Seven Minutes to Noon

They had been together just two days ago and Pam had seemed better than fine. She had seemed utterly, perfectly herself.
    Alice rang the bell and waited with Jason on the front stoop. She had requested his help carrying over theheavy stew, without mentioning Mike’s insistence that she go everywhere now with an escort — or, more precisely, a bodyguard — until the limo driver was picked up by the police.
    A very old woman answered the door and squinted at them from behind thick glasses that magnified her eyes to twice their normal size. She was so thin her veins were visible beneath her skin, wrapped tight on sinewy muscle. Her hair was teased into a 1950s-style beehive, and she wore thick blue eye shadow. The psychedelic retro Mary Mekko dress was the real giveaway.
    “You must be Pam’s mother,” Alice said.
    “Do I know you?”
    “I’m Alice, a client of Pam’s, and this is Jason.”
    “I’m Esther. That looks heavy. Give it over.”
    Esther took the container out of Jason’s hands and carried it through the living room and into the kitchen. Alice followed, understanding where Pam got her determination but not her size. Jason, meanwhile, waited in the vestibule for Alice to complete her errand.
    “You know Pammie’s husband, Ray?” Esther slid Alice’s stew onto the kitchen counter next to a small mountain of other pots and pans and containers of neighborly food. A diminutive man with a shaved head, wearing baggy olive-green shorts and a black T-shirt, sat on a stool at the marble-topped island.
    Sitting across from him were Frannie and Giometti.
    It was a shock to see the detectives out of context, in Pam Short’s kitchen where they couldn’t possibly belong. Alice stood dumbly at the kitchen threshold, not knowing what to say. Ray twisted around to look at her, the stranger in his kitchen, and she knew she had to explain herself.
    “I’m Alice. Pam was helping me find a house. I’ve been spending a lot of time with her lately and I was just shocked when I heard—”
    “Oh yes, she mentioned you!” Ray lit up, and turned to the detectives. “Pam was hell-bent on finding this lady a house. She never gave up on anyone. You see? That’swhat I mean. It never made any sense to me that she would do such a thing to herself.”
    Alice’s expression must have shown her confusion, as Ray now turned back to her and spoke as adamantly as he had to the detectives.
    “It’s not Pam’s style,” he said. “She isn’t repressed enough to kill herself.”
    “You mean she didn’t do this to herself?” Alice asked, understanding in that moment why the detectives were there. They were homicide detectives; they didn’t investigate suicides. They must have thought that someone had tried to harm Pam.
    “Is Pam all right?” Alice asked Ray.
    “She’s in a coma. Someone put my baby in a coma.” He began to cry.
    Esther came up next to him and draped a thin arm around his shoulders. “Shh, we’re gonna get our baby back. You’ll see.”
    The fingers of Giometti’s right hand drummed the marble counter one time, quickly, as if practicing scales. Frannie was quiet and still, not smiling; her gaze rested on Alice but gave nothing away. Alice felt she was intruding on something. She hardly knew Pam, not really, and had a strong feeling no one would argue her out of cutting her visit short.
    Glancing at her watch, she said, “I’d like to see Pam when you think she’s ready for visitors.”
    “Tell me your number,” Esther said. “I have a perfect memory.”
    Alice recited her phone number. Esther listened closely, nodded, then began unloading the containers of food from the counter into the refrigerator.
    “Good luck,” Alice told Ray.
    Though he was still crying, he slipped off his stool. He was quite short, she saw now, about five foot four. Joining Esther at the counter, he pushed aside a few containers until he found a tray covered with aluminum foil cinched around the edges.
    “Brownies,” he said. “Esther’s watching her figureand I’m on a heart-healthy diet. Pam mentioned you had kids. We tried, but for us it never happened. Here.” He handed Alice the tray. “If I eat these, she’ll kill me. That she would happily do.”
    “Thank you. Nell and Peter will love these.” Alice leaned over to kiss Ray’s cheek, then left him with the detectives.
    “Go straight home,” Frannie said, causing Alice to turn around in the kitchen doorway and look at the young woman with her