Suzze’s voice: “I’m so damned happy.”
This, he thought, looking at the mothers, should have been Suzze’s life. It would have been. It was what Suzze wanted. People do dumb things. They throw away happiness as though it were a soiled napkin. That could have been what happened here—Suzze, so close to true joy, messed it up as was her wont.
He looked through the parlor’s front window and watched the little girls pull away from their mothers and greet one another with squeals and hugs. The parlor was a swirl of colors and movement. The mothers moved to the corner with the coffee urn. Myron again tried to picture Suzze here, where she belonged, when he noticed a man standing behind the counter, staring at him. The man was older, midsixties, with the middle-management belly spread and citation-worthy comb-over. He stared at Myron through glasses that were a touch too fashionable, like something a hip urban architect might sport, and he kept pushing them back up his nose.
The manager, Myron figured. Probably always looking out the window like this, guarding the grounds, a busybody. Perfect. Myron approached the door with Suzze T’s picture at the ready. By the time he got to the door, the man was already there, holding it open.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
Myron held up the picture. The man looked at the photograph and his eyes closed.
“Have you seen this woman?” Myron asked.
His voice seemed very far away. “I spoke to her yesterday.”
This guy did not look like a drug dealer. “What about?”
The man swallowed, started to turn away. “My daughter,” he said. “She wanted to know about my daughter.”
“Follow me,” the man said.
They walked past the ice cream counter. The woman working behind it was in a wheelchair. She had a great big smile and was telling a customer about the oddly named ice cream flavors and all the possible ingredients you could mix into them. Myron glanced to his left. The party was in full swing. The girls were taking turns mixing and mashing ice cream in order to create their own flavors. Two high school-age girls helped with the heavy scooping while another mixed in Reese’s Pieces, cookie dough, Oreos, sprinkles, Gummi Bears, nuts, chocolate chips, even granola.
“Do you like ice cream?” the man asked.
Myron spread his hands. “Who doesn’t like ice cream?”
“Not many people, knock wood.” The man rapped a Formica tabletop with his knuckles as they passed. “What flavor can I get you?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Kimberly?”
The woman in the wheelchair looked up.
“Make our guest here the SnowCap Melter.”
“Sure thing.”
The store was blanketed with the SnowCap ice cream logo. That should have given it to him. SnowCap. Snow. Myron took another look at the man’s face. The fifteen years had been neither a friend nor an enemy to the man—normal aging—but now Myron started to put it together.
“You’re Karl Snow,” Myron said. “Alista’s father.”
“Are you a cop?” he asked Myron.
Myron hesitated.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing to say.”
Myron decided to give him a push. “Are you going to help cover up another murder?”
Myron expected shock or outrage, but instead he got a firm headshake. “I read the papers. Suzze T died of an overdose.”
Maybe a bigger push: “Right, and your daughter just fell out a window.”
Myron regretted the words the moment they escaped his lips. Too much too soon. He waited for the eruption. It didn’t come. Karl Snow’s face sagged. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me who you are.”
Myron sat facing Karl Snow and introduced himself. Behind Snow, Lauren’s birthday party was growing happily rowdy. Myron thought about the obvious juxtaposition—a girl’s birthday party being hosted by a man who lost his own—but then he let it go.
“The news said she overdosed,” Karl Snow said. “Is that true?”
“I’m not sure,” Myron said. “That’s why I’m looking into it.”
“I don’t get it. Why you? Why not the police?”
“Could you just tell me why she was here?”
Karl Snow leaned back, pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Let me ask you something before we get into this. Do you have any evidence at all that Suzze T was murdered—yes or no?”
“For one thing,” Myron said, “there’s the fact that she was eight months pregnant and looking forward to starting a family.”
He did not look impressed. “That doesn’t sound like much evidence.”
“It’s not,” Myron said. “But here’s what I do know for certain. Suzze drove out here yesterday. She talked to you. A few hours later, she was dead.”
He glanced behind him. The young woman in the wheelchair started toward them with an ice cream monstrosity. Myron started to get up to help, but Karl Snow shook his head. Myron stayed where he was.
“One SnowCap Melter,” the woman said, putting it in front of Myron. “Enjoy.”
The Melter would have trouble fitting in the trunk of a car. Myron half expected the table to tilt over. “This is for one person?” Myron asked.
“Yep,” she said.
He looked at her. “Does it come with angioplasty or maybe a shot of insulin?”
She rolled her eyes. “Golly, I’ve never heard that one before.”
Karl Snow said, “Mr. Bolitar, meet my daughter Kimberly.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kimberly said, awarding him with the kind of smile that makes the cynical think about the celestial. They chatted for a minute or two—she was the store manager, Karl just owned the place—and then she wheeled herself back behind the counter.
Karl was still watching his daughter when he said, “She was twelve when Alista . . .” He stopped, as though not sure what word to use. “Their mother died two years earlier from breast cancer. I didn’t handle it well. I started drinking too much. Kimberly was born with CP. She needed constant care. I guess that Alista, well, I guess she slipped through the cracks.”
As if on cue, a big laugh exploded from the party behind him. Myron glanced over at Lauren, the birthday girl. She too was smiling, a ring of chocolate around her mouth.
“I have no interest in hurting you or your daughter,” Myron said.
“If I talk to you now,” he said slowly, “I need you to promise me I won’t see you again. I can’t have the media back in our lives.”