On What Grounds

thought I would be—but I wasn’t. In fact, Quinn’s blank stare was making me more than a little self-conscious and my steps slowed mid-room.

What the hell am I playing at? I asked myself. I’m no flirt. This is really, really stupid.

I brought the round tray down from its Bavarian beer-garten level and began carrying it with two hands, strategically positioning it to block any further view of my pine-colored breasts.

Sure, I may have started the day making a sweater selection with the hopes of seeing Quinn again, but the reality of having him stare at it (or rather me in it) suddenly felt like way too much to handle—as if petting my cat in the morning could remotely prepare me for feeding a tiger in the afternoon.

Why in the world did I think I could take on something as uncontrollable in my life as lust? (I mean, beyond the fantasy arena.) And with a married man!

After mentally kicking myself across the room, I set the lattes on the coral-colored marble surface of the table. Quinn still hadn’t said a word. Just kept staring.

“Remind me never to play poker with you,” I said, trying to break the tension.

“What do you mean?” he asked, continuing to stare.

“Forget it,” I said. And then, in an effort to battle my schoolgirl nerves and get back down to business, I launched into the story of my life for the past twenty-four hours. I recounted the conversations I’d had with Esther Best, Cassandra Canelle, and last but not least, Darla Branch Hart.

As I told my story, Quinn watched me wildly gesticulate with the same intense expression he’d given me as I came toward him from across the room.

When I finished, he said, “So…you’ve been working the case.”

I nodded.

He sipped his latte. A long sip. Then he leaned back and allowed a mild look of emotion to change his features—a cross between astonishment and admiration. But he said nothing. Not one word of encouragement. Not even a compliment on the latte.

That hurt.

“Well,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment, “given what I’ve discovered—what do you think?”

“What do I think?” he said. “You conducted the interviews. What do you think?”

“I’m not the professional here.”

“When you spoke with these women, you saw how they spoke to you—their body language, their tone of voice. What was your impression?”

“My impression…” I sipped my latte. Thought about it. “To tell you the truth, I do have an impression I can’t shake. Well, really more of a vision than an impression.”

“What is it?”

“You really want to know?” I asked.

“No. I like to waste my breath.”

“God, you’re a tough audience.”

“Just tell me, Clare—Sorry, Ms. Cosi—”

“It’s okay, you can call me Clare. What’s your first name, by the way?”

He shifted uneasily. “It’s Mike. Michael Ryan Francis if you count the confirmation name.”

“Well, I’ll tell you my vision, Michael Ryan Francis, for all the good it will do…I see an image of Cassandra Canelle leaping through the air like a blue-violet bird, and telling me all she wants out of life is ‘perpetual music and an unending expanse of smooth and level floor.’ And then I see Darla Branch Hart’s expensive manicure snatching up two wrinkled bills and saying, ‘My stepdaughter deserves some money…and I’m gonna see she gets it.’”

“You see them both?”

“They intertwine in my mind. The images twirl, kind of like dancers on a ballroom floor…” I shrugged. “Sounds crazy, right?”

Surprisingly, Michael Ryan Francis Quinn didn’t in fact offer me a ride to Bellevue’s psyche ward. Instead he said I reminded him of an article he’d read a few years back about the strangeness of our universe.

“Excuse me?” I said. “The strangeness of our universe?”

Now who needed the ride to the nuthouse? I thought.

“No, listen,” said Quinn. “It applies. In the article, an astrophysicist explained how he was able to see a black hole in the darkness of space. He said, ‘Imagine a boy in a black tuxedo. The boy is the black hole. Now imagine he’s twirling with a girl in a white dress. The girl is the light from a nearby star. Now imagine the girl and boy are in a dark room, the room is the vast darkness of space. How do you locate the boy dressed in black if he’s dancing in a dark room?’”

Quinn paused, waited.

“You look for the girl in white,” I said. “The light gives away the dark.”

He nodded. “Darkness can’t hide. Not forever. Not even in the vastness of space.”

Twenty

“So what are you saying?” I asked Quinn. “That in my vision Cassandra is the light, the good mother, and she’s revealed Darla as the bad one—the one who kept Anabelle down and maybe literally pushed her down, as well?”

“We look for motive—and opportunity,” said Quinn. “Well, the motive could be the money she’d get from suing the Blend for a supposed accident. Or she could have been arguing with Anabelle about the five thousand dollars she’d lent her to come to New York. Esther said Darla wanted it back. And if Anabelle didn’t have it, it’s possible Darla pressured her stepdaughter to go back into nude dancing for it. Darla’s obviously too old for that now—so her only quick-fix for absolving the debt would have been to convince Anabelle to go down the low road again. Anabelle could have refused, Darla could have come here to argue further, cornered her, maybe ended up causing her to fall down the steps.”

“That’s motive enough. What about opportunity? Do you know where Mrs. Hart was the night Anabelle fell?”

“No, but I can try to find out.”

“That’s your best bet. And don’t rule out other possibilities. A theory might look pretty on its face, but it doesn’t mean you should marry it. I’ve learned that one the hard way, I can tell you, and not just in my work —”

The admission came with a frustrated sigh that surprised me. I wanted to ask about his loaded implication (that his marriage was going badly), but he just continued with his comments about police work, so I dismissed it as some sort of trivial husbandly annoyance over credit card bills or house chores—one sigh didn’t mean his marriage was on the skids, not by a long shot.

“Facts,” he continued. “Facts and evidence. This place was locked up tight. Whoever got out of here had a key. Do you have that list of employee names and addresses for me today?”

I pulled the folded paper out of my jeans pocket. I hadn’t noticed I’d pulled the parking ticket back out too until Quinn had taken the papers from me.

He glanced at the list of names.

“Tucker is my only other full-time employee besides Anabelle,” I told him. “The rest are just part-time workers and full-time students. I already spoke to all of them—Esther face-to-face, and the rest I called late last night to readjust their work schedules, and I honestly can’t see any of them as real suspects. None had a plausible motive for hurting Anabelle.”

Quinn nodded. “I’ll run the names anyway, along with Mrs. Hart. See if there are any outstanding warrants or criminal records.”

“Good. But can’t you do something in the meantime about Mrs. Hart?”

“Do something? Like what?”

“Like keep her away from Anabelle for one? If she hurt her once, she might try to hurt her again.”