“Did you go to—did you ask—were you talking about Allie with Prince Rainier?”
“No,” I said. “I went up to Tintrey’s headquarters in Northfield yesterday. Did Rainier come around?”
Like so many chains, this place had overheated the milk for the cappuccino, which ruins the taste. Caffeine is caffeine, though. I poured some into the lid to cool and swallowed it, wincing at the bitterness.
“Did you go up there to spy on Allie? Why can’t you let her and Nadia rest in peace?”
“The soldier who’s accused of shooting Nadia lost his whole unit in Iraq. I was trying to find out if Alexandra had died in the same attack.”
“Why do you care?” she said in a fierce whisper.
“I’m trying to understand where Nadia and Chad Vishneski’s lives connected. It seemed to me that Iraq was a place—”
“Leave Allie alone. What don’t you understand about that?”
“Everything. Why can’t I talk about Alexandra?”
“Because we’re not supposed to.” Clara peered around again. “She did something awful in Iraq. The company won’t publish it as long as we don’t talk about her. But if we do, they’ll put it online. They’ll put it everywhere.”
“The company? Tintrey?” When she nodded, I asked, “What did she do?”
“I don’t know! Mamá and Papi won’t tell me. Ernest, he knew, but look at him now. He doesn’t remember, he just starts waving his arms and saying Allie is a dove with Jesus when I ask him.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” I tried to force my sleep-deprived brain to work. “What difference does it make if anyone knows?”
“The company paid us her insurance,” Clara muttered. “Even though they shouldn’t have—at least, that’s what Mamá says—because Allie had gone off on her own. Whatever she was doing when she got killed, it wasn’t part of her job.”
“That shouldn’t affect her life insurance. Maybe it was workers’ comp?”
“What difference does it make?” Clara cried, and then looked around again, afraid her outburst had attracted attention.
Someone asked if we were waiting for the bathroom and pushed past us to use it. We moved deeper into the alcove, farther from the noise at the front of the shop.
“It doesn’t. You’re right, it doesn’t matter. At least, from a legal standpoint. The insurance company could demand their money back if they thought they’d paid a fraudulent claim. Is that how Rainier Cowles got involved?”
“I hate him.” Clara’s voice was savage. “Mamá and Papi were beside themselves when Allie died. They wanted to sue. They said the company was to blame for not taking care of Allie, but then he started showing up.”
“Cowles?”
She nodded.
“And what did he tell your folks?”
She grimaced. “I didn’t really know what they were talking about. These horrible arguments started, round and round, I wasn’t sure who was on whose side, but Ernie, he’d just been in his accident, and finally Papi said we’d better take the money or we’d never be able to take care of him. Nadia, she was furious. She said Allie’s life shouldn’t be for sale. In the end, she promised Mamá not to talk about Allie, not to talk about how Allie died. But Nadia never stopped being angry. So she moved out. And then we just went on and pretended like it was all normal, Ernie flapping his arms around, Nadia never coming home, me going to St. Teresa of Avila’s.”
“It sounds like your home life is a nightmare.”
“It is!” she burst out. “You don’t even know, you can’t imagine. But it’s worse now because of Nadia dying. And what if Mamá finds out—”
She cut herself short.
“What if Mamá finds out what?” I asked.
“Nothing. Nothing!”
“That Allie was a lesbian?” I suggested.
“She wasn’t. She wasn’t, you can’t be saying things like that. She was so beautiful, every boy who ever saw her fell in love with her, but she never dated. She was saving herself for marriage!”
I sighed. “Oh, Clara, it’s not a sin, let alone a scandal, for a woman to love another woman. How did you find out? Did Allie tell you herself?”
“Nadia,” she muttered after a pause. “Right before she died, she told me that Allie was—that Allie, that she’d met this woman, this Artist, who—who, I guess she seduced Allie and made her do—”
“Clara, the Artist didn’t seduce your sister. Or, if she did, your sister was a willing partner. The only sad and shocking thing is that Alexandra felt she had to keep her life a secret from her family. When did she tell Nadia?”
Clara looked around the alcove, seeking inspiration. “I don’t know how Nadia knew.”
I bit back a sharp retort. “Clara, you trusted me enough to get me out of bed and down here. Can you trust me enough to tell me the truth?”
She scowled, not so much in anger, perhaps, as some way of holding back her fears.
“It wasn’t Rainier Cowles who told Nadia, was it?”