Discarded Promises

by Candice Poarch

  Lucky started sniffing the ground for a good spot to do her business, then moved on to another. As far as Denton was concerned one place was as good as the next, but to keep things even with Quilla, he indulged the mutt.

  “That’s just it. What’s one more unsolved case? You know every case doesn’t get the same attention. It isn’t unusual for bodies to disappear forever. They might not find Sadie.”

  “You could bring trouble on yourself. Be careful.”

  Her steps slowed. “You do know something you aren’t telling me.”

  “You were the one who found her, not me. I’m only the dog-sitter.”

  “She trusted you.”

  “I gave her the dog.”

  “Oh.” Lucky finally found her spot. Quilla took the bag out of her pocket and did her civic duty.

  “Come on, let’s sit.” Denton led her to a park bench. Quilla gazed at the water. It seemed to have a calming effect on her. Denton watched her. The lump she tried to hide under her bangs had decreased in size—just a little. The pain must still be there. He checked the impulse to reach out and stroke her, to smooth the hair away. Then he thought about his tangled life.

  When was the last time he’d taken a leisurely stroll that didn’t have a concrete purpose? When was the last time he’d thought of spending a few moments with a woman when work wasn’t involved?

  Three years. Three years ago when Marcy had walked out of his life because his life was his job. His job was still all-consuming—his time as well as his energy. His life hadn’t been his own for the three years he’d been on this case. But Marcy had said it started even before, when his brother had been at the wrong place at the wrong time—had simply been eating a meatloaf dinner in a restaurant when shots rang out. Every day he worked to save kids from the streets—and he couldn’t save his own innocent brother.

  Two people he’d loved were gone—one through divorce, one by death. His heart was closed, and as far as he was concerned it could stay that way. Closed was safe. He might risk his life but he was willing to risk no more. For three years he’d blocked himself from emotional pain. He suspected Quilla was the type of woman who could pick at the block of ice that encapsulated his heart, want what he couldn’t have—or at least what he couldn’t keep.

  Pairing him with her was a bad decision, Denton thought as the wind picked up. Just one late afternoon with Quilla left him thinking about what he was missing. Some women possessed the power to do that. After purposely keeping his life full of work, damn it, the last thing he wanted was time to think about the life he’d left behind. On some level he resented Quilla for opening his eyes even a little.

  The dog sat contented on the ground watching the people stroll by—some with dogs, others with lovers, many with families. Denton balked at the comfy, normal scene. Christmas lights were shining prettily. Nostalgia was tugging at him as an insistent reminder of what life could be when a person was surrounded by loved ones.

  Suddenly Denton stood. “We have to get back,” he barked.

  “Okay.” Quilla stood, too, frowning at him. With single-minded purpose, he led the way to King Street with Quilla and Lucky doing their best to keep up. His emotions weren’t their fault. Why take it out on them? He felt like a heel and slowed his steps.

  Dusk had fallen, but the shimmering white lights on the street presented a surreal holiday tableau.

  Quilla and he had known each other only a couple of days, yet once they reached her door, the urge to kiss her was so strong he had to force himself to step back. Worse, she tilted her chin to look up at him. Their gazes held, collided, shimmered. She handed him the leash. Their gloved hands touched and for a moment lingered. The atmosphere sizzled. He knew the fire burning in him had caressed her as well. Finally, she broke the contact, picked up the dog, and held her in her arms.

  “I had a lovely day with you, Lucky,” she said, but she watched Denton. Her fingers ran through the dog’s fur, stroking it softly, slowly.

  Something in Denton tightened as he watched her, wishing he were the recipient of her touch, wishing just once to have her in his arms.

  She placed the dog on the ground.

  Oh, he wanted to kiss her. Just one kiss. Just one touch. But his contact with her was part of his job, not a relationship in the making. Once he kissed her, touched her, he knew he wouldn’t stop there.

  What he was doing was unfair enough to her. True, semiconductor-manufacturing equipment sold to groups who would make weapons against the U.S. was even worse. One wrongdoing didn’t give him an excuse to step over the boundaries of decency in the process. Touching her even once would be suicide.

  He balled his hands into tight fists and held them stiffly to his side.

  “Have dinner with me,” she said through the cloud in his head. “I started the Crock-Pot this morning. There’s nothing like stew and homemade biscuits on a cold day.”

  He shook his head before she stopped. “The same biscuits you serve the dogs?” he teased.

  She laughed. “Close.”

  Sure, he wanted to sit across the table from her and enjoy dinner—stare into her soft brown eyes. Already he wanted more than stew. “I wish I could. Nothing sounds better than dinner, but I have a meeting. Maybe another time?”

  Quilla nodded. Of course she didn’t believe a word of it.

  With a vow to keep his emotions in check, he parted with a hasty good night, dragging along a reluctant Lucky. Even the dog didn’t want to continue into the cold.

  Quilla watched them stroll down the street, Lucky’s little legs running hard to keep up with Denton’s long stride. Finally she opened the door and marched through the shop to the back room, her heart pounding in her chest. What was it about that man that made her act so out of character? Denton certainly wasn’t interested in her. One would think she was a high school kid with her first crush the way she was feeling. She was worse than Tanisha. She shrugged out of her coat, hung it on the coatrack, and glanced at her watch.

  What was she thinking? Hadn’t her fiasco with Eddie been bad enough? She wasn’t flat chested, but she wasn’t a bosomy D-cup either. She wasn’t the type to knock men off their feet, or force them to turn in half-circles to follow her progress down a street. Not even the offer of her stew could tempt Denton.

  Still, Denton Manning was a mystery. Had he and Sadie shared more than friendship? Did her memory stand between him and any other woman?

  Oh, Sadie. Where are you? Other questions emerged. Did Sadie have something someone wanted? According to the TV interview, the book featured the lives of mistresses. Had she actually interviewed a call girl for her information? Were there notes in Sadie’s apartment about her interviews? Quilla hadn’t searched for anything like that when she visited the apartment. She needed to have another look. She told herself she wasn’t trying to solve Sadie’s murder, merely gathering enough information to move the police to action.

  More than likely, Denton was still at his meeting. He wouldn’t be home. Still, she called his number and left a message to set up another trip into Sadie’s apartment.

  The cobblestone street in front of the Dover House was quiet, but now and then cars circled, searching for free parking spots. At the door, Quilla entered the secure building behind one of the tenants. While she waited for Denton to return, she decided to interview Sadie’s neighbors and proceeded to knock on apartment doors.

  But Quilla heard the same frustrating things interview after interview. No one knew where Sadie had planned to go. Sadie was a friendly person, but they didn’t know very much about her. Did anyone really know another person? she heard at one point. Thinking this had been a useless venture, Quilla tacked a note on the bulletin board just as an elderly woman dressed in a navy wool coat, thick hat, support stockings, and orthopedic shoes entered the building and tottered down the hall.

  She was already here, Quilla reasoned, trying to talk herself out of leaving her fool’s mission incomplete. Might as well make the best of it. So she interv
iewed one more person before she approached the older woman’s apartment.

  “Help! Help! Somebody call 9-1-1,” Quilla heard coming from the inside.

  “Hello? Hello?” Quilla called out, rapping on the door.

  “Help! Help! Somebody call 9-1-1,” Quilla heard again.

  “Hold on,” Quilla shouted. “I’ll get help.” Quilla ran down the hall and pounded on the first door she reached. Untold horrors crashed through her mind.

  When a harassed-looking man answered, Quilla said, “Your neighbor needs help.” She barely noticed the white T-shirt protruding over his stomach and the jeans hanging below his girth. The bleary-eyed man looked out of sorts with the world in general and her in particular. She’d disturbed him before. He’d nearly slammed the door in her face when she mentioned Sadie. But he couldn’t refuse to help a neighbor, could he?

  Quilla pointed toward the woman’s apartment. “The woman in that apartment needs help,” she repeated.

  “It’s the damn bird.”

  “What?” she asked, her mind zipping to the troubled woman.

  “A parrot. The stupid bird talks. Now will you give me a break?” This time Quilla didn’t stop him when he rudely slammed the door in her startled face.

  She put a hand to her speeding heart. A bird? The voice sounded too human. She raced to the woman’s apartment and knocked. If no one answered, she’d seek help from another neighbor. After a moment, which seemed like hours, the woman answered, looking right as rain.

  “I thought you were hurt,” Quilla said.

  “Oh, no. It’s Herbert. It’s bedtime for him and he doesn’t want to go to bed. He always does that when I cover his cage. I need a rest. Do you hear that, Herbert?” she called out as if the bird would answer her in turn. Quilla waited for a response that never came.

  Insides still queasy, Quilla inhaled a deep, calming breath. On the heels of Sadie’s murder, she didn’t need this. But she was here and she might as well get her interview done.

  “I’m Quilla Day,” she said, extending a shaky hand. “I’m afraid something has happened to your neighbor Sadie Croft, and I’m investigating her disappearance.”

  The old woman shook Quilla’s hand, squinted, and regarded Quilla quietly for so long, Quilla thought she wasn’t going to acknowledge her. Gorgeous thick white hair covered her head. “What’s with Sadie?”

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  “I don’t gossip,” the woman said, pinching her thin lips tight.

  “I’m not looking for gossip,” Quilla assured her. “Sadie is missing. I’m concerned that something has happened to her.”

  Dull blue eyes narrowed, and though the woman was thin, her double chins quivered as she loosened marginally. “Didn’t I see you on TV the other day? On the news? You own that dog store, don’t you?”

  “Reo’s Gourmet Shop, yes.”

  “Thought so. I took my granddaughter there once. Her dog likes those funny treats, you know. Don’t know why. Just a waste of money, I say. But she indulges that creature. I’m Hattie,” she finally said. “Hattie Dean.”

  “It’s nice to meet you. Animals like treats, too, just like humans.” But she thought the granddaughter must have had a streak of Hattie in her. Hattie indulged the bird every bit as much as she claimed the granddaughter pampered her dog.

  “Help! Help! Somebody call 9-1-1,” the bird screeched again in a voice resembling Hattie’s. It was an eerie sensation hearing that bird imitating the voice of the birdlike woman in front of Quilla.

  “I have to let him out before he screams the house down. Come on in,” she said. “We’ve got company, Herbert. You’re getting a reprieve tonight, so you’d better be on good behavior,” Hattie said to the bird.

  Quilla hurried in, puzzling at their antics. The birdcage sat two feet from the window in the living room, a room crammed with beautiful antique furniture. There were two categories of people, Quilla thought. The first group generously parted with items no longer useful. The second, even when moving from magnificent single-family homes to condos, tried to keep every stick of furniture, unwilling to part with a twig.

  Studying the crammed apartment, Quilla categorized Hattie in the second group. But she recognized it wasn’t so easy to let things go when fond memories were attached to them. It could be something as simple as a mahogany table passed on by a beloved grandmother. People clung to inanimate objects as strongly as they clutched the memories of dear ones close to their hearts.

  Hattie opened the birdcage door on squeaking hinges. Although Quilla loved animals, she wasn’t too comfortable with a bird floating over her head. She hoped Herbert listened closely to Hattie’s warning.

  The bird spread its colorful wings into a beautiful arch. Then he flapped them as he flew to the curtain rod and perched.

  “I’ve lived here twenty years,” Hattie said, taking a chair across from Quilla and keeping a watchful eye on the bird.

  “A very long time. You must know everyone here.”

  “I know Sadie.” Hattie raised an eyebrow and lowered her voice to hushed tones. “She has lots of visitors.”

  “What kind of visitors?” Quilla wondered if Sadie had done her interviews at her home, but interviewing strangers at home wouldn’t make sense.

  “You don’t know much about her, do you?”

  “No.”

  Denton had asked her the same question. What was going on in Sadie’s life?

  “I’m still cold from my walk. I was making myself a cup of coffee when you came. I have enough for both of us,” Hattie said as she hopped off the sofa with more energy than Quilla thought she possessed, certainly more than she’d used in the hallway on her way to her apartment. “I won’t be long.”

  Quilla started to decline but the eagerness in Hattie’s demeanor spoke of a need for company. “Thank you,” Quilla said instead. Hattie was probably a lonely old woman with just her bird for company. Quilla’s visit was probably the highlight of her day. The woman needed a dog to go with the bird.

  “You’re a cutie,” Quilla heard from the back of the couch. Herbert was stealthily approaching her.

  “You’re a cutie yourself,” Quilla said, smiling. What a bird.

  And then the fresh parrot whistled—that long, air-filled whistle men blow to beautiful women.

  Quilla almost checked her sweater to make sure too much cleavage wasn’t showing.

  Hattie returned and unloaded a silver tray filled with china accoutrements on the coffee table in front of Quilla. Quilla nodded her thanks and dumped two lumps of sugar in her coffee. Then she sipped. The brew was expensive and delicious.

  “This building only has fifteen apartments,” Hattie said, settling comfortably in the chair with cup in hand. “Running it isn’t a full-time job. She gets full-time pay. You get my drift?”

  “How do you know?”

  Quilla thought of the rich trimmings in the building. It might be old but the apartments were definitely expensive. Maybe these people expected executive treatment.

  “My husband and I knew the owner. I moved here after my husband died. I didn’t like living alone in that big house in Mount Vernon. Anyway, back to Sadie. It’s part of an estate and the administrator is married to the owner’s daughter. I wouldn’t put it past the daughter to have gotten rid of the competition.”

  Quilla set her cup on the china saucer and pulled out pen and pad from her pocket. “Who is this administrator?”

  “Tom Goodwill, the son-in-law. The family put him in charge. He’s married to Wendy.” She frowned. “On the other hand, I wonder if Wendy knows what’s going on?” she pondered. “Then, too, some women don’t like to be bothered as long as their husband’s affairs are kept quiet. Now with Sadie blabbing everything in her book, that puts a different spin on the situation. When you’re doing the kind of things she was doing, you keep your business to yourself. Things start happening with loose lips.”

  For a moment Quilla was too stunned to write. Tom Goodwill, the pr
esident of Smitherton. She had spoken to him.

  “Do you think Sadie was threatening to tell his wife about their relationship?”

  “Sadie accepted things the way they were. She knew they would never marry.”

  “But you just said she was about to tell all in her book.”

  “She was writing a book about mistresses.”

  “And Sadie was Goodwill’s mistress.”

  Hattie sipped her coffee.

  Quilla turned the information over in her mind. It was common for wealthy men to set their mistresses up in businesses. Hattie’s revelation left many questions echoing in Quilla’s mind. Did Sadie travel in circles with other elite mistresses? Were these interviews with friends? Could Quilla expect to see other women killed because Sadie interviewed them? Could Goodwill have killed Sadie? Did his wife?

  Quilla blew out a long breath. “Do you know Sadie’s other friends or family?”

  “She kept her personal business to herself,” Hattie said, but her lively eyes spoke of other secrets.

  Hattie knew about Goodwill, so all Sadie’s personal business wasn’t exclusive. “I need all the information I can get,” Quilla prompted.

  “Can’t think of anything right now, but leave me your card. If I remember something, I’ll give you a call.”

  Quilla fished in her pocket for a card and handed it to Hattie. There was a lot more to Sadie than Quilla even dreamed. As she and Hattie continued to talk, she wondered what Hattie wasn’t saying. The conversation went on another five minutes with Quilla hoping Hattie would open up. The older woman didn’t, and Quilla resigned herself to having to wait until another time for the next chapter of Sadie’s life, and finally left.

  “Nighty night,” Herbert called out.

  “Good night to you,” Quilla said, feeling stupid talking to a bird as if it were a child. She talked to dogs all the time, but that was different.