Cain nodded to the paintings.
“Him?” she said. “He’s just a guy I paint. I used to sleep with him sometimes, but not in a while. I don’t know what you call that in your world. I’d forget him, but he’s still on the wall. The only thing he was any good at was sitting still.”
“Your phone was turned on last night?”
“It’s always on.”
“And you were here?”
“With Patricia—go to the drafting table and take a look.”
Half a dozen charcoal sketches lay on the drafting table. Patricia was in two of them, Alexa’s style fast and fluid, somehow catching movement in a single frame. The rest were of Alexa, who wore her nudity like a piece of draped silk. She lay on the bed; she sat on a stool with her legs crossed and her hair piled atop her head. She knelt in front of a stone bowl and washed her hair.
“You were here all night?” Cain asked.
“And all day today,” Alexa said. “This—what happened to my dad—do you think it has to do with what we talked about? About the girl in the picture?”
“Whatever you haven’t already told me, now would be a good time. It could help us find out what happened.”
She stood, still holding the sheet around herself. A three-paneled dressing screen blocked one corner of the room. Rice paper and painted dragons. When she stepped behind it and dropped the sheet, he could see her nude silhouette against the thin paper. She knelt, and a drawer slid open. He had no idea what she might be taking out of it. To his left, Fischer’s hand tucked inside her jacket and unsnapped her holster. There was nothing showy about it; she was just being careful. He could get used to working with her.
Alexa came back from behind the screen wearing a gray nightgown. It looked like it was made of wet crepe paper. Something in her right hand flashed steel when she passed under the tracked halogen spotlights.
“After that time I found the picture?” she said. “I went back and found these.”
She held his wrist with her left hand and put a set of police handcuffs in his palm. She folded his fingers over them. This close, he could smell the perfume at the base of her throat. He thought of the black roses that grew on the northern edge of Golden Gate Park, the flowers rising up from thick tangles of thorns. He took a step back from her and held up the handcuffs so Fischer could see them.
“You’ve had these for ten years?”
“Nine, ten.”
“You’ve used them, handled them?”
She looked around her apartment, the art on the walls, the sculptures on the coffee table and in the windowsills. Finally her eyes settled on the bed.
“What do you think?”
He thought they’d probably seen plenty of use. Which meant Castelli’s fingerprints, if they’d ever been there at all, would have been wiped away years ago.
“How do you know they were his?”
“They were in his study. Hidden.”
“Where?”
“In a cigar box, behind his copy of Thucydides.”
“You went in there—ten years old, we’re talking—because you wanted to read Greek history. You pulled the book down, found a cigar box, and opened it. That’s your story.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I went in to toss the room and see what I could find. He was in D.C., not coming back for a month at least. I figured there had to be something interesting in there.”
“Why didn’t you give these to me yesterday?”
“Why didn’t you go swimming with me?” Alexa said. “Because you didn’t trust me. You thought I was trying to trap you.”
“We’re just asking questions,” Fischer said. “But we need answers we can believe. This is important.”
“I know it’s important.” She sat on the end of the bed. Then she fell over onto her side and tucked her knees up close to her chest. “Why would someone want to kill my dad?”
“You knew about the girl in the picture,” Fischer said. “Did anybody else?”
Alexa nodded. She was crying now, tears running across face and darkening the white sheet.
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Alexa said. “But he thought so. I know he thought so. There was always something wrong. He was on edge—afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’d be at dinner somewhere. And he’d see a woman who looked like her. He’d watch her pass, and then get really quiet and stop eating. In the car, on the way home, he’d drive in circles and keep checking behind us. But there’d never be anyone there.”
“Did he ever get out his gun?” Cain asked.
“What gun?”
“You never saw him with a gun?”
She shook her head. She pushed off the footboard and swam to the top of the bed, legs kicking. She took a pillow into her arms and another between her knees, clamping onto them.
“Where’s my mom?” she said. “I want my mom.”
“She hasn’t called?” Fischer asked.
“I want my mom!”
“Alexa.”
He could see where this would go if she threw a fit. She’d probably start by ripping her tissue-paper nightgown apart at the seams. Then, with his luck, she’d shatter a mirror and grab for the shards.
Of course, every time he made a bet on this family, he picked the wrong number.