He gave her a patient look. “Of course not. You know I believe we’re products of our environment. I’m worried because if there was some kind of serious trouble in the family that caused Clifton to do this, I should know. After all, Shelley adored him. She was around him too much these last few months. This whole mess has really rocked her young world.”
“I know of no serious trouble in the family except for you leaving me, which I hardly think would drive my father to suicide,” Nicole answered coldly. “And I am well aware of the effect this has had on Shelley. I’m doing everything I can to restore some normalcy and happiness in her life.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Roger said earnestly. “I think Shelley should spend the next few weeks with me.”
Nicole stared at him in disbelief. “Forget it.”
“Don’t give me one of your knee-jerk reactions. Think about how much sense it makes. You’re desolated by your father’s death. Your mood can’t be doing Shelley any good, and you’re not up to giving her the attention she needs.”
“I see. And living with you and your girlfriend will return her good spirits in no time?”
Roger’s jaw tightened. “Her name is Lisa Mervin. And we don’t live together.”
“She only spends all her nights at your apartment.” He opened his mouth to protest, but Nicole cut him off. “You haven’t been discreet, Roger. We’re professors at the same university. Do you think I’m not aware of your lifestyle? Lisa is your student, for God’s sake. Sleeping with a student on the sly is one thing. You’re openly living with her. Have you ever heard of dismissal due to moral turpitude? It can happen, especially when you don’t have tenure to protect you. At this rate you might not have a job next year.”
Roger’s face had paled, his gray eyes hardening. “All you’ve heard are rumors. Why don’t you let me worry about my job?”
“You misunderstand. I don’t care whether you lose your job over this girl or not. Shelley is another matter.”
“Nicole, you are not going to use my having a woman in my life to keep me away from my daughter.”
“I’m not trying to keep you away from her, but she isn’t going to stay with you and your little live-in nymphet. Besides, there’s no point in going into this now. We’ll work out visitation at the custody hearing.”
“Visitation? I think you mean joint custody.”
“Over my dead body!”
Carmen Vega appeared beside them. “Your voices are rising,” she said pleasantly. “Phyllis is going to glare a hole through each of you if you don’t quiet down.”
Roger’s nostrils flared slightly. He was ready for battle now, but Nicole’s energy immediately flagged when she realized the potential scene they were creating. “Carmen is right. A funeral isn’t the time for this discussion.”
Roger gave her a searing look. “I agree, but don’t think I intend to crawl away and let you have Shelley all to yourself. She’s my daughter, too, and I am not going to give her up. Don’t forget your past emotional problems, Nicole, or the police investigation you underwent. I’ve got a ton of ammunition on my side, too, and don’t think I won’t use it.”
He strode away, heading for the front door. Nicole sucked in her breath, feeling as if he’d just kicked her in the abdomen.
“Creep,” Carmen muttered.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I ever thought I loved him, and I could just slap myself for getting in a fight with him.” Nicole ran a hand across her forehead. “If the pressure inside my skull gets much worse, my eyeballs are going to pop out.”
Carmen gently took her arm. “Come in the kitchen with me.”
Nicole glanced around the room. Phyllis was talking with a good-looking, dark-haired man Nicole didn’t know. Shelley sat in a corner, nibbling on a piece of cake.
In the kitchen, Carmen poured ice water in a glass. “Where does you mother keep the aspirin?”
“Cabinet to the right of the sink.”
In a moment Carmen handed her the glass and a bottle of white pills. “Sit down at the table. Take two of these and about five deep breaths.”
Nicole obeyed, sinking down at the table and swallowing the aspirin. Then she leaned her head forward onto her folded arms. “I didn’t need a confrontation with Roger on top of everything else.”
“He probably started it,” Carmen said, sitting down beside her. “He’s the most self-centered person I’ve ever met, Nicole.”
“He wasn’t always that way, Carmen. You never got a chance to know him well, but a few years ago he was very protective and considerate.”
“Well, he isn’t anymore. In a few months you’ll see that the end of this marriage is one of the best things that’s ever happened to you.”
“I already see it,” Nicole said wearily. “I’m not saying the whole thing isn’t upsetting and disruptive, but I know eventually I’ll be a much happier person because of the divorce. It’s Shelley I worry about.”
“Shelley is a strong little girl, just like her mother. She’ll be fine.”
Nicole smiled wanly. “Do you really think I’m strong?”
“I’ve known you since you were six.” Carmen grinned. “I’ll never forget the day we were on the playground and that terrible big bully José was pulling my braids. I was flailing around, helpless and squealing. The other kids were laughing. Then you marched up, at least two inches shorter and fifteen pounds lighter than José, and kicked him with all your might in the knee. He howled like a baby all the way back into the school building.”
“And I got detention for a week.”
“And the undying respect of everyone else in the first grade he’d bullied. Nearly twenty-eight years ago,” Carmen said, shaking her head slowly in amazement. “Sometimes I still feel like that little girl on the playground.”
“I don’t feel like that fiery-eyed little kid who rescued you. I feel like a rag doll who lost all her stuffing. Carmen, it’s so strange. I’m numb. I haven’t even cried over Dad. Not once.”
“You’re in shock. I was the same after my baby boy died. Be grateful. In a couple of days, you’ll feel awful.” Carmen’s long curly black hair had been brushed into an unnaturally smooth style. She ran her hands through it, shaking loose some of the curl. “What caused your face to turn chalk-white at the cemetery?”
Nicole wiped at a drop of water running down the side of her glass. “I saw a man and a dog standing on a slope watching the funeral.”
“I saw them, too.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It was that student of yours, Miguel something.”
“Miguel Perez? No, Carmen, it wasn’t.”
“Well, I only met him once at your Christmas party. Maybe not. Who did you think it was?”
“Carmen, did you really look at the man? Didn’t he remind you of someone?”
Carmen’s lovely tanned face grew bewildered. “I told you—Miguel.”
“No, Carmen, it looked like Paul.”
“Paul who?” Carmen’s eyes widened. “Paul Dominic?” Nicole nodded. “That’s impossible! He died in a car wreck fourteen years ago.”
“Did he? After the explosion there wasn’t enough of the body left to make a positive identification. They didn’t do DNA testing back then.”
Carmen couldn’t hide the astonishment in her eyes before her gaze dropped and she bit her full lower lip the way she did when she was troubled. Finally she said, “Nicole, the last few months have been so hard on you. First the move back to San Antonio with all its bad memories. I know you would never have come except to please Roger. Then he left you. And now your father…Well, you can’t be thinking too clearly right now.”
“You think I’m hallucinating?” Nicole asked, stung.
“No. I saw the man, too. I don’t remember Paul as vividly as you do, but the height, the slimness, the black hair…Under the circumstances, being so tired and overwhelmed, I might have thought the same thing for a moment if I were you.”
�
�But the way he was looking at me…”
“The way he was looking at you?” Carmen reached out and put her strong, long-fingered hand on Nicole’s. “He was so far away. How can you be sure of exactly how this man was looking at you?”
“But I am sure. His gaze was so intense…”
“Nicole, you’re a beautiful woman. Lots of men look at you intensely.”
“But I thought…I was almost sure…” Nicole trailed off, embarrassed, knowing how unbelievable her story sounded. And thinking back on the incident, she wasn’t certain why she’d believed the man in the cemetery was Paul Dominic just because he resembled him. Was it because she’d never been able to accept the death of a man she’d once worshiped just as she couldn’t accept her father’s?
“Are you all right?”
“I guess. Nerves, grief, shock. This hasn’t been one of my better weeks.” Anxious to change the subject, she asked, “Where are Bobby and Jill?”
“Bobby’s minding the store and waiting for Jill to come home from a friend’s birthday party.”
“I’m glad you didn’t make her come. I agree with Roger that funerals are no place for children, but Shelley couldn’t very well be absent from her grandfather’s, although I would have saved her the ordeal if I could.” Nicole glanced at her watch. “We’ve been in here fifteen minutes. Mother will be annoyed.”
“Your mother is always annoyed about something, so what difference does it make?” Carmen giggled. Nicole joined her, knowing no one but Carmen could have made her laugh even briefly today.
When they entered the living room, Phyllis turned her head away from Kay Holland, Clifton’s longtime assistant at the store, and shot a burning look at Nicole to let her know her prolonged absence had been noted. At the moment, Nicole didn’t care. Her eyes scanned the room. It was only half as full as when she’d gone to the kitchen. People obviously had no desire to linger and visit at this particular house.
“Are you feeling better, Mrs. Chandler?”
Nicole turned to see the dark-haired man her mother had been talking to earlier when Carmen led her off to the kitchen for aspirin.
“I’m feeling much better. Just a headache.”
He smiled easily. “A day like this could certainly give you one, although I have to congratulate you on the stamina you’ve shown. Both you and your mother, today at the funeral and Wednesday morning.”
Wednesday morning when Clifton Sloan had been found dead in his office. Nicole looked at him inquiringly. “You’ll have to forgive me. You look so familiar, but I can’t place where we’ve met.”
“I’m Raymond DeSoto. I was one of the detectives called to the scene of your father’s death.”
Nicole’s mind flashed pictures. A black-haired man wearing clear plastic gloves bending over her father’s body. His quick, nodding acknowledgment of her and her mother. His quiet instructions to uniformed officers and what she supposed were forensics people, and later the scalding look he’d thrown his older, black partner who questioned Phyllis and Nicole stridently.
“Detective—”
“Actually, it’s Sergeant.”
“Sergeant DeSoto, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You were very kind to my mother and me that day. I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I was so shaken that the whole scene seems like a kaleidoscope in my memory.”
“That’s understandable.”
Nicole noticed the strong lines of his square face, the large, warm dark eyes, the thickness of his black hair. She guessed him to be in his very early thirties and noticed he didn’t wear a wedding ring. Despite her quick appraisal, she was not looking at him as a potential romantic interest. She had always been observant. At one time the police had congratulated her for being such a good witness. Her mind veered from the dangerous memory.
“I thought the service was very dignified,” DeSoto was saying. “I did notice, though, that it wasn’t religious.”
“My father was reared a Catholic, but he stopped going to church many years ago. He claimed to be an agnostic.”
“Claimed?”
Nicole knew the question wasn’t as nonchalant as it sounded. DeSoto was interested in learning more about Clifton Sloan, but she answered anyway. “Every once in a while Dad said something that made me think he firmly believed in a supreme being, but maybe he was only echoing phrases he’d heard all his life, not expressing his true feelings.”
“I see,” DeSoto said offhandedly. “Well, I suppose in adulthood we all reexamine childhood beliefs and feelings, but I don’t know how often we really change, not deep down anyway. I’ve heard cold-blooded killers suddenly start begging for God or their mothers when they know there’s no way out for them.”
A tremor passed through Nicole, and he must have seen it. “Sorry again, Mrs. Chandler. Sometimes I think I’m only fit to talk to other cops.”
“It’s all right, really. I was just thinking about how easy it is for some people to kill.” She paused, then asked a trifle nervously, “Sergeant DeSoto, I don’t mean to make you feel unwelcome, but is there a reason you’re attending this funeral? I mean, you are convinced my father’s death was a suicide, aren’t you? Because I know…I mean I’ve read…that sometimes policemen come to the funerals of murder victims because they think the killer might be there. I believe the theory is that the killer likes to see all the grief he’s caused.”
DeSoto smiled reassuringly, showing even white teeth. “Yes, sometimes that’s true. But not in this case. I’m here because I used to have an interest in music. I visited your father’s store quite a few times. He was always very kind and patient with me, although it was obvious I had no talent and no money to buy any of the expensive instruments he handled.”
Nicole relaxed and smiled. “Dad cared more about a person’s passion for music than their actual talent,” she said, then abruptly pictured a dark-haired man with mesmerizing hazel eyes talking earnestly about her feeling for music, about how rapt her seven-year-old face had grown when she was trying to play “Down in the Valley” on a grand piano. “Would you like something to eat?” she said in a brisk, loud voice unlike her own. “More coffee? I see that you’ve finished yours.”
Sergeant DeSoto glanced at his empty cup, frowning slightly, obviously sensitive to her sudden change in mood. “I’ve had plenty of coffee, thank you. I think I should be on my way. I stayed longer than I meant to.”
From across the room Nicole caught Phyllis’s hard stare. She swiftly made her way to them. “I hope you two aren’t discussing details of dear Clifton’s death.” Her tone was sad but with a trace of steel underneath. “It’s all so morbid, you know, Sergeant DeSoto. I don’t like for Nicole to get more upset than she already is.”
Nicole resisted rolling her eyes. The idea that her mother’s prime concern at the moment was Nicole’s emotional state was nonsense. Phyllis was only worried that they were discussing the suicide. She seemed to believe that if they didn’t talk about the specifics of Clifton’s death, the cause would turn into a dignified heart attack.
“Your daughter was just offering me some more coffee,” Sergeant DeSoto said smoothly, “but I’m afraid I must get back to work.”
Phyllis smiled graciously. “We certainly understand. We also appreciate your attending die service. That was really above and beyond the call of duty. But then you knew my husband slightly, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, although I hadn’t seen him for years—”
“Oh, everyone is so busy these days,” Phyllis rattled on, steering him unobtrusively though expertly toward the front door. “Life used to be so much slower, more relaxed…”
Nicole hung back, listening to her mother. No doubt Phyllis had been deeply distressed to see the man at the funeral. She was afraid other people would know DeSoto was a policeman and his presence might stir up even more curiosity and discussion.
After everyone else had left, Carmen and Kay Holland stayed to help clear away the food. Nicole had always liked her father’s thin, b
irdlike assistant, Kay. She remembered her as a young, energetic woman with surprisingly dreamy violet eyes behind thick glasses. The woman had never married, seemingly content with her job, the piano lessons she gave part-time, and her cats. But when Nicole returned to San Antonio in August, she’d been amazed at how much Kay had aged since she’d seen her a year before. Kay couldn’t be more than in her late forties but she looked closer to sixty, her slenderness turned to boniness, her skin pale and waxy.
Kay insisted that Phyllis and Nicole relax on the couch while she and Carmen did most of the work. Within an hour all the food had been put away and Kay placed a slender book from the funeral home on the sideboard listing the dish, contents, and giver so Phyllis could write thank-you notes.
“Kay, you’re a gem,” Phyllis said with a genuine smile. “Clifton always depended on you so much. No wonder. You’re the most efficient person I know.”
Kay looked pleased in spite of the deep lines of sadness etched on her face. “Anything I can do to help, Mrs. Sloan. All you have to do is let me know.”
Phyllis stood. “Kay, dear, you’ve worked so hard you look absolutely exhausted. I want you go home and rest.”
“All right, Mrs. Sloan,” Kay said, flashing an entreating look at Nicole.
“After all, we can’t have you breaking down over this thing.”
Another meaningful look at Nicole from Kay. Suddenly Nicole realized Kay wanted a private word with her, although Phyllis was leading her relentlessly toward the door. Luckily, at that moment Shelley called for her grandmother from the kitchen.
“Mom, you go see what Shelley wants,” Nicole said quickly. “I’ll walk Kay to the door.”
Phyllis hesitated, clearly as surprised by her granddaughter’s calls as Nicole was, then she smiled ruefully. “I hope she hasn’t spilled something. Kay, I’ll speak with you soon, and thank you again.”
As soon as she’d left the room, Kay took Nicole’s arm in her thin, cold hands. “I wanted a moment alone with you.”
“What is it, Kay?”
“I’ve never had a chance to talk with you since your father’s…death.” She looked down, blinking back the tears welling in her eyes. “You know how very sorry I am.”
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