Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [196]
They drove south of the city to the little clifftop graveyard and she showed Annie the carefully tended plot with Josh’s name on it, while she told her the Mandarin’s story of how he had taken him from Sammy and tried to help him, but it had been too late. And why he had not let them see Josh before he died.
Annie’s face was sad but she shed no tears. “I’m glad,” she said simply. “I couldn’t have borne to see him like that. He was right, we had done our mourning and it was time for life again.”
They sat side by side, warmed by a faltering sun, gazing out to sea remembering Josh, and as they left she said, “It’s a grand place, Francie. Josh would have loved it.”
The Extra was being called by every newsboy on the streets when they drove back through San Francisco late that afternoon. “What did they say?” Annie gasped, rolling down her window the better to hear. Francie shook her head, it was rush hour, the streets were crowded, and she was concentrating on her driving.
“Harry Harrison Dead in Blaze,” the newsboy yelled, running alongside the traffic and thrusting a copy of the Chronicle at them as Annie handed over a coin.
Francie swerved to a halt at the curb. Her stunned eyes met Annie’s and she said, “Can it be true?”
“It’s true all right.” Annie shook open the newspaper and they bent their heads over it together, reading how Harry Harrison had died in the blaze that had gutted his house the previous night.
Francie shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she said, wonderingly. “The same way Ollie died. Surely it’s God’s vengeance.”
“If Harry really was responsible for Ollie’s death, then it’s vengeance of some sort,” Annie agreed. She glanced anxiously at Francie, who looked pale and strangely calm. “Are you all right, love?”
Francie sighed deeply. She patted Annie’s hand and said, “All these years since Ollie died I’ve wanted to kill Harry, and now he’s dead. It’s all been wiped out in a single night, Annie. It’s like a gift, but it’s not one that brings happiness.”
She dropped Annie off at the hotel and then drove back home, turning her head to look at the house that had become Harry’s tomb, just the way it had for his father. The ruins were cordoned off and half a dozen police officers stood guard, watched by a curious crowd of onlookers as well as a coterie of newspaper reporters and photographers. Their faces turned to look as she drove by and Francie nervously decided to use the servants’ entrance around the back.
She called hello to Ah Fong and the Chinese cook on her way through the kitchen and they told her the reporters had been hanging around all day, waiting for her. She went to her small sitting room, walked to the window and stood looking at the activity across the road. She wasn’t glad Harry was dead; she wasn’t anything. Just tired.
She flung herself into a chair and kicked off her shoes, rereading the newspaper article. “An autopsy is being carried out, but a forensic report has already established beyond doubt that the remains are those of Mr. Harrison.”
She flung the newspaper from her and leaned her head on the cushions, her eyes closed. Harry was dead and Buck had gone back to his own life, and she would go back to hers. Tomorrow she would ride her acres with Lysandra and tend her vines and chatter to Hattie as though nothing had happened. And that’s the way it would be from now on.
She tossed and turned all night, it was impossible to sleep, there was just too much on her mind, Josh and Buck and Harry, and she was up and bathed and dressed by seven. She walked wearily downstairs to the morning room. The table was set for her solitary breakfast and the morning paper lay folded by her plate. She poured herself some coffee and opened it up and read the headlines about Harry again. Only this time they said “HARRY HARRISON MURDER.”
With her stomach churning, she read. “Though his body had been almost totally destroyed in the fire, the autopsy had been able to ascertain that Mr. Harrison