“Black arts and entertainment, middle class.” When she continued to mime ignorance, I added, “He wrote a piece on Haile Talbot. I thought maybe that was how you met.”

“I don’t know him. Marcus whoever, I mean. And I hardly know Haile Talbot. Just because I did PA stuff for him doesn’t mean I hung out with him when he did media. He had a publicist who took care of that.”

“Then who were you meeting out at Larchmont?”

She bit her lips. “No one. I was there on a dare. You caught me fair and square. Now you can give me my teddy back and go home.”

I shook my head. “No. I know you were there again last night, so even if I was gullible enough to believe-“

“And you say you’re not a stalker?”

I ignored the interruption. “I told you at the get-go that it was me or the cops. Since you won’t talk to me, it’s the cops. You were at the scene of a mysterious death, a crime scene, you fled, they will be incredibly interested in you. The good news is they’ll only talk to you with your parent or guardian present. So-your dad, your mom, your grandparents-which one of them should I explain this to?”

Her eyes darkened with dismay, but, before she could say anything, someone tapped on her door, and immediately opened it. The short dark woman from the photographs swept in, moving across the room to Catherine like the Wabash Cannonball.

CHAPTER 12

The Wabash Cannonball

Gran!” Catherine jumped and looked from her grandmother to me in alarm. “What are you doing home so early?”

Renee Bayard leaned over to kiss Catherine. She was older than in the mantel photos. Her dark hair was now well streaked with gray, but her skin was remarkably smooth and clear under its light foundation. Her red dress, made from a wool so soft I had an impulse to stroke it, looked as though it had been cut to fit her short, square body. A bracelet of ivory mahjongg tiles clacked when she put her arms around her granddaughter.

“I felt tired of the same meetings churning over the same stale material. I want to get to your school tonight for the parents’ meeting on what we can do with all these justice Department efforts to look at student files, so I thought I’d come home first, have a family supper if you’re not already engaged.”

Catherine bounced up from her ottoman. “I hope you make all those wusses take action. So many of them are like Marissa’s dad, yacking on and on about how it’s our duty to cooperate fully, we’re in a war situation, ordinary privacy doesn’t apply. Like it’s never dawned on him what they might find out about his own kid if the school gives them total access to our files. Marissa has-well, never mind. The Feds have been ruthless talking to Leila, since she’s from Pakistan. They figure since she’s Muslim she must have known Benji, but she’s such a snob she’s like totally offended they think she’d even talk to a dishwasher. And Marissa’s dad, well, how would he like to have the FBI in his files? I bet they’d find stuff like Enron if they only started looking.”