While the Kensing children got used to their mother again, the cast on her foot, the bandage on the back of her head, their father stayed away from her. He called out for a pizza delivery and spent the best part of the next half hour picking up around the house-he collected and started two loads of laundry, put every dish and utensil he could find into the dishwasher, ran a sponge mop over the kitchen floor.
Hardy called Frannie to tell her he would be a little late. Yes, sorry, he knew. But he was still shooting to be in time for dinner, which they'd rescheduled over the past weekend for 8:00, instead of 6:30 or 7:00, to better accommodate Hardy's workday. He also took an extra minute and described a bit of his terrible fight with Glitsky. He needed to talk to her; he needed her. And he would definitely be home by 8:00. She could set the clock by it.
Hardy went to the bathroom to throw some water on his face, hoping it would counteract some of the nausea he was feeling, the residue of his argument with Glitsky. He felt as though he'd swallowed a rock. When he returned, the children were devouring pizza in the kitchen, a video of some action flick on and purposely turned up loud.
In the living room, Ann and Eric had taken their respective neutral corners, and now they sat in silence, not even facing each other, waiting for Hardy.
He started to go back to his old spot on the couch with Ann, but decided that this might have the appearance that he was taking sides, so he stayed on his feet and stood by the trash-and ash-filled fireplace. "Both of you are doing the right thing," he began. "I know it's hard." He looked from one of them to the other. Both obviously still seethed. He kept on. "I've been involved with this case for going on a week now and there's far too much I don't know. We need to talk together about it. Who might have killed Mr. Markham."
Ann took it as an opening, and she wasted no time getting to the crux. "All right. I've heard your lawyer tell me you didn't do it, Eric. Here's another chance for you. Why don't you tell me yourself?"
He turned his head to face her, then shook it in disgust and weariness, and brought a flat, dead glance back to her and answered her with no inflection at all. "Fuck you."
"There!" she exploded to Hardy. "See? That's him. That's who he really is."
Kensing came right at her, up out of his chair, his voice a rasping whisper so the children wouldn't hear. "You don't have a clue who I am anymore. I'm just so tired of your shit. Did I kill Tim for Christ's sake? Fuck that and fuck you again."
"Eric," Hardy began.
But now his client turned on him. "I don't have to listen to this all over again, do I? It won't work with her. You can see for yourself-she's an irrational menace. I'm out of here and I'm taking the kids with me."
"Don't you touch them again!" She might use crutches for her sprained ankle, but Ann could move quickly enough without them when she had to. She was at the entrance into the hallway, blocking Kensing's way, before he'd gone three steps.
Hardy moved too, as fast as he could, getting himself between them. For an instant, he thought he and his client were going to mix it up. "Get out of my way, Diz."
"Not happening," Hardy said. "You going to make me?"
"Don't you make me."
"See?" Ann was saying. "This was Saturday! This is what he did then!"
"I didn't do anything on Saturday!" He pointed at her over Hardy's shoulder. "You want to talk about the problem here! You want to talk danger to the kids, you want to talk unstable?" Then he took it directly to her. "You really think I've got it in me to kill somebody? Give me a break, Ann. My whole life is keeping people alive. But you lock me out, raving about maybe I'm here to kill my own children? That's real craziness. That's scary fucking lunacy."
Hardy had to find a wedge to get in or this was over before it started. "Speaking of scared, she was scared, Eric."
"She's got no call to be scared of me. I've never done anything to hurt her. If she doesn't know that…" He shifted his focus from Hardy to her, his own anguish now evident in his voice. "What were you thinking, Ann? What's the matter with you?" Finally, a plea. "Would I ever hurt a kid? One of my kids? How could I ever do that?"
Ann was almost panting-taking quick, deep breaths. "When the police told me, I just…I was afraid…I didn't…" Hardy thought she would break again into sobs, but she got hold of herself this time. "I didn't know what to think, Eric. Can't you understand that? I loved Tim, and he was dead. I hadn't slept in two days. I was so scared."
"Of me? How could you be scared of me?"
Now she pleaded for understanding from him. "I was just scared, okay? Of everything." Her voice was small. "I didn't want to make another mistake and then, of course, I did."
It was the closest thing to an apology Kensing was going to get. Hardy recognized that and took the moment. "Why don't we sit back down?"
"Did Ross go in?" Hardy asked. "It must have been minutes before the monitors went off."
"He might have. He could have. I just don't know."
"Where were you then?" Ann's anger hadn't entirely passed. "I thought you were on the floor. It's not that big. How could you not know?"
Kensing kept any defensiveness out of his reply, directed as much to Hardy as to Ann. "We had three patients in the hall. One of them was having problems coming out of the anesthesia, so Rajan-he's one of the nurses-he and I were checking vitals pretty closely. During those minutes, anybody could have walked behind me-I'm sure some people did-and I might not have noticed. An hour before, Brendan Driscoll had just walked all the way in."
"How did that happen?" Hardy asked.
Kensing shrugged. "Nobody stopped him. You'd have to know him. He carries himself with a lot of authority. If any of the nurses would have said anything, he would have just said, 'It's all right, I belong here,' and they probably would have accepted it."
"I hate the little bastard," Ann added. "He actually believed he could order Tim around."
"Did he?" Hardy asked. "Order him around?"
"He tried, especially when it came to his time. Scheduling."
"And how did Tim feel about that?"
"He couldn't live without him," Eric put in, unable to keep some fresh venom out of his voice. "Brendan did about half his work."
"Wrong!" Ann Kensing wasn't going to let Eric slander Tim. "Tim thought big. Brendan was good with details. But Brendan didn't do Tim's work. He took orders…"
Eric snorted in disagreement.
"…there's no question who was the leader."
"So there was friction between them?"
"Major," Eric said. "You've got to know Brendan to appreciate him. 'The little engine that could.'"
Hardy came back to Ann. "What else did they fight about? Besides you?"
She hesitated. "I think some of Tim's financial decisions. Tim was more of a risk taker."
"With Parnassus's money?" Hardy's main interest was the murder, but if he could uncover some business dirt that might be helpful to Jackman, he'd be glad to have it.
"Well, I don't know exactly. The last couple of years they've had to run pretty lean…and then there were some personnel problems-"
"Me, for example."
Ann shrugged. It was the truth. "Well, yes. Among others."
Kensing amplified. "Brendan wanted Tim to fire me straight out starting three or four years ago. Make an example of me."
"Why? What had you done?"
"General attitude, I think, more than anything. Lack of respect. I kind of took the lead in standing up for the patients over money."
Ann jumped in to qualify that. "Tim would say in resisting the company-"
Hardy cut off the potential argument. "So how did the secretary get involved in all this? He had no real power, did he?"
"How did Rasputin get in?" Eric asked. "He had no real power, either."
The dynamic was still eluding Hardy. "But the guy's just a secretary, right?"