“You okay?” Still manning his post, Pete Moody peered at Sky with concern. “You need a lift? I’ll call for a car. No problem.”
“I’m good, Pete.”
Sky nodded to the gaggle of uniforms that had gathered at the periphery of the scene, watching her. She concentrated on crossing the narrow road. Just get to the Jeep, she told herself.
With her back to the policemen, Sky gulped air. She opened the car door, clutched the steering wheel and hauled herself into the driver’s seat. Fumbling through a zebra-print backpack, she pulled out an amber prescription bottle and pressed the lid open with a sweaty palm. She popped three blue pills – ten milligrams each – and chewed. Beta blockers. Sky always kept some on hand, in case Magnus dragged her in front of the television cameras, a stunt he had pulled on her during several investigations. Beta blockers always calmed her stage fright, surely they’d help her breathe. The bitter pills brought tears to her eyes.
Sky popped the clutch and the Jeep lurched into the grayness; officers scattered like frightened birds. She slapped the headlights on, nosed the car onto Walnut and headed north into sparse traffic. The sprawling Victorian and Georgian homes that lined the winding avenue exuded a gothic pall in the early morning fog.
A lone runner appeared in her headlights and Sky hit the brakes. The runner gave her the finger and darted off into the fog.
Pulling to the curb, Sky fumbled for her cell and called the police station, leaving a message that she’d be there shortly. Then she headed to her old apartment to look for a toy. Something that might catch a little girl’s eye.
Sky pulled up to a white clapboard two-family with brown gingerbread trim. Home. Well, home before she’d moved in with Jake nearly three years ago.
The entrance to Sky’s old apartment was on the west side of the house, hidden from the street by a giant yellow forsythia bush. The mailbox still carried her name, S. Stone, in large block letters.
Sky unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was cold and still, the air long undisturbed. She labored up the carpeted stairs, stopping halfway to catch her breath. Prisms from the crystal chandelier suspended at the top of the stairway tinkled from the draft as Sky stepped into her old apartment.
She glanced around the living room. Except for a large painting that hung over the oak fireplace, the room was empty. She'd taken everything with her when she'd moved in with Jake, everything but the dust bunnies and that picture. Sky gazed at the portrait, an oil painting, commissioned of her when she was eight years old. She’d left it behind because Jake hadn’t liked it.
Sky went to the kitchen and unbolted the lock to a rustic wooden door on the west wall. It opened to a gloomy narrow stairway. She descended two flights to the basement. Moving past moldy cardboard boxes, broken lamps, an abandoned futon – the detritus of past occupants – Sky stopped at a makeshift tool bench piled with oily rags and crusted paint cans. She was breathing easier now. The pills were working.
From underneath the tool bench, Sky wheeled out a white wicker baby bassinette overloaded with nursery items. Light filtered through a grimy basement window, casting a sickly hue over the swollen bassinette. She fished out a plush brown teddy bear wearing a plaid backpack and stuffed it in her coat pocket.
A tiny sweater of rosebud pink hung from the edge of the bassinette. Sky picked up the sweater and held it in the palm of her hand. She stood very still and closed her eyes.
Somewhere above, a door slammed. Footsteps pounded across the floor over Sky's head. Another door slammed. Rapid footsteps pelted down the basement stairs.
Rushing toward her, arms outstretched, came Candace Carabotta, first-floor neighbor, landlady, confidant. Candace was a plump brunette and her sweatered chest bounced over a long flowered skirt as she came toward Sky.
“Sky, I’ve been so worried.” Candace caught Sky up in her arms.
Crying and laughing at once, Sky breathed in the comforting talc of Candace’s perfume and relaxed into the soft flesh of her embrace.
“Let me look at you.” Candace was in her mid thirties, only a few years older than Sky, but she studied her with the critical eye of a maiden aunt.
“You are too thin. And too pale.” Candace brushed back a lock of Sky’s hair. “And too beautiful.” She shrugged and put an arm around Sky’s shoulder. “Come upstairs, you can tell me everything.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Have you visited the grave?” Candace set a steaming mug on the kitchen table in front of Sky.
Sky shook her head and looked out the kitchen window. Chintz curtains framed a gray nothingness. The fog persisted.
“Honey, you couldn’t go to your baby’s funeral. I understand that,” Candace leaned toward Sky. “But you need to visit her grave. You need closure.” She wiped an invisible spot off the table with a checkered towel. “Seen Jake?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say.”
Candace patted Sky’s hand reassuringly. “Go on, I’m all ears.”
“Chief Moriarty called …” Sky paused. Rule number one: never discuss a case with civilians. Sky mentally blew dust off an image of the commandments engraved into stone tablets, the commandments Magnus Moriarty drilled into her, commandments that protected everyone. Commandments she’d had no use for this past year.
She started over. “This morning one of the techs hit on me, a real half assed come-on, asked me if I wanted to get a cup of coffee with him. Jake barged up and clipped him.”
“We both know Jake’s a jealous man.” Candace’s voice was matter-of-fact.
“He hip-checked a guy over a lousy cup of coffee, Candace. How can you defend him?” Sky was disappointed but not terribly surprised. Jake Farrell was the hometown hero, played quarterback for Boston College back in the day. Led the embattled BC Eagles from one victory to another. Locals forgave him anything. Sky thought of it as the power of the jockstrap.
Candace leaned back in her chair, her deep-set brown eyes clouded with concern. “Jake’s been to see me two or three times since you left. He’s in a bad way, honey. Drinking hard, not sleeping. It was his baby, too. He lost her and he lost you.”
“Jake didn’t want the baby. Not the way I did. She was my baby and I couldn’t protect her.” Sky pressed her fingers against closed eyes. Images of the ICU – searing pain, tubes twisting out of her body. Jake, standing by her hospital bed, appearing small and far away.
“The accident wasn’t your fault, honey. I saw the car. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Lucky.” Sky tried the word on her tongue.
The accident happened three weeks before the baby’s due date. Sky thought she would die of grief when Jake told her the baby was dead. It was a hit and run, the driver of the other car disappeared. No witnesses. Police traced the vehicle to a used car lot on Washington Street, stolen and hot-wired. Some speculated that it was teenagers on a joy ride, but no one came forward, no one checked into any area hospitals with unexplained injuries. ‘It’s unlikely you’ll conceive again,’ the doctor had said. ‘Too much damage.’
Sky leaned forward. “Candace, I feel cold inside. All the time. Here.” She pressed a fist to the center of her chest.
“Honey,” Candace’s voice was halting, cautious. “You have a lot of heartache to deal with. Have you considered professional help?”
“You mean a therapist?” Sky slipped the baby sweater into her coat pocket. “Not in this lifetime.”
“I’m worried about you, Sky. Therapy might speed your healing. Bring closure.”
Candace was a social worker by profession, she counseled teenage mothers. Sky suddenly felt like a bug under Candace’s microscope.
“Some things should never heal,” Sky said. “Closure is a stupid word.”
Candace shook her head. “Such a stoic.”
“No offense,” Sky said, sipping the last drops from her cup. “But this tea tastes funny.”
“Skullcap,” Candace took the empty mug. “Good for your nerves.”
Sky pushed
away from the table and turned in her seat. A TV sat on the far counter, on but muted. Text scrolled below the face of a local anchorwoman, breaking coverage: police had discovered the body of an unidentified woman near Heartbreak Hill in Newton. Cause of death unknown. No other details available.
Candace stared at the TV, her eyes round with fear. “So close!”
Sky stood up and turned off the TV. “The killer was probably her husband. Or her boyfriend.”
“So,” Candace said flatly, “you came back for murder.”
Rule number one, Sky chided herself. But she could trust Candace. She’d always confided in her before. Her friend wouldn’t talk out of class.
“You know the statistics, Candace. A third of murdered women are killed by their male partner.” Sky snapped her mouth shut. The bloody patch on the small of the dead woman’s back nagged at her. Domestic homicide rarely involved mutilation. Sky kept that detail to herself.
Sky’s fingers went to the spot on her chin where Jake had touched her. “Jake wants me to do an interview. Then I’m taking myself off the case.”
Candace frowned. “It’s a sin to waste God-given talent.”
“I can’t work with Jake,” Sky insisted. “Seeing him brings back all the bad things.”
“He loves you, honey.” Candace carried Sky’s mug to the sink and rinsed it. “I persuaded him that you needed time to heal. But Jake is not a patient man." She wiped her hands on a towel. "He had a guy checking on you while you were on Nantucket. You stayed in the house on Brant Point, right?”
“What are you talking about? Some stranger was watching me? How often? Where?”
The family vacation home was a grand, seven-bedroom affair with a deep wrap-around porch and a widow’s walk. Sky found it disturbing to hear she’d been watched on the island.
When the world she’d inhabited – a world with her baby, with Jake – was ripped away in an instant, there was nothing left. Torn and raw, Sky had gone to Nantucket to relearn how to live. Was that guy watching her through the window, watching her try to patch a life together?
“Did he live on the island? Did he take pictures of me?”
“I don’t know,” Candace admitted.
“Jake had no right.”
“I’m glad Jake did it, honey. He was making sure you were safe. And, frankly, I’d like to know what you were doing all by yourself on that island. For a whole year?”
“Painting,” Sky said. “I was painting and watching soap operas.” On the days she managed to get out of bed, anyway. “Did you know Nikki and Victor are getting another divorce?”
“Painting?” Candace looked confused. “Painting what? Houses?”
“Pictures.” Sky daubed invisible paint on an invisible canvas. “Landscapes, seascapes. A still life once in a while. An Irish woman offered me a job driving a cab,” she added. “I might do that when I get back.”
“That’s using your education, Doctor.” Candace’s look was not sympathetic. “Honey, you and Jake work so well together. You make such a great team.”
“If we make such a great team, why did I have a panic attack when I saw him this morning? A full blown, three-alarm panic attack.”
Candace studied Sky’s face. “You look calm enough now.”
“Probably your tea.” Sky shrugged. No need to bring up the beta blocker binge. “I have to get to the station, Candace.” Sky stood up and gave her old friend a hug. “Thanks for the skullcap and sympathy.”
Outside, a raw wind was whipping the forsythia bush into a sulfurous yellow frenzy. Sky got into the Jeep and pulled the door shut but she could still hear Candace's voice calling to her from the porch.
“Visit your baby’s grave. Say good-bye.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Newton’s police headquarters sat next to the courthouse, identical brick rectangles adorned with American flags. A kid with a black mohawk was enjoying a cigarette on the plaza that connected the two buildings.
Sky parked in the metered lot behind the station. She jogged to the back door marked POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY and grappled the security door open.
The smell of the place, a fusion of scorched coffee, Aqua Velva and floor polish, had a sudden bracing effect. Her boots beat a tattoo against the linoleum as she trotted down the corridor, past the briefing room, past the property room. She shucked her coat, straightened her I.D. tag, combed her hair with her fingers.
Just past the Watch Commander's office was the door that led to the public entrance. Sky cracked it just a bit and looked out over the shoulder of the front desk sergeant.
A plain woman in a car coat sat on a wooden bench munching a soda cracker. Next to her sat a boy hunched over a cell phone. His solid, freckled face squinted in silent concentration under the brim of a Bruins cap. Only his thumbs moved.
A blonde girl squirmed at the boy's side, chattering like a sparrow and poking at the air with a tiny yellow fishing rod. Her denim dungarees and yellow hooded jacket were smeared with mud. She pushed a tangle of curls out of her eyes, cast out her fishing line, and mimed reeling in a fish. A very big fish. Sky watched as the girl hoisted her invisible catch high into the air, her arm thrashing around, her jacket and sweatshirt riding up. She turned to her brother and smiled – a triumphant, radiant smile – revealing two perfect dimples.
A sensation of heat, wavelike and shimmering, enveloped Sky as she watched the girl.
The walls fragmented and disappeared. It was Sky and this child, in perfect silence, the only creatures in a still universe.
"Sky."
Someone was saying her name.
"Sky!" The tone grew insistent.
Sky dragged her gaze away from the little girl.
Detective Kyle O'Toole was frowning at her over wire-rims. Kyle was Jake’s partner. “Are you okay?" Kyle scratched his close-cropped gray hair.
"I'm fine," Sky lied.
"Good." Kyle leaned over and planted a brotherly kiss on her forehead. "Because we need you on this one."
“Need me?” Sky thought she'd misheard him. Homicide detectives, in her experience, didn’t admit to need. Ever.
“Darling,” Kyle took a defensive tone, “you know what Jake's interview skills are like." He looked unhappily toward the little family on the bench. "Jake will scare the shit out of those kids. And they're all we've got right now."
"Scare the kids?” Sky didn’t understand.
"Jake’s fuse was always short, but now?” Kyle shrugged. “He hasn't really been himself since…" his voice trailed off and he adjusted his wire rims.
"It's all right, Kyle. You can say it. Since I lost the baby."
"I was going to say," Kyle's voice softened, "Jake hasn't been himself since you left him."
Sky quelled a tiny rush of concern. Jake was just a little too front and center on this day of firsts. Hard firsts. But with Jake, being the center of attention came as naturally as breathing. It had always been like that. Sky thought back to their very first encounter.
It was a seminar on advanced interview techniques she’d taught at Boston University. A hot July day, the whole city was cranky. Sky arrived early, greeted attendees at the door, gave hand-outs, made small talk, mostly about the blistering heat. She started on time, bypassing the usual preliminary introduction, instead launching into the need and techniques for rapid personality assessment of witnesses. Midway through her power point presentation a disruption occurred. Someone was arriving late. Sky paused as he made his way to the front of the room. She watched, puzzled, as people acknowledged him. The inevitable class clown called from the far corner, “Everything’s jake, right Farrell?” causing laughter to ripple through the lecture hall. Jake Farrell. Sky made the connection. Jake Farrell, still BMOC. He took a leisurely seat at the front of the room and caused another disruption by leaving early. That evening, after the seminar broke up, Sky was getting into her car when Detective Farrell appeared out of the dark with a clutch of scarlet roses. "Let me buy you dinner," he'd said. When Sky informe
d him that she didn't date her students, he just laughed and said, "Not a problem. There’s nothing you can teach me.”
That was nearly four years ago.
"Jake’s not my best student,” Sky admitted, straightening the knot on Kyle's tie. Kyle had been her best student, a quick study. He had a healthy respect for data and he didn't mind taking counsel from a woman.
"You can interview those kids.” Sky tapped a finger on Kyle’s chest; their old routine. “I taught you everything I know."
"Yeah, I'm good. But you? I don't know, maybe it's because you're a tiny woman. People trust tiny women. Who the fuck knows? You want me to get on my knees?"
Kyle O’Toole was one of the good guys. Adroit, prudent, wise. The best kind of homicide detective. His Achilles heel was his unerring instinct for the wrong woman. Kyle was on his third marriage, last time Sky counted. He also suffered an unflagging affection for Sky.
"Give me some background,” she relented.
Kyle grinned, revealing a slight gap between his front teeth. "Alice Payne, forty-one years, works at the Shoe Shed."
Sky knew the place, a shabby boutique on Walnut. She bought her Doc Martens there.
"Divorced three years," Kyle continued, "two children. Kids live with her. Boy's name is Noah, eleven years. Girl is Molly, six years. They live at 51 Pulsifer." Kyle flipped a page on his notepad. "Ex-husband, David Payne, architect, lives in New York. Remarried last year. Mrs. Payne says she didn't know the kids left the house, she was sleeping when Noah called her about the dead body – at exactly 4:04 A.M., according to her alarm clock." Kyle snapped the notepad shut, looked at Sky and jerked his head at the door.
"Let's dance, partner. You lead." Sky gave her cowboy boots a swipe against the calf of each leg and pushed through the swinging door.
Kyle made introductions.
Sky shook each child's hand in turn and reached to shake Mrs. Payne’s hand.
"You must think I'm a terrible mother, letting my kids run wild in the middle of the night. But I swear, I didn't know they were gone."
The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) Page 2
