Laura Lippman - The Most Dangerous Thing

This year Annabelle will spend Easter weekend with Karl, by his request, which surprised Gwen. Karl has never been religious and had no desire to see Annabelle brought up in his faith, Catholicism. They have been taking Annabelle to the little Presbyterian church in Dickeyville, a place that Gwen attended until she announced, at age twelve, that she didn’t want to go anymore, and her parents didn’t object. Gwen isn’t sure what Annabelle is taking away from it, but it’s a nice ritual, going to church, then stopping by her father’s house for Sunday lunch.

But this year, Karl’s sister has arrived from Guatemala, and he is putting on a bit of a show for her, taking her to services at the cathedral, making reservations for brunch at one of the downtown hotels. Gwen will be alone. Well, with her father, but alone. She has entrusted Annabelle’s Easter basket to Karl, with careful instructions about where to put it this year. It kills her, not being there, but Annabelle will be out of bed by seven, maybe even six. For a moment, Gwen was tempted to tell her there was no Easter bunny, just so Gwen would have a reason to bring the basket the day before. But Annabelle is only five. She deserves several more years of believing in impossible, lovely lies.

The office, never a loud place, is still today, with most of Gwen’s employees opting for the flex day. If she could drag her thoughts away from Annabelle, she could get a lot of work done. But what she really wants to do is go to the conference room and curl up with her, watch whatever Disney princess is enchanting her. Feminist that she believes herself to be, Gwen has no problem with little girls wanting to be princesses. Want to find the damaged women among you? Look to the ones who had their femininity thwarted at every turn, the poor hulking girls who were asked to play the boys’ parts at their all-girl summer camps or schools. Margery, her most aggressive, ruthless reporter, loves bags and shoes and wouldn’t step out of the house without makeup. It’s not an either-or world. It’s possible to be a feminine feminist.

Becca, her assistant, pops her head around the door, and Gwen is instantly on alert. “Annabelle OK?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s in heaven. She can’t wait until noon, when I’ve told her we can go to the vending machines and pick two items each, as long as one of them doesn’t have chocolate. No, you’ve got a call that came through the main switchboard. A woman, doesn’t want to give her full name, very cloak and dagger, but she says she’s been calling and calling your cell and you don’t answer and she does, in fact, know the number to your cell. Clearly, she thinks this is somewhat urgent.”

Gwen glances down, realizes her phone has been on silent. When Annabelle is with her, there’s no reason to be vigilant about the cell. She touches the screen and sees a series of three calls over the morning, each from a number with the caller ID function blocked. But it’s a number she recognizes, kind of. Local. A number she has dialed recently. She touches it, the phone on speaker, and is amazed how quickly the call goes through, how a voice jumps out of the line like a coiled snake.

“Jesus, about time,” says the voice, which she recognizes as Tess Monaghan’s. “You were on the verge of missing an opportunity.”

Gwen turns off the speaker function and picks up the phone, which only piques Becca’s interest, but so it goes. “An opportunity?”

A pause, a sigh. “My client is in town. And despite the fact that I have advised him strongly not to do this, he wants to meet with you. But the window is very small. He came here to meet with his lawyer. He has to go back home tomorrow, so the only window is early evening.”

“He-so I’m allowed to know the gender now.”

She is teasing, but Tess Monaghan doesn’t seem to enjoy being teased. No one does. “You’re going to know everything soon. Look, there’s a movie theater out on Nursery Road. Meet him in the lobby there.”

“Why there?”

“He can walk there from his hotel. He’s already turned in his rental car, so he’s kind of limited in his mobility.”

“How will I know-”

“He’ll find you. Frankly, I am hoping against hope that he stands you up or backs out at the last minute. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by him talking to you-and much to lose.”

G wen is quite familiar with the movie theater on Nursery Road, which is barely five miles from her house in Relay. It is never crowded for some reason, possibly because of the larger multiplex a few more miles down the highway, which is part of an enormous mall. She, Karl, and Annabelle have come here for virtually every talking animal movie and Pixar film made over the last two years. It is a ridiculous place to try to have a conversation, she thinks, especially as the ticket takers begin to eye her skeptically. Is it so unusual for a woman to wait in the lobby of a movie theater?

An African American man comes through the door, sixty or so, and her stomach lurches. This is it . This is the moment she will be called into account, told that the man they left in the woods to die was someone’s father, grandfather, cousin. She will counter, of course, share the horrible truth about what he did to Go-Go, but it doesn’t balance out, not quite. Unless Go-Go’s death balances it out. Chicken George died in a night. Go-Go spent years dying.

The man walks by, gets in the ticket line. She glances at her watch. The mystery client is going to stand her up after all. She feels relieved for some reason. He doesn’t want to see her. He has nothing to say to her. This has nothing to do with Chicken George.

She checks her e-mail on her phone, checks her messages. Nothing. Now she’s angry. She could have had this hour with Annabelle at the house. They could be sitting in the kitchen, dyeing eggs, baking. She’s getting irritated at this phantom client whose on-again, off-again decisions have affected her. She begins playing a game of Angry Birds, feeling like a very angry bird herself.

“Mrs. Robison?” a man’s voice inquires.

She looks up into the face of a white-haired man, broad shouldered, quite handsome. He is wearing a turtleneck beneath a well-tailored camel’s hair coat.

“Yes.” She doesn’t even bother to correct him, say it’s Ms.

“I’m sorry I’m late. It’s farther than I realized, the walk here. It looked so close on a map. And I felt I was taking my life in my hands, walking along the shoulder. I thought there would be a sidewalk.”

“There often aren’t,” she says, feeling stupid. “I mean-in the newer developments.” She cannot imagine what this immaculately groomed man has to do with Go-Go. Perhaps he senses her confusion, for he extends his hand. He is the kind of man who takes another person’s hand in both of his, holds it, making eye contact.

“I am Andrew Burke,” he says. “Gordon Halloran knew me as Father Andrew, but I left the church several years ago. Last fall I asked Tess Monaghan to find him so he could do me a favor of sorts. He said he would. Then he changed his mind, and now he’s dead. A possible suicide. I feel horrible about that.”

Perhaps because he’s a man who seems skilled at giving comfort, Gwen also wants to comfort him. “No one knows, for sure. If it was a suicide.”

“But you think it is.”

She wants to tell the truth. “Sometimes you can’t know.”

He shakes his head. “True enough. But I feel that I inadvertently pressured him. You see-we spoke, after Tess found him. I wasn’t supposed to call, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m afraid I frustrate her, with my inability to follow her instructions. But I wanted to hear from him-what I needed to hear. He ended up telling me things, things I think I should tell someone close to him. I considered his mother, but I don’t think Doris could bear it. When I heard about you from Tess, I realized that’s who I needed. A friend, someone who cared enough about Go-Go to ask questions after he died. Besides, you’re a part of the story, aren’t you?”