‘Danny, for Christ’s sake . . .’
‘For nobody’s sake, Dad. For nobody’s sake but your own. You took my whole life away from me because you didn’t care, and not caring is the greatest sin of all.’
Frank took a step toward the windows. Margot snatched at his sleeve and said, ‘No, Frank,’ but he pried himself free and carried on, until he was close enough to touch the glass. Danny stayed where he was, out on the patio, white-faced, staring.
Nevile said, ‘Careful, Frank. He’s totally traumatized by what happened to him. You don’t want to make things worse.’
‘How can I make things worse? I let him die and he won’t forgive me.’
‘Not yet. But give him a little time.’
‘Time? What time? I took all his time away from him.’
‘Frank . . .’ Nevile cautioned him, but Frank took hold of the door handle and unlocked it. ‘Frank, maybe you don’t want to do that.’
Frank rolled the door to one side. And there, out on the patio, was nothing at all. Nothing but the breeze, and the gloomy afternoon light, and the pungent smell of eucalyptus.
‘Danny, I didn’t know,’ Frank whispered. Thunder rumbled over the San Gabriel Mountains. ‘I’m so sorry, Danny. I didn’t know.’
He turned back into the living room. Margot was standing on the opposite side of the room with her back turned. Nevile was sitting next to Lynn, holding both of her hands.
‘What do I do now?’ Frank asked.
Nine
‘Danny will forgive you, you know, given time,’ said Nevile.
Frank finished writing his check on the roof of Nevile’s Mercedes, signed it, and handed it over. ‘I can’t say you didn’t earn it.’
‘I don’t know, Frank. I still have the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Of course I’ve had visual manifestations before, but this is the first time that anybody else has been able to see them.’
‘Well, maybe we ought to try it again, when Danny’s been laid to rest. You know, maybe he might have learned to accept it.’
‘When’s the funeral?’
‘Wednesday morning, at Oak Lawn. You’re welcome to come if you want to.’
‘Maybe I will. Thanks. And thanks for the . . . um . . .’ He held up the still-drying check.
He drove off, and Frank watched him go. As he turned back to the house, he saw Margot and Lynn coming out. Lynn had her handkerchief pressed to her mouth, and Margot gave Frank a look that meant, don’t even come near us, OK?
‘I’m taking Lynn home,’ she said, ‘and then I’m going to see my parents.’
‘All right. What time do you think you’ll be back?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll stay overnight. There’s some leftover pasta in the fridge if you’re hungry.’
‘Margot . . .’
‘There’s nothing to say, Frank. I can hardly believe what happened today, but it did, and I need some time to think about it.’
‘You heard what Nevile said. Danny’s traumatized. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’
‘He’s dead, Frank, and he still doesn’t forgive you. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
Frank didn’t know what to say to that. He stood on the porch while Margot backed her car down the driveway, turned in the street with a protesting squeal of tires, and drove off toward Hollywood Way without looking back at him once.
He was about to go back into the house when a gray Ford Taurus appeared around the corner and parked right outside. Lieutenant Chessman climbed out, followed by Detective Booker.
‘Mr Bell! Glad I caught you at home!’
‘Hi, there, Lieutenant. What can I do for you today?’
Lieutenant Chessman came up the driveway and took his notebook out of his coat pocket. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I still have one or two loose ends to tie up, and I was hoping that maybe I could jog your memory a little more.’
‘Lieutenant, I told you everything I saw.’
‘You did, yes. But I’m still having difficulty locating this woman you say you met immediately after the explosion. I’ve identified and talked to every other eye witness, and pinpointed their exact whereabouts immediately prior to the explosion, and also immediately after. But this one woman remains a mystery – Ms X. I don’t know who she is, or what she was doing there, or what she might have seen.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frank. ‘I don’t see how I can help you. I asked her if she was OK, and she asked me if I was OK, and that was about all we said to each other. I gave my address to one of the officers at the scene, and when I turned around she was gone.’
‘Was there anything memorable about her? Anything at all?’
‘She was about five-four, mid-twenties I guess. Short hair.’
‘What was she wearing?’
‘Just a plain, ordinary dress. Yellow, or cream, as I recall.’
‘And one shoe? Did you notice what kind of shoe?’
‘A sandal, I think. One of those strappy things. Brown.’
‘OK. And that’s all you remember? She wasn’t wearing any distinctive jewelry? She didn’t say anything that struck you as odd?’
‘No, sorry.’
Lieutenant Chessman laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Very well, Mr Bell. Thank you for your time. If possible, I’d like you to try to think back to that morning, and visualize that young woman, and if anything at all comes to mind – and I really mean anything – please give me a call.’
‘She’s not a suspect, is she?’
‘Oh, no. This is just for the sake of completeness. In investigations like this, we’re very great sticklers for completeness.’
When Lieutenant Chessman had left, Frank went back into the house. He stepped out on to the patio and looked around, but of course there was no trace at all that Danny had been here. Danny, or his psychic imprint, or his ghost, or whatever it had been. The skies over the mountains were beginning to clear, and suddenly the sun appeared, but Frank shivered.
He had the nagging suspicion that something was happening in his life that he didn’t fully understand. He felt almost like a cheated husband who comes home early and finds an unfamiliar set of car keys on the table in the hall, or answers the telephone only to have the caller hang up. Everybody seemed to know more than he did. Why was Lieutenant Chessman so intent on finding Astrid? What was it that Nevile thought ‘wasn’t quite right?’ Why wouldn’t Astrid tell him who she really was?
He could have told Lieutenant Chessman that he was seeing Astrid. Should have told him. But Astrid’s identity was the only thing that he knew that nobody else appeared to know, and although he didn’t know why, he wanted to keep it to himself, for the time being at least.
The phone rang. It was Mo.
‘How’s it going, old buddy?’
‘About as crappy as it gets.’
‘Did you hear the news? Those Dar Tariki lunatics have demanded that all TV shows with any kind of immoral content have to be taken off the air, otherwise they’re going to stage the biggest act of terrorism since September 11.’
‘They’ve demanded what? This is insane. What the hell do they mean by “immoral content”? Just about every TV show has some kind of immoral content. Soaps, cop shows, everything. How can you show good defeating evil if you can’t show evil?’
‘Nevertheless, old buddy, that’s the ultimatum.’
‘So how has the network taken it?’
‘Think “headless chicken.”’
Frank drove to Sherman Oaks to see his sister Carol, who lived with her husband, Smitty, and their three children in a large, scruffy house on the corner of Stone Canyon Avenue. The front lawn was always strewn with scooters and Action Man toys and Smitty’s lime-green ’68 Plymouth Barracuda was always jacked up in the driveway, in varying degrees of dismemberment.