“I bet the snow is making the roads slippery.”
“It’s pretty cold out there, too. They’re probably icing up.”
“And the heat in this place isn’t that great . . .”
“I remember.” He laughed softly. “All good reasons for me to stay. But I won’t—unless you can come up with the only one that matters.”
“I want you to stay.”
“That’s the one.”
Our lovemaking was as sweet as it had always been. Our bodies moved together as if we were recreating a dance we’d come to know so well that it was as natural as breathing. Being with Nick felt like an oasis in the midst of the insanity going on in the rest of our lives.
So did simply lying next to him, my head cradled inside the curve of his shoulder.
This feels good, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. This feels right.
It definitely beat sleeping with my menagerie.
Chapter 13
“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
—Unknown
It wasn’t until the next morning that the full magnitude of what had happened crashed down on me. There’s something about sunlight that makes things seem an awful lot clearer then they do in the moonlight—or amidst the season’s first snowfall.
“I guess we need to talk about last night.” I wrapped my hands firmly around my mug of coffee, hoping its comforting warmth would fend off the very real threat of an anxiety attack.
Nick frowned. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“I don’t want you to take it as a sign that I’ve, you know, come around to your way of thinking. The whole happily-ever-after bit.”
I wasn’t surprised to see the muscles in his face tense. But the words needed to be said. There was no other way.
“So for you, last night was just a one-night stand.”
“Kind of a cold way of putting it, isn’t it?”
“It’s cold, all right,” he returned.
“I just don’t want you to mislead you. I think . . . last time, we got our signals crossed.”
He sighed impatiently. “Terrific. The trauma of Jessica Popper’s less-than-perfect childhood raises its ugly head once again.”
Anger rose up inside of me like a bad case of indigestion. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. Look, if I wanted to be psychoanalyzed, I’d—”
“That didn’t come out right.” Nick hesitated. The air around us felt unnaturally still. “Jess, I love you. I want you in my life. But this thing you have about holding on to your self-sufficiency as if it’s some kind of . . . of life raft or something is getting to be too much, even for me. I won’t let myself be jerked around emotionally at every turn.”
I was suddenly finding it hard to talk. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should just chalk last night up to bad judgment. On both our parts.”
I didn’t want to be without him. But he was absolutely right: unless I could make the commitment he was entitled to, unless I could let go of my own independence or fear or whatever it was that kept holding me apart from him, it wasn’t fair for me to keep pulling him back.
Nick didn’t deserve to be jerked around emotionally. And as strange as it may have sounded, I cared about him too much to do that to him.
That didn’t keep my heart from feeling as if it was being crushed in a vise as I watched him pull on his jacket and pick up the box that was Leilani’s temporary home. I was surprised to see that Cat was still sitting guard over her, and Nick gave her a quick pat on the head. Even the dogs were strangely subdued. Lou picked up his tennis ball, then immediately dropped it. Max lay on the floor, his eyes moving back and forth between us.
As Nick opened the door, I could see that the snow was already melting, and only a few white patches remained.
“Thanks for taking care of Leilani,” he said.
And he was gone.
Must be allergies, I told myself, blinking hard to stop the stinging in my eyes.
Max and Lou frolicked beside me joyfully as we stepped outside into a brisk, sunny morning. With Nick gone, the cottage seemed absurdly empty, and I couldn’t bring myself to stay inside another minute. A long walk was precisely what I needed to clear my head.
I’d only been outside for a few seconds when I suddenly got the eerie feeling I wasn’t walking alone.
Nick? I jerked my head up, already feeling my heartbeat accelerate.
It was almost as bad. Max and Lou were bounding toward Betty, who was shuffling toward me through the heavy, wet leaves. She was encased in a fake fur coat that covered her from her neck to her knees, the “fur” dyed a shade of lime green that bore no resemblance to any living creature outside a Dr. Seuss book. Still, with the high, black patent leather boots, it worked.
“ ’Morning, Betty.” I shielded my eyes with my hand, hoping she wouldn’t notice the guilty look I was certain was on my face.
“Looks like a very good morning to me,” she said. Her blue eyes glittered as brightly as the silver eyeshadow that she somehow made appear tasteful.
“You’re out early,” I observed, sticking my hands deep inside the pockets of my fleece jacket.
“Just doing some raking.”
“Personally, I’ve always found that using a rake is extremely helpful when raking.”
She bent over to return my dogs’ enthusiastic greeting. “All right, so I was spying.”
Inwardly, I groaned. I knew what was coming. “And I saw a familiar face around here,” she continued.
“Did you also see the scowl on that familiar face?”
“Oh, dear. And here I just assumed from the looks of things that you two had made up.”
“Leilani—the chameleon Nick and I got in Hawaii—had a problem with her eye.” I could feel my cheeks reddening. “He brought her over so I could treat it.”
“I see. I suppose that explains why he was here so early in the morning.”
I left that one alone. In fact, I thought I was getting off easy.
But then Betty said, “He’s still deeply in love with you, Jessica. And you’re still—”
“The only reason he came over was that he was worried about Leilani!”
A heavy silence followed. I was only able to tolerate it for a few seconds. “So, are you still debating between Africa and the South Pacific?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve made my decision.” Betty looked at me oddly. “What about you, Jessica? Have you made yours?”
I spent the rest of the day keeping maniacally busy. I filled my refrigerator with food and my drawers with freshly washed clothes. I weeded through the mountain of junk mail that was threatening to require a room of its own. I checked in with some of my clients by phone, learning that Winifred Mack’s cat, James, was well enough to prowl the neighborhood again and that the Weinsteins’ Pointer, King, was engaged in an energetic game of Frisbee with Justin and Jason at the moment. It was all a welcome reminder that I had more important things going on than my tumultuous social life.
One of them, I reminded myself early the next morning, was the successful recovery of the Athertons’ stallion. I’d been monitoring Stormy Weather’s progress regularly, checking in with Skip every couple of days. While he’d been the Athertons’ manager for more than five years, Skip had spent nearly four decades in the company of horses, and I figured he knew as much about them as anyone I’d ever worked with. He’d certainly encountered just about every common horse disease in the book. But I still needed to examine Stormy Weather to determine if he was ready to be taken off penicillin.
As I drove along Green Fields Road, I felt a fluttering of nervousness. Without thinking, I’d taken the back road to Atherton Farm. I’d be driving past the spot that loomed large in my mind as The Scene of the Crime.
I expected that the entire area would be cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Maybe a patrol car would be posted there around the clock.
Even so, I had a perfectly legitimate reason for being on th
e Athertons’ property. And if worse came to worst, I was prepared to mention names. In particular, the name Officer James Nolan.
I was prepared for anything except what I found.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Not a scrap of yellow plastic tape, not a single police officer, not even a Do Not Disturb sign.
I pulled my van over, this time carefully avoiding the pothole that had started all this trouble in the first place. I jumped out and headed toward the edge of the woods.
I stepped carefully so I wouldn’t disturb anything. But all too soon, I saw there was no need to bother.
Not only was there no sign that only thirteen days earlier, a corpse and a dead canary had been lying in that very spot. The leaves, crusted with a few lingering patches of snow, looked as if they’d been raked over, so that not a trace of what the murderer might have left behind could be retrieved.
I was hardly an expert on murder investigations. But from what I’d learned from Nick, not to mention from the movies, I’d been certain that someone being murdered and half-buried in the woods deserved a little more attention.
The fact that the someone in question wasn’t just anybody made me even more suspicious. Tommee Frack had been well-respected, widely known, a pillar of the community. He was also highly connected— and, if Wade Moscowitz were to be believed, a major player.
My hands were shaking as I pulled up to the Athertons’ house. But by this point, it was anger, not shock, that made them tremble. I pulled out my cell phone.
“Homicide,” a deep male voice answered.
“I’m trying to reach Lieutenant Harned.”
“Harned’s on another call.”
“Tell him it’s Dr. Jessica Popper. From the Tommee Frack case.”
“Lieutenant Harned,” I heard a few seconds later. There was an edge to his voice I didn’t remember hearing before.
“Lieutenant, this is Dr. Popper. I was making a house call at Atherton Farm this morning, and I happened to drive by the crime scene. I noticed the site isn’t marked off. Is that usual procedure? It’s only been a couple of weeks . . .”
“Yes, young lady, it is usual procedure. Once all the evidence has been gathered, we open up a crime scene as quickly as possible. That doesn’t mean we’re not still doing everything possible to find the killer.”
“So your investigation’s still ongoing?”
“An investigation is never closed until the case has been solved.”
“But shouldn’t the crime scene be more . . . protected? Shouldn’t the investigation be more active? You could have missed something. Some clue, some piece of evidence—”
“A detective has been assigned to the case. But you’ve got to understand that he’s got other cases to deal with.” I heard him talking to someone else in a low voice. And then, he said something like, “Let me get rid of this.”
“Look,” the lieutenant said, not bothering to hide his impatience as he got back on the line, “this is not like TV, where everything gets wrapped up in sixty minutes. It’s different in real life.”
I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. “Lieutenant, did you know that Tommee and his ex-wife, Merrilee, kept canaries, and that she never let go of the idea that one day he was going to come back to her? And did you know that he met his fiancée back when she was an exotic dancer who used canaries in her act?”
There was icy silence at the other end of the line. “Besides,” I pressed, “no one’s ever gotten back to me. I’m the one who found his body, for goodness’ sake! No one ever contacted me again!”
“We already have your statement.”
“But it’s true of everyone I’ve spoken to! Not one of them has been approached by the police. It’s made me wonder if you cops are doing anything about this investigation at all!”
“What do you mean, everyone you’ve spoken to?”
Something in his tone warned me to be very careful of what I said next.
“I’ve had a few conversations with people who knew Tommee Frack. That’s all.”
“Maybe you just haven’t been talking to the right people.”
Now it was my turn to be silent. It wasn’t that I agreed with him, and it wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anything to say.
It was that something about the way this conversation was going was setting off alarms in my head.
“Listen, Dr. Popper.” Harned’s voice was brittle. “Interfering with police business is a serious offense, one you could be prosecuted for. I strongly suggest you stop bothering people and leave this investigation to us.”
His tone told me that, at least for now, I’d better let him believe I was doing exactly that.
I sat in the van for a minute or two, trying to digest what I’d just heard.
From the way the newspapers presented it, Tommee Frack’s murder was one of the biggest things that had happened on Long Island in anyone’s memory. It was up there with Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, not to mention both the trial and the funeral of John Gotti.
Yet Lieutenant Harned practically made it sound as if it had been dumped on a back burner.
It made absolutely no sense.
I stared at my cell phone. I was dying to call Nick. I wanted to repeat the conversation I’d had with Harned. I wanted Nick’s opinion on whether the lieutenant had been telling the truth about this being the way all murder investigations were handled.
Of course, I couldn’t call Nick. I had to start getting used to not thinking about Nick at all.
Ruminating in my van would accomplish nothing. I climbed out, figuring I’d make a quick social call before heading over to the barn to check on Stormy Weather. With all the suspicions and questions that were running through my brain, taking the time to make small talk was bound to do me good.
I peered through the window as I knocked on the back door. I could see the Athertons sitting at their kitchen table, sipping coffee over a blue-and-white checked tablecloth. They looked like they were posing for Norman Rockwell: Violet with her delicate wisps of white hair and her withered, fragile hands; Oliver with his tall, spindly frame folded into his chair, his face gaunt yet still heroic.
Violet came to the door, her mug in her hand. “Jessie! What a nice surprise!”
“Actually, Skip’s expecting me. I’m following up on Stormy Weather’s throat infection. I thought I’d stop off to say hello before heading over to the stable.”
“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”
The aroma was seductive. “A quick one.”
As Violet set a mug down in front of me, she studied me more closely. “You look shaken, dear. Is everything all right?”
“It’s just being back here again, I guess. After what happened last time.”
Violet shuddered. “I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it? I haven’t been able to think about anything else ever since it happened. Imagine, a murder victim, right here on our property. And I’m sure it was even more traumatic for you, since you’re the one who found him.” She placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “Don’t you think that must have been upsetting for Jessie, dear?”
“What’s that?” Ollie asked. He looked surprised, as if he’d only just realized that a conversation was going on around him.
“He refuses to wear his hearing aid,” Violet confided. “He’s afraid it’ll make him look old. I keep telling him he is old.
“Jessie found that dead man on our property two weeks ago, remember?” she shouted at Ollie.
“Terrible, terrible.” Ollie shook his head. “Is there more coffee, Vi?”
Violet cast me a conspiratorial look as she brought his cup to the counter for a refill. “Thank goodness we have Skip to run the farm.”
“Have the police been here?” I asked Violet.
“The police?” She frowned. “Why, you saw them yourself, didn’t you? The day you found the body?”
“No, I mean have they come around to question you since that day?”
S
he looked confused for a few seconds. “No. Unless they came when Ollie was here by himself. Of course, I hardly ever leave him alone these days. I’m just not sure he can manage. In fact, I don’t think he’s been on his own since then.”
“Atherton Farm has been in our family for generations,” Ollie began, speaking slowly. From what I could tell, he didn’t appear to be talking to anyone in particular. “My great-great grandfather bought this land right after the Civil War. . . .”
“Oh, Ollie, I’m sure Jessie’s already heard all this.”
He scowled. “How do you know that?”
“Because you tell the same story to everybody who walks in here!”
“I bet she hasn’t seen the pictures.”
“What pictures?” I asked politely.
“What pictures? The pictures of the farm, of course!”
“Jessie doesn’t want to see those boring old pictures,” Violet insisted.
“I’ll go get ’em. I think I remember where they are.”
He shuffled off, leaving the coffee his wife had just put in front of him untouched.
Violet shook her head. “He’s getting worse. I can’t even trust him to go to the supermarket. I send him for milk and lettuce, and he comes home with heavy cream and a head of cabbage. And the way he goes on and on about this farm and his great-great grandfather.” She sighed. “To think that the old fool nearly lost it. If our daughter hadn’t been here that time. I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
“Nearly lost Atherton Farm?” I was sure I’d misunderstood.
“Nearly had it stolen out from under him, is more like it. ’Course, Ollie doesn’t see it that way. I still worry that that man will come back some time when neither me or Gwennie are here and trick Ollie into signing something.”
“Somebody is trying to trick you out of your land?”
“Oh, they’re offering a fair price. I’ll give them that. At least, it sounds like a lot of money to me. A crazy amount, in fact. Only where on earth would we go if we sold this place? Ollie and me, we’ve been on this land practically our whole lives. He grew up here, for heaven’s sake. Why he would even let somebody like that in the door is beyond me.”
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