She pushed back her chair and got up. “I hope you’re hungry. We’ve got chicken breasts and a chilled wild rice salad made with cashews, peppers, sesame oil. And there’s bread. Is your grill in working order?”
“It’s after eleven and snowing outside.”
“I didn’t suggest that we eat outside. I simply would like to cook the chicken on the grill.”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
We were walking to the kitchen.
“Not from Mother. Why do you think I was such a little fatso? From eating the junk she bought. Snacks, sodas, and pizza that tastes like cardboard. I have fat cells that will scream for the rest of my life because of Mother. I’ll never forgive her.”
“We need to talk about this afternoon, Lucy. If you hadn’t come home when you did, the police would have been looking for you.”
“I worked out for an hour and a half, then took a shower.”
“You were gone four and a haft hours.”
“I had groceries to buy and a few other errands.”
“Why didn’t you answer the car phone?”
“I assumed it was someone trying to reach you. Plus, I’ve never used a car phone. I’m not twelve years old, Aunt Kay.”
“I know you’re not. But you don’t live here and have never driven here before: was worried.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
We ate by firelight, both of us sitting on the floor around the butler’s table. I had turned off lamps. Flames jumped and shadows danced as ft celebrating a magic moment in the lives of my niece and me.
“What do you want for Christmas?” I asked, reaching for my wine.
“Shooting lessons,” she said.
5
Lucy stayed up very late working with the computer and I did not hear her stir when I woke up to the alarm early Monday morning. Parting the curtains in my bedroom window, I looked out at powdery flakes swirling in lights burning on the patio. The snow was deep and nothing was moving in my neighborhood. After coffee and a quick scan of the paper, I got dressed and was almost to the door when I turned around. No matter that Lucy was no longer twelve years old, I could not leave without checking on her.
Slipping inside her bedroom, I found her sleeping on her side in a tangle of sheets, the duvet half on the floor. It touched me that she was wearing a sweat suit that she had gotten out of one of my drawers. I had never had another human being wish to sleep in anything of mine, and I straightened the covers, careful not to wake her.
The drive downtown was awful, and I envied workers whose offices were closed because of the snow. Those of us who had not been granted an unexpected holiday crept slowly along the interstate, skating with the slightest tap on the brakes as we peered through streaked windshields that the wipers could not keep clean. I wondered how I would explain to Margaret that my teenage niece thought our computer system was insecure. Who had gotten into my directory, and why had Jennifer Deighton been calling my number and hanging up? I did not get to the office until half past eight, and when I walked into the morgue, I stopped midway in the corridor, puzzled. Parked at a haphazard angle near the stainless steel refrigerator door was a gurney, bearing a body, covered by a sheet. Checking the toe tag, I read Jennifer Deighton’s name, and I looked around. There was no one inside the office or X-ray room. I opened the door to the autopsy suite and found Susan dressed in scrubs and dialing a number on the phone. She quickly hung up and greeted me with a nervous “Good morning.”
“Glad you made it in.” I unbuttoned my coat, regarding her curiously.
“Ben gave me a lift,” she said, referring to my administrator, who owned a Jeep with four-wheel drive. “So far, we’re the only three here.”
“No sign of Fielding?”
“He called a few minutes ago and said he couldn’t get out of his driveway. I told him we only have one case so far, but if more come in Ben can pick him up.”