“He beat them?” I asked. “For all his awfulness, Captain never beat me, though at times his self-control seemed a near thing.”
“Bronson Sizemore, their father, scarred them both. Scarred them physically and psychologically. As punishment, among other cruelties, he sometimes locked them in a closet for a day or two without food or water. By the time she was an adult, Anna May sought peace and safety above all else, which meant living alone with a pistol in her nightstand and another in a kitchen drawer. She says she’ll never marry, never chance a man like her father. The safest romance, the only kind she wants, is found in pulp magazines that specialize in love stories with happy endings.”
“She’s a gentle soul,” I said. “That speaks highly of her after what she endured. Others would’ve been made mean by such a father.”
Loretta smiled and took one of my gloved hands. “Who would know better about gentle souls? I’m sure you’ll also understand about her brother. He’s handsome. Has some acting talent. Wants to be a movie star. Who doesn’t? But he lacks discipline. He’s bitter, full of hatred for the world. He went for easy money. Drug dealing, running whiskey, providing to rich movie stars what they want and should not have. He made a place for himself because he was quicker to violence than his competitors. Yet Anna May kept him in her life.”
I squeezed her hand. “I do understand, Loretta. Sympathy born of shared suffering is a strong bond.”
“Now that Anna May has learned that he meant to profit from your pain and humiliation, she has at last pushed him out of her life. When she returns tomorrow, she will want to see you.”
“And I want to see her.”
“She blames herself for not standing up to her vicious father. She blames herself for surrendering to fear and not protecting her youngerbrother when they were children. Blames herself for what he has become. She blames herself for many things for which in truth she has no blame. It’s etched in her heart to feel guilt merely because of an innocent association with others who have done wrong.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t need forgiveness. She had nothing to do with what her brother and Willy Maxwell planned. For heaven’s sake, she warned us. Because of her, you and Franklin had time to cook up Shamash, Astarte, and the ugly death of Marion McMurray.”
“But shedoesneed to apologize. When you accept her apology, it’ll be as if a priest has given her absolution. You say you’re a freak when you’re not.You are not.She thinks she’s amoralfreak when she’s an innocent. The world is full of such confusion. How sweet it would be if you convinced her otherwise about herself and, by doing so, saw yourself for the angel that you are.”
For a minute or two, I could not speak, nor could she. But of course we had no further need for words just then. When we could get to our feet, we hugged each other. We held hands as I walked her to the door. She kissed my forehead, and she left.
I don’t know why I expected to lie awake till dawn. Instead, I slept soundly, deeply, and did not dream. The day had left me with no anguish for my sleeping mind to resolve.
The following day, Wednesday, December 3, is one I will never forget, and not just because of my meeting with Anna May. Harmony was excited to announce that the young man she had mentioned to me back in September, the one whom she loved and who loved her—Allen Sussman—had asked her to marry him. She said yes. He had been an audio engineer and sound effects man on a radio show that dramatized news stories of the past, one of which had been the explosion of the immense holding tank at the Purity Distilling Company in 1919 and the deadly flood that followed. Recently he landed a job on a new production at a higher salary, and the program—a half-hourcomedy—was an immediate runaway hit. Harmony Mintner would become Harmony Sussman in March 1931. She wouldn’t leave her job because she was paid very well, as were the others on the staff of the Bram. The Fates that made her an orphan and robbed her of a career as a pianist had now brought her a husband.
At half past nine, Anna May came to my rooms. I welcomed her and brought her to the sofa. I sat, and for an instant I thought she was going to kneel before me in supplication. Mortified, I quickly patted the cushion at my side, and she settled next to me. She was trembling and not able to sustain eye contact. As a grown woman who worked for people who valued her, she knew that no discipline would be administered, yet the battered child within could not dismiss the possibility of a sudden, angry blow.
I realized then that she and I were sisters, related not by blood but by dreadful experience. Anna May’s mother had been as indifferent toward her children as if they were the offspring of a stranger. My mother was gone, either dead or a misty figure who had spun so many mysteries around herself that she was cocooned forever beyond discovery. Anna May’s father had been a monster as fond of violence as any predator in fevered fiction. My unknown father might actually have been a monster, considering the biological legacy he left me, and Captain was a horror in his own right.
Anna May apologized for transgressions she had not committed, and I forgave her for them as though they had been real. A haunted quality in her voice, the words she used and those she avoided, and an enduring sorrow in her eyes revealed a profound loneliness of which I knew well the texture and bitter taste. I resolved that in the days ahead I would make every effort to befriend Anna May and encourage her to feel valued as much more than a housemaid.
Even as that intention passed through my mind, Rafael padded through the open door to the upstairs hallway. He came directly to thesofa and insisted on inserting himself between us. It was as though he knew everything that had occurred because of the threat against his life, understood that we were there largely because of him, and that he expected to receive the affection he deserved as the instigator of positive change in our lives. Without success, the alchemists of the Middle Ages had sought ways to turn lead into gold. Dogs were alchemists that knew something more valuable than that elusive formula—how to turn weeping into laughter.
After lunch, the siblings and I were in the game room adjacent to the library. Of two tables, one provided for a jigsaw puzzle that could be worked for days or weeks without anyone disturbing it. The second table was for cards—today 500 rummy. Members of the Clyde Tombaugh Club had for the time being set aside the camaraderie with which we investigated mysteries. Each of us was determined not only to reach five hundred points first, but also to do so by such a wide margin that the other three would be humiliated beyond endurance.
When Mr. Symington stepped into the room to say, “Alida, the Mr. and Mrs. wish to see you in his study,” my score was an even hundred points, and every one of the three card sharps was far ahead of me. If I threw in my hand, I could fairly—though not credibly—claim that I could have won if I’d been able to stay in the game.
Anticipating my intention, Isadora said, “We will all put down our cards, all four of us, and wait for you to return, Alida. There is no limit to how long we’ll remain patient while the game is put on hold. Even if you were to be gone a year, we would be here when you return, wearing the same clothes, emaciated but cheerful and ready to pick up where we left off.”
“Ah,” said I, “and how long do you need before you’ve memorized the cards in the hand I leave on the table?”
“That,” said Gertrude, “is what a lawyer would call character aspiration.”
“Assassination,” Isadora corrected.
“As if you would know,” said Gertrude. “I just might become a lawyer so one day I can rub your face in just how wrong you are.”
Harry said, “Go ahead and chicken out, Alida. It’s a cowardly thing to do, but if you can live with the realization that you’re a coward, then go ahead and do it. No one will hold it against you or think less of you or mock you. It’ll be on your conscience and no one else’s.”
“Thank you,” I said, and threw in my cards to be added to the remaining draw.
As one, my companions shouted—“Loser!”—and booed me out the door. God, I loved them.
In Franklin’s office, he sat behind his desk. Loretta sat to the left, and an empty chair stood in front of the desk. A man I’d never seen before occupied a chair to the right.
The visitor wore a gray suit, a white shirt with silver-and-onyx cuff links, and a striped tie. A pair of reading glasses was balanced low on his narrow nose. He had a deep tan and white hair. His smile seemed warm and genuine. I liked his smile. His eyes were the gray of brushed steel, and his stare was sharp as he peered at me over the half lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles. I did not like his eyes. Franklin said the visitor was Mr. Morgan Waterford. With the stately grace of a gentleman, Mr. Waterford rose to his feet, nodded in a sort of half bow, offered me his hand, and said that it was a pleasure to meet me.Stay alert.
He turned out to be a founding partner in a law firm that had grown until it now employed one hundred and ten attorneys, a number in which he seemed to take pride. I had read Mr. Dickens’sBleak House, so I had mixed feelings about lawyers. Those steel-gray eyes were ice-cold now and colder every time he focused on me. Although his smile had seemed warm, he had no further use for it as he picked up an attaché case that stood on the floor and put it on his lap.
