The Other Widow (19 page)

In the car she turns on her iPod, concentrates on Iron and Wine. That damn coat. “It was mine,” Dorrie turned around to tell her on the street. “She was wearing my coat.” At the time, Maggie hadn't gotten the whole picture. She hadn't known then that the coat Jeananne was wearing was the same coat Dorrie wore the night Joe Lindsay died.

She feels restless. Edgy. She isn't ready to go home, but it's late now to go back in to work. She thinks about driving to Waltham, interviewing Lindsay's widow, but decides against it. Instead she stops in front of Mass General. She'll go in. See how Jeananne's doing. She pulls into the ER parking lot. She gets out of the car and locks it carefully behind her. She even takes a few steps toward the door before she hears the siren, sees Jeananne's body sprawled across the street—and then that day in Baghdad, her friends behind her in the Humvee, when she thought she'd driven them to safety, when she turned around to tell them they were all okay, they'd made it out, and saw they were all dead. Her insides shake. Her stomach feels as if she's being stabbed, as if she's under fire in a combat zone. She doubles over, ducks down. When she gets back to her car, she sits behind the wheel for a minute and sweat covers her forehead, her face. She reaches over to open the glove compartment and pulls out an unopened pint of Absolut she keeps there for emergencies, for panic attacks that hit her sometimes without warning, that terrify her, paralyze her. She twists at the cap and her fingers tremble and slip. She can't get a grip. She leans back against the seat and concentrates on slowing down, on breathing in and breathing out, until her heart stops pounding, until she is exhausted. Drained. She sticks the untouched pint of Absolut back in the glove compartment and stares out the windshield toward the street.

XXII

KAREN

K
aren wakes up thinking about Tomas. She smiles. For a moment she is only here, suspended, reaching for the edges of a dream. Before she opens her eyes into the brightness of another day, before the guilt from her indulgent dream settles in, she lets herself drift. She stretches, burrowing deeper under the covers. She forgot to set the thermostat before she went to bed, and it can't be more than fifty-five degrees. She did sleep, though. Maybe it's a good thing, Tomas being back in her life. Even if it's only a fairly loose connection, a friendship, even if he still wants more from her than she can give, although, after yesterday, she's not so sure he does. He tramped off much more eagerly than she'd expected. Of course, he had to get to work. Or maybe he has someone else in his life by now. And Karen can deal with that. Tomas was always so intense—this might be better in the long run. She smiles, gathers the comforter around her as she stumbles to the hall and pumps up the thermostat with Antoine at her heels. “I know,” she says, “I know, Antoine,” and together they head for the kitchen. She opens the back door and Antoine streaks outside as her cell buzzes on the counter.

Karen grabs the phone on the second ring. She knew he'd be like this, unable to back off, to give her space. “Tomas?”

“Nope. Sorry. It's Maggie Brennan.”

Oops. “Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”

“Right,” Brennan says. There's a pause, and Karen thinks about telling her what happened the night before, that there was a car parked on a side street with its lights aimed at her living room window. “I thought I'd drop by if it's all right with you.”

Karen hesitates, but only for a few seconds. For all she knows, it was Brennan out there snooping around the night before or someone else from the insurance company. Maybe they've got her under surveillance. Maybe they think she had something to do with Joe's death. Maybe they saw her standing in the crowd after the accident. No. She won't say anything.

“Say in an hour?”

“Sure,” Karen says. “Do you know how to get here?”

“Yeah,” Brennan tells her. “It's a pretty straight shot from Boston.”

Brennan's managed to eradicate all thoughts of Tomas, any remnants of lightness leftover from the day before. Karen dresses, grabs a cup of coffee, puts two glasses on a fancy painted tray, heats up a streusel she finds in the freezer, and digs out butter and coconut spread.

An hour later, Brennan knocks on the door. Once inside, she extends her hand. “Maggie,” she says. “Nice to meet you,” and Karen is surprised at how friendly the woman looks. So young. So unlike what she'd pictured. Antoine yowls from Joe's office, where Karen's stuck him for the moment with his plaid doggie bed, one of several scattered through the house.

“Just coffee,” Brennan says, as Karen leans to pour orange juice. “It's cold as—” She doesn't really say what it's cold as, but she doesn't have to. The front yard looks like a tundra. “Black,” Maggie says, and she wraps her hands around the large cup to warm them.

Karen gestures toward the streusel. “Please,” she says. “Help yourself.”

“Can we sit?” Brennan wonders. “I've got a couple things to go over with you.” Karen nods, and together they walk to the living room, food in hand. They sit down on the couch.

Brennan clears her throat. “As I told you on the phone, there seem to be some irregularities surrounding this claim. In my opinion, with what I've seen up to now, it appears your husband's death might not have been an accident.”

So Edward was right. Karen feels her face turn red, her cheeks burning. “Oh,” she says. “My God. I knew he was upset about the business, but I didn't realize . . .”

“You didn't realize what, Mrs. Lindsay?”

“Karen. Please. Call me Karen. That he was really that unhappy. Not unhappy enough to take his own—I mean, Edward
told
me you might decide Joe's death was a suicide, but I didn't believe him.”

“Actually, I'm inclined
not
to think it was a suicide at this point.”

“Wait.” Karen stares at Maggie Brennan, who used to be a cop. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying
at this point
it looks like what happened wasn't just random. But that's only my opinion. I could be wrong. I tend to see things in a gloomy light sometimes. I was a cop,” she says, “and a—” She bends over the coffee cake and cuts herself another slice. “Do you mind? This is really—”

“Please,” Karen says. “Finish it! I don't need the calories. What were you going to say? You were what? A cop and what?”

“A soldier.”

“Really.” Karen doesn't say this as a question, but as a verification, an indication that she's heard her. She can so see Brennan as a soldier. “Excuse me,” Karen says, and she grabs a couple of plates, heads for the kitchen, grateful for a moment to herself.
Not just random
. What the hell? “So where did they send you?”

“Iraq,” Brennan says, and Karen barely hears her from the kitchen. “I joined the reserves in college.”

“Was it a surprise, then?” Karen pours another cup of coffee. “Being called up? Being sent to—?”

“Yeah,” Brennan says. “Totally.”

Karen takes an extra few seconds leaving the kitchen, still processing what Brennan said. Or, really, what she didn't say. Did someone murder Joe? This seems not only unlikely, but unbelievable. Of course Brennan isn't sure.
Inclined to think
, she'd said. Karen sets down the coffee and notices that Brennan's hands are shaking when she picks it up. Coffee sloshes over the sides of the cup and she sets it back in the saucer.

“Hot,” she says. “I'll let it cool down for a minute.”

“What makes you think my husband's death wasn't an accident?”

“The brake line. Someone used a tie-wrap to fasten it against the— basically, it was rubbing against something that would eventually scrape through the line. Which it did. The brakes went out on that side so when your husband tried to stop, most likely jammed his foot down on the brake, the car went into a spin and out of control.”

“How did you happen to notice the, um—?”

Brennan makes another attempt with the coffee and this time her hands aren't shaking quite so much. Still, Karen thinks. She's clearly got some issues, most likely from Iraq. All these kids coming back . . . “Just happened to spot it,” Brennan says. “My family worked on cars all the time. Brothers with old heaps. Boneshakers. Older brothers. I watched them a lot. Would
Joe
have done it? Do you think your husband messed with his own brakes?”

Karen considers. “I don't think so. He was complaining, though, about them not being right. He asked me to take his car back into the shop, but I didn't. I kept meaning to, but . . .”

“So maybe he thought he'd do a quick fix?”

Karen shakes her head. “He wasn't good at all with cars.”

Brennan looks at her. “This wasn't exactly a good job.” She stands up. “Listen,” she says. “Thanks for the coffee cake and everything. The—um—coffee. I'm afraid I won't be able to close the case until I have more information.”

“Of course. Just keep me up to date,” Karen says, although she isn't sure what she means by this and it appears Brennan doesn't, either.

“You know much about cars?” Brennan turns around suddenly in the doorway.

“Nope. Nothing,” Karen says. Antoine barks rowdily from the back bedroom. “I'd better let the dog out before he barks himself into
cat
-atonia. Pardon the pun.” She takes a few steps toward the hall.

Brennan laughs. She doesn't move. She just stands there. “What kind of dog?”

“Oh. A French Papillon,” Karen says, and Brennan still doesn't move.

“Don't know if I've ever seen one,” she says, and Karen sighs, tromps up the hall to the back bedroom, throwing the door wide.

“Just be your obnoxious little self,” she whispers into the flailing crispness of Antoine's ear. “You know how to clear a room.” But when she gets back to the foyer, Brennan is stooped down, scratching Antoine under the chin.

“Did you
drug
him?”

Brennan smiles. “Naw. He's a good boy, right, Antoine?”

“Well,” Karen says, “he
can
be. He usually
isn't
, but apparently he
can
be.”

After a few seconds, Brennan gets up and heads for the door. “Oh,” she says, and Antoine stands at attention in front of her, as if the two of them together have become a little team. “There are a couple of things I didn't mention. It appears someone was with your husband the night he died. Any thoughts on who that might have been? A client, maybe?”

“No idea. He was supposed to be in Rhode Island. Maybe he got back early and the weather was so awful, he decided to stay in town till the storm was over. Maybe he was at the chess club. He goes there quite a lot. Knights on St. James.” Karen averts her eyes. Brennan's looking at her with a weird expression. Does she think Karen had something to do with Joe's death? Is that why she's come all the way out here? To gauge the guilt or innocence of her unwitting hostess? Or does she think Karen was the one with Joe that night, careening around with a Starbucks cup?

“One of the women who works at Home Runs,” Brennan is saying, “was hit by a car yesterday just up from the office. On Summer Street.”

Karen gasps. The air won't come. She can't breathe. “Dorrie?”

Brennan shakes her head. “Jeananne. A hit-and-run.”

“
No!
Was it—I mean—it was accidental, though, right?”

“No way of knowing. The car came speeding around the corner, seemed to jam on the brakes at the very last second, but with the slick roads— anyway, it slammed right into her. At least that's what one of the witnesses said.”

“Is she—?”

“She's not so good. Broken wrist, broken ankle, head injury. She's hanging in there, though, from what I hear.”

“I wonder why Edward didn't—why no one told me.” Karen thinks back. The phone had rung. Her home phone, but she hadn't answered it.

“Where were you?” Maggie Brennan has her back turned. Her hand is on the doorknob.

“Here,” Karen says. “I was at home. And then in the afternoon I had a late lunch with an old friend. In fact, this morning, when you called, I thought you were—”

“No,” Maggie says. “On the night your husband died.”

“Oh. Actually, I was in Boston. Right near where he died. Right on Newbury. I was having dinner with a friend and then we got caught in that horrible snowstorm. Me, especially, since I had farther to go. I could barely see a thing. I thought about going back to Beacon Hill, waiting out the storm with my friend, but that hill is so difficult.”

Brennan stares at her for a second, but it's a very long second, and then she says she'll be in touch about the claim. She tugs at a front door swollen in place from all the wet and dampness of the last weeks. “Thanks again for breakfast.”

“Sure,” Karen says. “Anytime.” God. “It was nice meeting you, Maggie,” she says, and Brennan smiles, takes off down the sidewalk, gets in her Land Rover without a backward glance.

Karen's cell phone jingles on the table next to the couch and she stares at it for a minute. Finally, she thinks. She's finally gone. Brennan really overstayed her visit. All that business with Antoine was a little much. “Brat,” she says to the dog, who still stands like a small deputy in the doorway. Antoine barks a small, halfhearted bark and trots out to the kitchen as Karen picks up her phone to check her text.

Maggie Brennan might be headed your way soon
, Edward's texted her. Karen looks up quickly, pulls the door open, and steps outside. She looks at the street, the yard, everywhere that's visible from the front porch, where she stands, coatless and shivering, staring out at the sunny, blue-sky day in search of—in search of what? Edward? Or the nameless nemesis who's always at the edges of her life, her neighborhood, her fucking sidewalk? She squints at her untainted lawn. A car door slams across the street.