Loving Constance

by Lyn Cote

  Late Tuesday afternoon, Connie walked down the courthouse steps, heading back to her office. She’d just sat in on an arraignment with one of the senior partners—Mulvaney, not Grove, to her relief.

  Every time she glimpsed Grove in the office, her doubts about Uncle Lou circled her like starved wolves in a pack. She pushed her heavy foreboding away. Now her mind settled on a few affidavits she needed concerning the case.

  But corralling her mind was becoming more of a problem. It drifted from the present to the past, to O’Neill. She pictured him walking with her in the formal garden behind the courthouse. Again, she heard him say, “You mean, do I know he might have some connection to the Chicago mob?” He has to be wrong about Uncle Lou.

  “Ms. Oberlin?” A man stepped in front of her.

  Connie stopped short. “Yes…yes?”

  “I’m Ed Cudahy.” He offered her a hand. “I live a block from the warehouse that burned on Depot Street.”

  “Oh?” She shook his rough, wrinkled hand and waited. The thin man looked like a retired laborer, dressed in faded jeans and a frayed shirt.

  “Mr. Sanders came around my neighborhood, asking if anybody witnessed the fire.” His pale eyes shifted to the area around her, other people streaming in and out of the courthouse.

  At his mention of Sanders, her nerves jumped to life with a jolt. “Yes?”

  “I told Mr. Sanders I saw the whole thing. I have trouble sleeping, see?”

  “Oh?” Connie paused while she yanked together her scattered thoughts. Then she asked the obvious question, “Do you think you have information that might help me in this case?” This can’t be happening. It’s too good to be true.

  “I’ll tell you what I seen and you can tell me if it helps or not. Okay?”

  “Fair enough.” Connie kept a tight rein on a sudden burst of hope. An eyewitness. “When can I speak to you?”

  “Now would be good.”

  Connie glanced at her watch, afraid he might vanish when she looked up again. “I’ve got a few minutes to spare. Let’s sit down on the bench over there.” She pointed to a park bench under a large maple tree.

  “Okay.”

  He loped along beside her and they both sat down on the shaded bench.

  Summer breezes swirled around Connie’s ankles. She opened her black leather briefcase and drew out a yellow legal pad. “I need your full name and address and phone number, please.” She jotted down his answers. “Now, Mr. Cudahy, what did you see when you witnessed the Depot Street fire?”

  “I couldn’t sleep that night.” Ed Cudahy fidgeted on the bench. “It was hotter than it shoulda been the beginning of May, you know what I mean?”

  She nodded, not encouraged by the way his eyes kept avoiding hers. Hear the man out.

  “So I was up making myself something to eat. Sometimes if I eat, I can go to sleep. Anyway, I rent the upstairs of an old house a block from the warehouse. I can see it from my kitchen window.”

  “The warehouse?”

  “Yeah.”

  Connie’s mood lifted a centimeter. She held herself in check. This might turn into something or it might not. Go slow. Don’t jump at this. She nodded to the man.

  “Well, I seen the sky that night light up in the direction of Depot Street. Like a flash. It made me curious and I went down to the alley to get a better look.”

  This didn’t sound like evidence Sanders would want. A flash intimated arson. Who besides Sanders would have a motive for burning down the warehouse? “How far did you have to go to get a clearer view of the Sanders’ property?”

  “Not far. Some of the houses between the warehouse and where I live have been torn down. Urban development. Nobody wants to take time to keep up old property.” He waved his hands with disgust. “Just tear things down.”

  Connie nodded and murmured sympathetically. So far, so good.

  “Anyway, I seen somebody running away from the fire.”

  Connie sat forward, her pulse raced in spite of her caution. “Could you recognize him?”

  “I didn’t see his face.” Cudahy sounded sure of himself. “But I could see, but the way he was runnin’—he’s some young punk.”

  “How could you tell that?” She tilted her head, sizing up how he would look and sound on the witness stand.

  “By the way he was dressed and the way he ran. An old guy couldn’t run like that. The fire kind of streaked up in another flash and I saw him clear for a moment—a young punk like in a gang on TV.”

  “Not his face though?”

  “No, too far away.”

  Connie mulled over the man’s testimony. She’d have to do some serious checking before she’d use it. “Would you be willing to testify in court to what you saw?”

  “Sure I would. Mr. Sanders told me that they think he set the fire himself to collect the insurance. But I know insurance companies.” He jabbed a finger in the air as he continued. “They want your money but when it comes to paying out any, they’ll grab at any straw to not have to.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cudahy.” Ideas, plans tumbled over each other in her mind. “I’ll be getting in touch with you soon.” She rose and shook his rough hand again. “I’ve got to get back to my office.”

  They parted and Connie walked the few blocks to her office. Had she just gotten a break in her case or would Cudahy prove to be a false lead?

  On Friday evening, the third since Troy disappeared, Rand drove up the alley in Troy’s truck behind the Nielsen house. Another chance to make contact with Annie and hope that something she’d say would provide Rand another possible lead.

  With effort, he suppressed the guilty hope that he might be seeing Connie again. I don’t want to see her. I just want to see her reaction. His conscience stung him for lying. Okay. I shouldn’t want to see her. I’ll get past my fascination with her as soon as this case is over and done.

  Annie was waiting for him at the back gate. She looked as if she’d been crying and her hair wasn’t combed. Was it just the continued stress of Troy’s disappearance or something new? The twins stood on their tiptoes on either side of their mom. And Connie stood behind them, capturing his attention.

  In contrast to Annie, Connie still wore her professional garb. She stood before him—fashionable, self-contained, alluring. Why didn’t the inner and outer parts of her match? He could have cultivated a relationship with the cool, professional woman. But behind this facade was the passionate innocent who could believe no wrong of Troy.

  “Daddy’s truck!” The twins jumped up and down. “You brought back our daddy’s truck!”

  Rand climbed out and walked to the gate. Annie opened it for him. He handed her the replacement keys for the truck, keeping his focus on her, not Connie, though the effort taxed him. “I finally got it released this afternoon. Sorry, but they went over it with a fine-tooth comb for evidence, and that took time.”

  “Thanks.” Annie could not have looked less grateful. Slow tears slipped down one cheek. “I’m sorry to cry, but for a few seconds when I saw the truck, it was like seeing Troy coming home….”

  Connie squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “Rand, have you, have you made any progress?”

  No “hello.” No “how are you?” Just the same question you ask me every time we meet. He brushed away his irritation. What did you expect? A warm welcome? “We still have no ransom note,” he said, piling up point atop point against Nielsen. “We still have no paper trail to lead us to Troy. We still have no reports of anyone seeing him in Taperville or Chicago after the night he abandoned his pickup.”

  “I’ve been thinking—” Annie worried her lower lip “—about something.” She looked down. “Boys, go in to Aunt Gracie and see if she needs you to set the table for supper.” She turned her twins and pushed them toward the house. “Go on. Scoot.”

  The reluctant twins—still casting glances over their shoulders—finally trudged up the path to the house.

  “What were you thinking?” Rand asked, his hands resting
high on one of each of the round finials atop the gate posts.

  Connie hovered beside Annie. Her eyes flashed a warning at him, which he ignored.

  “Troy had been acting a little odd over the past few months,” Annie confessed. She faced him, but stood to the side of the gate so their gazes didn’t meet. She wove her fingers into the chain-link fence as though hanging on to what…reality, sanity?

  Connie drew closer to Annie.

  “What was he doing?” Rand prompted when Annie paused too long. Crosscurrents, sympathy for this brave lady and a zing of hope sliced through Rand. He tempered his eagerness. What she’d say might or might not help the case.

  “We’ve always had our mail delivered to our door,” Annie finally said. “Like everybody else I know.”

  “Yes.” Rand agreed, wishing he could move her along at a faster pace. He rubbed his palms over the rounded finials.

  Placing one hand just below his, Connie visibly braced herself also. His hand nearest hers tingled.

  “But a few months ago, Troy went and rented a post office box in Taperville and had all our bills and business mail forwarded there.” Annie rocked back and forth, making the fence links chink softly.

  “What month was that?” He kept his tone even, knowing that anything might stop her from sharing these previously hidden facts. Annie Nielsen had lost weight over the past three weeks. Rand had seen this happen in so many other cases. What’s eating you, Annie? What else haven’t you told me?

  She pressed her forehead into the chain links. “I think it must have been…near the end of March. He said it would be more convenient for him. I thought…I thought it was odd. But I was so busy studying for mid-terms when he brought it up that I didn’t think anything much about it. He’s always taken care of bills and did the banking. But now…” She glanced over her shoulder at Connie.

  “Do you want me to go in, too?” Connie asked, taking a step back.

  Rand waited to see what Annie would say. Would she want Connie to hear or was this too revealing for Connie’s ears?

  “No…no,” Annie said, struggling with herself. “I told Patience when she called earlier. And you might as well hear it from me, too, Connie.” She turned back to him. “Last night, it occurred to me it was nearing the end of July. That I needed to pay bills. I didn’t even know if Troy had paid the June ones. But I didn’t have any bills here to pay. And I don’t have the key to the post office box.”

  Annie glanced up at him and then back down. “It disappeared with Troy. And I’ve never even been to that post office.”

  “Yes?” Rand thought he knew what was coming. Poor woman. But Connie’s brow had wrinkled deeply. You don’t get it yet, do you?

  “So this morning I dug out some old bill receipts and called the utilities so they could tell me what I owed and I could ask them to switch our billing address back to the house.” Annie’s voice broke.

  He realized he’d clenched his jaw. He loosened it, but clung to the finials, ready for what was to come.

  Connie put an arm around Annie as though she sensed a stunning blow was about to fall.

  “What did the utilities have to say?” Rand asked, now positive of what she was going to say. He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the gate post, distancing himself.

  “They all said the same thing. They said we are three months in arrears. Three months.” Still clutching the fence, making it chink, Annie looked at him, a wildness in her eyes. “Troy hasn’t paid any bills in three months.”

  Connie gasped.

  Rand glared down at the dandelions growing around the base of the fence.

  Annie suppressed a sob. “And then…then I called the bank to find out what our balances were…. Our accounts have been closed. I don’t have a dime.” Annie began crying in earnest. “So you’ve been right all along.” She clung to the fence, gasping between sobs. “Troy did plan this. He’s been hoarding…our money, getting ready to leave us. The electric company said if it doesn’t get at least partial payment soon, they’ll turn off our…lights.”

  Connie turned Annie in her arms and hugged her. She looked to Rand over Annie’s heaving shoulders. For once it wasn’t an accusatory one. Disbelief and shock showed on Connie’s face.

  He stepped through the gate. So Nielsen, who’d been blessed with a nice wife and kids, had let them down. And for what? A sound of disgust summed up Rand’s opinion of the man.

  “How could he? He left us with nothing,” Annie moaned. “How could he be so cruel?” Annie’s pained voice cut through the silence hanging over Rand and Connie. He took no pleasure in the woman’s horrible discovery. Or in finally watching Connie’s illusions about Troy Nielsen shatter.

  Rand wanted to tell Annie that the behavior she was describing might be that of a husband about to leave his wife, but it also described other possibilities. But he had no hard evidence to give her to back up the new trend of his suspicions. Better to say nothing than to say what might later be proved incorrect.

  “Let’s get her inside,” he murmured to Connie. He shepherded Connie and Annie toward the house.

  Hours later, Connie let Rand into her Volvo and they drove away from Annie’s home. He’d planned to catch a taxi home, but had stayed at the Nielsen apartment hoping to pick up any possible lead or even a hint of one. None had come, but what he’d learned from Annie about the bills reinforced his own hunch.

  “I still can’t take it in.” Connie stared through the windshield. “There has to be some explanation for why Troy would—”

  “Would take all the money and run?” Rand couldn’t keep the snide trace out of his voice.

  Connie made no reply.

  Rand’s conscience nudged him. “Sorry. I’m not happy about what Annie found out today. It’s just…I get so tired of this garbage myself. Annie’s a sweet mother and the kids are great and…”

  “And you obviously still think Troy has abandoned them?” Connie said, a warning in her tone.

  Give it up. “And you think,” Rand said acidly, “he’s still a knight in shining armor and will return with the Holy Grail.”

  Silence.

  “He can’t have planned to leave Annie penniless…. There has to be some reason, some explanation—”

  “Of what?” He made a sound of disgust at himself. Why did he want to make her see how nasty the world really was? Just because of what he’d suffered, did he need to mock someone who was struggling to deny the damning truth about a childhood friend? He left them penniless, Connie, whether he planned it or not. He did it.

  “I don’t know what has happened to Troy.” Connie’s knuckles whitened as she clenched her fingers around the steering wheel.

  “Then we’re in the same sinking boat. I don’t know for certain, either.” Though I have a good guess. Feeling even his bones were weary, Rand let the surliness drain from him before he went on speaking. “You know what I think and I know what you think. Let’s just drop this, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Silence.

  In it, his awareness of Connie expanded and sharpened. He watched her glance into her rearview mirror, slow to a stop, accelerate and rotate the wheel when they turned a corner. Then they were on the tollway out to Taperville.

  The light from the dash and the tall sodium lamps gave a ghostly light to her clear, attractive features. Her distinctive scent, some expensive fragrance no doubt, was all around him. Her slender arm reached out and she snapped on the CD player. An eerie, Celtic melody filled the car. It suited the woman beside him, the woman who more and more was never very far from his thoughts.

  For a moment, he let his imagination run wild and free. He imagined moving closer to the warm vibrant woman he sensed Connie Oberlin to be. He would touch her soft cheek and turn her face in his hands. I would kiss your lips…

  He snapped off his imagination. His heart was jumping in his chest. That’s why I wanted to be the one to deliver the truck. I knew Connie would be there. I want to kiss her, hold
her. This admission left him reeling as if he’d just run into a wall in the dark. No.

  On Monday evening, Rand’s home phone rang. Suppressing a yawn, he picked it up.

  “O’Neill, it’s Connie.” Her voice shook with emotion.

  “What is it?” he asked, his pulse coming alive.

  “Someone stole Troy’s truck today.”

  Chapter Eight

  Later that Monday evening at Annie’s kitchen table, Connie perched, her hands frozen to each side of the seat of her chair. Then she broke her death grip and rubbed her eyes. They ached from reading fine print all day and from willing away unwelcome tears.

  It seemed that the last month she’d scarcely been inside her own home, her new condo in Taperville. She’d spent years avoiding this apartment, coming only rarely to face Annie and Troy together. Now after his disappearance, she’d stayed every night, every weekend here with Annie and the rest of her family. One crisis after another.

  O’Neill sat beside Connie, his brooding presence agitating her, attuning her to him. He’d insisted that he come and go over facts about the truck with Annie before she called the local police to report the burglary of the pickup. Connie was waiting to see what he would make of this. Would it bring them any closer to unraveling the mystery surrounding Troy’s disappearance?

  Annie had turned on only the light over the stove so that the kitchen was cast in shadows. Connie was grateful for the low light. It hid her despair. Rooms away, Jack and Gracie were putting the twins to bed. Uncle Lou paced the kitchen looking like an angry bear. As if carved from granite, Annie sat across from Connie. She’d just explained why she hadn’t noticed that the truck was missing until she’d come home after helping out at Jack’s office just across the street.

  “When are you going to find my nephew?” Lou barked at O’Neill, who had just opened his notebook and pen.

  “I’m investigating every lead.” O’Neill didn’t look up from his pad. “But if someone doesn’t want to be found, it makes it hard.”