The Winter Widow (3 page)

Always critical. She slid her hand from his. He understood she was saying thanks, but had to correct her way of saying it. Damn it, I'm not a child anymore. I no longer need your approval. I'm not that little girl striving for little drops of praise. Even when he said something nice, he'd immediately followed it with criticism. He picked up the glass of orange juice and took a sip.

“You're not drinking coffee,” she said in surprise. He habitually drank endless cups of a lethal brew she used to call roofing tar.

“I've cut down.”

With a little clutch of fear, she looked at him closely and wondered if he was all right. She saw a little more gray in his dark curls and a few more lines in his face, but he was still a very handsome man.

“I have to stay, Dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm staying. In Hampstead.”

“Of course you're not. You're coming home.”

“No.”

“Susan, this is a bad time, a hard time. You're not thinking clearly. Staying is a mistake. Finish up your packing so we can get out of here.”

She'd hoped he would understand and give his support. She should have known he'd just point out the reasons why she was wrong.

“Susan,” he said persuasively, “you can't stay.”

“I'm thirty-four years old. ‘Can't'?”

She felt her mother's anxious presence in the doorway behind her. It was ever her mother's place to act as a buffer between them. If her mother had stepped aside years ago and let them claw at each other, would they have torn down some walls? Or would they have ended up hating each other?

They were trapped behind their own defenses. Even the death of her husband hadn't changed anything between them. They just got into the same old games and, always, always, he managed to make her feel that nothing she did was ever quite good enough.

“If only—” he began.

She stiffened. If only what? I hadn't married Daniel?
He's too old for you. He's been married. His background's too different.
Come to this godforsaken place?
Kansas? Good God, there's nothing in Kansas but wheat fields. What do you think you'll do there?
Or was it even worse than that? If only I had obediently followed your blueprint for my life and joined your firm after I graduated from law school.

The doorbell rang and her mother murmured, “I'll get it.”

Patrick shook his head. “Amazing Grace, you always were the most stubborn kid I ever knew.”

Tears prickled against her eyelids. He hadn't called her that in a long time. Grace was her middle name, and whenever he had been angry or exasperated or disappointed, she was Amazing Grace. It had as many inflections and interpretations as any Chinese ideogram.

Some kind of weird guilt stuck to her like fingerprints on sticky varnish. She wasn't so addled she felt responsible for Daniel's death, but she'd frolicked into marriage, singing “There's a bright golden haze on the meadow,” without giving a thought to life ever after. Deep down in some yeasty corner of her subconscious, doubts had fermented, doubts that no matter how much she loved Daniel, she wouldn't hack it as a housewife. It was those doubts, as though they were some kind of disloyalty to Daniel and he had deserved better, that created the guilt.

How could she explain something to her father she couldn't even explain to herself? He'd never understand, certainly never give his approval. Screw it.

“Susan,” her mother said. “Honey, the mayor is here. He'd like to see you.”

Patrick rose. “I'll take care of it.” He rolled down his sleeves and reached for his suit coat.

Susan scooted back her chair and jumped up. “I want to talk with him,” she said, and heard an echo of the defiant child.

“Susan—” Her mother placed a hand on her arm as she scurried after her father.

In the living room, Martin Bakover, seated in the blue chair by the fireplace, cane leaning against his knee, stood up to shake hands with her father.

“Such a very sad occasion,” the mayor said, looking at Susan. He was a man in his late forties with the beginnings of excess weight, dressed in a black suit and white shirt. He had sandy-gray hair and a fleshy face with a tendency to ruddiness. “Before you leave us, I felt I must again express my deep-felt sympathies.” He rested both hands on the silver handle of the carved ash cane he always carried—mostly for effect, she thought.

“Very kind of you,” Patrick said.

“Dan was a good man,” Bakover said. “A good man. We all feel his loss keenly. He won't be easy to replace. Please—” He gave each of them in turn a solemn look of his deep-felt sympathy. “Please, let me say how very sorry I am—we all are.” He stopped at Susan. “Is there anything I can do for you, anything at all?”

“Thank you,” Patrick said, “but there's nothing—”

“Yes,” Susan said.

Three pairs of eyes regarded her inquiringly, her father's narrowed in wariness.

“Anything,” the mayor repeated.

“I want Daniel's job.”

A startled silence followed her clipped words; then Patrick said, “Susan—”

“Why don't we all sit down,” Anna said. “Mr. Bakover, please have a seat.” She gently nudged him to the chair behind him, turned to Patrick with a warning look, then took Susan's arm and chivvied her to the couch, sat beside her and picked up her hand. Patrick settled in the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace.

“Oh, my dear young lady,” Bakover said as though there had been no interruption, “I know how you must feel.”

The hell you do, Susan thought.

“But you are not to worry. Rest assured this murderer will be caught.” He smiled, a small condescending smile from adult to child-who-doesn't-understand-the-ways-of-the-world. “Dan's job.” He shook his head. “That's simply not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Susan,” Patrick said, “this has been a dreadful blow. You're not thinking clearly.” He turned toward the mayor. “She's still in shock.”

Don't talk about me as though I'm not here.

“Of course she is. Understandable. Entirely understandable.”

“Why not?” Susan repeated with an insistent edge.

“Well, my dear, a murder investigation, you must understand, requires someone … trained, trained and uh … tough, you understand, tough enough to handle the enormity of the job.” He paused and then added reasonably, “You can see how you'd be unable to handle it.”

“I'm a cop, Mr. Bakover, a good cop. I had nine years with the San Francisco police force.”

“Nine years?” Bakover said in surprise.

Yes indeed. Nine years of proving I was tough enough, handling the enormity of the job, you pompous ass, and being the butt of jokes that were thinly disguised insults and listening to crude remarks about how I got my promotions.

“Well,” Bakover said. “I didn't know that. Well, well. And I'm sure a very fine policewoman you were too.”

“Damn fine policewoman,” Patrick said. “You couldn't get a better investigator. Her work is noted for its excellence. She has two commendations for valor, and nearly gave her life in the performance of duty.”

“Very impressive. Yes. But this isn't San Francisco. This is a small town.”

“You feel,” Patrick said, “an officer trained by one of the finest police departments in the country is unsuited to cope with small-town crime?”

“Dad—”

“Not at all,” Bakover said. “But I'm not sure this town is ready for a woman in the position of police chief.”

Patrick put his elbows on the chair arms and placed his fingertips together across his flat stomach. “What did you say?” he asked in a voice like silk, adversarial gleam in his blue eyes.

“Dad—” Susan said, a harder edge to her voice.

The mayor smiled a politician's smile; he recognized a litigator when he saw one. “Perhaps you misunderstood me.”

Patrick smiled.

“I simply meant to suggest that Miz Wren”—Bakover nodded at Susan—“is an outsider here. She doesn't know the town or the people. That could be a handicap.”

Patrick gently tapped his fingertips together. “Let me see if I have this clear. You stated—”

Goddammit, let me fight my own battles. She opened her mouth, but before the words came out her mother said, “Would anyone like some coffee?” She was ignored.

“You need someone right now,” Susan said.

The mayor nodded. “There are good people in my police department. George Halpern has been an officer here for more than forty years.”

Susan didn't know about the good part, but she did know from talking with Daniel that George Halpern, the logical choice, had never wanted to be chief and was now close to retirement. Osey Pickett was still so young he'd barely recovered from the acne of adolescence, and he didn't seem overly bright. That left only Ben Parkhurst, another outsider, and the antipathy between him and Bakover raised hackles on both sides. The mayor would be wary of putting power in Parkhurst's hands.

“Appoint me acting chief. That'll give you time to find somebody.”

Bakover gazed at her long and thoughtfully.

“Mr. Mayor—” Patrick began.

Susan glared at her father.

“Temporary basis?” Bakover asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe,” he said after a long pause, “maybe it could be worked out.”

She took a breath.

“Temporarily,” Bakover added.

She nodded with a small twinge of uneasiness as a shrewd, calculating look appeared briefly in the mayor's eyes. Was he judging her capability, or did he have his own reasons for giving her the job?

*   *   *

THE sun, sliding low behind the shallow hills, cast a long shadow as she stood on the road where Daniel had been shot. Emptiness surrounded her. The wind blew. The dead grass shivered. The gravel was black with Daniel's blood.

I promise, Daniel, I promise you I'll get the bastard.

CHAPTER FOUR

TUESDAY morning. This is it, lady. Knock 'em dead. Oh boy. She stood a long time in the shower, trying to sluice away doubts and feelings of inadequacy under the gush of hot water. It was important to keep moving. Action impeded reflection. Action would keep her from visualizing the lift of the rifle, the tightening of a finger on the trigger.

She slipped on a gray wool skirt and white cashmere sweater and tied a blue-and-gray scarf around her throat. As she shrugged on a navy jacket, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Oh my God. Dress for success. All I need is a briefcase.

Spurning her little brown Fiat, she clambered into Daniel's pickup and pointed it toward the police station. Felt like driving a truck. Ha ha. Little nervous, are we? The sun shone in a cloudless blue sky and the temperature was much warmer today. She had to admit Hampstead was a pretty little town: wide clean streets with large trees that arched overhead, mixture of houses, old and new, brick and wood frame, all settled cozily into gentle hills. And space between the houses. This must be what's meant by wide open spaces.

Stop it, compose yourself.

At the police department, a square red-brick building next to city hall, she trundled into the parking lot. She'd been sworn in yesterday and met the officers, most of whose names she couldn't remember.

Okay,
Chief,
you can do it. So what if you have no idea what a police chief does. How hard can it be? Just smile at everybody. Even as a kid she'd been able to hide uncertainties beneath a cape of confident control. In her rookie days, she'd perfected the skill, snugging the cape up tighter in defense against sneers from superiors and ridicule from peers.

She was going to need it now.

The entry was framed in a strip of cement with octagonal lantern-type light fixtures on either side; two cement steps led up to the recessed door. She braced herself and went in, then felt as if she'd shoved a wall that turned out to be a curtain.

Different. Of course, different. None of the dirt and noise, clutter and chaotic activity she was used to. Neat, quiet and clean. Even the pale-green walls were clean. It didn't smell the same either; no essence of stale cigarette smoke, disinfectant, hopelessness and unwashed humanity that permeated big-city police departments. It smelled of Hazel's flowery perfume.

Hazel was the dispatcher, a stocky woman in her late forties with short auburn hair. She beamed with a welcoming smile, tinged with a little maternal worry. According to Daniel, she looked out for everybody with concerned clucks and fusses. Her desk sheltered under a thicket of spider plants, the offshoots of which she treated like puppies, agonizing over finding good homes.

Susan said good morning and asked that Parkhurst be told she wanted to see him. With a firm tread and an expression of what she hoped was steely-eyed command, she got through the area clustered with desks, nodding to two uniformed officers, and opened the door to Daniel's office.

She closed it behind her, briskly slipped off her jacket and threw it over the coatrack, and sat in Daniel's chair, at Daniel's desk, and picked up Daniel's pen. So far, so good. While waiting for Parkhurst, she glanced through the stack of reports she'd spent a good part of yesterday reading.

On Thursday Daniel had been in his office catching up on paperwork and laboring over the budget, a chore he hated and groused about. Nothing unusual happened; Hampstead appeared to be crime-free until two o'clock when a man named Harve Green filed a complaint against Sophie Niemen for stealing his cat. Daniel went out to see her.

Sophie the cat lady, nutty about cats, collected strays and kidnaped pets she felt were mistreated. (“Damn Sophie and her damn cats. I spend half my life chasing around for irate pet owners.”) At three, he returned, fuming because he'd been unable to find Sophie. He told Hazel he was going home for a time and would be in later.