“What about the head injury?” I asked.
“Just a grazing wound that opened the flesh.”
“Has Lucy been there at all? Maybe waiting outside the room? Her mother might be with her.”
“She was there earlier. Alone,” Dr. Worth replied. “Sometime this morning. I doubt she’s still there.”
“At least give me a chance to talk to Jo’s parents.”
He wouldn’t answer me.
“Graham?”
Silence.
“For God’s sake. They’re comrades. They’re best friends.”
Silence.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it, Graham, they love each other. Jo might not even know if Lucy’s alive.”
“Jo is very well aware your niece is fine. Jo doesn’t want to see her,” he said.
I got off the phone and stared at it. Somewhere in this goddamn city my sister was checked into a hotel, and she knew where Lucy was. I went through the Yellow Pages, starting with the Omni, the Jefferson, the obvious hotels. I soon found that Dorothy had checked into the Berkeley in the historic area of the city known as Shockhoe Slip.
She didn’t answer the phone in her room. There were only so many places in Richmond where she could carouse on a Sunday, and I hurried out of the house and got into my car. The skyline was shrouded in clouds, and I valetparked my car in front of the Berkeley. I knew right away when I walked inside that Dorothy would not be here. The small, elegant hotel had an intimate, dark bar with highbacked leather chairs and a quiet clientele. The bartender wore a white jacket and was very attentive when I went up to him.
“I’m looking for my sister and wonder if she’s been in here,” I said. I described her andhe shook his head.
I walked back outside and crossed the cobblestone street to the Tobacco Company, an old tobacco warehouse that had been turned into a restaurant with an exposed glass and brass elevator constantly gliding up and down through an atrium of lush plants and exotic flowers. Just inside the front door was a piano bar with a dance floor, and I spotted Dorothy sitting at a table crowded with five men. I walked up to them, clearly on a mission.
People at nearby tables stopped talking, all eyes on me as if I were a gunslinger who had just pushed her way through a saloon’s swinging doors.
“Excuse me,” I politely said to the man on Dorothy’s left. “Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?”
He did mind, but he surrendered his chair and wandered off to the bar. Dorothy’s other companions shifted about uncomfortably.
“I’ve come to get you;” I said to Dorothy, who clearly had been drinking for a while.
“Well, look who’s here!” she exclaimed, and she raised her stinger in a toast. “My big sister. Let me introduce you,” she said to her companions.
“Be quiet and listen to me,” I said in a low voice.
“My legendary big sister.”
Dorothy always got mean when she drank. She didn’t slur her words or bump into things, but she could sexually tease men into misery and use her tongue like a nettle. I was ashamed of her demeanor and the way she dressed, which sometimes seemed an intended parody of me.
This night she wore the handsome dark blue suit of a professional, but beneath the jacket her tight pink sweater offered her companions more than a hint of nipples. Dorothy had always been obsessed with her small breasts. To have men staring at them somehow reassured her.
“Dorothy;” I said, leaning closer to her ear, almost overwhelmed by Chanel Coco, “you need to come with me. We have to talk.”
“Do you know who she is?” she went on as I cringed. “The chief medical examiner of this fine Commonwealth. Can you believe it? I have a big sister who’s a coroner.”-
“Wow, that’s got to be really interesting,” one of the men said.
“What can I get you to drink?” said another.
“So what do you think is the truth about the Ramsey case? Think the parents did it?”
“I’d like somebody to prove those were really Amelia Earhart’s bones they found:’