Jane looked at Andrew, then Jasper, who shrugged.
This was new. The other agents had started with small talk, asked about the house, the decorations. It was Andrew who usually gave them the rundown. The parlor, like the rest of the house, was a gothic-beaux-arts mishmash, with spindly furniture and velvet wallpaper between the dark mahogany panels. The twin chandeliers had belonged to some ancient Queller who’d worked with Mr. Tiffany on the design. The coffee table was from sequoias felled by her mother’s side of the family. A grown man could stand comfortably inside the fireplace. Rumor had it that the rug was gotten off a Japanese family who’d been sent to an internment camp during the war.
Andrew shifted on the couch. Jasper resumed pacing.
Barlow turned a page in his notebook. The noise was like sandpaper in the silence. Danberry had tilted his head to the side so he could read the titles on the spines of books.
Jane had to do something with her hands. She found a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. Andrew struck a match for her. He was staying only partially still beside her. He kept randomly tapping his foot. Jane wondered how it would look if she reached over to still his leg. Or if she asked Barlow to please begin. Or if she screamed as loud as she could until everyone left and she could go back upstairs and find Nick.
This was a manipulation tactic, obviously. Barlow and Danberry were ramping up everyone’s nerves so that they would make stupid mistakes.
Silently, Jane went through the questions that all the other agents had asked.
Have you ever met the real Alexandra Maplecroft? What did Laura Juneau say to you at the conference? Why didn’t you know she was an imposter? Where do you think the real Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft is?
Kidnapped.
The answer to the last question was common knowledge. The ransom note had been printed on the front page of yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle—
We have Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft, a tool of the fascist regime . . .
“Miss Queller?” Barlow was finally looking up from his notebook. “I’m just going to sum up what we already know from the other interviews you’ve given.”
Jane could barely manage a nod. Her body had gone rigid with tension. Something was different about these two men. With their wrinkled suits and stained ties and missing teeth and bad haircuts, they looked like TV parodies of G-men, but they would not be here if they were second or third string.
“Here we go,” Barlow said. “You’d never met Laura Juneau before the conference. You might’ve recognized her name from before, when her husband killed their children, because the story was in the newspapers. You were in Berlin to fill in for a friend at a studio for two months. You—”
“Three,” Jasper corrected.
“Right, three months. Thank you, Major Queller.” Barlow kept his focus on Jane as he continued, “You’ve never met Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft before and you’ve only heard her name in relation to your father, because she was a rival who—”
“No,” Jasper said. “In order to be rivals, you have to be equals. Maplecroft was a nuisance.”
“Thank you again, Major.” Barlow clearly wanted Jasper to shut up, but instead, he continued, “Miss Queller, first, I’d like to talk about your discussion with Mrs. Juneau at the bar.”
Jane blinked, and she could see the delighted look on Laura’s face when she recognized Jane tapping out “Love Me Two Times” on the bar top.
Barlow asked, “Did you approach Mrs. Juneau or did she approach you?”
Jane’s throat felt so tight that she had to cough before she could speak. “I did. I was on the piano, playing the piano, when she walked in. I assumed she was American because of—”
“The way she was dressed,” Barlow finished. “You wanted to speak to an American after being in Germany for so long.”
Jane felt a sick kind of dizziness. Why had he finished the sentence for her? Was he trying to prove that he’d talked to the other agents, that they’d all compared notes, or was he just trying to get her to move along?
Or, most terrifying of all, had Nick made them practice too much? Were their word choices, their gestures, their comments, so rehearsed that they’d managed to throw up flags?
Jane parted her lips. She tried to pull air into her lungs.
Barlow asked, “What did you and Mrs. Juneau talk about?”
Jane felt a pressing weight on her chest. The room suddenly felt stifling. She put the cigarette in the ashtray, worked to line it up in the groove. Her hand was trembling again. She didn’t know what to do, so she told them the truth. “She’d seen me play a few years back. We talked about the performance. And about music in general.”
“So, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart?” Barlow seemed to be plucking names from thin air. “Chopin? Chacopsky?”
Tchaikovsky, Jane almost corrected, but she caught herself at the last moment because—was it a trick? Had she told another agent something else?
Andrew coughed again. He picked up the cigarette that Jane had left smoldering in the ashtray.
Barlow prompted, “Miss Queller?”
Jane found the tissues and blew her nose. She willed the panic back down.
Stick to the truth, Nick had coached them. Just make sure it’s not the whole truth.
“Well . . .” Jane tried not to rush her words. “We spoke about Edvard Grieg, because he’s Norwegian. A-ha, the pop music group, also Norwegian. Martha Argerich, from Argentina. I’m not sure why she came up, but she did.”
“Did you see Juneau go into the bathroom?” Barlow studied Jane closely as she shook her head. “Were you in the bathroom at any point before the shooting?”
“It was a long conference. I’m sure I was.” Jane was aware that her voice was shaking. Was that a good thing? Did it make her story sound more believable? She looked at Danberry. He’d been circling the room like a shark. Why wasn’t he asking any questions?
Barlow said, “There was tape residue behind one of the toilet tanks. We think the gun was hidden there.”
“Fantastic,” Jasper said. “Then you’ll have fingerprints. Case closed.”
“They wore gloves.” Barlow asked Jane, “So, what we’ve been told is, before the murder, you’d heard about Laura and Robert Juneau. What about Maplecroft?”
“Juneau and Maplecroft in the front parlor,” Nick bellowed, choosing this moment to make his appearance. “Good God, they sound like characters from the Canadian version of Clue. Which one had the candlestick?”
Everyone had turned to look at Nick standing in the entryway. He had somehow managed to take all of the air out of the room. Jane had seen him do this countless times before. He could bring the tone up or down like a deejay turning the knob on a record player.
“Mr. Harp,” Barlow said. “Nice that you can join us.”
“My pleasure.” Nick walked into the room with a self-satisfied grin on his face. Jane kept her eyes on Barlow, who was taking in Nick’s fine features. The agent’s expression was neutral, but she could feel his distaste. Nick’s good looks and charm either worked for him or against him. There was never any in between.
“Now, gentlemen.” Nick put a proprietary arm behind Jane as he wedged himself between Jane and Andrew on the couch. “I’m assuming you’ve already been told that none of us knew either Maplecroft or Juneau before Martin was murdered?” His fingers combed through the back of Jane’s hair. “Poor girl has been broken up about it. I don’t see how anyone could have that many tears inside of them.”
Barlow held Nick’s gaze for just a moment before turning to Andrew, asking, “Why weren’t you and Mr. Harp on the same flight out of San Francisco?”
“Nick left a day ahead of me.” Andrew took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. “He had business in New York, I believe.”
“What kind of business?”
Andrew looked puzzled, because Barlow wasn’t asking Nick these questions.