He flipped through the passport to see where she’d been, and a photograph fell out. It was a picture of a young Alice standing with a man Harry didn’t recognize on a cobblestone street, a stone building behind them with the word Funiculaire in metal letters on its side. Both Alice and the man were wearing long, heavy coats. The photographer had focused more on the building behind them, the rail tracks leading up a steep slope, and less on Alice and the man, both a little blurry. Even so, it was clear that the man was quite a bit older than Alice. His arm was draped possessively over Alice’s slim shoulders. Her father, probably. Harry tried to remember if he knew anything about Alice’s family, but all he could recall was his own father telling him that Alice’s parents were dead, and that she wasn’t close to anyone in her extended family.
Bill hadn’t talked too much about Alice, except for the time he said she reminded him of Maine. For some reason, that description had stuck. Harry heard a noise coming from the front of the house. He quickly returned the passport to where he’d found it, shoved the drawer shut, and went to look. The mailman had pushed the mail through the front door’s slot. Harry picked up an envelope from a bank and a Nordstrom catalogue, and brought them to the kitchen counter. He considered a second cup of coffee but decided he was already jumpy enough. He drank a glass of orange juice instead, flipping through the catalogue, barely seeing the pictures. Then he checked his phone. Nothing from Grace, not that he was expecting something.
He didn’t go back to Alice’s office, going instead to his father’s, and sitting at the desk on the leather chair. He stared at the framed print on the wall, an original signed illustration by Robert E. McGinnis of a girl in a short white dress sitting on top of a roulette table. It had been done for a book cover, Harry knew, but he couldn’t remember which one. Something from the 1960s. Harry swiveled in the chair, looking at all his father’s books, wondering what would become of them now. He began to think about all the words his father had read, all the plots he’d absorbed, and how they were all gone, but then he stopped himself. Instead, he picked through a stack of books on the desk. At the top was one of his father’s moleskin notebooks. He’d always had one going, filling at least two notebooks a year. In a sense, they were his diaries, but instead of filling them with activities and day-to-day recollections, they were filled with lists of books he was trying to acquire, and lists of books he already had. There was also page after page of favorite quotes, plus his current ever-changing lists of top tens. Ten best Signet paperback covers. Ten best standalone Christies. Ten best crime novels published before 1945. Harry had flipped through his father’s notebooks before. There was never anything personal, not even a shopping list. But, in a way, it was as personal as a diary. It mapped his interior world.
Harry flipped to the last entry, which came midway through the notebook. It was a quote, centered on the page:
“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”
As was sometimes the case with quotes his father wrote down, it wasn’t attributed to anyone, probably because his father knew who said it, and these books were only for his father. Harry read the words several times, haunted by them. Maybe it was just some line from a song that his father liked, but it also sounded like a premonition of death.
Harry punched the line into his smartphone, and got an instant hit. It was from a song by Bob Dylan called “Not Dark Yet.” He wasn’t surprised. Dylan was his father’s favorite musician—there wasn’t even a distant second, except maybe Frank Sinatra. Bill had spent as much time obsessing over Dylan’s lyrics as he did actually listening to his music. His notebooks were filled with Dylan quotes, and sometimes he’d transcribe entire songs.
Still, Harry stared at this particular line from Dylan for another minute. It was the last thing his father had ever written. Then Harry flipped back a page. There was another quote, this one with an attribution:
“That’s the worst thing about democracy: there have to be two opinions about every issue.”
—Ross Macdonald, Black Money
And before that quote was one of his father’s lists. This one was titled: A REVISED list of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels, ranked in order of preference.
He didn’t hear the front door open, but Alice’s voice was suddenly in the house. “Anybody home?”
Harry startled, then stood up, putting the notebook down, and stepping out into the hallway. Alice was there, between Detective Dixon, wearing what looked like the same tan suit he’d had on the first time Harry had met him, and another man, much shorter, in a dark suit. Strange scenarios were passing through Harry’s mind. Was Alice being arrested? Was there more bad news?
But then Detective Dixon, in a calm voice, said, “Hello, Harry. Alice came by the station this morning, and I thought I’d bring her home. She’s a little upset.”
“Is everything okay?”
Alice turned and entered the living room. Detective Dixon stepped forward. “Harry, this is my colleague, Detective Vogel.”
Harry nodded in the other detective’s direction. He had a wide face and thick, dark eyebrows that almost touched above the bridge of a squat nose. “What’s going on?” Harry asked.
“Sam, why don’t you sit with Mrs. Ackerson a moment while I talk with Harry.”
Detective Vogel nodded and followed Alice into the living room while Dixon grasped Harry’s shoulder in one of his big hands and said in a lowered voice: “Alice came to the station today with some new information. She said your father was involved with a young woman here in town. Do you know anything about that?”
“What do you mean, ‘involved’?” Harry asked.
“Does the name Annie Callahan mean anything to you?”
Harry, completely expecting the detective to say Grace’s name, said nothing for a moment. “You knew her?” the detective asked.
“No, sorry, I didn’t. I don’t. Who is she?”
“Are you sure? She worked briefly at your father’s bookstore?”
“Up here? In Maine?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, I didn’t know her.”
“What about the name Lou Callahan? Ever heard that name?”
Harry shook his head.
“Okay, thanks. That’s all I needed to know. Your stepmother told us today that your father had been involved, romantically, with an employee at the store. That’s Annie Callahan. She thinks either she or her husband might have had something to do with your father’s death.”
“Why is she just telling you this now?”
“Partly because of you, Harry. That’s what she said, that she wanted to protect you from finding out that information. She’s pretty upset.” Just as Detective Dixon was saying those words, the other detective—Harry had already forgotten his name—reappeared in the doorway to the living room, and said, “She’s asking to see Harry. You all set here?”
“We’re all set,” the detective said, placing his hand on Harry’s shoulder and leading him toward Alice.
Chapter 17
Now
In the living room, Alice was on the couch, her knees up tight to her chest. Her head was angled down, her eyes squeezed shut, and she was emitting low, eerie groans. Her wet cheeks made it clear that she’d been crying. Harry was paralyzed with inaction for one brief moment, then slid next to her and placed an arm over her shoulders. She instantly adjusted herself, moving closer to him, pressing her damp face against his shirt. He could hear and feel the ragged breath entering and exiting her body. Both detectives stayed standing, but Detective Dixon said, “Alice, I’m going to go talk with this Annie Callahan, okay? And then maybe with her husband.”
Harry didn’t think she was going to react, but then she shifted her body, turning to face the detective, wiping at her face. There was a damp spot on Harry’s shirt where her face had been. The detective pulled at his suit pants above the knees and crouched. “You going to be okay here with Harry?” he asked.
Alice slid her legs off the couch and put her feet back on the floor. She nodded her head, while drawing a wet breath in through her nostrils. Harry kept one hand on her back, nervous about moving it. She was wearing a wraparound dress, and the front had slid open a little so that Harry had a brief view of one of her breasts barely covered by the white cup of a bra. She shifted again, fixing the dress, and Harry moved his hand.
“I don’t know if . . .”
“You don’t know if what, Mrs. Ackerson?”