“Isn’t it late in the season for bulbs?” she remarked.
I shrugged and kept planting, hoping she’d leave.
“So you like gardening?” she asked, making chitchat. “I haven’t got much of a green thumb. I kill everything.”
“They’re narcissus,” I told her. “They’re hard to kill.”
“Can you believe it’s November already?” she prattled on and glanced at the house, probably hoping Patrick would appear and make the trip across the lawn worthwhile. “Are y’all having family over for Turkey Day? Do they live around here?”
Was she finagling an invitation?
I said I didn’t have family except for my sister in Des Moines. That my parents were dead, and I was as good as orphaned. She got all wide-eyed, told me we had something in common. She was an orphan, too.
“If anything happened to me,” she said, “no one would care.”
“If anything happened to me,” I told her, “I wouldn’t care.”
I meant to shut her up, and it worked. I don’t like her, and it isn’t just because she flirts with my husband and sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong.
I don’t trust her as far as I can spit, and I want her to go away and leave me the hell alone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The night pressed down hard, the sky an inky black. There wasn’t a star in sight, just an icy glow around the moon and the orange blur of passing streetlamps.
Hank had the heat on, but Jo still felt chilled and unsettled after being at Mama’s. She rubbed the arms of her wool peacoat, trying to warm herself and get her blood flowing. She had to focus on their interview with Kevin Harrison.
What kind of a man was he? She had Googled his name, as Adam had suggested. In fact, she’d used Adam’s desktop computer to do it. Every article she’d found painted him as larger than life: a respected surgeon who lived the good life and ended up in photographs on the society pages with his trophy wife. According to Jenny’s sister, he was also an adulterer and possibly an abuser.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“The guy’s operated on billionaires, Olympic athletes, and CEOs.” Hank had done his homework as well. “He’s up for chief of surgery at Presbyterian—”
“So I heard,” Jo interrupted.
“I’m figuring he’s a major-league asshole.”
“Me, too.”
Kimberly Parker had said as much on the telephone earlier.
What if something Jenny had done or said in the past few weeks had made Kevin Harrison feel threatened? With a huge promotion hanging in the balance, what might he have done if his ex-wife had decided to air their dirty laundry?
Whatever kind of man Harrison was, he’d played a big part in Jenny’s life, and Jo wanted to hear from his own lips about their relationship and about what happened to Finn.
“His wife’s a big-time socialite,” Hank was saying, like Jo hadn’t read the same scoop he’d read. “She comes from a prominent family. Daddy’s a big-shot developer.”
“I know.”
“If anyone scared that poor woman, it was her ex-husband, the one she wanted to see rot in hell.”
Had Dielman given Jenny the .22 because she’d been afraid of Harrison? Or had she been frightened of someone else?
Was Kevin Harrison responsible for the old fractures—the broken fingers and ribs, the spiral fracture in her forearm?
Did Jenny fear that he’d come after her again, despite how much time had passed? They’d been divorced for almost as long as their son had been dead: three years.
Could Dr. Harrison have had an obsession with his first wife? Maybe he was possessive to the point that he couldn’t let go, couldn’t imagine her with anyone else, even if he didn’t want her for himself.
“The past few weeks . . . Something was up, and she wouldn’t tell me what.”
Something was up.
What, Jenny? What was going on? What were you up to?
Jo didn’t like the idea that seeped into her brain.
Jenny had had post-traumatic stress disorder. She’d been mourning a dead son. Her husband had given her a gun because she felt spooked. What if there hadn’t been anything out there? What if it had all been in Jenny’s head?
Paranoia . . . self-destroyer.
“The Kinks,” she said aloud without meaning to, and Hank took his eyes off the road long enough to ask, “You got a kink?”
“A couple, yeah.” She let out a slow breath and leaned back her head.
“You okay?”
“I’m just tired,” she told him, refusing to share what was on her mind. She was too exhausted to think straight.
She rolled down the window, taking a shot of cold air to the face. Then she rolled it up again when Hank nagged that she was letting out the heat.
What was wrong with her?
Her left shoulder throbbed, her head ached, and she felt sucked dry, inside and out. She’d rather be heading home than toward Harrison’s house. She wanted a hot bath, wanted Adam’s arms around her so she could feel safe.
“You can’t always get what you want,” Hank said, his voice breaking into her mental meanderings, and she stared at him suspiciously.
“What?”
“I’d have to sell my soul to the devil to buy a place in this burg,” he told her. “And I’d probably have to throw in my first- and second-born. But damn.” He whistled. “If it could happen, I might have to think twice.”
It took a second to realize what he was talking about.
They were in Preston Hollow.
She stared at the hulking shadows of the homes they passed. Not so much homes as mansions, overgrown edifices on sprawling grounds, sometimes gated, sometimes not. Jo thought they looked like hotels.
Even through the dimness, she could see the outline of the Harrison home as they crept toward it on Larkglen. Soft lighting outlined the two-storied structure, nearly hidden at first by artful, privacy-enhancing landscaping.
Hank angled the Ford along the curve of cobblestones surrounding an island of carefully positioned shrubs and red-leafed Japanese maples, with yellow mums planted as a border.
Motion lights clicked on as they got out of the car and walked toward the front door.
Jo stuck her hands in her coat pockets, her collar turned up against the cold, the bite of the air on her cheeks enough to wake her up. She felt fully alert.
Here we go, she told herself and raised her chin as Hank reached the door and rang the bell. She thought of Jenny and swallowed hard.
Will I know if he did it, just by looking at him?
Loud chimes echoed from within as Hank pressed the bell again for good measure.
A voice sighed over the intercom. “Yes?”
Hank leaned toward a speaker on the wall, squinting at the buttons before he pressed one and said, “It’s Detective Phelps, ma’am, and Detective Larsen from the Plainfield police. We have an appointment with Dr. Harrison.”
“You have an appointment with Kevin?”
C’mon. Jo shook her head.
“Yes, ma’am, we’re here to talk to him about Jennifer Dielman.”
“Jennifer?”
“Dr. Harrison’s first wife.”
Dead silence.
Hank hit the “Talk” button again. “He agreed to see us at seven, ma’am. And we’re on the money. It’s freezing out here, so we wouldn’t mind coming in.”
“Of course, Detectives, I’m so sorry. Give me a minute, y’all, please.”
Hank murmured, “A minute, yeah, sure.” Then he hit the intercom with the flat of his hand. “I get the feeling Mrs. Harrison didn’t know we were coming.”
“Or why.” Jo shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets, ducking her chin into the collar.
Hank did the same, braced his back against the door, and waited.
They stood there, facing each other, not speaking. Each breath they exhaled blew puffs of white into the air, evaporating as quickly as they appeared.
W
ithin a few minutes, Jo’s ears burned, and she could no longer sense the tip of her nose. She imagined this was how it felt to be leftover meatloaf.
When finally she heard the slide of a dead bolt and the click of the knob releasing, she nearly whooped with joy. She sensed the heat as it seeped past the threshold, and she stepped closer to the doorway, standing at Hank’s elbow, as eager as he to get inside.
“Sorry to keep y’all waiting.” The attractive woman who greeted them didn’t appear any too happy to have a couple of detectives standing on her stoop. “It’s been a long day, and, well”—she tugged at the hem of her white shirt with manicured fingers—“our housekeeper had to leave early, so I was workin’ on dinner. Cooking’s not exactly my strong suit.”
“Mine either,” Hank offered. “I’m Detective Phelps. This is my partner, Detective Larsen.”
Jo nodded. She was otherwise occupied, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Forgive my dreadful manners,” the woman murmured in her soft Southern voice. “I’m Alana Harrison, Kevin’s wife.”
She was thin as a rail and a few inches taller than Jo, with shiny copper hair to her shoulders, drawn off her face by gold barrettes. Her features had that homegrown Texas brand of pretty that made men stare—even Hank had stopped blinking—but the tiny lines around her eyes and mouth betrayed her age as north of thirty. Her tailored white blouse and tight black jeans emphasized a toned physique. She kept her back so ramrod straight that Jo imagined she’d been taught to walk with a book on her head. Or else she’d been an athlete, a dancer maybe. She was even wearing flat shoes that looked like ballet slippers.
So this is the woman Kevin Harrison cheated on Jenny with, Jo mused, wondering if he’d considered Alana an upgrade.
“My God, but it’s cold.” The second Mrs. Harrison’s breath fogged the air.
“Even colder if you’ve been standing outside for ten minutes,” Hank commented.
Jo was grateful for his bluntness. Another few minutes, and she wouldn’t feel her toes.
Alana Harrison blushed. “Please, Detectives, come inside,” she said, opening the door to them. “Kevin’s showering, but he’ll be with you shortly. He had a very long day at the hospital, as y’all can imagine. I’ll take you to the den.” She ushered them in through the foyer. “I must say, I’m surprised the police make house calls at this hour.”
“It was the only time your husband could meet us, ma’am,” Hank said.
“He’s very busy.”
So are we, Jo wanted to say, but bit her tongue and followed the woman into a spacious entranceway with a peaked cathedral ceiling. An immense fixture hung overhead, light refracting off myriad crystals, and Jo was reminded of The Phantom of the Opera and the crashing chandelier.
To her right, a wrought-iron banister curved up to the second floor. The tiles beneath her feet were large squares of pale yellow. The same color as the mud at the quarry. She wondered if they were limestone.
She caught a glimpse of the great room. A fire burned in a fireplace comprised of smaller squares of the same yellow stone. Huge, overstuffed leather furniture hugged an Indian-inspired rug, and enormous vases and bowls of flowers were everywhere. Floor-length windows provided a view of a lighted pool out back. Jo heard the strains of something bluesy in the background, maybe BB King, and a part of her felt like she was in the lobby of a swanky hotel.
Hank leaned in to whisper, “You could fit the whole station house in there.”
More like two of them.
They trailed Alana into an adjacent room, a good-size library with shelves lined with leather-bound books, gilded titles pressed into their spines. Jo wondered if any of them had ever been read, or if they were just for show.
There were framed photographs decorating every surface. The first few she peered at showed a sun-browned couple in goggles and hats on a ski slope. There were some distant shots of a single skier blazing a trail down a white mountainside. Jo moved on to images of a man—sometimes several men—in orange jackets posing with dead deer, elk, and bear, always standing somewhere amid thickets of trees, occasionally posing by the hood of a Land Rover.
“Your husband’s a hunter?” Jo asked, thankful there were no dead animals tacked up on the walls.
“Yes, and a good one.” Alana came up beside her to see what she was looking at. “His father taught him to shoot when he was a boy. During deer season, Kevin’s gone every weekend. I went huntin’ with him a few times in the beginning, but it’s not my thing. Now, he just goes off with his friends and doesn’t come back until he’s got something to brag about.” She smiled with obvious affection, enough to warm her eyes. “Well, they’re all doctors, so I figure they can patch each other up if anyone gets hurt.”
Jo turned to see if Hank was listening, but his gaze was glued to another set of photographs arranged in neat columns behind a large desk. She wandered over, standing at his elbow, looking over endless pictures of Dr. Harrison and his wife posing with recognizable celebrities and politicians.
“Can I take your coats?” Alana asked from behind them. “I could hang them up for y’all, if you’d like.”
If there was one thing Jo admired about Texas women, it was their innate hospitality, no matter how unwanted the company.
“Really, ma’am, that’s not necessary,” Jo assured her.
Hank already had his trench coat off, and it hung over his arm, baring his shoulder holster.
Jo went ahead and followed suit, unfastening the buttons on her wool coat so that her pancake holster was visible as well. This was obviously not a house inhabited by folks who feared guns. She was right. Mrs. Harrison didn’t even flinch.
“Please”—Alana gestured at a pair of club chairs—“sit down wherever you’re comfortable.”
Hank tossed his coat over the back of one before settling in. Jo perched carefully on the other while the lady of the house remained standing, a hip braced against an oversize desk made of polished red wood that had to be cherry.
“You have a lovely place, Mrs. Harrison,” Jo said.
Alana smiled vaguely and smoothed her hands over her abdomen. “Thank you. We’ve certainly enjoyed living here. But we have started looking around for something a bit bigger.”
“Bigger?” came out without Jo meaning it to.
“My daddy’s got a couple homes picked out for us to look at. His company built them. Jacob Davis? You’ve heard of him?”
Hank’s head bobbed eagerly. “He put up those new high-rise condos in Turtle Creek, right?”
Alana looked proud as punch. “That’s right. Daddy’s got his fingerprints all over the city, and not only on the buildings. His scholarship foundation’s put a lot of kids through school who couldn’t afford it.”
“I’m surprised he’s not running for office,” Hank said, sitting up straighter, smiling like a frat boy flirting at a mixer.
Alana laughed, a soft, silvery sound. “Believe me, he’s working on it, Detective. He’s made quite a few friends in the mayor’s office after spearheading so many high-profile developments downtown. In fact, he’s so busy on the handshake circuit these days that he’s talkin’ about my taking over the commercial arm of the business, too. But for now”—she shrugged—“he’s got me selling the houses he’s putting up all over Dallas and north to Plainfield, and I’d do anything for Daddy.”
Oh, good, Jo mused, a bona fide daddy’s girl with no mind to call her own.
“You said you’re looking for something larger?” Hank glanced around at the impressive den. “These digs seem all right to me.”
“It’s not so much what I want as what’s best for the family.” Alana plucked at her starched collar. “My father’s got a bee in his bonnet about us moving into a place he just finished on Brookview, a six-bedroom Georgian on a full acre. The problem is prying Kevin away from the hospital long enough to take a look.”
“Six bedrooms?” Hank whistled. “You thinking of putting up the front court of the Ma
vericks?”
Alana tipped her head, veiling half her face in a red-gold curtain, flashing as coy a look as Jo had ever seen. “Not a bad idea, Detective. Maybe someday we’ll have a front court of our own. We’re working on it anyway.” She touched her belly again in such an obvious manner that it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was up.
She was pregnant.
Hank caught on as well. “Ah, I see . . . congratulations, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Detective.” Alana beamed.
“Boy or girl?”
“I know it’s old-fashioned,” she said, “but we’re gonna wait and see. Still, my instincts say it’s a boy.”
A boy.
Jo couldn’t seem to get any words out. She thought of Jenny losing Finn, then undergoing a hysterectomy so she’d never able to conceive while Kevin would have another chance to be a father. It hardly seemed fair.
“Dr. Harrison must be happy about getting an heir,” Hank remarked.
“We’re both very happy.”
“When are you due?”
The Southern-belle drawl turned as gooey as syrup. “In six months, God willin’. It seems like an awfully long wait at this point.”
Hank leaned forward in the chair. “Is it your first?”
“It’ll be our firstborn, yes.” Something tightened in her face. “But we’ve been tryin’ since we got married almost three years back. We’ve had a nursery ready forever.”
“The best things come to those who wait, right?”
“I hope so, Detective Phelps. I really do.”
Jo wanted to laugh and not in a happy way. It was not quite three years since Finn had died, barely that since Jenny and the doctor had divorced. Guess forever was in the eye of the beholder.
Hank kept up his small talk about kids.
But Jo couldn’t sit still another minute.
She got up from the club chair, eased around the coffee table, and headed toward yet another wall full of framed photographs. These, she realized as she neared, were not of Kevin or the couple together, but of Alana. There she was in a cheerleading outfit, raising pom-poms to the sky. In another, she was wrapped like a shiny chiffon package with a sash that read MISS JUNIOR TEXAS. Others showed her in pearls and bare shoulders in a gauzy black-and-white sorority composite from the University of Texas at Austin and in white gloves and a floor-length gown curtsying at her debut. The largest photograph of them all showcased Alana in an even more extravagant white dress, one with a veil and train, standing at the altar in front of a church on Kevin Harrison’s arm.
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