Natural Causes Read Online Free PDF Page B

coffee on a
free-standing Jenn-Air range. A huge, beaten copper chimney was
suspended above the stove, with copper and silver pots dangling like
tassels from its skirts.
    The woman talked as she worked. "It's going to
be lonely in this house without Quentin. It's really far too big for
just two people. But then I had hopes that he would have children."
    "There are none?"
    The woman laughed mordantly. "No, there are no
children--just Marsha. She was all the child that Quentin and I could
handle. But then you saw for yourself."
    "Yes," I said. I could see that Marsha
Dover must have been a handful.
    "You know, she's tried that kind of thing
before," Connie Dover said. "That's why I didn't get upset
about her feet. I wasn't being heartless just sane. There were weeks
when we had a different doctor out here every other day. I've just
run out of names at this point. Names and patience. She wore my son
down, Stoner, with pranks like that. She ruined his health and his
wellbeing. It would have been different if she were deeply
troubled, but Marsha's never felt anything deeply in her life. She's
all shallows. It's one to her-attempting suicide, making love,
getting drunk, whatever strikes her fancy."
    "Why didn't Quentin divorce her?"
    "He was afraid to divorce her," she said.
"Afraid she'd really kill herself, instead of indulging in one
of her melodramatic charades. For some reason he held himself
responsible for Marsha's drunkenness and her tantrums, as if it were
their marriage that had unhinged her. He wasn't ... rational when it
came to Marsha. But then people in love seldom are. He loved her, you
know. Quentin married her when she was very young-scarcely
nineteen--and I don't think he ever stopped thinking of her as if she
were the same beautiful little girl that he'd picked up in a bar. She
was his version of nostalgie de boue .
Also, she's got quite a build."
    I smiled.
    The woman poured the coffee into two cups. "She
changed once she began to live here. Money changed her. License
changed her. I warned Quentin it would happen. I told him she wasn't
ready for this kind of life. I begged him not to marry her just to
keep her if he must. But ..." She waved her free hand gently in
the air. "He was very headstrong, my son. A very emotional, very
impetuous man. He wanted the little hick and she was Baptist enough
to get him to marry her first. Of course, after the ceremony, she
turned as Episcopalian as the rest of us. She took one look inside
the country club and decided that good manners meant getting drunk
and sleeping around. It would have been funny, if she hadn't been
part of the family. I never saw anyone change so fast. From a shy
child who couldn't say two words without tripping over her own tongue
to ... well, to what you saw by the pool."
    The woman brought the coffee over to the table and
sat down across from me. "The last time I saw Quentin was right
here at this table," she said softly. "On Friday afternoon.
He and I had lunch at the house. It was a lovely meal. But then lunch
with my son was always a joy. He was very excited that day. He was
about to embark on a new project and that made him happy. That was
why he was going to L.A.--to discuss the project."
    "A project for United?"
    "Probably. He didn't say. Personally, I was
hoping it was the novel he had been working on for so long. But it
was undoubtedly some TV thing. They're always so secretive about
their little ideas."
    "Did he go out west often?"
    "Every week," the woman said. "His
team was out there, near the studio. He'd fly to Hollywood on Sunday
night, do the week's blocking for 'Phoenix', then come back home on
Tuesday evening. Of course, I thought all that travel was too hard on
him. You know, he was not in the best of health. But Quentin seemed
to enjoy it. And, of course, he enjoyed coming back here. Coming
home. His roots are in this city. Our family has lived here for
generations."
    "In this house?" I said.
    "Close by."
    I took a sip of the coffee.