“She's lying. Of course she'd deny it at first.”
“She also denies any wrongdoing in the sale of your wife's last two paintings. And she has proof to back that up.”
“Proof? What proof?”
“She identified the person who bought them.”
“Who is he?”
“It isn't a ‘he.’ The buyer is a woman, an artist in Bodega Bay named Janet Rice.”
“Did you talk to this Janet Rice?”
“On the phone. She confirms it.”
“And you believe her.”
“She was pretty convincing.”
“I'll bet she was. You ask her why she paid so much for paintings by an unknown artist?”
“She agrees with Louise Kanvitz that they'll be worth a lot more someday.”
“My wife was an undiscovered genius, is that it?”
“You don't think that's possible?”
“No, I don't. She was good but not that good. Get an art expert in to look at her work, he'll tell you the same thing. Kanvitz and Rice are both lying.”
“Why would Ms. Rice lie?”
“Is Kanvitz a friend of hers?”
“Evidently. That was where she spent the weekend—at Ms. Rice's home in Bodega Bay.”
“Well, for Christ's sake, there you are. Kanvitz is lying to protect her blackmail scheme and Rice is lying to protect Kanvitz.”
“A conspiracy?”
“I'm not saying Rice is a blackmailer or knows that Kanvitz is one. I'm saying Kanvitz asked her to lie and she's doing it. Work on the two of them, break them down—one or the other will admit the truth.”
“How do you propose I do that without violating their constitutional rights?”
“Fuck their constitutional rights! What about my constitutional rights? What about my wife's and Francesca Bellini's constitutional rights?”
“Calm down, Mr. Mallory. Flying off the handle isn't going to accomplish anything.”
“All right. All right.”
“I'm not telling you I think you're wrong. It's entirely possible that Janet Rice is lying.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
“The same thing I told you yesterday. That I have to work within the boundaries of the law. I'm checking on Ms. Rice and I plan to talk to her again, in person. I've also ordered the increased patrols in your neighborhood and Ms. Bellini's, and I'll keep trying to convince Judge Canaday to issue a court order for the telephone wiretaps—”
“Keep trying? You mean you asked and he turned you down?”
“I'm afraid so. Insufficient cause.”
“Fine, terrific.”
“These things take time, like it or not.”
“Time we might not have.”
“I don't like suggesting this, but … have you and Ms. Bellini considered leaving town for a while?”
“Running away, hiding out? Oh, we've considered it. But we're not going to do it. Suppose he discovers where we've gone and follows us? Or you never identify him and he hunts us down or waits until we turn up again? We're not about to spend the rest of our lives hiding, living in fear. This thing has got to end soon, St. John, one way or another.”
“What does that mean, ‘one way or another’?”
“It doesn't mean anything. It was a statement of fact.”
“You're not considering something foolish, are you? Taking the law into your own hands?”
“How would I do that? I don't know who he is either, remember?”
“I'll warn you anyway, just in case. Don't do anything outside the law or you'll regret it. Let us handle this—it's the only way. Do you understand?”
“All too well, Lieutenant. All too goddamn well.”
When Cecca arrived home at five, there was a message from Eileen's brother waiting on the machine: Eileen was well enough to be moved and had been flown from Lakeport to Los Alegres Valley Hospital earlier in the afternoon. Thank God, she thought. Immediately she called the hospital and spoke to an admissions nurse.
“Yes, Mrs. Harrell is here,” the nurse said. “But she's not ready to have visitors.”
“When will she be ready? Tomorrow?”
“Perhaps. Call again in the morning.”
“How is she? Is she able to talk?”
“Her condition is stable.”
Cecca thought as she hung up: I wish I could say the same for mine.
SIXTEEN
The room was very white. Too white. White walls, white ceiling, white woodwork, white metal table and chairs and bedframe and sheets. Even the blind eye of the wall-mounted TV set seemed a pale gleaming white. Sterile. Familiar. One of the private rooms in Los Alegres Valley's intensive care unit: She'd know it anywhere, as often as she'd been in and out of this one and others like it over the years.
They really ought to put a little color into these rooms, Eileen thought. She'd brought it up more than once at staff meetings, but nobody would listen to her. Proper atmosphere, they kept saying, as if that meant anything. As if you couldn't maintain a proper hospital atmosphere by adding a little color to all that white. Not that there was anything wrong with white; white was very soothing and comforting. It was just that a little color here and there would make the rooms more cheerful. More hopeful, too. White was comforting, color was hopeful—couldn't you always find hope in bright colors? The curtains on the windows, for instance … yellow, or light blue. Or a wall decoration of some kind, a vivid painting of some kind, maybe a seascape or fruit in a bowl. Just a little color.
Of course there was color in this room now, but it wasn't permanent. Flowers. Let's see … roses, carnations, peonies, azaleas, African violets. Very pretty. Lots of different arrangements and plants, on the table and on the floor. Somebody was a very popular patient.
I shouldn't be lying here like this, she thought then. Why am I lying here? I should be up, making my rounds.
But she was so tired. So tired. Couldn't seem to think clearly about anything either. Every time she tried to think about something other than the room, something she wanted to remember … no, didn't want to but had to … it was as if she were being yanked away from it. Funny. She felt drifty and lost, not like herself at all. Almost a stoned feeling, like the time in college, such a long time ago, when she and Ted … Ted … they had eaten half a trayful of hash brownies. Oh, Lord, had she been stoned that night! But it had been a happy, giggly kind of stoned, and this was different. This wasn't happy, this was sad. This was really lost. This was sad and lost and—
The door opened and somebody came into the room.
Somebody said, “Eileen? Honey, are you awake?”
Familiar voice, as familiar as the white room. Her eyes had closed and the lids felt as heavy as if they had weights attached to them; she had to work very hard to get them open. Cecca. Oh, it was Cecca. Wearing a sculptured blue blouse and a pale blue skirt. Pretty combination. Pretty shades of blue. Blue was definitely her color. It went so well with her dark skin tones. And it looked so cheerful in the midst of all this damn white.
Cecca came to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. Sat down and took one of her hands. Cecca's fingers were like ice.
“Cold,” Eileen said.
“What?”
“Cold fingers.”
“Oh, honey, I'm sorry, I didn't realize—”
Cecca started to take her hand away. Eileen clung to it. It was good to hold on to Cecca's hand, even if it was as cold as ice. She seemed to need to hold on to something, but she wasn't sure why.
“Pretty blouse,” she said.
Cecca didn't seem to understand her. Tongue wasn't working any better than her brain. Such an effort to get words out, as if she were having to push them up through some sort of blockage in her trachea. She really did feel stoned, sad stoned, bad stoned. Whoo. Shit. All right, who spiked the brownies this time?