Duma Key

She raised her right hand in the Boy Scout salute - the image slightly marred by the cigarette smoldering between her first two fingers. "True blue. In November of '26, there was a memorial service right over there." She pointed toward where the Gulf twinkled between two bright pink art deco buildings. "At least four hundred people attended, many of them, I understand, the sort of women who were partial to ostrich feathers. One of the speakers was John Eastlake. He tossed a wreath of tropical flowers into the water."

She sighed, and I caught a waft of her breath. I had no doubt that the lady could hold her liquor; I also had no doubt that she was well on her way to squiffy if not outright drunk this afternoon.

"Eastlake was undoubtedly sad about the passing of his friend," she said, "but I bet he was congratulating himself on surviving Esther. I bet they all were. Little did he know he'd be throwing more wreaths into the water less than six months later. Not just one daughter gone but two. Three, I suppose, if you count the eldest. She eloped to Atlanta. With a foreman from one of Daddy's mills, if memory serves. Although that's hardly the same as losing two in the Gulf. God, that must have been hard."

"THEY ARE GONE," I said, remembering the headline Wireman had quoted.

She glanced at me sharply. "So you've done some research of your own."

"Not me, Wireman. He was curious about the woman he was working for. I don't think he knows about the connection to this Dave Davis."

She looked thoughtful. "I wonder how much Elizabeth herself remembers?"

"These days she doesn't even remember her own name," I said.

Mary gave me another look, then turned from the window, got her ashtray, and put out her cigarette. "Alzheimer's? I'd heard rumors."

"Yes."

"I'm goddam sorry to hear it. I got the more lurid details of the Dave Davis story from her, you know. In better days. I used to see her all the time, on the circuit. And I interviewed most of the artists who stayed at Salmon Point. Only you call it something else, don't you?"

"Big Pink."

She smiled. "I knew it was something cute."

"How many artists stayed there?"

"Lots. They came to lecture in Sarasota or Venice, and perhaps to paint for awhile - although those who stayed at Salmon Point did precious little of that. For most of Elizabeth's guests, their time on Duma Key amounted to little more than a free vacation."

"She provided the place gratis?"

"Oh, yes," she said, smiling rather ironically. "The Sarasota Arts Council paid the honoraria for their lectures, and Elizabeth usually provided the lodging - Big Pink, n e Salmon Point. But you didn't get that deal, did you? Perhaps next time. Especially since you actually work there. I could name half a dozen artists who stayed in your house and never so much as wet a brush." She marched to the sofa, lifted her glass, and had a sip. No - a swallow.

"Elizabeth has a Dal sketch that was done at Big Pink," I said. "That I saw with my own eyes."

Mary's eyes gleamed. "Oh, yes, well. Dal . Dal loved it there, but not even he stayed long... although before he left, the son of a bitch goosed me. Do you know what Elizabeth told me after he left?"

I shook my head. Of course I didn't, but I wanted to hear.

"He said it was 'too rich.' Does that strike a chord with you, Edgar?"

I smiled. "Why do you suppose Elizabeth turned Big Pink into an artist's retreat? Was she always a patron of the arts?"

She looked surprised. "Your friend didn't tell you? Perhaps he doesn't know. According to local legend, Elizabeth was once an artist of some note herself."

"What do you mean, according to local legend?"

"There's a story - for all I know it's pure myth - that she was a child prodigy. That she painted beautifully, while very young, and then just stopped."

"Did you ever ask her?"

"Of course, silly man. Asking people things is what I do." She was swaying a bit on her feet now, the Sophia Loren eyes noticeably bloodshot.

"What did she say?"

"That there was nothing to it. She said, 'Those who can, do. And those who can't support those who can. Like us, Mary.'"

"Sounds good to me," I said.

"Yes, it did to me, too," Mary said, taking another sip from her Waterford tumbler. "The only problem I had with it was I didn't believe it."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, I just didn't. I had an old friend named Aggie Winterborn who used to do the advice-to-the-lovelorn column in the Tampa Trib, and I happened to mention the story once to her. This was around the time Dal was favoring the Suncoast with his presence, maybe 1980. We were in a bar somewhere - in those days we were always in a bar somewhere - and the conversation had turned to how legends are built. I mentioned the story of how Elizabeth had supposedly been a baby Rembrandt as an example of that, and Aggie - long dead, God rest her - said she didn't think that was a legend, she thought it was the truth, or a version of it. She said she'd seen a newspaper story about it."

"Did you ever check?" I asked.