The Off Season (18 page)

Dread had a weight to it, Harris decided as he turned into the fifty-five-and-older subdivision where his former mother-in-law lived. With several inches of snow still on the ground, the well-kept cottage-style homes looked cheerful in the silvery afternoon light. But the lead in his gut warned that this visit would be anything but pleasant.

As he turned onto Sandpiper Street, his mind kept wandering back to the ME’s preliminary report, which had told him that someone had come up behind Fiorelli and plunged a sharp instrument—a knife, most likely—into his lower back six times.

Lazy as Frank could be, he had well-developed cop instincts. So what could have gotten him out of the car in the snow to let someone sneak up on him?

Harris had no answers, might never have them, though he swore he’d never quit until he found the killer or killers. The more he thought about it, though, the more sense the idea of at least two perpetrators made. One to lure Fiorelli from the car, and a second to slip up behind him. But that scenario played out best if the lure was someone his officer would have been more inclined to view as an innocent in need of help. Someone very young, very old, or maybe a petite, fragile-looking female, such as the one who’d shouted an obscenity at Christina in the hospital parking lot the other night.

He pulled up in front of his mother-in-law’s small, white one-story, every atom in his body assuring him this visit was not going to go well. As he approached the front door, it opened before he could knock, and Renee’s mother, Kathleen, greeted him with a welcoming smile.

“Just wait until you see him, Harris,” she said, looking as happy now as she’d been miserable after her only grandchild’s accident. And as glad to see Harris as ever. “Our little guy’s back in fine form!”

Harris kissed her cheek in greeting, relieved and grateful that she’d forgiven him after the long, cold war that he and Renee had called a marriage had spiraled to its inevitable conclusion. Whether she’d only remained cordial for her grandson’s sake or really still thought of him as the son she’d never had, as she’d claimed, her attitude served as a welcome counterbalance to his ex’s vitriol.

Inviting him inside, Kathleen, who still wore her fading red hair in a braid and maintained a pixielike figure that belied her age, walked him to the kitchen table. Waving an arm, she said, “Ta-da!” and gestured toward Jacob, who looked up from the phonics worksheet he’d been coloring.

His son bent over his sheet again. “B makes
buh
,” he said, reading, “Busy Bee, Bad Bull.” Or maybe he’d just memorized the page his grandmother was helping him with.

Either way, Harris was so relieved to see his kiddo bright, alert, and obviously healthy that he lifted him up and pulled him into a bear hug.

“Daddy, you’re squishing me!” Jacob said, laughing.

“All right, all right, boy genius.” Harris put his son down, so proud to think his kid was already reading—maybe just a little—that he ruffled the boy’s golden-brown curls.

“Ow!” Jacob said, raising his hand when Harris came too close to his sore spot.

“Careful with him, Harris,” Renee scolded, slipping into the room with a brush in hand. Dressed in her heels and black slacks, she pushed her reddish-blonde waves behind her shoulders. She wore more makeup than usual, her eye shadow picking up hints of the sweater’s emerald hue. Beautiful, by nearly anybody’s standards—or at least she would have been if not for the sour expression on her face.

“I’m okay,” Jacob said, so quickly that it pained Harris to see his son taking on the role of peacemaker. “It didn’t hurt, really.”

“Sorry, champ,” Harris said before turning his attention to Renee. “You look nice. You heading out somewhere?”

“If I were,” she said, “I’m not sure what business it would be of yours.”

Unless you’re meeting up with trouble.

“Renee has a job interview this afternoon,” her mother piped up. “At the Happy Hands Day Care.”

“Happy Hands?” Harris echoed, noticing the way Renee avoided Kathleen’s eyes. Lying, maybe? Or just annoyed that her mother had shared the information. “I know the guy whose wife owns that place.” He let that tidbit settle before adding, “If you want, I’ll make a call, put in a good word—”

“I don’t need your help,” Renee said, the color in her face making her freckles vanish.

“You’re right. You won’t need me,” he said. “With your experience, they’ll be lucky to have you.”
And I’ll count myself a hell of a lot luckier if I don’t have to explain to our kid why his mom’s in trouble. Because you’re lying to me, aren’t you? Who are you really meeting with?

“Thanks,” she managed.

“You have time to talk a couple of minutes?” he asked. “I promise, I’ll be quick.”

She glanced at the seashell-shaped clock hanging on the wall, ticking away the days she had left before she had to leave this house. “I guess so,” she said before tensing abruptly. “Why? Is it Christina? Has something happened to her?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Don’t use your cop voice on me. For heaven’s sake. Someone’s clearly out to get her.”

“That poor girl,” Renee’s mother said. “She’s been through so much lately.”

“Christina’s fine,” he told them before gesturing to a doorway leading to a living room saturated with more of Kathleen’s beach-themed decorative touches.

“You go ahead, Renee,” her mom said. “I’ll just fix the sandwiches. Jacob, could you help me make the tuna salad?”

Harris suppressed a shudder. Thanks to a nasty case of food poisoning back in high school, even the smell of tuna got to him, giving him one more reason to want to escape the house as soon as possible.

Renee ushered him out of the room and closed the door behind them. Rather than inviting him to take a seat, she folded her arms in front of her chest and stared at him expectantly. “Well?”

Cutting right to it, he said, “I was a little surprised by your concern for Christina’s well-being. Especially since I understand you two had an altercation the other night in the parking lot at Shoreline.”

Renee froze. “Did she tell you that?”

“Is it true?”

“Whether it is or not, I can tell that you believe her. But, then again, of course you would.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

She gave him a sly smile he’d once mistaken for a sign of wit. “Maybe it means I’m tired of pretending that I never knew. That I had no idea how hot you were to get into her pants that summer after high school.”

He winced. “Christina tell you that?”

“Are you kidding? Dr. Ice Queen? But my friends all knew about it. I remember them laughing at how you slipped it to her and then couldn’t drop her fast enough.”

His first impulse was to deny it, but he knew she wouldn’t buy it. “Listen, Renee. That’s not anything I’ve ever talked about. Or anything I’m proud of. I was a selfish kid, that’s all, pissed off about some scholarship that she had every right to.”

Renee snorted, the meanness in her coming out full force. And making him wonder again what the hell he’d ever seen in her. “Serves her right, as far as I’m concerned. Did she tell you that she had the nerve to fire me, after everything I’ve done for her?”

“And this surprises you, after you did everything but call her kid a demon seed?”

“For heaven’s sake, I took it back. And after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve suffered, that stuck-up bitch stood right there and told me I have anger issues.”

Again, casting herself as the victim. “So you called her a—you know what you said. I have to tell you it hit Christina pretty hard, too, seeing as how she’d just found that very same word carved on the side of her Mercedes.”

“Yeah. I know that.” She shrugged. “ But she’d made me mad, really angry. I mean, after what her daughter did to our son, she freaking
owes
me the benefit of the doubt.”

“I think she might’ve had a point about you, Renee. You’ve been under some huge stress this past year—”

“I’m looking at the main one.”

“Maybe you oughta try looking in the mirror instead.”

“You’re the one who filed for divorce,” she shot back, her eyes filling with tears. “The one who left me high and dry—no job, no money.”

“You weren’t unemployed when I filed. And you and I both know the marriage died a long time before we ever pulled the plug.”

“You should know. You killed it, from the moment you—”

“We both know the story. The beginning
and
the end.”

He was letting her get to him. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself he had a duty here, one that had no bearing on Renee’s convenient dismissal of so many crucial facts. Reminded himself that he needed to be a better man, the kind of role model he hoped to God his son would grow up to do one better.

“The thing is,” he went on, keeping his voice as calm as possible, “what you said, only hours before Christina Paxton’s house burned almost to the damned ground, forces me to ask certain questions.”

As his meaning began to sink in, Renee’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped a little lower. She shook her head slowly.

But it didn’t stop him from continuing, no more than the heaviness that lined his stomach. “It forces me to check on your whereabouts and your associates,” he said, “including where you’re really going today.”

She went dead white before a flush rose like a tide.

“So now you’re, what, accusing me?” she asked, hair swinging in a wide arc as she shook her head. “You think I burned those people’s house down? Or you’re trying to get even with me—get our son away from me by pinning—you’re talking about murder!”

“I don’t think you’re a killer.” Although that sharp tongue of hers should have been registered as a lethal weapon. “And I don’t think you’re an arsonist. I’m doing the job I’m paid to do, following up leads—”

“Because you’re jealous I have someone in my life now.”

“You’re dating again?” he asked, blindsided.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You sound surprised that anybody’d want me.”

“Not at all,” he said, risking a half smile. “I just figured that after a prince like me, you’d be ruined for any other guy.”

Instead of biting his head off as he more than half expected, she gave an unexpected chirp of laughter, reminding him of better times.

“So who’s the lucky man?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

Waving it off, she said, “Nobody you’d know. And it’s only been a few dates.”

But that wasn’t what she’d said at first.
I have someone in my life now,
she’d said. “This isn’t someone you’ve met on the Internet, is it?” He’d heard a lot of stories in the course of his job. None of them with happy endings.

“Not the Net, no. Actually, Mom had me drive for like an hour one day to pick up this special detergent that doesn’t make her break out in a rash. I spotted him just standing in the aisle, looking so confused by all the different brands of—”

“So this guy’s basically some stranger you picked up at a store?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t make it sound so sleazy, Harris. We just got to talking—Jacob wasn’t with me—and he asked me if I’d like a coffee.”

“At least let me check out this guy’s background before you decide to let him hang around my son. You need to be careful.”

“You’re absolutely right,” she said, her voice sharp with annoyance. “I wouldn’t want to get stuck with somebody who works all hours and wakes up shouting and swinging with flashbacks.”

“Renee . . .” He winced, but the time for apologies was over. He’d gotten the help he’d needed to put the worst of his PTSD behind him, for her sake and Jacob’s. Help that had come far too late to save her trust—and their marriage.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, the words almost startlingly rare in his experience with her. “But I need you to stay out of my business. And I really need to go now.”

He had more questions but sensed he’d gotten as much from her as he could for now.

Stalking from the room, she called, “I’m running late, Mom, thanks to Top Cop here. I’ll pick up something on the way home.” With that, she headed for the mudroom, grabbed her coat and purse, and slammed her way out the back door.

Returning to the kitchen to say good-bye, Harris breathed through his mouth, though it was little help against the fishy odor.

“That sounded like it went well,” Renee’s mother said lightly. “But while you’re here, I thought you might as well have lunch, at least. And don’t tell me you’ve eaten, because I know you well enough to be sure you haven’t taken the time, with everything that’s happened . . .” Her eyes softened. “I was terribly sorry to hear about Officer Fiorelli.”

“Thanks so much,” he said, wondering, not for the first time, how his ex had turned out so volatile when she had such a sweet mother. “I really should be on my way, though.”

Jacob walked up to him, proudly offering a plate. “But, Daddy, look. I made your sandwich special.”

Harris looked down at the chips; raw, cut veggies; and two slices of whole wheat oozing glops of—God help him—tuna salad soaked in mayo out the sides.

“Please,” said Jacob.

“Well, in that case,” he said, forcing a smile because—hey, the kid would only be three and a half once, and Harris had survived worse. Much worse, and very recently, he thought, a chill ripping through him with the memory of his son lying so still and so small in the pediatric ICU. “I guess I’d better stay, then.”

Some twenty minutes later, he was on his way back to the station, trying to convince himself the roiling in his stomach was all in his head, when he spotted movement out of the corner of one eye. With no traffic behind him, he braked hard, sliding several inches before the Tahoe’s tires gripped the icy road. He then reversed a few yards, uncertain what he’d seen but trusting the instinct that insisted it was worth investigating.

Staring down the narrow alleyway between the backyards of two rows of historic homes, he studied an assortment of trash receptacles, damaged doors, stripped siding and other detritus left over from some construction project, and back fences—often in poorer repair than anything found along the street fronts.