"Yes," I said. "I'm concerned."
Anna pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger and I realized we were going to skirt that issue entirely and get into the rest of it instead. Maybe she'd picked up enough from Harnes to make sense of the situation. I remained torn. I didn't want to get into all of this now. Brent would be scared as hell today. I looked at my watch again. I should get down to the shop and check out Roy's patch-up job before Katie saw the mess. Lowell would be learning everything he could about Shanks and Nick Crummler. I slid forward on the couch and the crick in my neck caused more crackling noises. Sharp pains skittered up and down my skull. I should have stayed for the CAT scan last night; my brain felt slung over to one side of my head. The ice pack dropped to the floor. Anubis saw the bladder and started wagging his tail and doing a fair imitation of the flamenco, kicking further hell out of the book.
"Brian Frost, perhaps in an effort to protect Alice Conway, may have murdered Teddy," Anna said.
"I thought of that myself."
"The possibility also exists that Alice is lying. She may have, in fact, orchestrated the entire blackmail scheme."
"Yes," I agreed. I believed Alice's sorrow, but that didn't mean she hadn't killed her own boyfriend.
"Or unbeknownst to her, Teddy may still be alive."
The face. Why had they…?
I'd gone to the house to hunt for Teddy or find proof of whoever might have taken his place, but I'd never even made it up the stairs. "I had a hunch, but after being in that house last night, I'm leaning against it. If Teddy had been there he would have either been working with them in blackmailing his own father, or Frost and Alice would've had to keep him under lock and key. If he was with them, he'd have helped Frost. If not, I'm assuming Shanks would have let him go."
"Did you search the house?"
"No."
"So Teddy, if he truly is the hand behind these ugly circumstances, might possibly still be there. Or there may be evidence of some other sort that Alice is concealing. I am not positive that she told us the complete truth about her relation-ship with Teddy."
"Neither am I. Lowell must've searched the place thoroughly, though. Since we don't know anything about Teddy, and there's been no real evidence that he's still alive, maybe we'd do better to concentrate on only one line of reasoning."
"I agree."
"He's dead."
"Why would they have mutilated his features?"
Once again I felt something from her life seeping from her. I wanted to find those invisible wounds and cover them with my hands, and keep her from dissipating into the air around me.
"Do you trust Nick Crummler?" she asked.
"He saved my life."
"By murdering Freddy Shanks. And why would Shanks involve himself directly in such a manner?"
"I don't know, it seems out of character."
"For such a brute."
"And for Harnes, as well. Harnes is way too smooth to let things get so messy. He could have simply given Alice a little money. Or more to the point, Harnes could have allowed Teddy to be with Alice and accept his responsibility where the child was concerned."
I had no doubt that Anna would be amused by my saying that, and wonder just how much of it was intended as a parallel to my own situation with Katie and our baby. The conversation could have easily shifted, but I knew she wouldn't harp on it.
"You fear I am in love with Theodore Harnes," she said.
"No," I answered honestly. "That's the only thing I'm sure about, that you're not in love with him. At least not anymore. But you're holding something back, and that chafes me, Anna."
"Not only held back from you, but perhaps from myself.”
“Oh cripes, what does that mean?" She didn't seem to know. "What did you and he talk about?"
"Very little of consequence, actually."
"You were with him alone all night."
"In the library, yes. I was, foolish as it may sound… studying him. I find it fascinating that he has no moral convictions whatsoever, and yet is capable of great feats of merit, at least where his accumulation of wealth and entrepreneurial deeds are concerned. He talked of his business ventures, his wives, and even his more notorious affairs. He is forthright about such matters. He spoke of his son at length, yet offered nothing that might shed a new perspective on Teddy's death and Crummler's implication in the crime. He sentimentalized without any real sentiment. He adored his son, but in a way that a man might prize a car. He offers up all the authenticity of a poor actor in a bad play, and yet he's honest in his lack of sincerity."
"Could he have killed Teddy?"
"Certainly."
I'd asked her once before if she thought he'd murdered Diane Cruthers-I couldn't call her Diane Harnes, she remained too alive in the photos, outside his influence now-and she hadn't answered. I asked again.
Anna said, "I know he did. And I realize now how very close I came to having been her. It could easily have been me left behind dead."
Anubis, keyed to my grandmother's nuances after so many years, picked up on any subtle shifting in mood and tone. The air thickened with attitude and history. He stirred and began to whine.
I started to get up and said, "Oh no."
"You see," she said. "I once tried to kill Theodore Harnes."
I fell off the couch.
Coming up the Leones' walkway, I caught an odd, sharp perfume rising from around the trellis. Only tangled dead vines remained twisted between the slats, and I was convinced Katie would do the pruning this year. I saw no rose buds but maybe hidden in the gutters of the shrubs some wildflowers were already blossoming. I didn't want to think that a concussion might actually be filling my brain with phantom scents.
As I entered the boarding house, I could smell the heavier, savory, more substantial aromas from the Orchard Inn's kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Leone banged pots and pans and sang alternating stanzas of "Funiculi, Funicula," sounding just slightly more in tune than my father and Keaton Wallace had when parading around town without their shirts. I turned and leaned in the doorway, watching leaves scuffle in the breeze. I looked out at the rest of the street.
The weather had taken a contradictory turn again, bypassing mild and heading straight into summer heat. People took advantage of the day. I heard lawnmowers and hedge clippers from down the block. A paperboy on a four-hundred-dollar bicycle with tires so thick they looked like they were belted flung copies of the Gazette onto the neighborhood lawns, the way I used to do. The house next door actually had a couple of whiffle balls and bats lying in the grass, and a plastic pitching machine grounded in the center of the yard. I wondered if I could ever get used to living in the Grove again.
I shut the door and a draft spun the floral chintz curtains. Mr. Leone, still singing, walked into the day room and turned on the television, where he grew entranced by one of the Italian soap operas: two men in the middle of a knife fight snorted at each other, while a woman wept and prayed and tried to keep them apart. The choreography had a true operatic quality, the guys tussling without really touching, staring wide-eyed with pursed lips. I figured she'd be accidentally stabbed by one of her lovers. Maybe they'd wring every bit of melodrama out of the scene like the American soaps and have her get it in the belly from both men.
Mr. Leone sat and scuttled forward to the edge of his seat. The woman threw her arms out and the camera came in for a close-up on her shocked face; the men shrieked and held her dying in their arms. They were all covered with a thick red liquid that looked more like tomato paste than blood. Mr. Leone let out a loud, "Madonna!" The dead girl tried hard not to blink. The two men started to cry, and Mr. Leone looked like he might do the same any second.