A Mother's Vow

by Ken Casper

  “Thanks for coming over this evening,” she murmured. “For doing this.”

  “My pleasure. Any time.”

  They sipped. Their eyes locked. He was about to take her glass and put it down on the marble counter-top beside his, so he could fold her into his arms and kiss her, but then the oven timer dinged. The moment passed, but not the desire.

  She removed the bread from the wall oven while he heated a copper-clad skillet on the gas range and melted butter in it. After sauteing the mushrooms and onions, he tipped them into a dish, added another pat of butter to the pan and poured in the frothy eggs.

  She placed their wineglasses on the table and leaned against the side counter to watch him. He added the other ingredients, then folded the puffy mixture over on itself.

  “You’re good at that,” she said. “My omelets always end up as scrambled eggs.”

  He felt pleasantly self-conscious. “I’ve had my failures.”

  She brought their dishes. He divided the omelet and slipped the portions onto their plates, then topped each with sprigs of the parsley he’d found in the crisper of the fridge.

  “Voila,” he said, and followed her to the table by the window.

  CATHERINE COULDN’T EXPLAIN why she dimmed the kitchen lights before she sat down, leaving the two of them isolated in their own little world. She never had when she, Jordan and Kelsey had eaten their family meals here. For some reason, it seemed appropriate tonight.

  No, not appropriate, she admonished herself. Dangerous. She was giving Jeff the wrong signals. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back. Pleasant, but she didn’t want it to go any further.

  Liar. That kiss had been more than pleasant. The problem was that she wanted it to go further. He had stoked a fire that had been nothing but smoldering embers for a year. She wanted to be touched. She wanted to feel like a woman, and that awareness filled her with guilt. She missed Jordan so much that sometimes she wished she had been the one who had died.

  Displacement. That’s how a shrink would explain the attraction she felt for the man sitting across from her now. She was using him as a substitute for Jordan, who was gone and wouldn’t be back. Not in this lifetime.

  Jeff’s question resurfaced. “Would he want you to spend the next forty years alone?”

  She knew the answer.

  Using the side of her fork, she cut into the omelet. Jeff had done a perfect job. The eggs were light, the seasoning perfect.

  “So what were you doing in Las Vegas?” She hoped the change of subject would corral her errant thoughts. “You must have found someone or something.”

  The way the comers of his mouth tilted up told her she wasn’t fooling him, but he was willing to play the game.

  “Both.” He took a sip of wine. “I went to see the president of Uranica Corporation, the company that stored the yellowcake in the Rialto warehouse.”

  Catherine stilled the fork on its way to her mouth, then lowered it. “And?”

  “He’s dying of lung cancer. Probably won’t be around much longer. I also brought back the original, signed, final inventory of what was left behind.”

  “And,” she repeated, trying to decide if his news was good or bad. “What did it say?”

  “Sixty barrels.”

  She gave herself a minute to absorb the information, then she closed her eyes and slouched against the back of the chair. “So Summers was telling the truth.”

  She wasn’t sure what she felt, what she was supposed to feel. Forty barrels would have meant Jordan died of a coronary. A tragic death but the will of God. Sixty meant there was a good chance he’d been murdered, and she had been cheated, robbed of the man she loved. Either way he was dead, and she was alone.

  No, not completely alone, she thought, as she glanced at the man sitting across from her.

  “We need to turn it over to the feds,” Jeff said a minute later.

  “Not so quick.” She buttered a piece of the crispy French bread.

  “You’re not thinking of withholding this from them, are you? That wouldn’t be a good idea, Catherine.”

  “No, but let’s consider the sequence of events.” She finished her omelet. “It’s been my experience that federal agencies are slow in dealing with evidence they haven’t uncovered themselves.” She toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “And they like to play very close to the vest.”

  “No argument there.” He set his fork on the empty plate. “But we’re dealing with national security here.”

  “I want to go public with this, Jeff.”

  He ran his tongue across his teeth as he gazed at her. “I don’t think they’re going to like that.”

  “I know they won’t,” she agreed. “But once we turn that piece of paper over to them, they’ll impose a gag order on us. That’s why we have to go public first. With the cat out of the bag, there isn’t much they can do. We won’t have broken any law or interfered with any investigations in progress. That we know of,” she added.

  “Why antagonize people who can hurt you?”

  She’d considered that but had come to a different conclusion. “They’ll rant and rave, even make threats,” she acknowledged, “but they won’t hurt me because ultimately I’ll be helping them.”

  She could see Jeff’s mind working as he broke off a piece of bread and spread it with a thin layer of butter. “I’m listening.”

  “Your contact at the FBI said they tried to find someone associated with Uranica Corporation and were unsuccessful. That makes this scrap of paper an embarrassment to them. The first thing they’ll do is try to discredit it. Even if they do validate it, unless and until they are successful in recovering the missing yellowcake, they’ll keep their mouths shut about it.”

  He swirled his wine. “I have to agree with you.”

  “They’ll do file searches of cargoes going to various countries and organizations. They may even locate the missing barrels, but it could take months, even years. By then the harm could already have been done. On the other hand, if we go public, we can produce leads—”

  “Or start a panic.” He crunched bread.

  She’d considered that, too. “Not if we handle it right, explain that yellowcake is not dangerous in itself.”

  “Okay. But you’ll have every kook for six counties around reporting little green men.”

  She laughed. “Probably. But so what? They show up for every manhunt anyway.”

  “True enough. We can hold back certain bits of information to help separate the valid claims from the bogus, like we do with most requests for information from the public.”

  “Exactly.” She got up and began clearing the table.

  “Those aren’t your only reasons, though, are they?” Jeff pushed back his chair and joined her in removing the dishes to the counter.

  “Want some fruit?” Catherine asked, her hand on the refrigerator door handle.

  “Sounds great.”

  She removed two large apples from the crisper, put them on plates and grabbed a couple of paring knives from a drawer.

  “I want to put Buster Rialto on the defensive.” She sat down and halved, then quartered the fruit. “He’s more likely to trip and fall if he’s looking over his shoulder.”

  “He’ll also be more dangerous.”

  “I can’t shy away from a job because of that.”

  He grinned. “So you’ll call a press conference and go public with this while I’m delivering the goods to the feds?”

  “We’re going public,” she corrected him, and had to suppress a smile at seeing the amazement on his face. “Together. While a courier is delivering a photocopy of the inventory to the feds. We’ll keep the original as insurance.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t help your credibility, Catherine. I’m a disgraced cop, remember?”

  “Let me deal with that. Now here’s what I want to do.”

  CATHERINE HELD THE NEWS CONFERENCE at one o’clock Tuesday in the lobby of police headquarters. Jeff was standing
beside her. She read the statement they had composed together and was immediately bombarded with questions from the floor.

  “Chief Tanner,” a local TV news reporter called out, “you claim twenty barrels of uranium are missing from the warehouse owned by the Rialto Corporation—”

  “I said twenty barrels may have gone missing—”

  “How long have you known about this, and why didn’t you report it when the Superfund began cleaning up the site?”

  “Mr. Rowan brought me the information last evening. I have contacted federal authorities and turned the evidence over to them.”

  “What evidence?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss specific details of their ongoing investigation.”

  “Have you discussed this with people at the Rialto Corporation?”

  “I’m sure federal officials will be interviewing them very soon.”

  “Yellowcake is one of the items on the terrorist alert list of banned substances,” another reporter called out. “Are you accusing Rialto Corp of supporting terrorists?”

  Catherine held up her hands. “No one is accusing anyone of anything. All we know at this point is that there appear to have been sixty barrels of yellowcake on hand when the warehouse was closed in 1977, but only forty were found when the Superfund went in to clean the place out last year. There are all sorts of possible explanations for the discrepancy. The original inventory may have been in error, twenty barrels may have been removed legitimately and not correctly accounted for, or—”

  “Or they could have been sold or stolen,” said a reporter in front.

  “Speculation at this point is fruitless and counterproductive. The Department of Homeland Security will be investigating this matter very carefully.”

  “How dangerous is yellowcake?”

  “I’m no expert,” Catherine said, “but it’s my understanding that in its raw form it’s not a public threat, which is why it was allowed to languish in a warehouse all these years. Yellowcake becomes a dangerous substance only when it undergoes enrichment.” She held up her hands and smiled. “Sorry, folks, chemistry and physics are not my areas of expertise.” Then she added with a smile, “You’ll have to find a nuclear physicist to explain it to you, and hope you can understand what they tell you.”

  A few reporters chuckled.

  “Mr. Rowan, how did you come into possession of this information?”

  “I can’t give you any details, but I can tell you the source is reliable and the evidence credible.”

  “Chief Tanner, if Rialto has owned the warehouse all these years,” a woman in the back asked, “they have been legally responsible for its security, haven’t they?”

  “Federal and state officials will have to determine culpability and liability. If—and I emphasize if—it turns out the yellowcake was not handled properly, they will decide on appropriate follow-up action.”

  “Mr. Rowan. Weren’t you the detective in the Houston Police Department who was fired last year for racial profiling?”

  “I left the HPD last year. The reason—”

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Catherine interjected.

  “Are you saying he wasn’t fired for racial profiling?” a strident voice called out.

  “No, I’m not saying that.”

  “So he was fired for racial profiling.”

  “I’m not saying that, either.”

  “But he was fired.”

  Catherine raised her hands. “I’m neither confirming nor denying that Mr. Rowan is a member of the Houston Police Department. Now, let’s move on.”

  A loud and hostile male voice boomed from the side of the room. “Isn’t this all a smokescreen to divert attention away from charges of corruption in your police department?”

  The reporter, whom Catherine recognized as the muckraker Tyrone had hired away from one of the weekly tabloids, had a clear agenda, but she had anticipated the question. She paused to maintain her composure.

  “Since I took over as police chief two years ago, we have made major strides in identifying and correcting problems within the department. I’m not claiming we’re perfect. There is still a great deal of work to be done. I have dedicated myself to ensuring the people of Houston are safe and secure in their homes, workplaces, recreational facilities and on the streets of this great city.”

  The reporter tried to interrupt, but she waved her hand and spoke over him.

  “Our police force of almost five thousand officers is one of the largest in the nation. In spite of allegations to the contrary, it is also one of the most effective law-enforcement agencies in the country. Our people are dedicated professionals who take their jobs very seriously. Integrity is the linchpin of our core values of honesty and devotion to duty. We cannot do the job alone, however. That’s why we’ve established hotlines and procedures for people to contact us confidentially or even anonymously if they have information that may lead to the apprehension of criminals or correction of police irregularities.”

  She looked into the main camera. “I urge anyone having information about the missing barrels of uranium to contact our office or federal officials immediately. This is not simply a matter of criminal activity but of national security.”

  “Does that mean you don’t have a clue what happened to the uranium?” a woman asked.

  Before she could answer, the Sentinel reporter called out, “Do you have any cases of police corruption under investigation right now?”

  She let a moment pass before responding. “I’m not going to discuss current investigations. Our internal affairs division is always watching for possible legal and ethical violations of our code of conduct. But let me add something else. Spurious, exaggerated and unsubstantiated charges of corruption serve no purpose except to undermine public confidence in law enforcement.”

  She hardened her gaze. “If the Houston Sentinel has specific information about current problems within this law enforcement institution, it not only has the right, it has the duty to present those facts to the people who can do something about them. Otherwise one would have to question their motivation in making what amount to hollow accusations.”

  As expected, this produced a storm of additional questions. “The recent editorial in the Sentinel, accusing you of being part of the problem was written by your brother-in-law,” a news anchor shouted out. “Does he have a personal vendetta against you? And if so why?”

  She held up her hands, saying, “I have no further comment. Thank you for coming.”

  Questions were still being lobbed after her as she stepped away from the podium and left the room.

  Jeff also ignored requests for information directed at him and followed the chief out. Neither spoke until they reached the security checkpoint by the entrance to the parking garage. She turned to him and extended her hand.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Rowan,” she said loud enough for the guard on duty to hear.

  “Good luck, Chief,” he replied, then murmured, “You’ve pulled the tiger’s tail. Now let’s see if he bites or runs.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  LUCY MONTALVO, who worked in missing persons called a few minutes after five.

  “Just wanted to give you a progress report, Chief. No luck yet on finding Stuckey. The guy’s elusive. As soon as we locate one of his cribs, he’s moved on.”

  “Keep looking,” Catherine said.

  “Oh, we’re not giving up. Caught you on TV today. Have to admit I was surprised to see Rowan with you. I’d forgotten how yummy that man is. If I weren’t happily married . . . ” She sighed. “Anyway, the two of you raised a few eyebrows. That’s for sure.”

  “What’s the overall response?” Catherine couldn’t help asking.

  Lucy laughed. “About what you might expect. One third think you’re out of your ever-loving mind. One third think you’re brilliant, and the last third couldn’t care less.”

  It could be worse, Catherine thought. �
��Thanks for the update.”

  She left the office at seven and drove home. Tonight was the concert for the Houston Children’s Fund. Her mind and her body craved a night in but not showing up was not an option. Placido Domingo would be performing, having been coaxed out of retirement for this special event, and her in-laws would be there.

  With very little time to change and get to the hall downtown, she munched on a Power Bar while checking her e-mail. A quick shower refreshed her a little. She slipped into her black silk evening gown, put the finishing touches to her makeup, had another glance at her e-mail and left the house.

  This was not the first social event she had attended by herself since Jordan’s death, but the pang of loneliness, of feeling abandoned, was still raw.

  Jones Hall was already crowded by the time she arrived. Nearly six feet tall in her two-inch heels, she scanned the lobby for familiar faces, hoping to find someone with whom she would be comfortable. On the other side of the vast space Tyrone towered above the crowd. She was relieved he had his back to her, so she didn’t have to acknowledge him or the other members of his family just yet.

  Suddenly the sound and polite jostling of the crowd faded. Jeff was standing by one of the pillars.

  Their eyes met. He smiled. Her pulse quickened.

  They started toward each other.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, when at last they reached the middle of the room.

  It had been a long time since anyone had told her that. She ate it up.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Not a gumshoe event, huh? Think I can get a refund if I turn my ticket in before the music starts?”

  He was teasing, calling her a snob, but how many people were willing to spend five hundred dollars to attend a single concert, even if it was for a good cause?

  “I’m glad you’re here.” She hadn’t meant it to sound as if he was there exclusively for her. Then came the panic. Maybe he wasn’t the one who’d shelled out the money.

  “Are you with someone?” People rarely bought single tickets to these events, but then most of the people here were more affluent than he was.