FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One) (2 page)

So much had been left unsaid between them and
that is what upset him the most. They had just blindly held onto
the belief, the hope that she would improve, or at least that her
condition would reach some kind of manageable equilibrium. The
doctors had told them that the onset of seriously debilitating
dementia could take years to manifest itself. No-one had expected
the disease to accelerate so quickly. Gregory looked again at
Gloria, who hadn’t moved. They had always been so close, so
intimate, but the only intimacy left to him now was when he brushed
her hair gently each morning and evening. He wiped away the tears
that had welled up in his eyes and then turned and left the room,
quietly closing the bedroom door behind him.

“You see,” said Lucy, “I told you you’d enjoy
yourself.”

I guess she was right, in a limited sort of
way. Outwardly I just grunted. We were seated next to each other on
matching recliners beside the main pool of the Boylston Recreation
Club as guests of Bradley Swayne, a towering obelisk of a man who
was married to a woman the size of a tadpole. He was a satisfied
client, and the day out was my reward. I had been treated to lunch
and drinks with an assortment of Boylston’s best and brightest, but
whilst I was presently enjoying my proximity to the decoratively
semi-clad young ladies hovering around the poolside, my main reason
for accepting Swayne’s invitation was the hope that I might meet
other potential clients. It had been a moderately successful ploy
which was destined to bear fruit a little later, but Brad was
presently swinging his golf clubs somewhere out yonder and it was
only mid-afternoon. I deserved a day off but, in spite of the
opportunity to drum up more business, I could think of better
places to spend it and better things to do.

“The trouble with you,” Lucy said, rather
unkindly I thought, “is that you can’t relax properly unless you’ve
got a drink in your hand.”

Brad’s assignment had involved me being away
from my home turf for almost two weeks. I’d been to L.A. and then
Phoenix, via Reno, driving all the way. Brad had offered to pay for
air tickets, but I felt lost without the old Chevy, and anyway I
enjoyed the ride. It was a well-paid job with generous expenses,
but it was too long to be away. A couple of promising cases went by
the bye. I’d been hired by Brad to find his seventeen-year-old
daughter and bring her home. I’d found her on the West Coast and
promptly lost her again. I followed a trail of credit card receipts
and found her again. This time she agreed to come home, but only
because she’d exhausted her credit and decided that working for a
living wasn’t as much fun as she’d thought it was going to be; plus
the friends she’d met along the way had disappeared when they
couldn’t freeload any more. I was fairly certain she would be gone
again soon, probably by the fall, paraphrasing the old adage: ‘you
can bring a spoiled brat home with you but you can’t make her
stay’. Brad, being Brad, had dealt with the problem by purchasing a
brand new Porsche for her, either as a reward for coming home or an
inducement to stay. I’d looked for her new toy in the club car
park, but if it was there it was lost among others of its kind.
There was no sign of her at the club.

“I thought toots might’ve shown up to give me
a spin in her new car,” I said. “After all she wouldn’t have it if
it wasn’t for me.”

“I imagine she prefers to hang out with
people her own age,” Lucy said pointedly, without deigning to look
in my direction.

The Boylston Recreation Club was as swish as
it sounded and the members as uninteresting as I’d expected, which
was why I’d got Lucy invited as well. Lucy’s my secretary and girl
Friday, although I have to share her semi-professional services
with an assortment of other self-employed hacks so that we can all
afford a swanky office address downtown. She was enjoying her day
out better than I was. Earlier she’d called me a grouch.

Women of a certain age were spread over sun
loungers which were scattered around the edge of the pool,
apparently comatose, but the younger women were scantily clad and
checking each other out. Their costumes left little to the
imagination, and I was using my imagination on what was left. I had
decided to cover my own legs with linen pants rather than attract
the pity or derision of others. I was the only one within a hundred
feet of the pool who was not at least the color of
café con
leche
.

To my left was a forty something woman whose
skin was the color of mahogany, and well-seasoned mahogany at that.
She wore pink shades to match her pink lip salve, and a large straw
sun hat which kept her face in the shade. The sun lotion that she
had applied to her face and body made the skin of her neck and
shoulders glisten in the sun, and I watched in fascination as
rivulets of perspiration flowed like tributaries from her face and
neck forming pools in the hollows above her collarbones. I was one
of the few males in the vicinity of the pool, and the only one not
wearing shorts. Elsewhere the men were doing more manly things,
like golfing or bragging about their respective houses, fortunes or
gifted children.

To be fair Brad had asked me to join him for
golf. I didn’t tell him that I had never played the game in my
life, or even wanted to, because that was something he simply
wouldn’t have understood. Instead I told him that since Lucy didn’t
know anyone at the club I felt that I should keep her company. She
was there when I said it and knew it was simply an excuse,
grimacing at me from behind Bradley’s back. Brad and I had arranged
to meet at the nineteenth tee at four o’clock. Lucy wasn’t invited.
Lucy was on the sun lounger to my right pretending to read a
magazine whilst surreptitiously eyeing the athletic-looking young
men at the poolside. She thought her dark glasses were masking this
activity and I didn’t spoil her afternoon by telling her they
weren’t. An almost deafening roar from the bar signaled Brad’s
triumphant return from the eighteenth green.

The noise from the bar contrasted starkly
with the quietness of the pool area. No jumping or diving was
permitted, and no ball games either. They weren’t going to let
anybody have fun at the Boylston Club. There was an overflow grill
around the pool to eliminate waves, so the only sound was a
rhythmical and soporific ‘lup…lup…lup’.

“Bradley said there’s someone that he’d like
to introduce to me over a drink,” I said. “It could be
business.”

“Step on it,” Lucy said. “You have no greater
fan then Bradley right now.”

“Except you,” I said.

“Yes, except me,” she replied unconvincingly,
momentarily raising her shades and rolling her eyes.

I heaved myself off of the recliner and
stretched.

“Would you like a drink sent out to you? He’s
bound to ask.”

“A Pina Colada,” she said, with her best but
barely convincing approximation of a coquettish smile, “with a tiny
umbrella please.”

As I walked over to the clubhouse I noticed a
sign forbidding dogs and small children near the pool. I wasn’t
sure whether that was because of the peeing or the noise; perhaps
it was both. If I hadn’t already known where the bar was I could
simply have followed Brad’s booming voice. I squeezed myself
through the almost tangible bonhomie and congratulated him on his
winning round which was being broadcast to everyone within shouting
distance. He introduced me to an assortment of his friends whose
names I instantly forgot. I was introduced by both name and
description. The description was ‘my secret weapon’ which caused
great merriment and some raucous laughter. I stood there sheepishly
and took it on the chin. Fortunately no-one asked me what my
handicap was, although right then it was a dry mouth.

“What’ll it be?” said Bradley. I settled for
a scotch on the rocks. The scotch to warm me and the rocks to cool
me down.

I’m not by nature a shrinking violet, but
there is some sort of mysterious universal edict which dictates
that non-members of country clubs cannot be fully integrated into a
group of bon viveur members no matter how gregarious or keen they
may be, so I hovered on the sideline smiling and nodding politely.
My secret, that I didn’t enjoy crowds of any kind, was saved by
this quirk of social etiquette. After a little while I noticed
another man, who might have been a kindred spirit, hovering
unobtrusively a few feet from the gathering. He was in his early
sixties I guessed, with snow white hair which had a slight wave in
it despite being brushed straight back, accentuating a widow’s
peak, and salient eyebrows whose inky blackness contrasted starkly
with the whiteness of his hair. He was dressed immaculately in a
navy-blue blazer with embossed brass buttons, a pristine white
shirt, which looked as if it had come straight from the laundry,
and a dark blue cravat. His ensemble was completed by grey cotton
slacks and a brown leather belt circling a trim waist. He was about
five feet ten and stood erect, but his demeanor had a hint of
embarrassment about it, like a small boy who’d got lost on his
first day at school and accidentally entered the wrong classroom.
Almost as soon as he caught my attention Brad greeted him.

“Greg, good to see you.” He turned towards
me. “This is the fellow I was telling you about, Kane, Gregory
Philips. Greg, come and meet Kane.” Fortunately the secret weapon
moniker was omitted this time but it might have been imparted to
Greg on a previous occasion; Greg gave no indication one way or the
other. Bradley excused himself from the group at the bar and walked
us over to a table near the window. As we sat down Brad said, “I’m
going to let you two have a private chat. Can I get you anything,
Greg?”

Greg said he would have a rock soda with
plenty of ice. I nodded when Brad asked me if I’d like another
scotch. “Straight this time please Brad, and perhaps a Pina Colada
for Lucy if that’s okay. She’s by the pool.”

“Sure thing.” Bradley wandered off back to
the bar to place the order, like a shepherd returning to the fold
to tend to his flock.

I turned to Philips. “Mark Kane,” I said,
extending my hand, “but most people just call me Kane. Brad
mentioned that you might need some professional help from me,
although I suppose my line of work can only loosely be described as
a profession.” I sensed that my attempt at mild levity fell a bit
flat.

“I do hope you didn’t come here specially,”
he said almost apologetically. “Brad told me you had just finished
some work for him and that he had invited you to the club for
lunch. I’m Gregory Philips by the way, but please call me Greg.” He
smiled awkwardly but shook my proffered hand warmly and firmly
enough.

“Yes, that’s right. I haven’t been here
before but it seems very congenial. It certainly makes a change
from my usual Sundays, catching up on all the odd jobs at home.”
This was a lie since I seldom did any jobs at home and especially
not on Sundays. I hoped that the small talk would put Gregory at
ease; he seemed a little stiff and uncertain how to proceed, like
the new boy at school from out of town.

“I really wanted to sound you out about
something rather personal.” He paused and adjusted himself in his
seat, first crossing and then uncrossing his legs. He knitted the
fingers of both hands together and placed them on the table between
us before continuing. “As you probably know from Brad, I’ve
recently had a bereavement; my wife, Gloria, passed away on the
last day of spring. I understand that you’re an investigator and
Brad speaks highly of you. I’ve known Brad for years and his wife
and mine were friends too. The matter I want to speak with you
about concerns Gloria’s estate. I don’t think it would be
appropriate to discuss the matter in detail today, but it would be
useful to know if you think this is something that you can help
with.”

“It sounds exactly the sort of thing that I
can help you with, Mr. Philips,” I said, although I really hadn’t
the faintest idea what he was going to ask me to do. Lucy would
have been proud of me.

“Greg, please,” he said.

I smiled congenially. “Can you tell me
briefly what it is you want me to do, Greg?”

Philips reached forward and picked up his
glass. He sipped his rock soda and then held the glass in both
hands in front of his stomach and lowered his eyes as if in
contemplation.

“Gloria had a long illness before she died,”
he said. “Although she was still quite young she developed
Alzheimer’s disease and her deterioration was rather rapid; so much
so that we didn’t get around to discussing affairs relating to her
estate. She inherited quite a large sum from her parents, mainly in
stocks, bonds and so on, and our financial affairs were always kept
separate on the advice of our respective accountants. In fact even
the family home is in her name alone. I’m not impecunious myself,
you understand, but a complication has arisen in relation to
Gloria’s estate since she died. It affects the children mainly,
although because the house is in Gloria’s name it may well affect
me too.” He placed his glass on the table and leaned towards me.
“Although we never discussed it I always assumed that the house
would be mine if she predeceased me, at least during my own
lifetime. It probably seems odd to you that we never discussed
these matters, but it never occurred to me that she would die
first. In fact the idea of death itself never entered my mind
before Gloria became ill.”

“In general what kind of complication has
arisen?”

“It’s to do with her will. It contained
some…surprises.”

Philips took another sip of his drink and put
the glass down on the table in front of him. I nodded to encourage
him to continue.

“We were married for forty one years,” he
said, “blissfully happy years until Gloria became so ill. It wasn’t
just that we were content together, we were used to each other you
see. It feels rather strange to be alone now. Of course I’m not
totally alone; we, that is I, have two children and two
grandchildren – two sons and two grandsons actually, and that
helps; but they have their own lives and it’s the ordinary mundane
day to day things that I miss the most. I’m sorry; I really
shouldn’t burden you with this. After all I’m not unique in being a
widower.”