“In the hours after the rape,” I said, “you went through your story six times, and you consistently said you hadn’t been able to make out the license plate number of the car. You said as much to four different police investigators, and a doctor and a nurse.”
She shrugged.
“Then,” I said, “in Inspector Mcintosh’s office at police headquarters, on your seventh pass at the story, it suddenly came to you.”
“Actually,” she said, chin lifted, “I got it wrong by one number.”
“Horace Ida’s car was 58-895, you said it was 58-805. Close enough. Missing one number makes it more believable, somehow. But there are those who say you may have heard that number in the examining room at Queens Hospital.”
“Not true.”
My eyebrows went up. “A police car with its radio on, full blast, was parked right outside the windows of the examining room. An officer testified that he heard an alarm for car 58-895, in possible connection with your assault, broadcast three times.”
“I never heard it.”
I sat forward. “You do realize that the only reason that car was really being sought was its involvement in a minor accident and scuffle earlier that evening, which had also been classified an assault?”
“I’m aware of that, now.”
“You also said, on the night of the assault, that you thought the car you’d been pulled into was an old Ford or Dodge or maybe Chevrolet touring car, with a canvas top, an old ripped rag top that made a flapping noise as they drove you along?”
Another shrug. “I don’t remember saying that. I know it came up at the trial, but I don’t remember it.”
And then sometimes her memory wasn’t so hot.
“Thalia, Horace Ida’s car…actually, it was his sister’s car, I guess…. Anyway, Ida’s car was a 1929 Model A Phaeton. A fairly new car, and its rag top wasn’t torn. Yet you identified it.”
“It was the car, or one just like it. I knew it when I saw it.”
Breakfast arrived, our geisha accompanying a waiter who was delivering it on a well-arranged tray, and Thalia smiled faintly and said, “Is that all? Do you mind if we eat in peace?”
“Sure,” I said.
There was quite a bit of awkward silence as I dug into my eggs and bacon, and the two girls picked at a lavish plate of pineapples, grapes, papaya, figs, persimmons, bananas, cubed melon, and more. They small-talked as if I weren’t there, discussing (among other things) how Thalia’s father the major was recuperating from his illness, and how nice it was that Mrs. Fortescue’s mother—vacationing in Spain—had sent a supportive wire to her daughter.
“Grandmother said she was so convinced of Mother’s innocence,” Thalia said, “there was no need to come, really.”
We were all having a second (or in Thalia’s case, third) cup of coffee when I started in again.
“What can you tell me about Lt. Jimmy Bradford?”
“What do you want to know?” Thalia was holding her coffee cup in patrician style—pinkie extended. “He’s Tommie’s friend. Probably his best friend.”
“What was he doing stumbling around your neighborhood, the night of the rape, drunk and with his fly open?”
“Nathan!” Isabel blurted, her eyes wide and hurt.
“I would imagine,” Thalia said, “having had rather too much to drink, he found a bush to relieve himself behind.”
“Relieve himself in what way?”
“I won’t dignify that with a response.”
“Why did you say to him that everything would be all right, just before the cops hauled him in for questioning?”
“He was cleared,” she said. “Tommie vouched for him. Tommie had been with him every second all evening.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“Nate,” Isabel said, “I’m getting very perturbed with you….”
Perturbed. That was how rich people got pissed off.
I said to Thalia, “If you don’t want to answer the question—”
“He’s a friend,” she said. “I was reassuring him.”
She had just been beaten and raped by a bunch of wild-eyed natives, and
“I think this charming breakfast has lasted quite long enough,” Thalia said, bringing her napkin up from her lap to the table, pushing her chair back.
“Please don’t go,” I said. “Not until we talk about the most crucial matter of all.”
“And what would that be?”
