Still Mr. & Mrs.

by Mary McBride

  Angela was in the kitchen, looking more like a deer in headlights than any actual deer in headlights Daisy Riordan had ever seen. It occurred to Daisy that, in her obstinacy, she'd set some rather large events in motion, not the least of which was the unscheduled trip to Hassenfeld by the president of the United States. Somewhere in her irate conversation with William, she also thought she might have implied that she wanted Robert fired. She hadn't meant it, of course, and she had every intention of rectifying the situation as soon as she could decently swallow her pride.

  In the meantime, Bobby's wife appeared on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  “This dinner needn't be complicated,” Daisy said, hoping to reassure her.

  The young woman just stared at her bleakly. “In all honesty, Mrs. Riordan, and no disrespect intended, but I'd almost rather take a bullet for the president than have to prepare his dinner.”

  Given the child's culinary skills, Daisy could well understand that. “As I said, it needn't be complicated. I'd suggest the chicken breasts sautéed in olive oil. You do those quite well, Angela. A simple buttered rice, perhaps, and a vegetable. Anything but broccoli or brussels sprouts. Since William's time here will be limited, dessert won't be necessary. We'll have drinks in the living room before our meal, and coffee there afterward.”

  “I think I can manage that,” Angela said, her face brightening considerably.

  “I'm sure you can.”

  “You must really be looking forward to this evening, Mrs. Riordan,” she said. “Is Professor Gerrard nervous about meeting the president?”

  “I spoke with him a moment ago. He seems to be taking it all in stride. It's rather ridiculous, really, a man of Gerald's stature having to pass my son's inspection.” Daisy gave a little sniff as she peered toward the hallway that led to the servants’ quarters. “Is Robert still here?”

  She'd come downstairs not to assist Angela with the menu or to discuss Gerald but rather to apologize to Robert for her fit of pique over Muriel and for any inadvertent damage she might have done to his career. She meant to make the proper reparations, beginning with saying she was sorry.

  “He's back at the surveillance trailer,” Angela said. “Would you like me to call down there for you?”

  “That won't be necessary. When he returns, please tell him I'd like to have a few words with him.”

  “He probably won't have time, Mrs. Riordan. Bobby's been ordered to leave.”

  “Well, we'll just see about that,” Daisy said with a touch of indignation, despite the fact that she was the one no doubt responsible for his dismissal. It wouldn't do much for her matchmaking efforts if these two young people were officially ordered apart.

  A sheen of moisture appeared in Angela's eyes. “His things are all packed, and—” Her lips compressed in silence, and she reached up to swipe at an escaped tear. First one and then another.

  Oh, dear. Oh, damn. Daisy never knew quite what to do when someone cried. It was one of the reasons she avoided funerals. Not being one to weep herself, she was never quite sure how to properly console a person. She wasn't one to hug people or to murmur a soft “There, there.” Usually she waited quietly, uncomfortably, until the waterworks subsided, then sought out the nearest exit and sent the weeper a warm and thoughtful note the very next day.

  It occurred to her all of a sudden that it was probably one of the reasons she prized her longtime association with Muriel. The silly fool never cried. She simply got even. Daisy knew how to handle behavior like that. But this?

  “I'm sorry,” Angela said, sniffing, snuffling, nearly scouring her cheeks with her hands now. “This just happens sometimes. It's genetic.”

  “Oh, my goodness. Well, I—”

  Robert came through the back door like an answered prayer.

  “She's crying,” Daisy said helplessly. “Do something.”

  Such a wonderful smile broke out on his face that Daisy's ancient heart performed a slow but decisive little flip. The way he strode across the kitchen reminded her how dearly she missed the inelegant thud of male footsteps in her house. The way he curled his arms around his soggy wife, embraced her so protectively, and pressed his lips into the curve of her neck made Daisy suddenly decide that, yes, she really would marry Gerald. How surprising! How absolutely astonishing! Up until this very moment she'd really only been toying with the notion.

  Robert lifted his eyes to hers. “I'm leaving now, Mrs. Riordan. It's been a pleasure, ma'am.”

  18

  Less than an hour later Bobby sat, cooling his heels, in a curtained-off cubicle in the emergency room of the Hassenfeld Community Care Center, taking shallow breaths while he glared at the big round clock on the hospital green wall. He didn't have time for this.

  He'd walked into the ER, flashed his badge across the admitting desk at Charge Nurse Vera Kuhlmann, then told her he had a broken rib and needed a scrip for painkillers ASAP.

  Vera Kuhlmann had pulled her glasses down her nose, skewered him with her Raisinette eyes, then asked him if he had a medical degree in addition to his badge. When he said no, she promptly informed him that she'd tell him whether or not he had a broken rib after he was x-rayed.

  Bobby hurt too much to argue. He took off his clothes, donned the dinky faded blue gown Nurse Kuhlmann gave him, and tried not to yell obscenities when the technician jammed his injured side against the X-ray screen.

  Hospitals weren't so different from the army. Hurry up and wait. Hell. He looked at his gray suit coat now as it dangled from a hook on the cinderblock wall. He'd taken it out of his garment bag and put it on before he left the Riordan house, thinking that “the uniform”—drab suit, a muted tie, the shiny brogans, the dark shades—would help cut a swath through whatever small-town red tape might lie in his way.

  The uniform hadn't done much for Vera Kuhlmann. And all the hard-edged federal agent look had done for Angela, after she stopped crying, was make it easier for her to say good-bye. Or maybe her coolness was just a reaction to his. After all, he knew he wasn't really leaving. Not yet, anyway.

  “Call me from Mexico,” he'd told her. “Just so I know you're all right.”

  “I'm not going,” she said. “I thought I'd spend a couple days with Mom and Dad instead.”

  He'd been heartened by that. Heartened, hell. He'd wanted to whoop for joy. His wife wasn't winging south to meet ol’ Rod after all. She was going home to Angelo and Rose. That had to be a good sign. A hopeful sign. But then she'd averted her gaze and added, “Why don't you call me there from Georgia? We can't just keep postponing the inevitable, Bobby.”

  The inevitable, of course, was the D word. Divorce. It might as well have been Death. “Yeah,” he told her. “Okay. I'll call.” Thank God he'd been in too much of a hurry to even think about it then.

  As opposed to now, with his forward progress temporarily halted by the brick wall and hatchet face of Nurse Kuhlmann. He looked at the clock again, checked it against his watch. The president would be here in a little under two hours. That didn't give him much more time to come up with something hard on either Bootsie or the professor, and about all he had right now was a bad feeling in his gut and something—what?—gnawing at the back of his brain.

  He'd tried to work the phone while he waited for the X-ray results, but it was almost impossible getting correct numbers with the reception cutting in and out every time he leaned an inch in any direction. Besides, he wasn't convinced he'd learn anything over the phone that his colleagues hadn't already found out. The professor kept corning up clean as the proverbial whistle.

  “Well, you were right, Agent Holland.” Nurse Kuhlmann raked back the vinyl curtain and glided into the cubicle on her quiet white shoes. “That sucker is fractured. Showed up perfectly on the film.”

  “Told you,” Bobby said, edging off the table and reaching for his jacket and shoulder holster. “Where's my prescription?”

  She ignored him. “Doctor says you're to rest for at least a week. No strenuous exercise. No
heavy lifting. No—”

  Bobby shrugged into his holster and jacket while the woman went through her litany of instructions, none of which he was going to be able to follow. All he wanted was a pill to take the edge off the pain and not dull his senses too much in the process.

  “The scrip?” he reminded her.

  “Follow me out to the desk,” she said.

  While he waited for her to fill out the paperwork for the precious controlled substance, Bobby asked, “You wouldn't happen to know the Rand woman who lives out on Route Four, would you?”

  Nurse Kuhlmann's little brown eyes got bigger. “Bootsie?”

  “Yes,” Bobby said.

  “Sure I know her. I'm related to her. Some kind of cousin. My grandmother was her father's second cousin, or something like that. I always forget. Anyway—” She rolled her eyes. “Mine's not the side of the family with the people chained in attics. What's Bootsie done now?”

  “Nothing,” he said casually. “What's she done in the past?”

  The woman actually cracked a smile. “Cripes. What hasn't she done? Just for starters, I can tell you—”

  The phone near her elbow gave a sharp ring, and Bobby was tempted to tell her not to answer it. While she listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, he drummed his fingers, and she scratched a few more notations on his paperwork.

  “Sorry,” she said, hanging up, then handing him his prescription. “There's been a pileup on Highway Ninety. They're bringing some of the injured here.”

  “If I could just ask you a couple more questions,” he said.

  “Sorry.” She was already out of her chair and headed away. “Listen, if you want the lowdown on Bootsie Rand, ask Tiny at the Tattoo Parlor. He's her nephew. He'll give you an earful.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Tattoo Parlor. Bobby shuddered just thinking about it.

  “Smells good,” Tricia Yates said as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Thanks,” Angela replied at the same time she thought, Bobby's gone. What the hell could you possibly want from me?

  Tricia leaned against the counter where Angela was chopping parsley. The Man-Eater gazed at the dark green leaves with utter disdain. “Doug sent me up to see if you needed any help.”

  “No,” she answered coolly. “Everything's under control.”

  The agent's sigh of relief was almost audible. No doubt she didn't want the blot of “scullery maid” anywhere on her résumé, the disloyal slut. Angela was still angry that the woman had turned her back on Bobby the minute he was in trouble. Not that it hadn't occurred to her that she had essentially done the same thing, but it was more satisfying at the moment to direct her anger at Tricia than at herself.

  “Well, I'll go back to the trailer, then,” Tricia said.

  “Any new information about the professor?” Angela asked, attempting to sound like an agent despite her appearance as a cook.

  “Zip. We're not finding out anything that we didn't already know.”

  “I guess that's good news,” Angela said. “I'm sure the president will be glad to get a clean report. What time are the guys going to do the sweep of the house?”

  “They're not.”

  It was standard practice, whenever possible, to bring in bomb-sniffing dogs and X-ray machines to secure any rooms where the president planned to be. Angela was astonished that it wasn't the case this afternoon.

  “Who made that decision?” she asked, her knife now poised in the air above the cutting board.

  “Not Doug,” Tricia said. “As far as I can tell, it was the director. Sounds like he's on a let's-please-the-president-by-not-upsetting-his-mother kick. Anyway, Doug said they'd based the decision not to do the sweep on the fact that there had been two agents inside the house for a week.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” Did it? She and Bobby hadn't exactly swept the house, but they were certainly familiar with its every nook and cranny. The place was hardly open to the public, either. Nobody had been here this past week, actually inside, except the old geezers in the bridge club.

  “Well, since you don't need me,” Tricia said, “I'm outta here.”

  As fast as her long legs could carry her, too, Angela couldn't help but notice. The fickle bitch was probably afraid Angela was going to change her mind and find some work for her to do.

  She transferred the chopped parsley to a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and stowed it in the refrigerator until it was time to put it on the rice. She'd already decided to make a huge portion of that on the off chance that, if she burned the bottom, there would still be plenty of edible grains on top. Hey, if she wasn't a great cook, at least she was a clever one.

  A busy one, too, which was good. There just wasn't time to think about Bobby right now. Don't even start, she warned herself. She'd already looked like a jerk, crying the way she had this afternoon. No wonder he was so eager to get away from her.

  With her chicken already happily marinating in lemon juice and olive oil, she was ready to scrape and julienne the carrots just the way Mrs. Riordan liked them when the president's mother called to her.

  “Angela, I'm having a devil of a time trying to decide what to wear this evening. I could use a second opinion. Would you come up here for a moment?”

  Before he visited the Tattoo Parlor, Bobby took his prescription into Boechler's Pharmacy next door, where a bronzed plaque on the wall proclaimed the gratitude of the Hassenfeld Chamber of Commerce for serving their community for over half a century. Some of the stock on the dusty shelves looked as if it had sat there at least that long.

  “This will take just a few minutes,” the white-jacketed man behind the counter told him. “Any other shopping you have to do?”

  Bobby dragged his shades down his nose, then flipped open his badge and ID. “No, no shopping. But I'll take one of those pills right now, okay?”

  The pharmacist's eyes widened, and his Adam's apple did a jumping jack above the knot of his tie. “I'm sorry. We usually don't—”

  “This isn't usual,” Bobby snapped.

  The man looked at the prescription slip once more, then reached behind him for a jar and shook out a single tablet, which he slid almost furtively across the countertop. “There's a drinking fountain just over there.”

  “Thanks.” Bobby swallowed the pill. “I'd really appreciate it if I could use your phone. Is there a private office in back?”

  “Yes, sir. Right back there.” He pointed. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then Bobby sat for a few minutes in the little windowless back room, staring at the phone, wondering who he could call whom his colleagues hadn't already called, no doubt repeatedly, with reference to the professor. He wondered, too, how long before the pill would begin to dull the pain in his side, and just how much time he had before all he felt like doing was putting his head down on any flat surface and zoning out for the next twenty-four hours.

  Think, he told himself. From the various reports he'd seen this week, he knew that agents had been in touch with the police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gerald Gerrard's previous residence, and had turned up zero problems. No traffic offenses. No disturbing the peace. Not even littering. Sometimes, though, as Bobby well knew, all a person had to do was ask a different question to get a different answer.

  He punched in his credit card number, got the number of the Cambridge police from Information, and when his call went through, he asked for the Homicide desk instead of Records. After the captain on the other end of the line made a few calls of his own and was satisfied with his caller's credentials, Bobby asked him, not about Gerald Gerrard, but about any John Does in their morgue in recent weeks.

  “Not here,” the captain said, “but Boston's got a real lulu. No head. No hands. This John Doe will still be on the books when my baby grandson graduates from the police academy.”

  Bobby took notes on where the body of the white male was discovered—snagged in fishing line under a boat in the Charles Rive
r—and when—two weeks ago. The captain didn't know if the medical examiner's report had come in yet, but he said he'd have someone at the Boston P.D. get back to Bobby with more details about the corpse.

  “Great,” Bobby said. “Tell them it's top priority, will you?” Then he gave him Angela's cell phone number, since he couldn't depend on having a decent conversation on his own.

  After he hung up, he stared at the oversize wall calendar with its sunny blue skies and fields of bright flowers touting instant allergy relief. He wished he had more time. Even a few hours. He wished his head were clearer. If anything happened to Daisy Riordan, it was going to be his fault.

  The office door opened a crack. “Your prescription is ready, Mr. Holland,” the pharmacist said. “No rush, though. Feel free to—”

  “Thanks,” Bobby said, standing up and pocketing his notes. “I'm all through here.”

  Mrs. Riordan had called Angela upstairs to help her decide between a rather severe pale pink cocktail suit and a softer, full-skirted dress of navy blue silk. As Angela might have expected, when she suggested the navy, Daisy Riordan chose the pink. The woman could be as irritating as… as … Bobby!

  “If that's all,” Angela said, “I'll go back downstairs and finish the carrots.”

  “One more thing.” The president's mother laid the pink satin jacket on her bed and smoothed a wrinkle with the flat of her hand. “You may think I'm just a meddling old woman, Angela, and that's probably true, but I've become quite fond of you and your husband. It grieves me that the two of you can't seem to find some common emotional ground.”

  Angela didn't know what to say. An offended “It's none of your damned business” came instantly to mind, even as a part of her was deeply touched by the woman's obvious concern. My God. Was her marriage such a blatant mess that everybody could see it? Before she could conjure up a response, though, Mrs. Riordan continued.

  “Some people simply don't cry, my dear. But that doesn't mean they don't have feelings. Quite often, the most intense of feelings.”

  “I understand that,” Angela said. Please don't say anything more, she wanted to scream. Just let me go fix the freaking carrots. My husband, the one who doesn't cry, just left me in such a dry-eyed hurry that he didn't even kiss me good-bye. He couldn't wait to get away from me. He'll call me about the divorce, he said. If the president weren't coming, if I didn't have to hold myself together for a few more hours, I'd be in bed with the covers pulled over my head right now and just maybe—no, probably— definitely—never get up again.