Antenna Syndrome (4 page)

“Here’s the third floor exit conforming to fire
code.” In the den he opened a closet where several sports jackets
hung from a rod. He pushed them aside to reveal a small door at the
back of the closet.

“Normally, it’s locked from the other side so you
can’t access the third floor from here,” Jack explained. “But after
Marielle disappeared, I looked around to see how she could have
left other than by elevator. Had to be via these stairs.”

We passed through the small door. A narrow flight of
stairs rose to the third floor. He pointed at the lock. “When I
came down through here yesterday, I unlocked it and left it that
way.”

I examined the lock, an antique but sturdy
spring-bolt. From the stairwell side, a simple twist of the bolt
knob would open it. From the closet side, someone would need a key
to get upstairs.

“An old lock,” I observed. “Ten minutes with a bobby
pin, I could probably pick it. Someone with the right tools could
do it in seconds.”

“Or Marielle could have given someone a copy of the
key,” Jack said. “Hell, she could have crawled down the stairs and
opened it by hand.”

“You really don’t think she was kidnapped, do
you?”

“No.”

“Maybe the AC technician came here with an empty
box. That’s why he carried it upstairs so easily. He gained access
to the third floor via this hidden stairwell. He could have brought
Marielle down to the second floor, put her in the box and wheeled
her out of the house.”

“Right under my nose,” Jack sighed.

~~~

We went up to the third floor. Marielle’s studio
took up the north half. The south half was divided among a bedroom,
a lounge area and a kitchenette, from which there was a walkout to
a deck with a bay view.

We’d barely arrived on the floor when Vivien stepped
out of the elevator. She gestured with her hands to say,
what’s
up
?

“I showed him the back stairs,” Jack said.

I circled the studio. A table was scattered with
brushes, paints, palettes, rags and thinners. More than a dozen
canvases were in various stages of completion, half lacquered and
wall-mounted, the rest on easels with outlines and tones blocked
in. The subjects were all insects.

A ladybug nestled on a leaf from whose tip hung a
dewdrop. Body hair fuzzy with pollen, a honeybee crawled across a
sunflower. A praying mantis, fore-claws cradling the headless body
of its mate, stared out from a large canvas.

“Aren’t they amazing?” Vivien said.

“Is this hers?” I rested my hand on what I’d first
taken for a laundry trolley. A leather seat was slung hammock-style
from a sturdy aluminum frame. A gearbox connected a battery-powered
motor to four wheels.

“One of Mr. Jordan’s engineering friends built her
this work chair.”

An overhead rail on a beam crossed the ceiling.
Gymnast rings on ropes hung from brackets that could be positioned
anywhere along that rail.

“She worked out on them for exercise,” Vivien said.
“And used them to change from one chair to another.” She indicated
another motorized chair nearby, a conventional one with padded
seat, armrests and control stick.

In the lounge was a sectional sofa, an entertainment
system, a desk with a computer and a musical keyboard. The bedroom
had a double bed and a large collection of dolls. A drive-in closet
contained a few clothes and more dolls.

In the kitchenette I opened the fridge, finding
cartons of juice, some fruit in the crisper, a few cheeses and a
bottle of white wine.

“Did she eat by herself, with her father or you
folks?”

“Most of the time she ate alone. Each day I’d tell
her what I was making, or solicit requests. Usually I’d bring it to
her, or send it up by elevator if she preferred. Sometimes she came
down to eat with me, and we’d chat, but then she’d go back
upstairs. Sometimes I served her and Mr. Jordan dinner in the
dining room, but those were rare occasions.”

“Sounds isolated. She got a problem with people, or
what?”

“She was never interested in people. But insects,
that was something that got her excited.”

I saw no sign of a struggle, but maybe she hadn’t
offered any resistance. Despite the amenities, the place had the
feel of a minimum security prison.

“Was she happy here?” I asked Vivien.

“Her art occupied her. And when she wasn’t working,
she had music, movies, books, online art exhibits…”

“Didn’t she ever leave the house?”

“Only in the summer. She liked to go out in the
garden, where she’d sit for hours with her camera and digital
recorder, taking pictures of bugs and recording her ideas.”

“No social life?”

“She was very self-conscious from an early age. It
was strange, because most kids with disabilities don’t see
themselves that way. She didn’t want to go out in public – with the
norms
, she called them. She treasured her privacy.”

“Her father didn’t try to influence her?”

“When she was young, he’d wanted her to attend a
school for the gifted. But she insisted on being home-schooled. It
was difficult, because she went through tutors like a clever child
through simple games. Mr. Jordan had her tested and found she had a
genius-level IQ. Nobody was smart or complex enough to sustain her
interest. It’s hard to understand, but she just wanted to be left
alone with her art.”

“An all-consuming hobby.”

“Oh, she’s no amateur,” Vivien said. “She’s been
selling for the past five years and making very good money. In the
past year, well over a million.”

I’d always suspected I might be in the wrong
business, but this was a shock. “How many paintings did she have to
sell to make that?”

“Four or five.”

Obviously I was no judge of art, but I could do
basic math. If four or five paintings sold for a million, there was
enough finished work here for another million or two, and as much
again if the others could be finished. “You must be proud of
her.”

Vivien beamed. “She’s so talented. I’ve been
fortunate to share in her success. She pays me generously to
represent her at gallery shows. It’s given me the opportunity to
meet her agent Mr. Schiller and many of the buyers.”

I caught a grimace from Jack. I wondered how well he
managed on whatever Jordan paid him. Whatever his salary, I bet it
wasn’t enough. I’d been around the block, and he struck me as a bit
of a player.

“What’s the arrangement with Schiller?”

“Marielle has a contract to deliver four paintings a
year. She’s very productive and usually delivers one or two extra.
Mr. Schiller handles the branding, marketing and sales.”

“Does he have a gallery?”

She recited a phone number and an address on
Greenwich Avenue. Good memory, I thought.

“Marielle’s worth a lot for someone her age,” I
said. “Does she have a will?”

“She arranged it all last year. A lawyer came with
his assistant to have the documents signed and witnessed. A third
of her estate goes to me, the rest among various charities.”

“Why you and not her father?”

“He’s already wealthy,” Vivien shrugged. “And I’m
the only mother she ever had. But it’s all hypothetical anyway. In
the normal course of events, I’d likely die first. Aside from
having no legs, she’s very healthy.”

“If her father’s rich, why didn’t he get her fitted
with prosthetics to lead a more normal life? There’ve been huge
advances in the past decade. He could have got her the best on the
market.”

“He discussed it with her more than once, but she
refused. I was there one day when she screamed at him, ‘Maybe
you’re ashamed of me, but I like myself the way I am. You’re not
going to turn me into some cyborg.’ He was hurt by her words. He’s
not ashamed of her, just confused about the life she’s chosen.”

I went out onto the deck, which had a modest setting
of patio furniture. Flower boxes clung to the railing. I couldn’t
name the flowers but the blossoms were large and colorful. Dozens
of bees crawled among them, getting all fuzzy with pollen before
taking a flight path to the southwest.

I watched them. I didn’t get out of the city much
and hadn’t seen bees in years. It was easy to be fascinated by
insects. They seemed to have such an ordered social existence, it
was almost enviable compared to humans.

I looked out on Oyster Bay and saw a few sailboats
in the breeze. That’s where I should have been, enjoying a day off
with my wife and daughter, getting some sun and salt air, reveling
in the freedom of wind in my sails, not standing here on the
balcony of Bug House, wondering which way to turn. But I reminded
myself I had cash in hand with a promise of more if only I could
find this girl. Maybe she was the light at the end of my
tunnel.

Chapter 7

I went back inside. Jack and Vivien were sitting on
opposite sides of the kitchenette counter.

“There’s been no ransom demand?” I asked them.

“No,” Vivien said. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

“Not if she wasn’t kidnapped,” Jack said. “Not if
she just ran away.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vivien said.

“Why would she run away?” I asked Jack.

“Because she’s twenty years old and virtually a
prisoner here.”

“She had everything she needed,” Vivien said. “We
love her.”

“At twenty, you’re not looking for that kind of
love,” Jack said.

“What if there was a ransom demand?” I
persisted.

“I have access to Marielle’s bank account,” Vivien
said. “Sometimes she needed me to buy things that can only be
bought with cash.”

“Like what?” Jack said. “Jordan’s domestic credit
card covers groceries and household items. Doesn’t Marielle buy her
art supplies online? What’s the cash for?”

Vivien shrugged. “Marijuana, among other
things.”

“Marielle smokes pot?”

“It gave her inspiration and appetite. It helped her
to see humor in a world gone off the rails.”

Jack and I looked at her and came to the same
conclusion, but he said it out loud. “You probably smoke it with
her too.”

“So what?” She gave him a look of defiance, like the
figurehead on a Viking ship setting off to plunder the Saxon
shore.

Jack shook his head. “If Jordan knew this, we’d lose
our jobs.”

Vivien ignored him. “I have access to her account,
but I’ve never abused it,” she told me.

I was tempted to ask how much money she could
withdraw but, absent a ransom demand, it was hypothetical. So I
changed gears.

“I did some research on my way here. I know Jordan
adopted Marielle when her mother died giving birth.”

“It was hard, raising a child without a mother.
Especially one with special needs. By the time we hired on, he’d
been through half a dozen nannies.”

“So you’ve practically been a mother to Marielle
since she was four. You must have been very close.”

“I don’t know about that.” Vivien’s voice cracked a
little. “It was hard to get close to her.”

“How do you mean?”

“She was moody. She’d say strange things, far beyond
her years. It could be unnerving.”

“For example?”

“Because of her handicap, I was always offering
help. But even when she accepted it, I felt her disdain, like she
was disgusted with her own disability, or angry at me for making it
obvious.

“Sometimes she’d say, ‘It’s not a good time for you
to be here. You should go away before something bad happens.’ This,
from a four-year-old.

“When she was seven, I went into her bedroom one
night to check on her and arrange her blankets. She seized my wrist
and said, ‘I’m not a child, I can do that myself. I don’t like to
be disturbed when I’m thinking.’ She frightened me sometimes. There
were days when I didn’t know whether to hug her or strangle
her.”

“You must have been tempted to quit.”

“More than once. But Mr. Jordan would offer more
money, saying it was so hard to find help for Marielle. He’d cry
and beg me not to leave them.”

I looked at Jack. He nodded and shrugged, it was
pathetic but true.

“I guess the money’s been worth it?”

Vivien shook her head. “I’m no mercenary. I love
Marielle. She might be difficult, but her genius needs protecting.
And however much she resists me, she also needs me. Now and then
she’ll say something nice, and that makes it seem worthwhile. Maybe
it’s pathetic, but I need her too. Jack and I have no children.
She’s not perfect, but she’s my surrogate daughter. I guess our
karma drew us together.”

Jack’s gaze did a slow roll to the ceiling and
back.

“What about Natalie? Where’s she fit in?”

“When Mr. Jordan adopted Marielle, his wife took
Natalie and moved to Florida. We’d scarcely known Natalie existed
until she was fifteen, when she started coming here for a few weeks
each summer.

“After Natalie got into Dartmouth, she made some New
York friends, and started spending whole summers here. After
college, she moved to California. I think she needed some distance
from her mother. But she also needed her father. That’s why she
kept coming back, looking to be part of a family she never really
had.”

“How’d she and Marielle get along?”

“In small doses, fine. Although ten years apart,
they were smart girls and shared an intellectual rapport. But they
competed for the affection of a father who didn’t have time for
either of them. It was sad. Marielle became hostile toward her
older sister. I guess she envied her. You’ve seen Natalie – she’s
quite beautiful...”

I nodded. She was. Some guys might have done her a
favor on looks alone, or the promise of something other than
financial inducement. I looked at Jack and wondered if he’d ever
entertained inappropriate thoughts of college-age Natalie here
during the summers, taking the sun in her bikini by the pool...