"I know you did."
"Oh, God, Robert, look what I've become."
"People don't always go into hysterics when somebody dies. Maybe you're just in denial."
"You'd think I could at least mention her fucking name once in a while."
"You're doing fine."
She was pacing in little circles. Frantic. Crazed. So many thoughts and feelings bombarding her. "Don't you think I should at least cry?"
"You'll cry later. There's no timetable."
"Or scream? Or throw things?"
"Maybe a drink would be better."
"And you know the worst thing?"
"What?"
"I keep worrying about the show. Here my sister's dead-my sister who raised me-and I'm worrying about the show. Isn't that incredible? I can't fucking believe myself sometimes."
F. Scott Fitzgerald said that when he went to visit his father for the last time, he was deeply moved by the man's suffering-and yet a part of Fitzgerald's brain, he later admitted in his notebooks, was wondering how he was going to write this scene in a novel.
I suppose we're all capable of being distracted that way. Maybe it's just another form of denial. One more wall to put up against the terrible truth.
She said, "I'm such a cold-hearted bitch, Robert. I really am."
My role here was to agree with her. Being a gallant kind of guy, I said, "No, you're not. You're a warm, loving woman and you know it."
"Oh, God," she said, and now the tears came full and hard as she flung herself rather dramatically into my arms, "Oh, God, I hope you're right, Robert!"
But I had to wonder who the tears were for-her sister or herself and the realization that she really had lost something valuable in her rush to become a star.
I sat in the car reading the note Emily Cunningham had affixed to my windshield.
You need to talk to Claire in the attic. Ask her to get you the baby picture. She'll know what you mean. Sandy told me about this.
There was no signature.
And just how was I supposed to get to Claire-in-the-attic? It was unlikely her parents would let me go upstairs and visit their daughter.
I took out my cell phone and called the number on the card Iris Rutledge gave me earlier. Iris answered the phone herself.
"I got a strange note from Sandy's friend Emily Cunningham."
"I'm happy for you, Mr. Payne."
"You talk to her?"
"Yes, I did."
"I don't suppose you'd tell me what you talked about?"
"I certainly wouldn't."
"She tell you about the baby picture?"
Pause. "What do you make of it?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I, actually." Pause. "She said that Sandy used to watch Claire when her parents would drive over to Cedar Rapids for the day. She said Sandy told her she'd seen something very weird one day."
"The baby picture?"
"Right."
"What was so weird about it?"
"All Sandy said was, 'I've seen that before.'"
"That same picture?"
"I guess so. Emily wasn't sure. She said she was over at Sandy's and her dad came along to pick her up and take her home. She said Sandy never talked to her about it again."
"'The same baby picture.' I don't understand."
"That's all Emily knows, Mr. Payne."
"But she did say that Claire would understand?"
"Yes."
"So Claire does speak sometimes?"
"That's my understanding."
"I got the impression that she never speaks."
"Her parents are strange people. Especially her stepfather. And those snakes of his. I hate snakes."
"Me, too."
"I've got to get ready for a client, Mr. Payne. Good luck to you."
I got in my car and drove out to Claire's house.
FOUR
It was a two-story frame corner house with the kind of junky garage behind that seemed common in this area. Isolated from its neighbors by half a block on both sides. The garage doors hung awkwardly, seeming about ready to fall off. The backyard was littered with pop cans and beer cans and paper scraps, as well as some gray clumps that might have been boxes that had collapsed when they were left out in the rain. A defeated-looking dog dragged himself from one end of his cage to the other. He barked once but it was a pathetic performance. You could see where somebody had tried to scrape dog poop off the front sidewalk. Maybe they were going to have a party.
The garage was empty.
So their car was gone and I had to make a decision. Should I risk trying to get inside, upstairs to where Claire rocked back and forth and sat silhouetted in the attic window?
The baby picture.
Claire might be the only one who could help me with that.
I got out of the car and started across the sidewalk. Three kids on the tricycles sat two doors down, watching me and whispering to each other. I waved to them. They didn't wave back. I didn't blame them. Earthmen should never humble themselves by waving at Martians.
No sounds from inside as I mounted the three paint-shorn steps. I walked across the age-slanted porch and knocked on the screen door. I angled my ear to the door. No sounds from inside, either.
The shellacked pine door behind the screen door was relatively new. As was the lock mechanism. It was a cheap one.
"Hey," somebody said, and I spun around, scared. I'd been so involved in appraising the lock-seeing how much trouble it represented-that the voice had startled me.
"Hey," I said back.
The mailman was chunky and gray-sideburned and suntanned.
His near-empty bag said he was near the end of his route.
"Nice day," he said. "Sure hope this keeps up. Maybe we can slide by until December."
"Wouldn't that be nice?"
He jammed the mail into the rusted black box on the pillar connecting porch floor with porch ceiling.
Then, "Be even nicer if the Hawks'd have a good season."
"Sure would."
He was suspicious of me, of course. The babble was meant to cover his suspicion.
I said, "Doesn't look like they're home."
"I had to drop an overnight package off here this morning. Said they were going to look at a new car this afternoon. Their other one's falling apart."
Still looking at me. Judging me. Still very suspicious.
I faced him and walked to the front of the porch. "Guess I'll stop back later."
We both heard it. Claire's cry. The exotic call of a forlorn night bird.
"Poor gal," he said. "I went to high school with her."
"You did, huh?"
He smiled. "Had a crush on her then-and even after she came back from nursing school. She sure was pretty back in those days. But of course Paul Renard took her away from me."
"You knew Renard pretty well?"
"Hell, no. He wouldn't spend any time with somebody like me."
"But you knew Claire?" I wasn't sure why that was especially interesting. But it was.
"Almost everybody knows everybody else in a town like this. And Claire was a real beauty."
I had to finish the charade.
I came down off the steps and walked with him to the sidewalk.
"She went to nursing school?"
"Yep. Worked with her mom out there. The bughouse, I mean."
Another cry.
He looked up at the attic window. "You'd think they'd be used to it by now."
"Who?"
"The people on the route. The neighbors around here."
"Oh."
"They say her voice still gives them shivers. All the little kids think she's a witch." He nodded to the tricycle trio down the block. "Those kids think she's a Martian."
I laughed. "Well, they're a little more creative than other kids their age." Then, "Well, see you," I said.