The jeep squealed to a stop. I stared at the bar swung across the road and the stark sign:
NO TRESPASSING
I’d known the way would be barred. This was simply the first challenge.
I jumped down. The dark red dirt glistened greasily. The cane growing on either side of the narrow lane rustled in the light breeze. The cane was so tall, I stood in dusky shadow. Despite the languorous warmth of the air, I shivered.
I pushed the bar wide, jumped back into the jeep. When I drove past the barrier, I didn’t stop to close it. Not because I was impatient. I kept going, driving faster and faster, red dust boiling from beneath the wheels, because if I drove slowly, I might turn back. I might not have the courage to persevere.
Fear rode with me.
Not only the bone weakening fear of danger. I knew danger awaited me at journey’s end. Yes, I was afraid. But not simply of danger. I was tormented by a more complex fear, webbed like the silky strands spun by an industrious spider, a tendril of terror, a strand of anxiety, a wisp of apprehension, a thread of fright, all combining in a tremulous mélange of dread.
Oh, dear God, what was I going to learn at journey’s end?
In the innermost recesses of my heart, I knew that I feared not so much learning the truth of Richard’s death as the truth of his life.
What, finally, had Belle Ericcson meant to my husband? And could I bear to know that truth?
But I had to go on. A quick memory glittered in my mind, bright as a diamond: the softness of Richard’s eyes on our fifth wedding anniversary; his eager smile as I unwrapped his present, a slim book of Millay’s sonnets. I remembered, too, with a heart-wrenching clarity, the exquisite passion in our union that starry night.
Now the field of cane was behind me and the rusty red road began to climb, curving and twining, clinging to the edge of the rising escarpment.
Up and up and up. The cliff fell sharply away from the rutted roadway. Jutting up from the sides of the valley were trees and ferns so intensely green they glittered like sunlit prisms of jade, vivid enough to make the eyes wince and seek relief in the arch of softly blue sky.
I eased the pressure on the accelerator as I came around a curve. The road widened just enough for an outlook. Abruptly I braked, pulled to my right and stopped. I turned off the motor. My chest ached as if I’d run up that rising road.
No sound broke the quiet. I looked out over the valley to another ridge and beyond it to another and another. This was a Hawaii far removed from the bustle of Honolulu, wild and open, no sign of people or habitations, only rocky cliffs and emerald valleys.
Kauai is called the Garden Isle with good reason. It is pastoral still with an innocence and simplicity that I had to delve back to a child’s memory of rural France for comparison: narrow blacktopped roads and cars traveling sedately; towns, not cities; sweeps of rolling land unspoiled by high-rises. Kauai has yet to be consumed by the tourism that has devoured Oahu. Travelers come here in search of breathtaking loveliness and peace.
But I had not come to Kauai as a tourist seeking its beauty: dazzling gold trees with blooms more yellow than butter, chinaberry trees with clusters of pale pink or soft-azure flowers, magnificent banyans with hundreds of aerial roots; or the endlessly fascinating and awesome sea, crashing with inhuman force against outcroppings of jagged midnight-black lava, eddying in tidal pools behind barrier reefs, running in swift and dangerous currents, sometimes gentle, sometimes deadly.
I came seeking vengeance, understanding, release.
As I stared over the tropical growth, overwhelming in its fecundity, my hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ached.
Could I go through with my plan? Did I have the courage to plunge ahead to an uncertain and surely dangerous future?
It was an odd and singular moment. I’d spent a lifetime as a reporter, seeing much I would have preferred not to see, but always attempting to look with clear and non-judgmental eyes, speaking and writing as honorably as I knew how.
Now I’d left honor behind. I was prepared to lie, dissemble, employ every wile at my command. What would Richard have thought of me if he could see me now? My Richard, who was always straightforward and honorable.
Was it because of honor that he had never discussed Belle Ericcson with me?
Richard and I spent decades together. We knew passion and pain, joy and despair. I closed my eyes and for a moment he was in my mind as clearly as the last time I saw him, his face seamed with lines earned by a lifetime of effort and caring and loss.
That last view was such a familiar one, one of us departing or arriving. We’d done so much of that in our lives. I’d turned at the last moment before boarding the plane, looked back to see his steady, loving, generous gaze, his chiseled features, his ruddy skin with its age-won creases, his lopsided smile, ironic yet warm. His brown corduroy sports coat hung open. His shirt was a red-and-white houndstooth check. His chino slacks were crisp. We’d stopped on our leisurely walk through the airport at the shoeshine stand and his tasseled loafers glistened a cherry tan. His hand lifted in farewell, that broad, capable, strong hand.
I’d had no reason to suspect it would be our final farewell. Such an ordinary moment, but even then it was extraordinary because it was Richard and because he, standing there, meant so much to me, the center and heart and joy of my life.
Now Richard’s face was always and ever in my memory, a talisman against despair and cynicism and hopelessness.
Faces tell everything you need to know. Do you see laughter or sourness, compassion or disdain, vigor or lassitude? And if the face lacks expression? That speaks, too.
Just for an instant, I felt Richard was so near, his broad, open face serious and intent, his quick eyes watchful, his generous mouth opening to speak.
To warn me? To admonish me? To salute me?
I opened my eyes and the illusion fled and with it all sense of comfort. Would Richard understand the course I’d set?
But I had to find out the truth. Dig it out, gouge it out, scratch it out, if need be. I couldn’t leave unanswered any question about Richard’s death. Even though I knew my arrival on Kauai served some purpose—dark or benign?—other than discovering what happened when Richard plummeted to his death.
Who wanted me here? And why?
Behind this pastoral scene there was a pattern I could not see. Perhaps I should turn back. I felt such a sweep of foreboding that I was shaken. I looked up. Once I reached the mountaintop, I would set forces into motion that I could not control. But control is always illusory. I knew that, could cling to that, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that my actions would have consequences.
Take what you want, the old adage encourages, but pay for it. That philosophy requires arrogance. I’m not certain we ever know ourselves, but I think I can fairly insist I am not arrogant. No, I won’t confess to arrogance. But I will admit to a passion for truth. And a bone-deep stubbornness. And a wild, unreasoning hatred for injustice.
Was Richard murdered? I had to know. I was impelled to follow this dark red, empty road because on that mountaintop I would find answers. I was determined, no matter the cost, to have those answers.
My hand shook as I twisted the key. Yes, dammit, I was scared, scared of what I might find, what I might learn, what might happen to me. The engine snarled to life. I jerked the wheel and gunned the jeep up that steep gradient. I leashed the speed as the curves sharpened. There were no guardrails. Not that a flimsy metal barrier could stop a plunge over the side and a sheer drop of more than a hundred feet.
Wind whipped my face, stirred my hair. Surely I was almost to the top of the ridge. I came around a curve fast.
It was almost the last curve I ever took.
A huge car loomed up in front of me.
I jammed my foot hard against the brake pedal, stomped the brake pedal. The jeep slewed a little sideways and bucked to a halt. A dark green Land Rover screeched to a stop only inches away. Red dust billowed around the cars. A pale face stared at me, the lips parted in a shout.
If we’d collided, the force would have propelled both cars over the edge. It had been a near thing.
The door to the Land Rover opened, then slammed shut, the noise harsh in the silence. A young woman jumped down and stalked toward me. “It’s one way.” Her eyes glittered with anger. “You’re supposed to punch the intercom on the gatepost to signal you’re coming up. And this is a private road. You’re trespassing.” She spoke in a crisp, decisive voice that was only a little breathless from the nearness of a crash. “I’ll have to ask you to leave. At once.” Raven-dark hair cupped an intelligent, confident face with wide-spaced gray eyes and an appealing snub nose. The swift breeze molded her white cotton top and linen skirt against her.
I knew who she was: Belle’s secretary, Elise Ford. Even Belle’s secretary was pictured in the newspapers in the aftermath of the kidnapping. I knew so much about all of them—and they knew nothing of me.
Except one of them. One of them knew me. The thought was like a trickle of ice down my spine. One of them knew a great deal about me. One of them had spent hours painstakingly creating a document to wrench me out of the present, propel me into the past.
I looked at Belle’s secretary pleasantly, but I was scanning for character. At first glance all seemed in order, just the right amount of makeup, her clothing appropriate. Only one item jarred, an extremely expensive jeweled platinum watch. But perhaps Belle gave nice presents. Or Miss Ford had a well-heeled admirer. Or generous parents. Or an extravagant streak.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know about the intercom.” I spoke quickly, placatingly. “Belle offered to have me picked up at the airport, but I decided to rent a jeep. Awfully sorry if I’ve caused a problem.” I smiled at her. “You must be Belle’s secretary. I’m Henrietta Collins.” I leaned out the car window to look past her. “Can you back up? Or should I back down to the outlook?”
She stared at me blankly. “You’re expected?” Her questioning eyes noted my crimson hopsack suit and silver-and-turquoise earrings and necklace, looked past me at my luggage, sensible and sturdy black vinyl. “But Ms. Ericcson sees no one except by invitation.”
I feigned equal surprise. Now I had to be convincing. The very rich live on a different plane, their privacy guarded in every possible way. I had to get past Elise Ford. “I know. So I’m very appreciative that she’s invited me to visit her. It’s very thoughtful of her.”
She stood stiff and straight, like a sentinel. “Oh, no. There must be some mistake. I handle all of Ms. Ericcson’s correspondence. This weekend is a family gathering.”
“A family gathering?” I repeated blankly. “But…” I reached down to my purse and lifted out a creamy square of cardboard. I scanned it, then nodded. “Yes. I was asked to arrive today. Thursday, the twenty-seventh.”
Elise Ford reached out. “May I?”
I handed the invitation to her, managing, I hoped, to look a trifle surprised, a little indignant.
She studied the card. It was quite tasteful, a thick square with a blue border. Belle’s name was printed in raised blue ink. A coconut palm was embossed in the right margin. The secretary frowned, handed back the card. “Excuse me.”
She walked back to the Land Rover and retrieved a mobile phone.
I shaded my eyes and listened hard without appearing to do so.
“Lester, Elise. I’m on the road and there’s a woman—a Henrietta Collins—who says Belle’s invited her to visit. She has an invitation. But—” Her voice dropped.
I would have liked to have heard the rest of it. But I could guess. Was the stationery unfamiliar to her? The signature? That was no wonder. My local print shop had made the invitation. I’d signed it. Not, of course, in my usual handwriting.
She swung toward me. “Are you Mrs. Richard Collins?”
Oh, Richard, Richard. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Yes, dammit, I still should be.
She spoke into the phone. “She says she is. All right, Lester. If you say so.” She punched the phone off. “I’ll back around. You can come up.”
She swung up into the driver’s seat, closed the door. Without a glance at the precipitous drop but with care and caution, she maneuvered the huge car around and roared away, up the mountain.
I followed in the jeep. I didn’t mind the dust that swept back over me, almost obscuring my way. Another challenge met and bested. But this was just the beginning.
Yet another gate was at journey’s end, a gate of bronze bars between twelve-foot whitewashed walls. Bougainvillea spilled over the walls, the crimson blossoms bright as blood. A semicircle parking area of red tiles fanned out from the walls.
I stopped the jeep next to the Land Rover. As I stepped down, the gate began to swing slowly inward. I glanced toward Elise Ford. She made no move to get out of the Land Rover. She looked past me toward the gate.
A tall, thin man in a checkered shirt and age-paled jeans walked out. He lifted a hand toward Elise. She nodded, backed and turned the big vehicle, and started down the mountain.
I walked toward him. We met beside a pink shower tree in full bloom, with masses of pink blooms.
“Mrs. Collins? I’m Lester Mackey. I work for Belle.” His voice was soft and light with a mournful quality. It reminded me of a long-ago disaster and the voice of a mine official, telling me about the men blocked off by a deadly landslide. Soft and light and mournful.
Johnnie Rodriguez’s mother had compared Mackey’s voice to the whispery slither of a snake. But there was nothing snakelike about Lester Mackey. I was struck, in fact, by the anxiousness of his light blue eyes and the fine crinkle of lines fanning out from his eyes and mouth. This man had served Belle Ericcson for many years. I’d envisioned him as a kind of bodyguard. He didn’t fit that preconception. There was nothing tough or hard about him. He had a sensitive face and graceful hands and that anxious, diffident look.
“I’m Henrietta Collins. Mrs. Richard Collins.” I spoke crisply, a woman confident of her welcome.
Mackey nodded. “I understand there’s some confusion about your visit.” His soft voice was deferential.
I listened to his words, but I was gauging his eyes. I’ve watched eyes for a half century now. Lots of blinks? That’s a liar. Dead and dull? That’s despair. Shiny as marbles? Oh, watch out, that’s a screen. Lester Mackey’s eyes were shiny. I wondered what he was hiding.
“I called Belle. She’s lunching in Princeville. She said of course to welcome you. She’ll be back in late afternoon.” The words were hospitable, but he kept darting quick, appraising glances at me as we walked toward the opened gate. Quick, appraising, shiny glances.
A middle-aged Hawaiian woman in a starched gray uniform waited for us, her plump face grave and dignified.
As we neared, Mackey said, “Amelia, this is Mrs. Collins. She will be staying with us.”
Amelia smiled. “Hello, Mrs. Collins. Welcome to Ahiahi. I’m Mrs. Ericcson’s housekeeper. If you will come with me, I will show you to your room.” Her voice had the sweet lilt of a native Hawaiian.
I looked toward Mackey.
“I’ll see to your bags.”
I wanted to talk to Lester Mackey. What did he know that he didn’t want to reveal? It could have to do with Richard’s death or with the reason Richard came to Ahiahi. More than ever, it seemed likely Lester Mackey and Johnnie Rodriguez indeed knew something about CeeCee Burke’s kidnapping. But first things first. “Thank you, Mr. Mackey.” I nodded to him and followed the housekeeper.
I’ve traveled the world, seen the Taj Mahal at sunrise, Saint Paul’s in the fog, the Sphinx in a sandstorm. But when I stepped through the gate, I stopped and gazed in awe.
Paths of crushed shells wound through a fairyland of blossoms. Macaws flitted against the backdrop of cotton-candy-pink tecomas and lacy apple-green tree ferns and the delicate blue blossoms of the jacaranda. Sunlight glinted on porcelain Kyoto dragons. But the luxuriant tropical blooms were simply the setting for the jewel.
Pale violet clusters of rooms were strung along the canyon’s rim like amethysts on a chain. Indoors and out flowed together so gracefully it was hard to discern boundaries. It was a house, but more than a house; the rooms independent, yet parts of a whole.
Beyond the flowering trees and a pond with the flickering brightness of fish colored more imaginatively than a tropical Gauguin, beyond the tiled flooring of the courtyard with its primitive depiction of volcanoes and thundering waves and swaying palms, beyond the open and unscreened windows and doors ran lanais overlooking the verdant canyon and the falls.
The falls. Always, ultimately, the eye was drawn to the falls as they arched and curved and thundered, down and down and down, the narrow, rushing water shimmering like diamonds glittering in a tiara.
If there was a more beautiful place in all the world, I’d never seen it.
Finally, I moved forward, catching up with the waiting housekeeper.
“If you please,” she murmured, “here are some rubber slippers.” She held out thongs.
“Of course.” I sat on a sleek koa bench the color of almonds and slipped off my low-slung red leather heels and put on the thongs.
“Everyone leaves their shoes here.” It was a gentle request. “If you don’t mind,” she added quickly.
I smiled and put my shoes along the edge of the tiled walkway that fronted the clusters of rooms. I noted a half dozen other pairs—tennis shoes, jogging shoes, dress shoes. Even though the clusters of rooms drowsed quietly in the sunlight, obviously there were others about. Somewhere.
Eventually, I would meet them. If Belle Ericcson permitted me to stay.
But I quite literally had my thong in the door. I wanted to get settled, to be ensconced in a guest room before Belle returned. It would be much more awkward to send away a guest in possession of a room. Though from what I’d gleaned about Belle Ericcson—and what I’d surmised over the years Richard had known her—I felt sure that Belle was tough enough to do whatever she deemed necessary.
“Yes, I’d love to go on to my room. I’d like to rest for a bit.” It was surely a familiar comment from a visitor arriving from the mainland. Travelers reach Hawaii glassy-eyed and exhausted, so I’d flown to Honolulu on Wednesday and spent the night. I’d arrived on Kauai today well rested. I hoped to be fresh and quick and alert to face the most daunting challenge of my life.
“Yes, ma’am. This way.”
I followed her along the walkway. We passed a series of wide-open rooms, the soft cream and pale blue furniture subtle spots of color, subservient to the vibrant hues of the canyon. It was breathtaking to realize that this portion of the house ran along the lip of the canyon. It was like being a bird atop a towering tree, unfettered, exhilarated, godlike.
Amelia’s rubber slippers shushed softly against the tiled walkway as it followed the terrain in a series of steps and platforms. “Everyone has a separate suite, each with a lanai that overlooks the canyon.” She slowed. “There are two suites available. The last one is the highest one. Mr. Mackey said I should tell you that the last one is where your husband stayed. Do you wish to choose it or the other one?”
There would be no trace of Richard in the suite. Nothing to show he had spent the last hours of his life there. But Richard had been there as he had never been in the house in which I now lived. Richard had been there.
I made my choice quickly. “The last one.”
She darted swift glances at me as we climbed the last set of steps, reached the level of the last suite.
I realized when I stepped across the threshold that there was no door, no door at all.
The housekeeper saw my surprise and her lips curved in a suddenly merry smile. “Everyone notices! Here.” She pointed at two buttons, one cream, one red, beneath the light switch. She reached out, touched the cream button, and a panel slid shut behind us. She touched it again and the panel opened, withdrawing into its recess. “When the panel is closed, you may push the red button if you wish to lock it.”
We stood in a small, cheerful living area with white wicker sofas and chairs. The walls were also white. The only color came from the vividly patterned pillows, splashed with gold and carnelian and emerald. I was reminded of the macaws in the garden.
A sandalwood latticework jutted out from one wall to demarcate the bedroom, also furnished in white wicker. The bedroom was open to its own lanai and the canyon.
I scarcely listened as the housekeeper demonstrated how to pull out louvered panels to close off the lanai. And, of course, there were ceiling fans in both the living room and the bedroom.
A quick tattoo sounded behind us.
“Come in,” I called, but still I stood, staring out at the falls as a young woman placed my suitcase and carry-on in a corner of the bedroom.
I should have known Lester Mackey would not bring my cases himself. But that was all right. I would make an occasion to talk to him.
I smiled. “Thank you.” She nodded briskly and turned away.
The housekeeper pointed toward an intercom on the nightstand. “If you would like anything—a snack, coffee, a drink—press it and one of the maids will come. And there is a small refrigerator in an alcove. It is well stocked, but don’t hesitate to ask for anything that you would like to have.”
“Thank you,” I said again. “I’m fine. If you’ll let me know when Ms. Ericcson returns…”
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Her quick footsteps pattered away.
I walked slowly across the floor, the lau hala matting soft beneath my feet. I stepped out onto the lanai and walked to the railing. It was a sheer drop of at least a hundred feet to the rocky valley floor.
I placed my hands on the railing, a wooden railing. I wondered if Richard had stood thus, if his fingers had felt the smoothness of the paint, if he’d been fascinated by the subtle variations in tones of green from the vines and ferns and trees that carpeted the hillside, if he’d watched the shadows lengthen in the valley as the sun slipped westward.
My hands gripped harder. Where had Richard fallen?
I would find out.
I swung away from the railing, found the little refrigerator in the alcove, fixed myself a tall tumbler of ice water.
But I didn’t unpack. I must face Belle Ericcson first.
I settled on a comfortable wicker chaise on the lanai. Belle might return at any time.
I didn’t know what I would say when I saw her. For the first time, I regretted the fact that we’d never met, not in all the years Richard had known Belle. I’d resented the phone calls across the years, from Belle to Richard. And from Richard to Belle. Yes, certainly, I should have welcomed a friend of my husband’s. But there was something in the way he would respond to a call, dropping whatever plans we had to go to her side, that made me question the depth of their friendship. Or wonder, painfully, if it was more than friendship. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Richard.
I could not do that.
He was always an honorable man. How could I accuse him of unfaithfulness? And it wasn’t that I actually thought him unfaithful. I knew, knew beyond doubt, that he loved me. But between Richard and Belle there was a bond that exceeded friendship. And I was never willing to explore what that bond might be.
Now I wished I had not made that choice so long ago. Because everything hinged on Belle, on who she was and how she thought, on how much she cared for Richard, on her character.
Belle Ericcson, woman extraordinaire.
And my husband’s lover?
I looked out at majestic beauty and steeled my mind and heart to think, not feel.
Belle Ericcson. If ever I needed to understand her mind, it was now. Of course, I knew a great deal about her as one knows about celebrities. I had some sense of her personality. I knew she was brave. It takes a gritty courage to cover wars. Obviously, she was decisive, charming, intelligent. It took all of those qualities to forge the life she’d led.
As I waited for her to return to this spectacular retreat, I considered a quality I’d not expected. The more I had read about Belle, the harder I looked, the clearer it became to me that Belle Ericcson lived with élan. And that is no small achievement.
But I should remember that this was the public Belle. Even the tart-tongued Lifestyle editor Lou Kinkaid who knew every nuance of the social set in Dallas had more questions than answers about Belle.
What of the private woman? The woman who had known extraordinary success—and great unhappiness. Not even her autobiography truly revealed her.
When I’d made the decision to come here, to gain entrance to Belle’s secluded retreat, I’d immediately set out to discover everything possible about her. I’d learned a great deal about the public Belle. And I’d picked up her autobiography on my way to the airport. I had to hope that every fact I’d gleaned would help me when finally—now in a matter of moments—we came face-to-face.
Belle’s family history was as tangled and extravagant as golden necklaces heaped in a Middle Eastern souk.
Belle was born on the Fourth of July in 1935 in Seattle. Her father, Anders Ericcson, was a Swedish immigrant. Anders started off working as a lumberjack and ended up owning one of the largest lumber mills in the Northwest and marrying Abigail Joss, the daughter of a shipping magnate. Belle was an only child, and from the first, lovely and beloved, was showered with every attention and luxury.
A nanny recalled that Belle began reading the Seattle newspaper when she was four years old and shortly after her seventh birthday announced firmly at dinner one night that she was going to be a reporter.
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, something 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.
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 coward—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.”