Dead in a Flash Read online

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that and as the silence stretched out, Patricia sighed and let her shoulders sag.

  “Oh, pay no attention to me, I’m such a harpy. I wasn’t always like this, you know,” she said, strolling over to a window that looked out on the tennis courts. She seemed to expect me to follow, so I went, trying desperately to think up a good exit strategy.

  She gazed out the window for a long moment, then started to talk, her voice almost a whisper. “It’s tearing me up that Phoebe is having a baby. I hate her for it. Marc and I went through so much pain and expense to try to have kids but nothing worked. I finally had to accept that it’s not going to happen for me. Marc won’t even consider adoption, so that’s the end of it. I’ll never be anybody’s mother. That’s one reason I decided to run for office. I think I can do some good, especially for kids.”

  “That’s commendable,” I said.

  She smiled, an honest-to-Pete genuine smile.

  “I’m a good person,” she said. “I am. I know I’m negative and annoying and, Marc’s favorite word, abrasive, but I really am working on it. I’ve got so much to be grateful for. Money isn’t a concern for me, thanks to my parents, and Marc is a good husband. I’ve got my mother and my brother and Conrad and now Phoebe”—she said the name as if referring to a skin condition—“so assuming I don’t permanently alienate them all, I’ve got good family support, but the thing I wanted most in my life I can’t have.”

  “I hope you’ll find fulfillment in your political career,” I said, feeling like the world’s most out-of-her-depth counselor.

  “I hope so, too,” she said. “I want it, more than anything right now. So I guess I’ve got to work on the charm thing.”

  “You have a nice smile—maybe you could use it more often,” I blurted, and immediately wished I could take it back.

  Patricia laughed. “Marc should put you on the payroll,” she said, turning toward the elevators. “You going up?”

  I checked my phone and saw that Emma had gotten the okay to go with me. “Yep,” I said. “Seems I’ve acquired an assistant.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, Emma was a tremendous help. And, despite my concerns that she’d be bored out of her gourd, she was actively interested. She helped me scan, trim, and mount the testimonials and she had a deft hand and a good eye. When I told her so, she smiled. “I’m on the yearbook staff,” she said. “Course, we do most things digitally, but sometimes we do layouts on paper. I kind of like this old-school stuff.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “But technology marches on. We often do video scrapbooking, and sometimes the clients want digital slideshows, but more and more people are requesting the heritage scrapbooks. I guess it’s considered retro now. I like working with paper and enjoy telling a family’s story through the scrapbooks.”

  “Hm,” Emma said, “I never thought of a family having a story. I mean, a family is lots of different people, right? Doesn’t each of them have their own story?”

  “Yes,” I allowed, “but a family has an identity, too. Your family’s reputation, their standing in the community, their talents and personalities, their habits and customs—all of that sets them apart from other families. Like if someone says about you, ‘Oh, Emma, she’s a Sawyer,’ that would mean more than just telling your mother’s name. It would mean you belong to all the things the Sawyers stand for.”

  “OMG, I hope not all of it!” Emma said, frowning. “I mean, I don’t agree with a lot of things Grandpa stood for. And what about people who have families that have crappy reputations to begin with? That wouldn’t be fair.”

  “You’re right. And the flip side is if you come from a good family, sometimes you get credit you might not have earned just for the luck of having been born to those people.”

  “It’s pretty complicated, isn’t it?” Emma said. “I love my grandpa and I’m proud that he’s a senator and all, but sometimes I’m embarrassed because I don’t believe the same as him about everything, and people think I do just because I’m his granddaughter. Like that bill he sponsored way back in the day, the one Lincoln was doing his dissertation on. It was terrible for the environment. Lincoln and J.D. used to get into really fierce arguments about it. I didn’t understand it all, but I know it allowed terrible things to be done to the planet. I was on J.D.’s side. But then I’d feel disloyal to Grandpa ’cause I love him.”

  “As you say, it’s complicated.”

  Just as we finished up I heard the front door and Jack’s customary “Hey, Soph.” That sparked new regrets about bringing Emma home with me. I called back to direct him to the workroom and his answer brought red to my cheeks. “Esme’s car’s gone, does that mean we’ve got time for—” He stopped abruptly as he reached the doorway and saw Emma.

  I made introductions and avoided his gaze, trying to get the blushing under control. Honestly, you’d think I was the one who was sixteen.

  “How was kayaking?” I asked.

  “Good, good,” Jack said. “I just stopped by to see if there’s any chance of catching a quick supper tonight?”

  “Maybe,” I said, my gaze wandering to the sparse family tree meant for Conrad. It looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. “I’ll call you later.”

  Once he’d left, I did some high-level bargaining with myself. If I could get the frame illuminations done and two generations of nameplates drawn, I could take a couple of hours off to go to supper with Jack. That was motivation. But I needed something for Emma to do. I can work on calligraphy projects while someone is in the room with me, but not if they’re just watching me.

  I asked if she’d enter the inventory of the materials Dinah Leigh had given us into our system.

  “Sure, I can handle that,” she said. “I helped Chelsea when she sorted and scanned the stuff for you, so I already know what some of it is. But she made you a list, you know.”

  “I know, but we’ve got a special system and we need it in our own database.”

  Emma was a quick study. She followed directions to the letter and understood the importance of handling the things gently.

  “I saw Jack with you at Grandpa’s birthday,” she said as she began typing into the database. “So he’s your boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess he’s now officially my boyfriend, but we’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “He’s cute,” she said. “And you don’t mind that he’s kind of, you know, short?”

  I laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly an Amazon. He’s taller than me, and even if he wasn’t, I like him just as he is.”

  “That’s cool,” she said.

  “Tell me about your boyfriend,” I said. “I mean, if you want to.”

  “Sure,” she said, carefully transferring the postcards she’d just entered to the spot reserved for them on the opposite tabletop. “His name is Justin and everybody says we look really good together.”

  “And that’s important to you?” I asked. “How you look together?”

  “Of course,” she said, “really important. Like I’d never go out with anyone who’s not taller than me or who was chubby or had black hair. We wouldn’t look good together.”

  “You might be eliminating somebody really terrific with those parameters,” I said, concentrating on keeping my arm muscles loose as I drew the long, sweeping lines of the tree’s branches.

  “That’s what my mom says,” Emma said. “And honestly, when I say it out loud it makes me sound like such a poser. But it’s just always been that way. You know how you were talking earlier about your family’s identity or whatever? Well, I’ve got one, too. For me it’s that I’m the pretty one.”

  “Well,” I said, “you are pretty, but that’s certainly not all of you.”

  “It seems like it sometimes. Damon is the smart one with the bright future and I’m like the pretty little shiny thing. Nobody expects much from me. And I’m not being conceited. I know I’m not drop-dead go
rgeous. I’m just kind of ordinary pretty, like my mother.”

  “Your mother is a beautiful woman,” I said, “but I’m sure she has other admirable traits as well.”

  “She does,” Emma said. “And really she’s done everything she could possibly do to make sure I’m not shallow or vain, but it seems like it’s happening anyway. She used to work at a textbook publishing company, but when Dad started getting these jobs that took him away for months at a time, she quit so she could stay home with me. She was afraid I’d get in trouble if I had too much unsupervised time. And I probably would have. No, I definitely would have. It’s not like I’m wild or anything, but I get bored.”

  “So I take it your mom’s not a big fan of your boyfriend,” I said.

  “Nope. She doesn’t hate him and she’s not mean to him when he comes over or anything like that. But she says I’m not my best self when he’s around, whatever that means.”

  “Maybe she sees changes in you that she doesn’t like,” I offered, leaning back to study the tree. Having Emma there to talk to actually seemed to be helping me relax into the work.

  “Duh, of course there are changes. I mean, I want him to always see me like perfect, so I pay attention to my clothes and I make sure I don’t snort when I laugh like I usually do. Really, it’s a disgusting sound. I can stop it if I really try, but I have to be on top of it. I’ll bet you don’t do disgusting things around Jack.”

  “I hope I don’t do disgusting things around anybody, but I’ve got a few less-than-sterling qualities. I chew my cuticles, especially when I’m driving, and I’m messy—except in here, where I’m super fanatical about order. Oh, and Esme lets me know every single day that I’m a terrible dresser and that I need to do something about my hair, which is always a hot mess.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said, scrutinizing my thatch of auburn hair, which I’d twisted into a bun with a number-two pencil. “It’s totally out of control, but that’s okay. It’s your look.”

  “My point,” I said, “is that I don’t feel the need to act differently around Jack, or change my dress or my hair to suit him, because then I wouldn’t be myself. I’d be tired and nervous all the time trying to keep up the false front.”

  “Maybe it’s different for you; you’re older and I’m sure once you get to be your age you don’t care anymore.”

  “Okay, first off, I’m not shopping around for a rest home just yet, and second, Esme is older than me and believe me, she cares a lot about her appearance. But her getting gussied up isn’t for Detective Carlson or anybody else. She does it for herself. She doesn’t have to do anything apart from being one hundred percent herself to earn his admiration.”

  “That’s kind of like what Chelsea said about Lincoln. I asked her straight out why him. I mean, she’s really pretty. She could have any guy she wants. Lincoln was okay in the looks department, but she could definitely have done better. But she said he was a prize and she felt very lucky.”

  “I think that says a lot about a relationship when both of the people involved think they’ve got the best end of the deal.”

  “Lincoln was really nice,” Emma said, and I glanced up to see that she was close to tears. “But he was a hopeless nerd.”

  “So he was my people,” I said. “No wonder I liked him. I’m a nerd, too.”

  “Well, you don’t have to act like you’re proud of it,” Emma said, sniffling.

  “Oh, but I am. It’s the nerds who change the world.”

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I had a crush on Lincoln,” she said. “When I was younger, I mean. When he first came to work for Grandpa, I tried to kiss him once.”

  “You did?” I asked, trying to sound casual, though the revelation was setting off an alarm that was making my skull rattle.

  “Yeah, I mean I was just a kid and I wanted to try kissing. But he said it wasn’t appropriate. He was really nice about it and I could tell he was trying not to hurt my feelings. He told me never to do anything like that again ’cause some people might get the wrong idea.”

  “He was right about that,” I said.

  “Was he ever!” Emma said. “I get it now, but it wasn’t skeevy or anything. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t even know I was going to try to kiss him and he didn’t kiss me back, he nearly fell out of his chair trying to get away from me. But Damon was always lurking around spying on people and eavesdropping and he saw the whole thing. He freaked out! They had a big fight and Damon threatened to tell Grandpa and get Lincoln fired. I got really mad and marched off and told Grandpa myself. I told him exactly what happened, even though it was so embarrassing. Grandpa said I was right to tell him and that I should never do anything like that again and for me not to worry, that Lincoln wouldn’t be fired.”

  “I’d say you handled that well,” I said, leaning back to study my work again. I was pleased, because it looked good and, more important, because now I could play hooky for a guilt-free dinner with Jack. I glanced at the clock. “I’d better get you back to the hotel soon,” I told Emma. “It’s almost four. Your video chat with your dad is at five, right?”

  “Five thirty. I only have this one little pile left to go, so let me finish up.”

  “I never refuse free labor,” I said, impressed with her diligence. “So did Damon and Lincoln argue a lot?” I asked.

  “Damon argued,” Emma said. “Lincoln mostly just ignored him, especially in front of Grandpa. But I’m sure he got sick of Damon’s crap.”

  “Do you know what they argued about?”

  “What didn’t they argue about,” Emma said with a laugh. ”Damon could not wait for them to finish the book. He was always telling Lincoln that once the book was finished, Grandpa wouldn’t want him around anymore. That he was just hired help. I don’t think that was true, though. I think he and Grandpa would have kept in touch. Okay, that’s it,” she said, placing the last stack of artifacts on the back table and looking over the array. “Everything’s entered. But wait, where’s that blue letter?”

  “Blue letter?” I asked.

  “Well, a blue envelope. There was a letter or something in it,” she said, looking over the table again. “It was in the box of stuff.”

  “I didn’t see any blue envelope,” I told her. “Are you sure?”

  Emma shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong.” She stood for a moment, frowning as she scanned the items again. “No, I’m sure; it was in this box. It fell out of a baby book—Conrad’s, I think, though it didn’t have much writing in it. I remember handing the envelope to Chelsea. It was a letter, I think, pages and pages of spidery handwriting. I don’t know who from or who to, but it was a bunch of pages. Chelsea looked over it, then crammed it back into the envelope without scanning it. I thought it was because it was so many sheets, so I offered to scan it for her but she said she’d do it later and that it wasn’t important, but she acted kind of weird about it. Maybe she forgot to put it back in the box or it wasn’t supposed to be in there in the first place. Who knows.”

  “I’ll ask her about it,” I said. “But if she said it wasn’t important, I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  Yet I was irritated that whatever was in the blue envelope hadn’t been included. I like to personally examine everything I can get my hands on. One never knows where a seemingly insignificant artifact can lead.

  eight

  I DELIVERED EMMA TO HER room and Sarah thanked me for spending time with her. I could see she recognized the girl was feeling ignored, and that made me feel better. Through the opening in the doorway I spotted Sarah’s laptop set up for the video chat with her husband and declined her invitation to come in. I wished them a happy virtual visit and went down the hall to Lenora’s room to drop off the scrapbook.

  I tapped softly, hoping I wasn’t disturbing anyone who might be managing a much-needed nap. Gabriela opened the door a crack and smiled a question at me. I held up the book and explained why I was there.


  “Come in, please,” she said, opening the door wide. “Ms. Lenora is with the senator, and the others are out, but you can leave it right over there.” She motioned toward the desk. Her English was perfect, heavily accented and musical on the ears.

  I placed the book where she’d indicated and turned to find her looking at me expectantly.

  “I’m so sorry your first meeting with the family was amidst all this,” I said.

  “I’m sorry as well,” Gabriela said, “it’s a terrible thing.” She motioned for me to sit and I glanced at the clock. I could stay a few minutes if I met Jack at our favorite eatery.

  “I know Lenora is very happy about your marriage,” I said. “Though I think she’s still in shock.”

  Gabriela laughed. “I think J.D. and I are still in shock, too. We’d agreed to have a long engagement, and I was going to come and meet the family and we’d all have a chance to get to know one another. But then one day we suddenly decided we didn’t want to wait any longer and we got married that very afternoon. I know Ms. Lenora is probably disappointed that we didn’t have a big wedding, but nonetheless she’s been very good to me. And Judith has made me so welcome I feel we are sisters already. I feel close to the family despite this tragedy, or maybe because of it. You can tell a lot about people by how they act in hard circumstances.”