The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  Jack had been so taciturn that night, even more uncommunicative than usual. He was glad to have the Alice Parker investigation over with. The local police department would continue with the investigation into Rachel McGarrity's murder. He'd opened a beer, took a long drink and laid back his head, shutting his eyes.

  All Susanna could think about was how he'd react if she'd told him Beau McGarrity had been to their house. His work had never touched his family this way. Never. They were both accustomed to her being afraid for him. But not for herself, not for their daughters.

  She'd found herself unable to tell him what had happened. She didn't know what he'd do.

  Her own fear was irrational, visceral. Just pretend everything was okay and go to Boston with the girls, let the dust settle, clear her head…then tell him.

  Now Alice Parker was out of prison, and Susanna still hadn't told her husband what had happened on that hot,

  confused day over a year ago.

  But she loved him.

  Oh, God, she loved him.

  "Mom!" It was Ellen yelling. "Dad wants to talk to you!"

  Susanna dried her face and hands and slipped out of the bathroom. The girls were in the kitchen, and Ellen handed her the phone, whispering, "We told him about the cabin. We thought he knew."

  "He's pissed," Maggie added, more as a point of fact than a warning.

  Susanna nodded and ducked back into the halfbath. She wanted total privacy for this conversation. "A cabin in the Adirondacks," she said cheerfully. "Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"

  "When were you going to tell me?"

  There was nothing calm, professional or deliberate about him now. This was Jack Galway at his stoniest. "I don't know. I hadn't even thought about it." But that was an outright lie, and when she caught her reflection in the mirror, she saw the guilt. "I'm sorry. It was a spur of the moment thing, but I should have told you—"

  "Don't be sorry. I don't give a damn what you do."

  He hung up.

  Susanna stared at the dead phone. Then she hit redial. He let his voice mail take the call. She hit redial again. More voice mail. On her third redial, he picked up, but didn't speak. She did. "Damn it, Jack, did you hang up on me?"

  "Yes, and I'm going to hang up on you again."

  "And I'm going to keep calling you until you knock it off!"

  "That's harassment. I'll have you arrested, even up in Boston."

  No one could get under her skin the way he could. "Just try." She took a quick breath, decided not to fight fire with fire. This once, she could be reasonable. "I can see how you'd look at the cabin as a thumb in your eye, but that's not what I was thinking when I bought it. Truthfully, I wasn't thinking—it was like it was meant to be. I couldn't resist. It's in the most beautiful spot, right on Blackwater Lake. Gran grew up there. You'll have to see it."

  "Why?"

  "Why?" she repeated dumbly. The man drove her mad. He knew the worst, most awkward, most difficult and probing questions to ask her. But he was a trained interrogator. He could get people to confess to murder, never mind to why they'd bought a cabin in the Adirondacks.

  "Yes. Why do I have to see it?"

  "I don't know—it makes sense. You're my husband."

  "It's an open invitation?"

  She licked her lips. He had her off-balance, and he knew it. "I suppose so. Sure."

  "You know what Sam says, don't you?" His voice lowered, deepened. "He says I should go up there, cuff you and haul you back to Texas."

  Susanna nearly dropped the damn phone in the sink.

  "I knew that'd leave you speechless," her husband said. "Good night, darlin'. Enjoy your cabin."

  He hung up on her again.

  This time, she didn't call him back.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Gran was back, heating up a quart of Jim Haviland's famous clam chowder on the stove. The girls were setting the table. It was a comfortable scene, three generations of women in Gran's simple, clean kitchen with its tall ceilings, old painted cabinets and framed samplers from her cross-stitch craze fifteen years ago. Even at eighty-two, Iris Dunning retained her tall, graceful build. Susanna could picture her grandmother as an Adirondack guide in her youth. People assumed she was a widow when she moved to Boston, but that wasn't true. She'd never married. Now she was in her sunset years, her hair white and wispy, her skin translucent and wrinkled. But her mind was sharp, and she stayed active and socially engaged— she was taking tai chi at her senior center. Before her granddaughter and great-granddaughters had moved in, she'd rented rooms in the house to university students to supplement her income and give her company.

  Susanna sank onto a chair at the table. Her knees were wobbly from her talk with her husband.

  Gran glanced back at her from the stove. "Jimmy Haviland says you're avoiding him."

  "I've been busy," Susanna said. But that wasn't entirely true. Busy, yes, but the last two times she'd stopped at Jim's Place, its opinionated owner had asked her if she'd told Jack about her stalker. He would keep asking her until she said yes. He wouldn't squeal to Gran. That wasn't Jim Haviland's style. He might to Jack, though.

  Ellen set a sturdy white bowl in front of her. "Mom, we're sorry we told Dad about the cabin—"

  "No, no, that's not your fault. I was going to tell him. It just slipped my mind."

  Maggie shot her mother a dubious frown, but said nothing. Ellen sighed. "We tried to talk to him while we were home. We told him he should try to be more romantic."

  "Romantic? Your father?" Susanna smiled, shaking her head with affection for her two clueless daughters. "He just threatened to handcuff me and drag me back to Texas."

  Gran set the steaming soup tourine of chowder in the middle of the table. "I don't know," she said, a mischievous gleam in her very green eyes. "I think it's a start."

  Four

  After thirty years of running a neighborhood pub, Jim Haviland considered himself a good judge of character. It came down to experience and survival—they'd honed his instincts about people. Still, he had to admit that the woman at the bar had him stumped. He guessed she was in her late twenties. Slightly built, short, curly, dyed red hair and pale skin, almost pasty looking. She wore a lot of makeup and about a half ton of gold jewelry. Dangling earrings, rings on both hands, bracelets, a thin gold necklace with a tiny heart pendant and a thicker chain necklace. He wouldn't want all that metal on him in a nor'easter. But the snow had finally stopped, and the cleanup was in full force. The plow guys would be showing up later for the beef stew special.

  The woman's clothes made her stick out in this neighborhood, too. She had on a close-fitting baby blue ribbed V-neck sweater, tight western-cut jeans and leather boots that would land her on her ass on an icy sidewalk. She played up her femininity, but there was a hardness to her, a toughness that Jim couldn't reconcile with the jewelry, the clothes, the painted nails. He wouldn't be surprised if she had a .22 strapped to her ankle.

  After making sure he didn't use a mix, she'd ordered a margarita. Her accent wasn't local, but Jim was no good at placing accents outside of New England. He drew a couple of drafts for two firefighters who'd come in, complaining about the hazards of space heaters and overtaxed extension cords. Davey Ahearn, on his stool at the end of the bar, was listening in, nursing a beer and keeping an eye on the woman with the makeup and the margarita.

  "New in town?" Jim asked her.

  "Two days. It's that easy to tell?"

  "With that accent?" Jim smiled at her. "Where you from?"

  "Texas. A little bitty town outside Houston."

  "Hope you brought a good winter coat with you."

  She gestured toward the coat rack next to the door, gold bangles sliding down her slender wrist. "No, sir, but I bought one on sale this morning. They said it's a basic parka. I never knew there was anything but. I bought a winter hat and gloves, too. I think mittens would drive me batty." She raised her gray eyes at him. "I'm holding off on the long underwear."

  S
he had an engaging manner, whoever she was. "That's one thing about owning a bar," Jim said. "I can get through a Boston winter without long underwear. You'll like it here in the spring. Are you planning to stick around that long?"

  "I'm hoping to relocate here, but have you checked out the rents lately? Whoa. They're sky-high." She sipped more of her margarita, looking as if she relished every drop. "I don't know why you put up with it. Aren't you the folks who dumped the tea in the harbor?"

  "That we are. You have a job lined up?" "More or less, yes, sir." "What's your name?" "Audrey," she said. "Audrey Melbourne." Jim studied her a moment, noticing she didn't flinch

  under his frank scrutiny. Definitely a tough streak.

  "What are you running from, Audrey Melbourne?" She shrugged. "What do any of us run from?" "The law and husbands," Jim said. Davey Ahearn

  glanced down the bar, not saying a word, but Jim knew his friend's suspicions were on full alert.

  "No, sir, I don't believe that's the case at all." Audrey Melbourne slid off her stool, looking even smaller. "Mostly we run from ourselves."

  She walked over to the coatrack and put on her new parka, hat and gloves as if they might have been a space suit. She left without looking back.

  Davey breathed out a long sigh. "Sure. I hope she comes back real soon. That pretty little number is trouble." One of the firefighters snorted. "All women are trouble."

  Two female Tufts graduate students took exception to this comment, and the argument was on. Jim didn't intervene. The Bruins and the Celtics were having a lousy year, the Patriots hadn't made the playoffs, and pitchers and catchers didn't report for weeks yet. People needed something to do. Maybe he needed to wonder about a redheaded Texan coming into his bar. It happened now and again, a stranger popping in for a drink. He doubted Audrey Melbourne would be back.

  * * *

  An icy gust bit at Alice Parker's face as she climbed over a blackened, frozen, eighteen-inch snowbank to get to her car. The Texas tags were a dead giveaway, but what the hell—so was her Texas accent. She'd arrived in Boston in the middle of a damn blizzard, and now it was so cold her cheeks ached and her eyeballs felt as if they were frozen in their sockets. Her chest hurt from breathing in the dry, frigid air.

  "I should have bought the damn Everest parka," she muttered, picking her way over an ice patch. Even sanded, it was slippery. She supposed she'd need new boots if she ended up staying more than a few days. Damned if she'd move up here on a permanent basis. She'd rather sit in prison.

  She did not understand why Susanna Galway was living here on an old, crowded street in a working-class neighborhood, with the salt and sand and soot making everything even uglier. She had a nice house in San Antonio. A Texas Ranger husband. What the hell was wrong with her?

  Alice tried fishing her keys out of her pocket with a gloved hand, decided that wouldn't work and peeled off the glove. Winter was complicated. She couldn't believe she'd driven a couple thousand miles in her crappy car to track down Susanna, just so Beau could think she still had the tape. Not that he was biting— he kept telling her she could go to hell and threatening to turn her in for blackmail and extortion. She was calling his bluff. He'd pay her to steal the tape and hush up about it. She knew he would. Things worked on his nerves. He was paranoid and dramatic. She'd made that one little remark about Rachel smothering him in his sleep, and less than a day later, her friend was dead.

  Alice was confident he'd come around. He deserved to pay for something.

  Of course, he could decide to shoot her in the back and go after the tape himself, but that was extreme. Even Beau couldn't think he'd get away with two murders. He'd let her do his dirty work for him. And pay her.

  If he did end up shooting her, Jack Galway and Sam Temple could catch him. At least he'd go to prison for her murder, if not Rachel's.

  An old woman pushed open the porch door to the stucco house just up the street. She had on pants stuffed into fur-trimmed ankle boots, a dark wool car coat, a red scarf, a red knit hat and red knit gloves.

  It had to be Iris Dunning. Susanna's grandmother.

  Alice had found out from Beau that Susanna Galway was living up north with her daughters and grandmother. He'd obviously expected this information would make Alice give up on her plan. She'd thought about it. It was kind of nuts, traveling two thousand miles, taking the risk of breaking into Susanna's house to steal something that wasn't there.

  But what else was she supposed to do? She had the tape. Beau would not be pleased if he found out she'd had it all along—for one, he'd never pay her the fifty grand. For another, he'd probably shoot her. He was balking as it was. If this was going to work, Alice knew she had to go through the motions.

  She climbed back over the snowbank. "Mrs. Dunning?" Alice stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, not wanting to slip. "Excuse me, ma'am, I didn't mean to startle you. My name's Audrey Melbourne—I'm new in town. Someone mentioned you might have a room for rent." No one had, but Alice decided it was a good way to launch a conversation.

  The old woman's clear green eyes cinched it for Alice. They were just like Susanna's. She had to be Iris Dunning. "I'm sorry, I'm not renting rooms at the moment. Are you a student?"

  Alice shook her head. "No, I'm in the process of moving to Boston. This seems like a nice neighborhood."

  "It is," Iris said. "I've lived here for years and have never been robbed."

  That would probably change, Alice thought, if she had to stage a robbery to convince Beau she'd gotten the tape off Susanna. "Well, ma'am, I don't want to keep you out in the cold—"

  "Have you had supper yet? Jimmy Haviland makes good, hearty food. His clam chowder's the best in the city, but tonight's not chowder night."

  Alice hated even the thought of clams. They had to be slimy. "I know—I was just in there. I think he's serving beef stew tonight."

  "Come on, then, I'll buy you a bowl." Iris Dunning seemed ready to take Alice by the arm and walk her into the pub. "I was new in town and all alone once. My granddaughter and daughters are out for the evening. I'd

  like the company."

  "Ma'am, I don't want to impose—"

  "You're not imposing, and you can stop calling me 'ma'am.' Iris will be fine."

  Alice was taken aback. No wonder Susanna had ended up here—her grandmother was a good soul who'd take in anyone. "I'd love a bowl of stew, Iris, but I'll pay my way."

  They entered the bar together, and Alice immediately noticed the obvious suspicion of the owner and his friend with the handlebar mustache. If Iris noticed, she didn't care. She headed to a back table. Alice smiled self-consciously at the two men, who continued to frown at her. Well, that was a good sign. At least Iris Dunning had people who looked after her. She was the sort of person people could easily take advantage of.

  "Now, Jimmy," she said when the owner came over to take their order, "don't start lecturing me about strangers. I can have stew with anyone I want. Miss Melbourne is new in town."

  "Audrey," Alice corrected with a smile.

  "I'd never lecture you, Iris," Jimmy said. "What are you drinking with your stew?"

  "I think I'll have merlot tonight. I haven't had wine in ages. Alice, what about you?"

  "Oh, no, ma'am, I don't drink. I'll just have a Coke."

  "And don't skimp on the beef when you dip up my stew, Jimmy. I had a low-fat lunch."

  He still didn't seem too happy.

  Iris sighed at him, her green eyes vibrant. "Jimmy, I know about women on their own. They're either widowed, divorced, broke, on the run or ex-cons." She turned her bright gaze to her new friend. "Am I right, Audrey?"

  Alice laughed. "One or more of the above."

  "There. I knew it. I guess that's better than 'all of the above.'"

  * * *

  Tess Haviland sank into the soft leather couch that Susanna had bought when Tess had moved out of their shared office space the summer before. She still had the remnants of her tan from her holiday in Disney World with And
rew Thorne, her architect husband, and seven-year-old Dolly. Harley Beckett, Dolly's reclusive babysitter, had stayed home and worked on Tess's nineteenth-century carriage house. She took possession of it last May and promptly found a skeleton in the cel-lar—something that hadn't sat well with Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. Not that Susanna had told him about her involvement. The girls had let it slip. She remembered his call. "You and Tess Haviland crawled around in a dirt cellar looking for a body?"

  "We didn't find it."

  Small consolation.

  Tess's move to the North Shore, her marriage and new family seemed to agree with her. Her blond hair was longer these days, her dedication to her graphic design work still high but not as all-consuming. She'd hired an assistant. She had balance in her life. She also had strong opinions, which made her more like her pub-owner father and plumber godfather than she would ever admit to.

  She'd brought her own latte, Susanna's coffeemaking abilities the only source of conflict between them. She had on her business-in-the-city clothes. "I like the leather," she said, sweeping a critical glance over the conversation area Susanna had set up in Tess's vacated half of the office. A contemporary leather couch and chairs, an antique coffee table and three orchids painstakingly chosen for their forgiving natures. Tess smoothed one hand over the soft leather. "I didn't think I would. I really wanted you to go with a Texas theme. At least it's not stuffy."

  Given that her office was on the fourth floor of a late nineteenth-century building overlooking Boston's oldest cemetery, Susanna had rejected a Texas theme. She hadn't bothered to confront her friend on her ideas of what a Texas theme would entail—all spurs and Lone Stars, probably.

  "Susanna, do you mind if I speak frankly?"

  Susanna sat on one of the chairs, the sky outside her tall windows gray and gloomy. She'd worked at her computer most of the day. She smiled at Tess. "Since when would it make any difference if I minded?"

  Tess didn't return her smile. "Your computer's dusty," she said.