Lamont?”

  His grandfather frowned and said, “Drop the subject.”

  “Did he say Lamont?”

  Glendenning Upshaw cleared his throat and turned to his daughter. “How have you been, Gloria? Getting out much?”

  She fell back into her chair. “Victor and I went to the Langenheims’ last week.”

  “That’s good. You enjoyed yourself?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, I enjoyed myself.”

  “Didn’t you think it was interesting that Hasselgard disappeared from his boat on the same day the police killed that man in Weasel Hollow?” Tom asked. “What did you think about that, Grand-Dad?”

  His grandfather lowered his glass and turned heavily toward Tom. “Are you asking me what I thought, or are you asking if I thought it was interesting?”

  “What you really thought.”

  “I’m interested in what you thought, Tom. I wish you would tell me.”

  “It’s pretty clear that he was stealing Treasury money, isn’t it?” When Upshaw did not respond, Tom said, “At least, all the news stories make it sound that way. When he worked for you he must have been honest, but after he came into power he began stealing with both hands. When his sister wanted a cut, he murdered her and thought he could get away with it.”

  “That would be an odd assumption.”

  “It was just talk I heard. Um, from other students around school.”

  Upshaw was still staring at him. “What else did these students imagine?”

  “That the police killed the Minister and framed that man.”

  “So the police department is corrupt too.”

  Tom did not answer.

  “Which means that the government is corrupt too, I suppose.”

  “That’s what it would mean,” Tom said.

  “How did these friends of yours account for the letter Fulton Bishop received?”

  “Oh,” Tom said.

  “The letter from a private citizen that helped pinpoint this man Foxhall Edwardes as Miss Hasselgard’s killer. I’d say that this letter pretty well negates most of your theory at one go. Because it means that Hasselgard did not murder his sister. Therefore, she did not demand a cut of the take, and therefore, the police did not cover up her murder—so the corruption seems to stop at Hasselgard. Do you believe that Captain Bishop got that letter, or do you think he invented the whole thing in order to corroborate the official version?”

  “I think he got a letter,” Tom said.

  “Good. Paranoia has not completely destroyed your mind.” He drained the rest of his martini, and, as if on cue, Mrs. Kingsley appeared with her tray clamped under her elbow and an ice bucket in her hands. From the top of the bucket protruded the neck of an open wine bottle. “You’ll stick to beer?”

  Tom nodded.

  Mrs. Kingsley laboriously placed the heavy bucket beside Upshaw’s plate and removed two glasses from the shaved ice around the bottle. She unclamped the tray and set Upshaw’s martini glass on it, and then went around to place the second wineglass before Gloria. Gloria gripped her martini glass with both hands, like a child who fears the loss of a toy. Mrs. Kingsley faded back into the dining room. A minute later she returned with a larger tray containing three bowls of gazpacho, which she placed atop their plates.

  She went back inside the house. Glendenning Upshaw sampled the cold soup and looked at Tom again. He was no longer angry. “In a way, I’m almost happy that you have spoken as you have this morning. It means that I’ve come to the right decision.”

  Gloria froze with her spoon halfway to her mouth.

  “I think your horizons need widening.”

  “My father said something about your being willing to set me up in business after I get out of college. That’s very generous. I don’t quite know what to say, except thanks. So thank you.”

  His grandfather waved this away. “You’re applying to Tulane?”

  Tom nodded.

  “Louisiana is full of opportunities. I know a lot of good men there. Some of them would be happy to take you on once you have your engineering degree.”

  “I haven’t really decided what I’ll take in college,” Tom said.

  “Stick with engineering.”

  “Oh, yes, Tom,” his mother said.

  “It’s a foundation. It’ll give you everything you need. If you want to study poetry and the collected works of V.I. Lenin, you can do it in your spare time.”

  “I don’t know if I’d be a good engineer,” Tom said.

  “Well, just what do you think you’d be good at? Biting the hand that feeds you? Insulting your family? I don’t think Tulane offers degrees in those subjects yet.” He simmered for a while. Tom and Gloria occupied themselves with their soup. After a moment he remembered the wine, and angrily snatched the bottle from the bucket. He poured wine into his glass, then into Gloria’s. “Let me tell you something. Engineering is the only real subject. Everything else is just an academic exercise.”

  “It’s going to take time to work things out,” Tom said.

  “It’s a wonderful idea, Daddy,” Gloria said.

  “Let’s hear Tom say that.” He pushed his bowl away.

  “Go on,” Gloria said.

  “It’s a wonderful idea.” Tom could feel his face getting hot. He thought: This is how people become invisible.

  “Your tuition will be taken care of, of course. Ah, Mrs. Kingsley, what are we having, lobster salad? Excellent. We are celebrating my grandson’s decision to major in engineering at Tulane.”

  “That’s beautiful,” the old woman said, placing another tray on the table.

  Almost as soon as they had begun eating, Tom’s grandfather said, “Have you ever seen Eagle Lake?”

  Tom looked up in surprise.

  “You haven’t, have you? Gloria, when was the last time you saw Eagle Lake?”

  “I don’t remember.” Gloria had a guarded, suspicious expression on her face.

  “You were just a little girl, anyhow.” He turned to Tom again. “Eagle Lake has an unhappier meaning for us than it does for our friends.” Tom thought he was referring to Jeanine Thielman, then realized that he meant the death of his wife. “We suffered a great loss there. I’ve found reasons to stay away ever since.” Except for the summer after your loss, Tom thought. “I was a busy man, of course, my work just ran me off my feet—but was I as busy as all that? I can’t be sure.”

  “You were working hard,” Gloria said, and shivered.

  Upshaw glanced impatiently at his daughter. “At any rate, the lodge has been there all these years, under the care of various housekeepers. You remember Miss Deane, don�
��t you, Gloria? Barbara Deane?”

  She looked down at her plate. “Of course.”

  “Barbara Deane has taken care of the lodge for something like twenty years—local people named Truehart did the job before that.”

  Tom wondered at his mother’s sulkiness, and thought that Barbara Deane must have been another of Glendenning Upshaw’s old mistresses.

  “Anyhow,” the old man said, with the air of wheeling some heavy object into view, “the old place hasn’t seen any real company for decades. Ordinarily, a young man of your situation would have spent every summer of the past ten years up north. Most of your friends must spend their summers there, and I’ve been thinking that our tragedy has kept you from it for too long.”

  Gloria said something soft but vehement to herself.

  “Glor?”

  She shook her head.

  He went back to Tom. “I’ve been thinking of showing our old lodge a bit of life. How do you think you’d like to spend a month or so at the lake?”

  “I’d love to. It would be great.”

  His mother uttered an almost inaudible sigh, and patted her lips with a pink napkin.

  “A carefree summer before your hard work begins.”

  And then Tom understood—Eagle Lake was a reward for having agreed to major in engineering. His grandfather was not a subtle man.

  “I can’t go to Eagle Lake,” his mother said. “Or aren’t I included in this invitation?”

  “We want to keep you here, Gloria. I’ll feel easier, having you around.”

  “You want to keep me here. You’d feel easier, having me around. What you mean is, you want to take everything away from me all over again—don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, because you do.”

  Upshaw set down his knife and fork and assumed a bland, innocent look. “Are you implying that you do want to go? Or that I wouldn’t worry about you, all the way up there?”

  “You know I can’t go there. You know I couldn’t stand it. Why not just say it?”

  “Don’t upset yourself, Gloria. And you won’t be all alone. Victor will be with you. His main job, as far as I am concerned, has always been to look after your welfare.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much. Thank you above all for saying that in front of Tom.”