Of course, the exchange I’d witnessed between Travis and his father-in-law may not have been an argument over anything more important than what time the bride and groom would leave the reception. I had no way of knowing what transpired between those two.
I walked in circles, my dress pumps torturing my feet and my head throbbing from the day’s stress. I was trying not to think about Jeff and his extended consultation with Fielder—it’s damn hard not to think about something—when Megan came down the right-hand staircase.
She had changed from the stained dress into blue jeans and a coral sweater. When she saw me, she ran over and embraced me. “I’m being punished,” she said into my shoulder. “That’s why this happened.”
I moved back, held her at arm’s length. Fresh from the shower, I assumed, what with the wet hair and scrubbed face, she looked like the child I’d thought she was when we first met.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I went behind my father’s back and hired you. And now I’m being punished. I never meant to hurt him.”
“Hold on. Did you tell him the truth today? Did you two argue about that?” I didn’t want to believe Megan could have struck her father, but she was the one sitting there with his battered head in her lap.
“No. But I wasn’t truthful, either. And that’s as good as a lie.”
“Still, you and your father were fine today, right? No problems?”
“The last time I saw him alive was when we d-danced. And . . . and he said he wanted me to be happy and . . . and . . .” Her eyes filled.
I hugged her again, rubbed circles on her back all the while thinking about my own adoptive daddy. He, too, had claimed to want only my happiness. But he’d made more than one mistake in that department, and mistakes born of love still hurt just the same. “I’m here for you, Megan. Call me for anything. Anytime. And I again apologize for not finishing the job.”
This time she drew back on her own. “You sound like you’re quitting. You’re not quitting, are you?”
“I didn’t plan on it, but if you want to take this up later, I’ll give you every cent of your retainer back.”
“Please don’t quit, because even though I feel guilty about keeping the truth from my dad, I still want to know my birth mother. Now more than ever.”
I was wondering if that need to know had anything to do with what had appeared to be her rather distant relationship with Sylvia, but didn’t think this was the right time to ask. Then Jeff emerged from his little conference, and while he was offering his condolences to Megan, I went after my coat, which I found in the kitchen where I’d left it. My pockets were turned out, either from the cops checking them out or Kate searching for my keys. My small handbag had been tucked in one sleeve but the clasp was open and my phone/computer nearly slipped out when I grabbed the purse. The low battery warning was beeping so I powered the phone off, then put on the coat.
After I gave Megan another reassuring hug and a whispered promise to follow through on her request, Jeff and I walked out into the bitter cold evening. Normally I would have huddled up to him, but not now. After all, Fielder might be watching us out the window and I wouldn’t want to upset her.
On our way to his truck, he exchanged high-fives with two other cops manning the scene and then introduced me. One guy had worked HPD vice with Jeff way back when and the other was a former Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy who had testified at a vehicular homicide case Jeff worked a few years ago. Seems Quinn Fielder wasn’t the only city cop who wanted to escape to the bay.
We walked down the hill and I stepped up into his nonpolice-issue white Chevy truck after he opened the door for me. He then got in and revved the engine. Before we pulled away, he shoved several sticks of Big Red in his mouth. Neither of us said a word until we passed Space Center Houston and were closing in on the freeway.
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
“What did who tell me about what?”
Typical man. If the conversation doesn’t flow continuously you better have that CNN ticker tape running across your forehead for frequent updates. “What did your friend Quinn need you for so badly? Can’t she do her job alone?”
“I can’t tell you what we discussed.”
“This isn’t your case, so why keep secrets?” My voice was hard. The green-eyed monster didn’t want to be contained.
“Any information I have concerning an ongoing investigation is off-limits. This is no exception.”
“Fine. Be that way.” I folded my arms.
He took out another stick of gum while I turned my face to the window. This might be an extra-long ride home.
3
Lying in bed the next morning, I thought about what happened between Jeff and me last night—our first fight since he and I started getting serious a few months ago. Problem was, he didn’t seem to realize we were having an argument. When we reached my house and I suggested he go on to his own place, he looked at me as if we’d been playing a friendly game of poker and I’d pulled a fifth ace. Then his beeper went off and a double homicide on the southeast side took him away with hardly a good-bye.
So I spent the night with my calico cat, Diva, in the chilly house. She had climbed beneath the quilt at some point and now purred at my feet. I’d recently bought this place, a three bedroom brick-and-stone bungalow near Rice University. It was built in the fifties and needed a new furnace among other things. The steps creaked and the wallpaper looked like something from Archie Bunker’s house, but I loved my new home, loved its smallness compared to the mansion I’d grown up in. Aside from a college dorm room, this was the first time I’d truly been on my own, despite more than thirty years on earth. My late daddy had decided that living in the lap of luxury with him was how he was supposed to take care of his girls. But Daddy had been wrong. He’d been wrong about a lot of things. In the months since I’d learned exactly how wrong, I’d almost forgiven him for his lies.
I laced my fingers behind my neck and thought about Megan, wondered how she was doing and if the loss of her father would mimic mine—a wound that never quite heals. I’d seen a profound sadness in her eyes when I left her house yesterday. It was probably the same look I wore the day Daddy died.
The phone rang and I saw from the Caller ID that it was Kate.
“Traitor,” I said when I picked up.
“I’m sorry I had to leave you there, Abby, but one of my teenage patients attempted suicide, so—”
“Okay. The guilt ball is back in my court. I was just kidding, anyway. Is the kid okay?”
“She’s fine. Her parents are transferring her to a private facility this morning. By the way, Terry and I dropped off your car late last night.”
“Thanks. Might need that today. So Terry helped you with your patient?” Terry Armstrong, also a psychologist, is Kate’s significant other.
“Yes. He met me at the emergency room.”
“You two should go into practice together,” I said.
“Living in the same house is more than enough time spent in each other’s company. Not that I don’t adore him, but there’s such a thing as too much togetherness. So what happened after I left last evening?”
I filled her in, excluding my own issues with one snarly police chief.
“So Megan still wants you to find the birth mother?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes, but I’m consulting with Angel as soon as I can. Should have asked for his help when I came up empty in the first place. I guess pride isn’t so hard to swallow if you chew on it long enough.”
Diva emerged and blinked her amber eyes several times. I rubbed under her chin with my free hand.
“Sure you still want to do this job? Megan’s a sweetheart, but the rest of the family? I don’t know, Abby. Graham smelled like a bar at closing time, Holt kept looking at me like maybe we could get together after they got that inconvenient body out of the way, and the sisters? I think they have serious identity issues.”
�
�Not all that pretty, huh?”
“Not.”
“Can you tell me about Sylvia?” I asked. “I was holed up in the laundry room with a guy meaner than a rodeo bull and about as talkative. I didn’t see what happened to her.”
“She woke up pretty quick after fainting, but then started crying and carrying on—which is understandable. I heard from one of the paramedics that she got so hysterical they had to give her IV Valium in the ambulance.”
“And she seemed like such a take-charge person. Guess not.”
“You can never predict human behavior, Abby. Especially during times of stress.”
“Okay, Doc. I bow to your superior knowledge.”
She laughed. “And so you should. Seriously, it may simply have been seeing all that blood that got to her. I’m not too good with blood myself. Anyway, I called only to explain why I ran out on you yesterday. Terry’s up and hungry, so before he starts talking about kolaches or doughnuts, I better get some fruit and bran into him. Call me later.”
She hung up. Poor Terry. A man who loved to eat as much as he did had no business getting mixed up with my sister. She juiced everything imaginable, even ears of corn, and bought seeds and nuts and vegetables no ordinary person had ever heard of. But Terry surely had psychoanalyzed himself enough to understand his unconscious motivation to subject himself to torture.
Phone still in hand, I checked the clock. Eight A.M. Angel would be awake. I had his home number on speed dial and he answered on the second ring.
“You get up this early, huh?” he said once we exchanged greetings.
“Not usually. But that last case you gave me has proved tougher than I thought. And now there’s been complications. Any chance we could get together at your office and discuss it?”
“I have a few rules about the office. I never go there on the Lord’s day. You work as long as I have, you can make some rules.”
“Tomorrow, then?” I asked, unable to hide my disappointment. If he helped me out today, gave me some hints on how to start this thing over, I could get busy Monday morning.
“Hey, I didn’t say I don’t work on Sunday, I just avoid my damn office answering machine. Meet me at the pancake house—you know which one. Say, eleven o’clock after Mass?”
“Okay.” I hung up, smiled, and settled back under the covers, Diva purring on my chest. I could sleep for two more hours.
But not five minutes later I heard the doorbell. Who in hell was ringing my doorbell at this hour on a Sunday morning? Unless Jeff forgot his key. Or maybe this visitor was from the Seacliff police and they wanted to discuss something about the murder.
Gosh, I hope it’s not Fielder, I thought, catching a glimpse in the dresser mirror on my way out of the bedroom. With the light-socket hair and dark circles under my eyes, I could have scared a maggot off spoiled meat.
I put on my pink chenille robe and hurried down the stairs, but after looking through the peephole, I stepped back. Damn. I thought I’d permanently parted ways with my aunt Caroline, yet there she was on my doorstep.
She tried knocking and I crossed my arms, considering whether to answer. I hadn’t returned any of her phone calls and was hoping that once I’d moved from the old neighborhood, she couldn’t find me. But Kate still had contact with her, and she’s a whole lot more forgiving than I am. Aunt Caroline probably had an easy time wheedling my new address out of her.
Daddy’s sister, Caroline, and I never got along even before I learned she’d taken money from Daddy to keep silent about my illegal adoption. I mean, her nose is so up in the air she’d drown in a storm. But after I found out about how she’d lied for years, lied out of pure greed, I couldn’t stomach the sight of her.
But now she’d found me, and knowing her, she wouldn’t give up until she had her say.
Might as well get this over with.
I unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door.
If this had been a year ago, she would have marched right in, but she didn’t. She just stood there. “Thank you for answering, Abigail. I know you don’t want to see me, but I have missed you. Missed you very much.”
Was this early-morning pilgrimage to seek my forgiveness her substitute for church this morning? I gestured with my head for her to follow, and we walked toward the kitchen, Diva leading the way.
Going through the house was like navigating an obstacle course on a reality television show, and Diva had her usual fun, leaping alongside us from one packing crate to another. Though I had moved in more than a month ago, boxes sat untouched everywhere. We reached the kitchen, where my small stack of cookbooks sat on one chair and clean but unfolded laundry took up the other. I moved the books.
After taking off her cashmere coat with the fur collar, she placed it on the back of the chair. Aunt Caroline then sat and set her Gucci bag by her feet. She wore a fuzzy peacock sweater with some kind of gaudy beaded strands decorating the neckline.
Still saying nothing, and hoping the silence would make her squirm a little, I fed the cat and started the coffee. Only then did I toss the clothes off the other chair into an already overflowing basket near the door to the laundry room. Most of them ended up on the tile and I checked Aunt Caroline’s reaction, considering this a test. She flinched a little, but offered no criticism.
Was this newfound restraint an act?
“I had a hard time locating you, Abigail,” she said, fingering one strand of beads.
“Kate tell you where to find me?” I asked.
“No. Your policeman friend led me here. I hear you’re involved with him.”
“Is that right?” Instant anger burned in my gut. I could cope with jealousy—after all that was my responsibility—but if Jeff had been talking to Aunt Caroline behind my back, then—
“And he didn’t tell me anything, if that’s what you think. I had him followed since following Kate seemed . . . invasive.”
I blinked. “And following Jeff isn’t invasive?”
She smiled one of her face-lift afflicted smiles. “He’ll understand. He’s probably used to it.”
“Right, except he does the following,” I said.
“Same difference. Anyway, I did learn a few things after what happened last summer,” she said. “I may have been less than honest with you in the past and—”
“Less than honest? I swear you’d lie even if the truth sounded better.” Was I being harsh? You betcha. After a few decades of deception I figured I owed her about as much respect as a coyote owes a jackrabbit.
“Can I finish?” she said.
“Go on.”
“I’m willing to work on those . . . less than desirable aspects of my personality.” She said the last few words so fast I nearly didn’t catch them.
“And so you have Jeff followed to accomplish that goal?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “The detective I hired said there’s nothing wrong with following people. Can you forgive me for my past mistakes?”
“I don’t know.” I chewed on a cuticle, already feeling myself weakening. Heck, she was pushing seventy. And grudges made you run even if no one was chasing you. I didn’t want to run.
“Please consider the possibility,” she said, her eyes moist.
I stood abruptly, a tiny, unwelcome lump in my throat. “Coffee?”
Her features relaxed as much as the Botox would allow. “I’d love coffee.”
We sipped and made small talk about her latest charity event. Then Aunt Caroline said, “I’m aware you left CompuCan. They miss you.”
Kate had told me my aunt still sat on the board of Daddy’s old company. “Right,” I said. “They miss me bumbling around like I knew what I was doing. I have a new job.”
“Doing what?”
“I find people,” I replied, avoiding eye contact. I had a working person’s job now, not a token appointment from an inherited business. I was guessing she wouldn’t approve and for some stupid reason, her approval still seemed important. Old habits die hard.
B
ut she surprised me by actually sounding interested. “So tell me more. Is this a computer job? Because despite your protestations, you’re very good with computers.”
“The job does involve plenty of Internet searches, but actually . . . I’m a private investigator specializing in adoption.”
She slowly nodded. “I see. And have you had much work?”
“A few cases so far, but I have to build my reputation and—”
“I could help. Give me some business cards and tell me where your office is. I have plenty of friends who would be more than—”
“That’s not necessary, Aunt Caroline. In Texas, you have to—how do I put it?—apprentice with a licensed investigator.”
“So you’re an intern? You’re not even getting paid?” Ah, the old Aunt Caroline hadn’t completely disappeared after all.
“I do get paid,” I snapped.
She held up both hands. “Sorry. I’m being judgmental and I vowed not to do that. Do you work downtown?”
“Angel’s allowed me to work out of my home with my own little branch of his agency. It’s called Yellow Rose Investigations, though technically I’m employed by him. He’s sent me a few clients and I’m advertising on my own as well.”
She looked around. “You work here?”
“I have an office in the front of the house in what was supposed to be the formal living room. I’m done with formal anything, Aunt Caroline. This is what I want.” I spread my arms and nodded around the room, hoping she understood this was a warning. I didn’t want any of her snooty society friends sending me business.
“This place is, well, very like you,” she said, nodding again. “But if you plan to redecorate, remember the traditional look never goes out of style.”
“I’ll remember.” This visit was dragging on way too long.
“And if you’re at peace with this new lifestyle, that’s wonderful.”
A Wedding to Die For Page 4
