An Officer and a Gentle Woman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Alicia drifted in the warmth of his embrace for several seconds, then recalled the purpose of her mission and wrestled herself away from him Lafferty looked at her as she quickly straightened her clothes, as if dusting off his touch.

  “You were kind to me and I’m grateful,” she finished hastily. “I just wanted you to know that.” She turned abruptly and ran out of the lobby, moving so rapidly that she left Lafferty staring after her.

  Killian was at his side in a second. “Buddy, you got a problem there,” Killian said sagely.

  Lafferty picked up his gym bag and thrust it into Killian’s arms, then dashed outside after Alicia, crashing into a woman walking her poodle past the club door.

  “Watch where you’re going!” she yelled after Lafferty, as he dodged another pedestrian and then ran into the path of a hansom cab heading into the park. The horse shied and the driver cursed him as he changed direction and dashed madly back the way he had come, his head turning wildly.

  How could Alicia have disappeared so quickly? She had vanished into the crowd, as completely as if she had never been with him.

  She was gone.

  It was raining in Scarsdale later that evening when Lafferty knocked on the door of the Walker house. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a soaked navy anorak unzipped to his waist.

  “Mrs. Walker is not here,” Maizie said to him crisply as soon as she opened the door.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “She told me that you quit her case, Detective,” Maizie informed him accusingly. “Is this official business? Because if you’re not assigned to her case anymore I don’t know if she should even be seeing you.”

  “It’s personal. Did she go somewhere with the children?” Lafferty inquired patiently.

  “The children are with their grandparents for the weekend. Her new lawyer, Mr. Kirby, said that she should let them go. He’s afraid that the Walkers will want custody of the kids during the trial and that Mrs. Walker would not be able to take losing those children. So he said she should let them visit.”

  Lafferty nodded.

  Maizie eyed him warily.

  “I’m not here to bring Mrs. Walker more grief, Maizie. I actually think that what I have to say might make her feel a whole lot better. Please tell me where she is.”

  “Well if you’re bringing good news I won’t keep you from her,” Maizie said finally. “She’s at the grounds-keeper’s cabin about a mile down the path. It starts at the servants’ entrance, the door right around back, next to the kitchen.”

  Lafferty glanced past the side of the house but couldn’t see anything but drenched foliage, shining wet paving stones and the silver curtain of driving rain. He turned to go.

  “Detective, wait,” Maizie said. “There’s no lighting along that path, you could break a leg in this weather. Let me get you the lantern, it’s right here. Come in a minute.”

  Lafferty stepped into the front hall and stood dripping on the mat while Maizie went into a closet next to the front door and emerged with a hooded glass lantern.

  “It’s battery operated and rechargeable, you just put this into the socket when you get there,” Maizie said, handing him the device and showing him the plug. Lafferty examined the lantern as Maizie went back into the closet.

  She appeared again seconds later with an oversize yellow rain slicker.

  “Have this,” she said.

  “What else have you got in there? A flak suit?”

  Maizie smiled. “If you’ll make Mrs. Walker feel better I want to make sure you arrive safely.”

  “What is she doing down there?” he asked, glancing up at the black sky as he stood in the doorway pulling the slicker’s hood up over his head.

  “It’s a private place...quiet. Mrs. Walker goes there sometimes to think. Mr. Walker expanded it and brought in electricity when the children were small, and they used it for a playhouse, had parties there.”

  “Alicia picked a bad night for solitary reverie,” Lafferty said wryly.

  Maizie shrugged. “I couldn’t talk her out of it. She said she felt like she was rattling around in this big house with the kids gone, and she needed to think.”

  “So she just strolled off into this monsoon?”

  “It wasn’t raining when she left. She has been down there for hours, planned to stay the night.”

  A horrible thought flashed across Lafferty’s mind and he glanced at the housekeeper sharply. “Maizie, you don’t think she wanted to be alone because...”

  Maizie shook her head firmly. “No. Not while those kids are alive. She would never leave them with no parents, not voluntarily.”

  Lafferty nodded. “I’m off, then.”

  “Good luck.”

  Lafferty hadn’t gone very far from the house when he realized why Maizie had given him the lantern. Once away from the lights on the garage and the driveway he was in total darkness. He was able to stay on the gravel path by holding the light aloft and picking his way. The rain poured down as he walked, soaking his exposed face and hands, and errant branches whipped against his head and neck and jabbed his ankles. Several times he stopped to wipe his face and clear his vision, and he was beginning to worry that he had missed a turn Maizie forgot to mention when he saw a feeble light in the bleary distance. As he got closer he saw that it was candlelight showing through a window; either Alicia had chosen to “think” by candlelight, or the storm had knocked the power out in the cabin. He glanced back toward the house, but could see nothing but a thicket of blowing, sighing trees. It was impossible to say from this distance whether the power was out in the main house.

  He stumbled in a puddle and paused to get his bearings; he could see the outline of the cabin and aimed for it, head down, lantern dangling from his hand. When he looked up again he was standing in front of the door.

  He went to the window and looked inside. By the light of a candle on an end table he could see a figure covered with a blanket huddled on a sofa before the empty fireplace. It was Alicia, but he couldn’t tell if she was asleep. He set the lantern on the ground outside the door and knocked.

  There was no response. He wasn’t sure if he could be heard above the din of the storm so he knocked again, then tried the door. It wasn’t locked and swung open heavily.

  Alicia jumped up, the blanket falling to the floor She gasped and covered her mouth with both of her hands, her eyes wide and staring, her face white.

  “Alicia, take it easy. It’s me, Mike. Mike Lafferty.” He pulled the hood back from his head and let her see him.

  Alicia closed her eyes as her hands fell away from her face. Lafferty suddenly realized that he was probably wearing her late husband’s slicker, and she’d seen him appear suddenly before her when she was roused.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

  “That was Joe’s coat,” she whispered. She was wearing a slip and the blouse she’d had on at the Athletic Club; her discarded skirt and hose and shoes were on the oval, braided rug. She hadn’t even paused to change her clothes before retreating in misery to this rustic womb in the rain.

  “I’m sure Maizie didn’t even think about that, she was just trying to keep me dry when she gave it to me. Did I wake you up?”

  She shrugged. “Who sleeps?” she said. He saw her effort to compose herself; she put her shaking hand to the back of the sofa and swallowed, then said, “Are you lost or something? Did you take a wrong turn back into the Alicia Walker disaster? I think I already said everything that needed to be said today, and I was hoping to end it on that civil note.”

  “I didn’t take a wrong turn,” he said quietly, realizing that he would have to wait for her to wind down before he could talk to her. She was overstressed, and her recent ordeal was telling on her.

  “You’re out of my quicksand now, so you’d better run along and polish your badge,” she added. “I am sure you’ll be up for a promotion soon. That’s all you care about anyway, isn’t it?”

  “No, that’s no
t all.”

  Lafferty took off the dripping slicker and let it fall to the floor in a heap.

  “Don’t get too comfortable, Lafferty. You’re not staying,” she said.

  He ignored her and pulled off the sweatshirt. He toweled his torso with it and dropped it when he was done. Her eyes followed his every move but she said nothing further.

  He had to admire her grit; she looked ready to drop but she was still able to berate him for turning his back on her. The polite facade and ladylike gratitude she had managed that afternoon were gone. Now the effort to put up the front, to play the role of gracious lady and say the right thing was too much for her. She was exhausted and defeated and spitting mad.

  “Alicia, we have to talk.”

  “Oh, go to hell. Are we going to have a conversation now about why you had to distance yourself from the black widow? Isn’t it a little late for that? Take off, your captain is calling you.”

  Lafferty crossed the room in two strides and took her arm. She yanked it away from him indignantly and then slapped him as hard as she could.

  He was stunned. He stood staring at her as the impact of what she had done registered in her face.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, her lips pale. “Please go. I’m turning into someone I don’t even recognize. Get out of here before I do something worse.”

  “Alicia...”

  “I mean it. I can’t seem to control myself, and I don’t need a witness to my hysteria.”

  Lafferty was silent, watching her, the side of his face still tingling. She folded her hands and he could see she was making an effort to choose her words carefully.

  “You have every right to do what’s best for you, and it is not my place to judge you for it,” she said slowly. “You made no promises and if I jumped to conclusions and read my own hopes into your actions that’s my problem.” She laughed shortly, bitterly, her fingers unsteady as she pushed back her hair. “The irony here is that you are one of the few people who has behaved decently to me through all of this and I am rewarding that by taking my frustrations out on you. I think the last time I slapped somebody I was twelve years old.”

  Lafferty knew all too well the turmoil she was feeling. She was telling herself that logically he had done nothing to deserve her censure, but on an emotional level she felt betrayed by him.

  And emotionally she was right.

  Lafferty sighed heavily. “Look, Alicia, you have to calm down now and listen to me. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “No, I think I’ve got it all right. And I understand. I really do. A little dalliance with a needy and desperate woman was entertaining, I am sure, but when it began to look like the situation might interfere with the all-important career path...”

  Lafferty held up his hand, and the expression on his face convinced her to stop talking.

  “I took a leave of absence from the force, but not to distance myself from your case,” he said. “I couldn’t continue because the department wants a conviction, and I think you’re innocent. I want to help you prove that, which would be a conflict of interest. So I’m suspending my job until your case is over and the real murderer is found.”

  Alicia stared at him as if afraid to credit his little speech.

  “Are you telling me the truth?” she finally said slowly.

  He realized that she was so spent she could barely process what he was saying.

  “Yes. I felt I had to inform my captain first, but as soon as I did I called your house and got Maizie, who told me you were spending the day with Oswald Kirby. I called three times, Alicia. I didn’t think I should leave a message on this subject, I wanted to talk to you directly about something so important. But before I could do that you obviously heard about my decision from somebody else.”

  “Kirby told me.” She sank to the sofa and gazed up at him. “You really want to help me?”

  Lafferty sat next to her and met her gaze. “Yes.”

  She put her head back against the sofa cushions and closed her eyes. He watched as her lashes moistened and then became wet, her throat working. He watched the anger drain from her and leave her without even the energy to speak. Finally she wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Laffety said, retrieving the blanket she had discarded and folding it around her. “I’ll build a fire.”

  She watched him passively as he took kindling and paper from the box and placed a few logs in the fireplace. He lit the paper with a match from the mantel and ignited the kindling, dropping the match on top as the sticks blazed suddenly. When he had the fire going steadily he returned to the sofa and sat next to her.

  “Better?” he said.

  She nodded.

  He took her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. “You’re not alone anymore,” he said softly. “I promise.”

  She pressed her lips together, then turned into his arms blindly like a child seeking comfort. He pulled the blanket over both of them and held her as she crawled into his lap. He heard her deep sigh as her head fell to his shoulder.

  “I know things look bad for you right now,” he said, “but I sense that there will be a break in your case soon. I can feel it. I’ve had these premonitions before and I’m never wrong. I’m going to assemble all the evidence we have and go over it again from a fresh perspective, trying to anticipate what the prosecution will make of it. There has to be something I am missing, and I’ll find it. You didn’t kill Joe Walker and that means somebody else did. Who else would be motivated to do it? Who had a grudge against him, who might have hired a look-alike to impersonate you and take suspicion away from the real perp? Does anyone hate you enough to frame you? We’ll find some answers soon. You just have to work with me. Can you do that?”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked down at her.

  She was asleep.

  The warmth of the fire and the drumming of the rain soon lulled Lafferty into slumber also, and it was near dawn when Alicia started awake, gasping and sitting up, her heart pounding.

  “What is it?” Lafferty said drowsily, aroused by her abrupt movement.

  “Nightmare,” she said, shaking her head to clear it. She sighed and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. “I haven’t slept deeply enough to dream in so long.” She settled back into his arms. “You make me feel so safe.”

  Lafferty was acutely conscious of her slim form pressed against him. He had been telling himself since she first collapsed in his arms that she was an exhausted and depleted woman and responding to her sexually was the worst thing he could do under the circumstances. Unfortunately his body was not listening to him, and as he felt her warm breath on his neck he pulled away from her.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “To rebuild the fire. It’s getting chilly in here again.”

  She watched him fuss around with the logs and the poker until she couldn’t stand it and said, “Will you come over here please?”

  He returned to her side and stood looking down at her.

  She patted the seat next to her.

  He sat. “Not mad at me anymore?” he said.

  She put her arms around his neck and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how much I had invested in you until I thought you had deserted my sinking ship.”

  “Not sinking,” he said, tensing as she curled against him once more and sighed deeply. “Not now.”

  “I can’t keep my eyes open,” she murmured.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said. “You’re making up for a lot of lost time.”

  He felt her body go slack and heavy in his arms, and her even breathing told him when she was asleep again. He sat holding her and staring into the fire as her fragrance filled his nostrils and her soft hair brushed his cheek. It was some time before he noticed that the sound of the ram was lessening and gray light was filling the room. He moved his arm, which was cradling Alicia’s head, and glanced down at his wristwatch. Eight o’clock in the morning. Alicia had bee
n sleeping for twelve hours.

  He eased her down to the sofa and lifted her legs, covering her with the blanket. She stirred slightly and then became still again. He waited to make sure she was out and then went to explore their little hideaway. He grimaced as he turned and every muscle in his back protested; sleeping on narrow sofas was not for ex-football players. He straightened and headed for the kitchenette.

  First results were disappointing: no coffee and no food. There was a cooking area that seemed to contain appliances but no edibles, and also a small bathroom that had obviously been added after the main cabin was built. Exploration there proved more fruitful. In a cabinet under the sink he found towels, bars of soap still in the wrappers and even shampoo. He turned the knobs in the bathtub and released the shower latch; he was rewarded with a cascade of tepid rusty water which became clear, then hot.

  He unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his jeans. He might as well take advantage of the amenities.

  Ten steamy minutes later he felt almost human again. There was no toothbrush and he couldn’t shave, but at least he was clean. He dressed again in his jeans and put his sweatshirt on the fireplace hearth. He added a log to the lowering blaze and then stood over the sleeping woman who had changed his life.

  The lines of tension in her face had relaxed, and she was sleeping deeply, sprawled loosely like a child. He flattered himself that his arrival had contributed to the end of her insomnia. Now if he could get her to eat he would feel like he was accomplishing something. Her cheeks had deep hollows and her collarbones were too prominent; her wrists were about as big around as a child’s.

  He walked over to the window and watched the rain, now a drizzle, enlarge a puddle on the muddy ground under a gnarled elm tree.

  If anyone had told him how important Alicia would become to him in such a short time he would not have believed it. His job, which had been his world, had suddenly slipped into second place, and he had never wanted to make love to a woman so much in his life. He didn’t understand it himself. She was hardly a statuesque goddess to inspire fantasies; if she weighed one hundred pounds at present he would be surprised. But from the moment he first saw her he had wanted her so badly that he could hardly think about anything else. Lafferty was a pragmatist; he didn’t believe in fate, and romance had already let him down once. So the knowledge that he was acting for all the world like a heartsick teenager should have been alarming. And that, of course, was the worst part. He didn’t care.