She gripped the sides of the bed and turned her head towards me. “There isn’t one.” Her voice was a whisper.
“I see. Pansy Angwine? That’s a little discordant.”
“Patricia.”
“Never married?”
“No.”
I shut the open drawers of the bureau and went back to the side of the bed. Pansy just watched me, hollow-eyed and quiet, as I ran my fingers through the make on the table and held them up to my nose to sniff.
“Whose kid is Barry?” I asked.
I guess she thought I was going to ask her something about the drugs, because she looked at the paraphernalia on the table and up at me a couple of times, as if there was a connection. The truth was I didn’t have anything better to do with my hands.
“That’s my business,” she said. Her eyes wanted to sag shut again, but she was fighting the nod with everything she had. I was making her nervous. If I could keep her talking as she shook herself into life, I might learn something.
“You worked for Stanhunt,” I reminded her. “What did you do for him?”
A sneeze erupted from the depths of her tortured little frame, and she covered her face with both hands and held them there the way a wounded soldier holds in his guts in a bad war movie. I folded a hundred-dollar bill into the shape of a little envelope, scooped up a sample of her make with the open side of it, and got it into my pocket before she re-covered control of her face.
“Do you want a glass of water?” I asked. She nodded. I went to the bathroom adjoining the hallway, filled a glass, and brought it back. She took it in both hands and drained it quietly and steadily.
“You were going to tell me about working for Stanhunt,” I said.
“Stanhunt—” She faltered and stopped.
“He bought you this house.”
She looked up, almost sharply. “No. I bought it myself.”
“With what money?”
She would have lied, but nothing convenient came to mind, so she just stared at me. For people who have managed to stay out of trouble for a long time the process of answering direct questions is a bit awkward. They never seem to work it all through in advance the way experienced liars do. It’s as though they think questions don’t need to be answered so much as swatted away, like flies.
“Your brother thinks that Barry is Stanhunt’s son, and that the house is a kind of thank you for keeping the whole affair and pregnancy under wraps.”
“You think that too.”
“I’d be willing to hear another version. Your brother didn’t do his homework. If you were Stanhunt’s mistress, why would Celeste run here when she needed a hidey-hole?” Sometimes if you do your thinking out loud, people feel the urge to chip in and help you get it right.
“Dr. Stanhunt and I were never lovers.”
“I believe you. Maynard Stanhunt had his hands full with Celeste. And Celeste is a handful. I guess you’re finding that out now.”
“Celeste is my friend,” she said, straightening herself in the bed. She gave me a look that said that question-and-answer time was almost up. “I offered her the extra room. I don’t regret it.”
“Somehow I think it’s more complicated than that.”
The bell downstairs rang, and we both flinched. I’d been expecting Celeste for some time now, based on how rarely I’d seen her out of this house. But Celeste wouldn’t ring the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” I said. I figured if it was the Office, I might as well get it over with. My car was parked in front, and if they wanted to talk to me, they’d be crawling all over it.
Pansy put the empty glass down on the bedside table, and the condensation on it picked up a white coating of make. “Okay,” she said. She was still fighting her way through a fog.
I went downstairs, took a deep breath, and opened the door. A neatly dressed woman in her late twenties or early thirties stood in the doorway, and behind her a young guy in a suit and tie was walking up the steps. “Hello,” she said.
I said hello back.
“We’re students of psychology. If you’re not too busy, we’d like to read you a few selections from Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents.”
It took a minute for me to blink away my confusion. This kind of thing didn’t happen in my neighborhood. “No,” I said. “But thanks no. I’m not a believer myself.”
She took it all right, wished me a nice day. I could see the guy in the suit already sizing up the next house down the street as I closed the door on them.
By the time I got back upstairs, Pansy Greenleaf—or should I say Patricia Angwine?—was sitting on the edge of the bed, her nightdress smoothed back down and her brown eyes considerably more animated and lucid. The table beside the bed was all cleaned up.
“I don’t know your name,” she said.
I told her my name, and waited while she sorted things out.
“You must know where my brother is…”
“Your brother is in a lot of trouble. I let him spend the night in my office. What happens next might have a lot to do with you.”
“You mean setting up maintenance for his body—”
“I mean telling me what you know about the murder so I can knock apart the frame. He’s not a body yet, Pansy. He’s a scared kid. He made a mistake when he tangled with Stanhunt, but I don’t think he killed him. Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
I could only smile. “Tell me something. What happens next? Do you get to keep the house?”
“Dr. Stanhunt’s death has nothing to do with that.”
“I forgot Stanhunt’s death doesn’t affect you in any way. But what about the babyhead?”
“You can ask him yourself,” she said. She was pulling herself together, which meant she was getting a little indignant at the inquisition. “I don’t think he’ll show much interest.”
“I guess I might do that,” I said. “Where does he stay? I mean, when he’s not here.” I added that bit to be polite. He was never at the Cranberry Street house for longer than to grab a sandwich.
“He spends his time at the babybar on Telegraph. I guess they have someplace to sleep.”
“He’s getting away from you, isn’t he?”
A flicker of anger appeared on her face and then vanished. “He’s no different from the rest of them. It’s the growth treatments. He’s not the same as he was before.”
“What about Celeste?” I said. “What’s next for her?”
“I guess you should ask her about that.”
“I guess I will. Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. When I got up this morning, she was gone.”
“When will she be back?”
“That’s her business.”
“Are you expecting her for dinner, say?”
“With Celeste I’ve learned not to expect anything.”
The conversation had taken on all the charm of a one-sided game of table tennis. I didn’t know my next move, but I could see that this one was all played out.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “Are there any last words you want to convey to your brother?”
She turned away from me on the bed. She looked pretty composed, but I didn’t imagine she felt too good on the inside. Ten minutes before, she’d been too far gone to move the needle from the bed to the table. “Get out of here,” she said finally. I could see her hardening herself as she spoke.
I went to the door.
“You shouldn’t assume that my life revolves around my brother,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for years. I don’t know him anymore, and he certainly doesn’t know me. I have my own life. If he made a mistake, then I guess he has to pay for it.”
“His mistake was looking you up, apparently.”