Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

glanced at the photo I’d put on the bed next to me, at Samuel, in what I’d thought were rabbit ears, perhaps doing Easter songs with the kids. Then I poured a cup of tea for myself, taking a sip and reaching out for the necklace.
    “It is hers, Mrs. Dietrich’s,” I said. “Rather, it was.”
    “But how did—”
    “Harry gave it to her.”
    “I don’t—”
    “They were in love, Molly. They were married.” I watched her doughy cheeks flush and tremble, saw the disbelief in her eyes.
    “Venus and Mr. Dietrich.”
    I nodded. If Venus thought it was Molly who might be listening when she was on the phone, well, unless she’d studied at the Actors Studio, I’d say it wasn’t.
    “But I don’t understand.”
    “There’s a lot going on here that’s hard to understand,
    Molly- The fact that two lonely people with the same devotion fell in love is the easiest thing to comprehend. Why he’s dead and she’s in the hospital, that’s another story.”
    “But—”
    “Here’s the question that I believe you could answer best, Molly. I found the necklace in David’s hand last night. He was holding it in his sleep.”
    “David?”
    I nodded.
    I could see Molly struggling with all the new information.
    “Nathan says David is the one who hit Venus, that he’s been violent before. Venus also told me that he gets violent sometimes. In fact, she said that if he made me uncomfortable, I didn’t have to work with him.”
    “But he’s never hurt anyone intentionally. With the exception of himself, that is.” Molly picked up her cup and drank some tea. “He’s pushed people, who’ve then fallen. But it was only to defend himself from what he thought was danger. Not too many people can understand how easily he goes on overload, how frightened he is most all of the time. I suppose he could have pushed Venus,” she said, as much to herself as to me. Then she looked me right in the eye. “No— impossible.”
    “Why?”
    “Because Venus knew him better than anyone. She’d never go that route with him.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “She’d never pressure him. It’s when he’s pressed that he reacts.”
    “Like when he was questioned by the police?”
    “Exactly. And who did he hurt? The officer? No—himself.”
    “So he’s never attacked anyone.”
    Molly shook her head.
    “Then how do you explain the fact that he had this?” I held up the necklace.
    “Well, I can tell why he’d want it, but not how he got it.“
    “Go on.”
    “It’s the sparkle. That’s why he stands at the front door all day, looking up. It’s the stained glass he loves, the way the light comes through the colored glass. It seems to mesmerize him. Perhaps it gives him a way to block out all the rest, the jumble that makes no sense to him.
    “All of them, those with autism, they create rituals, patterns of behavior that give them a little peace. For David, it’s watching the light dance. That’s what works for him. That, and the dog.”
    “You mean Lady?”
    “Yes. She helped, too. She was the best thing that ever happened in that man’s life.”
    “So you don’t think David would have struck Venus? Not even to get the necklace?”
    “No, Rachel, I don’t.”
    “Would he have taken it from her after she was hit, when she was lying on the ground?”
    “The catch looks broken. Pulled apart.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Then your answer is no. He wouldn’t have pulled it from her neck like that. But if he saw it on the rug, if the light hit it and made it shine, then he would have picked it up and taken it, yes.”
    “Nathan didn’t tell you it was David?”
    “No, he didn’t. He said she’d fallen. He’d know better than to tell me a story like that.”
    I nodded. The story had been for my benefit. What did that mean? Was it part of the policy of protection? If so, and it wasn’t David who’d hit Venus, then who was Nathan protecting?
    I reached behind me for the picture of Samuel in his rabbit ears.
    “He made those himself,” Molly said. “Anything to make the music sound better.”
    Easter songs, I’d thought. Rabbit ears. So they were headphones with antennae sticking up from each ear. That’s what the artist had drawn in that funny-looking picture on the back of Venus’s door, the one in which I thought someone had spoons sticking out of his or her head.
    I looked at the picture and smiled. It’s amazing what you can come up with when you don’t know what you’re looking at.
    “He