Beautiful Little Fools(21)

She laughed and refused to meet his eyes, brushing her hair behind her shoulders with one well-practiced swoop of her hand. “You came all the way out here for a few more questions, Detective? I don’t know whether I should be flattered or alarmed.”

“I like to get out of the city for a few days this time of year anyway. Figured I might as well come in person.” It was a bald-faced lie that he covered up with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. It pained him to leave Dolores alone overnight any time of the year, even though she’d insisted she could manage just fine without him. And her sister, Josephine, was two blocks away if she needed anything. Josephine already disliked him and Frank didn’t need to give her more reasons for it. But he was here for Dolores, he reminded himself. Once he got Wolfsheim’s paycheck, he’d be able to afford a nice rental house near the water next summer. They could celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary in style.

“Still,” Daisy was saying now, “you could’ve telephoned, Detective.”

He could’ve. But he wanted to show her the hairpin in his pocket, wanted to observe her face when he sprang it on her. He wanted to watch the threads of her lies unravel right in front of his eyes, and maybe then he could figure out what they all meant. “I prefer face-to-face meetings, rather than the telephone,” he said, nonchalantly.

“The telephone is a dreadful device, isn’t it?” She clucked her tongue. And it was hard to tell whether she was humoring him now or being sincere.

The poor house servant rushed in with his water, and he took it from her. He took a small sip before resting it on the coffee table in front of him. “Anyway, I saw your cousin Nick last week.”

“Oh, how is he? We grew so close over the summer and I’m afraid we’ve lost touch already since I’ve moved. That dreadful telephone again.” She let out a muted laugh. He was pretty sure she was mocking him.

Nick had seemed agitated, angry, but Frank wasn’t about to tell Daisy that now. “He said something that I wanted to ask you about, actually. He said that you knew Jay Gatsby much longer than he did.”

Daisy opened her mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. She frowned.

“But you told me you only knew Mr. Gatsby because he was”—he flipped through his notebook, making a show of rereading his transcript; really, he had the words, their entire interview, memorized from going through it so many times—“my… cousin Nick’s friend. His neighbor,” he repeated now.

Daisy chewed on her lip, not saying anything at first. “That’s all true,” she finally said, her voice softer. Her eyes darted from her fingers, which she was twisting in her lap, to the wall somewhere just behind him. “He was Nick’s friend. His neighbor in West Egg.”

“But you knew him before that?”

She turned her fingers round and round. “I met him years ago, once, in Louisville, before the war.” She stared at her fingers and spoke softly. “He probably didn’t even remember me. I… I… didn’t think it was worth mentioning to you, Detective.”

Daisy looked up again and met his eyes. Her expression was so earnest, he might almost believe she was telling the truth now. Almost.

He pulled the diamond hairpin out of his pocket and laid it flat in the palm of his hand, holding it out for her to see. Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. “Where did you get this?” she demanded.

“It’s yours?” he asked, hopeful. He was on the brink of something with her. What, he wasn’t exactly sure. But… something.

She took the hairpin from him, ran her finger across the diamonds, and then handed it back to him. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen it before.”

He sighed. So close, and now she was slipping back into her lies. “But you just reacted like maybe you had.”

She laughed. Her face was pale, glass. Her eyes, stone. “Oh, Detective, you just surprised me, that’s all. That looks mighty expensive for you to be carrying around in your pocket.”

She was right. It did look expensive. It looked exactly like something a woman who owned a sprawling estate in Minneapolis, complete with her own forest and lake and goddamned Greek columns, might wear.

“You’re sure it’s not yours?” Frank prodded. Daisy pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. “You have any idea whose it might be?” he asked her.

“Like I told you,” she said more curtly now. “I’ve never seen it before in my life.”





Daisy June 1919

LOUISVILLE




“I COME BEARING GIFTS!” JORDAN exclaimed, bursting through my bedroom door, without even knocking. I stood in front of my full-length mirror, examining my wedding gown, which was on but not buttoned yet. But I turned at the sound of her voice.

She was carrying two gold-foil-wrapped boxes with a letter sitting on top, and her cheeks were pink, matching her fuchsia maid of honor dress almost exactly. Was her flush an indication of happiness or was it this awful mid-June heat that had come over Louisville like a sweltering humid blanket these past few days? I’d taken a long cool bath before I’d put my gown on, but I was just waiting for the heat to hit me again, any minute.

“Gifts!” Jordan held them out to me.

“You know I love gifts,” I said, ignoring her flushed face and this dreadful weather. There was nothing to be done about that. And I was getting married today. The doubts I’d drowned in gin two days ago were behind me now, and today I felt nothing but joy. Sweaty joy. But joy, nonetheless. “Can you button me first, Jordie?”