The Second Wife

by Brenda Chapman

  THE

  SECOND

  WIFE

  THE

  SECOND

  WIFE

  BRENDA CHAPMAN

  Copyright © 2011 Brenda Chapman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Chapman, Brenda, 1955-

  The second wife / Brenda Chapman.

  (Rapid reads)

  Issued also in electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-832-5

  I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads

  PS8605.H36S42 2011 C813'.6 C2010-908119-6

  First published in the United States, 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010942254

  Summary: A cop with a boring desk job tries to solve a case that might

  save her ex-husband from a lifetime jail sentence. (RL 3.3)

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B PO BOX 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  14 13 12 11 • 4 3 2 1

  For Ted, Lisa and Julia—with love as always

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Titles in the Series

  CHAPTER ONE

  Idon’t know why I promised to meet the woman my ex-husband had left me for a year earlier. Maybe because she begged me. Maybe because I was curious. It might have been as simple as her choosing to meet at the Cantonese House restaurant a few blocks from the station where I worked. Lying Brian had ditched our twenty-two-year marriage for a woman from a temp agency he’d hired to sort out his sloppy filing system. It was time I met her and stopped imagining every possible way that she was a better wife than me.

  My name is Gwen Lake. I am a forty-five-year-old divorced mother of none. I work for the Duluth police force doing bookkeeping and secretarial work when asked. I trained to be a police officer but never made it past this desk job. It turns out I have a talent for filing and numbers. I can read a document and remember details weeks later. Police Chief O’Malley says I keep the office running. He can’t look me in the eye when he says it. I know he thinks women should be teachers or secretaries, not wearing uniforms and carrying guns. I am counting the days until he retires.

  I got to the restaurant twenty minutes early. I picked a booth that gave me a good view of the front door. I wanted to see Marjory before she saw me. I’d only caught a glimpse of her once from a distance. It was the day she drove off with my husband into the sunset and out of our bungalow for the last time. But I was sure I’d recognize her. She’d be young and big-breasted with harlot stamped all over her.

  I pretended to read the menu while watching the doorway. It would have been good if I smoked so that I’d have something to do with my hands. Every time someone came in the door, my heart jumped. I was beginning to wish I’d stayed at work. In the end, I wouldn’t have given a second glance at the five-foot-three redhead who walked my way after scanning the room. I would never have imagined that this was the woman who haunted my dreams and fueled my revenge fantasies. She just seemed so small and…ordinary.

  “Oh, Gwen, it’s good of you to see me. Brian described you to a tee.” She slid into the seat across from me and shrugged out of her black trench coat. “We sure could use today’s rain. It’s been one hot dry month of May, hasn’t it?”

  Her troubled eyes were green, the lids painted blue. I placed her close to forty, and she was bony—like a chicken that needed fattening up. Her hair was copper-colored and held back from her face with a black velvet band that made her look young and vulnerable. I was beginning to see how Brian would have fallen for her. He was a sucker for helpless women. They stroked his ego and made him feel needed.

  “And how did he describe me?” I asked. I should have known better.

  “You know, mature. Medium height, blond and no interest in fashion…” Her voice trailed away and she looked around the restaurant as if making sure we were alone.

  I sighed. Mature meant middle-aged. No interest in fashion meant frumpy. She’d cut me off at the knees without batting an eye.

  “So, what did you want to meet me about?” I asked, wanting to get the meeting over with. “You sounded upset on the phone.” I raised a hand to the waitress to bring a couple of coffees. Marjory swung her sad eyes my way. “I didn’t know who else to turn to. You’ve been married to Brian and you’re a police officer. I thought you’d know what I should do.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Was Brian at any time overly aggressive with you during your marriage?” Her eyes found mine and held.

  “Brian! Brian aggressive? You have to be joking.”

  Marjory flinched but kept her eyes steady on mine. “I worried you’d react like this, but you have to believe me. Brian’s changed since we got married. He’s become so possessive, he frightens me. I need your help.”

  I blinked back the laughter tears once I saw she was serious. “Brian is the least violent man I know. I’m sure you’re wrong about this.” Not to mention crazy.

  “He’s changed,” she repeated in a voice so small I had to lean forward to hear. “He’s just not the man I thought I married.”

  “I could say much the same,” I said, but the irony was wasted on her.

  “I don’t know who else to turn to,” she whispered. “I think he wants to get rid of me.”

  “I’m probably not the best person to ask about that,” I said. Seeing as how I dream of getting rid of you myself.

  Maybe, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have blown Marjory off as fast as I did that May afternoon. I could have listened to her fears and found out why she believed Brian was so angry. I should have gotten some details. But how was I to know that a week later Marjory’s twenty-year-old son would report her missing and Brian would become the main suspect in her disappearance?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Iwas adding up the cost of new furniture for the chief ’s office when Cal Rodgers poked his head into my office, which was a tiny corner cubicle with a view of the parking lot. My office was at the opposite end of the hall from the police officers who worked patrol. The three detectives and the chief had closed offices down another hallway not far from me. I had a fan pointed at my face, trying to stay cool. The air conditioner had been broken all week and the building was like a pizza oven. It was the hottest July on record.


  “Got a minute, Gwen?” he asked.

  “Always got time for you, Cal,” I said, mopping my face with a paper towel. I put down my pencil and watched him cross the floor toward me.

  Cal was close to six feet tall and growing a bit of a belly. He hadn’t shaved that morning and his beard was coming in gray. He perched his right butt cheek on the corner of my desk and asked me how I was doing. Cal had the red eyes of a drinker, but he was one of the sharper detectives on the force. I knew he wasn’t really there to ask me about my health. I decided to wait him out. The sun cut through the blinds on my office window and laid a striped pattern across his grizzled face. He looked like a convict in a holding cell. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  As predicted, Cal quickly got tired of the small talk. After a minute of silence, he looked me in the eyes and asked what he’d wanted to know all along. “So what’s the scoop on Marjory White?” He waited, chewing on a toothpick. He squinted at me through the sun’s glare.

  “I don’t know why everybody thinks something bad happened to her,” I grumbled. “She probably just got tired of being married and left town.”

  “You could be right. But we may as well do the background. What do you know about her?” Cal was still friendly, but his voice had gotten a harder edge.

  I sighed. “Not much. Marjory worked for a temp agency when she met my husband. Her duties included typing, filing and removing her clothes.” I tried to sound amusing, but my words came out more bitter than I’d planned.

  Cal mumbled something. It sounded like he had a hairball stuck in his throat. His dark blue eyes were regretful. He coughed and said, “Would you believe your ex, Brian, capable of harming her?”

  “Not in this lifetime. Brian owns a shoe store for good reason. He’d rather crawl around on his hands and knees at someone’s feet than face them head-on.”

  “Although, I guess we could safely say you didn’t know him all that well since you were surprised when he up and left you,” Cal said mildly. I noticed that his eyes had darkened from regretful to observant.

  I slapped the side of my thigh. “Ha. Ha. Got me there,” I said. “But fooling around on your first wife isn’t the same as killing your second.”

  “Maybe, it’s the start of the slide.” Cal shifted and a stack of papers fell over. He tried to straighten them, but a second pile landed on the floor.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Touch one more thing and I’ll have to handcuff you to the wall.”

  Cal smiled an apology before his mouth turned down at the corners. “You see, Gwen, a woman’s body matching the size of Marjory White was just found in the woods off Interstate 35. Too bad it’s been such a hot summer. There’s not much left of her. We’re making an id through dental records as I speak.”

  My heart felt like a can of pop that had been shaken and then opened. “It won’t be her,” I said. “There’s no way that’s Marjory.”

  “We’ll have our answer soon enough.” Cal grunted and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m sorry about all this, Gwenny. I know you and Brian were happy once.”

  “Yeah. Once upon a time, but I’ve moved on.”

  “That’s good. Because it’s not looking like there’s much of that happily-ever-after shit for any woman stupid enough to marry him.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two days later, Marjory White’s body was id’d, and the day after that Brian was charged with first-degree murder. Cal arrested him at home and put him in the city jail. His bail hearing was set for the following week.

  As usual, the bad news traveled through the station like a head cold. When it finally reached me, I was sitting at my desk eating a ham and cheese sandwich. The shock hit me hard. I had to bend over and put my head between my legs, or I would have passed out. Jan Hill from hr brought me a cup of tea and two stale cookies from a bag she kept in her desk drawer. She patted me on the back and said she was there if I wanted to talk. The detectives and patrol officers tip-toed around me all afternoon as if I was about to crack. Cal Rodgers wisely stayed in his office.

  I spent the next two days going through the motions. Each morning I got up and put on the same clothes as the day before. Then I went to work and sat at my desk, staring into space. In the evenings I sat in front of the television and changed channels with the remote. I couldn’t believe that a man I lived with for twenty-two years was a killer. I couldn’t accept knowing that Marjory had come to me for help and I’d turned her away. The guilt weighed heavily.

  By Thursday morning I’d had enough of grieving for the man I’d never really known and the woman who stole him from me. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and shook my head. There were dark circles under my eyes. My face was pale and my hair was a mess. It was time for a shower and a day off. I had to pull myself together. “He’s not worth it,” I said to my reflection.

  I stood in the shower and let hot water rain down on me for twenty minutes. Then I dressed in clean sweat pants and a yellow T-shirt. I walked into the kitchen and plugged in the coffee pot. Two cups and the fog began to lift.

  I got the newspaper from the mailbox and settled at the kitchen table. I skimmed the pages, not letting my eyes rest too long on any disturbing articles about politicians or pretty actresses in rehab. I flipped to the personals section and kept skimming. My eyes doubled back. I’d almost missed the notice of Marjory’s funeral above the real-estate ads. She was to be buried that afternoon in Forest Hill Cemetery. First, there was to be a private service in a downtown chapel.

  I raised my head and looked out the kitchen window at the line of lilac trees at the end of our property. Brian and I had planted them the second year we lived in this house. He’d told me they’d keep growing long after we’d moved into an old-age home together. I’d believed everything he’d told me back then. It had taken me a long time to accept that he could throw away our life together.

  My eyes dropped back to the newspaper. I reread the funeral notice several times. Brian might have turned into a lying little turd over the course of our marriage, but was he really a killer? Could somebody change that much in a year? The service was at two o’clock on the other side of town. There was time to make it if I hurried. I jumped up from the table to go in search of my little black dress. I needed to get the lowdown on his late second wife. Her funeral service would be a good place to start.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ahandful of people were sitting in the front pews of the chapel. I slid into one a few rows back. The oversized blond boy sitting directly in front of me had to be Marjory’s twenty-year-old son. I glanced over to my right in time to catch Cal Rodgers staring my way. I slowly rotated my head forward. It was common practice for the police to check out the funeral. But the sight of him bothered me somehow. It had to do with the pity I saw in his eyes before they hardened over and got impossible to read.

  Hymns played softly over the sound system while we waited. Cold air was being pumped into the chapel. I shivered in my sleeveless dress. A woman in a light green pantsuit sat down at the end of my pew. She smiled at me briefly before facing forward. I tried not to let my eyes linger on the gold ring sticking out of her nose.

  The chaplain’s sermon was long and rambling. He talked about crossing over to a better place and embracing the light. All very generic. Marjory’s name was inserted into the right places. Her son kept his head bowed the entire time. I could have sworn he was sleeping. That might have been because I caught myself nodding off once or twice. The chaplain became more animated delivering the closing benediction, and then the organist launched into one final hymn.

  I had to shake my leg awake before I hurried up the aisle to catch up with my pew mate.

  “Do you have a minute?” I asked.

  She kept walking as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “I’m a police officer and have a few questions.” Chief O’Malley would have had a fit if he’d heard me use that line.

  The woman turned. She tilted her head to the door. “Outside,” she said. She
led me down the steps to a shaded piece of sidewalk. Then she lit a cigarette that she’d pulled out of her bag. After a deep hit of nicotine, she was ready to talk.

  “Not sure if Marjory would have enjoyed that.” Her pale eyes met mine, a trail of cigarette smoke connecting us. She had bleached hair and bright red lips. I put her just over thirty. “What I knew of her, she would have wanted something more elaborate.”

  “How’d you know Marjory?”

  “We worked together. We both started at a temp agency a few years ago, but then she got married. She took several months off. Not long ago she came back. She only took the odd bit of work when it suited her. In fact, she was working a job just before she went missing.”

  “Sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Tina. Tina Sweet.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tina. Would you happen to know where Marjory was working last?”

  “A dentists’ office, but I don’t remember which one. I was on holidays in Mexico with my new boyfriend Roy. He won tickets in a radio contest. We got drunk on tequila and stayed an extra three weeks. Just got back a few days ago.”

  “That must have been fun.”

  Tina sucked on her cigarette. “Marjory thought she was so brilliant marrying into money. She acted like she was better than the rest of us. Just goes to show.”

  “Brian…that is, from what I hear, her husband was doing all right but he wasn’t exactly rich.”

  “When you have nothing, comfortable is a big step up.”

  “I guess you’ll miss Marjory,” I said, hoping she would say something personal. I tried not to stare at her nose ring. It was one of the biggest I’d ever seen.

  “Nah, not really. I just came today because the boss couldn’t. She said one of us had to show.” Tina took another long drag. Then she flicked the butt onto the pavement where the tip lay glowing orange. “Well, if that’s all, officer, I’m off. There’s a cold beer waiting at home with my name on it.”