It had devastated him when she accepted the position with the Concord PD after graduating from the police academy, but he tried not to let it show. He knew it would be a mistake pressuring her to stay. She would have ended up resenting him, so he let her go. Once she got a taste of life on the mainland, he believed she’d find it not to her liking. The opposite happened. Her daily telephone calls turned into every other day. Then one day, he got the call. He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected it. Still, though, he had held out hope for her return. The island and its quaint customs and mixed cultures were as much a part of her as him. She just needed to realize it for herself.
Her departure had devastated Dan and Keertana, as well, destroying their dreams and hopes for their marriage and grandchildren.
For a long time after she told him she wouldn’t be returning to Honeydale, he moped around. Nothing interested him. Not his job he loved so much, not the weekly poker games, not riding Snowdancer, his Arabian. At some point, he realized he was squandering his life and straightened out. His heart continued to ache for her, but he’d learned to live with it by telling himself that one day she would return to the Island and to him.
The day he hoped and prayed for finally arrived two months ago, and he had to learn of her return from his dentist who learned it from his wife who learned it from her hairdresser. At least she was back. That made him happy, even though they weren’t as close as they once were. He’d bridge the gap. Time would heal the wounds she tried hard to cover up. He wished she’d confide in him, but his attempts to get her to talk seemed only to reinforce her resolve that whatever happened in her past was best left kept to herself.
Years ago, she had told him everything; nothing was too personal, nothing too innate, nothing too silly. He wanted to be her trusted friend again, but it seemed he was a stranger to her. At least, she treated him like one. That wasn’t the only thing which changed, though. Now, whatever he did was the wrong thing to do. Whatever he said was the wrong thing to say. When he saw what was happening, he took a different approach, a psychological one. If she asked him what he thought, he answered, “What do you think I should think?” Hell’s bells but it didn’t go over well. He opted, then, for smiling—a lot—and pats on the back with a “hang in there”, or “great job”, as might be the case. That appeared to work. For awhile. He wouldn’t repeat the mistake. Now, he censured every word, every smile, every movement for fear she’d get the wrong idea or draw the wrong conclusion, which was working better. For how long, he didn’t know.
She’d lost her confidence, though Evie without confidence was like an apple without a core. In the event her problem might be that, he had decided to include her in the investigation. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but he needed to do something.
After Evie left all those years ago, he’d adopted a Doberman to fill the void her absence created. When Lady Laura decided she loved the Rottweiler down the road more, the damn dog left him, too. God. It seemed all his women left him. Hell’s bells. At least, he had work and crank baits to occupy his time and thoughts.
The night grew still. Not a branch or a leaf stirred. The birds and squirrels had long ago retired for the night. Only a Chinese owl to keep him company. He looked out the windshield at the bird perched high on a fat branch of a billowing pine. “I see you.” The owl hooted a long ‘oo’, as though he heard and understood.
He’d give her another fifteen minutes to ensure her well being, then he’d go home to his camp and crash. He might as well be here as home, though. No one to come home to. Before he thought better of it, he fished his cell phone from his jacket pocket and hit one on speed dial—first friend, first love, first thought, first in his heart was Evie. He listened to the monotonous ring of the telephone. One, two, three…six. What was that about? Why didn’t she answer the phone? She picked up on the eighth ring. He cleared his throat. “Were you asleep?”
“No.”
“Can’t sleep?” He saw her walking into the kitchen, running her fingers through her hair. “No.”
“The autopsy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’ve been to autopsies before?”
“No. My partner hated paperwork. We traded off.”
Oh, God. What had he done? “Close your eyes.”
“Simon, I’m not in the mood for—”
“Close your eyes,” he whispered and picked the binoculars from the seat and put them to his eyes. He saw her lashes lower. “Are your eyes closed?”
“Yes.”
“Take a deep breath.” He kept his voice soft and listened. When she inhaled, he said, “Hold it…let it out slowly.” He waited and a moment later an exhaled breath that sounded like a long, withering sigh followed. “Good. You’re in a meadow. There are wildflowers. Maple trees rustle in the wind. Jack Pines stand straight and tall. A breeze fragrant with lilac caresses your hair. Turn your face to the sun and embrace the warmth.” He paused a moment. “Evie?” Another moment passed. “Evie?”
“What?”
Simon had to strain to hear. “Are you feeling better?
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. Go to sleep.”
“Okay.” Simon watched her stand and turn out the lights. He waited fifteen minutes, then started the Jeep. He rolled down the window and looked at the owl. “She’s all yours. Keep her safe.”
Chapter Five
Evie woke to sunshine and warmer temperatures. Though she only slept a few hours, she felt rested and relaxed, almost content — something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Working this murder case with Simon triggered something inside her. Excitement, maybe. Or maybe it made her realize she still had a purpose in life. Maybe there was a chance for her, after all.
She looked back at the last few months — how she had kept everyone at a distance; how Simon worked so hard to include her in his life and break through the barrier she’d built around herself. She still loved him and couldn’t bear to hurt or disappoint him again.
Was there still a chance for them?
It would be a long, arduous journey back to the person she was, to feel the passion for life and her job she once did, but she needed to try. Her determination strengthened. She wanted to do this, if not for herself, for Simon. Taking an interest in what she loved, was good, something Gaston tried to make her see.
In the months she’d worked on the Honeydale PD she hadn’t done much more than keep a chair warm. Sitting at a desk, answering telephone calls and occasionally directing traffic after fender-benders was safe. The thought of getting “back into action” frightened her now, the fear bearing down on her, pressing, pressing until her breath came in uneven gasps. Her hands shook. Beads of perspiration formed on her brow. She fought the panic attack. No. She wouldn’t give in to fear. How easy it would be to fold to self-pity and guilt, though. “No, I won’t go to that dark place this time.” Simon. She had Simon. She would always have Simon.
She felt stronger now.
An hour later, she opened the door to her cottage and put Bear on the floor. She returned the skunk’s stare. “Don’t look at me like that. We had enough fresh air for one day. You have a fur coat—” The ring of the telephone interrupted her argument. “Another minute and you would’ve had me back outside. It’s hard to refuse those soulful eyes.” She ruffled the hair between Bear’s ears. Shrugging out of her coat and thinking it was Simon calling, she answered the phone. “Hello.”
“Hi.” A voice from the past and someone Evie had also tried to alienate, but Shelley would have none of it. “What a pleasant surprise.” She smiled, realizing how much she missed her friend.
“Don’t you ever answer your phone or have an answering machine? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.”
“I’ve been busy.” A little white lie, which Shelley would never know. “And my answering machine works when it wants to.” One lie led to another. “How’s everything?”
“Need you ask?”
Shelley
’s voice sounded deflated, which could only mean one thing. Office politics again. Her colleagues on the Concord PD had a problem with Shelley’s homosexuality and heckled her mercilessly. Infantile thinking. What they could not understand, they feared. It seemed acceptance wasn’t part of to protect and serve.
“Same old, huh?” Evie sympathized, but could only imagine the depth of Shelley’s pain. “Things will get better, you’ll see.”
She sighed. “I keep telling myself that, but it isn’t happening.”
Since it became known Shelley danced to a female drummer, they had this talk often. “Give them time. They’ll move on to something or someone else eventually.”
“I can’t take it anymore, Evie. I’m thinking about leaving, getting a job somewhere else, somewhere far from here.”
“How does Bethany feel about that?”
“She said she’d come with me.”
Evie didn’t like to see anyone give up. There was a certain irony in that, she realized. She had given up, succumbed to guilt and despair. If it weren’t for Simon and this murder, she’d still be in that black pit. “Maybe it is for the best, then. That you leave.”
“If I do that, I’ll be letting them win. I have a right to be who I am.”
“True.” Evie smiled.
“I have eight years with the CPD. I shouldn’t throw that away.”
“That’s true, too.” Evie smiled again.
“Someone wrote in red ink the word ‘dyke’ across my locker door last week. And yesterday, someone slashed my tires.”
This worried Evie. The harassment had started with little things—wisecracks, taunts and jabs against Shelley’s sexuality. This latest development meant the persecution had escalated. Maybe Shelley should pack up and leave. “So, besides that, things are good for you?”
She laughed. “Yes.”
“How’s the new partner working out?” In the nine months since Shelley’s coming out, she had six different partners, not by her choice.
“I’m crossing my fingers. He’s tantalizingly close to breaking the six-week barrier.”
“Shelley Waters, forging new heights. You go, girl.” Holding the cordless phone tightly against her ear, she walked into the living room, rethinking her friend’s stand. “Shelley, maybe you should move.”
“No, I’m not leaving. I won’t let their small minds run me out of town.”
Evie sighed. “I know we discussed this before, but maybe you should talk to Darius about it.”
“I don’t want to do that, either. It seems so firstgradish.”
“It’s not as though you’d be tattling, but I understand. You keep a close watch on your back, all right?”
“I will. Enough about me. How’s everything with you?”
“Good.” Two days ago Evie would have spouted the same retort, but with less conviction.
“Evie, it’s me you’re talking to. How are things really going?”
“Actually, they’re getting better. Sometimes, though…”
“You remember, and it all comes crashing down on you again.”
Shelley understood her so well. “Uh-huh.”
“Forgive yourself. It’s time.”
A catch formed in Evie’s throat. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. What happened wasn’t completely your fault. You know it. If the bastard had been truthful, if he’d told you he was married from the git-go, you wouldn’t have found yourself doing what you did.”
Evie relented. “You’re right, of course. I’m working a murder case with Simon.”
“I don’t know what surprises me more. That you had a murder in Honeydale or you working the case. Isn’t it your job to round up Farmer Brown’s cows?”
“It’s Farmer Kelley, and it’s not my job, specifically. I just happen to be on duty when his Guernseys decide to cut loose and go for a stroll down the highway.”
She laughed. “I can only imagine that.”
Evie told her about the murder. “And all we have for evidence is a candy wrapper and a partial footprint.”
“Simon knows what he’s doing, though?”
“Oh, yes. If anyone’s going to catch the culprit, it’s him. How’s Bethany?”
“She’s wonderful. Despite what I’m going through right now, I’m not sorry we moved in together.”
Evie heard the smile in her friend’s voice and smiled herself. Love was wonderful. “I’m so happy for you.”
“If anyone but you said that to me, I’d think they were full of hooey. So, how’s it going with the hunk Simon.”
At the mention of his name, Evie’s heart danced. “Fine.”
“Fine? Just fine? Oh, no, you don’t. You’re falling for him all over again, aren’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”
“Yes.”
“I knew it!”
The admission came as more of a surprise to her than to Shelley.
“Speaking of ex-beaux, I had the great pleasure of giving him a speeding ticket last week. He had the gall to ask how you were.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him you were none of his fucking business.”
The retort took Evie by surprise. She threw her head back and laughed.
“Oh, I got a call. Gotta go. See ya.”
Evie stared at the phone and smiled. She hadn’t felt this good in a long, long time.
Invigorated by a new outlook on her life, Evie sprinted into the police station, carrying a vase of flowers. Chrysanthemums that said ‘wonderful friend’, and Hyacinths that asked ‘please forgive me’. She sang, “Good Morning” to Aubrey and Tallulah, and entered Simon’s office with a bounce to her step.
With the telephone receiver cupped to his ear and the cord stretched taut, he waved her to a seat. “Thank you for calling. I’ll be sure to make a note of that in the file.” He set the receiver in its cradle with a kerplunk, swung his legs off the desk and sighed. “It’s going to be a long day, and it’s only just begun.” His telephone rang again. “Tallulah,” he said, raising his voice, “hold my calls, please.”
Tallulah, a middle-aged butterball who changed her hair color like she changed shoes and ruled the office like a general, stuck her head in the doorway. “You don’t need to holler. I’m not deaf.”
Simon jerked his head in her direction. “Sorry, darlin’.”
With a huff and a muttering of indistinguishable words, she disappeared from the doorway.
Evie grinned.
Simon noticed. “What?”
“Nothing, honey.”
The scowl that creased his face told her he understood the implication of the endearment. “A happy Tallulah makes a happy Simon.” He shuffled files on his desk.
“Admit it. You’re afraid of her.”
“Am not.”
She couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. “If you say so.” She took a seat. “Anything new to report?”
“Nothing travels faster than news of a murder in a small town. The wackos are coming out of the woodwork. This guy,” he pointed at the phone, “said the Carp Diem Bee Quilters of Whipperdicks killed Miller. Said he saw little old ladies dump his body from a hot air balloon.” He pointed to the flowers. “What you got there?”
She handed him the vase. “For you.”
“For me? Why?”
“To thank you for being you.” She studied his square jaw, blue eyes and warm-toned skin and wondered if it would be any different making love with him now that they were experienced.
He placed a hand over his heart. “You shouldn’t have. They’re lovely. Thank you.” He grinned. “A woman’s never brought me flowers before.”
“No? Pity. Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”
He cleared a spot on the corner of his desk and set the vase down. “You’re in a chipper mood.”
“I’m in a great mood.” Because of you. When she looked at the photos of Miller on the evidence board, her mood quickly turned contemplative and melancholy, however. “He had so much to che
rish, yet that didn’t satisfy him, did it? His life was full, yet he had to have a little on the side.” Some men were s.o.b’s. She shook her head and looked at Simon, noticing the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”
“A little. Harley called. Miller was castrated postmortem.”
“That’s some consolation, I suppose.”
Simon nodded. “Miller consumed alcohol and had sex before he died. Harley found some pubic hairs that don’t appear to be Miller’s.”
“The killer’s, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Anything else?” He tugged on his ear. “No prints on the body and the time of death is between eight and eight-thirty.
“Type of weapons used?”
“A twenty-two, just as we suspected, and from the cut marks in the castration, Harley was able to determine the tip of the blade had a second blade with a hook, the type used to prevent snagging in gutting.” He bent and took the knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle. “Something like this one.”
She stared at the lethal-looking weapon and a shiver swept through her. “God. The killer went prepared.”
“That he did, and it might tell us ‘premeditated’, and it also might tell us something about the killer.”
She nodded. “That he might be a hunter.”
“Maybe. What can you tell me about Miller?”
“Not much.” She shrugged. “He took great pains with his appearance and was always stylishly dressed and groomed in high school and from what I saw the other day, he hadn’t changed.” She stared off to a corner and smiled, recalling those times. “He used to strut the hallways like he owned the building and always had two or three girls on the line. He thought he was the coolest thing since ready-made whipped cream.”
“Yet he never gave you the time of day. That’s odd.”
“Not when you consider I dated a gargantuan man who wore a Stetson and a ponytail and could shoot the wings off a fly at a thousand yards.”
“True.” He grinned. “Anything else?”
“He wasn’t terribly bright, but he got along.”
Wolfe, She Cried Page 3
