All the Beautiful Lies(47)

“But you weren’t yet?” Harry said.

“Well, not yet, but then we were. It wasn’t casual, Harry. It was serious. That’s why I know he wasn’t having another affair. I think your stepmother made that up, that maybe she’s trying to deflect the police from looking at her.”

“You think she had something to do with my father’s death.”

“I don’t really know why I’m here, but yes, I’ve thought about it, thought about Alice having something to do with your father’s death. That’s why I came up, I guess, and why I wanted to meet you. To find out if you knew anything.”

“Did you think Alice found out about you and my father?”

Grace shifted forward. “The last time I saw your father, about two and a half weeks ago, he talked about Alice a lot. It was something he never really did, so I thought it was strange. He told me that she’d started acting strange toward him. She couldn’t make eye contact, she was totally cold. He kept asking her what was going on, but she wouldn’t say anything.”

“It sounds like she found out about you two.”

“That’s what we thought, but we went over it, and there just didn’t seem to be any way she could have.”

“There could be a thousand ways. She could have found one of your hairs on his coat, she could have hired a detective, she could have just felt it, known it.”

“I know. Like I said, it’s why I came here. I had to see her, at the funeral. I thought I might just know, from looking at her.”

“And did you?”

“I don’t know what I know anymore, but I think I should go to the police, tell them I was having an affair with him. Maybe it would make a difference.”

“You should,” Harry said.

“I will, before I leave.”

“That will mean that Alice will know about you.”

“I guess. If she doesn’t already.”

“She already knows about this other woman.”

“There is no other woman,” Grace said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Your father and I talked. I was definitely the only person he was involved with. He was racked with guilt. He said it was the first time he’d done anything remotely like this.”

Harry felt her eyes on him, looking for confirmation. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “But think about it . . . he was deceiving Alice with you. What makes you think he wouldn’t have deceived you with someone else?”

Grace pursed her lips, then said, “Because he wouldn’t have. I don’t believe it. Alice is making it up because maybe she wants the police to look at someone else.”

Harry felt a little bit of loyalty toward Alice. He said, “Why wouldn’t she just tell them about you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t know about us. Maybe because I wouldn’t be a good suspect because I was down in New York City.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Harry’s eyes traced a water stain in the corner of the bedroom’s high ceiling. Finally, he asked, “Were you hoping that my father would leave Alice to be with you?”

“Of course that’s what I was hoping,” Grace said, her voice loud.

“I just didn’t know . . . I didn’t know if you saw it as a fling.”

“I thought it was just a fling, because he was married, and because he was twice my age, and all those other things, but, like I said, I was in love with him. We got one another. So, yeah, I had fantasies that he’d leave Alice and move back down to the city and in with me. It didn’t make me feel good about myself, but I thought about it. I thought about it all the time.” She paused, and Harry didn’t say anything. “Are you mad at me?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I seduced your father. He was a married man. It’s possible that I’m the reason he’s dead.”

“I don’t know if I’m mad at you, but I want to know more. About you and him.”

“You’re just like him, you know. You don’t talk about yourself. You just keep asking questions. He did the exact same thing. I thought he was selfless, at first, but I changed my mind. I think it was selfish. I think he didn’t want to give anything of himself away, and I think you’re the same.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” Harry said.

“Yeah, that’s what he used to say,” Grace said, her voice tinged with anger. Then quietly, she said, “What’s the name of this woman he was supposed to be involved with?”

“Annie Callahan.”

“How did he know her?”

“She worked at the bookstore, the one up here. Alice said that my father hired her because he’d heard her husband was out of work, and she needed the money.”

Harry watched Grace, who was chewing at the side of her thumbnail. He thought she looked doubtful, for the first time. He wanted to say more, wanted to convince her that there was a possibility that his father had been involved with two women on the side. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, maybe it was a pattern he’d had his whole life. Harry no longer knew what to believe.

“Grace,” he said.

She stopped biting at her nail and looked up at him.