Mackenzie snatched a grape from the fruit bowl and popped it in her mouth. “Move in with Maggie. I hear she takes in strays and you’ll eat better than you would with me.”
The front door slammed and Atlas came bounding down the hall, eager to give Mackenzie’s crotch a sniff.
“Down, boy.” Neil grabbed the dog by the collar and dragged him away.
“Mackenzie wants me to go with her to visit Sylvia.” I said to my too quiet husband. “You wanna come too?”
He shook his head. “Think I’ll hang here with the guys. You should go now if you want any time with her before visiting hours are over.”
“Okay.” It was a great display of willpower that I didn’t slam the bowl on the table. “Let’s go, Mackenzie.”
“But,” The P.I. looked from the food, to me, to Neil and back to the food.
“I’ll save you some.” He said, offering a tight lipped smile and not meeting my eyes.
I trudged down the hall and pulled my cell phone off the charger on the hall table, then stuck it in my shoulder bag.
“My car or yours?” Mackenzie asked when we stood on the front porch.
“Yours, definitely.” Mackenzie drove a Black Challenger Hellcat and I was dying for a ride in the sleek vehicle.
She slid the passenger’s seat as far back as it would go so my baby bump wasn’t resting on the dashboard, then assisted me with the seatbelt. I slid sunglasses onto my face and we were off, cruising down the mean streets of Hudson in serious style.
“So what was with the Arctic blast back there?” Mackenzie asked as she took a corner. “I thought I was going to get serious frostbite.”
“Just a marital squabble.” I lowered my sunglasses enough to glare daggers at Roberta Schmitt, who stared curiously after the car. No more waves for that hussy.
“Want to talk about it?”
So I did. I told her everything that had gone on since our earlier phone call, about Grace’s paternity and Neil covering up about Roberta because he didn’t want me to make a scene.
“He’s trying to protect you.” Mackenzie said as we pulled into the hospital lot. “You, the kids and your up and comer there.”
“I know that. But I’m kind of sick of being handled with kid gloves. I’ve survived a lot, multiple attempts on my life and yet he’s still trying to lay down the law, like his judgment is somehow better than mine. And I think it’s my fault because I’ve let him think that.”
“What do you mean?” Mackenzie backed into a parking spot near the front.
It was hard to explain, my thoughts weren’t exactly coherent on the subject. “You’ve seen Neil. And you’ve seen me. What do you think, of us, as a couple?”
“You’re great together.” Her response came immediately.
“I mean physically. He’s aging like a fine wine where me, well, I’m more like a stinky cheese.”
She laughed, as I’d meant her to, but then added. “So you’re a bigger woman. So am I. Doesn’t mean we aren’t attractive in our own right.”
“There are different levels of attractive though. I guess I’ve always been a little insecure about the difference between me and Neil, physically. And with the baby weight, well it’s really got me on edge.”
“You’ll lose the weight.” Mackenzie said. “The man adores you and the levels crap is all in your neurotic head.”
“It’s not just that. There’s an imbalance to our relationship. When he was in the military, I did my absolute best so that he didn’t have to handle anything. There were times when things broke around the house. I fixed them myself, or called a pro in to do it. But if I knew he was coming home, I’d leave it for him. There was this one time, the light in the downstairs bathroom stopped working, but I knew Neil would be home that weekend. I could have called an electrician, but instead the kids and I peed in the dark for five days so that he could come home and be big hero for the family. The fixer. And that’s just one time. I always asked him about things that I’d already made up my mind about, asked for his input. I knew he needed that, needed to feel like he was contributing to us more than just a paycheck. But I see how he tried to lay down the law today and it makes me wonder if I made a mistake all those years. If he doesn’t see me as a survivor.”
“Men are fragile creatures,” Mackenzie said. “And the ego is the most fragile part they own. Too bad no one makes cups for those.”
I chuckled and opened my door. “The thing is, he’s terrified about the baby and me, that something will happen to either or both of us and he can’t do anything to fix it. To save us. I get that by saying no to Grace he thinks he’s somehow protecting us, but all he did was to make sure that once again I had to handle it all. It was nice to have someone looking out for my needs, even temporarily.”
Mackenzie extracted herself from the vehicle and then circled the hood to help me out. “You want to know what I think?”
“I don’t know, do I?” I grunted with the effort of extracting my bulk from the car.
Mackenzie steadied me and then locked the Hellcat before continuing the conversation. “Probably not. But seeing as how we’re about to engage in conversation with a woman whose husband was murdered, I think you should know anyway. Your husband needed every confidence boost you gave him and now it’s your turn. If you want Grace to be with you, and personally I don’t know why you would, but I wasn’t there, call her. And if Neil decides to be difficult about it, he can be the one who waits outside.”
“Was your mother with you when you had Mac?”
Mackenzie grimaced. “No, but I was high as a kite so I doubt I would have cared if a marching band had passed by.”
“See that was my original plan.” I huffed as we approached the maternity ward.
“What room is she in?” Mackenzie asked.
“It was one of the birthing suites, but they might have moved her. Better ask at the desk.”
There were two nurses at the station, one with glasses leaning over a computer and another paging through a chart.
“Excuse me.” I said.
The one with the chart glanced up. “Can I help you?”
“We’re here to see Sylvia Wright. What room is she in?”
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
Dread coiled in my stomach as Mackenzie asked. “What do you mean?”
“Sylvia Wright is gone. She checked out of the hospital first thing this morning.”
Chapter Ten
“Where would she go?” Mac asked as she set a cup of herbal tea down in front of me.
I took a sip. It was a nice bland tea, nothing like the alluring variety that Grace had made. “No idea.”
“Her parents? Eric’s?” Mackenzie pressed. “Should I start looking there?”
“Honestly? I don’t know if you should start looking at all.” I’d been rethinking the conversation I’d had with detective Capri. She’s asked if I’d been in to see Sylvia, but had never said if she’d seen her herself. “She might have ordered a hit on Eric and left him for us to find.”
“What?” Mackenzie frowned. “Why would you think that?”
Neil was leaning in the doorway, one ankle crossed over the other, arms folded. I tried not to look at him as I said, “Who knows, married couples fight and the last few years were rocky for Sylvia and Eric.”
“But you really think she’s capable of murdering the father of her child?” Mac asked, eyes wide in disbelief. “She’s a vegan. It just seems so...noncompliant.”
“If I’ve learned anything from being a P.I., it’s that anyone is capable of anything.” Mackenzie rose gracefully and deposited her empty plate in the sink. “Come on, kid. You can come home with me tonight. Nona made a lemon Bundt this afternoon. I could smell it baking. We’ll pop by for a piece, it’ll make her day. She’ll plotz when she sees you.”
Neil saw the mother daughter dynamic duo out and then resumed his position holding up the wall. I was toying with the edge of the manila folder Mackenzie had
compiled for me.
“Open it.” Neil’s voice was steady, controlled.
I shoved the thing away. “No. I promised not to get involved.” Of course that had been before we found Eric.
“It’s just some information. Maybe there’s something useful in there.”
I tilted my head to look at him. “Why do you want me to all of a sudden?”
He shrugged, a maneuver he used whenever he wanted to pretend he didn’t care. After thirteen years of marriage, I knew that when he made that particular gesture, it meant he cared a great deal.
“Would you please sit down and talk to me?” I asked, my voice breaking. “I’m so tired of being at odds with the people I love, especially you.”
Neil pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it before reaching for my hand. “I’m sorry.”
My lips twitched. “What for, specifically?”
“Being an ass.”
I stared down at our entwined hands. His skin was warm and rough with callouses, so different than my scarred and pasty palms. There had been a time I would have assured him that no, he wasn’t an ass, that it was okay and no damage had been done. But we’d grown past that. At least I hoped we had. “That’s a start.”
“Why aren’t you looking for Sylvia?” Neil released me and leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t like you.”
“If Sylvia wanted my help,” I explained, “She knows where we live. She would have come to ask me for it. Either she had Eric done away with and is running from the police or she’s running from the person who killed her husband. In any case, she doesn’t want to be found, so I’m taking your advice and keeping my nose out of it.”
Neil shook his head, as though unwilling or unable to accept what he heard. “This isn’t you.”
“I thought this was what you wanted.” There was no sharpness to my tone. I felt defeated all the way to my bones. There was no spare energy for venom. “Me, keeping my head down and minding my own business.”
“But aren’t you worried about her?” He asked.
I stood up. “Of course I am. But Neil, think about it. If she did plan Eric’s murder, she probably considered we’d be the ones to find him. I still have a key. That’s not something a friend does, even if she’s a lunatic who murdered her husband.”
“And if she didn’t?” Neil asked quietly. “If someone else took her?”
I was trying not to think about that possibility. Eric had disappeared too, and had turned up stuffed in his own freezer. “Sylvia checked herself out of the hospital, along with the baby. It was under her own power, her choice. I have to believe she’s doing what she thinks is best. The last time she was gone for a few days we had a huge fight because I went out of my way to find her. If she wants something from us, it’s up to her to get in touch.”
I pushed back from the table. “I’m going to take a shower and head to bed. You coming?”
Under normal circumstances, Neil would have made a droll comment about my choice of phrase. “Not yet,” I imagined him saying with a slow, devilish smile. “Give me five minutes.”
But he just shook his head as though he still didn’t understand.
“Baby X,” I said to my seemingly permanent passenger as I waddled down the hall. “Feel free to show up at any time now. We need something good to focus on.”
I waited a beat, but when labor didn’t kick in, I headed into the bathroom alone.
After my shower I swathed myself in an enormous bathrobe and laid on my side. Sleep proved impossible though. The room was hot, I couldn’t get comfortable and my mind would not shut up. I rolled to my side and faced the digital alarm clock. After midnight. Neil hadn’t come to bed. What was he doing? I could go find him, talk things out. Baby X squirmed and I rolled the other direction, deciding against it. I was the one incubating our child, he could damn well come to me when he was ready.
I was turning into a regular old hardass.
I tried envisioning what life would be like once Baby X arrived. Hectic, even more than it already was. Add a crying baby to a galloping dog, Kenny whining that there was nothing in the fridge to take for lunch and Josh unable to find his math homework. But then the boys would go to school, Neil would head into work and it would be a much slimmer me and Baby X. I could take the little one out to walk the neighborhood, though I’d have to change my route, not wanting to walk past Sylvia’s house or the husband thieving slag’s place. I hoped all her flowers rotted in their beds.
Would I still take on the occasional cleaning job, or would I devote myself to full time motherhood, like when Kenny and Josh had been little? Probably some hybrid of the two. It was nice, being my own boss, calling the shots about when I worked and how many clients I took on. In the beginning I’d run myself ragged tackling as many jobs as came my way. But then after the...unpleasantness with Capri, I’d had less work. After the gig at the Swenson’s, I was fairly sure the laundry hag cleaning services were back on the A list, so it would be up to me how much—or how little—I wanted to stretch myself.
I blew out a breath of air. It wasn’t working. Though I’d been carefully trying to steer my brain away from Sylvia, it kept veering back to the lone topic I wanted to avoid. Neil had been right, I was worried about her and Astrid. And deep down I knew she hadn’t killed Eric. I might have, if I’d been the one married to the sleaze, but vengeance wasn’t Sylvia’s style.
So, if she wasn’t responsible, that meant she was hiding from whoever had killed her husband. What I’d said to Neil held true. If I started turning over rocks, even if I had Mackenzie do it, it might help whoever had stuffed Eric in the freezer find her and the baby. It should probably bother me more, that I could think like the bad guys.
With a sigh, I swung my feet over the edge of the bed. Well, if sleep wasn’t happening, I might as well put my criminal mind to work. Anything was better than lying in bed and letting guilt gnaw on me.
The light was on in the nursery. I spotted Atlas first, lying on his back, lips flapping in the breeze of the turning ceiling fan. I poked my head in further and spied Neil staring at the hand stitched quilt draped over the side of the crib.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
He pointed to the quilt. “When did you get that?”
“I didn’t.”
When he looked over at me I said, “Grace. The first day she was here she asked if I had everything I needed for Baby X. I told her that while I did, I wished I had some sort of family memento for the room, something to help connect to the family, to our history. All mine and Marty’s baby stuff was lost in the fire that killed our parents. So, she stopped by your mother’s and got this out of storage. I guess it was yours.”
“It was.” Neil swore and sat down on the bed. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
Though it would be a struggle to get up again, I sat next to him. “You need to trust me.”
“I do,” he responded immediately.
“I mean trust my judgment.”
He swallowed. “I do, but it’s hard to shut it off.”
“It?”
Neil just shook his head.
“Neil,” I said, a sharp tone in my voice. “Look at me.”
He turned his head slowly until we were eye to eye.
“I am the same person I was who used to watch your children when you were halfway across the world. The same person who handled everything for them, clothing them, feeding them, playing with them. Have I ever once endangered Kenny or Josh? Have you ever had a reason to doubt they were safe in my care?”
His features softened. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you doubting me now?”
“It’s not you I’m doubting, Uncle Scrooge. It’s the world.” He laid back on the small bed, closing his eyes against the overhead light.
“What do you mean?”
“When I was still enlisted, I somehow got it into my head that you were safe, that the boys were safe because you were stateside, at home in a nice little Navy
community. I think...I think the only reason I was able to do what I had to do was because I was so certain that the house, the neighborhood, that it was all harmless.”
I waited for him to continue. After a moment, he did.
“It was naïve of me, I know, to have such a simplistic vision of the way things were for you. And life was probably never as straight forward for you as I believed, but, it was what I needed to help get me through. And since we moved here, so many things have happened that have taken large chunks out of that pretty little picture. So many evil people who tried to hurt you, hurt our family. It terrifies me to just go to work ten miles down the road for fear of what might happen to you while I’m gone. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
I put my hand on his stubble covered cheek. “You are such a...man. Nothing needs to be fixed.”
He gave me a look. “You don’t even have to leave the neighborhood to get into trouble. Our neighbor was murdered and stuffed in his garage freezer. I can’t believe we’re bringing a new life into this mess.”
I slapped him on the thigh. “Okay, enough moping. We have work to do. Help me up.”
Neil sat up and stared at me blankly. “Work?”
“Yes work. I need to restore your sense of security.”
His lips twitched, just a little as he helped me stand. “And how are you going to do that?”
“Simple. Find out who killed Eric.”
IT WASN’T SIMPLE, OF course. But at least I had a place to start, namely in the manila folder that Mackenzie had left behind on Jamie Greer, the infomercial king.
According to the forensic report, Greer had been found floating face down in his pool, dead from a single gunshot wound fired at close range. The murder was execution style, just like Eric’s. No weapon had been found, and the suspect list was long but not especially fruitful.
First there were the seventeen outstanding lawsuits pending against Greer’s company. Mackenzie had included a brief summary of each case. Twelve were personal injury, involving a piece of equipment that had been recalled a few years ago. One of the plaintiffs had lost a pinky toe when the weight machine fell on his foot, which sounded horrific, but maybe not worth murdering over.
Bun in the Oven: The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag, #6 Page 10