Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  Now, Tommy nestled down in the bed, his soft dark hair contrasting with the bright blue pillowcase. His eyes closed. Holly left the room.

  She found Gabe in the living room. Tall, with the perfect posture of a man certain of himself, he paced as he talked on his cell phone. At her entrance, he ended his conversation and tucked his phone into his pants pocket. The movement disturbed his jacket, and she glimpsed the strap of a shoulder holster over his gray shirt. She sucked in her breath.

  She’d been used to Thomas having guns around. But they had been part of his uniform. Gabe wore a suit like a businessman.

  “Is Tommy okay now?” he asked.

  “As okay as can be expected.” After being traumatized, then reminded about it. Damn!

  “Good,” Gabe said. “Just so you know, Edie Bryerly is coming here. I called on my way downstairs, and she should arrive any minute.”

  “Edie? Why?”

  He didn’t have a chance to answer. A quiet knock sounded on the front door. “I told her Tommy was napping and that I’d listen for her,” Gabe told Holly. He proceeded to answer the door to her house.

  Holly wanted to yell at him.

  But she had no time. Edie, dressed in the same short red skirt and white blouse she’d worn before, blasted into the entry as if tossed in by a tornado. “What happened?” Her brown eyes were supercharged with emotion. “I was on my way home for the day when Gabe tracked me down. Fortunately, I was nearby.”

  “Come into the living room.” Holly didn’t give Gabe an opportunity to take control once more. She fell in line behind Edie, leaving Gabe to follow.

  Holly encouraged Edie to take a seat on the sofa, then plumped down, too, and grabbed a gold-and-green throw pillow for support. She began, “Edie, you need to know—”

  “Wait!” Gabe interrupted. “Don’t say anything. Let me show her.” His green eyes asserted command. Holly opened her mouth to oppose him, then shut it again. She had seen that look before, on other cops.

  “Oh, my lord!” Edie exclaimed when Gabe returned, that awful box held gingerly in hands clad in translucent gloves. Edie’s face paled as she stared at its contents. She turned to Holly beseechingly. “Tell me Tommy didn’t see that horrible doll.”

  Holly felt her eyes water. Edie said, “Oh, no. He did. Holly, how terrible! Is he okay?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Gabe replied. He maneuvered the box so the bottom was up. Edie’s eyes lit on the label.

  “That’s my return address,” she shrilled. She stared at Gabe. “I didn’t send it. I wouldn’t.” She turned mutely toward Holly, pleading for support.

  “Of course you didn’t, but someone wanted the police to think you did.” Holly glared defiantly toward Gabe. “Edie’s practically a second mother to Tommy. She wouldn’t do this. But why would whoever did it want to implicate her?”

  Gabe put the box on top of a pile of magazines on the coffee table. That horrible effigy of a murdered cop—of Thomas—shouted soundlessly at them. Holly wanted to snatch it up and bury it at the bottom of the garbage can beside the house.

  No, she didn’t. She didn’t want to get anywhere near the blasted thing.

  “I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Bryerly,” Gabe said. He pulled a small notebook from an inside jacket pocket, then crossed one leg over the other. His commanding presence seemed to overpower the chair, the entire room. Or perhaps it was just Holly’s sense of inevitability. Gabe McLaren was a cop on a case. He wouldn’t quit until it was solved.

  This time, she had to applaud. Silently of course. But she had to know all the answers he sought.

  “Of course, Chief McLaren,” Edie said. “But please call me Edie.”

  Ah, Holly thought. Her friend must be feeling better, for she was flirting as she did with any male over the age of twenty-one. Holly frowned, then wanted to kick herself. She had no reason to feel jealous of anything between Gabe McLaren and Edie.

  She listened to Gabe’s friendly but insistent interrogation as he asked Edie where she had been during the past few days, if she had ever bought a doll like that one, if she had any idea who might play such a horrible trick on Tommy, Holly or her. Edie’s answers made it clear she was as much in the dark as they were.

  When Gabe’s questioning was over, he stood. “Thank you, Edie. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you.”

  “Please do.” Edie rose and headed for the door, then turned back. “Whether or not your questions have anything to do with police business.” She smiled at him, gave a mischievous little wave toward Holly, then left.

  For the first time ever, Holly was more than happy to see the last, for now, of her friend’s provocatively swaying behind.

  BACK AT CITY HALL, Gabe gave the doll to Detective Jimmy Hernandez for analysis and further investigation.

  “Miserable stuff, Gabe,” Jimmy said, shaking his head as he accepted the box in his own gloved hand.

  Gabe agreed. But he didn’t have time to talk about it. He’d promised to meet Evangeline that morning on the Poston case—and another matter.

  He took the stairs to the third floor. The receptionist asked him to wait while the mayor finished a phone call.

  Looking out the waiting area window, he scanned the busy downtown street below with the eyes of a cop. Everything looked in order. In fact, this view was a dream for anyone, whether or not a police officer. Not far in the distance was the curved, sandy shoreline with its pier jutting far into the water—the true beach of the town of Naranja Beach, crowded with tourists and locals and awash with soft ocean waves.

  He had wondered what had made Evangeline move with little notice to Southern California while he was away at college, until he’d come for a visit. The temperate weather, the gorgeous beaches, the laid-back lifestyle…they had tempted him, too.

  And when Aunt Evangeline had offered him not only the police chief’s job, but also the opportunity to pay at least one member of the Sevvers family back for their kindness to an orphaned kid, he’d jumped at it.

  Now, he had to perform.

  Evangeline opened her office door. “Gabe. Come in.”

  He waved his thanks to the receptionist and shut the door behind him. “Your Honor. How the hell are you?” Gabe grinned at the woman who had been like an aunt to him.

  She grimaced primly, then smiled and hugged him. She was a slender woman, as political in her diet as in everything else. “I’m fine. Have a seat, nephew.”

  As he’d grown up, Evangeline, now in her forties, hadn’t been the closest Sevvers to him, but like the rest, she’d accepted him as if he had always belonged to the family. She’d been a strong-willed young woman prepared to achieve whatever ambition she set her mind to. He had figured it would be something like being her own boss, owning a store.

  That was the first thing she’d accomplished at Naranja Beach.

  He hadn’t figured she’d go into politics. Yet her being mayor, running the whole darn town, seemed a great fit.

  But the town hadn’t operated as perfectly as she’d anticipated during her tenure. That was why she had hired Gabe.

  Now, she joined him on the sofa. Her manicured fingernails tapped a tattoo on the beige leather only a few shades darker than the suit she wore. “So what do you know, Gabe?”

  “Not enough.” He told her about the butchered doll at the Postons’. The outrage on her face mirrored his own. “Since the Poston murder, I haven’t had time for our other matter.”

  “Poor Holly,” Evangeline said. Gabe thought his face was blank, but she must have read something in it for she grinned at him archly. “She’s a pretty lady, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Gabe said as Holly’s lovely, sad face displayed in his mind as if on a dormant computer screen reactivated by keys that had just been tapped. Or had it ever left his thoughts at all?

  She had questioned the way he had handled things with Tommy. But she’d been gracious enough to thank him. She’d begged him again, as he’d taken the doll away, to find
out who had sent it.

  And he’d made promises he probably had no business making. But how could he resist the plea in those dark eyes, those pools of dark, luminous sorrow and sensuality?

  Evangeline shifted on the crackling leather sofa, recapturing Gabe’s attention. “It’s none of my business, Gabe, but Holly’s a friend. She’s also a new widow. It’s one thing to handle the inquiry into Thomas’s death and this new nastiness, but don’t expect anything from her, at least not now.”

  He didn’t need Evangeline’s warning not to get too attracted to Holly Poston. As if you can help it, pervert….

  “I don’t expect anything except to solve a murder,” he said with a scowl, changing the subject decisively. “Both murders.”

  “You don’t suppose they’re related, do you?”

  Gabe shrugged. “Two cops dead? Yeah, I do suppose they’re related. Though proving it is another matter.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can. Your reputation says so.” She smiled again, but she wasn’t completely teasing. His reputation was the main reason Evangeline had wanted him as police chief after his predecessor’s death—not only because he was her more-or-less adopted nephew. He had already worked his way up to captain in the Detective Division of the Sacramento P.D. Even at that, Evangeline had only hired him after putting him through a screening that would have crushed a lesser cop.

  She’d explained it in advance: there would be accusations of nepotism, and they’d be true. But that didn’t bother her.

  She’d already weathered claims of conflict of interest during her political campaign, for she had always intended to maintain her own shop. After all, she wouldn’t be mayor forever. She’d hit the controversy head-on, put her manager in charge of the store, then described how she would work her tail off for the economy of the whole area. And if that benefited her, too, as one small business owner among others, then so be it.

  She had been elected.

  The case that Evangeline had needed him for here initially remained a mystery: the murder of his predecessor, Police Chief Mal Kensington. If it even was a murder.

  Gabe’s gut told him it was. But so far, neither Jimmy Hernandez—who knew the story—nor he had unearthed any proof.

  “Have you learned anything useful since the last time we talked?” Evangeline asked.

  “Only innuendoes. I’ve had more casual conversations with detectives and beat cops. A lot expressed their surprise that someone as apparently healthy as Mal Kensington keeled over and died. But it happens, even with athletes in top form.”

  “But that was too facile. I still don’t buy it.”

  Neither did Gabe, though by appearances the conclusions seemed correct. Mal had suffered the symptoms of a heart attack. That was the cause of death according to his autopsy, too. But… “I’d disagree if it weren’t for the rest,” Gabe said.

  Evangeline’s brusque nod seemed pleased.

  They’d gone through this often. Mal’s remains had been cremated quickly and scattered in the ocean. His family left town and settled in Beverly Hills, though his widow had no job. Of course there had been insurance, but not a huge amount.

  None of that would have signified much to Gabe, except for what Evangeline had told him was going on when Mal died.

  Several months before Mal’s death, four shopkeepers along Pacific Way had sold out—cheap. The stores that opened in their places were not of the same high quality as Evangeline’s boutique, Orange, or other established shops along the Way.

  Worried this was a harbinger of a downturn in the Naranja Beach economy, Evangeline had contacted those who’d left and as tactfully as possible asked why. Three had given no answer but were clearly angry and uncomfortable. The fourth blurted out, “Ask your beloved chief of police,” before also clamming up.

  Evangeline had asked Mal Kensington if he knew what that comment meant. He’d said no, claimed it was merely sour grapes on the part of someone who’d failed in business.

  But Evangeline hadn’t been satisfied. She’d gone to other shop owners along the Way and asked questions. The answers hadn’t satisfied her, so she requested an investigation before city council to ensure that the few sell-outs did not turn into a trend. She’d even asked Mal to appear before council and explain his lack of knowledge about what that storeowner had meant.

  There, he had blustered but had seemed more than a little ill at ease, according to Evangeline. Had it been fear?

  She would never know, for she couldn’t question him further. The next day, he’d had his supposed heart attack and died.

  Even if it had been a heart attack, she’d told Gabe, maybe it had been brought on by fear. But fear of what?

  Gabe’s mission was to conduct a clandestine investigation. But as straightforward as most people had replied to his offhand questions, he sensed there was a lot they weren’t telling.

  What? Why? And what did it have to do with Mal Kensington’s—and now Thomas Poston’s—death?

  Evangeline stood. She glared at Gabe until he rose, too. “Time’s passing, Gabe.” Her tone was full of frustration. “If we don’t get answers soon, we’ll never get them.”

  “I know.” But Gabe wasn’t about to fail. Somehow, he would learn what happened—or satisfy both himself and Evangeline that Mal’s death had been just a nasty coincidence.

  Though Gabe didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Can you use Thomas Poston’s death as an opportunity?”

  Gabe stiffened, surprised at his aunt’s insensitivity. She was, after all, a political animal.

  She waved her hands as if to erase the comment. “I didn’t mean to seem cold-blooded, but it’ll give you a reason to ask more questions. If the two deaths were related… What about Holly? Could she know why Thomas was killed?”

  Holly’s lovely, sorrowful face washed across Gabe’s mind. So did her fierce concern for her son. Her sense of humor in moments she wasn’t thinking about all that had happened to her.

  Her unconscious sex appeal…

  She seemed forthright. Eager to solve her husband’s murder.

  Still, there was always the possibility she knew something she wasn’t saying. There were different ways of keeping quiet than the way poor little Tommy was doing it.

  “I don’t know,” Gabe said. “But I’ve been playing Sevvers to her.”

  “What do you mean?” Evangeline asked suspiciously.

  “Taking care of the bereaved family,” he explained. “Helping with what they need around the house. In fact, I’m on my way back there now. It’s a good way to get Holly to trust me. And if there’s something she knows that she hasn’t said yet, she will. I’m definitely going to find it out.”

  Chapter Seven

  Removing the apron from over her blouse and denim skirt, Holly looked out her kitchen window and smiled.

  Tommy ran around the compact backyard, laughing as he chased the large ball. His thin legs pumped beneath his shorts. When he reached the ball, he knelt and picked it up in his arms.

  Thanks to Gabe, he seemed to be putting the doll incident behind him.

  Gabe stood at one side of the yard, clapping his hands in encouragement to Tommy. He was dressed more casually than she had ever seen him. As good-looking as he was while in his regulation suit, he now looked sexier than any man had a right to, in his snug, low jeans and muscle-delineating gray T-shirt.

  As promised, he had returned this evening in time to play with Tommy. But something had changed in his attitude toward her. Although he had asked if there was anything she needed done around the house, had thanked her profusely for the modest dinner of a tuna-noodle casserole she had prepared, he had seemed more formal. Had acted as if he expected something of her, without saying what.

  Holly sighed. Maybe after Tommy was in bed, she could ask him.

  The telephone rang.

  She went to the extension hanging on the kitchen wall near the door and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Just listen, Mrs.
Poston,” said a strange, echoing voice. She could not tell if it was male or female or even computer-generated. Probably a telemarketing call, she thought, preparing to hang up. “You know where it is,” the voice went on. “What Thomas left for me. You will turn it over to me. Otherwise, you will suffer the consequences, sweet little Tommy and you.”

  Ice slivered through Holly’s veins. “Who are you?” she asked, her tone weak and shaky. “What is it you want?”

  “You know what it is.”

  “I don’t,” she cried.

  “Figure it out. I’ll be in touch.” There was a click.

  “Hello?” For a few long moments, Holly clutched the receiver to her ear. Then, slowly, she hung up. She stared at the wall phone as if it had suddenly morphed into a cobra.

  “Tommy!” she whispered. She hurried to the kitchen window and looked out.

  The ball game was still in progress. Gabe ran toward Tommy, who held the ball. He grabbed the boy, gently tackling him and laying him on the grass. Tommy, laughing, rolled out from beneath Gabe’s grasp and ran. At the end of the small patch of lawn, he plunked the ball down on the patio.

  “Touchdown!” Gabe’s deep voice resounded.

  “Time to come in,” Holly called shrilly. “Tommy needs to get ready for bed.”

  Gabe glanced at his watch, then toward her, puzzlement on his face. He was right. It was early.

  But she couldn’t stand the thought of her son still being outside, possibly in danger. That damned phone call….

  “Okay, sport,” Gabe called. “Your mom’s the boss. Let’s go in.”

  As they entered the kitchen, she again saw a question in Gabe’s eyes. They skimmed down her, as if her distress and fear were inscribed all over her.

  Shaking her head, she ushered Tommy toward the stairs—her skin prickling as she felt Gabe’s eyes bore into her back.

  “OKAY. WHAT IS IT?”

  Holly had bathed Tommy and gotten him ready for bed. Gabe had read the boy a story. Now, they stood at the front door. She clearly wanted him to leave.