Robert Parker - Family Honor

“You’ve been shooting,” Betty said.

“Yes.”

“Can she shoot, Brock?”

“Well, sort of,” Brock said.

“Did you ask Brock to shoot, Ms. Randall?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

“Oh, well, you’ve disappointed him badly then. That was the real point of the exercise.”

I had nothing to say about that, and I said it. The decorative fire was still burning vigorously. A servant must have fed it while we were out. The air-conditioning was still fogging the glass in the French doors.

“I think Ms. Randall is who we need,” Brock said.

Betty smiled and sipped her coffee. She didn’t spill a drop on her dress. She wouldn’t.

“I rather expected you to think so,” Betty said when the elegant cup was perfectly centered back in the elegant saucer. “She’s quite pretty.”

“She has a good background,” Brock said. “She is straightforward. And I have the sense that she is discreet.”

Discreet about what?

“Do you think you can find our Millicent?” Betty said, leaning forward slightly as if to make her question more compelling. Like her husband, she seemed incapable of an unrehearsed gesture.

“Probably,” I said.

“Because?”

“Because I’m really quite good at this.”

Betty smiled interiorly.

“Odd profession for a woman,” she said.

“Everyone says that.”

“Really?”

I knew it would annoy her to be clumped in with everyone.

“Yes,” I said. “Usually they say it just as you did.”

“Are you married?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ever been married?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re not a lesbian.”

“Having been married doesn’t prove it.”

“Well, are you?”

“I guess that’s not germane.”

Betty stared at me for a moment. A perfect little frown line appeared between her flawless eyebrows.

“That’s rather uppity, Miss Randall,” she said.

“Oh, I can be much more uppity than this, Mrs. Patton.”

She was motionless for a moment and then turned to her husband.

“I’m afraid she won’t do, Brock.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Betty. Maybe you could stop being a bitch for a minute.”

Again Betty was motionless. Then she put her cup and saucer on the coffee table, and rose effortlessly, the way a dancer might, and walked from the room without another word. I watched her husband watch her go. There was nothing in his look that told me what he felt about her. Maybe that was what he felt about her.

“Don’t mind Betty,” he said finally. “She can be difficult.”

“I would imagine,” I said.

He smiled. “She’d have preferred someone less attractive.”

“I’m trying,” I said.

He smiled widely. “And failing, may I say.”

I nodded. “Your daughter’s name is Millicent?”

“Yes — Millie.”

“When did she disappear?”

“She hasn’t disappeared,” Patton said. “She’s run off.”

“When did she run off?”

“Ah, today is Wednesday,” he leaned forward and looked at the calendar on his desk. “She went not this past Monday, but, ah, a week ago Monday.”

“Ten days?” I said.

“Yes. I know it seems long, but, well, we weren’t too worried at first.”

“She’s done this before,” I said.

“Well, in a sense, that is, she’s gone off to stay with a friend for a couple of days.”

“Without telling you.”

“You know how rebellious teenagers are,” he said.

“I’m not judging your daughter or you, Mr. Patton. I’m trying to find a place to start.”

“I have a picture,” he said.

He took a manila envelope out of his desk drawer, and handed it across to me. I took the picture out and looked at it. It was a good picture, not one of those bright-colored school photos in the cardboard folders that I used to bring home every year. It showed a pretty girl, perhaps fifteen, with straight blond hair and her mother’s even features. There was no sign of life in the picture. Her eyes were blank. She seemed to be wearing her face like a mask.

“Pretty, isn’t she,” he said.

“Yes. This a good likeness?”

“Of course, why do you ask?”

“Well, just that sometimes people look a little more, ah, relaxed in real life, than they do in studio photographs.”

“That’s a good likeness of Millie,” he said.

“May I keep this?”

“Of course.”

“You know what she was wearing when she left?”

“No, I’m sorry, she had so many clothes.”

“Take anything with her?”

He shook his head, with that false helplessness men like to adopt when talking about women.

“And have you any suggestion where I should start?”

“You might ask at the school?”

“Which is?”

“Pinkett School,” he said. “In Belmont. The headmistress is Pauline Plum.”

Pauline Plum. From Pinkett. How darling.

“What was he like?” Julie said.

Behind Julie, the light was slanting into my loft from the South Boston waterfront. It came in through the big window at the east end, and splashed over my easel, making an elongated Ichabod Crane shadow on the floor. Just out of the shadow, in the warmest part of the sunlight, my bull terrier, Rosie, was lying on her back with her feet in the air and her head lolled over so she could keep an almond-shaped eye on our breakfast.

“Tall, cute little crow’s-feet around the eyes,” I said. “Great hair.”

“Nice?”

“A little impressed with himself.”

“But you liked him?”

“Not much,” I said.

Julie took a bite of her sesame seed bagel and a sip of her coffee.

“Money?”

“It would seem so. Huge house, servants, a croquet lawn, trap shooting, river view.”

“In South Natick?”

“There’s still land left there,” I said. “This is a very big property.”

Rosie got up and came over and sat the way bull terriers do with her tail balancing the back of her and her butt several inches from the ground. She looked steadily at me now, her narrow black eyes implacable in their desire for a bite. I broke off a piece of bagel and handed it to her.

“How about the wife?”

I had a mouthful of coffee and couldn’t answer so I just shook my head.

“We don’t like the wife,” Julie said.

I swallowed the coffee.

“No, we don’t,” I said. “Arrogant, impeccable, condescending.”

“God, I hate impeccable,” Julie said. “They get along?”

“Maybe not. I almost had the sense she was jealous of me.”

“Oh ho,” Julie said. “He seem interested in you?”

“He might have been.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. Tall, crinkly, rich, and interested.”

“And married.”

“That doesn’t have to be an obstacle,” Julie said.

“It is to you.”

“Well yes, but Michael and I get along,” Julie said. “And even if I wanted to cheat I’d have to get a babysitter.”

Julie was always eager for me to have an affair, I think, so she could hear about it afterward.

“How is life among the rug rats?” I said.

“Mikey has discovered that if he doesn’t eat I go crazy.”

“It’s good to have a resourceful kid.”

“The little bastard won’t eat anything but macaroni with butter on it.”

“So?”

“So it’s not balanced.”

“Oh hell,” I said. “People live quite well on a lot worse.”

“He needs protein and vegetables.”

“Maybe he sneaks some when you’re not looking. You’re the psychiatric social worker,” I said. “What would you say to someone about that?”

“That it’s one of the few areas where he can exercise control,” Julie said. “I can’t force him to eat.”