Chapter Twelve Ana #2
Questioning followed, the missing dress, the search of the locker, the blood found on the skates. How Jolene, who was still in town after the holidays, tracked me down in Aspen, and I came the same day. Shannon called Artis. He was one of the few criminal lawyers in town.
Shannon listens, riveted like she’s watching a true crime show.
“I remember seeing her at dinner. She’d changed out of the dress—the blue one with the butterflies—remember it, Ana? I still have mine after all these years.”
I tell her that I do remember. But mine is long gone.
Shannon shrugs. “She couldn’t find it when the police asked her. It was all so horrible,” she says. “That’s when I called Artis.”
“Right,” I say. And now I wonder—“How did you know him?”
Shannon laughs. “Grace isn’t the first of my kids to get into trouble.”
My kids, I think. Edie never would have called us that.
Artis chimes in. “I talk to the skaters every season. Tell them how to stay out of trouble. What to do if they get pulled over. If they’re caught buying weed, using a fake ID at the liquor store. I do the same for the private school in Colorado Springs.”
I get it now. “And they put your number on speed dial?”
Artis laughs. “Something like that.”
And I think about what he said earlier—how he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for The Palace.
Shannon exhales a heavy sigh. “Artis said you wanted to talk about that video? And about Grace—her . . . personality?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Shannon takes a beat, like she doesn’t want to tell us.
But then, suddenly, she does. “Look. I love Grace like my own child. She’s not like that.
And Tammy—well, that had been coming for a long time.
They were rivals on the ice, living together here.
Then Grace made it to Nationals and Tammy didn’t.
It came down to the triple Axel, like it always does—even when we were skating, right, Ana? ”
“I remember,” I tell her, and for a second I think she’s going to talk about Indy. But she doesn’t. Maybe she knows better. Maybe she can feel the embers still smoldering inside me.
“Only now, several girls have it. They just don’t always land them when they need to. And that’s what happened at Midwesterns. Tammy fell and Grace didn’t.”
“But that day, and that night,” Artis asks. “Why did it suddenly come to blows?”
“And why did you call Emile?” I add.
Shannon shakes her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“Why don’t you let us decide?” Artis leans forward, hands in a prayer.
“California—you know about that, right?”
“What about California?” Artis asks.
“You really don’t know? My God—Emile was planning to move some of the top skaters there. He was hired to take over a program in San Diego. The place is already set up, training top skaters from around the world, but they’re about to lose their head coach, Eduardo Patteli—you know him, right, Ana?”
I did. Eduardo Patteli was one of Dawn’s rivals. He’d been around forever.
“Emile was stepping in to replace him.”
“Ah,” I say as it all comes together. “Was he taking one girl and not the other?”
“Yes—but probably not what you’re thinking. Grace, right? Because she made it to Nationals?”
She’s right. This is what I’m assuming.
Shannon smiles. “Nope. He was taking Tammy. Go figure.”
And now I think about the house up the hill, the guest cottage I could walk to from here. The night Emile joined us for dinner, and everything that followed. Emile always had his own agenda.
“Maybe he knew Grace would never leave. She was in deep with Dawn and Gerard,” she says, referring to Dr. Westin with disparaging intonation.
“Was she in deeper than the others?” Artis asks, reading my mind.
Shannon looks at me. “You remember what it was like, right, Ana? How Dawn had her favorites?”
The secret dinners at her house. Emile in her guest house. Yes, I remember.
“Anyway,” she continues, “Emile was trying to keep it under wraps. He didn’t want Dawn to have time to change anyone’s mind about leaving.”
“Did you see the fight?” I want to get back to Grace and Emile.
“I got there right after Grace slapped the phone away. That’s when Tammy said, ‘Ask Emile—he knows the truth,’ or something like that.”
Artis looks surprised. “So that’s why you called Emile to get Grace?”
“No—Grace demanded it. She said she had to see Emile. After the fight, she broke down crying. I brought her here, to my apartment. Closed the door. She just fell into my arms and sobbed, asking for him over and over.”
This was all making sense until right now. “Why was she so upset?”
Shannon looks at me like I’m the one who should know the answer.
“She was an Orphan. And the only one. I knew what it was like for her. Because of—well, you and the others when we were skaters together. She had trouble regulating her emotions. Tears to temper tantrums. I tried to help her. It’s—well, to be honest. It hasn’t been easy. ”
I think now that this was always her nature. Shannon tried to be friends with us, but we didn’t trust her. Her mother was dangerous.
“Were they that close?” I ask now. “Emile and Grace?”
Shannon shakes her head. “No—I mean—all the skaters loved Emile. He’s older now—so it’s different. The girls don’t have crushes on him the way they used to. But you remember—he was the antidote to Dawn. Still—Grace would never have left The Palace for him.”
“Well,” Artis says. “This just opened up a whole can of worms—and by ‘worms’ I mean suspects.” He smiles like a little boy, and I have a flash of him dissecting that frog in eighth grade. “Dawn would have been beside herself if she knew.”
Shannon leans back, crosses her arms. “Damn straight. Trying to steal her students? That’s a declaration of war in our world.”
I think about how Emile used to live in Dawn’s guest cottage. She had ruined him and then saved him. At least, that’s how he saw it. I wonder how she felt about their relationship. If this betrayal would have been a knife in the back.
“So you think that’s what Grace wanted to hear from Emile? The truth about him leaving and not taking her with him?”
“That’s all I can think. Look—Emile was very paternal with her. Maybe she was triggered by his leaving—because of what happened to her back home.”
Jolene had told me about Grace’s stepfather leaving them. She framed it around the skating—like that was her only concern when it happened. She made it sound like her husband and Grace weren’t close enough for Grace to care.
“Do you have any of her medical or school records?” I ask now. “I remember Edie getting them when I lived here.”
Shannon nods. “The police already requested them. But I told them to come back with a warrant, right, Artis?”
“It’ll take a few days, but they’ll get one.”
“Can I see them?” I ask. Shannon nods, then walks to a small file cabinet hidden beneath a tablecloth. A vase with flowers sits on top of it like it’s an end table. She pulls a file and gives it to me.
“You can take it,” she says. “It belongs to Grace, and you’re her lawyer now.”
I take the file. Artis stands to leave, and I do the same.
“Thanks for your help, Shannon,” I say. “And for being so kind to Grace.”
She lets out a small laugh. “Well, like I said. She’s one of my kids.”
When we get to the end of the hallway, to the front door, Shannon stops. Looking at the ground as she shakes her head.
“The way he was killed,” she says. “With the heel of a blade . . . it made me think.”
The current runs down my arms.
“What about it?” I ask, remembering Indy and the story she told us. How we laughed about the image—me turning into a zombie and chasing Dawn. Shannon couldn’t possibly know about that.
She scrunches her whole face together like what she’s about to tell us is incendiary.
“Kayla Johnson,” she says, out of nowhere. “Do you remember her? Why she was asked to leave?”
Artis looks puzzled, his head swinging between the two of us.
“What does Kayla have to do with any of this?”
“She still lives in Pueblo. That’s just an hour from here,” Shannon says.
Artis is perfectly still like he’s making more calculations, adding suspects to the list. Suddenly I wonder if he’s already placed me and Jolene there.
If Westin put the idea in his head. I begin to wonder if my trust in him is misplaced, a fellow lawyer, dissecting the facts, speaking the same language.
I can hear the ghosts coming down the stairs from the room on the second floor, all the way in the back. Down the stairs and the hall until they stand right outside the door. Shannon knows something about why Kayla left. Something I don’t.
“Why don’t you tell me, Shannon,” I say. “Tell me what you know about Kayla Johnson.”