“Yeah. Older I get, anything farther than ten blocks seems a long way to go.” Ron was no older than sixty years old, Harry thought, but let it go.
They talked some more. About Alice, and about what might happen to the store up in Maine, then Harry said, “I’ve got a strange question, Ron. Do you know someone named Grace? I don’t know her last name but she knew my dad, and she said she met him down in New York at your—”
“Irish girl with pretty eyes? Her last name’s McGowan. You know the apartment on Third that Jim Mills sold to me for a thousand dollars in 1978? She’s renting that from me.”
“Still?”
“Far as I know. She’s paid up on rent. She’s a nice girl, helped us clear books from the basement when Sandy hit. She did know your dad ’cause he was down here then, as well.”
“Were they close?”
“Were they close? Who? Your father and Grace? I didn’t particularly think so, but it’s not like I was paying attention. Why? Does she say they were?”
“No, no. It’s just that she came to the funeral.”
“No shit. That is a little strange.”
“You think they were having an affair?”
The line was silent for half a second, and Harry could almost hear Ron’s shrug. “Uh, I would say no, but what do I know? Your father and I didn’t talk about that stuff.”
“But do you think it’s a possibility?”
“Harry, I don’t know. Your father seemed like a happy man, but he did come down to New York a lot. She’s a pretty girl, Grace, but she’s no Alice, I’d say.”
Harry wondered for a moment if Ron had ever met Alice, then remembered the time that she’d come down to New York to visit.
“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said.
“You need money, Harry?”
“No, no, I’m fine. But I might need some help dealing with this store.”
“Call me anytime, okay? Let me give you my home number, too.”
After writing it down—not surprised that Ron didn’t have a cell phone—Harry asked if Ron knew how to spell Grace’s last name. He wrote that down as well.
After ending the call, he Googled “Grace McGowan.” There were quite a few, but none that seemed to match the person he was looking for. There were still people—even young people—who didn’t have online profiles. He was one of them. Alice was another. His father didn’t have much of one, but he had been profiled years earlier in a New York Times article about selling books in the age of the Internet. He looked him up now, reread the article, and studied the accompanying picture of his father, looking distinguished and handsome in front of a cluttered shelf of books. Like a young Ted Hughes, all strong chin and thick hair. He killed the screen, not wanting to look anymore, but he kept thinking of his father.
Would he have had an affair with a much younger woman in New York? Maybe Harry was biased, but he would have said no if his mother had never died. But maybe his relationship with Alice had soured, or maybe Grace had thrown herself at his father, and he’d simply been unable to resist.
And if he had had an affair, what if Alice had found out about it? How would she react? Would she have followed him on his afternoon walk, waited for him to reach a secluded spot, and hit him with something? It seemed ridiculous, but someone had killed him. Why not Alice? Or for that matter, why not Grace McGowan? Maybe his father had broken off the affair, and she’d followed him to Maine to get her revenge? Harry wondered if there might be some answers to these questions in the house. If Alice had suspected Bill of cheating, she might have hired a private detective to follow him in New York. And if so, there might be some record of it.
Grey Lady was a big house. Before Bill bought it, it had been a bed-and-breakfast, started by a couple that got lonely when their six children all left home. On the second floor alone there were five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The first floor had been renovated at some point so that the modernized kitchen flowed into the dining room, and French doors led into the large front living room with its bay windows. At the back of the house was a wide sunroom, clearly an addition, with views of the barn and down toward the marsh. The two other major rooms on the first floor were Bill’s office and Alice’s office. Bill’s looked more like a storage area than a functioning room; the walls were lined with bookshelves, all filled, and stacks of books covered the floor, creating a strange cityscape in miniature. Bill had left a narrow path through the books that led to the only furniture in the room, a large oak desk, and a faded leather swivel chair that Bill had owned since college. The other office was all Alice, a sunny corner room dominated by a craft table with a sewing machine and stacks of fabric. But there was also a desk in the room, ridiculously neat compared to Bill’s, and that was where Harry decided to look first.
The desk, painted a robin’s-egg blue, was practically child sized compared to the monstrosity in Bill’s office. On top of it was Alice’s laptop computer, closed, and cool to the touch. She had a short stack of mail that hadn’t been opened. Harry riffled through the envelopes, nothing immediately catching his eye. There were credit card applications, what looked like a bill from Macy’s, an alumni letter addressed to William Ackerson from Columbia University.
Harry pulled open the only drawer. He expected it to be as neat and organized as the desk, but inside was a jumbled mess of papers, photographs, a half-filled perfume bottle, a box of thank-you cards. The house made one of its sounds, a wall settling somewhere, and Harry jumped. What would happen if Alice returned home early and found him looking through her things? He cocked his head and listened. The house was quiet again. He told himself that he’d just quickly look through the items in the desk, see if there was a letter from a private investigator, anything that would suggest she had information about his father’s affair.
Harry sat down on the chair, painted the same color as the desk. He carefully slid the drawer all the way out. Most of what he found was paid bills, bank statements, an insurance policy for the station wagon. There were no letters from a private investigator. He did find an expired passport that had been issued when Alice was just nineteen years old. He’d never seen a picture of his stepmother when she’d been young. She was makeup-free, her skin as pale as it was now, but her eyes seemed even larger in her face, her face a little bit rounder. She was beautiful, and Harry wondered what she’d been like as a teenager. It was somehow impossible to imagine her any different than she was now. He stared at the picture for a long time, and she seemed to stare back, telling him nothing.