Double

She nodded at the maid, and the woman went back in the house. As we sat down on the wicker chairs, I studied Celia Deveer. She was almost painfully thin, with coiffed dark hair and a long, angular face that was too sharp-featured to be really attractive. Though her beige pants suit was expensively tailored, the overall impression she gave was not of money but of good breeding. As a girl, she would have attended private schools, had riding lessons at the hunt club, gone to summer drama camp, and acquitted herself nicely in piano recitals. And because she was so unattractive, she would have been the debutante whom the organizers of the Cotillion had worried about, the one they’d despaired of ever finding a suitable match for. Looking at her, I wondered what Roland Deveer was like.

The terrace where we sat was at the top of a hill that sloped gently to a formal garden. A Mexican man, wearing a straw hat against the heat of the sun, was at work down there, edging the lawn around the flower beds. I said, “You have a lovely home. It’s refreshingly old-fashioned, compared to so many places in this area.”

“Thank you.” She helped the maid settle a tray onto the table between us, then poured coffee into delicate white cups. “It was my family’s home, and I was glad to move back into it after my father died. Mr. Deveer didn’t care for it, I’m afraid. He would have preferred a modern house in the hills, or perhaps a place at the beach. Although he never said so, of course.”

Why “of course”? I wondered.

Celia Deveer handed me my coffee. “Now tell me, what information do you have concerning my husband?”

“It’s not much to go on, but you may be able to tell me something that will give it more significance. Did Mr. Deveer have any connection with the Casa del Rey hotel?”

“You mean on the Silver Strand?”

“Yes.”

“Not that I know of. Oh, we’d attended the usual functions there from time to time. I came out in its ballroom, in fact. Why?”

“Their security chief, who died last weekend, seemed to think there was some connection.”

She sipped her coffee, looking meditatively off at the garden. “I can’t think what it would be. My husband was nowhere near the Casa del Rey when he disappeared.”

“They found his car at the airport?”

“Yes. But he didn’t take a flight out — at least not a commercial flight. That, however, means very little. Roland had a number of friends and associates with private planes. He could have left on any of them.”

“But surely the police have checked that.”

“Yes, they did. No one with any connection to my husband filed a flight plan that day. But again, that doesn’t mean much.”

“Why not?”

She smiled bitterly. “For a price, almost any pilot can be persuaded not to file a flight plan.”

I paused, unsure how to ask the next question. Finally I just plunged ahead. “In the newspaper account I read, you said you didn’t know of any reason your husband would disappear voluntarily. Now you seem to have changed your mind.”

The bitter lines around her mouth deepened. “Yes, I have, because certain things have come to light since his disappearance. Roland’s business enterprises were quite far-flung and complicated. A few months ago, he mentioned there might be some tax complications, something to do with our personal tax affairs having become mixed up with those of one of his holding companies. I was not to worry, he said, but I might be required to sign some forms.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“So perhaps the trouble amounted to nothing.”

“Or perhaps Roland didn’t want me to know how bad it was.” She set her cup down and turned to face me, anger plain on her face. “You see, Ms. McCone, my husband attempted to shield me from the crude realities of his business whenever possible. I was to keep the home, raise the children, and amuse myself in typical genteel ways. But the home keeps itself, the children are grown, and I’ve never been contented with bridge or with volunteer work. I begged Roland to give me a more active part in his business affairs, but he flatly refused. I’m not a stupid woman, though, and I’ve done a fair amount of reading about finance. I know when something is wrong.”

“Did you ever broach the subject again, after the first time he mentioned it?”

“Yes. He told me not to trouble myself about it. I wasn’t equipped, he said, to understand.” She smiled, a caricature of mirth. “I find his assumption highly amusing. After all, I was the one who put Roland Deveer where he is today. Or where he was before he disappeared. I was the one who forced him to success. It was my money that founded his empire and kept it going through those first rough years. It was my prodding that kept him going. Roland Deveer was nobody when I married him. Nobody. And now he’s gone off and left...”

She paused, looking embarrassed. Ladies of her class didn’t blurt out their anger and resentments in front of strangers. Quickly I said, “I understand. So often it’s the woman who is responsible for the man’s success. But the man gets all the credit.”