Клео Коул - On What Grounds

“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.”

“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.”

Quinn paused a moment. “Anabelle is in the ICU,” he said. “She has supervision around the clock. No one’s going to harm her there.”

“You mean there’s nothing you’re willing to do to restrain Darla Hart? Aren’t you even going to take her down to the precinct and interrogate her?”

“Clare—” Quinn began with a sharp tone. Then he paused a moment and spoke again, this time with the sort of tone you might use when trying to explain calculus to a preschooler. “Clare, you have no evidence to prove she’s guilty of any criminal act. Or even that there was a criminal act. So the answer to that would be no .”

God, I thought, that tone was insufferable! “Then what are you going to do?” I demanded. “Have you at least questioned Anabelle’s boyfriend? I haven’t gotten around to him yet.”

Quinn frowned and shifted in his seat. “To be honest with you, my work on this case—what I mean to say, official police involvement in this case—is going to be limited. My superior knows that the Crime Scene Unit found no evidence that Anabelle’s fall was caused by foul play—”

“Yeah, I know. And the rape kit and physical exam proved negative on evidence that there was any attempt at sexual assault.”

Quinn’s blue eyes widened. It was the first moment he’d showed open emotion since he sat down (surprise, followed by annoyance).

“ How in the world do you know that?” he asked.

“I have my sources,” I said. Mike Quinn grimaced. I added: “I also know that Anabelle is pregnant, which makes her condition even more tragic.”

“And how did you find that out, too?”

“I told you, I have my sources—”

“Who, Clare?”

His cheeks were actually flushing red.

I shook my head. “No way.”

Quinn took a deep breath, exhaled it. “All right, fine. Like I said, there is no evidence of foul play. My boss wants this shut, but he’s willing to let me keep it open while there’s still a chance Anabelle can wake up and give an eyewitness account to some sort of assault. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be working on another case—a shooting and therefore a clear-cut homicide.”

“So what are you saying, you’re going to help me investigate this, but on the side? Why? What’s it get you? Free coffee?”