Sorrow's Crown (24 page)

"Please," she repeated without inflection. "Allow us."

"No. Thanks, anyway." I got a step closer, and another, and one more until we were nearly nose-to-nose. Even her nostrils were alluring. She scratched her thigh lightly along the slit of her skirt, but didn't even leave one of those fine, chalky lines on her skin. The draft from the limo's air conditioning blasted against my legs. I could make out the silhouette of Theodore
Harnes
in the far corner of the back seat, sitting rigidly with his hands laid across his knees.

"Get into the limousine you annoying pissant fool," she told me.

"Well," I said. "Since you asked nicely."

I got in and she slipped in beside me. I held tightly to Teddy's art books but nobody noticed. Sparky's seat seemed entirely too empty, and I wondered if
Harnes
would find another malicious guard in
Panecraft
to act as a replacement in this entourage. The driver appeared even more spectral than before—starved perhaps, the poorly fitting black suit draping off his scrawny frame. He smelled worse, too, and there were scabs on his throat like he'd gone for exploratory surgery. I realized he must have cancer, and the chemo and radiation weren't delaying the inevitable.

Harms continued to stare straight ahead as we pulled out, his hands still hanging open. Jocelyn smoldered beside me, or at least I hoped she did, though her voice hadn't changed at all, even when insulting me. The two of them looked as in-organic as the portraits at the top of
Harnes
' grand stairway, like all the dead women from his past.

The living pressure known as Theodore
Harnes
kept exerting itself upon me as we drove toward Felicity Grove. I thought about how he'd allowed Anna to run him over, as if he couldn't quite comprehend that the physical laws of the world should ever be impressed upon him.

Jocelyn glanced over at me, and the dying driver glared into the rearview mirror, but no one said anything. This might have made a good Sergio Leone spaghetti western, lots of close-ups on our squints, each noise magnified on the soundtrack. The chauffeur drove effortlessly, even when abruptly caught up in a coughing fit. I slowly became aware of
Harnes
' breathing, as though it was only within the last few minutes that he'd learned how to do it, or even needed to do it. I knew we didn't quite share the same reality.

"I did not appreciate your attendance at my home," he said.

"No," I said. "I imagined you wouldn't."

"You sought only to provoke and irritate me."

"That sounds about right."

"Why do you pursue in this aggravating manner?"

A man who enjoys a standoff.

"Whatever I've been doing it's been getting me a lot of nice rides in this limo."

The sound of breathing became displaced for a moment, and suddenly I became aware of Jocelyn's chest rising and falling, as though they shared one pair of lungs and couldn't use them at the same time. An undercurrent of
tranquillity
and calamity ran through the car, each of them feeling different things at different times, in perfect counterpoint to one another. She seemed to be getting angry now even while he calmed. In a way I was reminded of how things worked between me and Anna.

Harnes
flexed his fingers, once. "Let us talk of the untimely death of Freddy Shanks."

"I thought it was pretty timely myself. Any later and the bastard would have killed me."

"I do not believe you," he said.

"I've still got the lumps to prove it."

He had no people skills. "Tell me what occurred that night."

"If you already don't believe me then what's the point?" I asked.

"Be that as it may, I require you answer my questions.”

“You didn't ask any."

That tickled him, almost. Something crawled around in his eyes, and his fists opened once more and then shut. "Tell me all that happened."

I told him.

"I do not believe you,"
Harnes
said.

"I
sorta
figured you'd say that."

My attention snapped to Jocelyn as though caught on barbs. I watched her frozen visage for a moment, wondering how much hate or love might be hidden there, if any, and if so, for whom. The charge flowed and returned to
Harnes
.

He said, "My son is dead and the man who murdered him has been put away. Why do you persist in involving yourself in my affairs?"

His calm demeanor rattled me. The car seemed to roll and crest with sodium
pentathol
, all of us unable to lie about anything. The stink of death rising from the driver perhaps lulled us toward our own ends. My heartbeat tripped along. Theodore
Harnes
had enough wealth and influence to build, buy, or steal whatever he might want, but chose to converse pleasantly about a boy who'd had his face cut off, an innocent man locked in an asylum, and a sadist dead on the floor with his brains spilled. I started to sweat. I imagined how many of his enemies might be cowering in restricted areas D and E of Sector Eight in
Panecraft
, gazing down at me as I stood looking up.

And
Crummler
, locked away, still waiting for my help, too terrified to think of happier things because it was so much easier to survive that kind of sorrow if you accepted hell as your fate.

"Why did you send Shanks to kill Brian Frost?" I asked.

"I did no such thing."

"I don't believe you."

Only the barest movement from those hands, as they closed slightly to cup his knees. "That does not concern me.”

“Does anything?"

"Nothing you could know."

"You're probably right." It was my turn to breathe as we hit the outskirts of town. "Alice Conway was blackmailing you."

"Indeed not," he said, so sedate that I looked at his eyes to see if the pupils were dilated. "She performed a poor masque meant to threaten me. It did not. Hence, by definition, there could be no blackmail."

"Still, she was making the attempt."

"I found her company pleasant, for a time. As did my son. There is nothing more to say on the matter."

"She was going to have Teddy's kid. Didn't that matter to you?"

"No," he said.

I took a breath. The air had come back around to me. "You're a real piece of shit."

A brutal growl ripped up the back of Jocelyn's throat and she stirred in her seat and slapped me. The heel of her hand drove into my jaw and my skull flared with that now familiar spatter of color and pain. Even while my mouth filled with blood I felt a genuine sense of hope, and even grinned as I turned with the expectation of seeing a frown or sneer, her lips marred and curled by unsheathed anger. Even just a single misplaced strand of hair, anything, a casual crease around her eyes, or dimples in the chin. I smiled and blood flooded against my teeth.

Absolutely nothing had changed in her face.

The driver stopped at a red light on Fairlawn, four blocks from the flower shop. I said, "Let me off here."

"Enjoy your day, Mr. Kendrick,"
Harnes
said.

I wiped the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. "You, too," I said. "Thanks for the ride."

"You are most welcome."

"One more thing," I told him. "Stay away from my grandmother."

"No."

My face tightened as I grew flush, and my fingers flexed, once, the same moment his did. Jocelyn got out and I followed. I stood on the corner as the stink of the dying driver wafted out on the air conditioning. Jocelyn got back into the Mercedes and I held the door open before she could shut it.

If
Harnes
didn't believe that the physical laws of the world were meant for him, then what could he possibly think of moral precepts? We waited like that for a while.

Finally, at long last, he looked at me.

"Did you murder your first wife and unborn child?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

Jocelyn slammed the door, and the limo pulled off.

I walked into the shop and immediately noticed that the window had been repaired. They'd done a fairly sloppy job with the frame, and I'd have to repaint. Dust motes spun in the shafts of sunlight that layered against the unused room. If my desk was in there I'd have to pull the curtains every day at four o'clock to avoid a face-full of glare. I scratched the top of my head thinking that if I needed ten thousand more excuses for not moving the bookstore here, I could no doubt find them. I could probably even hold my breath until I turned blue and wail and pound my fists against the floor while I thrashed all over the place.

Katie stood in the back shoving various bins of flora aside in the humming refrigerator. She'd had no trouble cleaning up the few strewn flowers, torn plant-growth bags, the broken pottery and glass. Her frozen breath clouded around her throat. She'd been too preoccupied to notice the tinkling bell. I moved to her as she closed the refrigerator door. At the sound of my footsteps she wheeled and flung herself sideways with a startled gasp, barely stepping over the spider plant Anubis had been gnawing on. She grinned and let out an uncomfortable giggle. That usual sense of amazement I got from seeing the dimples flaring at the edges of her lips took such hold that I almost didn't spot her real fear.

"Oh, you're back already," she said.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I didn't hear anybody come in."

"You're trembling."

"I was just working in the fridge."

My grandmother might be highly accomplished at controlling her demonstrative side, but Katie didn't quite have the knack. I thought I might be able to let the things slide for maybe five minutes, and decided to give it a shot. I rested my elbows on the counter and she leaned over from the other edge facing me, and we kissed for a moment as I touched the nearly invisible blond down under her ears, brushing its softness back across her cheek.

"Sorry about the mess this morning," I said.

"It could have been a lot worse. Thanks for cleaning up before I got here."

"Anything missing?"

"Just a couple of orchids. They were crushed in the street, where he'd stepped on them." I could see
Devington
doing something spiteful like that, useless and without meaning. The least he could have done was bring the flowers to his mother and sister instead of dumping them in the gutter. Katie shrugged, still holding back. "Did you find out anything that might help
Crummler
?"

"I don't know yet. I need to talk to him."

"Will they let you in again?"

"I think so. Lowell probably rattled Dr. Brennan Brent's cage a little more by now. After Freddy Shanks' death, Brent knows there's some focus on the hospital. He'll probably be more careful and want to appear completely candid about his patients."

"The murder, you mean," she said.

"What?"

"You said ‘Freddy Shanks' death' as if it occurred naturally, like he died in his sleep. He was killed by
Crummler's
brother, who promptly ran off and is still hiding in town someplace."

"I thought maybe he'd gone back to Manhattan."

"That doesn't jibe with what you told me about him wanting to help
Crummler
. Why would he leave?"

"I don't know."

"You wanted to see him in the city?"

"I was hoping he'd stop in again."

Her lips looked too wet, the crimp between her eyes deeper than it should be. "It was murder, wasn't it? He did kill the man."

"And saved my life," I said. I'd been able to curb my concern for all of three minutes, which I thought was still pretty damn good considering the kind of day I'd had. I feared for the baby, and wondered if she'd miscarried.

"Tell me what's wrong, Katie."

"My tires were slashed this morning."

I exhaled deeply and it felt like the last stored breath shared by Jocelyn,
Harnes
, and me had been squeezed out of my chest. "What?"

"Three of them anyway, and busted a headlight. Wasn't it nice that the son of a bitch didn't go for all four tires, so he could save me a few dollars? It didn't matter, though, what's the point of buying only three new ones? The car's got fifty-two thousand miles on it, so I had to go for a full set anyway. Same with the headlight, I had a new pair put in. I don't think Duke weighted the tires properly though, the right side seems off. I'm going back to have him do it again."

"I'll get them done right now," I whispered. I sounded very far away from myself.

"I know how you are when you talk like that." She came into my arms and kissed me hard, and kissed me again, more gently as the icy sweat slid down my back. "Don't do anything crazy."

"Me?" I said.

~ * ~

It took Duke a half hour to correctly weight the four new tires, and he muttered and grimaced because I stood there watching him work the entire time.