Ida Lee, neat and trim in her black nylon uniform, opened the door as soon as we rang the bell. Her usually serene face was knotted with anxiety, but relief washed over it when she saw us.
“How are you, Ida Lee?” I asked, stepping inside and putting my pocketbook on the demilune table in the foyer. “And how’s Mrs. Allen?”
“It’s bad around here, Miss Julia,” Ida Lee said in her soft voice. “Miz Allen’s up in her room and I can’t get her out of bed. She’s so upset that she even received the sheriff’s deputy in her nightgown. Mrs. Conover’s up there with her now.”
“And Tonya, too?”
“No’m, Miss Tony, he…” Ida Lee’s face crumpled as she realized how badly she’d misspoken. Tonya Allen had been born Anthony, or Tony, Allen, but years of working up north had made a monumental impression on him and he’d come home as Tonya, complete with bosoms. Or, as Mildred called them, ta-tas. Mildred was barely over the shock of losing her boy to 36-D cups, and here she was suffering another loss.
“It’s all right, Ida Lee,” I said. “I still get mixed up, too, even though I admire Tonya much more than I ever admired Tony. Anyway,” I went on, trying to put things back on course, “where is he? I mean, she.”
“She gone to New York to visit old friends.”
“She needs to be here for her mother. Do you have a phone number?”
“Miz Allen tell me to call already, an’ Miss Tonya on her way,” she said, her small body trembling. “Miss Tonya the only one can do anything with her mama.”
Hazel Marie put her arm around Ida Lee and said, “Well, we’re here to help you.” And Hazel Marie went right to work organizing things. She was awfully good in times like these.
“I’ll answer the door for you,” Hazel Marie said, leading Ida Lee toward the kitchen. “And we’ll put a pad by the phone to take down any messages. And we need to keep a list of who all brings food or sends flowers. Mildred will need that. Miss Julia, you go on up and see her. I’ll stay down here and help Ida Lee.”
I stood in the foyer, looking up at the graceful stairs and dreading going up them. Glancing toward the living room on one side and into the dining room on the other, I was reassured by their impeccable condition. Mildred might have stayed in bed all day, but Ida Lee was still on the job, running the house like a general. Ida Lee was one of the most refined and capable people I knew, and I had often wondered why she wasn’t heading up a business somewhere. Of course, Mildred knew a good thing when she saw it and was more than generous with salary and benefits. On top of that, she gave Ida Lee complete oversight of the house, hiring day workers for the laundry, the yard and the heavy cleaning, with Ida Lee supervising all of it. So I guess she was already running a business right here.
I sighed then and commenced the climb toward Mildred’s bedroom, dreading the dramatic scenes to come. Mildred was an emotional woman who loved drama in her life, but she was ill prepared to handle a situation like this. Recalling my own bereavement after Wesley Lloyd Springer keeled over in his car and before I’d known what he’d been up to, I felt a surge of sympathy for her and resolved to comfort her in any way I could.
Instead of the expected hysterics, though, I found Mildred languishing on several pillows in her bed, the Porthault linens overflowing with lace. Mildred’s arms were flung out to the side, while LuAnne leaned over her, bathing her ashen face with a cloth.
I tiptoed over to the canopied bed, marveling at the quiet grief that she was suffering. The room was dim with the curtains still drawn and only one lamp burning, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. Mildred had the bed covers pushed down to her waist, with her arms and legs spraddled out across the bed. She wore a celadon satin bedjacket over a matching gown, and I was relieved that she’d apparently covered herself to some extent when she received Lieutenant Peavey. Mildred was a full-bodied woman who could’ve shocked the lieutenant beyond recovery if she’d not made some effort to cover herself. But then, Ida Lee had probably seen to it.
I put my hand on LuAnne’s back and leaned over the bed. “Mildred, Hazel Marie and I have come to help. What can we do? Is there any word on Horace?”
“Oh, Julia,” Mildred said with a monumental sigh. Without opening her eyes, she waved her hand around and finally seized mine. “My heart is broken. My dear, sweet Horace could be out there suffering somewhere and nobody knows where.”
I looked with surprise at LuAnne. “They haven’t found him? We saw Lieutenant Peavey leaving, and I thought there’d been some word.”
LuAnne shook her head. “He just came to tell her about the car and the accident. And to ask where Horace might be.”
“Oh,” I said, “then I guess that’s good news. At least, it could be. Maybe Horace will come walking in any minute.”
Mildred suddenly came to life, her eyes popping open as she shoved herself upright in the bed. “He better not come walking in after putting me through all this. LuAnne, quit wiping my face. Sit down, both of you, I’m tired of being treated like an invalid.”
“Well quit acting like one,” LuAnne snapped, backing away from the bed. I frowned at her and shook my head, cautioning her to overlook Mildred’s outburst. Grieving people are allowed to be short and discourteous within reason, but LuAnne’s feelings were close to the surface because of her own situation. She was in no mood to be tolerant of anybody.
But we both pulled chairs up close to the bed and sat down, waiting for Mildred like a queen’s attendants. Mildred plumped the pillows behind her back and scooted farther up in the bed. She seemed to be her old self, except for her hair which was mashed down in the back and standing out from the sides. But her face now had some color in it, and her eyes had gained some sparkle.
“I want to know where he is,” she said. “Believe me, the longer he’s gone, the worse trouble he’s going to be in.”
“Now, Mildred,” I said, concerned at her sudden mood swing, “you have to keep your spirits up until you hear something definite. He could still be wandering around up in the mountains, hurt or maimed, maybe with amnesia or something. People get lost up there all the time, even without a car accident.”
“I know that, Julia,” she said, flapping her hand. “But that doesn’t answer the question of what he was doing up there in the first place.”
LuAnne leaned forward. “How long has he been gone?”
“I don’t know!” And Mildred slung her head back and wailed. Exactly the way I’d been expecting. But then, she seemed to gather herself, took a deep breath and continued in a normal voice. “We have separate bedrooms,” she said, cutting her eyes at LuAnne, then at me. “I don’t expect either of you to understand, knowing how your marriages are.” I heard LuAnne make a mewing noise at the reference to her marriage.
Mildred didn’t notice, just went right on. “A lot of people have separate bedrooms, you know. They just don’t advertise the fact. So,” she said, reaching for a Kleenex, “I assumed he went to bed last night same as always, but apparently he didn’t.” Tears flowed down her face. “So I don’t know how long he’s been gone, and that stern-faced lieutenant acted like he didn’t believe me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he did, Mildred,” I said, reaching over and patting her hand. “He can’t believe you had anything to do with it. I wouldn’t worry about that at all.”
LuAnne sat beside me, her mouth twisting to one side and her eyes narrowing. “You don’t sleep together? How do you keep your marriage going?”
“My marriage is just fine,” Mildred said, pursing her mouth at her. “And just because we don’t find it necessary to be up against each other all the time doesn’t mean we don’t on occasion.” Mildred threw up her hands. “Our sleeping arrangements are beside the point and nobody’s business. Besides, Horace snores.”
“I think we should try to figure out what has happened,” I said, wanting to turn the conversation away from the tender subject of marriage. “When was the last time you saw him, Mildred?”
“That’s what the lieutenant asked, and it was yesterday at lunch. Horace wanted an advance on his allowance, and I gave it to him, although not as much as he wanted. All right, don’t look at me like that.” Mildred glared at us. “You both know that Horace has never made a nickel in his life, but he hasn’t needed to. We have our own arrangements which have worked for us all our married life, and if it’s not what most people are accustomed to, it doesn’t matter. I married Horace because he was such a gentleman, cosmopolitan and, well, worldly. He has always been available to me and devoted to me. That’s what I wanted and I was willing to support him to get it. So if that doesn’t meet your middle-class ideas, then I’m sorry.”
Mildred tightened her mouth and stared us down. Of course, I’d known pretty much all of what she’d just told us, simply from observing the two of them over the years. Mildred had been raised with unlimited wealth, and it’s a settled fact that people like that are different from you and me, whether in their money management or their sleeping arrangements. None of it mattered to me, but I knew Hazel Marie would be fascinated and I couldn’t wait to tell her.
“Well, I just think it’s strange,” LuAnne said. LuAnne only liked it when people did exactly what they were supposed to do with no variation from what she considered normal.
“LuAnne,” I said, in an attempt to get us back on track, “none of that has anything to do with the current problem, which is where Horace is now. Mildred,” I went on, turning to her, “didn’t Horace have a cell phone with him? Looks to me like he’d call somebody if he was lost.”
“Well, I know he would’ve,” Mildred said, “if he’d been able to or if it survived the wreck. It just goes to show that something’s not right with any of this.” She suddenly rose from the bed, flinging back the covers to reveal more than I wanted to see. “I’m getting up from here and getting dressed. Julia, you and LuAnne go on downstairs and ask Ida Lee to come help me. That doorbell has about rung off the hook, and I need to be down there.”
“Good,” I said, glad to see Mildred stirring herself. “Come on, LuAnne, let’s go see if the coffee’s made.”
She and I closed the door behind us as Mildred lumbered toward the bathroom. We lingered a minute in the upstairs hall, still slightly in shock at all that had happened that morning.
“Julia,” LuAnne said, so quietly I could barely hear her. “If things were fair, that should’ve been me.”
I stared at her. “You mean, married to Horace?”
“No! I mean, it should’ve been me grieving for Leonard after he’d been thrown out of a car wreck with his body nowhere to be found.”
“Now, LuAnne, you don’t mean that.”
“I certainly do. Everybody will sympathize with Mildred, but they’ll all laugh at me. It would be so much easier if Leonard had died instead of leaving me.”
Having no adequate response to that, I just rolled my eyes and took her arm as we proceeded down the stairs. “I think you’re jumping the gun, LuAnne. We have to remember to keep reminding Mildred that Horace is not dead until his body is found. There’s no need to envy her, LuAnne, because you’re both in the same situation. Both of your husbands are gone, and nobody knows where they are.”