Everything Leads to You(68)

“I called that morning but, no surprise, there was no answer. And then later on, in the early afternoon, we heard sirens. They aren’t too unusual for this area, but they got louder and louder and then stopped right outside, and I went out there and asked the paramedics what was going on. Told them we owned the building. They said they got a call about someone in apartment F and I said, ‘I’ll get the key.’ I ran up after them—I wasn’t such an old man then, you know—and I opened the door and they let me follow them in. The baby was crying. You were crying. I could tell something was very wrong. And then there she was, your mother, Caroline, and there was no mistaking that she was dead already.”

We’re quiet for a minute. Ava looks pale. I want to reach out and hold her hand but something keeps me from it.

“Did you find out who made the call?” Charlotte asks.

“No,” Frank says. “We never did. But it was made from the apartment.”

“So someone was in there, alive, when Caroline had already died?” Charlotte asks.

“That was my understanding.”

“Maybe it was Tracey,” Charlotte says.

“Or Lenny,” I say.

“Lenny? The name doesn’t sound familiar.” Frank shakes his head. “It could have been anyone, though. I wasn’t acquainted with her friends. Actually, there’s one thing I could check.”

He leans forward. Charlotte walks to his chair and offers him her arm.

“Thank you,” he says, and she helps him stand.

“We have these files over here. All of our old tenants. Everyone has to provide the name of a person to contact in case of emergency. We’ve never been good about clearing it out.”

He opens the drawer of a black metal cabinet and in spite of myself I make a mental note that we’ll have to take it out of the room when we shoot. It’s a cool piece, but too office-like and altogether the wrong color.

“Here we go,” he says, and we all lean forward to hear him. This could lead us to Lenny, whoever he is, or it could lead us to someone else entirely, someone who knew them all and could answer all our questions.

He adjusts his glasses. He squints.

“Tracey Wilder,” he says. “Should I write down her phone number and address?”

We all sigh.

“That’s okay,” Ava says. “I already know her.”

Frank shuffles back to his chair. This time it’s me who helps him sit down.

“I could get used to this kind of treatment,” he says to us with a wink.

“Anytime,” I say. “But we should go, let you watch your game.”

“Don’t you want to wait for Edie? You can ask her about your movie.”

“Okay,” I say. “But we can watch while we wait.”

“As long as you don’t mind . . .” He picks up the remote and clicks the game back on.

“Can I ask you something else?” Ava says when a commercial comes on.

Frank nods.

“Where was she when you found her? What did she look like?”

“What did she look like?” Frank asks. “Well, sweetheart, I’m sorry to say, but she looked dead. I don’t know how else to describe her.”

“Was she in the living room?”

I brace myself for the answer, remembering what she told us at the Marmont, that she imagined carpet.

“No,” he says. His eyes are watery. “She was on the bathroom floor with a needle in her arm. There was nothing pretty about it. I’m sorry.”

A moment later the door opens and Edie steps inside dressed in a red suit and flat black shoes, her hair curly and stiff and much closer to brown than to purple.

“What?” she says, squinting to see us all. “We have company? Oh, it’s Emi and Charlotte. You came back to see us! And who did you bring with you this time?”

“Sweetheart,” Frank says. “This is the baby. Caroline’s baby.”

Edie blinks. “Oh my,” she says. “Oh, dear, really? Come. Let me see you.”

Ava crosses the room to stand with Edie in a patch of sun.

Edie touches her hand to her heart, and then reaches out and takes Ava’s hand between her own.

“You poor thing,” she says.

Ava tries to smile but it doesn’t last.

“Frank was telling us about the day you found her,” Charlotte says.