The Ditto List (17 page)

“Many plants cannot survive in it, I've learned to my sorrow.” Her chin jutted a bit, a charge of pride at being more enduring than a fern.

“So you get a bit over four hundred a month in disability, and next month it will cost you at least seventy dollars more than that just for basics.”

“If nothing goes awry, yes. Lately, though, many things have seen fit to malfunction.” She chuckled easily. “My burners don't work, so everything I eat is baked or broiled. You'd be amazed how ardently one can long for fried food.”

He was in fact amazed, but by her unflagging good humor, not her appetite for french fries. It was what so many dramatists missed—those who specialized in miasmic vision—that it is at the very bleakest moment that the highest wit occurs.

“You put him through medical school, didn't you, Mrs. Preston?”

She rolled backward a foot in surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Just a guess. Exactly when were you married?”

“His last year of undergraduate school, at Christmas. 1956.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“I was a year older than Nathaniel so I already had my degree.”

“In what?”

“Economics, with a minor in dance. I had a job with a bank. A pretty good one, actually. An analyst in the trust department.”

“And you kept it till he was through with med school?”

“Yes. Plus a year of internship and another of residency.”

“Did he have money? Family money?”

“No. Neither of us did.”

“Was he bright? Bright enough to get scholarships and such?”

She sighed. “No. Not in that sense, he wasn't. Nathaniel was consistently in the bottom third of his class. He could have been higher but he preferred sociology to etiology.”

“You mean he was a party boy.”

She smiled at the memory. “Nat's true genius was in getting others, me included, to do his bidding without expecting a corresponding favor in return. He was impossible to say no to, which I suppose accounts for our marriage. But why are you asking me these questions, Mr. Jones? What do they have to do with anything?”

D.T. sat back down on the divan and leaned toward the woman in the high-backed chair with wheels. “There are some cases that have been filed recently by women in circumstances somewhat similar to yours, Mrs. Preston, in which it has been claimed that a wife who puts a professional man through school has an interest in the fruits of his degree that continues beyond the termination of the marriage. Do you understand what I mean?”

She frowned. “You mean I might be able to claim a portion of Nathaniel's income each year he's been a doctor because I contributed financially to the attainment of the degree that allows him to practice.”

The words were matter-of-fact and rolled easily off her tongue. D.T. could have been talking to a colleague. “Exactly,” he said.

“Has this principle been upheld, Mr. Jones?”

“Not that I know of. My research isn't up-to-date, but as far as I know the claim has only been asserted a couple of times, not upheld. There are two or three appeals pending, one in the supreme court of this state, and there is support for the principle in some journals.”

“I don't like the sound of it, Mr. Jones, to be honest with you. It sounds slick. It sounds too much like …”

“Like a lawyer?” They exchanged smiles. Hers was close to coquettish. D.T. looked at her closely. “What happened between you and your husband, Mrs. Preston? Did you gradually drift apart, or was there a specific incident?”

“You mean, I suppose, was there another woman.” She seemed to think about it. “I don't think so,” she said finally. “It's not impossible but I don't think so. But that doesn't mean I know what
did
happen. Nat became more and more immersed in his work. His circle of friends widened, mostly to include people who liked to talk investments rather than obstetrics. I suppose it was the usual doctor's wife syndrome, more than anything. Many women found themselves in the same position I was in soon after their husbands began their practice.”

“Did the divorce come as a surprise to you?”

“Yes. I probably should have seen it coming but I didn't. But then I'm quite capable of limiting the horizons of my mind. Of shutting out things I don't wish to think about. I'm quite sure I was doing it then with regard to Nat, just as I do it now with regard to other things.”

“How long after he went into practice did he file?”

“Two years.”

“What was his income then?”

“I recall he made thirty thousand the first year. It was five times as much as I ever made at the bank. And the next year his income doubled. Part of his salary went to buy into the partnership, I remember him telling me. It's the reason he gave for us always seeming to need more money.”

“You mean the medical partnership he was in?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't see any value put on that interest in the property settlement, Mrs. Preston. Do you remember anything about it?”

“Not particularly. I remember Nat said his interest in the business wasn't worth much.”

“How would you say you lived? High on the hog? Frugally?”

“Quite frugally. Nat said we had to get a nest egg built up. So he could go into practice on his own. Of course he did manage to buy himself an Austin-Healey.”

D.T. leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “All this brings one other possibility to mind, Mrs. Preston. Do you want to hear it?”

Her hands twisted in her lap. She looked around the room quickly, and then at D.T. “I don't want to lose this house, Mr. Jones. Not if I can help it. I would not enjoy a communal environment, I'm too used to privacy. So yes. I guess I do want to hear it, though I'm sure it won't make any difference at all. It won't, will it?”

“Probably not,” D.T. agreed. “But the only possibility is to do some investigation to see if your husband deliberately failed to disclose some of the community assets the two of you owned at the time of the property settlement. If he did, then maybe we could make a claim for half their present value. If it was a piece of art or stock or something, it might have appreciated quite a bit over the years.”

“But you're only guessing, Mr. Jones. You don't have any evidence at all that Nathaniel cheated me.”

“I know. But I'd be willing to check it out.”

“On what basis? Financial, I mean.”

“Oh, a twenty-five percent contingency sounds good. If we come up empty you owe nothing. If we get something out of him I get a fourth of it. Expenses off the top.”

“Do you have time to waste on something like that, Mr. Jones?”

“Depends on who you talk to,” D.T. said, thinking of his daughter. “Do you want me to go ahead?”

She closed her eyes and remained silent.

“You could use the money,” he prompted.

“Yes, I'm afraid I could.”

“So you're torn.”

“I suppose you could say that. My life is in a delicate balance, I'm afraid. As things stand, I'm able to endure it. To find joy, even, at times. But away from this, in a home, an institution, away from people like Miss Holloway, I just don't know. I'm afraid I might …”

He spoke into the hushed monument to her dread. “If I find evidence that your husband cheated you will you let me file a lawsuit?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“The same if the Supreme Court rules that wives have a compensable interest in their husbands' professional degrees?”

“I suppose so. I'm just not sure.”

“But you'll think about it?”

“Yes. I'll think about it.”

“I guess we can leave it at that for now,” D.T. said. “When you see Miss Holloway again, have her call me.”

D.T. stood up and brushed the crumbs off his clothes and tried but failed to catch them. “Let me give you some cookies to take with you,” Mrs. Preston said. She disappeared before he could decline, then returned with a small white bag which she handed up to him. “Thank you for coming by, Mr. Jones. It was kind of you to humor me.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. Preston.”

“You seem like a good man. Are you?”

He looked to see if she was teasing. “I don't know,” he said when he saw she wasn't. “I think I used to be, but I don't know if I've kept it up.”

She smiled her smile. “Maybe one day you'll be lucky enough to find out.”

“Maybe I will,” he said. “Now, can I ask
you
a question?”

“Of course.”

“Are you really as good as you seem?”

She grinned. “I suppose that depends on exactly how good I seem.”

“You seem like Assisi's sister.”

“Well, I'm not nearly that. Not by a long shot.”

“Thank God,” he said, and left with the cookies and something even better—the glimmerings of a cause.

EIGHT

When he got back to his apartment D.T. expected to find Lucinda Finders. Instead he found a hand-scrawled note on the kitchen table and an entirely different body—Barbara's—asleep on his couch.

The note was from Lucinda and imparted her thanks for the bed and the breakfast and ordered him not to worry. But the note itself rendered him incapable of following her instructions. He wondered where she was, if she was all right, who she was with, whether it was possible that Delbert had tracked her down and abducted her from the place he'd thought was safe.

Pushed harshly by such thoughts, D.T. searched cautiously through his apartment for the leavings of violence. Finding only signs of his own indolence, he decided what he frequently decided when confronted with his clients' wrecked and scrambled lives—that there was nothing he could do so there was no sense worrying. The sentiment usually survived till three a.m., when he would awaken in the midst of a frightful slice of dream, his client in jeopardy while he looked on helplessly. D.T. swore under his breath and walked to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room and gazed upon his sleeping lover and wondered why he would really have preferred the woman on the couch to be his pregnant client.

Barbara didn't stir as he tiptoed through the house, changing clothes, straightening up, fixing himself a drink. In the process he noticed the little leavings of Lucinda, the empty glass of milk, the crushed and lip-greased filter-tip, the bloody wad of packing she had plucked from her nose and deposited like a cherry atop the coffee grounds in the garbage can beneath the sink. During all his movements, Barbara's breaths floated through his mind like clouds, forecasting a storm. When he retired to his bedroom with his drink and a detective novel she seemed forever lost to consciousness and he found himself hoping she would sleep till morning so he could spend the evening in silence and in peace.

The dying businessman had just asked the private detective to locate his rebellious son when the telephone rang beside his bed. D.T. started at the sound, then quickly dog-eared the page and picked up the receiver. “Mr. Jones? Hi. It's me. Lucinda Finders. Remember?”

“Of course I remember,” D.T. said. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“How's your nose? Any pain?”

“Not too much. Looks sort of like an old banana, though. I hope it clears up some by tomorrow. I got to start looking for work.”

“Where are you, Lucinda? What happened to your job at the Pancake House? Has your husband been after you?” The impossible barrage of questions reminded him of the other occasion when he prattled—his first moments with his daughter on his weekly visitation.

“When I called and told the manager I couldn't come in for a few days he fired me,” Lucinda was explaining. “But that's okay. I'll find something. I'm pretty good at finding work.”

“Where are you, Lucinda?” he asked again.

“I'm home. That's why I called, Mr. Jones. I'm home in Reedville with my folks. So you don't have to worry about me. I just wanted you to know that.”

“That's very thoughtful. But are you sure you're all right?” His grip on the receiver softened.

“I'm fine. Really.”

“Your folks treating you okay?”

She hesitated. “Sure. Fine.” The silence told him more.

“Has Delbert been around?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Does he know where your folks live?”

“Sure. We come here for a few days after we got hitched. Del and my daddy didn't get along so we left.”

He could imagine the struggle, titanic collisions of prejudice and misinformation. “You let me know if Delbert tries to see you, Lucinda. Okay?'

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I will. I promise.”

“You still want to divorce him, don't you?”

“I guess.”

“Good. I'll file the papers on Monday and let you know how things are going and when you have to be in court.”

“Okay.”

“And if you want to come back to the city you can stay here any time. Till you find a place of your own.”

“You're sure nice to me, Mr. Jones. Are you that nice to all your customers?”

“Some,” D.T. said, knowing it was a lie, knowing the only ones he truly embraced were cute and simply wounded and would jeopardize nothing he cherished except perhaps his conscience.

They said good-bye. D.T. tiptoed into the living room and checked the slumbering Barbara once again, then returned to his bed and book. Ten pages later, as the detective was interviewing the mother of the missing son, D.T. finished off his drink and went to the kitchen to pour another. Hungry, he looked to see if Barbara had stirred enough for him to ask if she wanted supper.

He dared not eat alone, he knew, for fear she would think him selfish. And he dared not wake her, for fear she would think him unfeeling. So he watched the rise and fall of her T-shirt, admired its taut span between the breasts that rose above her chest like headlands, and wondered if the hands of Bernie Kaplan had recently removed it.