Chapter Seventeen
THOUGH SHE WASN’T remotely hungry, Grace made her way toward the Cascades restaurant and asked for a table. She ordered an iced tea and waited for Walt, just like she had for the last two days.
She wasn’t sure what to do now. She brought out her notebook and scribbled, looking over her shoulder, scanning the crowds milling around the Grand Basin, the gondolas cutting through the canals.
She was admittedly spooked by the man’s warning. But this was proof, wasn’t it? Real proof that Oliver was being framed. That she was on the right track. After all, if they already had the right person, then why would anyone threaten her for looking into it?
She felt a tingle of dread as she returned to her list of suspects. She crossed off Earnest’s name and that of the singer Ethel Adams—they both had alibis, clearly visible in the camera footage when the shadowy figure put something into the drinking glass.
The rest of her list remained frustratingly the same and had even grown. Half of St. Louis’s high society had been there that night.
Then there was the someone who met with Harriet that night at the restaurant and wanted money.
There was still the mysterious woman following Harriet and Oliver.
Who did Harriet meet with in the Tunnels?
And why had Frannie lied about the message?
Grace pressed her pen against the page, watching it bleed ink like a clot. She was coming up with more spidering directions to pursue, not less.
And then, when she turned her head, she saw Walt.
“Walt!” she cried, bursting to her feet.
He was walking with Lillie, who had him clasped by the arm, guiding him toward the restaurant.
Lillie’s tired, lovely face lit up when she saw Grace. I have him, it said. He’s alive, and he’s with me, and he is all right.
Grace rushed to greet them and threw her arms around her brother.
He smelled a little sour and she felt that familiar rush of conflicting emotions.
Joy and sadness and a slight revulsion that made her disappointed in him and in herself.
Anger at him for disappearing again and making her worry.
And then back to joy again, that he was all right.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I was worried about you.” Both were equally true.
He smiled at her, somewhere between charm and shame. “I lost track of time,” he said.
“Come sit,” she said, leading him to the table.
They ordered roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, and iced teas in jewel-tone glasses to cool off from the midday sun. Grace waited until the food had been served and the edge of hunger had waned to broach any real attempts at conversation.
“How are you, Walt?” she said.
“I did what you asked,” Walt said, chewing. “I found a guy who saw Harriet meet with someone that day in the Tunnels.”
“Who was it?” Grace asked, her dashed hopes instantly rising. “A woman or a man?”
“He said it was a man. Listen. I have the source. But he says he won’t talk without…” He trailed off. Shrugged, and took another bite.
Grace’s heart sank. Of course. She glanced at Lillie.
Could she trust that Walt was telling her the truth? Was this merely an addict’s way of twisting the circumstances to manipulate her and get money for a score?
How horrible, the way thoughts themselves turned to snakes when you could no longer fully trust a person.
“How much would he need to talk?” Grace asked. Her voice sounded brittle.
“Five dollars.”
She inhaled sharply. That was a lot.
Was she really about to hand over money to her brother to potentially give to a drug dealer in exchange for information? Or money that could be wasted on something that would only hurt Walt more?
“Will you come and stay with me?” she asked. “I’ve got a clean room and a safe place for you to sleep for the night.”
“I’m good, Gracie,” he said. His voice was gentle, but firm.
She remembered him as a little boy, his heart hammering over hers the night that man had tried to break into their house.
“It’s going to be okay, Gracie,” Walt had whispered fiercely in her ear. “I’ve got you.”
She felt rage and disappointment that he never let her help him, even now, when he needed it so much.
Should she yell, cry, scream? She could hardly force her brother to do anything.
And yet part of her knew she shouldn’t offer the studio without talking to Theodore first. Theodore had given her permission to stay there, not her and Walt.
She thought of the new typewriter Theodore had gifted to her, and how much Walt could sell it for to use for drugs.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
“I’ll give you the money,” she said slowly. “Try and get a detailed description of the person. A name would be even better.” When she placed the money in his hand, she met his eyes. “This is for Oliver,” she said. “This is about Oliver’s life.”
Walt nodded solemnly, his face a shade of gray. He slipped the money in his pocket.
Grace felt uneasy. She didn’t know if she had done the right thing.
“Walt,” Lillie said, folding her napkin.
“Where have you been staying as of late? Are you enjoying the fair?” She asked Walt kind, gentle questions.
He gave straight answers to a few of them.
He was staying with some friends in the Tunnels.
He hadn’t left the fairgrounds for weeks, so that he wouldn’t have to pay the fare to get back in.
He enjoyed the John Philip Sousa band and the artists’ booths, and he was getting enough to eat.
Not the finest food, but it kept him alive, and he didn’t have much of an appetite these days anyway.
In talking to Lillie, there was a flash of his old wit.
Grace had barely touched her lunch, but Lillie ordered them all chocolate ice creams anyway.
The dish sat in front of Grace, melting in the sun, and she poked at it with her spoon, pretending not to be listening too closely.
Lillie talked to Walt about Dr. May, and what she was learning by apprenticing with her.
“You could come in with me sometime,” she said. “I’d love for you to meet her.”
He nodded noncommittally, but he finished the ice cream and then sketched a little drawing on the paper napkin.
It was of Lillie, lounging like she was the woman on the fairgrounds poster, and it had the silhouette of the Ferris wheel behind her.
It had taken him five minutes, and it was extraordinary.
“Thank you for lunch,” he said. He handed the napkin sketch to Lillie, as though it were payment, and Grace wanted to snatch it and keep it for herself. He had so much promise and it brought up so many feelings.
She knew that Walt went through the world constantly feeling too much, that living often felt like a knifepoint pressed against the pad of his thumb. Bringing the blood to the surface, all the time, without relief.
But hadn’t part of him chosen this path he was on, too? And kept choosing it?
“There’s one more thing,” Grace said.
The drawing had reminded her of something.
She pulled out the caricature that she and Theodore had commissioned. Slowly, she unfolded it and showed it to Walt.
“Do you recognize this person? Perhaps while you’re asking around, could you see if anyone knows who this is?”
Lillie caught sight of it as she put a bite of ice cream in her mouth. She said, “That looks like Ms. Lackey! How do you know her?”
Grace’s heart stilled. “You recognize this woman?”
Lillie studied the drawing. “Well, the nose is a little wrong, but otherwise, it looks just like her.”
“Who is this?” Grace asked.
“Our former butler’s daughter. She used to come to the house sometimes when I was growing up and her mother was ill. Mother paid for her schooling. Her name is Vera Lackey.”
Grace turned to her cousin with a mix of dread and excitement. “Lillie, this woman was following Harriet and Oliver. She was spying on Harriet in the days right before her death.”
Lillie went a little pale. She set the spoon down as gently as a whisper.
“Do you know where we could find her?” Grace asked. “I’d like to talk to her.”
“Oh, we’re going to talk to her,” Lillie said, trembling a little. She summoned the waiter for the check. “But we’re going to confront my scheming, meddling mother about it first.”
Grace made plans to meet with Walt again tomorrow, which she knew all too well may or may not actually happen.
She had hugged him for a second longer than was natural, feeling his ribs too keenly beneath his worn suit, the sour smell of sweat, and held on to the scrap of hope that he would come through with the information she had asked for.
She slipped him the address of the studio where she was staying, so at least he would have a way of contacting her.
“Tomorrow,” she said meaningfully, looking into his eyes.
He wiped a bit of ice cream from her cheek.
She still felt the touch of his fingers when Lillie’s carriage moved through the shadow-spackled streets around Forest Park.
The Carters’ brick house loomed as the carriage approached, and along with it rose up Grace’s complicated memories of being there.
She had played hoop and stick with Oliver and Lillie, just there, and eaten creamed lemonade with honey.
Oliver had fallen from the front railing after trying to balance on it like an acrobat and, instead of being comforted, had been scolded for tracking blood in the house.
Now Grace followed Lillie up the front steps, Lillie striding with purpose. Lillie was usually the calmest, gentlest person Grace knew. Which made her the most frightening person imaginable when she was angry.
But they weren’t alone. There was a woman standing at the door, waiting. Her back was to them, as though she had just finished ringing the doorbell.
Grace had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she faintly realized the worn spots on the woman’s coat. The pattern of the bag that was clutched in the woman’s hand. She was out of place on the Carters’ front porch, and yet Grace would recognize her anywhere.