The Warning Sign

by Mia Marlowe

  “There’s a difference,” she said. “You don’t have to explain to me how I can help you see better. Your glasses do that. Even with my hearing aids, I have a loss. That’s why every time I meet someone new, I have to tell them how they need to speak to me if they want me to understand them. I’m so sick of it.”

  He was silent for a few moments.

  “I see your point,” he said. “You seem to speechread very well.”

  “Not nearly well enough.” Sara thought about the man in the white van. She mangled that reading so badly, she half-convinced herself he was a mob hit man taking on a contract, for pity’s sake. Obviously, she watched way too many re-runs of The Sopranos.

  She pushed the white van and the man in it out of her mind as Ryan Knight started leading her through a vocal exercise.

  ~

  Sara stepped out of the bathroom with a towel turbaned around her head. She slipped on her nightgown, enjoying the feel of fresh cotton sliding over clean skin.

  “Where’s that dog? Lulu, time to go to bed!” she called, putting two fingers to her larynx to assess changes in pitch and volume. Ryan had shown her the vibrations were much different from high to low, loud to soft. Once he learned she had a hearing-ear dog, he encouraged her to practice talking to Lulu.

  Her furry companion crawled out from under the bed skirt, stretching and yawning. She’d already put herself to bed.

  “Silly girl.” Sara scooped up the little dog and put her on the foot of the bed. Lulu looked like a dust mop with feet, but she was trained to alert Sara to a knock at the door or a fire warning. The dog woke Sara each morning when her alarm clock buzzed and pranced in circles when a text came in on the cell phone or TTY, a landline for the hearing-impaired. But mostly, Lulu was good company and that was important.

  Now that Sara was single again.

  Her wedding ring was still on the sterling holder she kept on the bedside table. It was decent of Matthew to insist she keep it. The diamond was a little over a full carat and of good quality. If she had a rough patch, she could always sell it, he’d said.

  Rough patch. Is that what he’d call it? Didn’t he know there were some things money wouldn’t fix?

  She picked up the ring and the stone caught the glow of her lamp. The refracted light danced across the ceiling, splintered into hundreds of little prisms.

  Shattered.

  Kind of like her marriage.

  “Do not go there,” Sara ordered herself as she put the ring back in its place. She should probably take it down to the bank and put it in the safe deposit box. But she wasn’t quite ready not to see it anymore.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Ryan Knight though,” she told her dog.

  Professional ethics put her off-limits to him, she was sure. It also made him safe. She could indulge in a harmless little fantasy about a hot guy with no expectation of anything else.

  It was easier not to have expectations.

  She turned out her light, piled into bed and flicked on the small bedroom TV. Closed captions scrolled across the bottom of the evening news. It was a good way to work on her speechreading since the captions helped her catch up if she missed something.

  An earthquake in Sumatra, new electronic voting machines for the coming election, a hole-in-one at a local golf course. Sara settled deeper into her pillows. She was almost ready to call it a night when the talking head announced a breaking story. His lips formed a name she recognized.

  Valenti.

  She sat bolt upright.

  This just in. A body was recovered from the Mystic River this evening. The coroner has identified the deceased as Anthony Valenti, an associate professor in mathematics at MIT.

  The Mystic River. Sara walked Lulu along the footpath skirting the river every morning.

  Valenti’s half-submerged vehicle was found in the river by a jogger. Based on skid marks near the scene, police believe Mr. Valenti lost control of his car and ran it off the road. In other news, the Boston Red Sox—

  Sara turned off the TV and stared into the darkness.

  Anthony Valenti didn’t lose control. He didn’t run his car into the water. His death was made to look like an accident, just like the lips in the white van had promised.

  She was a better speechreader than she thought.

  With unsteady hands, she picked up her cell and began texting. At the very least, she could tell the police that Anthony Valenti’s death was no accident.

  She just wished the only homicide detective she knew wasn’t also her ex-husband.

  Chapter 2

  Morning at the station house smelled of stale cigarettes. The coffee was so strong Matt always claimed it could carry a mug across the table by itself. Sara nodded to the officers she recognized as she made her way through the squad room. They returned her smile, but her ex was one of their own.

  None of them had been on her side during the divorce.

  She hoped he’d get this over with quickly. It was so hard to see him.

  The door to his office was ajar, so she peered in. Matt was sitting behind his desk. An invisible hand squeezed her heart. His gaze was focused on the papers before him, his dark hair falling forward over his brow. Sara’s hand still itched to reach up and ease it back into place for him.

  She started to push the door open, then jerked to a stop when she realized he wasn’t alone. A woman leaned into Sara’s field of vision and fastened her mouth on Matthew’s.

  Brittany.

  Heat crept up Sara’s neck and threatened to leak out her ears. She was here to do her civic duty, not be subjected to the bimbette who destroyed her marriage. She cleared her throat.

  Brittany straightened and turned, her cat-slant gaze raking Sara. “Oh! She’s here.”

  “Hello, Sara.” Matthew rose to his feet as Sara pushed the door open and entered his office.

  Brittany reached over with a tissue and smoothed a little of her peach lipstick from Matthew’s lower lip. “Wrong color for you, baby.”

  She bared her teeth at Sara. No one would mistake the expression for a smile. Then she flounced out in a long-legged stride.

  A frown pleated Matthew’s brow.

  Trouble in paradise?

  “I didn’t see a ring,” Sara said. “Guess you haven’t made an honest woman of her yet.”

  “Sara—”

  “I’m sorry. That was rude,” she said before he could throw up his fences. “I didn’t come here for a fight.”

  Matthew mumbled something and waved a hand toward the only other chair in the room.

  He forgot he was supposed to face her straight on when he spoke to her. How had she missed that warning sign? She should have known their marriage was in trouble when he first started forgetting things like that. She read his body language and sat anyway.

  There were dark smudges under his eyes and a tightness at the corners of his mouth that hadn’t been there the last time Sara saw him. He seemed down.

  Or maybe she was just hoping he was miserable. It was hard to tell.

  He held her gaze for several heartbeats. “You look good, Sara. How’ve you been?”

  No, she would not be sucked in by his puppy-dog brown eyes.

  “Fine. Busy. Look, can we just get this over with? I sent you a detailed text.”

  A muscle ticked along his jaw line. He didn’t like being brushed off.

  Well, join the club, pal.

  “Your text was pretty thorough, but I have a couple of questions. First, where were you when you speechread this conversation?”

  He slow-walked her through the whole thing, encouraging her to repeat verbatim as much as she could remember of the disturbing exchange. She described the van and gave him the numbers from the plate.

  “How about the guy?” he asked. “Would you know him again if you saw him?”

  She shook her head. “I only saw him in the mirror and then only part of his face.”

  “Race?”

  “White, I think,” she said. “His a
rm was pretty tan. Maybe Hispanic. I just don’t know.”

  “You’re trying too hard.” Matt wrote something on the page in front of him. “Usually your first impression is the right one.”

  Her first impression of Matthew certainly turned out to be wrong. He was going to love her till they were both dust, but her hearing loss changed all that. They stopped talking. They grew apart.

  Or maybe it had nothing to do with my impairment. Maybe it was just Brittany’s skinny little butt.

  “Facial hair?” he asked, as if it didn’t still hurt for her to breathe the same air as him.

  How did he do that? Just go through the motions as if they didn’t have all that history together? Did some people have a toggle in their hearts that let them turn their emotions on and off like a light switch?

  “Sara?”

  She gave herself a mental shake. “No. No facial hair. I’m sorry. I wish I could give you more.”

  Or less. She wished there was a switch in her heart.

  “I know how you hate it when eye-witnesses can’t be more specific.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He jotted another couple lines and slid the paper into a manila folder. “This is all just for form’s sake anyway. The coroner has already ruled death by drowning in the Valenti case.”

  “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t murder. Wasn’t there some evidence of a struggle?

  “There was a bruise on the guy’s forehead. But his tox report shows plenty of alcohol. We figure he drove his car into the river, made it out in the shallow water and slipped. Valenti banged his forehead on the car door and into the drink he went. There was a dent and blood smear on the car. Never knew what hit him.” Matthew shoved the folder to the corner of his desk. “This is going down as an accident. Case closed.”

  “But don’t you see?” Sara leaned forward. “That’s just what the guy in the van said. Valenti’s death was meant to look accidental.”

  “Haven’t you told me more than once that speechreading is not an exact science?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look, I ran your text past my captain and he’s not convinced,” Matthew said. “Not when the coroner says otherwise. Maybe if you’d called it in before the accident happened…”

  “I know I should have.” Didn’t he know she spent most of her days fighting the urge to call him? Sara fisted her hands in her lap. “But the man said Valenti’s name. Doesn’t it seem odd that I speechread the name and then he dies?”

  “You’re sure he said Valenti?”

  She hadn’t been entirely. Not until she’d seen the report on the evening news. “Positive.” She was now.

  His lips pressed together in a tight line.

  “If your mind’s already made up, why did you ask me to come down here?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see you, Sara.”

  She put a hand over her eyes. No, she could not do this. The scab was just starting to form on her heart. She couldn’t pick it now.

  “Matthew, please don’t.”

  When she took her hand down, he was still looking at her. The word around the station was that Matthew Kelley could force a confession just by staring at a suspect.

  Well, he wasn’t going to get one from her. She had nothing to confess.

  But he seemed to be sending her a message with his intent gaze. There was a sadness in him. Loss, regret, it was difficult to catalogue his expression. Part of her wanted to comfort him. Part drew back in self-preservation.

  Self-preservation won.

  “I haven’t asked much from you lately, but I’m asking now. I need you to believe me about this,” she said. “I know what I saw.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Matthew rose and came around to her side of the desk, hitching one thigh on the corner. He folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t say anything about this. Not to anyone. If you’re right, the guy who did this is dangerous. If he learns we’re onto him, we certainly don’t want him learning who tipped us.”

  A claw ripped down her spine. She hadn’t thought about that.

  Accidents could happen to anyone.

  ~

  Brittany sat in the Dunkin Donuts across from the station, waiting for ‘perfect-little-Miss-Martyr-Sara’ to come out. Matthew had said it wouldn’t take long, but his ex-wife had been in there half an hour already.

  That was longer than it took Matt to make love to her lately. By about twenty minutes.

  When Brittany first lured him to her bed, she knew he was married. It made him such an attractive target. Part of the challenge.

  More fun.

  She hadn’t counted on him being married to Mother Teresa. The way Sara milked her deafness made Brittany want to puke. Why couldn’t she just be another boring wife who wouldn’t go down on her husband?

  Instead, Sara was the perfect injured party and Matthew was feeling guilty about injuring her any more. Brittany couldn’t remember the last time they’d hit a club or gone to a movie or done anything remotely fun.

  He wasn’t even all that good in bed any more.

  But Matthew was attractive in a naughty-and-nice, choir boyish sort of way. Back when they used to go clubbing, Brittany liked the way other women looked at him and then at her, as if acknowledging she’d bagged a good one.

  It was high time he coughed up a ring. Brittany still liked to party, but she was older than Matt by a couple of years and she didn’t have a 401K. She had a great body, if she did say so herself, but her rack wasn’t going to last forever. She was smart enough to know that while she was a good lay—she’d been known to bring men to their knees—she wasn’t perfectly pretty enough in the Barbie-doll sort of way to catch the eye of serious money. Besides, she grew up in Southie. Where would she meet serious money anyway? It was time to hedge her bets.

  Cops had good pensions.

  And odd hours.

  That could work if she got too bored. And if Matthew happened to get killed in the line of duty, well, a widow stood a good chance at getting a hefty settlement from the city.

  Besides, she’d always looked good in black.

  She drummed her French-manicured nails on the counter. Sara still hadn’t come out of the station. Brittany had managed to read that text from Sara on Matthew’s cell phone while he was in the shower, but she hadn’t been quick enough to delete it that morning.

  So the martyr was claiming to be a murder witness now. How convenient. Probably just an excuse to worm her way back into Matthew’s life.

  Like I’m going to let that happen.

  A ringtone sounded at the next table. The guy dug into his pants and came out with an iPhone, the theme from Rocky blaring.

  “No, boss, I got nothing,” he complained loudly. “What can I tell you? It’s a slow news day.”

  A reporter.

  Matt said they were always sniffing around, hoping for a murder to sell their papers—the gooey-er the better. Brittany tossed the guy a jaundiced glance. Poor schmuck was probably stuck with the police beat when he wanted to be in city hall where the real crime was.

  “What? You want I should make up the news like that New York Times reporter?” he said. “Maybe they’ll give me a Pulitzer, too!”

  An awful idea buzzed around Brittany’s brain and settled on her shoulder. No, she really shouldn’t.

  “I’m tellin’ you, it was nothing. Just an accidental drowning,” he said, not trying to disguise his disappointment.

  Brittany caught sight of Sara finally coming out of the station. Matthew followed her out and walked her to her banged-up car. He totally didn’t need to do that. When Sara got in and drove away, Matt just stood there, watching until she was out of sight.

  That did it. Her mind was made up and it would serve the little bitch right.

  Of course, Matt would have a fit if he found out.

  She’d just have to make sure he didn’t.

  When the reporter jammed his phone back into his pocket, Brittany turned and smiled at him. She leaned forward
just enough to give him a good look at her perky girls.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing that you write for the paper,” she said twirling a lock of her blond hair around her forefinger. She’d been told the blue streaks in it made her look even hotter. She might go purple next time. Or pink.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Looking for a story, babe?”

  “Always.”

  “If you promise to protect me as your source, I’ve got a lead for you.” She arched her back. Men’s eyes usually glazed over when she did that.

  “Is it a good one?” The reporter’s gaze strayed from her face to her tits and couldn’t seem to find its way home.

  “Better than good.” Brittany ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s killer.”

  Chapter 3

  The rear-end collision had damaged more than Sara’s bumper. The shock wave had reverberated through the entire frame of her old Taurus while protecting her in the driver’s seat. The designers in Detroit should be proud.

  “Might take a week to fix,” the man at the dealership had said. “Longer, if we have trouble getting parts.”

  Sara had argued that she could still drive it, but when the mechanic pointed out that the tires were rubbing on the wheel wells each time she made a turn, she agreed to leave her aging Taurus with them.

  So now she was stuck riding the crowded T home after school.

  It was more green to take public transportation, but she loved driving her own car. It made her feel normal. It was one freedom her impairment hadn’t taken from her.

  And honestly, she hated the subway. The screech of the train wheels at each station stop was like an ice pick in her ears. Her hearing aids whined in protest. Jostled and pressed upon by strangers, claustrophobia sometimes made her light-headed.

  Like now.

  Sara hadn’t been able to find a seat, so she clutched a pole near one of the doors. She tried not to make eye contact with anyone. The last thing she wanted was to start a conversation with someone she didn’t know. It was too hard to explain her requirements over the clack of the wheels.