“You are forgiven,” she said. “Talk. I’ll drink, eat and listen.”
I talked. She dunked her biscotti, listened, nodded from time to time. When I stopped talking ten minutes or so later, she had finished her biscotti and was almost finished with her coffee.
“That’s what happened, but how do you feel?” she said.
“About what?”
“About what?” she said with a hint of exasperation. “About the dead woman. About your date with Sally…”
“Porovsky,” I said.
“Jewish?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Because I’m Jewish?”
“You mean did I ask her out because you’re Jewish? No, I don’t think so.”
Ann nodded.
“Wishful thinking on my part,” she said. “You want me to tell you why you did it, asked her for a date? I don’t know yet. You feel guilty about it, feel you are betraying your wife.”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you had a good time? You like this woman?”
“Yes. She’s easy to be with.”
“Sexual thoughts, feelings?”
I hesitated and then said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Ann said. “If you’re not going to eat that biscotti…”
I broke it in half and handed one part to her.
“She reminds me of my wife in some ways. She doesn’t in others.”
“You plan to see her again?”
“Yes.”
“How would you characterize what you did on this date?”
“I made it safe for both of us by spending most of the time searching for Adele Tree.”
“She seemed to find this acceptable?”
“Yes. She said, ‘You know how to show a girl a good time.’”
“Irony,” said Ann, taking care of the last few biscotti crumbs.
“Yes. My grandmother made something like biscotti. I don’t remember what she called it. It was good.”
“And she came from Italy?”
“Yes, Rome. Spoke with an accent but her English was good.”
“You find that observation relevant?” Ann asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know why.”
“We’ll save that for another time. And now to murder and your dream. How do you feel about the dead woman, about what happened, about what the dream is telling you?”
“That’s a lot,” I said, finishing my now cold coffee.
“Jump in. Are you angry?”
“Yes, but I think I should be more angry. She seemed to be a decent person. I should have helped her more. She was murdered where I live. She… I’m still having trouble feeling. Even with this, I’m still having trouble feeling. My wife…”
I stopped and went silent.
“You want to tell me what you think the dream means?”
I shook my head no.
“Then I’ll try. Is the Joker a messenger? Is the Joker a jester? He is certainly handing the dead Mrs. Tree a box with a message for you, a message she gives you, an overflowing box of red pieces of paper. Anything?”
“Blood,” I tried.
“Why not? She gives you the gift and wants you to accept it. She wants you to feel, to find the person who killed her. She wants you to find her daughter, to help her daughter. The three men in shawls are people you know who want to help, who want you to help find this murderer, to help find the girl, the child, Adele.”
“And that’s what my dream means?”
Ann sat back, shrugged and said,
“In the absence of an interpretation by you, that’s what I want the dream to mean. I had a big breakfast. I shouldn’t have had that last piece of biscotti, but…”
“No offense, but isn’t there something unprofessional about telling me what you want my dream to mean?”
Ann touched the right earring.
“I’m old and can say what I wish to say. I want to cut through the baloney and get you jump-started. I want to prod you. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Then go get something to eat, find out who killed Mrs. Tree and find the girl.”
“What about Melanie Sebastian?”
“Who needs finding more?” Ann asked.
“Adele,” I said.
“That’s your answer. Now, go forth, accept the help of your three men in shawls and when you get a chance, call Sally Porovsky.”
“I will,” I said, getting up. “I think I know who one of my men in shawls is.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Good,” she said, reaching for the phone. “I have an opening the day after tomorrow at nine. You have twenty more dollars?”
“I’ll be here,” I said, moving for the door while she dialed.
“There’s probably a frightened young man in my waiting room,” she said. “Tell him I’ll be with him in a few minutes.”
The young man was there. He looked very frightened but he didn’t look at me when I told him Ann would see him in a few minutes.
I went out the door and into the sun to have breakfast and look for Adele.
There’s a Mennonite restaurant on Main, a small one, open mostly for breakfast and lunch to serve the downtown office workers, city government people and professionals-doctors, lawyers, therapists-in the area. The food was cheap, plentiful and, if you didn’t mind the prayers in the menu, bright and cheerful.
When I finished, I left a good tip and headed for my office-home thinking about what Ann had said and about what I had said, thinking about a Joker with a box of red secrets.
I walked down to 301 and then the three blocks or so to the DQ parking lot. Dave was behind the open porthole serving customers, and the Geo was sitting where I had parked it. I checked it out. The file on Adele wasn’t there. Either the police had it or left in my office when they had copied it or someone else had it.
I went up to my office. The drapes were closed and so was the door, but it wasn’t locked. I went in. The contrast between sun and semidarkness took a few seconds to get used to. I started to reach for the cord to open the drapes and stopped. My eyes were getting used to the dim shadows.
In those dim shadows, I could see Beryl Tree sitting where I had left her body. She had one of my files open on her lap and she was looking up at me.
9
My hand was shaking but I reached for the drapes.
“No,” she said. “Just turn on the light.”
It wasn’t Beryl Tree’s voice. My hand was shaking a little less when I flicked the switch and the overhead tinkled on.
The resemblance to Beryl Tree disappeared. She was much younger, much better looking, and her dark green dress was much more stylish than anything Beryl Tree had worn in her life.
“You know who I am?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
There was a floppy sun hat and a pair of sunglasses on my desk. The blood had been cleaned up. I moved behind my desk and sat looking at Melanie Sebastian. I knew two reasons why Carl Sebastian might want her back. She was as beautiful in person as she was in her photographs and the painting in his apartment. She also had a mellow voice that promised the possibility of music.
She closed the folder in her lap and handed it to me.
“You read in the dark?” I asked.
“There was enough light if I tilted it just a bit toward the window.”
“And?”
“When I picked it up, I thought it was about me,” she said. “Then I found the one about me. It wasn’t very interesting so I went back to this one on Adele Tree.”
“And this one is interesting?”
“And… there are really people like her father out there,” she said. “You really think he-he sexually abused her?”
“Yes.”
“The world can be a truly awful place,” she said.
“Worse than that,” I said. “It can be a low level of hell. Beryl Tree is dead, murdered right where you’re sitting, probably by her husband. And Adele has been sold by her father to a high-class pimp named John Pirannes. You’ve heard of him?”
“No,” she said. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“You were reading the file. You seem interested.”
“There are too many Beryl Trees. Too many Adeles. And far, far too many Dwight Handfords,” she said. “I’ve seen them. I’ve… is Adele strong? Can she…?”