Bennie checked behind her again. The same young man with spiky black hair, plugged into an MP3 player, with a JanSport backpack slung on one shoulder. Next to him a middle-aged man strode along, carrying his suit jacket over the handle of his briefcase, and a young woman walked behind him in spongy Nikes. Alice was nowhere in sight.
Bennie turned onto the Ben Franklin Parkway into a cool wind whipping down the boulevard from the Schuylkill River, which flowed behind the art museum. The giant multicolored flags of all nations flapped from stainless-steel poles lining the parkway, billowing in the gusts. She put down her head and braced herself against the wind. She’d get back on her feet when she mortgaged the house, and even have some room to breathe. Before she’d left Sam’s office, he’d called a gay banker he knew to get her house appraised and draw up the loan papers. With his connection and a little luck, she’d have the money in three weeks, and she could stall Linette that long. She was back in business, at least temporarily.
Crak! The flag flapped in a sudden gust, and Bennie started, glancing around. She didn’t see Alice, but there were fewer people around her now, since only those heading toward her Fairmount neighborhood would be going this way. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. She picked up the pace and found herself on her street in no time, jogging to get to her house. As she got closer, she could see that her front door had been broken. She hustled to her stoop, and the sight hurt her heart.
Wood splintered from two long cracks in the varnished oak of her front door, running almost its length. The cops had sledgehammered the lock to get in, then had nailed the door shut to secure it. Bennie gritted her teeth. She climbed up the stairs, stuffed her briefcase and bag under her arm, and ran a finger over the splintered oak of the door, which she had hung and varnished herself. It had taken almost all day, with Grady’s help. Goddamn it! Doggy scratching broke her spate of self-pity, and Bennie felt her smile return. The cops didn’t have to break the door; Bennie had a golden retriever who would have unlocked it for them and fixed meat loaf.
“Hang on, Bear!” she said, then stopped. She couldn’t get in the front; she’d have to go around the back. So she climbed down the steps, went around to the alley, and hurried back to her house, slipping a key into the back French door. Bear jumped on her instantly with his rag-mop front paws, wondering if this was some new game.
“Bear! No! Bad dog!” she said, but they both knew her heart wasn’t in it. She dropped her stuff, closed the door, and scanned her dining room with dismay. Her stereo system in the corner had been torn apart, the cardboard backs taken off the speakers, and the CDs spilled from their teak racks and left all over the floor. The kitchen cabinets hung open, every one, and all of her groceries-cereal boxes, flour and sugar bags, cans of peas, and even a box of baking soda-had been dumped on the counters. All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out, the silverware reshuffled and knives slid from the knife rack. Even the dishwasher was open and the blue plastic racks rolled out. The search warrant had authorized the cops to look in everything, since an item like earrings was so small. She didn’t want to think about what they’d done to her mustard.
She walked into the living room, where the scene was the same. The cushion on the sofa had been upended, novels had been torn from the bookshelves, and magazines and newspapers lay scattered on the coffee table. It would take hours to put the place back together, and she hadn’t been upstairs yet. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. She even had a tube of Clearasil in her medicine chest. At her age, it was humiliating. Bear bounded obliviously over the debris, a hundred pounds of fur carrying a denuded tennis ball. His wetly pink tongue lolled out behind the ball, challenging both the laws of physics and the rules of etiquette.
“Good boy, good dog,” she said, scratching the dog’s soft cinnamon head. He responded by scampering on the books, wagging his heavy butt in the air, and setting the tennis ball squarely between her pumps. He wanted to play, and he needed to go out anyway. He didn’t care what the house looked like, or that Alice was screwing up her life. Who could say he was wrong?
“You got it, handsome.” Bennie bent down and picked up the ball, which set the golden dancing and sliding on the books. She grabbed his red leash and the pooper scooper and hooked him up, and they left the house together through the completely inconvenient backdoor, with Bear holding his ball delicately in his mouth, his lips draped over it on either side like velvet curtains.
Once she got outside onto the street, Bennie glanced around. The street was deserted because most of her neighbors had returned home in this residential section of the city; she hoped they’d been at work when the police went on their treasure hunt. The rowhouses were low here, none taller than three stories, leaving lots of sky. The sun had dropped behind the houses, leaving behind a lovely royal blue wash with undertones of deep rose. It was still light, and would be for about an hour, with spring coming on full bore. Just enough time for a quick game of fetch. Bear trotted alongside her as they walked, stopping only to relieve himself with a tennis ball between his teeth. It was his best trick.
She gave him a pat, feeling herself almost relax in the process. Lights were already glowing through the windows of the rowhouses, and the cooking aromas wafted down the block. “Chicken,” she decided, and Bear looked back in agreement as he tugged her along.
The Lame Dog Park was just a few blocks away, so named not because it was for lame dogs, but it was such a lame park. It contained not a single blade of grass, but was simply an abandoned square of rubble and trash leftover where a few houses had been torn down and reconstruction had yet to begin. The dog owners in the neighborhood had picked out all of the glass and dangerous trash, and had taken to using the open lot to run the dogs because it was so convenient and secluded. Bennie wished she could take Bear someplace nicer-Rittenhouse Square, Taney Park, or the Schuylkill River-but they didn’t have time before dark. Bear set the ball at her feet, and she picked it up and gave it a good toss. She glanced around but no one appeared to be watching.
Bear came cantering back with the ball, his gait rocking back and forth, his tail wagging. His round eyes were like brown marbles, bright and alert, and he smiled broadly, panting up at her. Bennie felt a rush of warmth for the animal, marveling at how happy he could be with so little. He didn’t need anything but an old tennis ball and a trash-strewn vacant lot. There was a lesson in it, even for a woman with two Ivy League degrees: Best not to become too attached to things, even to houses. But then again, the dog didn’t employ three young lawyers, in one of the toughest job markets ever.
She threw the ball, preoccupied. She couldn’t live her life looking over her shoulder. She wanted to know where Alice was. She knew that Alice wouldn’t be found if she didn’t want to be, not by conventional methods. There was one way she could track her down, but she hadn’t wanted to find her enough before to resort to it. But as distasteful as it was, the time was now. It was the night of last resorts, after all.
Half an hour later, Bennie had consumed a sandwich and was driving out of the city, steering her old white Saab into the dark night, heading southwest onto I-95. She would be there in under an hour, sans driver’s license, but she doubted that was a felony. Traffic was light because the rush hour had passed, and the road opened up ahead, its asphalt smooth and dry.
The Saab whizzed past exits for the Philly airport, then the Red Roof Inn, oil refineries, and lighted billboards that had sprung up around the Tinicum Nature Preserve, engulfing it with catalytic converters. Bennie hadn’t come this way for about two years, since the last time she saw her father. Which was also the first time she saw her father. Bennie hadn’t known any of her own history until Alice surfaced two years ago, and her mother had been too ill by then to speak, much less explain their past, or her secrets. But what Bennie learned when she uncovered the truth made her understand why her mother had kept it a secret. In particular, the truth about her father, William Winslow.