No Mourners for Victoria

APRIL 1966

T he harsh, metallic woman’s voice came from somewhere to her left. This is the Bronze Gate Spa and Resort. Please state your name and business.

My name is Frances Finn and— Frances started to shout, but was cut off.

You have broken an electronic beam. Please step up to the post on your left and identify yourself. Please speak into the microphone.

Her apprehension had been building all the way on the drive from Los Angeles, and was now compounded with a sense of feeling downright foolish. Frances was already wishing that Marco hadn’t talked her into it. Easter recess was coming up at the college where Frances taught, but Marco couldn’t get a week off at the same time. So for the first time at Easter, they had no plans to go anywhere together.

Listen, Fran, Marco had said, if you wanted our vacations to coincide, you shouldn’t have married a cop. But since you have—and Lord knows, you couldn’t go there on my cop’s pay, nor on your teacher’s salary either—you might as well go. Jeez! I’ve heard it’s one of the most expensive fat farms in California, maybe the country, maybe the world. And free of charge? Come on now. Rub shoulders with all those rich bitches and celebrities? You know how much it costs to stay there a week?

Frances knew well enough how much it cost to stay at the Bronze Gate near El Paraiso. In fact, she had to admit that she had secretly longed to go there, if only to see how the jet set spent their money, not to mention the controlled diet and exercise program that was specified in the brochure she had managed to get hold of. Nevertheless, it was the rich bitch who had invited her, free of charge, that bothered Frances. It didn’t do any good at all to tell Marco that she and Victoria Haskell had not been close friends in college, and what Frances knew of her she didn’t particularly like.

Vickie went around with a different crowd, Frances explained. "You know me; I was the same bookworm that I am now, working on my M.A. All Vickie was interested in was an M.R.S. Well, she certainly achieved that—with bells on! That’s why she can afford places like the Bronze Gate. And that place, incidentally, Marc, darling, is not a fat farm. It’s a health spa; the weight loss is okay, if it happens.

Marco had persisted. "Fat farm or not, what does it matter how you feel about her? Didn’t you say she also invited some of your other college friends? It’d be something like a class reunion, wouldn’t it?"

Frances had given him her cool-blue stare at this. He knew what she thought of that class-reunion stuff. He still persisted, however, finally hitting her in her most vulnerable spot. She had been looking forward to this spring recess, the last chance for a good rest before the long haul to June and the end of the second semester. She had planned to sit home for a week, just reading and cooking. It would be such a pleasant relief from the rather vigorous vacations they so often spent together, either skiing, hiking or fishing. It was when he suggested that, at worst, she could sit around the spa pool reading whodunits that she began to yield. Oh, God! Could she use a session of that right now! She was frazzled from the committee work on new courses she had recently been working on. She felt that if she heard the phrase more relevant one more time, she’d go insane. Where in hell did these students of the nineteen sixties get off with asking for more relevance in the courses? And what did they damn well mean by relevance? If the course didn’t deal with sex or drugs, it wasn’t relevant to their lives?

So she had argued and fretted, finally yielding to a suggestion from the department chairman that she work up a course on detective fiction. Jeff Spangler knew she was addicted to it for relaxation, and so did Marco. Reading murder mysteries was one of her favorite recreations, a way she had of getting away from the academic grind, an addiction she had picked up in college, about which Marco was constantly teasing her.

Oh, she had recognized the slightly patronizing note in his voice when he suggested it, and her back had stiffened a bit; but he knew he had her hooked and had begun to reel in the line.

Hey, didn’t you tell me that Spangler, your chairman, suggested you work up a course on whodunits for fall? Marco said, smiling slyly. Well, here’s your chance to do some research on it. And didn’t you also say that that old reading chum of yours from college—Diane Whatsername—was going to be there, too?

That was the clincher. What a pleasure it would be to see Di again after all these years! She wondered if Diane still read mysteries as avidly as she used to. It was reading the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers that had brought them together in the first place, and their mutual voracious appetite for them that kept them close for three years. They read them at any spare moment they could find—in the library, during meals at the school cafeteria, even in the dorm at night, sometimes with a flashlight under the covers so as not to disturb the other girls. They even had a contest going as to how soon in the book one of them was able to guess correctly who had done it. Every week, the prize was a bottle of Gallo Tokay, the cheapest and sweetest wine they could afford, for which the loser had to pay. But it didn’t really matter who won or lost; they shared the bottle between them after their dates (if they had any) on Friday night.

Feeling more foolish with every passing moment, Frances climbed out of her white Volkswagen and spoke into the grille at the top of the gatepost.

Thank you, Mrs. Finn, said the voice, with a marginally friendlier voice. We are expecting you. Drive through the gate when it opens, then to your left. Just follow the signs to the office.

As the voice finished speaking, the gate swung silently inward. Frances got back into the car and drove through. She watched the gate close behind her through the rearview mirror.

Excitement began to rise in Frances as she drove along the narrow asphalt road to the office. She was all eyes as she noticed an unpaved parking lot to her left screened by a row of eucalyptus. There were several cars parked in the lot, as there were also in the circular paved area in front of the office building when she got there, two Mercedes, three Cadillacs, and a Porsche. There was room for no more than eight cars here, Frances noted, as she pulled in beside the Porsche. She wondered a little about this as she got out of her car, until she realized that most of the people who came here most probably flew in and were picked up at the airport by the company limousine. Better remember, Fran, she muttered to herself as she picked up her single suitcase from the back seat, this is no motel. She pulled out the bulging pillowcase from the trunk, slung it over her shoulder, and marched up the stairs to the office.

Her jauntiness was becoming more strained as she pushed the heavy wooden door open with her suitcase and stepped into a small semi-circular area paved with gray slate. Her confidence had begun to diminish when she had stopped at the service station in El Paraiso for directions. The tall, fair-haired station attendant had glanced at her Volkswagen dubiously.

"You going to the Bronze Gate in that?" he had asked.

‘Fraid so, said Frances. Why, won’t they let me in?

He shook his head, grinning. "I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing. You’ll be the first woman I’ve ever seen drive there in a Bug."

Just have to take my chances on that, said Frances, her spirits beginning to sink. Call me the vanguard of the proletariat, she continued, with a bravado she didn’t feel. There’ll be a flood of working stiffs like me to follow if I make the breakthrough. Now, where is this bastion of the privileged?

Some more steps brought her to the long, curved desk, behind which were two doors—inner offices, she presumed. To her right was a fireplace with a few canvas and bamboo chairs clustered in front of it. This was no doubt where prospective clients were interviewed.

Frances put her suitcase down, noisily, to attract someone’s attention, because she couldn’t see anyone around. Then she dropped the sack of books with a thump on the stone floor. No response. She walked the entire length of the curved desk before she saw, sitting low behind the counter, a rather stout woman wearing a white pantsuit, who looked vaguely like a nurse.

The woman looked up. Mrs. Finn?

Frances nodded a trifle sheepishly.

Would you please take a seat? Mr. Latero will see you in a moment.

Latero, Latero! There was something familiar about that name that Frances thought she ought to know, as she sat in one of the chairs near the fireplace. But as the moment lengthened into several minutes, she forgot the name and its possible associations. Instead, she began wondering again about Victoria and this invitation. What puzzled Frances the most about all this was not so much why Victoria had invited Diane and Janice—that could readily be understood after what had passed between the three of them—but why she, herself, had been invited. But then that was a continuing puzzle to her, right from the start, beginning with why Victoria had tried so hard to make friends with her so long ago. It would be difficult to imagine two women of such fundamentally different types. Let’s face it, Fran, she said to herself as she looked around the room—which, she decided, had a definite Mexican-Indian décor—you were a bookworm then, and you still are.

It was not so much that she was not interested in men in those days; in fact, she had thought Phil Haskell, the man Victoria eventually married, a most interesting man, possibly the most interesting before she met Marco. But always before her was the image of her father, a man, according to her mother, who could both read a book and build a house. It was a rather crude simplification of the Greek ideal of the scholar-athlete, with which Frances was more than passing familiar, but it sufficed for her.

Victoria, on the other hand, was, as Frances recognized, the quintessential man’s woman. Frances was familiar with this type also from her literary studies: the femme fatale, which also went back to the Greeks. Not only was Victoria physically attractive with her slender but rounded figure, short black hair and clear blue eyes—not unlike Hedy Lamar—but she exuded vulnerability. Frances knew that it was a calculated thing with Victoria, as did all the other girls at the college; that was why she was disliked so much. However, the men didn’t know it, nor did they seem to care. Victoria gave the impression to all men of being willing to serve, ever willing to please. Philip Haskell had yielded to it, as had Ben Felson before him, and possibly many others since.

Frances silently rebuked herself for that last thought. She had no reason whatsoever to believe that Victoria had been playing around since her marriage to Phil Haskell. No matter how she had behaved before her marriage, there was no reason to think that she wasn’t totally happy with her marriage. Why not? She had everything a woman could desire: a handsome, successful neuro-surgeon for a husband, wealth, ad social position in San Francisco’s elite. But no children. Well, she isn’t the only one without children, Frances reflected. There was Diane, not to mention herself.

Abruptly breaking the silence of her thoughts came a hubbub of voices from somewhere behind the desk. Frances rose and went up to the desk, but saw no one, except for the white-uniformed receptionist, still sitting, but now reading a paperback, totally absorbed in it. The voices continued. Frances could detect the higher-pitched voice of a woman raised in anger and the low, growling voice of a man coming from one of the doors behind the desk. Suddenly the door swung open and out stepped a man, smoothing his hair with his hand and closing the door behind him with the other.

He stood six feet three, had the lean, hard look of an athlete (or a gigolo, Frances thought, privately) and dark Mediterranean looks that could be Greek, Spanish, Italian, even possibly Arabic. Frances had seen the type many times before in Southern California; she even had some in her classes, those who usually dropped out early when they discovered that their looks and charm were not going to help their grades with this pretty, blonde English instructor. He could double as a maitre d’ at an expensive restaurant on La Cienega in the evening—the kind you slip a twenty-dollar tip if you don’t have a reservation—or could find hanging around on the beach at Malibu in the afternoon, waiting to be discovered by some Hollywood talent scout. He was wearing a pink silk shirt, which on another man might look effeminate, but on him, somehow, enhanced his masculinity rather than diminished it. His cream-white pants were immaculately creased, and even from across the counter there emanated from him a discreet whiff of expensive after-shave lotion.

Pity the poor girl who marries a man like that, Frances thought to herself.

He glanced back at the door from which he had emerged, then turned to Frances with a slow smile. You must be Frances Finn. Mrs. Haskell told me to expect you. My name is Vincent Latero.

Again, the name Latero evoked a feeling of familiarity in Frances. Then her eyes popped open in recognition. Why, of course! she said. You must be Susan’s husband!

Susan had written her over a year ago that she had married a masseur at some spa in Southern California, and was now living and working there with her husband. Yes, Frances remembered now, it was named the Bronze Gate. How could she have forgotten! Susan was a girl she had known briefly in college, also. Susan had arrived at the college determined to pursue a speech and drama major, but she hadn’t lasted long. She found a lot of trouble with the academic courses required for a degree. After considerable success in high school, playing the leads in several productions—no doubt the darling of the drama coach—she had hit bottom at the college level. With a D+ average after three semesters, on probation and no longer eligible for the Drama Club, she had called it quits. Poor Susan! Frances remembered. She had even come to Frances for advice, Frances being already the most famous grind in the dorm. It wasn’t Frances’s idea, but somehow Susan came out of the discussion with the conviction that she should try her luck in New York, professionally. Frances did recall commenting that most of the more famous actresses had not gone to college, just as many of the most famous writers hadn’t either. Sad to say, in Susan’s venture to New York—although utterly predictable—she found neither fame nor fortune, and after several years, during which Frances hadn’t heard from her, Susan had written to tell of her coming to California and her marriage to Vincent Latero.

Frances bit her lip, remembering her initial impression of pitying the woman this man married. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling, however, that Susan had struck out again.

Yes, said Vincent Latero, Susan has told me a great deal about you. He smiled again his slow smile, showing his white, even teeth. Sue admires you a lot. Said you are a literary scholar of some kind, teach English at a college in the L.A. area. That correct?

Frances nodded her head, but didn’t say anything. She half expected the other shoe to fall, the usual pronouncement, particularly from men, when they heard of her occupation: Well, you know, English wasn’t exactly my favorite subject in school. Or worse: Hope you’ll excuse my grammar. It’s what had dogged her all her adult life, discouraging numerous male acquaintances from furthering their acquaintance with her. All except Marco. But then, Marco could read a book and hammer a nail with the best of them, although he hadn’t built a house yet. From the very start, when Marco showed up in her freshman comp class as a student picking up some college credits for promotion in the police force, he had been unintimidated by her academic background. It was at first what most attracted her to him, his easy confidence in himself—not the smug, oily confidence that she saw in Vincent Latero, the complete ladies’ man—but a confidence born of his self-assurance with everybody, both man and woman.

Vincent Latero also appeared unintimidated. He simply narrowed his eyes, looked at her quizzically, and said, Sue told me you married a cop in L.A. That right, too?

It was as if he had said How come? Frances was tempted to say Not exactly any ordinary cop, Mister, but Detective Lieutenant Marco Finn! But she didn’t do this. She also felt impelled, whenever this came up, to explain why she had married Marco. She wanted to say that most of the young men she knew in college who were English majors and were good in English usually had skinny necks with prominent Adam’s apples and peered shortsightedly through thick-lensed spectacles. But she didn’t say this either.

She simply shrugged her shoulders. What else was a twenty-five-year-old spinster to do? she said.

At this, Vincent Latero grinned widely for the first time.

And Susan married a masseur, Frances added.

He grinned once again. I still do a little of that, he said, by special request. He raised his eyebrows slightly, almost as if soliciting a ‘special request’ from Frances. But when she didn’t respond, he said briskly, But my official title is Director of Athletic Activities. I’m also unofficial greeter for the guests of Victoria at the moment, by special request of Mrs. Haskell. He lifted a section of the counter top and stepped through. He took her hand. It was a firm, dry grip, Frances noted, approvingly—the only thing about Vincent Latero that she approved so far. Perhaps she could be wrong about this Latin lover? Allow me to do my stuff, he continued. Welcome to the Bronze Gate, Mrs. Finn. Breakfast is at eight, lunch at noon, dinner at six—all dietarily controlled, no exceptions.

I knew that, Frances nodded. I got hold of a brochure.

Good, said Latero. Then you probably also know that all the vegetables used here are grown on the property, organically, with no pesticides used. Fruit and vegetable juices are available at all times between meals. You may be served your meals privately in your studio or you may join us in the dining hall with many of the other guests. Anything else you would like to know?

Yes. When do I get to meet the proprietor? It just popped out. For the life of her, Frances couldn’t figure out afterwards why she said it.

The smile froze on Latero’s lips. He glanced quickly behind him in the direction of the door from which he had emerged. He regained his breezy manner with a wave of his hand.

Mrs. Wojinsky is indisposed at the moment, he said. But you might meet her tomorrow morning on your walk up the mountain. She often accompanies the guests.

Walk up the mountain? said Frances, her comfortable visions of leisurely reading mysteries beside the pool fast disappearing.

Oh yes. You will be called upon around dawn each day to climb the mountain. Here, he continued, taking a folder from the desk top and opening it, let me show you.

I hadn’t realized the place was so big, said Frances, gazing at the map on the desk.

More than a hundred acres, catering to over a hundred guests. Here’s the mountain. It begins at the back of the property and goes up to about forty-five hundred feet.

And we climb that every morning?

Latero nodded. And you’re expected to do it in faster time each day. Don’t be dismayed, Mrs. Finn. We’re already at about two thousand feet here at the Bronze Gate. It’s really an exhilarating walk before breakfast. Just wait and see.

The look on her face told him she could wait indefinitely. He smiled and pushed on. Here are the four swimming pools, each with whirlpools and steambaths, both wet and dry.

Dry? You mean you have Finnish saunas here?

Oh yes. The genuine article, built from cedar, Finnish style. You like saunas?

You bet! said Frances, enthusiastically. I grew up with them. The only way you can get really clean, according to the Finns.

You are Finnish then?

About as Finnish as you can get for an American. Three hundred years of Finnish peasantry on my father’s side, Swedish-Finnish on my mother’s.

Then you should enjoy yourself here. We have the real thing, I assure you, including twigs and cold showers if you want them. Sorry we don’t have a snow bank to plunge into afterwards, but we have everything else. He paused for a moment. Relatively few of the guests use the sauna facilities; they find it rather hard to take. But your friend Mrs. Haskell likes it also. In fact she’s addicted to it, takes one every day. And speaking of Mrs. Haskell, he went to the cubby-holed wall behind the desk and pulled out an envelope, she left this note for you. You are the last of her three guests to arrive. The other two, Mrs. Willhite and Mrs. Felson, arrived before noon."

Frances tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the note inside. Says here that I’m to meet her for cocktails at six in her villa. Thought alcohol was forbidden at the spa.

It is. I’m sure she means vegetable and fruit-juice cocktails. Mrs. Haskell is a regular guest here. She observes the rules quite scrupulously.

Wonder how you know that, thought Frances, idly.

Latero looked at his watch. Less than an hour before you meet with her. She has a private villa, right here. He made a mark on the map with his pen. You will pass it on the way to your studio.

And where is my studio?

It’s in a three-unit building right here. He made another mark on the map. Yours is the middle studio. The other two are occupied by your friends.

Vincent Latero went back to the cubicles again and handed her a key. Where is your luggage? Let me ring for some help with it.

Frances pointed to the suitcase and pillowcase on the floor. I think I can manage them myself.

Latero looked dubiously at the pillowcase. It’s a fair distance, Mrs. Finn, more than three hundred yards and uphill.

Frances picked up the suitcase and slung the pillowcase over her shoulder. I can use the exercise after that long drive.

She started for the door; Latero still stared at the pillowcase. Do you mind telling me what’s in that—er—bag?

Not at all, said Frances blithely. I’m a scholar, remember. These are my books. Wouldn’t go anywhere without them.

As she went through the door, she noticed Latero shaking his head, a bemused expression on his face.

CHAPTER 2

T ough though the climb was, Frances thoroughly enjoyed her trek from the office. It gave her a chance to observe the place at close hand. As she puffed her way along the asphalted, winding roadway, she gazed with approval at the landscaping, which reflected the native plants of the area, an area which could best be described as high desert. She recognized palm trees, eucalyptus, various cactus plants, manzanita, mesquite and olive trees. It was all very discreet and appeared quite natural. But she also noted several gardeners at work, grooming, pruning and raking in the various plots along the way.

She also had time to reflect on the two women living next door to her whom she hoped to meet before they all went off to have cocktails at Victoria’s villa. What a strange gathering it was going to be. Was this a conciliatory gesture by Victoria after all these years? If it was,