Nick found her in the kitchen, holding a steaming mug and smoking, staring at nothing. He took out some cereal and poured milk.
“What if he calls?” he said.
“He won’t.”
Afterward she built a fire and they sat in their bathrobes looking at it, curled up on the couch, pretending to be snowbound. Her face was drawn and tired, and after a while the rhythm of the clock and the crackling of the fire made her drowsy, and he saw her eyes droop, released finally into sleep. When he covered her with an afghan, she smiled without waking up. Nick lay with her on the couch and drifted too, worn out by the night.
The key in the lock startled them. Nora didn’t come on Sundays, and for one wild moment Nick thought it might be his father. But it was Nora, on a draft of cold air, a glimpse of the reporters outside behind her.
“Your phone’s out of order,” she said, stamping her snowy boots on the hall carpet.
“I took it off the hook,” Nick’s mother said, half asleep, sitting up.
“Where’s Mr Kotlar?”
“He’s out,” Nick’s mother said simply.
“Well, he’s picked a fine time.”
“I just wanted some peace, that’s all,” his mother said, still on the earlier thought. “Don’t they ever give up?”
“Mother of God, haven’t you heard?” Nora said, surprised.
“What?”
“She’s killed herself, that’s what. That Rosemary Cochrane. Jumped.” She held out the newspaper. Nick’s mother didn’t move. “Here, see for yourself,” Nora said, putting the paper down and taking off her coat. “It’s a wicked end. Even for her. Well, the burden on that conscience. Still, I won’t speak ill of the dead.”
“No,” his mother said absently, reading the paper, her face white.
“I thought I’d better come. There’ll be no peace today, for sure. The vultures. You’d better put the phone back or they’ll be breaking down the door. Where’s Mr Kotlar gone, out so early?”
But Nick’s mother didn’t answer. “Oh God,” she said, dropping the paper, and walked out of the room.
“Well,” Nora said, “now what?” She looked at Nick, still lying under his end of the afghan. Then, puzzled, she followed his mother down the hall.
Nick stared at the photograph framed by blurred type. She was lying face up on the roof of a car, peaceful, her legs crossed at the ankles as if she were taking a nap. Her shoes were gone and one nylon was visibly twisted, but her dress, high on her thighs, seemed otherwise in place. Only the strand of pearls, flung backward by the fall, looked wrong, tight at the neck, dangling upside down in the dark hair spread out beneath her head. She didn’t look hurt. There was no blood, no torn clothing, no grotesque bulging eyes. Instead the violence lay around her in the twisted metal of the car roof, crumpled on impact, enfolding her now like a hammock. When you looked at it you could imagine the crash, the loud crunch of bones as the body hit, bending the metal until it finally stopped falling and came to rest. The new shape of the roof, its warped shine caught in the photographer’s flash, was the most disturbing thing about the picture. In some crazy way, it looked as if she had killed the car.
Nick’s first thought was that his father could come back now. The hearing would be over. But that must be a sin, even thinking it. She was dead. He couldn’t stop looking at the picture, the closed eyes, the flung pearls. Was she dead before she hit the car, her neck twisted by the fall? She was dressed to go out. Had she looked at herself in the mirror before she opened the window? Then the rush of cold air. But why would anyone do that, the one unforgivable sin? What if she changed her mind after it was too late, not even the split second to repent? Damned forever. And then, his body suddenly warm with panic, another thought: Was it somehow his father’s fault? Was she ashamed of lying? Or was it some kind of new attack? They’d blame him for this too. Nick felt a line of sweat at the top of his forehead. The hearing, their troubles, wouldn’t end-they would get worse. A dead body didn’t go away. It would start all over again-new questions, new suspicions. Her jump from the world would only drag them down deeper.
Now it was important to know. His eyes scanned the surrounding blocks of type, trying to reconstruct what had happened. A room on the sixteenth floor of the Mayflower Hotel. She had checked in that afternoon under a different name. Why go to a hotel? Her apartment was a few blocks away, off Dupont Circle. But a three-story house-too low. So she had planned it. And the newspaper speculated that in the Mayflower she’d found more than just height. All of Washington was in the ballroom below, for the United Charities ball. If she wanted a dramatic final appearance, she’d picked the right stage. Nick imagined her at the window, the cabs and hired black Packards pulling up under the awning, watching all the people who’d tormented her. Welles had been there, everybody. Nick stopped for a moment. His father was supposed to have been there too. Was that it? A final strike against him, in front of everybody? Larry had said she liked the spotlight. There would even be photographers on the street, to record the evening and its unexpected climax. She was dressed to go out.
The other details were sketchy, lost in long paragraphs of people’s responses. Welles, still in black tie in his photo, was shocked and saddened and reserved further comment pending an investigation. She had jumped at 9:35, according to the doorman who’d heard the crash. The ball had been in full swing. She had fallen wide of the sidewalk, hitting the roof of a waiting car and injuring the driver, who had needed treatment. According to the front desk there had been no visitors and according to the District police no signs of struggle in her room-this was a new idea to Nick-but she had ordered liquor from room service and it was assumed she had been drinking. She had made no calls. There was no note. She was survived by a sister, living in New York.
And that was all. Nick read through the reports again, then went back to the picture of her body, staring so hard that he saw the grains of ink. What had she been like? For an instant he hated her. Why had she done this to them? Drawn them into this personal mystery that spread, touching everything, like a spill. It wasn’t just politics anymore. Now someone was dead. And his father wasn’t here. Nick could hear the phone again. What would happen when they found out he was gone? Larry said they could twist anything. Nick looked at the woman, peaceful and inert. They’d blame his father somehow. She’d only sold him a shirt and look what they’d made of that. Nick felt a pricking along his scalp. She hadn’t lied about the shirt. His father had. But only Nick knew that. Had his father seen her at the hotel? There would have been time-he had left the house before the ball started. But no one knew that either. No one would ever know, if he came back.
Nick thought over everything that had happened the night before, remembering the words, the desperate hug, sifting for clues, but none of it seemed to have anything to do with the woman at the Mayflower. Nothing to connect his father with her. Unless she had been the call at Union Station. Nick looked up from the paper. No one, not even his mother, could know about that. Then his father would be safe. No connections at all. It was only his being away that could make things worse now, make people wonder why he was hiding. He had to come back.
Nick grabbed the newspaper and ran upstairs to dress.
Through the bathroom door he could hear running water and knew his mother was soaking in the tub, hiding in a cloud of steam. They were all hiding. But they couldn’t, now. He threw on some clothes and went down to his father’s study, closing the door behind him. When he picked up the phone he heard Nora’s voice, polite and normal. “No, he’s out. Would you like to leave a message or try back later?” He waited for the click, then pressed the receiver button again to get the operator to place a call to the cabin. There were a few more clicks, then the burring of the line ringing a hundred miles away. It was a new line, finally put in last year, and it rang loudly enough to be heard outside. Nick imagined his father shoveling a path in the snow, picking up his head at the sound, then stamping his boots on the porch as he came in to answer. It’s all right, Nick would tell him. But the rings just continued until finally the operator came back and asked if he wanted her to keep trying. He hung up and turned on the radio. Perhaps his father hadn’t got there yet or the snow had blocked the road.
The radio was full of the suicide. Welles was asked if the loss of his witness would call a halt to the hearings. No. Not even this sad tragedy would stop the American people from getting at the truth. Mr Benjamin was saddened but not surprised. The poor woman’s instability had been obvious from the beginning. It had been irresponsible of Welles to use her as a political tool, and now with such tragic consequences. The bellhop who’d delivered the liquor wouldn’t say that she seemed particularly depressed. Pleasant, in fact, a real lady. She’d given him a dollar tip. But you never knew, did you? Meanwhile, Walter Kotlar was still unavailable for comment. Nick listened to it all and he realized that nobody knew. It would still be all right if he could reach his father in time. He tried the number again.
It was Nora’s idea to take a tray up to his mother, as if she were an invalid.
“She got no sleep, I could tell just by the look of her. And where’ve you been all morning?”
