Beautiful Little Fools(41)

“Good,” I said, defiantly. I walked over to the bar and grabbed what I’d come down here for, his whiskey decanter and a glass, and then I turned and faced him, as if daring him to try and stop me. He glanced at the whiskey, then at my face, and he frowned. “Tom,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady, even though I could feel my fingers trembling a little, clutching too tight to the whiskey and the glass. “If you hurt Daisy again, I’ll kill you.”





Detective Frank Charles October 1922

NEW JERSEY




THE DAY FRANK DROVE DOWN to New Jersey to watch the lady’s golf tournament, it was exactly three years to the day that the doctor had given Dolores a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.

He’d tried not to think about it in the weeks and months and now years since, but sometimes his mind slipped back there anyway. He’d be working a case, poring over a file, conducting an interview. And then, almost abruptly, he’d remember again: that sterile white hospital room in Presbyterian. The way joy had turned to heartbreak in an instant and both had constricted his chest, made it hard to breathe but in slightly different ways. Joy was breathless. Heartbreak was suffocating.

For the three months before that morning in Presbyterian, he and Dolores had thought that there would be a baby. After so many years of trying, finally they would have the child they’d always wanted. Then instead, there was blood on the linoleum floor, an ambulance ride to Presbyterian. And there wasn’t a baby at all but a cancer burrowing deep inside of her. The doctor who’d done the hysterectomy had an accent—German or Polish; it made everything he said sound even bleaker. Fifty-fifty chance of surviving three years, he’d said. It was a flip of a coin, Frank had thought then. Heads Dolores lived three years. Tails she didn’t.

Miraculously, it had come out heads and Dolores reassured him this morning before he left, exactly three years after that day in the hospital room, that she felt just fine.

“You look a little pale, Dee,” he said, putting his hand to her forehead. He knew that wasn’t a monitor of anything—it wasn’t a fever that would kill her but a cancer that could regrow inside her that neither one of them would see before it was too late. And yet, it still made him feel he was checking on her, in some outward way, by putting his hand on her face. Her skin was cool. He leaned over and kissed her.

“Frank, really, I’m fine,” she reassured him. She was knitting a hat for the neighbor’s new baby, and her fingers kept tumbling the needles even as she spoke and he fussed around her forehead. She didn’t stop; she never stopped. That was Dolores. “Don’t you have that important interview in Jersey today?”

He kissed her softly on the lips now, and he felt her lips arch into a smile before he stepped back. “I might be home late,” he told her. “You don’t have to wait up.”



* * *



FRANK HAD BEEN following the lady’s golf tour in the papers, thinking about going to talk to Jordan Baker ever since he got back from Illinois last month. He was frustrated by the lack of answers he’d gotten from Catherine and Daisy and he knew, he just knew, that the diamond hairpin was the key. But he hadn’t wanted to take another trip away from home, away from Dolores overnight. Not so close to the three-year anniversary, which, every time he thought about it still—fifty-fifty—made him gasp for air all over again. So he’d bided his time, knowing that the tour was meandering up north, before heading out west for the winter. Today they were playing in South Jersey, a course close enough to the ocean that when he got out of the car, he could immediately smell the salt in the air.

It was almost two by the time he arrived, and the golfers were just breaking for a late lunch. He stood off to the side and watched them walk off the course, one by one, in their matching white golf dresses. Jordan stuck out—she was a little taller than the rest of them and her dark hair was shorter, clipped close to her head. She looked up, noticed him standing there, frowned, but kept walking past him anyway.

“Hey there, Miss Baker,” he called out, running after her. She turned and glared at him. “Could I have a few minutes?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes narrowed, and he suspected that inwardly, she was telling him to go to hell. But a few other girls had stopped, noticed him, too. They were all staring, wondering. And then she sighed; she didn’t want to make a scene. She told the girls to go on without her and walked over toward him. But she pursed her lips together, waited to say anything until the other girls had all moved on. Then she said, rather brusquely: “What do you want?”

“Just a few minutes of your time,” he repeated.

“I’m very busy,” she said. “I’m in the middle of a tournament, for heaven’s sake.”

“How’s it going?” he asked her. “The tournament, I mean.”

“I’m winning,” she said huffily.

“Congratulations.”

“That’s premature. There’re nine more holes after lunch.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, making it clear she had no patience for him or his questions. No use for his congratulations, either.

He was in no capacity to force her to talk to him. So instead, he smiled. Dolores always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. “I’m just following up on a few loose ends, that’s all.” He kept his voice light, easy. “I found something valuable, and I thought it might belong to you.”