Ivy laughs. “You think you’re joking, but that probably would be helpful. That’s how much I’ve lost perspective.” Then she yawns. “Yeesh, sorry. Are you less nervous now?”
“Well,” Jane says, pausing. “I went to Ravi’s room first before I came to yours. He wasn’t there.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Well,” Ivy says, “I can see why you wouldn’t want the police to know that, but Ravi can take care of himself. He’ll tell the police where he was. You could complicate things for him if you say he was where he wasn’t.”
Ivy is right. Jane’s best course is to tell the truth.
“Thanks,” she says.
“Sure,” says Ivy. “It’s normal to be nervous.”
“You’re not.”
“I am,” she says. “I’m like a duck on the water. I look calm but my feet are working a mile a minute underneath. And I haven’t slept yet, so I’m basically a mess.”
“Are you sure Lucy has an accomplice?”
“I don’t know,” says Ivy. “She definitely seemed to be expecting someone besides us on the beach. She must be going crazy trying to figure out who took the Brancusi, and I was hoping she suspects her own accomplice. Because could she really believe that there could be three art thieves in the house at once? Lucy, Lucy’s accomplice, and someone else? Wouldn’t she think that’s too much of a coincidence?”
“You’re certain Lucy didn’t take the Brancusi?”
“Yeah,” Ivy says. “I’m sorry it keeps coming back to the things I can’t tell you.”
“But that’s why you taunted her, saying she’d go down for the Brancusi?” Jane says. “You were hoping it would convince her to name her accomplice?”
“Yeah,” Ivy says. “If she has one. It could be that the guy with the wet pants came to the house to meet her, and you saw the two of them entering the forest. But I doubt it.”
Suddenly Jane realizes something. “Ivy,” she says. “The police are going to ask you about the Brancusi. And they’re going to ask if you really had a gun. Are you going to lie?”
Ivy pauses, glancing into the light coming from the ballroom doorway. The ends of her hair glow gold. “I’m going to do what I think is right,” she says. “And after all this is over, I swear to you I’m going to tell you all the things I can’t tell you right now.”
Jane sits quietly with this for a moment, until she realizes two things. One, that she believes Ivy. Two, that she really can’t believe, despite guns and missing children and stolen art, that anything Ivy’s doing is truly bad.
“You know there’s a word for that shutter sound?” says Ivy.
“Huh?”
“That sound a digital camera makes. The fake shutter sound.”
“It’s fake?”
“Well, think about it. A digital camera doesn’t have a shutter. It’s just designed to make the noise cameras used to make, back when they did have shutters.”
“I never thought about that!”
“There’s a word for a design choice that incorporates a feature that’s now obsolete. I can’t remember what it is.”
“Think it’s a Scrabble word?”
Ivy grins. “I certainly hope so.”
Jane can’t explain it, but she feels more ready for the police now. She feels like she can handle whatever comes. “I’d like to know what word that is.”
“I promise that when I think of it,” says Ivy, “I’ll tell you.”
*
When the police yank Lucy St. George out of the billiard room, she trips over the molding, remaining upright only because one of the officers is gripping her arm hard. It seems to Jane that they’re being unnecessarily rough. Jane wants to be glad, but Lucy’s not a big person. As they haul her through the gold sitting room, she winces in pain.
She catches Jane’s eye. “Is Ravi in the receiving hall?” she asks.
Jane can’t imagine why she should answer. “I don’t think so.”
Lucy seems relieved. “Thanks,” she says as the police drag her away.
Jane wants to yell after her that she didn’t arrange it for Lucy’s convenience. That she would never do anything for a person who lies and pretends, then shoots a dog.
A surly policeman who smells like the sea comes to the billiard room doorway and calls Jane’s name.
The police officers, two men and one woman, have impassive faces, sharp voices, and a lot of questions. Jane tells the truth, and most of the time, her honest answer is, “I don’t know.”
“The man in the forest was eating an orange,” she offers at one point.
“Eating an orange,” her interrogator repeats in an expressionless voice, not writing this illuminating piece of evidence down. Jane and the police officers are sitting, a bit awkwardly, around one end of the fanciest billiard table she’s ever seen, with dusty blue felt and lions carved into the wooden legs.
“Did Lucy St. George say anything to the men in the boat?” asks an officer whose mouth is hidden by a bushy white mustache.
Jane tries to remember. “Yes,” she says. “I think Lucy said, ‘I’m not doing it again, it’s a waste of my talents, and yours too, J.R.’ Or something like that. I was pretty far away and the water was noisy.”
“Not doing what again?” asks the mustached officer. “And who’s J.R.?”
“He’s the man who drove the boat away,” Jane says.
“Hmm,” says the officer. Jane can hear worlds of communication in that “hmm.” In these officers’ long careers, she’s the most useless witness they’ve ever questioned.
They ask her questions about her own history and her reasons for being in the house. They seem bored by her answers. She tries to sound casual when she tells them about never actually having seen Ivy’s gun. She aims for a blasé tone when she tells them about Ravi not having been in his bedroom too. They perk up a little at that, which deflates her. Ravi could be the accomplice, couldn’t he? Couldn’t his tantrums be an act? If they are, he deserves to be caught. Right?
No. Jane can’t believe Ravi is involved. Then again, she once thought the same about Lucy. “Do the police give medals to dogs?” she asks.
“Thank you for your time,” they respond grimly, then sweep Jane back into the gold sitting room.
“How was it?” asks Ivy, who’s still sitting there.
“I have no idea,” Jane says.
Toenails scrape and ring on tile as Jasper comes barreling into the room. His ear is bandaged and attached loosely to his neck with tape. When he sees Jane, he throws himself at her. Jane drops down to the floor, takes him into her lap, pets him, and, naturally, begins to leak tears again. He pants hotly into her face.
“I’ve never seen that dog behave toward anyone the way he behaves toward you,” says Ivy, searching through her many pockets, finally unearthing a tissue. She brings it to Jane, crouches down, and, while Jane’s still hugging the dog, touches the tissue, gently, to Jane’s face.
For a moment, Jane feels that everything is right.
“Ivy Yellan,” says an officer who appears in the billiard room doorway, in a tone of acute boredom. “And you,” he says, jutting his chin at Jane.
“What?” Jane says. “Me? You just talked to me.”
“Yes,” he says. “I haven’t forgotten your scintillating testimony. Do us a favor and go find Ravi Thrash, will you? He’s next.”
“I’m right here,” Ravi says, appearing in the ballroom doorway.
“Good,” the officer says to Ravi. “Kindly stay.”
The officer and Ivy disappear into the billiard room, leaving Jane and Ravi, who studies Jane’s face. She sniffles hard, wiping her eyes on her pajama sleeve.
“What are you crying about?” asks Ravi.
“The dog,” Jane says, which is true, if an understatement.
“Yeah,” he says grimly.
“You look tired,” she says.
“The FBI should be handling this case,” Ravi says. “If our artwork is still in New York State, it’s a miracle. Vanny is literally trying to give me an ulcer, calling in the state police instead of the FBI. How was it, talking to them?”
Jane pauses, then speaks in a particular tone. “I answered all their questions honestly.”
He rubs his neck, sighing. The white streaks in his hair suddenly make him seem old, tired. “Is there a reason you shouldn’t have?”