Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Yeah.” He tried to sound offhand. He stood just long enough to retrieve his coffee mug, to give his hands something to do. Sure, he didn’t have to tell her, but there was a sadness and fragility in her eyes. It wasn’t her he was rejecting, just the bitter future that making love with her now would bring.

  He’d told her his childhood problems—more than he’d ever admitted to a woman before.

  Telling her what she asked now would be a piece of cake. Right?

  He tried to keep his tone offhand. After all, this stuff didn’t matter to him anymore. “A few years ago, there was a woman I liked. A lot. I met her on a case, too. I helped to prove the charges against her husband that sent him to prison for a brutal crime. She’d loved him before she realized what he’d done, who he was. She decided to divorce him. We got close. But when her divorce was final, she didn’t want to have anything to do with that part of her life again. Including me. She’d needed someone to help her through the transition. A rebound lover. I fit the profile. The temporary profile. Afterward, I understood where she’d been coming from, but that’s not a situation I care to get into again.”

  “But Gabe, Thomas and I weren’t…” She stopped. “That doesn’t matter. I wasn’t close to Thomas when he died. But I also have no intention of a relationship with you, or any other cop. You’re right, Gabe. Thanks for reminding me. This would have been a very bad idea.”

  She rose then, very gracefully, her curves showing through her form-hugging jeans and knit top. He throbbed right where his pants constricted him, but he ignored it.

  Until she grew close. Damn, didn’t she get the message? But before Gabe could pull her back into his arms and forget everything sensible he’d just told himself, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Good night, Gabe,” she said, and left the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  Frustration was Gabe’s driving force the next day.

  He arrived at his office soon after dawn, made phone calls, left messages. He was too early to reach people, but they’d know first thing that he wanted to talk to them. Fast.

  He went through correspondence and files that had piled up on his desk, threw out what he could, and organized the rest.

  And then he paced his office, barely noticing as daylight outside his window grew brighter.

  He felt frustrated about the lack of progress in the investigation into Thomas Poston’s murder and the attack on Sheldon Sperling.

  He felt frustrated about the fruitlessness, so far, of his investigation into what had happened to Mal Kensington.

  He felt frustrated that he had no time to visit more shopowners along Pacific Way again, see their reactions to his questions and insist on better answers.

  To top it all off, he felt—well, frustrated! Hanging around Holly did it to him. Tommy still wasn’t talking much. And though attempting to keep things with Holly platonic made all the sense in the world, he wanted her so bad it was driving him nuts.

  She’d shown she was interested. In him. In sex. But if they leaped into bed now, it would complicate things for both of them in the future.

  End of story. Wasn’t it?

  The first person to return his phone call was Sheldon. No surprise. The man used to meet Thomas Poston at daybreak.

  “How can I help you, Gabe?” the older man said. Gabe pictured him sitting behind the main counter in his store, maybe with a cup of tea. Did he miss his early morning breakfasts with Thomas Poston and Tommy?

  “That mask.” Gabe, at his desk, clutched the phone receiver as if it might attempt to leap away before letting someone on the other end disgorge needed information. “I know someone from my department picked it up yesterday and brought it in for further examination. The suspect may have damaged it rather than the investigative team.”

  The chances of finding something useful on it were slim. Sheldon’s attempt to fix its scratches and gouges probably destroyed any potentially useful evidence. And that was why Gabe had to discuss it with him.

  “The way Tommy reacted makes me think he associates it with the day of the murder,” Gabe continued, “just like he gets upset when he sees police uniforms that remind him of his dad. When you repaired the mask, did anything on it suggest how it got damaged?”

  “The best I could tell, it might just have fallen off its stand on the counter near the door. Or—”

  “Or what?”

  Sheldon hesitated long enough to take a sip of tea. Or a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you know yet what the guy used to beat me, do you?”

  “The mask?” Interesting possibility. The lab technicians knew their jobs. They’d check the mask for blood and hair without Gabe’s direction. Still, he’d call and mention it.

  “I don’t know,” Sheldon said. “And none of us thinks Tommy saw what happened anyway. He’s not likely to have seen the killer hit me with the mask, so I really don’t know what he’s so scared of.”

  Monster, thought Gabe. The mask certainly was ugly enough, but why would the kid call it a monster? He didn’t ask Sheldon.

  “If I think of anything useful, I’ll let you know,” Sheldon continued. “Tommy’s seen that mask every time his mother brought him into the shop. It was on display out front till now. And the poor kid still isn’t talking, is he? He didn’t seem to be yesterday.”

  “No,” said Gabe, “he’s not.” A word or two here and there wasn’t talking. Knowing he was letting himself in for additional frustration, he asked, “And that list of stores along Pacific Way. I started to check yesterday but got sidetracked. Any idea yet whether it was accurate as of its date?” Or why it also appeared in the file of a murder victim or two. Or why some shopowners responded to it so negatively. Those were questions he kept to himself. Sheldon was a shopowner, too, but his reaction to the list had been neutral.

  “I don’t know,” Sheldon replied, “but that copy belonged to Thomas Poston, didn’t it? Do you think it’s a clue about who killed him and beat me?”

  “I can’t see how,” Gabe responded noncommittally. “Do you?”

  “No, but I was considering why he’d have it. The best I could figure was that, around that date, there was a police-backed fundraiser for the Naranja Children’s Foundation. Maybe he was assigned this area for canvassing.”

  Oh. Great. Then there was a valid reason for the same list to be in Mal Kensington’s files.

  Still, Gabe thought, he hadn’t found lists of other areas in Mal’s records, places cops besides Thomas might solicit for donations. And storeowners wouldn’t be incensed simply because they had been asked to make charitable donations.

  “Thanks,” he told Sheldon. “You’ve been helpful.” Except that his answers had made some elements of Gabe’s investigation even murkier than seawater swirling with sand in a storm.

  He had no sooner hung up than someone knocked on his door. Four patrol officers came in, those who had been on Pacific Way yesterday, when Tommy Poston had gotten so upset.

  Four uniformed patrol officers. Al Sharp and his new partner George Greer, plus Dolph Hilo and Bruce Franklin. Gabe had left them all messages, too, to come see him.

  When they left half an hour later, his frustration was stoked even higher. His gut gnawed at him. Why was it that he felt Sharp, Hilo and Franklin all knew more than they said?

  George Greer hadn’t known anything useful.

  Hilo and Franklin were sympathetic but hadn’t added much. Before his father’s death, Tommy had never shown any fear of them. And, no, they couldn’t explain his behavior now, except to agree it had to do with what happened to his daddy. Yet there was something in the way they tried to be helpful that made Gabe wish he could read minds. What were they really thinking?

  Al Sharp was his usual sarcastic, unhelpful self. He verified he’d been out of uniform when he’d questioned Tommy after Thomas’s murder. Holly had kept the kid nearly in seclusion, so to Al’s knowledge the first time he’d seen police in uniform after the morning of the killing w
as at Thomas’s funeral. But that still didn’t explain why uniforms upset him the way they did. The way they had yesterday, in Sheldon’s shop.

  No one knew why Tommy had acted that way except Tommy. And he wasn’t telling.

  Eventually, Gabe was alone in his office again. Somehow, he vowed, he would figure out a way to get Tommy to say more than one word at a time. A way that would make him feel good, not frighten the tyke even more.

  Of course he would.

  He’d need to get Holly on board. Lovely, sexy Holly. He would be staying at her house once more… Frustration!

  Was that frustration—all his frustration—making him paranoid? Why would he think that three cops who used to work with Thomas Poston didn’t want Gabe to find out who murdered him?

  None of them was the killer—right?

  But Tommy was afraid of police uniforms….

  The phone rang again. “Gabe? It’s Evangeline. Could you come to my office?”

  “Sure.”

  He wished a while later that he’d not been so quick to agree. He sat on a leather chair in Evangeline’s office, staring at her across her huge, plain wooden desk, its top as paper-free as his own.

  “What do you mean I shouldn’t worry about what happened to Mal Kensington anymore?” Gabe demanded incredulously. As miserably as things had gone for him that day, this was the worst kick in the solar plexus yet.

  Evangeline’s long, narrow face was expressionless. “You’re not listening, Gabe. I know how good an investigator you are. I began to wonder, when you didn’t find anything in three months, whether I’d simply been mistaken about Mal Kensington’s death. Yes, he was cremated quickly and his family left town in a big hurry, but so what? The medical examiner’s report showed natural causes. I just reread it to make sure. And now, I don’t want you to waste any more time trying to prove something that was a figment of my imagination. It’s time for you to stop looking into Mal’s death.”

  “But Thomas Poston was a cop, and he was definitely murdered.” Gabe clenched the arms of the chair to prevent himself from getting right in Evangeline’s too-composed face.

  “Yes.” She lifted eyebrows that were brown rather than red like her hair. “He was stabbed to death. Mal was simply found dead in his home. No signs of foul play.”

  “What about those comments from former shopowners along Pacific Way, telling you to ask Mal why they’d sold out so quickly? The fact he died so soon after dissembling and acting as if he had sand fleas in his shorts before city council?”

  He hadn’t held back suspicions or clues from Evangeline before in his investigation of Mal’s death. But damned if he would mention the shopowners’ reaction to his inquiries the day before. Not while she was cutting this investigation—and him—off at the knees. Or trying to.

  Evangeline stood. She leaned over her desk, resting her well-manicured hands on it. “Think about it, Gabe. What’s more logical? A man was murdered even though there was no indication of foul play and no concrete evidence of anyone having a motive—except that he was chief of police, of course. That job means you’re automatically the enemy of lots of people.”

  She gave a sharp little grin that showed her perfect, white teeth. Gabe knew her smile was intended to be humorous. He wasn’t laughing.

  Her expression sobered. “Or,” she continued, “the man died of a heart attack after being put under additional stress on his job. Which is more rational, Gabe? You tell me.”

  “You brought me here from Sacramento.” Gabe made a major effort to keep his voice low and controlled, but he knew his anger showed on his face. “Risked your political career being blown because of claims of nepotism. Gave me what information you had and set me loose. I bought your story. It made sense. And now you’re telling me it was all a mistake?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Gabe.” She returned to her seat, looking more relaxed. “Just drop it.”

  “And I suppose you want me to drop the investigation into Thomas Poston’s murder, too, Your Honor?” No way could Gabe back off from that, no matter who ordered it. “That would be obstruction of justice.”

  She glared at him. “Of course I don’t want to obstruct justice. Murder is police business. You’re chief of police.”

  “Thank you for noticing.” He rose. “And thanks for the suggestion, Your Honor. I’ll take it under advisement.”

  He was nearly out the door when he heard her say, “It’s not a suggestion, Chief McLaren. It’s an order.”

  HOLLY HAD TRIED all day to be nurturing to her son. But Tommy was making it difficult.

  She ached for him so much she wanted to cry. Talk to me, she pleaded silently. Talk to Gabe. Anyone.

  They were in her bright red minivan. She’d taken him back to the psychologist, and the session hadn’t gone well. He’d become upset when Holly told the lady doctor what had happened at Mr. Sperling’s shop yesterday. He hadn’t calmed down since.

  First she’d had a hard time getting him even to walk from the office to the small lot at the rear of the medical building where she’d parked. Now, he squirmed behind her in the back seat. He hadn’t wanted to be confined in the booster seat, and she’d had to bribe him—something she wasn’t proud of, but it had at least gotten him into the van. They were on their way to his favorite toy store in a neighboring community. Time for yet another coloring book.

  “So, honey,” she said soothingly, “once we get your new coloring book, we’ll go home and take a nap.”

  Her attention was on the local two-lane highway, one that wound a lot thanks to its proximity to the coastline. There wasn’t much traffic this time of day, so she was able to go a little over the speed limit, though the curves kept her from going too fast. In the rearview mirror, she saw Tommy shake his head vehemently in the negative.

  “We’ll see, Tommy,” she said, trying not to allow her exasperation to color her tone.

  The highway curved to the right…and then it happened. As Holly turned the van, she suddenly couldn’t control it! It swerved from one side of the road to the other. She fought the steering wheel, trying to stay on the pavement. Braking slowly did no good. Neither did pumping the brakes.

  A car sped toward her—right in the lane she was in! She overcompensated and nearly went off the shoulder on the other side, into a swampy wetlands area.

  “Mommy!” cried Tommy, from behind her.

  If she’d been able to concentrate on anything but stopping the car, she’d have made a fuss over his talking. But for now…

  There. She did it. The right front dipped off the road, but her minivan had finally come to a stop.

  Only then did she realize how hard her heart was pounding. Her breathing had accelerated but she felt she needed air.

  She put her head down on the steering wheel while she tried to get hold of her soaring, conflicting emotions: terror, elation, fear.

  “Mommy, are you okay?” asked Tommy in a small, shaky voice.

  “Oh, yes, honey,” she said, turning so she could look at him and smile as reassuringly as possible.

  A knock sounded on her window. Startled, she found a young man with a pale face staring at her. “Are you all right?” She nodded and tried to roll down the automatic window, but the engine was off. She opened the door.

  The young man waved a cell phone. “Can I call someone for you?”

  “No, thanks,” she said. But she reached toward her purse at Tommy’s feet and extracted the cell phone Gabe had insisted she carry. She punched in his phone number.

  BY THE TIME Gabe arrived at the location Holly described, two California Highway Patrol officers were with her. So were the N.B.P.D. patrol officers he’d assigned to follow Holly that day.

  A lot of good they’d done.

  Gabe flashed his credentials, and the older C.H.P. officer asked to see him alone. Gabe wanted to go to Holly and Tommy, who leaned on the hood of the minivan talking to the other officers. He needed to assure himself they were all right. But they were c
learly alive and, even if shaken up, relatively unharmed. He stepped behind the vehicle with the C.H.P. officer.

  “The left front tire’s flat, sir,” the officer said. He was lanky and sober-faced, a veteran who obviously took his work seriously.

  “A tread problem?” The flurry of reports of defectively manufactured tires had ended a while ago, but that didn’t mean there still weren’t problem tires on vehicles.

  “No, sir. Best I could tell, the valve stem broke off.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily cause a blowout. The air loss could be slow.”

  “True, but this time it wasn’t, Chief. And you should check on the other tires, too.”

  “Why?” Gabe stared at the patrolman.

  “All four tires have loosened valve cores. One’s ready to come out just like the one on the flat tire. Maybe all of them. If one didn’t go flat, another would. Soon.”

  HOLLY WAS GRATEFUL to Gabe for taking charge. He had the van towed to a repair shop he designated in Naranja Beach. He would also take care of having anything extracted from the van that could be used as evidence of who had sabotaged it.

  He plopped a subdued Tommy into the back seat of his department-issued sedan and fastened his seat belt. Holly sat in the front seat beside him.

  “How would you two like a really good hamburger dinner tonight?” he asked. “Way out at the end of the pier.”

  The Naranja Beach pier extended from the beach, and at its end was a restaurant—a different, competing chain from the similar one in neighboring Seal Beach. Like that one, it specialized in hamburgers.

  Fortunately, it was informal, for Holly wore jeans and a snug top striped orange and red.

  “Okay, Tommy?”

  He didn’t answer. When Holly turned, he was nodding happily.

  “Honey, you talked to me before, in our car,” she said gently. “Won’t you talk to us now?”

  His head shook solemnly, and Holly’s disappointment nearly swamped her. She could hardly get in an accident every day to get her son to say something.