lustrous dark cranberry. She was at least fifty, or so I assumed given what I knew about Karen Nichols, but she looked ten years younger and in her casual clothes made me think of a college girl at her first sorority sleepover, drinking wine from the bottle and sitting cross-legged on the floor.
They whisked me through a marble foyer bathed in amber light, past a white staircase that curved gracefully up and to the left like a swan craning its head, and into a cozy dual office space with exposed cherry beams on the ceiling, muted Orientals on the floor, and a sense of aged plumpness in the leather captain’s chairs and matching sofa and armchairs. The room was large, but it seemed small at first, because it was painted a dark salmon and precisely stuffed with books and CDs and a triumphantly kitschy half canoe that had been stood upright and turned into a case to hold knickknacks and paperbacks with weathered spines and a row of actual 33 1/3 rpm albums, mostly from the sixties-Dylan and Joan Baez sharing space with Donovan and the Byrds; Peter, Paul & Mary; and Blind Faith. Fishing rods and hats and painstakingly detailed model schooners shared space on the walls and the shelves and desktops, and a faded farm table stood behind the couch under what I believe were original paintings by Pollock and Basquiat and a lithograph by Warhol. I had no problem with the Pollock and Basquiat, though I’d never replace the Marvin the Martian poster in my bedroom with either of them, but I sat in a position so I wouldn’t have to look at the Warhol. I think Warhol is to art what Rush is to rock music, which is to say, I think he sucks.
Dr. Dawe’s desk occupied the west corner, the hutch piled high with medical journals and texts, two of the model ships, microcassettes forming a pile around a microrecorder. Carrie Dawe’s sat in the east corner, clean and minimalist save for a leather-bound notebook with a sterling silver pen on top and a creamy stack of typewritten paper to its right. Upon a second glance I realized both desks were handmade, constructed of Northern California redwood or Far Eastern teak, it was hard to tell in the soft, diffused light. Using the same process one used to build log cabins, the wood had been hand-carved and laid in place, then left to age and expand for a few years until the pieces melded to one another with more adherence and strength than could ever be accomplished with sheet metal and a blowtorch. Only then would it be sold. Through private auction, I’m sure. The faded farm table, upon second glance, wasn’t faux rustic, it was truly rustic and French.
The room might have said cozy, but it said cozy with exquisite taste and a bottomless wallet.
I sat on one end of the sofa and Carrie Dawe took the other end, sitting cross-legged, as I’d somehow known she would, idly straightening the tassels on the summer afghan thrown over the back of the sofa as she considered me with soft green eyes.
Dr. Dawe settled into one of the captain’s chairs and wheeled it over to the other side of the coffee table between us.
“So, Mr. Kenzie, my wife tells me you’re a private investigator.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met one before.” He stroked his goatee. “Honey?”
Carrie Dawe shook her head and crooked her index finger at me. “You’re the first.”
“Wow,” I said. “Gosh.”
Dr. Dawe rubbed his palms together and leaned forward. “What was your favorite case?”
I smiled. “There’ve been so many.”
“Really? Well, come on, tell us about one.”
“Actually, sir, I’d love to, but I’m slightly pressed for time and if it wouldn’t trouble you both too much, I’d just like to ask some questions about Karen.”
He swept his palm out over the coffee table. “Ask away, Mr. Kenzie. Ask away.”
“How did you know my daughter?” Carrie Dawe asked softly.
I turned my head, met her green eyes, saw a glint of what might have been grief slide along the sheen of the pupils before vanishing.
“She hired me six months ago.”
“Why was that?” she asked.
“She was being harassed by a man.”
“And you made him stop?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Kenzie. I’m sure that helped Karen.”
“Mrs. Dawe,” I said, “did Karen have any enemies?”
She gave me a bewildered smile. “No, Mr. Kenzie. Karen was not the type of girl who made enemies. She was far too innocuous a creature for that.”
Innocuous, I thought. Creature, I thought.
Carrie Dawe tilted her head in the direction of her husband and he picked up the ball.
“Mr. Kenzie, according to the police, Karen committed suicide.”
“Yes.”
“Is there any reason we should doubt the soundness of their conclusion?”
I shook my head. “None, sir.”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded to himself and seemed to drift for a minute, his eyes floating across my face and then around the room. Eventually he looked back into my eyes. He smiled and patted his knees as if he’d come to some sort of definitive decision. “I’d say some tea would be nice about now. Wouldn’t you?”
There must have been an intercom system in the room, or the help waited right outside the door, because no sooner had he said it than the office door opened and a small woman entered holding a service tray with three delicate, brass Raj tea sets on top.
The woman was in her mid-thirties and dressed simply in T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was short and dull brown and rose in Astroturf spikes from her skull. Her skin was very pale and very bad, cheeks and chin sprayed with acne, neck blotchy, exposed arms dry and flaky.
She kept her eyes down and deposited the tray on the coffee table between us.
“Thank you, Siobhan,” Mrs. Dawe said.
“Yes, ma’am. Will there be anything else?”
She had a brogue thicker than even my mother’s had been.
The Dawes didn’t answer. They studiously removed the three parts of their respective Raj tea sets, the cream in the tin on top, the sugar below, the tea itself at the bottom, and fixed their drinks in cups so delicate I’d be afraid to sneeze in the same area code.
Siobhan waited, casting a quick furtive glance from under lowered lids in my direction as the heat rose up her pale skin.
Dr. Dawe finished preparing his tea with a long, scraping stir of the spoon around the edges of the china. He raised it to his lips, noticed I hadn’t touched mine, then noticed Siobhan standing to my left.
“Siobhan,” he said. “Good God, girl, you’re excused.” He laughed. “In fact, you look tired, kid. Why don’t you take the afternoon off?”
“Yes, Doctor. Thank you.”
“Thank
She left the room with her shoulders hunched and her back bent, and once she’d closed the door behind her, Dr. Dawe said, “Great kid. Just great. Been with us pretty much since she stepped off the boat fourteen years ago. Yes…” he said softly. “So, Mr. Kenzie, we were wondering why you’re investigating my stepdaughter’s death if there’s nothing to investigate?” He crinkled his nose over his teacup at me and then took a sip.
“Well, sir,” I said as I lifted the cream container off the top, “I’m more interested in her life, actually, the last six months before she died.”
“And why is that?” Carrie Dawe asked.
I poured some steaming tea into the cup, added a dash of sugar and some cream. Somewhere my mother rolled over in her grave-cream was for coffee, milk was for tea.
“She didn’t strike me as the suicidal type,” I said.
“Aren’t we all?” Carrie Dawe asked.
I looked at her. “Ma’am?”
“Given the right-or should I say, the wrong-circumstances, aren’t we all capable of suicide? A tragedy here, a
