The Widow

by Carla Neggers

  Abigail wasn’t celebrating, but she wasn’t mourning, either.

  “I love you, Abigail. I’ll always love you.”

  She wanted to crawl back in time and tell him…don’t! Don’t love me! Love someone else. Live, Chris. Live.

  But, because she couldn’t, she ordered a glass of Pinot Noir and thought of her wedding flowers-hydrangeas, roses-and that sparkling Maine afternoon, and how handsome Christopher Browning was as he’d waited for her to walk up the aisle on the lawn of the quaint seaside inn where they were married.

  “Excuse me-ma’am? Are you Detective Browning?”

  Her waiter’s words yanked her out of her memories and dropped her back into the real world. “Why-”

  “You have a phone call.”

  A call? Why not reach her on her pager or cell phone? She eyed the waiter. He was young, unfamiliar. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. I just-” He gestured back toward the bar. “Someone gave me the phone and said it was for you.”

  “All right. Don’t go far, okay? I might want to talk to you.”

  He nodded, retreating fast.

  Abigail held the phone to her ear. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb your dinner.” The voice was unrecognizable, barely a whisper. She couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. “Are you having your husband’s favorite wine?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Pinot Noir, correct?”

  Damn. She pushed back the emotion of the evening and called on her law-enforcement training and experience. Keep whoever it is talking. “That’s right. Are you here? Join me.”

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  “Did you know my husband?”

  “Shh. Shh. Just listen. Your husband turned over too many rocks. Bad things crawled out. He was eliminated.” The static whisper made the words seem even creepier, more menacing. “His death wasn’t a random act of violence.”

  “I need you to be more specific-”

  “You need to listen.” It was the first time the caller had put emphasis on any one word. “Things are happening on Mt. Desert. Again.”

  “Is someone else in danger?”

  “You’re the only person the killer fears.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m in danger?”

  “I’m suggesting you’re the one who can find the answers. Detective.” A brief pause. “You’ve gained experience over the past seven years. You haven’t lost your determination to solve your husband’s murder. The killer knows you won’t stop until you do.”

  A cold finger of emotion penetrated her cloak of professionalism. “How do you know what the killer knows?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Wait-you said ‘things’ are happening. What kind of things?”

  “No more.”

  “What about the rocks Chris turned over-what crawled out? Give me an idea. Otherwise, once I hang up, I drink my wine, have a nice dinner and dismiss this as another crank call. I’ve had several over the years, you know.”

  “This is the call you’ve been waiting for. You know it is.”

  “Don’t-”

  Click.

  It was done. The call was over. Abigail set the phone on the table and dug her detective’s notebook out of her handbag and tugged off the Bic pen she kept attached to it. The waiter, who must have been watching, wandered back to her table, but she held up a hand, silencing him as she wrote down every word the caller had said to her.

  When she finished, she flipped the pad shut and sat back, eyeing the waiter. A kid, really. “What’s your name?” she asked him.

  “Trevor-Trevor Baynor.”

  She took down his address and phone number, learned that he worked at the restaurant twenty hours a week-the rest of the time, he studied jazz at the Berklee College of Music. Piano.

  “I need to get back to work,” he said.

  “Sure. First tell me who took the call I just received. The bartender?”

  He nodded. “Her name’s Lori.”

  “What did she say to you when she handed you the phone?”

  “She said-I don’t remember.”

  “Try.”

  He shoved a hand through his tufts of thick blond hair. “She said to give you the phone. That you had a call.”

  “She knew my name? How?”

  “The caller, I guess.”

  “There are a hundred people in this restaurant, Trevor. How did Lori know I was Detective Browning?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” He grinned a little. “I didn’t think about that. She gave me your table number, said, ‘I think that’s her.’ It’s not like she knows you.”

  “Did you see anyone else on a phone while I was taking my call?”

  Trevor’s eyes widened in surprise or possibly fear. “No-I mean, I didn’t notice. I wasn’t looking. People talk on cell phones all the time.”

  “Okay, Trevor. Thanks.” Abigail got to her feet. “I’ll go talk to Lori. Don’t throw my wine away. I haven’t given up on dinner yet.”

  Lori, a sleek, black-clad woman in her early forties, didn’t know much more than Trevor did. The caller had spoken to her in a whisper, too. “I just figured it was someone with a voice problem-throat cancer, laryngitis, whatever.”

  “Man, woman?”

  “Could be either. Why, don’t you know?” She frowned, her black eyeliner giving her a dramatic but raccoonish look. “Maybe I should get the manager.”

  “Sure. That’d be fine. In a sec, though, okay? While your memory’s fresh, tell me exactly what the caller said to you.”

  “Exactly? Well-I picked up and said hello. I’m informal. And the person on the other end said, ‘I’d like to speak to Abigail Browning. Detective Browning.’ That’s you, right?”

  “Just go on, please.”

  “I said, are you sure you have the right number, and the caller said, ‘She’s dining alone. She has short dark hair.’” Lori shrugged, easing back from the shiny dark-wood bar. “I looked around, and bingo. There you were.”

  “Then what?”

  “I told the caller I spotted you and gave the phone to Trevor.”

  The manager, a middle-aged man in an overly formal black suit, appeared and asked what was going on, and Abigail let Lori fill him in, watched both of them for any indication either one had been part of the setup. But they seemed as caught off guard by the call as she was. They didn’t know the caller. They hadn’t agreed-for money, for grins, for love-to tip off him or her when Abigail arrived at the restaurant.

  And the restaurant didn’t have Caller ID, either.

  Abigail called her partner, Lucas Jones, because he was experienced-if not as experienced as Bob O’Reilly and Scoop Wisdom-and because he didn’t live above her. While she waited for him, she pushed her wine aside and ate half a piece of warm bread, staring out at a young couple walking hand in hand down Newbury Street, the woman’s wedding ring glinting in the streetlight.

  Abigail wanted to tap her on the shoulder and ask her what she would do if the man she loved was murdered four days into their honeymoon, if, after seven years, his murder remained unsolved, his killer at large?

  Would she lie awake nights, worrying whether or not the killer no one could catch had killed, would kill, again?

  Would she read about murders in the paper, hear about them on television, and wonder if they were the work of her husband’s killer-if she’d done enough, worked hard enough, fought hard enough, prayed hard enough, to find the killer?

  Or would she put her husband’s death behind her and try to lead a normal life?

  But the couple wandered out of sight, just as Lucas arrived. Lucas was in his late thirties-not particularly handsome. He had a wife in law enforcement, and a young son-a normal life. He sat across from her. “Abigail, what is it?”

  “Probably nothing,” she said, and told him about the call.

  The next day she burned her journals and made plans to go to Maine.

  After she’d burned her jo
urnals and scooped their ashes into her coffee can, Abigail drove out to the gold-domed Massachusetts State House and parked in front of a brick townhouse across from Boston Common. She could still smell lighter fluid on her fingers. The elegant house had black shutters and a brass-trimmed glossy burgundy-painted front door, with just enough room on either side of its front steps for a rhododendron and a few evergreen shrubs.

  Above the single doorbell was a discreet plaque. The Dorothy Garrison Foundation. Since it was Sunday, the offices were closed.

  “Doe,” as her family called her, had drowned in Maine when she was fourteen. Owen Garrison had been just eleven and witnessed his sister’s drowning, helpless to save her when she slipped and fell off the cliffs, not far from where he found Chris’s body eighteen years later.

  Abigail eyed the tall, spotless windows with their sheer curtains and heavy drapes, the old-Boston formality of the place a contrast to the physical, unrelenting, unforgiving work that Owen did as a specialist in disaster response. Three years ago, he founded Fast Rescue, a nonprofit organization that fielded highly trained, volunteer search-and-rescue teams prepared and equipped to arrive within twenty-four hours of any disaster, manmade or natural, anywhere in the world.

  They weren’t spontaneous volunteers, and they didn’t respond to situations that could be handled by local organizations. They were part of an intricate network of national and international emergency responders. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, fires, tornadoes, mudslides, bombings-if people were missing, trapped, swept away or otherwise in need of being found and rescued, Owen and his teams would be there.

  Abigail ran her fingertips along the cool black-iron fence. When Edgar Garrison had bought his Boston dream house a century ago, had he imagined his great-grandson dangling from a helicopter to pluck desperate survivors of massive flooding from rooftops, or digging through the rubble of a collapsed building, working his way to a trapped six-year-old?

  Hard to say. The Garrisons were an unpredictable lot, as far as Abigail could tell. But the men were all handsome. Very handsome, in fact. She’d seen pictures of old Edgar, the money-maker, an avid outdoorsman who’d teamed up with the Rockefellers and other wealthy summer residents to turn much of Mt. Desert Island, Maine, into a national park. Quite attractive, if a little stuffy. The good looks of his son, Brennan, were softer, more refined. He’d surprised his family by marrying a boar-shooting Texas beauty twenty years his junior.

  Now eighty-two, Polly Garrison still could grab headlines. Their son, also named Edgar, was the quiet one, although just as startlingly handsome, in his own way, as his father and grandfather. He and his wife had established the foundation in their daughter’s memory and donated their Boston house for its headquarters not long after her accidental death. They moved to Texas and raised Owen there.

  Owen wasn’t soft or refined or even what Abigail would call traditionally handsome. But he was certainly good-looking.

  And he was the only Garrison who still had a presence in Maine.

  His family sold their house on Mt. Desert Island to Jason Cooper, who also owned a beautiful estate on Somes Sound. His younger half brother, a prominent Washington consultant, spent five months a year at the old Garrison house. Also a well-known amateur landscaper, Ellis Cooper had converted the yard into impressive gardens. He’d held a party there the day Abigail was attacked and, later that night, Chris was killed. They’d been invited but didn’t go.

  After the break-in, when she was on her way to get checked out at the local hospital, Chris had stopped briefly at the party. Abigail knew he was looking for her attacker. But the party had broken up, and somehow-for reasons she still didn’t understand-he’d ended up down on the rockbound waterfront below Ellis’s delphinium and roses, where, early the next morning, Owen Garrison had found his body.

  The Garrisons and the Coopers presented a complicated set of problems for Abigail. They’d known Chris and his grandfather far longer than she had. They’d had both a direct and indirect impact on the lives of the two Browning men. Will Browning, Chris’s grandfather, had moved into the former Garrison caretaker cottage after he’d helped stop the fire that had destroyed their original house, the first Edgar’s pride and joy. Police believed Chris’s killer had hidden in its skeletal remains.

  And Abigail had long believed that Doe Garrison’s tragic death and the helplessness Chris, only fifteen himself, had felt at the loss of his friend and neighbor had helped propel him into the FBI.

  To find out what happened to him and why-who killed him-Abigail had become increasingly convinced that she needed to better understand Chris’s relationship with his wealthy friends and neighbors on Mt. Desert.

  Polly Garrison, Owen’s colorful grandmother, seldom turned up there anymore. Five years ago, Abigail had found her way to Polly’s home in Austin, Texas, on a hot July weekend. She remembered her surprise at how simple and classic the house was, and the smell of the shade and the gentle spray of a sprinkler that reached just to her ankles.

  Polly answered the door herself, silver-haired, striking.

  “Abigail? I didn’t realize you were in Austin.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Garrison. May I have a minute? I’d like to talk to you about your family’s relationship with the Coopers.”

  Her lovely gray eyes settled on Abigail. “Why?”

  “Curiosity.”

  The older woman smiled. “That’s what makes you a good police officer. Your curiosity. You’ll be a detective one day, I do believe.”

  “Maybe. It’s hot here. Are you ever tempted to spend the summer in Maine?”

  “I’m often tempted, but the memories…” She took a small breath. “I sometimes visit my grandson there. It’s not easy for me, but Owen-he embraces adversity.”

  No surprise there. “You’re not from Austin.”

  “West Texas. My husband and I moved here after we were married. We kept houses in Maine and Boston for many years. Our son eventually took over the Boston house. But he lives here now, too.”

  “Because of your granddaughter.”

  Polly Garrison’s eyes misted. “Yes. Because of Doe.”

  “The Coopers bought your house on Mt. Desert Island after she drowned.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you kept land there, and eventually Owen built his own place there.”

  “Owen couldn’t bear for us to leave Maine altogether. It was as if to do so would be to betray Doe. He was only eleven when we lost her.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “None of us can.”

  “But Austin’s home for him?”

  “I’m not sure anywhere’s home for him. Abigail…” The older woman extended a hand. “My dear, we all understand your need for answers, but don’t you think Chris would want you to be happy?”

  “I am happy. But I want to know who killed my husband.”

  As a line of cars passed behind her on Beacon Street and children squealed on Boston Common, Abigail realized her throat had tightened with the onslaught of memories, the July heat, the awareness of what she meant to do.

  After her chat with Polly Garrison, who had revealed little about her family’s relationship with the Coopers, Abigail had returned to her modest Austin motel. She took a shower. Her hair had been long then, dripping into her clingy camisole top when Owen turned up at her door.

  Just out of the army, he was rugged and hard-edged and not very pleased with her.

  “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Officer Browning. And you’re not a detective.”

  “Astute of you.”

  “Next time you want to come down here and ask my grandmother about her dead granddaughter-don’t. Deal with me instead.”

  Abigail didn’t defend herself. She simply pointed to the two-inch scar under his eye. “Where did you get that scar-a search-and-rescue mission?”

  “Bar fight.”

  On his way out, he paid for her motel stay. She didn’t know until s
he packed up the next day for Boston. It wasn’t kindness on Owen’s part. It was his way of telling her she was on his turf, and out of her league.

  Except she didn’t give a damn. Then or now.

  “Things are happening on Mt. Desert. Again.”

  If so, were the Garrisons and the Coopers involved? Abigail had no idea, but she meant to find out.

  When she got back to her triple-decker, she pulled a six-pack of Otter Creek Pale Ale out of the refrigerator, microwaved a bag of popcorn, sharpened three pencils, unwrapped three fresh yellow legal pads and put everything out on her little kitchen table.

  Then she phoned her upstairs neighbors, and they came.

  Scoop Wisdom had a shaved head and a ferocious, unbridled demeanor, but he’d adopted two stray cats. Abigail didn’t believe anyone who had cats could be all that scary.

  The cheerful blues and yellows of her kitchen-even the beer and popcorn-had no apparent effect on either man.

  “I need your help,” she told them.

  Scoop’s dark eyes narrowed on her. Bob just scowled.

  She raked a hand through her short curls. “I got a call last night.”

  Bob snorted. “About goddamn time you came clean.”

  “What? Lucas told you? When?”

  Scoop grabbed a beer, opened it and took a long drink. “He called me on his way to meet you at the restaurant. I called Bob.”

  “And none of you said anything? Lucas, you two-”

  “We don’t butt into other people’s business,” Bob said.

  Abigail had to laugh. “You’re detectives. You butt into other people’s business all the time.” But not hers, she realized. “All right. I should have told you myself. I needed today to get my head together. Burning my journals helped.”

  Scoop frowned at her. “You burned your journals?”

  “They weren’t evidence.” She shrugged. “They’re where I dumped my emotions.”

  “Oh. Okay, then.” Obviously not wanting more details, Scoop pointed with his beer at the stack of files. “These your files on your husband’s murder?”

  “My notes, newspaper articles, photographs, sketches. Everything I could pull together on my own, without stepping on toes.”