I shot to the bathroom. One side of my hair was fine. The other hung in damp spirals. I reached for the dryer.
Twittering. With talons.
“Terrific.”
Birdie was watching from the doorway. At the sound of my voice he rose, stretched one leg backward, and moved on. No time to leave a note for Anne.
I jammed the dryer into its holder, pulled on a tuque, and headed out.
Ryan was waiting in the outer lobby, face ruddy from the cold. Brown-tinted shades. Bomber jacket.
Libido liftoff.
Though the previous night’s call still held a stranglehold on my emotions, apparently lust had pulled a Houdini.
“Did I wake you, cupcake?” Big Ryan grin.
“You did not wake me.” I tried to keep the hostility from my voice.
“Are we testy this morning?”
“Are we smoking this morning?”
“Minor setback.” Ryan jammed his cigarette into an urn of sand beside the door.
Outside, the cold hit me like an icy explosion. Sun roared down from a clear blue sky.
Ryan’s car was idling at the curb.
I got in and buckled my seat belt.
Ryan got in, turned to me, and raised the shades up onto his head. A dark crescent hung below each azure eye.
“Something’s on your mind.”
I said nothing.
“It’s obvious you’re upset.”
I said nothing, louder this time.
“I suspect you’re unhappy with me.” Though he smiled, there was tension in his jaw and around his eyes.
“I know you consider yourself a hot property, Ryan, but I have other things to think about besides you.”
And your niece. I felt like one raw nerve.
“Do you want to talk?” Ryan asked.
“I want to drive,” I said, not trusting my voice with anything more.
We did.
In brittle silence.
Claudia Bastillo answered the bell at the Candiac house. Slapping on a fraudulent smile, I greeted her warmly.
Rose Fisher was sitting alone, staring at the venetian blinds. She wore a green rayon dress dotted with poppies. The orange hair was pushed up in back with a plastic clip-comb. If possible, the makeup was more extravagant than on the previous evening.
’Tit Ange was on a roll with “Frere Jacques.”
Fisher didn’t stir when we entered the living room. Hearing her daughter’s voice, she turned and looked at us, puzzled, as if trying to figure out who we might be.
“It’s the cop. And the coroner.”
With that less than accurate introduction, Bastillo withdrew.
Ryan and I assumed our positions flanking Fisher. “The cop” gestured to “the coroner” to proceed.
“I hope you’re feeling better today, ma’am.”
Fisher nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Mrs. Fisher, I’m wondering about some calls your sister placed to me at my lab.”
The garish eyes dropped.
“When?”
“Last week.”
“About what?” Fisher’s focus remained downwardly fixed.
“Mrs. Parent—”
“Louise never married.”
