Murder By the Book
In the wake of publishing his bestselling semi-autobiographical novel about life on the road with a rock 'n' roll band, former roadie-turned-author Eddie Metzler bought property on Long Island and moved into what during the 1920s had been an elegant mansion but half a century later was a rundown white elephant.
"What possessed you to buy this dump?" asked Lizzy Rymer, Eddie's current girlfriend, a former child star whose acting career died out when she began taking drugs as a teenager. "It looks as though a good wind will knock it down."
"I don't know. I took one look at it and fell in love."
"Please tell me you at least got it for a bargain price."
"I paid the former owners a quarter of a million for it."
Lizzy Rymer's eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip to keep from laughing.
"They say there's a sucker born every minute!" she teased.
"I felt sorry for them. It was an old woman and her spinster daughter. I suppose they had money once, but they must have lost it. They were living here like two paupers. Now, they can buy a modest home, perhaps in Jersey, and live comfortably on what's left over."
Eddie took a key out of the pocket of his bell bottoms and opened the front door.
"Ugh! What's that smell?" Lizzy cried, covering her nose with her hand.
"Cat urine—I think. The women owned more than a dozen cats."
"What happened to them? The cats, not the women."
"The local humane society rounded them up. Don't worry! They're not going to destroy them. They promised me they'll place them all in good homes."
"How are you going to live here with that nauseating stench?"
"The company that hauled away the former owners' belongings recommended a good cleaning service," Eddie answered. "They usually work exclusively with crime scenes, but they agreed to make an exception in my case. It seems the owner's wife liked my book. They're going to do a major clean-up. New carpets. Fresh paint. Thankfully, the house has good bones, so it won't need any major repair work. Some floorboards might need to be replaced. Maybe a window or two—no big deal."
"And how long will it be before you can move in?" Lizzy wondered.
"I hope to be in here by the middle of September."
"September? This is a summer community, isn't it? Everyone will be gone."
"There are some year-round residents. Not many but a few. Besides, I'm looking forward to the peace and quiet. I want to start a new book, and once all the summer people leave, there'll be no distractions."
"You hope!" the former child star laughed. "By the look of it, I wouldn't be surprised if this creepy old place is haunted."
"I don't believe in ghosts," the writer declared confidently. "In fact, the only thing that frightens me is all the rumors going around that the Beatles are going to break up."
"Nah!" his girlfriend scoffed. "That will never happen! As John said, the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. Why would they split up?"
Eddie shrugged his shoulders, his long hair rippling with the movement.
* * *
Throughout the spring and summer months, several ideas for a second novel came to Eddie. Unfortunately, after giving each one careful consideration, he rejected them all. Since he had never been in the armed forces, he lacked the necessary first-hand knowledge to write a book about Vietnam. All he had ever done was travel around the country with Blazing Guitars. His experience with touring had provided the background for a good novel, but he doubted there was enough material for a second book. Besides, the book's main character, the group's frontman, dies in a plane crash in the last chapter (à la Buddy Holly). Unless he wanted to write a ghost story, there could be no sequel.
When fall arrived, Eddie was no closer to starting his second book. During the third week of September, he concentrated on getting settled into his home. As the movers brought in his newly acquired antique furniture, he realized how much of his royalties he had spent.
If I don't write another book soon, I might wind up having to sell all this, he thought dismally. At least I ought to be able to recoup what I spent on this house now that it's been renovated.
Once the furnished rooms were decorated and his personal belongings were unpacked and put away, Eddie had no distractions to interfere with the creative process. Sadly, he still had no idea what to write about.
On a chilly October afternoon, he sat at his kitchen table, drinking a cup of instant Nescafé. Rather than racking his brain over an elusive plot, he thought about what work had to be done to the outside of his home. First, he would need to hire a landscaper to plant grass and shrubbery. Next, he would need someone to repair the iron fence along the perimeter of his yard. He would also need to have the driveway resurfaced. Lastly, he wanted to have the pool repaired.
He got up from his chair, walked to the kitchen window and looked out at the built-in swimming pool. It had been years, possibly decades, since it was last used. Deep puddles of dark, putrid water and piles of fallen autumn leaves littered the bottom. Eddie wondered if it was cheaper in the long run to replace the pool rather than attempt to repair it.
As he tilted his head back and drained his coffee cup, a shadow appeared in his peripheral vision.
What was that? he wondered.
He leaned closer to the window and peered outside. An old woman, wearing a dress that went out of style in the 1930s, stood in his backyard, staring at the puddles in his pool.
Who the hell is she? And what's she doing in my yard?
Intending to discover the identity of the elderly trespasser, he opened the kitchen door and stepped outside.
"Hello," he called. "Are you looking for someone?"
The old woman's head popped up. His sudden appearance startled her, and she quickly disappeared from sight. Before he could follow her, a blustery wind blew in from Long Island Sound, causing Eddie to shiver and his teeth to chatter.
No wonder people leave here at the end of the summer, he thought as he ran back to the warmth of his kitchen.
He turned on the gas beneath his kettle to boil water for a second cup of coffee. By the time he spooned more instant Nescafé into his cup, he stopped wondering about the identity of the old woman. She was probably a neighbor who was curious about the changes made to the property. Or perhaps she was a friend of the former owners. Either way, what did it matter? She was just an old woman.
In the weeks that followed, Eddie saw the trespasser standing beside his pool three more times. Each time he went outside to speak to her, she quickly ran away.
"Maybe fixing the fence ought to be the next thing on my list. I would hate to have the old lady fall into the pool and get hurt or, worse, get killed."
* * *
Not only did most of the residents in the neighborhood leave once the summer was over, but some of the businesses closed up as well. Restaurants, souvenir shops and stores that sold seasonal apparel and accessories would not reopen until Memorial Day the following year. There was, however, a general store and a grocer that managed to eke out a small profit by remaining open during the autumn and winter.
Eddie made a weekly pilgrimage into town not only to get food and supplies but also to keep in touch with fellow members of the human race.
"Hi, Roy," he greeted the owner of the general store as he perused the various rakes that were for sale. "How are you today?"
"Fine. And yourself?" the shopkeeper replied.
"Keeping busy."
By that, he meant he was busy still trying to come up with an idea for his next book.
"You know most of the year-round people who live here, right?" the author asked after placing a sturdy leaf rake on the counter.
"Yup. Most if not all."
"There's an old woman who keeps coming by my house. Must be in her seventies. About five feet in height. Can't weigh much more than a hundred pounds."
"Did she make a nuisance of herself?" Roy inquired.
"Not really. But she stands next to my pool and looks down. I'd hate for her to fall in. Do you know who she is?"
"The only old woman I know who lived here year-round was the one who owned your house. Are you sure she hasn't come back?"
"I don't think so. Last I heard, she and her daughter moved to Florida."
"I'm afraid I can't help you. Could be someone has a grandmother staying with them."
Eddie asked the same question at the grocery store and got the same answer. Whoever the old woman was, apparently, she did not do her shopping in town.
* * *
November brought cold temperatures and the threat of snow. Inspired by the recent Halloween season, Eddie had at last chosen a subject for his next novel. When he was a youngster, he was a fan of Universal Studio's horror classics. He decided to write about a fictional actor who built a successful career playing monsters and killers. Having found a subject, however, he still faced the daunting task of writing a manuscript.
After finishing a bowl of cornflakes, a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, he left the dishes in the sink for his part-time housekeeper to wash and went to his study. An Olivetti typewriter was in the middle of his mahogany desk, and a ream of white bond was to its immediate right. A metal cup filled with pens and pencils was also within reach. Since correcting typewriters were not yet invented—much less home computers with word processing programs—there were several bottles of Liquid Paper in his top desk drawer.
Eddie inserted a sheet of paper behind the platen and turned the knob to feed the paper through the roller. He then set his margins and pressed the carriage return lever. His fingers momentarily hovered over the home row and then pressed the CAPS LOCK key and typed CHAPTER ONE. Using the carriage return lever, he skipped down two lines.
His hands rested on the desk. Nothing came to him.
"Think Lon Chaney," he told himself. "The legendary Man of a Thousand Faces."
Try as he might, however, the words did not come to him.
Maybe I need another cup of coffee. Wake up those brain cells.
As he waited for the water to boil, he looked out the kitchen window. The old woman had returned. Once again, she was staring at the bottom of the pool. Not wanting to frighten her away, Eddie quietly opened the back door and tiptoed outside. He was a mere two feet away when she saw him.
"Wait," he cried as she turned to run. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She stopped and faced him.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"My name is Eddie Metzler. I live here."
"But this isn't your house," she insisted.
"It is now. I bought it from the previous owners back in May. Did you know them? Mrs. Osterman and her daughter?"
"There were so many wonderful parties here," she said, ignoring his question and recalling the past.
"When was that?"
"Before the Crash."
"The Wall Street Crash?"
She nodded her head.
"The Crash of 1929 was forty years ago."
"We were young then, you and I."
Eddie did not bother to tell her that he had not yet been born at the time.
"It's cold out here," he said. "Why don't you come inside. I'll make you a cup of hot coffee. Or tea if you prefer."
The old woman shook her head and wandered off toward the broken fence that separated his yard from his neighbor's property.
"Where are you going?" he called to her, but she did not answer.
She must live around here, he thought. But where?
* * *
Eddie Metzler spent Thanksgiving Day alone. He had broken up with Lizzy Rymer at the beginning of October, and he had no close friends or living relatives with whom to spend the holiday. Rather than watching football or eating a turkey dinner, he sat at his desk, looking down at the Olivetti's keyboard. A blank sheet of paper stared back at him from the platen.
The ream of bond he had purchased was nearly gone. More than four hundred pages had been torn from the typewriter during the previous months. Some had been torn in pieces, but most had been balled up and tossed into the wastebasket.
"What do I know about actors and movie making?" he asked himself, frustrated at his lack of progress on his novel. "Just because I watched monster movies as a kid doesn't qualify me to write a book about Hollywood."
Disgusted, he left his office and went to the kitchen. He opened the freezer and took out a Swanson TV dinner. Divided into four sections, the foil dish contained turkey, stuffing and gravy as a main course, two side dishes (mashed potatoes and peas with carrots) and a small portion of apple cobbler for dessert.
"It's far from a holiday feast," he groaned, "but it will have to do."
As he waited for the oven to preheat, he stood by the window, watching the sleet come down. Despite the inclement weather, a figure stepped through the broken fence and walked across the yard to his pool.
"What the hell is she doing out in this weather?"
Without bothering to put on a coat or open an umbrella, Eddie ran to the old woman and demanded she come inside.
"You'll catch your death out here!"
After only a brief hesitation, she followed him through the back door and into the kitchen.
"Have you eaten yet?" he asked.
"No."
"I was just about to heat up a TV dinner. I can put one in for you."
"Thank you."
"Turkey, okay?"
"Whatever you have."
Rather than offer her tea or coffee, Eddie opened a bottle of wine. It was a holiday, after all!
"I remember a time when you couldn't go into a store and buy alcohol," she said.
"Oh, you remember Prohibition?"
"Indeed, I do!" the old woman replied with a sad smile on her face. "You seem surprised. It wasn't that long ago."
"It was close to fifty years ago."
"No! Really?"
Eddie assumed that, like many elderly people, the old woman was having difficulty remembering things.
The kitchen timer buzzed and alerted him that the TV dinners were done. He took them out of the oven and placed them on the table.
"Bon appétit!" he laughed and picked up his fork.
He watched his guest as she ate. Given the gray hair and the wrinkles on her face, he assumed she was in her seventies. Her advanced age aside, there were traces of a long-lost beauty on her face.
She must have been a knock-out when she was younger, he mused.
"You have a Southern accent," Eddie pointed out.
"I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. After I got married, though, I moved around quite a bit."
"Where's your husband?"
"He died."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. We had money, you see. And when the Stock Market crashed, we lost most of it. My husband was so distraught that he killed himself."
"Back in 1929?"
"Yes. This turkey isn't too bad for a TV dinner," the old woman said in an attempt to steer the conversation away from her husband's suicide.
"I don't know how to cook, so I pretty much live on frozen food. Of course, when I was working as a roadie, I ate out most of the time. Sometimes it was just burgers, but every once in a while, we'd eat at a fancy restaurant."
"You should have seen the food that used to be served at the parties held here. They were veritable feasts! And French champagne flowed from a fountain."
"So, the owners liked to party, did they?"
"There was only one owner. And, yes. He threw the most extravagant parties. People came from all over to attend them. It wasn't unusual to find bootleggers, politicians, tycoons and Broadway stars dancing the night away."
"It sounds like quite a place. I wish I'd seen it then."
Eddie put his fork into the apple cobbler, but a knock on his front door interrupted him.
"I wonder who that can be," he said. "Excuse me. I have to answer that."
He was surprised to find a police officer and two men dressed in white who looked like bouncers on his doorstep.
"Can I help you?" the homeowner asked.
"You're Mr. Metzler, aren't you?" the police officer answered with a question of his own.
"Yes, I am."
"Have you seen this woman, sir?" one of the two tall and well-built men inquired, removing a photograph from his pocket.
"Yes, I have. She's here now. We were having TV dinners in the kitchen. Why? Has she done something wrong?"
"She's a resident at the local home for old folks, and she wandered off the property," the policeman explained. "These men are here to take her back."
"Come in. The kitchen's this way," the homeowner said, leading the three men to the back of the house.
"Mrs. Van Der Meer, it's time to go home now," the larger of the two orderlies announced.
"That's not my name," the old woman insisted imperiously. "How many times must I tell you that?"
"All right, Mrs. Buchanan," the orderly said, clearly humoring her.
Ida Van Der Meer put down her fork, rose from her seat and thanked Eddie Metzler for his hospitality. With her head held high, acting as though she were the Queen of England, she followed the three men out the door.
* * *
The following day, Eddie received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as Olive Pfenning.
"I'm Ida Van Der Meer's daughter," she told him. "My mother is the old woman who showed up at your house yesterday."
"Yes. I found her in my backyard and invited her inside for something to eat."
"I apologize. She has a strange fixation on your house, I'm sorry to say."
"I have noticed her here several times."
"My husband and I put her in a home, but she keeps wandering off. I'll have to speak to the administration about their security. I do hope she didn't cause you too much trouble."
"Not at all," Eddie assured her. "In fact, I enjoyed her visit. She kept me entertained about the parties that were thrown at my house back in the Twenties."
"Oh, no!" Olive groaned. "Not that nonsense again!"
"I don't understand."
"I'm afraid my mother is not exactly of sound mind."
"She seemed perfectly fine to me."
"She believes she's Daisy Buchanan."
"She did object to the orderly calling her Mrs. Van Der Meer and told him her name was Mrs. Buchanan. I naturally assumed she was married once before and preferred her previous name."
"I take it you don't know who Daisy Buchanan is," the old woman's daughter said.
"I'm afraid not. Is she famous?"
"She doesn't exist. Daisy Buchanan is a character from The Great Gatsby."
Never having read the book, Eddie could be forgiven for not knowing the heroine's name.
"And she's convinced," Olive further explained, "that your house is the one owned by Jay Gatsby."
"I wonder where she got that idea."
"I don't know, but she's had it ever since we moved to Long Island back in '54."
"Fifteen years ago? Where did you used to live?"
"Pittsburgh."
"She said she was from Kentucky."
"It was Daisy who hailed from Louisville. I doubt Mother's ever been there."
"She does have a slight Southern accident, though," Eddie pointed out.
"Pure affectation. We were invited to dinner at the house that used to be next to yours—one that burned down in '62. My mother took one look at your place, and she was fascinated, especially by the swimming pool. Three days later, she went back to your house. Thankfully, the people who lived there, a reclusive mother and daughter, didn't seem to mind her being there. However, we couldn't keep her from returning again and again. Finally, we sent her away to the Golden Age Home. But, as you can see, she keeps finding a way to wander off."
"Well, if she should come back again, I'll let someone at the home know."
"Thank you, Mr. Metzler. And, once again, I apologize for the inconvenience."
After ending his call with Olive Pfenning, Eddie returned to his study. A single, unfinished paragraph was typed on the sheet of bond that was in his Olivetti. He had yet to write a full page, much less a chapter of his new book. With his fingers poised on the keyboard, an idea suddenly came to him.
What would make a woman believe she was a character in a novel? he wondered.
The image of the old woman played across his mind. Clearly, Mrs. Ida Van Der Meer was married at one time. Was she divorced? A widow? Was Olive Pfenning an only child or were there siblings?
"What a pair we make!" he laughed. "She is fascinated by my house, and I'm fascinated with her."
It then occurred to him that other people, knowing the circumstances, might also be intrigued by the old woman. As though it was an epiphany, the long-awaited inspiration for his second book struck him. Although he would not use her real name, he would write a book about Mrs. Ida Van Der Meer.
* * *
To understand the old woman's obsession, he would have to learn as much as he could about both her and the character created by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The latter part was easy. All he had to do was read the book. On the Saturday following Thanksgiving, he drove to the nearest library. Since the summer people had long since returned to their homes, few books were out on loan.
"Are you looking for a particular book or are you just browsing?" the librarian asked, seeing the look of confusion on the writer's face.
"I was looking through the fiction section for The Great Gatsby, but I couldn't find it," Eddie answered.
"Some libraries may file it in the fiction section by the author's last name; however, we prefer to put it in the literature section. One moment. Let me check the catalog cards. Ah, here it is. The Great Gatsby. Dewey Decimal Number 813.52."
"Thank you."
Since the shelves were arranged in numerical order, he had no difficulty locating Fitzgerald's classic. After applying for a library card—the librarian waived the waiting period since Eddie Metzler was a bestselling author—he checked out the book and returned home. He lit a fire, put his feet up on an ottoman and opened the book. As he read, he jotted down notes in a composition notebook.
"So, Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, but she once loved Jay Gatsby, a man she knew when she was younger," he said as he headed for the kitchen to make himself a cup of hot milk with Nesquik. "Meanwhile, Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. No wonder people like this book. It's got not one but two love triangles."
Eddie was so curious as to how the story ended that he read right through dinner, and still had his nose in the book long after the time he usually went to bed. It was nearly four in the morning when he read the last line: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
"Wow! What an ending! Myrtle and George Wilson are dead. Gatsby is dead. Yet nothing happens to Daisy and Tom. Doesn't seem fair to me. Oh, well," he said with a yawn and tossed the book onto his coffee table. "I better get some sleep."
It was already past ten when he shuffled into the kitchen and made himself a light breakfast. As he ate his instant oatmeal, he wondered what his next step should be. Having read the book, he believed he had a good understanding of Fitzgerald's characters.
"Now, I have to find out why Mrs. Van Der Meer believes she's Daisy Buchanan."
To do that, he must interview her, preferably in person. To do so, he would need to visit her at the Golden Age Home. Thankfully, the old folks' home was only a twenty-minute drive from his house. The telephone operator gave him the number, and he called to make an appointment.
* * *
"Mrs. Van Der Meer doesn't get many visitors," the nurse at the reception desk said when Eddie Metzler arrived at the home. "Just her daughter, and she only comes a few times a year."
Maybe that's why she imagines herself to be Daisy. She must have a pretty lonely life here.
"It's you!" the old woman exclaimed when the writer entered the common room where several seniors were playing cards while others were gathered around a black-and-white RCA console television. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd come visit you. How are you doing, Daisy?"
The mention of that name brought a twinkle to her eye and a smile to her face.
"Do you want the truth?" she asked, her voice suddenly assuming a Southern accent. "I'm bored, bored, bored! What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon and the day after that, and the next thirty years?"
Eddie recognized Ida's question as one asked by Daisy in Fitzgerald's book but did not mention it.
"Why don't we take a walk outside?" he suggested. "I understand there is a lovely garden out back."
"I never pass up the opportunity to take a stroll with a handsome gentleman," she said, flirting outrageously.
Believing he would learn more about her delusion if he pretended to believe in it, he asked, "I do hope Tom won't mind."
The smile immediately disappeared from her face.
"I don't think that's likely. Tom's dead," she answered.
"Oh? I wasn't aware of that. I'm sorry. When did he pass?"
Ida had told him her husband killed himself after the Crash. Was she referring to Mr. Van Der Meer or to Tom Buchanan?
"I'll never forget that day. It was October 31, 1929."
"On Halloween?"
"It was two days after the Crash. He couldn't cope with the loss."
"What loss?" Eddie wondered.
"The Stock Market Crash. He lost everything. So, he got a pistol and shot himself."
"Like George Wilson," the visitor mumbled to himself.
The old woman's face took on the look of terror.
"Wilson? The mechanic? You know him?"
"I read about him," the writer answered, not wanting to divulge too much information about the plot of the book. "He owned a gas station, didn't he? The one by the billboard for the optometrist. You know the one I mean. The big eyes behind the giant spectacles."
When Ida's face lost its color, he realized she knew only too well what had happened to Wilson's wife, Myrtle. According to Fitzgerald's novel, Daisy was the one driving the car that killed the poor woman.
"Y-yes, I d-do believe you're right."
"Wilson killed himself after he shot ...."
"That's enough! I don't want to talk to you anymore." Mrs. Van Der Meer cried and abruptly went back inside he home and sought refuge behind the locked door of her bedroom.
One thing is for certain, Eddie realized. She knows what happened in the book.
* * *
Since Mrs. Van Der Meer rejected all his attempts to visit her again, Eddie had only one source of information left to him. He phoned Olive Pfenning, the old woman's daughter. Hoping to win her over with a top-notch meal, he invited her to lunch at one of the area's most expensive restaurants.
"Don't tell me my mother's been harassing you again," she said when she met him in the lobby.
"No. I'm afraid that I'm the one doing the harassing," he laughed. "I've been trying to visit her at the Golden Age home, but she refuses to see me."
"Why do you want to meet with my mother?"
"Let's go inside and order. Then I'll explain."
Once the server brought their drinks to the table, Eddie told his guest about the book he planned to write.
"You needn't worry about your privacy being invaded," he quickly assured the woman. "Not only will I not use your real names, but I'll also change the setting from Long Island to Newport, Rhode Island."
"Will that make any sense?" Olive asked. "My mother thinks she's Daisy from The Great Gatsby, which was set primarily in Long Island. I think you should stick to New York for your setting."
"I suppose I should. As long as you don't mind."
"It's not as though my mother is famous. No one is going to connect her to your character if you use a fake name."
When the appetizers were placed in front of them, the conversation temporarily came to an end. It was resumed when the salad bowls were taken away and they waited for their entrées.
"Surely, you didn't invite me out to lunch just so you could tell me you're writing a book. You could have done that over the phone," Olive said.
"You're right. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."
"Sure."
Throughout the main course and dessert, Eddie gathered background information on Ida Van Der Meer. Nothing about the woman's past explained her delusion.
"So, your mother had never been to Long Island before you moved there?"
"That's right. She grew up in Pennsylvania."
"And she wasn't an English teacher and didn't major in English in college?"
"Mom didn't even graduate high school. To be honest, she wasn't much of a reader. I never saw her with a book—just those god-awful tabloids she would pick up at the grocery store."
"Have you any idea at all why she is obsessed with The Great Gatsby?"
"Sorry, I haven't got a clue."
"I suppose I'll just have to make up a reason for my book."
* * *
With winter came the threat of snow. Not wanting to be stranded in his home and unable to write, Eddie purchased a case of six reams of paper and a dozen typewriter ribbons. He even bought a high-powered lantern in case a storm knocked out the electricity. Throughout December, January, February and March, he spent a minimum of ten hours a day at his desk, striking the keys of his Olivetti. Unlike his earlier months in the house, there were very few pages balled up and thrown in the trash.
His main character, who he named Harriet Langham, gradually came to life to him while he wrote. However, as he neared the end of his novel in April, he had yet to come up with a cause for her delusion.
If I don't have a reason why she believes she's Daisy, my readers will be disappointed. It would be like a murder mystery that never reveals the killer.
By the first week in May, warm weather brought early tourists to Long Island. Eddie, who had labored throughout the winter months, took a break. Hopefully, after some time away from the Olivetti, he would come up with an idea about how to finish his book.
After making himself a cup of Nescafé, he went outside and sat on his patio. He looked out across his backyard and recalled the first time he had seen Ida Van Der Meer. She was standing beside the swimming pool, looking down at the wet leaves and fetid water that had accumulated there.
"I really ought to have the pool fixed. Before you know it, it will be summer."
Not one to procrastinate, he finished his coffee, went inside and telephoned a local swimming pool service that advertised in the yellow pages.
* * *
On July 21, 1969, the day after Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong took that historic "one giant leap for mankind," Eddie finished his second book. After rejecting several ideas, he chose to have Harriet Langham's delusion caused by her watching the 1949 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Alan Ladd in the title role, the evening her husband died. It wasn't the best explanation, but it would have to do, especially since he had no idea what had really triggered Ida Van Der Meer's obsession with Daisy Buchanan.
"Tomorrow morning, I'll drive to the post office in town and send the completed manuscript to my publisher."
He stood up from his desk, stretched and headed for the kitchen. It was too hot for coffee, so he took a bottle of Tab out of his refrigerator. While drinking the diet cola directly from the bottle, he glanced out his kitchen window and saw the swimming pool in his backyard. He had been so busy writing that he had yet to enjoy it.
"No time like the present," he said with a smile and headed for his bedroom to dig his swimming trunks out of his drawer.
Ten minutes later, he dove into the deep end. The water was cold but not to the point where it was uncomfortable.
Ah! This is nice!
Eddie swam for several minutes and then rolled over onto his back, closed his eyes and floated. The sound of his backyard gate being opened caught his attention.
"Who's there?" he asked, squinting in the bright sunshine.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's words came to him as he looked at the stranger who stood beside the swimming pool: "blond, spiritless man, anemic and faintly handsome." The paleness of his complexion accentuated the redness of the man's eyes. It was clear he had been crying.
"It can't be!" Eddie exclaimed, denying the truth of his own eyes. "You're not real."
The haggard-looking young man raised his gun.
"No. Don't shoot. I'm not Jay Gatsby, and you're not George Wilson." Then, to himself, he added, "Hell, I don't even know if you're real. You might be a figment of my imagination. Maybe Ida Van Der Meer's madness is contagious or maybe I've just been working too hard. I really ought to ...."
The blast of the gun was quickly followed by a severe pain in Eddie's head. Death was not instantaneous, though. While struggling to get out of the pool, he heard a second shot when an imaginary George Wilson turned the gun on himself. Somehow, the roadie-turned-author made it to the side of the pool; however, he lacked the strength to hoist himself up out of the water.
As the life drained from him, he wondered once again what had caused Ida Van Der Meer's delusion. Whatever it was, he reasoned, it must have resulted in his own break with reality. Although his life was fading fast, he recalled reading that Fitzgerald was inspired to write The Great Gatsby by the parties he attended on Long Island in 1922, and he wondered if the author had ever visited his house and swam in his pool.
Moments later, Eddie Metzler died without discovering the truth. F. Scott Fitzgerald did indeed visit Eddie's house back in 1922. It was while he was at the mansion that he heard the tale of a previous owner who had been murdered in the swimming pool in 1902. That incident helped inspire his novel—at least so far as the protagonist's death went. What neither Fitzgerald nor Metzler were aware of, however, was that the ghost of that murdered man lingered in the mansion's backyard long after his body was taken away. Eddie and Ida, both unknowingly highly sensitive to the paranormal, fell victim to the energy that remained there. However, only the former roadie, being a man, died as a result.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published in 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons. It is now in the public domain.
Ida Van Der Meer may think she's Daisy Buchanan, but Salem tells people he was Fitzgerald's inspiration for Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.
