Frenzy

“Michelangelo created it.”

“You’re saying the missing marble bust is what makes their lives meaningful.”

“No, the search for it does. It’s what makes them a real family, with a common cause, common branches if not roots, and a common dream. It’s the glue that holds them tight to each other in a shifting world, and I wouldn’t underestimate its strength.”

“So it doesn’t really matter who’s actually related and who’s pretending. Or who changed their name how many times. Or if Robert Kingdom became Winston Castle so he could open a New York restaurant for Anglophiles.”

Helen nodded. A strand of red hair fell over one green eye. “Not as long as the other family members pretend along with the pretender. If virtually everyone is an imposter, then nobody is. Not in the common adventure they’re living out together.”

“Life is just a dream,” Qui

“Yeah. Not just a song title. For these people, apparently. And maybe for the rest of us, too, only we don’t know it.”

“Helen, Helen . . .”

She smiled, stood up straight, and stretched. If she wore six-inch heels, could she touch the ceiling?

“Sounds like a cult,” Qui

“Like the Manson family.”

“Or the Flintstones, or Simpsons.”

“See,” Helen said. “they’re not real families, either, and look how close they are.”

Qui

There were families and then there were families. Most people knew about the biggest crime family, but there were also plenty of smaller ones. Gang members who went where the other members went, did what they did, ate what they ate. They sometimes referred to themselves as “family.”

“One thing, though,” Qui

Helen flexed her long fingers as if preparing to play a piano. “What’s that?”

“Everything we just agreed on wouldn’t mean diddly to the courts if it came to inheritance law.” Qui

“They’d never sell Bellezza,” Helen said. “Because then the search would be ended.”

“Couldn’t they start a search for something else?”

She smiled. “Dreams don’t work that way.”

“There’s another way dreams don’t work,” Qui

Helen thought about that.

Said, “Don’t kid yourself.”

41

When Helen had left Q&A, Qui

He phoned the Ohio number she’d given him, not knowing if there had been time for her to return home and deliver her daughters to a local mortuary.

The phone in Ohio rang five times, then Ida did pick up.

“Nice to hear from you, Detective Qui

Qui

“Caller ID,” he said.

“So everything up to date isn’t in Kansas City,” she said. “Have you learned anything more about the murders?”

“That’s why I called. You mentioned some envelopes that were in the crate that came from England. Are these letters that might have been taken from Jeanine’s safe?”

“I suppose it’s possible. I don’t know how much they might help you. They might be letters I wrote.”

“You wrote them?”

“Yes. I don’t mean the original letters. The ones that were found with the bricks and straw in the box. They seem to have disappeared years ago. The letters we’re talking about now are my letters, describing what was in the originals. How Henry Tucker and Betsy Douglass met, how love bloomed in the hospital, and then poor Henry’s death from his wounds. Then they tell how a German bomb killed Betsy, but not before she’d shipped the crate to her sister Willa, all the way across the ocean to the United States.” Ida Tucker paused as if to catch her breath. “It must have been horrible, that war.”

“Horrible,” Qui

But he knew how.

The information Ida’s letters contained might reveal something that could lead somewhere interesting. If it was true. Or maybe what was in the letters would simply be a rehash about what was already known: that Henry Tucker was given a marble bust that he passed on to Nurse Betsy Douglass, and that she shipped it from England to her sister, and then was killed in an air raid. Somewhere along the way, the bust, if it ever existed, disappeared.

And how could Qui

No, he told himself. There’s always a truth. Don’t doubt that.

“Detective Qui

“Of course,” Qui

“Oh, that really isn’t necessary. The girls will be buried in the cemetery behind a church they attended. It will be brief. A simple family ceremony.”

“Of course. Family.”

“So if you’ll excuse me . . .”

“Of course. I’m sorry for your loss, dear.”

Ida Tucker thanked him and hung up.

Qui

But Qui

He reminded himself never to forget that.

Still, the rows of crooked tombstones, the trembling lips and reddened eyes, the lugubrious minister gripping his Bible tight to his breast.

The two open graves.

It was a scene firmly lodged in Qui

Life is just a dream . . .

42

Sarasota, 1993

Snowbirds. That’s what native Floridians called the swarms of people who headed to Florida to escape winter up north. They were from everywhere. New York, Mi

Sarasota, because of its charms and beautiful white beach, became more crowded every year. Dwayne Aikin didn’t hate the snowbirds, like some Floridians. On the other hand, he didn’t like them.

Except for the women. So many women. Lounging on the beach, picking at salads in restaurants, laughing in bars and other night spots. The women, talking, shopping. Tempting, many of them.

There was a higher class of woman at Pike’s, on the beach, just off Highway 41, the Tamiami Trail. Pike’s had a driftwood look about it, as if it had weathered the worst of the hurricanes. It was also an art gallery, sometimes showing work by some of Sarasota’s more well known artists, who regarded Sarasota as an art mecca. The paintings here weren’t priced, but deals were made, and for considerable amounts of money.