Desmond shook his head. “She’s in an old-age home in Florida, with advanced Alzheimer’s. I talked with her on the phone once, but she was fairly incoherent. The last time I talked with Anderton’s daughter, she said her aunt only has a few more months.”

“Maybe she’s covering up. Maybe she’s afraid Margo will tell you something truly unflattering about Pauline.”

“No, I believed her. The daughter’s pretty straightforward. Lorna’s like her mother in that.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“You’re the executive producer. If we’ve got the money, I think we should go down to Florida and interview Lorna relatively soon. She might be able to clear some of this up. It would be good to get some shots of her collection of Anderton memorabilia.”

Their money. She shouldn’t have told Desmond the station was coming through with the seed money until they actually did, but at the time, she was so certain they would, it hadn’t seemed to matter. Given how long it was taking David Trask to come back with an answer, she’d started to wonder. Dale had already made it clear he’d be happy to invest, so she’d take him up on his offer. He was rolling in dough these days. His income and net worth had probably quadrupled since Massachusetts had chucked out rent control and handed a blank check to landlords and real estate developers. He might as well throw some of it at the arts. If she really tried, she could probably get him to set up a foundation of some kind. A very small one. She’d ask him for ten thousand, which ought to be more than enough to get the two of them plus their camera crew down to Florida.

“When would we go?” she asked.

“That would depend on Lorna’s schedule, but hopefully before Thanksgiving. I’ll talk to her. We can set a date and make the reservations.”

Jane rattled the box of matches. “Good,” she said. “I could use a vacation.”

Seventeen

The Piano Lesson

1.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do about the baby’s bedroom?” Desmond asked.

There was a long silence from the other end of the line, and then Brian said, “I’m still mulling it over.”

“It’s getting a little late, isn’t it? I thought the baby was due—”

“Any day now. That’s true. I can put something together quickly. I did most of the work on my apartment myself, all in the course of a couple of weeks, so it won’t be a problem.”