by Joanne Fluke
It was a precarious situation, on the brink of something fearful and new. It reminded Mac of an awkward first date. They were both locked into motionless silence, not willing to risk anything that would endanger their tentative intimacy.
At last Mac moved. “Debbie? This is crazy.”
“‘Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.’”
The quote came out before she had time to think. Debra’s face flamed with heat. Now she’d have to tell him how she and her college roommate used to trade movie dialogue back and forth to try to stump each other. It was a childish game.
She had just opened her mouth to explain when Mac threw back his head and laughed. “Cary Grant. Arsenic and Old Lace. Nineteen forty-four.”
Debra laughed with him. He knew! Suddenly everything was ordinary and familiar again. He still held her hands, but now it felt right. It was such a relief to laugh!
“I didn’t know you were an old-movie buff!” Debra smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t such a silly game, after all. “I watch the late show on Channel Eleven almost every night. I’ll bet I’ve seen the beginning of Arsenic and Old Lace twenty times, but I always fall asleep before the end.”
Mac began to grin. “We’ll have to do something about that, right now. I just happen to have it that movie. How about watching it with me, all the way through?”
“Yes.” She jumped at the idea. Watching a movie would be the perfect way to escape the reality of this awful night.
“Come and help me make popcorn.” Mac pulled her to her feet. “Could you be persuaded to have a drink, dear? Maybe just a tiny triple?”
Debra thought for a minute. Then she laughed and followed him into the kitchen. “Bea Arthur. Mame. Nineteen seventy-four.”
It was long past midnight when Debra opened her eyes. There was an afghan tucked snugly around her and her head was pillowed in Mac’s lap. John Wayne’s voice growled from the television. It was the second reel of True Grit.
“You missed the end again.”
Debra turned her head to look at him. He was smiling and there was something new in his eyes. Love. The thought flowed like warm honey through her sleepy body and lay half formed at the edge of her consciousness. She felt safe and cherished.
“Come on, Debbie. Let’s go to bed.”
His words jarred her and she sat up, alarmed. The illusion of intimacy was shattered.
“I . . . I have to go home, Mac.”
He heard the panic in her voice and he drew her close as she struggled to rise.
“Debbie. Don’t think. You’re here, safe with me. Just relax and let me carry you to bed. I’ll sleep out here on the couch.”
It was better then. She remembered that he was Mac, her friend. Mac would never hurt her. He wasn’t like the others, the men who’d tried to lure her into their beds for sex. She lifted her arms and locked them around his neck, trusting him to carry her down the hall to his bed. She was safe with Mac.
He tucked her in like a precious child, stroking her hair until she was nearly asleep again. But when he attempted to leave her there in the big, lonely bed, she clung to him.
“Please, Mac. Don’t leave me alone.”
He reached out to fold down the covers and slid in beside her. Then her arms were around his neck again as if they’d never left.
“Hold me, Mac. Hold me tight.”
There was no awkward fumbling as she snuggled tightly against him, feeling the heat of his body through their clothes beneath the blankets. Was this what Dr. Elias had meant when he’d said it was time to trust someone? The question stayed in her sleepy mind for only an instant. Then his arms moved around her and she was at peace.
Sleep did not come to Mac quickly. He held her warm body and stared down at her face—the heavy, dark eyelashes that brushed her cheeks, the almost luminous quality of her skin in the moonlight. And the pallor that only exhaustion could bring. The small, even sounds of her breathing seduced him, made his body threaten to come alive again and change everything. Last year, last month even, he would have rejoiced in such a change, but not now. Now things were different.
She sighed once, a small childlike sound of contentment. Her body moved against his, pressing positive to negative, molding to fill the spaces between them. He ached to turn loose his fingers to roam over the sweet, soft skin of her body, to spread her warm, sleepy thighs, to hear her cry out as he drove forward, his betraying hardness sheathed in her trusting warmth.
He was grateful she did not know. It would only frighten her, drive her out of his bed and back to her lonely, terrified life.
Mac stared up at the ceiling. The irony of his struggle did not escape him. His lips twisted in a bitter grin as he battled the very thing he had sought, forcing it back until his aching desire was only a temporary aberration, until he was himself once more, the Mac she trusted. Friendly, comforting, sexless Mac. At last he slept in the darkness beside her.
Mac awoke in the cold, gray hour just before dawn. Debra was gone. Only a small indentation on the pillow next to his confirmed her reality.
He found her on the couch in the living room. Her eyes were wide and unfocused. She held her arms cradled against her chest, rocking, humming a lullaby. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Debbie. Honey. It’s all right.” Mac spoke gently. She was still asleep, locked tight in a dream, even though her eyes were wide open. “Come on, Debbie. Wake up. Everything’s just fine.”
He knelt down and warmed her cold hands with his. Still speaking softly, he folded his arms folded around her. It seemed to take forever for her to recognize him.
“Oh, Mac! I dreamed . . . I dreamed my baby was alive!” She shuddered deeply and clung to him. “I used to dream it all the time, but then it went away. Ever since Dr. Elias left, it’s back. I . . . I think I’m going crazy again, Mac!”
“No. You can’t.” Mac’s voice was hard as he gripped her shoulders. “That’s the easy way out, Debbie. You can try to sink back down, but I won’t let you go. I need you.”
The words filtered down through the fog of her depression, clear and unemotional. A statement of fact. She couldn’t go crazy. Mac needed her. She needed desperately to be needed.
“We’ll form a club, just the two of us. A survival team. We can get through it, Debbie. I’ll help you and you can help me. We’ll be there for each other.”
Before she thought, her head had dipped in a slight nod. Hope grew in the coldness of her heart. He needed her.
“How about some breakfast, partner? There’s a little café just around the corner.”
“I’m a mess.” Debra tried to smooth the wrinkles from her blouse, but sleeping in her clothes had taken its toll. “I really should go home and change.”
“No problem.” Mac grinned at her. “I’m sure I’ve got something around here that will fit you.”
Debra waited as Mac searched through the closet and pulled out a faded police academy sweatshirt that was obviously much too large for her. Usually she took great pains with her appearance, but everything was different this morning. Mac had seen her at her worst and he still liked her. Debra slipped the sweatshirt on and grinned at her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a waif, but Mac didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Now I’d better find you something nice and warm.” Mac rummaged in the back of the closet and pulled out a fur-lined parka and a pair of yellow hand-knit mittens with purple thumbs. “It’s really cold out there this time of morning.”
Dawn was breaking as they left the house. A dazzling blanket of white covered the city, hiding the winter ugliness. The sun peeked over the tall buildings and made the powdery snow sparkle as they kicked it up with their boots.
As they turned the corner, her boot slipped on a patch of ice. He caught her, laughing. She leaned forward very slowly and looked up into his face. They were so close she could see the dark shadows of whiskers the razor had missed, the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, the way his lashes lightened to blond at the tips.
His frosty breath mingled with hers and then caught and held. She tilted her head to the side and brushed his cold nose with hers. And then she kissed him quite naturally, a kiss to seal the pact, a kiss of hope and wonder and longing and promise.
CHAPTER 8
It was a terrible dream. Kay was late to class and she ran through a corridor in agonizingly slow motion. Her feet stuck in invisible pools of thick molasses. Books dropped in an avalanche from her arms. And through it all the tardy bell was ringing, once, twice, over and over.
Kay opened her eyes to see the winter sun stream weakly though the window. It was morning and she was alone in the house. Charles was attending a two-day political meeting in Duluth, and the kids had gone with him to take in some cross-country skiing. Even Ralph was gone. The vet was keeping him overnight for worming.
She was awake now, but the tardy bell was still ringing. It was the phone. Kay sat up in the bed and reached out to answer it. Her eyes felt scratchy and the dull pounding of a hangover nagged at the back of her mind. She had started drinking right after they’d left for Duluth last night. The house was too lonely without them and the snow rattling against the window had made her nervous and jumpy. Now it was morning already and she couldn’t even remember going up to bed.
“Hello?”
The word was muffled and thick with sleep.
“I’m sorry if I woke you, Kay.” It was Mac’s voice. “I think we’d better call a meeting today to talk about Jerry.”
“Jerry?”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Kay! I thought you’d have heard by now. Jerry’s dead. Somebody shot him last night.”
For a moment she couldn’t say anything. Her mind was still foggy. Mac said Jerry was dead. That was terrible!
She must have said something because Mac went on talking. Kay tried hard to concentrate as he mapped out the plans for the meeting.
“I’ll notify everyone. You just make a big pot of coffee. Debbie and I’ll be there a little early. Is that okay?”
“Yes. Fine.”
Kay replaced the phone very gently in the cradle. Jerry was dead. Tears began to form in her eyes and she blinked them away. She didn’t have time to cry now. It was ten o’clock already and they were coming at one.
It was noon by the time she’d finished vacuuming. Perhaps Charles was right, after all. They really needed a maid. Kay had balked at the idea, but the house was too large for her to deal with herself. She spent far too much time cleaning and dusting. But what kind of maid? Kay didn’t want to hire a black. Blacks had been stereotyped as domestics. But if she hired another minority, she would be discriminating against her own people. A white maid was totally out of the question. Then she’d be accused of reverse snobbery. The whole situation was simply too complicated to sort out right now. She’d do the cleaning herself until she could make up her mind.
Her purse was lying on the table, the car keys beside it. Kay frowned. She didn’t remember going out last night. The entire evening was a blank. She picked it up and started to close it when she noticed the gun.
Her .25 automatic was inside. What was it doing in her purse? The last time she’d had a gun in her purse was when she’d tried to kill the governor!
Kay couldn’t bear to touch it. She closed the purse tightly and shuddered. She had been very angry with Jerry when he’d stormed out of the group meeting. She’d still been angry when she’d started drinking last night. What if she’d flipped out like she had six years ago? What if she had killed Jerry!
“No!” Her voice was a hoarse whisper of denial. Of course she hadn’t killed Jerry. She was being ridiculous. She had to calm down before the group came and caught her behaving like this.
A drink would calm her nerves. Kay took out the gin bottle and started to make a martini. Then she stopped and frowned. She was simply too upset to go through the whole process. She couldn’t cope with the shaker and the careful drop of vermouth, the properly chilled glass and the perfect olive. She needed a shot of gin, not an afternoon cocktail.
“The hell with it!”
Kay tipped the bottle to her lips and swallowed.
Mac and Debra were startled when Kay opened the door. She looked nothing like the fashionable mayor’s wife today. Her hair was pulled back in an untidy knot and she’d obviously been drinking. Without her customary immaculate makeup, she looked old and tired.
“I’ll bet I look like hell!” Kay managed a weak smile. “Hearing about Jerry was an awful shock.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Debra hung her coat in the closet and followed Kay to the living room.
“You can start the coffee while I freshen up. Just carry the pot in from the kitchen and plug it in right here. I’m sorry I’m so rattled. I just can’t seem to get it together today.”
“We’ll take care of everything.” Mac gave her a quick hug. “You go and make yourself beautiful.”
Debra plugged in the coffee and helped Mac push six chairs in a circle. Two extra chairs stood against the wall.
“Should we move those chairs to another room?” Debra’s voice shook a little.
“Let’s leave them right there.” Mac patted her shoulder. “We have to deal with it, Debbie. Two members of our group are gone. Hiding their chairs won’t change that.”
Twenty minutes later, everyone but Father Marx had arrived. Kay seemed back to normal as she filled coffee cups and passed the tin of imported cookies. They were just starting to worry when the doorbell rang and Father Marx rushed in, red faced and breathless.
“Please forgive me!” He hurried to his place. “I’m afraid I lost track of time. I was praying. This business about Jerry. Terrible! Do they know who did it?”
“Not yet.”
“Poor Jerry!” Nora blinked back tears. “Why didn’t he just hand over his money and cooperate?”
“It wasn’t a mugging.” Mac watched them carefully as his words sank in. “Jerry’s wallet was in his office and nothing was taken from his body. Somebody wanted Jerry dead.”
“But who?” Kay’s voice was sharp.
“We might be able to figure that out.” Mac leaned forward. “We knew Jerry better than anyone. He told us all his secrets. Can you think of anyone who had a grudge against him? Someone who hated him enough to kill him?”
There was a long silence. One by one they shook their heads.
“The father of that little girl?” Greg frowned thoughtfully. “No, that was too long ago. Besides, Jerry was sure he didn’t really hurt her.”
“Maybe it was just coincidence.” Debra spoke up. “Remember that guy in the Texas bell tower? Maybe it’s another case like that. Some nut who hated joggers could have hidden on the bridge and shot the first jogger to run through.”
“That’s possible.” Mac sounded doubtful. “If you’re right, Debbie, we’re wasting our time. Random murders are almost impossible to solve. Let’s put your theory aside for the moment and assume someone set out to murder Jerry. The killer knew precisely where Jerry would be last night. That means he knew Jerry’s habits. He waited on the bridge and when Jerry jogged through, he shot him in the head with a twenty-five automatic. Why? And who?”
“Divine retribution?” Father Marx shrugged. “I really hate to lay a heavy on you, but the Old Testament tells us ‘an eye for an eye.’ Jerry killed Doug by driving him to suicide. A lot of guys in my business would say God evened the score.”
“Cut the religious crap, Vinnie.” Nora laughed. “God didn’t hide on the bridge with a gun. Let’s get back to the facts. If the police find out about our meeting yesterday, we’ll all be suspects! We knew Jerry’s jogging schedule. He talked about it all the time. And everyone in this room had a motive. We all blamed Jerry for Doug’s accident.”
Greg shook his head. “That doesn’t mean one of us killed him. You’re getting carried away with this Sherlock Holmes stuff, Nora. We were plenty mad at Jerry yesterday, but none of us wanted him dead.”
“But will the police believe that?�
�� Nora shrugged elaborately. “Remember, Greg. Every one of us is a certified loony!”
There was a tense silence as they looked at one another. Debra shivered even though the room was warm. Had someone in the room killed Jerry?
Kay set down her coffee cup with shaking hands. She looked ready to faint. “Kay!” Mac caught her as she slumped forward.
Nora rummaged in her purse and handed Mac a small bottle of smelling salts. “For stage fright,” she explained, “Some of my students drop like flies before a performance. Just take the cap off and hold it under her nose. She’ll come around.”
A moment later Kay coughed and tried to sit up. “I . . . I’m sorry!” she stammered. “I just couldn’t face it! I . . . I think I might have killed Jerry!”
“Why, Kay?” Mac’s voice was very gentle.
“You said he was killed with a twenty-five automatic and I . . . I found a gun in my purse this morning!”
“I’m sure you didn’t kill Jerry.” Mac put his arm around her shoulder. His tone was quiet and soothing. “Where’s the gun you found? I want to look at it.”
“It’s in my purse in the hall closet. I couldn’t bear to touch it. I must have done it, Mac! I can’t remember anything I did last night! I killed Jerry!”
Debra rushed to the closet and brought back Kay’s purse. They all watched as Mac took out the gun and sniffed the barrel.
“You didn’t kill anybody.” Mac grinned at her. “There’s no way this gun was fired last night.”
“Are you sure?”
“The barrel’s plugged up with Cosmoline.” Mac pulled back the slide and released it. Grease splattered out on the table. “It’d probably blow up if you tried to use it.”
“Thank God!” Kay took a deep breath and gave them all a radiant smile. “You don’t know how scared I’ve been! I thought I was a murderer!”
Nora leaned over and kissed Kay on both cheeks. “We all knew you didn’t do it, darling. You might be a little cuckoo, but you’re not frigging crazy!”
