I drive her home. I know I shouldn't, but I do. This isn't a night for dogs to be out, never mind her, and especially not when she's so shook up.
Steal a woman's wedding ring. I hope they throw the book at the rat when I catch him. I hope they do it before I get a chance to hang him and get myself in trouble. And I would, y'know. Hang him, I mean. He stole her wedding ring so she's not wearing it, and every time I look over her hand is resting on her knee with no wedding ring to remind me of things that are important, like her husband. Hawks, his name is. She kept her maiden name for business purposes, the name she was known under when he discovered her. He put her in that movie everybody talks about, the one where she wore that dress slit up to the hip and peeled off that opera glove and they say a man had a heart attack in the third row at one showing. I don't buy that hype.
But yeah. Hawks. The husband. I have to remember him all by myself without the ring to trigger me, so I think about him and not her. He's the movie director. He's a little crazy, in his own way. Richer than all kinds of kings thrown in together. Big house in the Hills. Powerful man. Probably treats his wife more like a work of art, a frame of film, than the woman she is.
That last one's not a fact. I ran out of facts about Howard Hawks. I've got a weird, foggy feeling; part of my mind is telling me I met him once. The rest is tougher and smarter and knows that never happened. Safe to say I'm not the kind of guy Mr Hawks hangs out with.
"You've gone quiet, Mr Roman."
The drive seems to have calmed her. It's the moving and the lights and the patter of rain on the soft-top. She's turned in her seat now, lounging against the door. Twining a heavy red curl round one long white finger. A finger that doesn't have a wedding ring on it. It's not the right finger, but even if it was it wouldn't have the ring.
Just because it's not there doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I can't forget that. Can't. Married, Roman, she's married. To some hood that just got lucky, and I don't mean on his money or his big house in the Hills.
"What do you want me to say, Miss Pond?"
"I want you to call me Amelia."
"Alright."
"And I want you to tell me again how you're going to get my thief."
"You know I will."
"I want you to say you'll come in and see where he stole it from. I've made enough detective pictures to know you have to inspect your crime scene."
And I want to know why you're doing this, sister, but even if I ask you you're not going to tell. I know enough to know that'd just take all the fun clean out of it. But the longer I say nothing the wider, the sweeter, the stronger her smile. It doesn't move, doesn't change; just gets better, all but glows off her face, the way it glows off the screen and takes hold of your heart, just anybody, just anybody it shines on.
"Is your husband home, Mrs Hawks?"
"What'd I tell you about calling me Amelia…"
Mrs Hawks, which is her married name, shows me to her private lounge upstairs. The carpet and curtains and upholstery are all pristine white, and just standing there I feel grubby and wrong. Unworthy, almost. I go too fast to stand over where the rain through the broken window has ruined it all already. I guess I leave footprints, but I don't look to see.
I look at the broken glass, the latch of the former French window, the little alabaster tray on the dresser she says the ring was stolen from.
There. Done. Crime scene inspected, now get out of this woman's personal space before her husband gets home. She said he was shooting on location tonight. I don't know what that means and I didn't want to ask and sound stupid. Seems to me all shooting has to happen some location or another. Certain kind of shooting and we get to call it another kind of crime scene.
Thank God there's no blood here. In all this white it would have looked a hundred times worse than it already is.
"So, Roman," smiles Amelia Pond. When she smiles, it's hard to think of her as Mrs Hawks, "How do you think the brute got in?"
"Through this window here, I'd say." And I do say. I say that right out loud before I really think about it, and I don't think about it all until I hear her laughing at me for it. "All due respect, Amelia," I say, using her preferred name because she used mine, "but there's nothing here you didn't tell me about at the office."
"But it's nicer." She sits down on a chaise-longue that is white to its carved claw feet, and pulls her legs up. "Isn't it? And there's always champagne on ice downstairs."
I've been offered a drink. It would be rude to refuse.
Wedding ring Hawks married married married. There's always champagne on ice because her husband has enough money to crush me down to powder and have me made into a diamond and set in a brand new wedding ring for her. So I give a little laugh and try to shrug.
"Listen, sister, I know you've had kind of a shock tonight, but-"
And Amelia, she sort of shrugs too. She rolls over onto her back on the chaise, one hand hanging languid by her face and says, "Fine." No change in her voice. Just as quiet and comfortable as it was before. But she's an actress. Pretty good one too. So that means nothing.
"Don't be like that," I say. She gets up, goes to the dresser and starts taking the pins from her hair, brushing it out.
"Like what?" she says. "It's no big deal, Detective."
Detective this time. Not Roman. No big deal.
I want to tell her it's nothing to do with her face or any of the rest of her, or even about how she is as a person, and it's not about me. Trust me, there is no hold up on my end. It's just all the stuff in between, and this whole situation. Too much like taking advantage. And probably if I looked a little harder there'd be words for that, but she's taking her make-up off now with a wipe and it's pretty clear we're finished.
"I'll call as soon as I know anything."
"Good," she says. She stops her ritual and looks up at me. Casts me that smile and I wonder how easy she can turn it on like that. "Now don't forget, you told me you'd get him."
"Yeah," I say, "You know I will."
And quick as I can, I try to pick my way out across the footprints I left on the way in.
