“Did her fellow law enforcement officers embrace her? Did they welcome — ah! — her resurrection?”
“No, sir. Detectives Collins and Baird were intrigued by the veiled woman, but I believe they left the task of identifying her to Detective Harriman. Or perhaps they believed she was in some way connected to Mr. Arden. She stayed next to him throughout the time I saw her.”
“Ah, yes, Arden.” Dane brooded for a time, then said, “Tell me more.”
Myles described the altercation between Tory Randolph and the veiled woman, which had taken place just as he was leaving. He kept hoping Mr. Dane would find some amusement in it. He did not. Suddenly, Myles remembered another detail he had planned to report.
“Before anyone else arrived at the cemetery, I looked at the flowers brought there from the funeral home. They included an elaborate arrangement of white flowers. All white. No card.”
Dane sat up straighter. “Really? Now you interest me…”
Myles waited.
“Yes, that is interesting. Did you discover where they came from?”
“Not yet, sir, but we are working on it.”
“It is very important to me, Myles.”
“Yes, sir. I expect an answer by early this evening.”
Dane tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. After a moment, he asked, “Detective Harriman was delayed in his return to his office?”
“Yes, sir. By several hours.”
“Curious…” Dane grew introspective. “He does not seem as interested in me as his friends are. Which can only mean that he is not as convinced as they that I killed their precious Trent Randolph. Why?” He looked up at Myles. “What does he know that they don’t?”
This aspect of matters had escaped Myles’s notice. He was ashamed that he had not assigned someone to follow Detective Harriman from the cemetery. He had someone watching inside the department, of course, but that was not helpful to Mr. Dane now.
“You and I were due to discuss him today, weren’t we?” Dane asked.
“The report is ready whenever you’d like to go over it, sir.”
“Excellent,” Dane said. “After dinner, you and I shall spend time together in the study, discussing Detective Harriman.”
“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”
Dane nodded absently. Myles was almost to the door when Dane called him back.
“The boy, Myles. Tell me everything you can remember about the boy.”
31
Wednesday, July 12, 5:30 P.M.
The Kelly-Harriman Home
Elena checked on Seth, who was still sound asleep. He had stayed up late the last few nights, visiting with Yvette and Matt — added to all the stress and excitement of the day, he was exhausted.
The dogs had gone out when she opened the door to the room. She had almost lost her balance, because she had been using one foot to block the entrance of the big gray cat — Cody? Yes, that was what Frank had called him. She shut the door behind the whole menagerie — on all but Seth’s guinea pig, who was sleeping in his new cage, undoubtedly dreaming of huge tomcats.
She looked around the room and tried hard to summon some sense of anger, of righteous indignation toward Frank Harriman. She couldn’t do it. She had seen him talking to Baird, could see there was some sort of friction between them. And although Pete had helped them out, she knew he was one of the ones who thought Phil was guilty.
There, the anger was back.
It lasted until she saw a photo of Frank with two boys who were near Seth’s age. The kids were climbing all over him; he was laughing. They weren’t his kids, though. She had overheard that much of Seth’s interrogation of him before Yvette had dragged her farther into the kitchen. No kids. But there were games for kids to play with here. Frank had shown her the closet that held toys. She couldn’t picture him playing with them himself — it was an aunt and uncle’s house, then.
She smelled smoke on her hair and decided to take a shower. Carrying the plastic bag that held the basic toiletries she had purchased at the drugstore, she gathered up a towel and a washcloth from the stack of linens Frank had left for them and went into the bathroom.
It was there, for the first time, that she became acutely aware of the fact that Frank’s wife lived in this house. Not that she had expected that Irene Kelly lived somewhere else, but Elena had been feeling too numb to really study her surroundings. In the moments when the numbness briefly faded, she was caught up in thoughts about the funeral and the fire, in worries about the future, in questions about whom she should trust.
Now, on the counter, small items became a visual alarm, declaring her an interloper on another woman’s ground. No, a couple’s ground. Two toothbrushes, a man’s comb, a woman’s hairbrush. A small bottle of scent, almost full. She opened the mirror door on the cabinet over the sink and saw the his-and-hers mix of deodorants, makeup (very little, she noted), mouthwash, razors, shaving cream, aftershave, hand lotion, cotton balls, aspirin, a box of bandages.
She felt a fierce stab of jealousy toward Irene Kelly. This was not because she had long considered Irene a potential rival or even because she had, at some point during the afternoon, decided that she liked the color of Frank Harriman’s eyes. It was because Irene Kelly had this male presence in her life.
Would she think of Elena as a poacher?
Elena began shrugging out of her clothes. Irene had nothing to worry over, she decided. Frank was attractive, but Elena never went after married men. Hell, she really didn’t spend a lot of time with men, period — although she had always liked the company of men more than of women. She didn’t have women friends. Her friendship with Yvette had been a first, and that one probably wouldn’t have been formed without Seth.
She shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. She liked directness, and most women weren’t as direct as Yvette.
As for men friends, most of the single men she met didn’t seem to be able to give up using the pointers between their legs as the compasses for their lives. Telling a man she was a single mom was usually enough to send his compass needle due south.
She’d met a few men she liked, and she had dated, but nobody ever got more than a good-night kiss from her. For a while, she had wondered if she was actually as frigid as the jerks at the LPPD had said she was. But she knew that was not the problem. The problem was, no one ever measured up to her memories of Phil Lefebvre.
She knew it wasn’t healthy to cling to memories this way, but it was no use trying to let go. She need only look at her son and the memories of Phil were there, inescapable. In a number of ways, she was more faithful to him than many women were to their living mates. She had said this once to Yvette, who had scoffed and said, “A dead husband is very easy to get along with. He doesn’t even snore.”
Maybe Yvette was right. Maybe they would have come to despise each other. Maybe they would have already been divorced, and she would have become a single mom anyway, and moreover, had to watch him date other women.
That was too hard to think about. Maybe, after all, they would have been happy, the way Harriman seemed to be with his wife. She had seen the way they supported each other at the funeral. She had envied Irene Kelly for that, too.
What would it be like, she asked herself, to have someone like Frank Harriman as your husband? There was a faint scent of aftershave, of maleness, in the room. She touched a towel hanging over the shower door. It was slightly damp. She brought it closer to her face and inhaled the combined scents of the soap and shampoo he used. She suffered a small shock, a sudden reacquaintance with the distantly familiar, and opened the shower door to see that Frank used the same brands of soap and shampoo that Phil had used.
She felt a chill. It was almost enough to make her close the shower door again, to let her hair stay smoky, to tell the Harrimans that she’d rent a hotel room somewhere.