At the first break in the median, I hung a U. By the time I reached the big Georgian house, the Olds was parked in the same place I'd seen it
yesterday and a black woman was stepping out on the driver's side.
She was young-late twenties or early thirties-short and slim.
She had on a gray cotton turtleneck, black ankle-length skirt, and black flats. In one hand was a Bullock's bag; in the other, a brown leather purse.
Probably the housekeeper. Out doing a department store errand for Ashmore's grieving widow.
As she turned toward the house she saw me. I smiled. She gave me a quizzical look and began walking over slowly, with a short, light step.
As she got closer I saw she was very pretty, her skin so dark it was almost blue. Her face was round, bottomed by a square chin; her features clean and broad like those of a Nubian mask. large, searching eyes focused straight at me.
'Hello. Are you from the hospital?' British accent, publicschool refined.
'Yes,' I said, surprised, then realized she was looking at the badge on my lapel..
Her eyes blinked, then opened. Irises in two shades of brownmahogany in the center, walnut rims.
Pink at the periphery. She'd been crying. Her mouth quivered a bit.
'It's very kind of you to come,' she said.
Alex Delaware,' I said, extending my hand out the drivers window. She put the shopping bag on the grass and took it. Her hand was narrow and dry and very cold.
Anna Ashmore. I didn't expect anyone so soon.'
Feeling stupid about my assumptions, I said, 'I didn't know Dr. Ashmore personally, but I did want to pay my respects.'
She let her hand drop. Somewhere in the distance a lawn mower belched.
'There's no formal service. My husband wasn't religious.'
She turned toward the big house. 'Would you like to come in?'
The entry hall was two stories of cream plaster floored with black marble. A beautiful brass banister and marble stairs twisted upward to the second story. To the right, a large yellow dining room gleamed with dark, fluid Art Nuuveau furniture that the real housekeeper was polishing. Art filled the wall behind the stairs, too-a mix of contemporary paintings and African batiks. Past the staircase, a short foyer led to glass doors that framed a California postcard: green lawn, blue pool sun-splashed silver, white cabanas behind a trellised colonnade, hedges and flower beds under the fluctuating shade of more specimen trees. Scrambling over the tiles of the cabana roof was a splash of scarlet the bougainvillea I'd seen from the street.
The maid came out of the dining room and took Mrs. Ashmore's bag.
Anna Ashmore thanked her, then pointed left, to a living room twice the size of the dining room, sunk two steps down.
'Please,' she said, descending, and flipping a switch that ignited several floor lamps.
A black grand piano claimed one corner. The east wall was mostly tall, shuttered windows that let in knife- blades of light. The floors were blond planks under black-and-rust Persian rugs. A coffered white ceiling hovered over apricot plaster walls. More art: the same mix of oils and fabric. I thought I spotted a Hockney over the granite mantel.
The room was chilly and filled with furniture that looked straight out of the Design Center. White Italian suede sofas, a black Breuer chair, big, pockmarked post-Neanderthal stone tables, and a few smaller ones fashioned of convoluted brass rods and topped with blue-tinted glass.
One of the stone tables fronted the largest of the sofas. Centered on it was a rosewood bowl filled with apples and oranges.
Mrs. Ashmore said, 'Please,' again, and I sat down directly behind the fruit.
'Can I offer you something to drink?'
