Keepsake (17 page)

That is, until the divorce. And the custody battle. And her mother’s death.

He took a bigger swallow of brandy.

Kate had taken it very hard. She’d changed from a carefree, irrepressible child to a puzzling and dreamy adolescent. And all
the rules had changed as well, because she was suddenly too old to roll around on the living room floor and scathingly disinterested
in toys, games, and amusement parks.

She’d seemed to get along with Rina, though. And Rina, who had never struck him as the type who would be the least bit interested
in budding adolescents, had turned out to be wonderful with Kate.

Now she was dead, as well.

And once again, Kate was grieving.

He took the last sip of brandy to fortify himself and went upstairs to her room.

He found her hunched over her desk, furiously typing on a laptop computer. “Hey.”

She slammed the top down and rested her elbows upon it. “Don’t you know?”

For an instant Christian was reminded of his former wife. Miranda closing doors, shutting him out, seeking privacy to communicate
with what he later discovered was a series of lovers. And not even ordinary lovers—no, the leather-and-chain variety. Christ!
What a poisonous relationship they had had.

“What are you writing? A homework assignment?”

She glared at him and didn’t answer. Her diary, he thought. Did she keep a diary? What would it reveal about her, he wondered,
if he confiscated it and read it?

“I’ve been giving some thought to your suggestion about April Harrington. If you’d like to invite her over to dinner on Saturday,
you can. Daisy’s not coming until Sunday.”

Kate’s expression brightened immediately, reminding him that it really didn’t take much to please her. He would have to remember
that. It wasn’t as if she was a naturally difficult child.

“Can I invite her to the Met first, in the afternoon?”

“If you like. But you and she will have to do that alone. I’m planning to work on Saturday afternoon.”

“Okay. You don’t like being dragged around the museum anyhow.”

Hiking through a crowded art museum was certainly not his favorite leisure activity. “Kate, I want to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you like Daisy?”

She made a face. “I told you. She’s a phony. I hate people like that.”

“What exactly do you mean—a phony? Daisy’s a very warm and charming lady. Most people would say she’s engagingly genuine,
very much herself. In fact, if she can’t get elected it’ll probably be because she says what
she thinks a little more often than she ought to. Politicians are supposed to say what everybody wants them to say, and Daisy
doesn’t do that.”

“Are you in love with her?” Kate demanded.

“This isn’t about my feelings, I’m asking about yours. I want to know why you persist in this irrational notion that Daisy
Tulane is a phony.”

“It’s not irrational. You always say I’m irrational when you don’t agree with me. You used to say that to Mommy, too!”

Great, he thought. This wasn’t helping.

But Kate plunged on: “She’s a phony because she’s not what she pretends to be. She’s supposedly so sweet, so nice. She even
goes to church on Sunday.”

“So what’s wrong with that? People do go to church, you know. Most Americans do, in fact. And many of the ones who don’t still
believe in God anyway.” He felt a little over his head. One responsibility Miranda hadn’t undertaken was to provide their
daughter with some sort of religious education. At twelve, Kate was old enough to be confirmed. But he wasn’t even sure she’d
been baptized.

“I thought if you went to church you had to be a good person, without sin.”

“Daisy is a good person.”

Kate gave a short laugh. “But is she without sin?”

He cleared his throat. Without sin? “Are you upset because she and I are having a relationship?”

“Oh, Daddy, please. I don’t care who you go out with! And I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”

This wasn’t working, Christian thought. He seemed to have lost whatever good will he’d created by telling her she could invite
April Harrington to dinner. He decided to revert to that subject.

“I’ll speak to April and invite her for this Saturday
evening. I’ll tell her about the art museum as well, and if she’s interested you and she can talk to each other and set it
up.”

“Okay,” Kate said.

“Finish your homework.”

“I will.”

When her father left the room, Kate opened her file to the page where she’d left off. She considered for a moment, then wrote,
“I almost told my father what I know about Daisy Tulane. But I can’t prove it and she’ll deny it and no one will ever believe
me, anyhow.”

“I love this place,” Kate said to April as they put on their colored buttons and ascended the Grand Staircase to the second
floor of the Metropolitan Museum. “It’s got all sorts of neat stuff. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it before.”

“Well, I’ve never spent very much time in New York.”

“Have you ever been to, you know, all the touristy places like the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center and the Empire
State Building and all?”

“Nope. Someday you’ll have to take me to see them.”

“Okay. That’ll be fun.”

She’s so pretty and stylish, Kate was thinking, staring openly at April, who was dressed casually in white china pants and
a buttercup yellow blouse with a gold and white polka dot scarf around her neck. She had on white sandals that looked comfy
yet showed her small feet, the toenails painted with the same salmon polish she wore on her fingernails. Her long auburn hair
was loose today on her
shoulders. The first time they’d met she’d worn it up in a French twist.

April had one of those perfect oval faces like the models in the fashion magazines. Her nose was straight (unlike Kate’s,
which curved up at the tip in what she thought was a ditzy manner) and her lips were full and juicy-looking (Kate’s were thin—she
hated them). She had these light, clear blue eyes with a tiny rim of dark cornflower around the outside of the irises. Kate
wished she could trade her own muddy hazel eyes for April’s perfect blue ones.

She’s so pretty, in fact, that I ought to hate her, Kate thought. But instead she’d liked her from the start.

“So what do you want to see—pictures, sculpture, ancient ruins, Western art, Eastern art, furniture and china— what do you
like best? They’ve got some unusual collections here, too—things you don’t see in other art museums like suits of armor and
neat old musical instruments. I know where everything is, so you can, you know, like, take your pick.”

“I’m interested in all of it. So why don’t you show me your favorite places in the museum? If I see something I particularly
want to stop for, I’ll let you know. You can be my tour guide, okay?”

“Okay.” Kate quickly reviewed what she thought were the most important facts. She loved the museum—not only had she visited
it countless times, she’d explored every corner and just about memorized every room. She’d also read a lot of books about
its history, and most of the guards knew her because she was always asking them questions. She wasn’t sure why she was so
fond of the place—she liked it even better than the public library, which seemed odd because she loved books. Maybe she
was a reincarnated curator from the turn of the century of something.

“The Met’s huge—it covers four city blocks from Eightieth to Eighty-Fourth Street. Like, think about it—a building that’s
four whole blocks long.”

“What I’m thinking is that this is a good way to get some exercise,” April said with a grin.

“Nah,” said Kate. “You want exercise, come rollerblading with me in Central Park.” She laughed at the thought of teaching
an adult to rollerblade. When she’d tried to teach Dad, he’d cursed and sworn and moved stiffleggedly and slowly and finally
fallen right on his butt.

“’Course I’ll leave you in my dust, but if you’re nice to me I’ll come back for you.”

“Listen, kid, I used to rollerblade in Boston. I’ve just bought a fine new pair of skates and I’m ready to take you on any
time you’re ready. Ten bucks says I’ll leave you in
my
dust.”

Wow, Kate thought, April was even cooler than she’d thought. “It’s a deal!”

Kate took her first to the European paintings, especially the Impressionists, because that was usually what everybody wanted
to see. Then they did the musical instruments and the Asian art, and then Kate took her to one of her favorite places, the
Chinese Garden Court.

“It’s so peaceful here,” April said as she took in the beauty of the artfully arranged rocks and trees and curving roof of
the Chinese pagoda.

“I like to sit down on the floor here and listen to the sound of the trickling water,” Kate said in a whisper. “Like when
stuff’s really worrying me, this is a nice place to be.”

“What kind of stuff bothers you, Kate?”

She shrugged. “Oh, you know. The usual.”

April took her hand as they peered at the fish in the rock-ringed pool. “Is anything bothering you right now?”

Kate found herself remembering a moment just a few months ago when she had brought Gran here. She and Gran had sat in the
same spot, watching the fish, listening to the tinkle of water playing on stone.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to squeeze them back, but more kept coming and soon they were spilling down her cheeks.
Trembling, she brought up her free arm and wiped her face on her sleeve.

April took her promptly into her arms and hugged her. This made Kate cry all the harder. Not even Gran would have done that.
Gran would have pretended not to notice, or maybe patted her awkwardly. As for Daddy, he’d have gotten embarrassed and not
known what to do.

April just held her, and stroked her hair, and let her cry. The last person who’d done that, Kate remembered, had been Mom.
It was so unfair! At least Gran had lived to be kinda old, but Mom hadn’t even…

Don’t think of that, don’t think of that, don’t think of that. Kate struggled to get control of herself. Thinking about Mom
was pointless. Besides, she didn’t want April to think she was a crybaby, even if she was understanding and nice.

“I hate to cry,” she muttered.

“Don’t hate it,” April said gently. “Crying is good. Crying relieves the pain in the heart, the pressure on the soul. Never
be ashamed of feeling your emotions.”

“I don’t mind feeling them, I just don’t want to show them!”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other. I believe that people who try very hard not to show them eventually lose
the capacity to feel.”

“I think my father’s like that,” Kate blurted out.

“Lots of people are like that, unfortunately.”

“Gran was kinda like that,” Kate said, thoughtfully now. “It was different with her, though.”

“What do you mean? Different in what way?”

Gran, she reminded herself, had been April’s mother. She tried to imagine what it must have been like to be abandoned by your
mother. She sorta knew, because Mom had died and left her forever. But she hadn’t done it deliberately.

“I think she was, like, trying to feel her emotions, you know? Like maybe she hadn’t let herself do that for a while. So it
was hard. But she did try.”

April was staring at her as if she were saying something clever or witty or something. “You and Rina got along very well,
didn’t you?”

Kate nodded.

“You must miss her.”

Kate clenched her fists. “I want to find the guy who killed her and watch him fry.”

“What a bloodthirsty kid. That’s what comes of letting you watch action movies and MTV, I suppose?”

Kate nodded vigorously. “You got it, lady.”

They watched a framing exhibition in one of the lecture halls, then went downstairs to see the Egyptian art, and Kate led
April with a certain amount of fanfare into the huge area dedicated to the Temple of Dendur. “Isn’t this cool?” she said as
they explored the inside of the massive stone structure. “It used to stand on the banks of the Nile, but it got moved here
after some dam was built that would have flooded it. The museum built a whole new wing because they didn’t have a place to
put it.”

“Usually I hate it when they move antiquities from their country of origin,” April said. “But if it would otherwise have been
destroyed, I guess it’s okay.”

After exploring the temple they sat on a stone bench opposite it and rested while watching other people go into it for a while.
“I mean it, you know,” Kate said.

April brushed her hair back from her face and stared into her eyes. “Mean what?”

“I want to help find Gran’s murderer. I want to know who did it, and why.”

She waited for April to say one of the usual grown-up things, like, “That’s a matter for the police,” or “Twelve-year-old
girls don’t solve crimes.” But as usual, April didn’t act like the typical sort of grown-up that Kate was used to. Instead,
she nodded and said, “Who do you think may have done it?”

“I think it was one of her clients,” Kate said promptly.

“Why do you think that?”

Kate hesitated. Then she said, “They used to tell her things. You know, because she helped them sort out their problems? Some
people had, I guess, done things, like in the past, you know? Bad things.”

“What sort of bad things?”

Kate was feeling uncomfortable. She wasn’t supposed to know this stuff. Next April would want to know how she knew it. “Well
some of them used to be alcoholics and drug-abusers, and their addictions were preventing them from seizing their personal
power. Gran had to help them get through the blockage caused by the pressures from their pasts.”

“Did she talk to you about her methods for helping people?” April asked.

“Yes, she talked to me a lot. And—well—I was around a lot, you know.” She hesitated. “Sometimes I overheard stuff. You know,
by accident.”

Yeah, and sometimes I put a glass up against the wall and listened on purpose,

“Kate, is there anything you heard that you ought to tell the police about?”