A Noise Downstairs(95)

Paul was not, Anna believed, the only one who’d been deceived.

The number one dupe was herself. Anna now could not help but wonder if Charlotte had been putting on an act when she showed up unexpectedly at the office to tell her how worried she was about Paul.

I was played, Anna thought. I’m their corroborating evidence.

If Charlotte and Bill were having an affair, as Anna suspected, and were plotting against Paul, who better to back up their story that Paul was unstable than the dead man’s therapist?

But if what Anna suspected was true, what could she do about it? She’d gone to Arnwright with nothing more than a hunch, and it was just as well she didn’t mention what Bill was trying to conceal after he saw Charlotte to her car.

Hey, Detective, he had a hard-on. That’s proof, right?

It would have been the last thing Arnwright needed to be convinced that she was a nutcase. And sex-obsessed.

So what was there to do? If she couldn’t get the police interested in taking another look at Paul’s death, was she going to conduct an investigation herself?

I am not Nancy Drew.

She was not going to snoop about like some amateur sleuth in a hackneyed mystery novel. That wasn’t the real world. She had no idea how to go about such a thing. She was not going to try tailing someone again. She was not about to hide microphones in Charlotte’s house or Bill’s townhouse.

All she knew how to do was talk to people. And more than that, to listen. And to watch. That was how you got below the surface, to where the truth was buried.

She wanted to talk to Charlotte again. When she’d last spoken to her, Anna had not held the suspicions she did now. Anna wanted to look her in the eye when she asked her some of the same things she’d asked Bill Myers.

And for sure, she’d ask about his call to her about the printer. What a crock of shit that was.

Anna believed she would come away from a meeting like that knowing, in her heart, whether her suspicions were warranted. If she found they were, she might not have enough for the police to open an investigation, but at least she’d have a good idea what really had happened.

I have to know.

Paul’s death would always weigh on her. She would always feel responsible. But there were degrees of responsibility.

When she returned home and gave the neighbor her freedom, she checked on Frank, whom she found in the backyard knocking some more chip shots with a nine-iron. The woods behind the house, Anna imagined, were littered with hundreds of golf balls.

Then she went about rescheduling. Once she was done with that, it was nearly seven, and time to pull something together for her father and herself for dinner.

“Dad,” she said, finding him back in his bedroom on the rowing machine, “are you okay with a frozen pizza? I know it’s pretty sad, but it’s been that kind of day.”

“Okay by me, Joanie,” he said, sliding back on the machine.

Knowing he’d be okay with it, but still feeling she needed to apologize for it, she had already preset the oven. By the time she got back to the kitchen, it was time to slide the pizza into it.

Half an hour later, sitting at the table with her father, he studied her and said, “What’s on your mind, pumpkin?”

His pet name for her since she was a child. So at least for the moment, he knew she was his daughter.

“I have to confront somebody about something,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to it.”

Frank smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I can handle it.”

“Oh, God, Dad, it’s not you,” she said, laying a hand on his.

“If there’s something you gotta tell me, I can take it.”

“It’s something else entirely. Really.”

“Okay, then.”

“I might have to go out tonight.”

He nodded. “Sure thing.”

“And I need to know you’ll be okay if I do. I can’t impose on Rosie again.”

“Not a problem.”

She was relieved that her father no longer seemed traumatized by their visit from the SWAT team. He seemed to have forgotten all about it.

“What is it you have to do?” he asked.

“I kind of have to work myself up to it.”

Another nod. “If you decide not to, I was thinking we could go visit your mother tonight.”

It never ceased to amaze her how he could drift in and out this way. Be perceptive enough to tell there was something on her mind, and then propose an outing based on a fantasy.

“We’ll see,” Anna said.

He offered to do the dishes—there was little more than a baking sheet, two plates, and two glasses—so Anna told him that would be great. She wanted him to feel useful whenever possible.

When he was finished and had retreated upstairs to his bedroom to watch the cartoon channel, Anna made some tea. When it was ready, she poured herself a cup and sat at the kitchen table to drink it.

She spent the better part of an hour on it.

“Sooner or later,” she said under her breath, “you’re gonna have to do this thing.”

But that didn’t have to mean she couldn’t have another cup of tea first while she thought about it.





Fifty-Nine

They felt a celebration was in order.

And why not? Bill and Charlotte never had to be worried about being arrested for murder because—Breaking News, folks!— they had not murdered anyone.