Woman in Red (35 page)

She was passing the turnoff to Denise’s house when her thoughts turned briefly to her sister and Gary. Her brother-in-law seemed particularly on edge these days. Alice recalled his hostile reaction when she’d approached him the other day, in the lingering hope that he’d be able to provide some scrap of information that would validate her suspicions about Owen.

“I’d drop it, if I were you,” Gary had advised, eyeing her coldly. They’d gone for a ride in his cruiser, so they could
talk in private, and were parked along a remote stretch of road out near Mountain Lake.

“Why? Is it so far-fetched?” she’d pressed on nonetheless. “Come on, Gary, we both know the reason I ended up getting the maximum sentence. Ten years, Gary.
Ten years
. I’d still be serving time, if I hadn’t gotten paroled. You think I’d have been left to rot if it’d been someone other than Owen? He knows people. He knows which levers to pull.”

“You want to blame someone, blame yourself,” Gary had snapped. In the sunlight glaring in through the cruiser’s windshield, showing off every smear and bug splat, his eyes peered from hollowed sockets, the skin around them bruised-looking. “You brought all this on yourself. And it wasn’t just you who had to suffer. Christ, when I think of all the nights your sister cried herself to sleep. And your poor mom, having to cope with that while your dad was dying. Not to mention Jeremy.”

Stung, Alice had been momentarily silenced. “I know I caused a lot of pain,” she’d said softly at last, “and I’m sorry for that, truly I am. But if you care about Jeremy, don’t you owe it to him to find out if there’s any truth to what I’m saying?”

But this new Gary who’d taken the place of her normally considerate brother-in-law had merely given a scornful laugh. “So having me chase some paranoid delusion is your idea of helping? Jesus, Alice, sometimes I think the kid was better off with you in prison.”

Alice had been more taken aback by the transformation in Gary than by his cruel words. In the old days, he never would have spoken to her like that. He’d always acted as the family peacekeeper, the calm voice of reason when Denise was on one of her leftist rants or when an argument between the kids needed refereeing. As a cop, he had a reputation for
settling domestic disputes without further inflaming already sore tempers, and for cutting motorists a break if they had a good reason for going over the speed limit.

Even Gary had seemed to recognize that he’d gone too far, for he’d continued on, in a gentler tone, “Okay, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, there’s some truth to what you’re saying. You start poking around where you don’t belong, you could piss off some powerful interests.”

Alice had grown suddenly alert. “So there
is
something to it.”

“I’m not saying that,” he’d said.

“What
are
you saying then?”

“Nothing.” His mouth had settled into a grim line, as he’d stared out the bug-spattered windshield, as if seeing something other than the strip of gravel on which they were parked.

She’d placed a hand on his arm. His muscles were so taut they were almost vibrating, like an aerial cable in a high wind. “If you know anything, anything at all, please, you have to tell me. I promise no one will ever know where I heard it from. Not even Denise.”

“So now you want me keeping secrets from my own wife?” With a violent twist, he’d thrown her hand off his arm, as if it had been a biting insect. “Christ, Alice. You should listen to yourself. You want people to forget about the past, stop acting like some crazy person. And stop hanging out with ex-cons, like your friend Big Mama.”

With that, he’d slammed the cruiser into gear, sending it slewing over the gravel before it hit the roadway at a speed best suited for when the bubble light was flashing. Alice had been more confused and worried than angry. Gary was clearly under a tremendous strain. But what was causing it?
Did it have something to do with the way Denise had been acting lately? Or was it some work-related pressure?

When Alice arrived at Colin’s house, there was a note pinned to the front door that read simply
Gone fishing
. She set off along the path that led down to the cove, using a hand to shield her eyes against the sunlight that seemed almost blinding after the spate of rainy days they’d had. The tide was out and the waters of the sound calm, glinting like so many capsized stars. Down below she could see Colin, in a hooded jacket and rubber boots, wading through the shallows, the lengths of PVC pipe he’d planted in evenly spaced rows stretching out before him like a field of newly sprouted cornstalks, while Shep watched from a safe, dry distance onshore. Colin spotted her and waved, sloshing his way toward her.

“Catch anything yet?” she asked, noting the plastic bucket he carried in one hand.

“Just starfish.”

“I didn’t know they were edible.”

“I wasn’t planning to make a meal out of them. In fact, they’re the ones doing the eating.” He explained that, to starfish and other predators, his fledgling oyster farm was nothing more than a giant snack bar. “I’m just thinning out the population to give my guys a fighting chance. Don’t worry,” he assured her. “They’re not going to end up in some souvenir shop. I turn them loose in the bay.” He pointed toward the larger body of water on the other side of the cove.

Colin’s face was ruddy from working outdoors. He was looking more robust these days; not only that, more at peace with himself.

“Very considerate of you,” she said, smiling. “It must help that they don’t put up much of a fight. I mean, it’s not exactly
the battle of the
Old Man and the Sea
you’re waging here.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He fished a starfish from the bucket and held it up, dripping, saying with a twinkle in his eye, “This guy looks pretty fierce. I wouldn’t want to be at the receiving end of one of these suckers.” He prodded an arm waving in sluggish protest before dropping the creature back into the bucket. “Now what do you say we take a ride over to the point and show these guys their new home?”

“I’m game, as long as it doesn’t involve touching anything slimy.”

“I promise to do all the dirty work,” he said, as he started up the path, Shep at his heels. The border collie appeared to have settled into his new role as Colin’s surrogate pet, as though he’d come to regard Colin, if not as his true owner, then as an ally at least. Shep waited politely to be invited along before hopping into the Volvo and settling onto the backseat.

The entire trip took less than half an hour, and they were back at the house by lunchtime. “You’re not in any rush, I hope,” said Colin, as they were getting out of the car. “I thought I’d fix us something to eat to go with that pie you brought.”

“Why not? It’s my day off,” she reminded him. There were a million things on her to-do list, but at the moment she couldn’t think of any better way to spend the afternoon than with Colin.

“I’m not as good a cook as you, but I make a mean shrimp salad,” he said, as he led the way through the back door, pulling off his boots in the mudroom and slipping into an old pair of Weejuns.

In the kitchen, he set about assembling various bags of greens and bottles of condiments. “Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

“No, you sit. Can’t have you working on your day off.” He waved her toward one of the chairs at the old dinette, where she sat watching in amusement as he muddled through the process of tearing up lettuce, chopping vegetables, and peeling the cooked shrimp.

“Delicious,” she pronounced, upon taking her first bite. “And the fact that I didn’t have to lift a finger makes it taste all the better.”

“You did your part. You brought dessert. How did you know pumpkin pie was my favorite?”

“Actually, it’s sweet potato,” she corrected him.

“Well, whatever, it looks good. I’ll have to order it next time I’m in the restaurant.”

“It’s not on the menu, actually. I only make it for family.”

He smiled at her across the table, a smile that caused a slow heat to rise in her cheeks. “In that case, I feel doubly privileged.”

After coffee and pie, they headed back outside. It was chilly, but after all the weeks of dreary weather, the sunshine that had broken through the clouds earlier in the day was like an unexpected gift. Bundled in their jackets, they sat in the wicker chairs on the porch with their heads tipped back to receive it, like some sort of blessing or absolution, while Shep lay stretched out asleep on the old, scuffed floorboards at Colin’s feet.

Talk turned inevitably to Jeremy’s case.

“Cantwell’s been applying pressure to set a date for the trial,” Colin said, informing her of the latest. “I don’t know how much longer I can stall. I filed a motion seeking a continuance
to interview more witnesses, but I’m not sure the judge is going to grant it.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Alice felt a ripple of anxiety.

“We’ll just have to hope that we have a strong enough case as it is.”

His faintly troubled look prompted her to ask, “What is it? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I just got the results back on the rape kit from our own expert, the pathologist I told you about, in Spokane. It’s nothing bad,” he hastened to assure her. “It’s just that I was hoping the findings would be more conclusive.”

“But if they’re not conclusive, doesn’t that mean the D.A.’s case isn’t very strong either?” she asked.

“It depends on which expert the jury finds more credible.”

“So this doctor in Spokane, what’s he like?”

“Actually, it’s a she. And she strikes me as highly credible. She’s a lot like you, in fact. Strong and decisive.”

Alice gave a self-conscious laugh. “That’s funny. Most days, it seems like I don’t even know which shoe goes on which foot.”

“Well, then, I guess appearances can be deceiving.” Colin smiled at her, tiny lines radiating from the corners of his eyes.

Alice pondered his words, as though fingering some small, shiny treasure she’d accidentally stumbled across. Was she really that person he saw when he looked at her? It was almost too much for her to contemplate, so she brought the discussion back to Jeremy’s case, asking, “What are his chances of a fair trial?”

“Depends.” Colin gazed out at the cove, frowning in thought.

“On what?”

“On whether or not our suspicions are correct about your friend, Owen.” He turned to face her. “Have you been able to find out anything yet?”

Alice thought once more about her frustrating conversation with Gary, and shook her head. “Nothing so far, but I’m still working on it.” She’d put off going to Denise, in the hope that her sister would have better luck appealing to Gary, but Alice could see that she had no other choice. She sighed, adding, “The thing is, unless we can come up with some pretty compelling proof, no one’s going to believe Owen’s behind it. Especially now, with all this public sympathy over his father.”

“That certainly adds a new wrinkle,” Colin agreed.

“Do you think they’ll ever get to the bottom of it?” she asked, out of curiosity.

A murder that took place half a century ago? With no weapon, no eyewitnesses, no suspect even.” Colin shook his head. “You’d have better luck solving Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.”

“I suppose you’re right. Still, I can’t help wondering if he’s somewhere on the island. The killer, I mean. Someone you might pass on the street and not think twice about. Someone we might even know.” Suppose, like her, he wasn’t a common criminal, but someone who’d simply snapped under pressure. In a peculiar way, she found the idea comforting. It meant she wasn’t the only one capable of doing the unthinkable.

“If he’s even still alive, he’d be pretty old by now,” Colin said. “We don’t even know if it’s a he. It could be a she.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe some woman he was involved with. He could have promised to leave his wife for
her and when she found out he was just stringing her along, she went crazy and shot him. You know, like Jean Harris and that diet doctor.”

He turned to her with a smile. “So you think it was a crime of passion?”

“From what I’ve heard, he was quite the ladies’ man.”

“If that’s true, then your theory makes sense.”

They lapsed into silence, and for a long while there was just the sound of the wind in the trees, a sound like the whispering of a thousand secrets, and the distant cries of seagulls. After a while, Colin remarked, “This was my grandfather’s favorite spot. He used to love sitting out here after a day at his easel, especially in good weather.”

“It must have been lonely when you weren’t around,” she said, thinking of the long winter months holed up in this remote place.

Colin shrugged. “I suppose. He never talked about it. He wouldn’t have wanted me to feel guilty for not visiting more.”

“What about your dad? Did he visit?” Colin seldom talked about his family, and now she realized how little she knew about them.

“No. Never.” From the hardness of Colin’s tone, it was obvious there had been some deep animosity. “My grandmother saw to that. She poisoned my dad against him.”

Alice made a sympathetic face. “Their divorce must have been bitter.” She was thinking of hers and Randy’s, a dissolution that had seemed more of a sad withering than anything else.

“Yeah, but the weird thing is I never really knew why they split up. It’s not something my grandmother likes talking about. In fact, to this day she refuses to have his name
spoken in her presence. And my grandfather . . . well, he was too much of a gentleman to say anything that might have made her look bad.”

“That must have been hard on your dad.”

“It was.” She could see the muscles tightening in Colin’s jaw. “And after my grandmother moved to New York, William didn’t have much chance to rectify the situation.”

“Why was that?”

“For one thing, they lived at opposite ends of the continent. Travel wasn’t so easy in those days. For my father it would have meant hours on an airplane, and he was just a little boy.” Colin shook his head in regret. “By the time he came of age, it was too late, the damage was done.”