Black Widow

by Breton, Laurie

  He looked at her levelly over the rim of his cup. “You don’t really want me to answer that question, do you?”

  She set down her coffee and rubbed both hands over her face. “What happens next?”

  “Next,” he said, “we get a court order, and we go in and open up the wall.”

  “Without asking Neely and Kevin for their permission?”

  He rested the coffee cup on his knee. “If we spook ‘em, there’s always the chance they’ll run. I’d rather not take that chance.”

  “You think it was Kevin, then?”

  “Whoever it was had a key to the place.”

  “True. But so did we.”

  “Mmn.” He studied her in the ratty old robe that was five sizes too big. “Kat?” he said. “Come sit with me.”

  She hesitated for just a moment, and then she got up and crossed the room to him. He held out his arms, and she settled herself on his lap. He drew her head down to his shoulder and buried his face in her hair and began to rock the chair in a slow, easy rhythm.

  He’d missed this in his marriage to Lenore, this simple pleasure derived wholly from being close to another human being he cared for. Lenore had preferred that he show his affection in more material ways. She’d been more concerned with making sure her hair and her nails looked just right, more concerned with ensuring that their Christmas display had at least as many colored lights as any on the block, than she had with taking any pleasure from just being with him.

  But Kathryn understood the simple pleasures, understood the importance of something as elementary as touch, possibly because for four years she’d been deprived of it. “You smell like soap,” he said.

  “Mmn.”

  “You tired?”

  “Mmn.”

  “Stay here tonight. Janine’s staying over with Sylvie. Her new best friend. We can sleep in her bed. Which,” he added, “come to think of it, was my bed until she showed up.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure I feel right about it.”

  “What? I assure you that my intentions are thoroughly honorable. Even I’m not cheesy enough to make whoopie in my daughter’s bed. I just want to sleep with you. That’s all.”

  She touched his face with her fingertips, and he caught her hand in his and kissed it. “All right,” she said. “I didn’t really want to be alone tonight anyway.”

  He turned out all the lights and locked the doors, and they fell into bed, exhausted and drained. He drew her into his arms, his breath fluttering the hair that lay against her cheek. She snuggled closer against him, this human dynamo who had survived things that would destroy most women, and he closed his eyes and followed her into sleep.

  It was the ringing that woke him. It tore him out of sleep, and he reached out blindly to shut off the alarm. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t his pager, either. He finally came awake enough to realize it was the telephone, and he fumbled for the cordless, pushed buttons until he got the right one. “DiSalvo,” he said, his voice still thick with sleep.

  “Sorry to wake you, Chief,” Teddy said. “But I thought you’d better hear this right away.”

  He came instantly awake. “What?” he said.

  “The fire department just got a call from Minnie Rawlings. That house Kathryn McAllister’s living in? It’s on fire.”

  By the time they got there, the house was engulfed. A sheet of flame licked at the roof, and black smoke billowed out the shattered windows. He brought the Blazer to a screeching halt in Minnie’s driveway, and he and Kathryn both went running, tripping over fire hoses and trying to stay out of the way of Elba’s stalwart volunteer firemen. A powerful spray of water shot up into the air and fell on the roof, but it was clear to any observer that the house was going to be a total loss.

  Kathryn paused on the lawn, her hand over her mouth in horror. Nick left her there, climbing over hoses until he found the fire chief. “What the hell happened?” he said.

  Ashley Dillon gazed at him through red-rimmed, smoky eyes. “Some joker poured gasoline all around the place and then lit her up.”

  “Son of a bitch!” he said. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

  Kathryn came up behind him and grabbed his sleeve. “My dog,” she said in an odd, high voice. “Christ, Nick, my dog was in there.”

  He put an arm around her. She was trembling like a willow in a high wind. “The dog?” he asked Dillon.

  “I dunno. We were a little more concerned about whether she was in there. Car’s in the yard, you know. Whoever set it must’ve thought she was inside.”

  It hit him between the eyes like a twenty-pound ball peen hammer. This wasn’t just arson. It was three o’clock in the morning, and Kathryn’s Toyota was sitting in the driveway. Whoever set this fire thought she was inside the house.

  And he wanted to make damn sure that she came out in a body bag.

  “My dog,” she said again, faintly, and then she sat down hard on the wet grass and began to weep with a fury that, once unleashed, sent harsh sobs through her entire body. It was the first illogical woman-thing he’d ever seen her do, and Nick stared at her in disbelief. After all she’d been through, after everything they’d done to her, after they’d tried to fucking kill her, it was a goddamn dead dog she cried over. “I’ll buy you another fucking dog!” he roared. “Don’t you understand, it could have been you that got turned into a freaking Tater Tot!”

  She raised her head, her wet eyes narrowed with fury. “I happened to love that goddamn dog, DiSalvo! Not that I’d expect you to understand!”

  “Kat. Sweetheart.” Ignoring the raised eyebrows and the knowing looks exchanged by the firefighters and the curious crowd of onlookers, he knelt beside her on the grass. “Whoever set this fire was trying to kill you. Jesus Christ, Kathryn, it could have been you in there. What if you’d gone home tonight?”

  Up until now, he’d managed to maintain a certain distance from what was going on around him. As a police officer, it was his duty to maintain that distance. Until this moment, he’d been able to do it. But this fire had turned it personal. And if he ever got hold of the son of a bitch who did this, he’d rip off his balls and shove them down his throat.

  “Miz McAllister?” Sonny Turcotte paused beside them, his face sooty and his hair standing up like rooster tails on top of his head. “You missing a dog? A big ugly one?”

  They both looked up, and hope lit her face. “Yes,” she said.

  “He went out through a window, ma’am. Got himself cut up a bit in the process. I sent him over to Doc Winslow to get patched up, but he looked okay. I imagine you can swing by and pick him up in the morning.”

  She scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around the surprised firefighter. “You don’t know how important that dog is to me,” she said.

  Sonny patted her back awkwardly. “I understand, ma’am. I have a dog myself.”

  It was a somber group that gathered at the Chandler place the next afternoon. Kathryn, wearing the same jeans and tee shirt she’d worn the night before, now the only clothes she owned. Nick, wrinkled and unshaven, running on caffeine and two hours of sleep. Bucky, his uniform pressed and his customary exuberant expression tamed into one of appropriate solemnity. A nervous Francis Willoughby, pressed into service fifteen minutes earlier, when the court order finally came through. Dwayne Sampson, one of Willoughby’s construction workers, who was there for the muscle and who’d told Nick that it might be cool to see somebody who had been dead that long.

  And last but not least, the Reverend Aloysius Kingston, pastor of the church Ruby had attended as a girl. He was there at Kathryn’s insistence, and Nick hadn’t even bothered to try to argue with her. It was a battle he wouldn’t have won.

  The back door had been left open, and they’d brought several battery-powered spotlights and a variety of tools. They stood around in a hushed semi-circle, each of them looking at the wall and thinking private thoughts, and then Nick said, “Okay, boys, let’s open her up.”

&nbs
p; Dwayne hefted the pickax over his muscled shoulder and swung it mightily. It made contact with a heavy thud, and plaster fell in a hail of powdery pieces to the floor. He raised it again, and again it hit the wall, making a huge indentation. “Stuff’s tough,” he said. “Just like cement. It don’t want to come down.”

  “Give it another good one,” Nick said. “Just try not to destroy what’s behind it.”

  Kathryn moved to Nick’s side, leaned against him, and he put an arm around her. Dwayne swung the hammer again. This time, it broke through. When he pulled it from the wall, they were all holding their breath and straining to see what was behind it.

  It was the smell that hit her first, the smell of old decay, trapped inside the wall for nearly thirty years. She felt Nick’s body stiffen, and she knew he’d smelled it before. Dwayne looked at them uncertainly, and Nick nodded. “Keep going,” he said curtly.

  The pickax swung again, and a huge chunk of plaster fell from the wall. Ruby had been wearing a red dress on the day she died. Fragments of it still clung to her slender frame. As Dwayne swung the ax again, Kathryn turned away from the sight and buried her face against Nick’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to be right,” she said. “Oh, God, Nick, I didn’t want to be right.”

  Nick patted her shoulder absently. Reverend Kingston said, “Gentlemen—and Miz McAllister—I think we should take a moment to pray for Ruby.”

  There was a moment of silence, and they all bowed their heads. “Lord,” the Reverend said, “we’re all here today, askin’ you to look kindly upon the soul of Ruby Jackson, who departed this world for a better one twenty-six years ago. We’re prayin’ also that those of us here today won’t be judged harshly for disturbin’ her restin’ place. We thank you, Lord, for your wonderful mercy in allowin’ us to return Ruby, finally, to the folks who love her, the folks who for twenty-six years never let a day go by without hopin’ she’d come home to them. And last, Lord, we ask you to forgive the one who’s responsible for her bein’ here. We pray for his immortal soul. Amen.”

  There was a chorus of murmured amens, and as Dwayne raised the ax again, Nick drew Bucky aside. “Get the coroner over here,” he said, “and an ambulance. Try to keep it quiet, I don’t want it getting around just yet. Oh, and call Eloise Fitzgerald and tell her we’re pretty sure we’ve found her sister. Ask about dental records.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He patted Bucky on the shoulder. “Think you can handle things from here?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “You’re in charge. I have to go see a man about a horse.”

  Kathryn followed him out into sweet, fresh air. She filled her lungs with it, emptying them of the scent of decay. “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  When he turned around, he was wearing his cop face. “This is a police matter, Kat. I can’t take you along.”

  “Damn you, DiSalvo! This was my deal from the beginning, and I’m not through until I get answers!”

  He stopped and took her by the shoulders so hard his fingers bit into her tender flesh. “I have no idea,” he said, “what’s going to go down here tonight. I want you where I know you’re safe. Last time somebody tried to kill you, they missed. Next time, we might not be so lucky.”

  “It’s not fair,” she said. “You know it’s not fair.”

  “I’ll let you know the minute I know anything. I promise. It’s the best I can give you, Kathryn.” He lowered his head and kissed her, but her lips remained stiff and unresponsive. “Don’t be this way,” he said.

  She ran her fingers up the side of his neck, over his ear and into his hair. “You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever met,” she said.

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. “Here,” he said, putting them in her hand and closing her fingers around them. “Take the Blazer. Go home and get Janine and get the hell out of Elba. Both of you. Drive to Fayetteville or Raleigh and take a motel room.” He pulled out his wallet, gave her his ATM card and fifty dollars in cash. “The PIN number’s 5163,” he said. “That’s my birthdate. There’s about eight hundred in my account. You can use the card to pay for the room. Don’t trust anybody. Don’t tell anybody where you’re going, and make sure nobody follows you. Call me tonight and tell me where you are.”

  She looked up into those melted-chocolate eyes. “I’m not one of your officers,” she said, “that you can push around.”

  “Why the hell do I torture myself, keeping you around?”

  “It must be my magnetic personality,” she said.

  He fingered a strand of her hair. “Look, I know you wanted to be there. But this is getting nasty. I want you and Janine as far away from it as you can get. You remember what I said? All of it?”

  “I remember.”

  “What’s the PIN number?”

  “May 1, 1963.”

  He cupped the back of her neck in his hand. “Be careful,” he said. “I don’t want to lose either one of you.” He kissed her a final time, and then he released her and stalked off toward Bucky’s police cruiser.

  The Blazer was a man’s vehicle, with a massive stick shift and a clutch that would have given a lumberjack pause. She adjusted the mirrors and left the police radio on, just in case something interesting should come across the wire. She drove at a sedate pace through downtown Elba, then cut off onto Myrtle Street and swung by the smoldering remains of her house. The Fire Marshal was parked out front, and several grim-faced men sifted through the ruins. Kathryn stopped for a moment to watch, sickened by the sight. She’d managed to get through to Raelynn this morning in Atlanta, and with typical good humor, her friend had told her not to worry, that the house was fully insured. “I’ll be home tonight,” she’d said. “I’m just glad that you and your ugly dog are both all right.”

  Minnie Rawlings, seeing her in the Blazer, scuttled across the street. “Ain’t it something?” she said. “Why, that little house has been there since my momma was a girl. It’s a pure shame. And how’s your poor dog?”

  “He’s going to be fine,” she said. “He had a couple of pretty deep cuts that Doc Winslow had to stitch up. Doc’s keeping him in the kennel until I have a place to take him. Look, Minnie, I have to run. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Sure, honey. Now y’all take care of yourself, you hear?”

  She drove to Nick’s place and let herself into the apartment with his house key. “Janine?” she said.

  Her greeting was met by silence. The apartment was empty. She went upstairs and knocked on Caroline’s door. “Have you seen Janine?” she asked Nick’s elegant landlady.

  “Not since yesterday,” Caroline said, “when my sister picked her up to spend the night with Sylvie. Want me to give Karen a call?”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  She waited in the foyer while Caroline talked on the phone. “Nope,” she said when she returned. “Janine’s not there. Karen dropped her off here around three o’clock this afternoon. I wouldn’t worry, she’s probably just gone downtown. She’s been pretty restless, all alone in that apartment every day while Nick’s at work.”

  Kathryn went back downstairs and flicked on the television. At this time of day, the airwaves overflowed with talk shows that were little more than a hopped-up version of the sleazy confession magazines she and her girlfriends used to hide under their mattresses when they were teenagers. I Slept With My Sister’s Husband, and Now I’m Pregnant With His Baby. Sensation and cheap sex. She wondered if Janine watched this garbage. Home alone all day, she probably did. What else was there for a thirteen-year-old girl to do in this place? And God only knew what kind of ideas that sort of sleaze put into the mind of an impressionable young girl. She would have to talk to Nick about it. The girl needed some kind of guidance, and she certainly wasn’t getting it from either of her parents.

  She turned off the television and began pacing the kitchen. It was getting later by the minute, and if she didn’t follow his orders, Nick woul
d probably tear her head off. He was a man accustomed to being obeyed. But she couldn’t very well leave town without Janine. And the truth was that she didn’t want to be in Fayetteville or Raleigh anyway. She wanted to be here, in Elba, right smack in the middle of this whole stinking mess. Her stinking mess.

  She opened each of the kitchen cupboards in turn, hoping to find something to distract her. Everything in Nick’s cupboards was either canned or instant. The man lived like a barbarian. He was badly in need of a woman to take care of him. It seemed that the only thing he knew how to cook was steak. She grimaced, imagining his arteries clogged with all that saturated fat. If somebody didn’t take him in hand, he’d die of a heart attack before he was forty-five.

  The telephone rang, and she automatically went to answer it. “DiSalvo residence,” she said.

  And the voice, that raspy, muffled voice, said, “I’ve got the girl.”

  The McAllisters were entertaining. There were four or five cars in the driveway besides Neely’s Caddy and Kevin’s Lincoln Town Car. From somewhere behind the house came the soft tinkle of laughter and the charred odor of barbecued beef. “Prepare yourself,” he warned Linda Barden when Althea opened the door. “You’re about to enter an alien universe.”

  The maid eyed them coolly from beneath raised eyebrows. “I don’t believe I saw your names on tonight’s guest list,” she said.

  “Good evening, Althea,” he said jovially. “No, I imagine you didn’t. I’d like to speak to Judge McAllister. And his lovely wife.”

  “They’re busy,” she said flatly.

  “I can see that. And while I’m sure their social obligations are of the utmost importance, what I have to say to them can’t wait. Now be a good girl and get them for me, before I have to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  She looked at him from beneath lowered lids. And sniffed. “Wait in the parlor,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said. “Wouldn’t want any of the guests to be offended by our uniforms.”

  The parlor furniture was upholstered in pastel shades of peach and green. “Poverty,” Linda said, looking around the room, “is such a tragedy.”