"Testing it. I failed horribly today in not bringing it with me earlier."
"Why? Is he opening up at all?"
She did something then I had never heard her do, not even in the hospital the day my parents died, when she'd had tubes and needles plunged into her thin arms pumping painkillers throughout her system while the massive casts held her shattered legs and spine immobile.
My grandmother cackled; a high, painful, and somehow loathsome noise that drove an icicle against my spine. I shivered so hard I nearly dropped the phone.
"There is nothing in him left to open," she said. "He is completely guileless in a most heinous and unsettling manner. I'm thoroughly convinced he genuinely did not have anything to do with Teddy's murder, or, if Teddy is still alive, with his son's disappearance. He is not honest due to any conscience or moral fiber on his part. He admits to the truth because he is the incarnation of baseness, so utterly at ease with his own vices." Her breath caught in her throat, and my hand shook worse. "He and I have spent the day in his limousine discussing how he murdered my friend Diane-“
"Oh, good Christ."
"-and speaking at length on any number of his other crimes, including the poisoning of Teddy's mother. Apparently he had no need to find exotic toxins. Simple household cleaning products mixed into wine can often prove untraceable. He is quite knowledgeable about a whole host of such lethal misdeeds, and prefers to handle them himself rather than entrust minions to accomplish such tasks."
"He admitted her murder to me as well. Why didn't you call me, Anna? Did you call Lowell?"
"What, dear?"
"Why didn't you call me?" I shouted.
"I had a chance to finish it fifty years ago before any of the real horror began. And I did nothing."
I could feel her getting further away from me. "Anna, listen, I'll be home in twenty minutes…"
"I won't be here by then. Jocelyn is mounting the front steps even as I speak, Jonathan. They have been idling outside while I changed into heavier clothing. My day with them hasn't ended yet. Don't worry, dear, I pose no threat to him."
"Yes, you do, we both do."
"His ego needs an audience, you see. And now, as when I first met him, I'm a spectator to his dementia. I'd like to catch some of what he relates on tape, though ultimately I fear it will be useless in a court of law. I shall be home early, dear. I've left some roast beef in the refrigerator, help yourself."
"Anna, do not go with him!" I started the car and jammed the accelerator and spun in a tight circle heading for the gate.
"You see, Jonathan-" A sob nearly broke within her, but she caught it on the cusp and quickly reined herself. "You see, dear, he enjoys talking of murder. We needed only to ask."
She hung up and I gunned it, trying to dial Lowell's number and stay on the road, watching the patients wandering the grounds staring mournfully at me as if begging to take them home.
A woman, staring emptily at me.
I gasped when I spotted her, and the world grew insanely white and too wide. A male nurse frowned and his patient blinked as the new tires on Katie's car squealed. I suddenly spun the wheel tightly and roared off toward a pine tree overhanging a splintering wooden bench. One of the guards stood his ground and put his hand on his firearm. I jammed the brake, jumped out, and started yelling, "Help! He's in my back seat trying to escape! Somebody stop him!" I waved my hands about my face because they did it in the movies.
The guard drew his weapon and came over while I hopped around some more. The nurse and the patient he'd been standing with both stirred; the woman appeared to be self-assured, giddy, and frightened at the same time.
The guard said, "Who's in there? What happened?"
I stopped hopping, turned, and swung at him as hard as I could, connecting with his chin in such a beautiful display of action and reaction that I gave a grunt of pleasure, watching him fly over the hood of the car the way Harnes had done five decades ago when my grandmother had nearly run him over. His gun went off and the woman almost smiled.
I grabbed her hand and pushed her into the passenger seat while several nurses came running after us. I slammed my foot down and drove through the semaphore arm while the guard at the gate popped his head out of the little cubicle. I'd been wrong. He didn't want to pull his gun, he just wanted to be left alone to finish reading the socially and politically absorbing articles in Gozangas. The woman stared at me and suddenly giggled.
She was the lady Teddy had sketched-and because of her, for some reason, I knew, he'd been murdered.
FIFTEEN
Dipping over a clawing tree line, the bloated moon wobbled through the clouds, looking ready to keel over backward and roll out of sight. The woman smiled as we drove along the empty back roads toward Harnes' estate. She took my hand briefly, let it go, and then grasped hold again. Her teeth glowed in the flow of moonlight. Shadows twisted and filled her face. I spoke to her, trying to explain the situation, but she clearly didn't understand a word I said. Her small, strange smile remained firmly affixed.
Teddy was at once a better and worse artist than I would've believed; he managed to capture so much of her likeness, but not quite enough so that I could've pieced it all together days ago in his own bedroom, when I'd searched through the books he'd bought from me. Irony settled heavily on my shoulders. If only he'd been a slightly better artist.
I called Lowell and listened to phantom echoes of his voice, the phone battery so low and the static so awful that we had to scream at each other to be heard. He yelled, "You know what you've done? That's kidnapping. The feds will be involved now. What the hell are you doing? You finally lost your bird?"
I shouted, but in a few seconds the green power light dimmed and the phone went dead in my hand. I tossed it in the back seat and jammed the accelerator, pressing seventy along the snaking road and waiting for FBI helicopters to start swooping in low. The woman clapped and giggled some more.
When we passed the two rearing stone lions at the entrance to Harnes' private road, she nearly jumped out of her seat and started wailing and slapping me in the arm. I pulled over, unsure of what to do. If I let her out and anybody else found her in the state she was in, dressed like a hospital patient, I suspected they'd only toss her back in. Besides, showing up with her might be the trick I needed to pull. She scrabbled at the door like a dog scratching to be let out. I spoke plainly and calmly, and though my words meant nothing to her, I hoped my tone would get through.
She kept hitting me in the arm and keening loudly.
I took firm hold of her shoulders and said, "You have to trust me. I need your help. I don't work for Harnes the way those doctors do. I'm your friend, and we're going to get away from him." I took my hands away, hoping she wouldn't leap for the woods. "But he has my grandmother, and only you can help me get her away from him. From him and Jocelyn."
She quieted and looked straight ahead. I waited. Her face drew in on itself and became composed, revealing almost nothing. The corners of her eyes were filled with cracks from years of squinting in fury. She gestured for me to proceed, and despite the skittering shadows, she now appeared almost anxious to see him. She let loose with a string of sounds and folded her hands in her lap. I drove on.
The stately electric gate stood shut, and that arcing iron name HARNES above seemed an extension of the man, looming over me. The stone wall surrounding the mansion was too high to climb, even if I managed to belly the car through the dense trees and climb onto the roof. I got out and could hear the buzzing of the amperage in the intricate ironwork. The metal wasn't that thick, more stylish than practical. I hoped. I gazed at the computerized connecting lock and the stone post in which it had been set.