Painted Ladies

53

Her eyes had filled with tears. I handed her a box of Kleenex and took her coffee cup and poured her some fresh coffee. I looked at my watch; it was two in the afternoon. Late enough in the day. I took a bottle of Irish whiskey from a drawer in my file cabinet and held it up. She stared blankly at it for a moment, then nodded. I poured some into the coffee and gave her back her cup.

“You had the baby alone,” I said.

She sipped her enhanced coffee.

“Yes,” she said. “I obviously couldn’t let the Bureau know what was going on. So I took a leave. My doctor, a lovely woman named Martha Weidhaus, contrived me a medical reason. I had the baby, hired a nanny, and went back to work.”

“Pressed for money?” I said.

“Of course,” she said. “Ariel would occasionally send some, for which I was grateful. But I could never count on it.”

“Did you see him?”

“No. After I got pregnant he disappeared.”

“What does Missy know about him?” I said.

“I told her he was dead,” Winifred said. “And she bought that, though she still wanted to know about him, what his name was, what he was like, what he worked at, how we had met. I created quite an admirable fictional character over the years.”

“Anyone ask you about that case you had in Chicago?”

“Often,” Winifred said. “It kept poking at me with its nose. Like a dog at suppertime. It’s one of the reasons I left, and took this job.”

“Plus better pay,” I said. “And no heavy lifting.”

She nodded.

“Missy is seeing Ariel. Does she know who he is?”

“Yes,” Winifred said. “He showed up one day when she was sixteen and introduced himself.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“It wasn’t the way to do it,” she said. “And I don’t know how much damage it did. But Ariel always wanted what he wanted and didn’t think much about damage... to others. She got a little hysterical at me for lying to her, at him for not being there, but he talked to her, and I watched her fall in love with him the way I did.”

“Why did he show up?”

“I don’t know,” Winifred said. “I never knew why he sent us money when he did. I never know why he does what he does. But I am almost certain it is finally in his own best interest, not someone else’s.”

“He hang around for a while?” I said.

“Yes, still does. He and I have not taken up again. I’m older and wiser. But he sees Missy regularly. I have warned her about him. But she is... She is infatuated with him... like I was. She wanted to be an art major. And she wanted to go to Walford. He got her in. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I have a friend there.’”

“Ashton Prince,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What do they do together?” I said.

She shook her head and drank some coffee.

“I don’t know,” she said. “They don’t... They exclude me.”

“That’ll fix you,” I said.

“For telling her he was dead?”

“Yeah.”

“I was trying to protect her,” Winifred said. “He’s not cruel, or even mean. But he’s entirely interested in himself, and what he wants.”

“Well,” I said. “I’m going to solve that problem for you.”

“You have enough evidence?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“But you will,” Winifred said.

“Sooner or later,” I said.

She stared at me for a while and nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “You will.”

She handed me her cup.

“Don’t bother with the coffee,” she said.

I poured some whiskey in the cup and gave it back to her. She sipped some.

“I’ll be as kind as I can be,” I said. “If she’s involved, I’ll try to keep her, and you, out of it.”

“Oh, God,” Winifred said. “It will kill her. I don’t know what to hope for.”

“It’s well beyond hope,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and sipped again. “If I were outside looking in, which I’m not, I wish I were — if I were outside, I’d think this was very interesting.”

“Because?” I said.

“Because you’re as implacable as he is,” she said. “Be interesting to see who wins.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m interested in that, too.”