“I read Eddie’s report tonight.” Mike turned to face me soberly and lowered his voice. “He also gave me a few details that weren’t in the report. I wasn’t aware that Jennifer had a connection with Daniels. But he’s not going anywhere for a while. We’ll make sure of that. I wanted you and Jennifer to know.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded. “I’d have probably done the same thing, or worse. But tell me next time, Harvey.”
“Yeah. You know what?” I met Mike’s gaze. “I can honestly tell you I don’t hate him anymore.”
“I’m guessing that’s a big leap for you.” Mike smiled then. “I’ve got to get going, but you guys did excellent work.”
*****
Abby came into the kitchen as I was about to leave for work Friday morning. She had to be at the hospital that evening, but would have Saturday off.
“I’m going out to the airport and meet Greg,” she said brightly, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Drive safely,” I said.
Jennifer’s brow wrinkled. “Does Peter know Greg is coming?”
“I don’t think so,” Abby replied. “He didn’t ask.”
“Abby, you can’t keep going out with both of them. Not unless you’re up front with them both.” Jennifer’s intensity surprised me and told me how concerned she was about Abby.
“But I’m not sure which one is right for me.” Abby plopped down in the chair opposite her. “They’re so different.”
“Do you really like Peter?” I asked.
“Yes, lots. He’s shy, but he’s really nice. And I love his boys!”
“Have you two talked much?” Jennifer asked.
“Some. It’s hard to get very personal with the kids around.”
“Maybe it’s time you two went out without the boys,” I said. “The Larson baby-sitting service might be able to help you.”
“Oh, that’s sweet.” Abby ate a banana and went off to the airport to meet Greg.
“What are we going to do with her?” asked Jennifer. “Peter will be so hurt!”
“What about Greg?”
“I think he’d take it easier.”
“I don’t know.” I tried to wrap my head around Abby’s predicament. “Greg’s only been really in love once, and it fell apart on him. Peter’s wife didn’t reject him, she just died.”
“You have an odd way of looking at things,” Jennifer said.
The office routine soothed me. We had a new case to work on, and plenty of paperwork and loose ends to tie up from the old ones. To my surprise, Mike walked in a half hour before noon.
“Morning, chief,” Nate and Clyde said, almost together.
“Hey.” I raised my eyebrows at Mike.
I’d been helping Nate with a report, but Mike drew me off to the corner where my desk was situated.
“I wanted to give you the news myself,” he said. Of course, I immediately thought something bad was going down. “That Bangor captain. You missed the interview during your”—He coughed lightly—“suspension, but we’re going to hire him as deputy chief. He’ll start in a few weeks.”
“Finally!” The relief was huge. “You couldn’t have made me happier.”
“I wish you could have met him, but I think he’ll be okay.”
“Mike, if you can work with him, I’m happy.”
“Well, he likes fishing, so I figure he can’t be too bad.”
*****
Greg was at the house with Jennifer when I got home at half past five. Jennifer had dug out a jigsaw puzzle of a Charles Wysocki painting, and they had it a third put together on the card table in the sunroom. Outside the patio doors, snowflakes hovered in the twilight and fell, then melted on the dead grass. We were only five days into November, and I knew we had a long snow season ahead.
“Greg, good to see you.” I shook his hand warmly and couldn’t help thinking he was ten times as colorful as Peter. It was the first time I’d seen him out of uniform. He was wearing a gray sweater instead, over a checked cotton shirt, and dark pants.
“Hope you don’t mind my being here,” he said.
“No, I don’t like Jennifer being alone much right now. Did she tell you about what happened Monday morning?”
“Yes. I’m sorry you guys went through that.”
“I wouldn’t want to again, I’ll tell you.”
“So, what happened to the man you arrested?” Greg asked.
“He’s been indicted on several burglary counts. He didn’t fire his gun that night, so we didn’t charge him on attempted murder, but we’ve got him on several thefts. He’ll do some time.”
Jennifer had stew in the Crockpot, and Greg ate supper with us.
“You’re staying here tonight?” I asked.
“Well, no, but thank you. Jennifer said I could, but I already checked in at the hotel. I’ll stay there this time.”
“If you come up this way again, plan to stay here,” I said. “We’ve got extra room, and you’re welcome.”
“Thanks, I’d like that. If there is a next time.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
Jennifer was cutting pie, but she stopped in the middle of a slice to watch Greg.
“Well, Abby told me this morning I have some competition.”
“I’m glad she told you,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t think it was fair of her not to.”
“Did it upset you?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not thrilled about it. Do you think she feels strongly about him? She mostly talked about his kids.”
“I’m not sure,” said Jennifer, and I shrugged.
“They really haven’t gone out much,” I said carefully.
“Well, neither have we.” Greg shook his head. “I’d like to think I have a chance here.”
“Take her someplace fancy tomorrow,” I advised.
“She’d like that?”
I told him how much she’d enjoyed the undercover assignment at the art club, and how wistful she’d been when I took Jennifer to the exhibit.
“Hmm,” said Greg, “where can I take her?”
Jennifer brought the newspaper over, and I pulled out the weekly entertainment section that came on Fridays.
“Theater?” I asked. “Concert? The university’s having a faculty recital.”
“Take her to this,” said Jennifer, pointing to the theater section. “Gilbert and Sullivan. She’ll love it.”
Greg phoned the box office and spoke for two tickets.
“Now I need to call the airline, if you don’t mind. I was going to fly out at eight tomorrow night.” He was able to get a seat on an 11 p.m. flight and was obviously relieved.
Eddie called me shortly after Greg left. “Harv, I’m a little nervous. I’m not sure where to take Leeanne tomorrow night. I wish it was down here. I know where things are in Portland.”
“She’ll know a place. Tell her you want the best restaurant in Skowhegan. Or take her down to Waterville. There are some nice places down there.” I was starting to feel like Jennifer and I ran an event planning agency, along with the matchmaking business.
“That’s a good idea,” Eddie said. “You know, I’m starting to feel like I could be done looking.”
“Take your time, Ed.”
“I know. You’re right. Maybe I’m just panicking because I’m getting old.”
That made me smile. “You don’t want to do that. Go slow, and talk a lot. Find out how she feels about things.”
“Right. Then what?”
“Talk some more. And listen.”
*****
Greg came for Abby at nine in the morning, and they were gone all day. She came back flushed and dreamy after a visit to the Longfellow house and the waterfront. They’d eaten lunch at the floating restaurant, then gone to an antique show at the Civic Center. During the hour she was at the house, she showered and dressed meticulously in Jennifer’s green silk.
“I don’t know if I can stand it,” I said to Jennifer. “That’s your
Grace Kelly dress.”
“Sisters always share their clothes,” she said. “Don’t take it too hard.” She arranged Abby’s hair for her, and Abby put on a little makeup and a necklace of amber beads.
“Pretty classy,” I had to admit.
“Thanks, Harvey,” Abby said. She kissed me on the cheek. I felt really old, as if I were sending a daughter out on a date in her mom’s high heels.
Greg came back in a really nice suit. Charcoal gray, with a shirt so crisp it had to have been ironed by some minion at the hotel. The tie had little airplanes all over it. Jennifer took a picture before they left. Abby’s warm parka went over the silk dress, spoiling her sophisticated look just a little. Jennifer mother-henned her, making sure she had gloves and a hat along.
Jennifer and I spent the quiet evening perusing the baby names book and talking and laughing together. It was so precious to hear her laugh. I kissed her so often she sent me off to shave, then welcomed me back for more.
“I’m trying not to think about Abby and Leeanne tonight,” she confessed about nine o’clock, as we settled into bed.
“They’re both out with good men.”
“Yes, and I want them both to have good husbands. But Abby especially seems so uncertain. I want my sisters to love their husbands madly, and I want them to be loved as much as … as you love me.”
She could always thrill me and make me want to give a little more to make our marriage better. I didn’t want to kill her joy for one second. My lapses in that since our wedding were my biggest regrets.
She looked up at me intently. “I really wonder about Eddie and Leeanne.”
“Don’t. Eddie will behave himself.”
“That’s not what I mean. I think she’s very loving, and maybe ready to love. For life. Eddie’s been so unsettled. I’d hate to see her get hurt.”
“Well, Casanova is showing signs of being ready to put down roots,” I said.
Abby came in quietly at eleven-thirty, after she’d left Greg at the airport, and went lightly up the stairs. She’d have to work every evening until the next Friday, when we were all heading north for the weekend. Abby, Jeff, and I had managed to get one weekend off together, and the hunting trip was scheduled. I wondered if Eddie wouldn’t end up going with us.
*****
Eddie was back from Skowhegan in time for church the next morning but missed the singles Sunday school class. Dropping onto the pew next to me before the worship service, he smiled. The song leader stood to open the service. Jennifer leaned across me and touched Eddie’s hand, looking anxiously at him. He smiled again and squeezed her hand before taking a hymnbook.
As we sang the first hymn, Mike and Sharon slipped into a pew across the aisle, beside Peter Hobart. Abby wasn’t with him. I turned quickly to Jennifer. “Where’s Abby?”
“Behind us.”
I sneaked a quick look. Charlie Emery and Joshua Wright sat on either side of her. She met my eyes for a fraction of a second and gave a tiny shrug, as if pleading helplessness.
I glanced over at Mike again, a little surprised he had shown up. I’d let him down twice, quite badly, but he seemed ready to forgive my flaws. He nodded at me with what might have passed for a smile. God had given me friends I didn’t deserve.
We rounded up an impromptu luncheon party when the service ended. Jennifer loved bringing friends into our house, and now that she felt better, she was in the entertaining mood. Today it was the Driscolls with their two younger children, sans Amanda, who hadn’t made it home from school that week, plus Mike and Sharon, Eddie, and the Rowlands. I grabbed Abby’s arm and said in her ear, “You can bring one of those guys to lunch, but not both.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
All of the women huddled in the kitchen, and Jennifer had recruited Eddie and Bill Driscoll to help arrange tables. We had converted the dining room into our study, but dinner seating was problematic for such a crowd. Jennifer set up the card table in the sunroom with the oak library table, so some could eat in there and the rest in the kitchen.
The sunroom was pleasant and bright with the patio door and wicker furniture. Jennifer had picked out new area rugs for the wood floor, and no signs of bloodshed remained. Baskets and books and lots of cushions made it one of Jennifer’s favorite places, and she didn’t seem to let the room’s bloody past prejudice her against it.
Mike and I stepped into the study for a few minutes.
“I was proud of the way you handled yourself at the hearing Friday,” Mike said.
“Thanks. I was glad you were there. Even though I knew it was a good shooting, I was kind of wound up with the Daniels thing. I felt like I was in the hot seat.”
“Been through it few times myself.” He looked at Jenny’s poster of me in the vest and smiled a little.
“I gotta get rid of that thing,” I said.
“No, it’s cute. You look ready to take on the world.”
“I keep forgetting it’s there. It’s embarrassing when people see it for the first time.” I didn’t take many people in there. The room held our computer stations with all the peripherals, Jennifer’s file cabinet, and five bookcases. A utilitarian room for serious work. But it seemed lately that dozens of people had been in there, gaping at the poster.
“This Daniels,” said Mike.
“What about him?”
“The chief in Lexington called me last night. He was trying to reach Eddie, but he was out of town. The dispatcher gave him my home number. Should have given him yours, but that’s the breaks.”
“So?”
“The museum is frantically checking its inventory. They think they may be missing a piece or two that was in storage. They don’t display everything at once, but rotate the exhibits. Well, they’re checking, I’ll just put it that way.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“It made me feel bad for barking at you Friday. You oversaw it because you needed to be sure he was secure. And you were right about him.”
“That doesn’t mean I should have halfway ignored the suspension.”
“I could go either way on that, so we’ll just leave it there.”
We started to go into the kitchen, but it was so hectic I took Mike around through the living room. Eddie, Pastor Rowland, and Bill Driscoll and his son, Perry, were sitting there, talking about hunting. Bill was an enthusiast, and he’d taken a deer the day before.
“So how was Skowhegan?” I asked Eddie when the hunting tale was finished.
“Great.” A contented smile stayed on his lips.
“Find a nice place for dinner?”
“Yeah. And we went to this theater last night that was really cool. It’s old and fancy. Leeanne was real excited. They had pictures in the lobby of all these famous old actors who’d starred there.”
“What did you see?”
“Arsenic and Old Lace. Pretty funny play.”
“I saw the Cary Grant movie. Never saw it on stage.”
“Leeanne liked it a lot. Her sense of humor is kind of like mine, I guess.”
“Cold last night,” I observed.
“Yeah.” He glanced around. The other guys were listening to Mike. “I kissed her, Harvey.”
“Yeah? You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to tell George, either.”
He grinned and said, “I didn’t. But you’re my friend.”
“Then, as a friend, congratulations. If you hurt Leeanne, I’ll break every bone in your body.”
“I’ll be extra careful,” he said.
I nodded. “Big step in the relationship.”
“I’ll say. I don’t think she ever kissed a guy before.”
“Oh, come on, she’s twenty.”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “Okay, school kids, maybe, but I don’t think she’s ever kissed a grown man, and I know she hasn’t ever kissed a cop before.”
I felt like I was missing the point. “A little awkward?”
He looked surprised. “No way.”
> I nodded with satisfaction. “Take your time, Ed. Don’t rush things. Remember, her neural cortex isn’t fully formed yet.”
“Huh?”
Mike said to me across the room, “So, Harvey, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Did the trees in the Garden of Eden have rings?”
I laughed. “The pastor’s sitting right here. Ask him.”
*****
We spent most of the week mopping up from the art case. The circle kept widening as one contact led to another. Reports drifted back to us from other states. I let Eddie handle anything directly related to Neil Daniels, and he told me on Wednesday that the Lexington Museum of Art had confirmed three paintings missing from its storage.
“Feeding his coke habit,” I hazarded.
“Maybe,” said Eddie. “Stupid, no matter how you look at it.”
“Neil is a smart man. He couldn’t have thought he’d get away with it when he was sober.”
“There’s a new wrinkle.” Eddie’s eyes were troubled.
“What is it?”
He looked around. Clyde and Arnie were working at their desks on the other side of the room. Nate was at the copier near Paula’s desk.
“When they told the museum employees that Neil had been arrested, it was a shock, of course. But after it soaked in, something else came out. They had a couple of interns this fall, college kids. One girl told her supervisor today that Neil had—” he stopped short and turned to the window.
“Had what?”
“He assaulted her, Harv.”
“Oh, man.”
“She says he took her out a couple of times. That’s against the museum’s rules with underage kids. She was 19, and the museum staff were in a mentoring position with the students. They weren’t supposed to date anyone under 21, and even then, they had to have permission if it was a student.”
“Her word against his?”
“Yeah, she didn’t make a report at the time.”
“How long ago?”
“Mid-October.”
“So, just three or four weeks ago,” I noted. “Are they pressing charges?”
“The detective down there says yes, if she’ll go through with it.”
I considered. “Let’s not tell Jennifer. I want him punished, not her. She’s had enough trauma lately.”
Found Art (Maine Justice Book 3) Page 26