Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  ~*~

  Robert picked up Kimberly about an hour later, hastily thanking me as though I hadn’t been the one to elbow my way into his babysitting arrangements. “Claudia left this morning so I’m still a bit frazzled,” he apologized. Then he swooped up Kimberly and carried her home before I had a chance to repeat my offer of assistance.

  When at last I’d done the dishes and tucked Anna into bed, I lay down on the couch to read, but found myself crying instead. Real, wet, salty tears. Maybe it was the murder, finally getting to me. Or the look on Kimberly’s face when she spoke of her mother. Or maybe it was the baby and Andy and the terrible indecision I felt. Or maybe it was Lieutenant Stone. Something about him made me ache in a way I hadn’t for a long, long time. Whatever the cause, I felt shaky and terribly alone.

  EIGHT

  I knew I should tell Stone about the blue Cherokee, but since I had just yesterday sworn off even thinking about him, it was unsettling to be confronted with an honest-to- goodness reason to contact him. After breakfast, I shuffled around the kitchen, debating what to do. The whole business was probably nothing more than coincidence. Besides, Mrs. Stevenson wasn’t the most reliable witness. There was a good chance her story was as much a product of an overactive imagination as some sinister plot. In any case, it could wait. Nothing was going to happen on a Sunday.

  But then, as I was straightening the family room, I found one of Kimberly’s hair ribbons on the couch where she and Anna had been playing the day before, and a quiet sorrow squeezed my heart so that I could barely breathe. A woman—a mother like myself—was dead. I couldn’t not do my part to see that her killer was found.

  Adopting a deliberately businesslike manner, I called the station and asked for Lieutenant Stone.

  “He’s not in at the moment, may I take a message?” The voice at the other end was female and soft, not at all the sort of voice I’d expected to hear manning calls for a tough, no-nonsense police force. Was she a fellow cop, I wondered, or merely a receptionist? And then I got angry with myself for wondering. What difference did it make anyway?

  I left my name and number, and to prove to myself it was strictly business, explained that the matter was nothing urgent; Lieutenant Stone could return the call at his convenience. Then I hung up the phone carefully and sat for a long time, staring at the phone.

  Anna was in my bedroom absorbing her full dose of Sunday morning cartoons, the house was clean—as clean as it gets—and the refrigerator was stocked with a week’s worth of groceries, all wholesome and nutritious, and the day stretched ahead of me with nothing that demanded my attention. I couldn’t understand why I felt so restless.

  The painting I’d begun the other day in Pepper’s garden still lay in the back room where I’d left it. What the heck, I didn’t get time to myself very often. I found my brushes and paints, cleared a spot on the worktable and settled in.

  Watercolor is a difficult medium for me, and the garden scene was going to be particularly challenging, but the effect, if I was successful, would be exactly what I wanted. First I polished up my sketch, and then I began dabbing paint on a practice pad, mixing colors and hues. It was proving especially difficult to find the right shading of light and dark for the pink blossoms, so I worked intensely, thankful for the lack of interruptions.

  I’d always found it difficult to paint when Andy was around. He would come up behind me, silently peer over my shoulder and then, knowing my hands were otherwise engaged, wrap his arms around my middle or slide a hand into my jeans. “I’m just trying to have a little fun,” he’d explain when I protested. “And I’m trying to work,” I’d tell him. But he never understood.

  Even when he was out of the house, I had trouble painting with any real passion, knowing he would come home at the end of the day and glance over my efforts in much the same way he sifted through the mail. “Nice,” he would say with a little pat on my bottom. I never knew whether he was talking about my work or my body. So I’d taken to simply making little sketches I could work in during odd hours of the day and then tuck away out of sight.

  I hadn’t minded really. My family—Andy and Anna— that was what was important.

  Now the issues were different. I had told myself I wouldn’t start brooding about the future until fall. After all, there’s no sense coming up with a plan until you know where you want to go, or at least where you’re starting from. But you can’t close your mind to things like that, and quite unconsciously I found myself running through possible scenarios.

  If Andy came back I would have money to live on, even if we got a divorce. I was pretty sure he would be fair, unlike some husbands who went for the throat even when the divorce had been their idea in the first place.

  But it wasn’t at all clear he would return, even for a divorce. Something had happened to him, a malaise of the soul, which was beyond my comprehension. It was possible he might just decide to keep wandering, living for the moment. He was the sort who would be able to do that quite successfully. He’d find an innkeeper who would give him a room in exchange for light labor, a ship’s captain who would take him on, just for the pleasure of his company. Heck, he might even find a princess who would pack him along for a winter in the Alps. He was that kind of guy.

  There was a third option, of course: Andy might come sweeping home like a man returning from an extended business trip, head for the office and pick up right where he left off. But even then, I couldn’t imagine that things would ever be the same.

  Caught up in my painting and aimless rumination, I didn’t realize how much time had passed until Anna showed up at my feet. “I’m hungry.”

  “Can you wait a minute until I finish this corner of the sky?”

  She peered at the picture and then lay down on floor, head propped in her hands. “Is that supposed to be a lady sitting on the bench?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You can’t even tell where the head is.”

  “You’re not supposed to. It’s just the sense of the woman I want.”

  “I can draw a person with a face,” Anna announced smugly. “I even know how to make curly hair.”

  Just then the doorbell rang and she raced to it, but was beat out by Max, who has the advantage of four legs and a permanent spot by the front window.

  “It’s for you, Mommy. A man.”

  I wiped my hands on a towel and followed her to the door.

  Lieutenant Stone smiled. “I got your message.”

  I’d thought he looked good before, but he looked even better now. Faded Levi’s, a well-worn tee shirt stretched at the neck and scruffy brown loafers. His arms were strong and tanned, and the hairs on them glistened golden in the sun.

  My breath caught somewhere deep in my chest. “Lieutenant Stone.”

  “Can we stop with this ‘Lieutenant’ stuff,” he asked, stepping through the door. “Especially since I’m off duty today.”

  “Mikey, then?”

  He glared. “Michael would do quite nicely.”

  “Okay, Michael.” The jeans were snug. So was the shirt, through the shoulders. And the body, well, the body was even better than I’d imagined. My hands still clutched the dishtowel, and I was twisting it, weaving it through my fingers. “You didn’t have to come all the way over, you could have called.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes, with just the hint of a smile, and nodded. “You’re right, I could have.” Then he started toward the kitchen and I followed, still coiling the towel around my fingers.

  “Would you like some coffee?” I asked. “Or some lunch? I was just going to make something for Anna.”

  At the sound of her name, Anna, who seemed glued to my side, squeezed my leg tighter.

  “Anna, this is Lieutenant Stone. He’s a policeman.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, and I realized that at that particular moment, he looked more like the kind of person I’d taught her to run from than to. “It’s his day off,” I explained.

  “Do you have a gu
n?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

  Stone surprised me then by lifting his shirt, exposing a small gun tucked into the waist of his jeans. I barely saw the gun, though; I was too taken by the flat, hard abdomen and a brief vision of other endowments.

  Anna, however, was properly mesmerized by the gun. Only a real princess could detect a pea under a thousand feather down mattresses; and only a real policeman would carry a gun.

  “I thought it was your day off,” I muttered. “Do you always take that thing with you?” Guns made me uncomfortable, even in the hands, or waists, of the law.

  “Not always, but I’m here investigating a murder, don’t forget.”

  “You think I’d leave a message for you to call at your convenience if the killer was at my door?”

  Without bothering to answer, Stone took a seat at the table and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Then he reached over and began scratching the top of Max’s head. I wondered if the metal of the gun was warm where it touched his skin.

  “How about lunch?” I asked again. “Anna’s having dinosaur-shaped pasta from a can, cold, but I could probably whip up a bologna sandwich for you, or peanut butter and jelly.”

  Stone leaned back in the chair and looked at me as if I’d suggested sautéed worms. “Coffee’s fine, thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “Unless you have any more of those muffins.”

  “Sorry. A bag of cheese puffs is the closest I can come.”

  There was that look again. “Just coffee.”

  I put the kettle on the stove and opened Anna’s can of dinosaurs. Sometimes I let her eat right out of the can, but today I poured the contents into a bowl.

  “Why don’t you eat outside,” I suggested, “with Marty and Clary.” Marty and Clary were imaginary friends who bickered and fought with each other, but adored Anna. I wouldn’t let them sit with us for meals, but when Anna ate alone they frequently joined her.

  While I was busy getting Anna settled at the table on the patio, Stone wandered into the den off the kitchen.

  “You paint this?” he asked when I handed him a cup of hot coffee.

  “It’s not finished yet.”

  He whistled softly. “It’s really good.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I guess I am.”

  I wasn’t sure if I’d been complimented or insulted.

  “Do you ever sell your stuff?”

  “I’ve just started again, really. I used to paint before Anna was born, but I’ve not done much lately.”

  “It would be nice to be able to earn a living doing something you really loved, wouldn’t it?”

  “You don’t?” I’d always assumed detectives were fanatics of sorts. That the need to right the order of things was in their blood.

  Stone shrugged. “I was a classics major—that makes it kind of hard to earn a living doing what you love.”

  I led the way to the living room where we sat, facing each other across the square, glass coffee table. No socks, I noticed. And the few hairs on the tops of his feet were as golden as the ones on his arms. I could almost see those bare feet running along the wet sand at the ocean’s edge, or padding softly downstairs for morning coffee after a hard, late night.

  “Now, what was it you wanted to see me about?” he asked.

  “I didn’t necessarily want to see you. I told you, you could have called.”

  He grinned. “What did you want to tell me then?”

  Taking a sip of coffee, and then a deep breath, I recounted what Mrs. Stevenson had told me— about the car which sometimes parked behind the oleander and then about seeing Robert talking to the driver.

  “What do you think it means?” Now that I’d reported what I knew, it sounded silly. Nancy Drew, all grown up.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. We could probably concoct a dozen stories based on sinister motives and another dozen with completely innocent explanations.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, it could have been a friend or a salesman or a delivery person from the local pharmacy. Mrs. Stevenson didn’t actually see anyone sitting in the car those other times. Or maybe it’s the local gossip columnist, trying to get the dirt on the Livingstons.”

  “And what about the not so innocuous explanations?”

  Here Stone frowned. “Well, the most scandalous explanation, of course, would be that Robert hired someone to kill his wife. The killer staked out the house— that’s when Mrs. Stevenson saw the car those other times—killed Pepper, and then came back for his payment.”

  “But wouldn’t it be pretty stupid for Robert to meet that person in front of his house, right in the middle of the day like that?”

  “You’re right, it would.”

  “So forget that.”

  “Hey, you asked for some ‘supposes.’ If I had answers I’d be even happier about it than you.”

  He had been leaning back in his chair, and now he slouched down even further, studying his cup. His face was drawn, his eyes flat.

  “More coffee?” I asked, feeling suddenly contrite. He continued to stare at his cup without even acknowledging me. “Would you like more coffee?” I repeated.

  “What?” he said, looking up. “No, I don’t think so.”

  I had stood up to get more coffee, but now I sat down again, tucking a foot under me. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t quite sure what I was apologizing for, but his mood had changed abruptly and I felt somehow responsible.

  “It’s not your fault, I’m just tired.”

  He did look tired, exhausted in fact.

  “I can’t get a handle on this case. Usually things begin to take shape about now. Not necessarily a clear picture, but at least some of the pieces begin to coalesce. Here we just have a lot of loose ends. It’s like a room full of kindergartners. You get one to sit down and two others pop up.”

  “What do you know of kindergartners?”

  “Barbara was a teacher. Before she got her MBA.”

  “Oh.”

  He seemed ready to say something else, then stopped and smiled at me instead. But it was a flat, mechanical smile.

  “You don’t seriously think Robert is involved in this do you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Something about him bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it We’ve questioned him twice and come up with zip, except that his alibi for the night she was murdered stinks. There’s absolutely nothing to link him to the crime, and no motive that we’ve been able to discover.”

  “What about Pepper’s affair? Did he know she was seeing someone else?”

  “If she was.” He crossed his legs and peered into his cup. “So far we’ve come up with a big, fat zero in that arena as well.”

  So much for my clever detective work.

  “Still, we have grilled the guy about their marriage.”

  “And what does he say?”

  “Just what you’d expect. They had a good, solid relationship, better than most He loved her; she loved him. Just your basic perfect couple.”

  “He’s right, you know.” Pepper didn’t knock you over with her Robert-is-such-a-prince routine the way Daria did, but she never complained either, not even in the half-joking way a lot of us who’d considered ourselves happily married did. Pepper and Robert had seemed so . . . so balanced, almost synchronized. A perfect match, I’d often thought.

  Stone shrugged. “Except if Pepper was sleeping around, then the marriage wasn’t so good.”

  I knew there were women who would disagree with him. Women who found an afternoon of sex an interesting alternative to an afternoon of tennis. An innocuous diversion that had no bearing whatsoever on their feelings about their husbands. But I wasn’t about to take that one on at the moment.

  Setting his cup, now empty, on the table in front of him, Stone stood and went to the window. “The mayor is furious. He wants us to arrest someone soon, and he doesn’t much care who it is. The chief feels the same. They don’t like to h
ave a blot like this by their names.”

  “That’s what Pepper is now, a blot by their name?”

  “Walnut Hills isn’t the same as Oakland. Murder’s not an everyday occurrence in Walnut Hills. And the longer it takes us to come up with something, the more likely it is we never will.”

  Just then the phone rang and I went to answer it, leaving Stone hunched forward by the window, hands in his pockets.

  “Kate, it’s Robert.”

  For a minute I was struck with guilt. As though he’d caught me gossiping behind his back.

  “I hate to ask you this again, but I have to go out for a couple of hours this afternoon. Do you think Kimberly could stay with you? I’ll buy you dinner some night as a token of my appreciation.”

  “She’s welcome to stay here, there’s no need for dinner.”

  “I’d like to, really. It would be my pleasure.”

  “You bring Kimberly over, we’ll talk about the dinner part later.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to find Stone leaning against the doorjamb, his long frame looking as though it had been arranged, a limb at a time, by the guy who shoots the Marlboro commercials. I waited for him to move so I could get through, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he fixed his eyes on me and reached out, touching my shoulder. Then he ran his hand along to the back of my neck and pulled me toward him.

  The first kiss was soft, tentative, like the caress of a gentle breeze on a warm summer day. But the second and third were more intense. I could feel the roughness of his skin against mine, the smooth warmth of his tongue against my lips.

  “That was every bit as wonderful as I’d imagined it would be,” he said.

  Silently, I agreed—and then gave myself a mental kick in the butt. This was definitely not part of the new, orderly life I’d been envisioning.

  I was leaning forward to kiss him again when I heard the back door slam; then Anna came into kitchen humming softly to herself. With a quick step back, I ran my fingers through my hair, and probably adjusted my shirt as well, just for good measure. Stone remained draped against the doorframe, watching, the hint of a smile crossing his face.