Black Widow

by Breton, Laurie

  Kathryn’s mouth narrowed into a grim line. “The conviction was overturned,” she said.

  “And the Yankees won the Civil War. But you couldn’t prove it by anybody around these parts.”

  Of their own accord, Kathryn’s fists clenched. “I spent four years rotting away in that concrete tomb, while the monster who killed Michael walked away a free man. I’m going to find him, and he’s going to fry for what he did.”

  Raelynn pursed her lips and said nothing. After Kathryn’s conviction, it had taken four grueling years of appeals before they got the break they needed in the form of an elderly widow named Clara Hughes, who had seen Kathryn jog past her home on Old County Road at the precise time that Michael McAllister, mortally wounded, had made his ill-fated call to 9-1-1. Clara’s razor-sharp memory was corroborated by the journal she kept, in which she chronicled the daily activities of a large segment of the population of Elba.

  Armed with this new evidence, Raelynn had returned to court. One steamy June morning, a week before the court date, a second miracle occurred: old Judge Harper, affectionately known in some circles as the hanging judge, and declared by his detractors to be too ornery to die, keeled over right there on the bench, smack in the middle of a rape trial. Three days later, Judge Harper was buried with the pomp and circumstance that befitted a man of his stature, and a new judge was assigned to overhear Kathryn’s case.

  Judge Graves took a week to mull over the evidence, but in the end, he ruled in their favor, declaring that the old lady’s testimony was sufficient to establish reasonable doubt. The conviction was overturned, and Kathryn became a free woman. One who had been tried and found guilty in the eyes of the upright and outraged citizens of Elba, North Carolina, who weren’t gullible enough to believe an overturned conviction meant a tinker’s damn. Kathryn McAllister would be watched and feared, talked about and despised, for the rest of her life. Or until the real killer was unmasked.

  “Listen,” Raelynn said, her normally buoyant voice uncharacteristically somber, “whoever killed Michael wasn’t fooling around. What if he comes after you? If you end up dead, sugar, all my hard work will be for nothing.”

  Kathryn’s tension slowly dissipated, and her heart rate returned to normal. Raelynn was a dear friend, and she was genuinely concerned. Bitterly, Kathryn said, “I’m not quite the innocent I was four years ago. Prison has a way of doing that to you. I can take care of myself.”

  “Honey,” Raelynn said, “I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

  They reached the outskirts of Elba, and Kathryn intently studied the sleepy little town, pondering the secrets it held and making mental note of the changes that had taken place since she’d seen it last. Rollie’s Auto Emporium and Repair Shop had disappeared, and a sleek, modern convenience store had sprung up in its place. Two kids sat on the curb drinking Slush Puppies and wiggling their toes in the dust. Next door, in front of Carlyle’s Barber Shop, an ugly yellow dog lazed in the shade of Hobie Carlyle’s green-striped awning. The municipal building, circa 1880, was built from burnished red brick with freshly-painted white wooden trim. Oblong planters brimming with red geraniums lined the walkway, and parked out front, nose in to the curb, sat Elba’s two police cruisers.

  Somewhere in this picture-postcard town, she would find the answers she sought. Somehow, she would uncover the secret to Michael’s murder.

  A shiver skittered down her spine and she quickly turned away. Across the street, in the parking lot of the Dixie Market, her mother-in-law was climbing out of a new bottle-green Cadillac. The last time she’d seen Michael’s mother had been at the trial. Neely McAllister had sat directly behind the prosecution table, dressed in a beige silk dress and her grandmomma’s pearls, weeping copiously into a lace hanky.

  Neely had never liked Kathryn, had never approved of Michael’s marriage to the slender Yankee upstart who was absolutely nobody. As she was fond of telling anybody who’d sit still long enough to listen, Kathryn hadn’t even had the common decency to come to Elba and meet Michael’s family before dragging him off to get married in some stranger’s living room. Neely might have been able to forgive Kathryn for her common beginnings. She might have been able to forgive her for any number of inadequacies. But she had never forgiven her daughter-in-law for depriving her of the chance to attend the wedding of her only son.

  Halfway across the parking lot, Neely looked up and saw her. The older woman stiffened as she recognized her daughter-in-law. Chin thrust high, she deliberately turned her back on Kathryn and stormed toward the entrance of the market.

  Kathryn squared her jaw and focused her gaze directly ahead of her. She couldn’t fathom why she always allowed Neely McAllister to get to her. The woman simply had a way about her, like an itching powder that burrowed just beneath the top layer of skin and refused to budge.

  Raelynn crossed the railroad tracks and turned down a side street, pulling up in front of a modest white frame house. It was set back from the street behind a tidy lawn, and shaded on one side by a tall oak tree draped with Spanish moss. “Here we are,” she said. “Welcome home.”

  Kathryn followed her into the house. It was small, but homey, and after four years in a cell, she found it more than adequate for her needs. Abundant sunlight poured in on the hardwood floors. There was plenty of fresh air, plenty of space, a half-dozen window sills where she could grow her beloved African violets. “This is perfect,” she told her friend. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Raelynn blew it off with a wave of her slender hand. “Since Momma died, nobody’s been using the place anyway. You need a place to stay, and the house…” She paused to run a finger along the fireplace mantel. “The house,” she continued, “needs somebody to love it.”

  “I’ll pay you back,” Kathryn vowed. “Every penny I owe you.”

  Raelynn patted her arm. “I know you will, darlin’. Hell, it’s only a few thousand dollars. Just enough to keep you going until you can get back on your feet. I want you to think of all this as a temporary setback. Your life’ll get better soon enough, it’s just going to take some time.” Her face softened. “You’re strong, Kat. I don’t think you know how strong. If I’d gone through what you have, I’m not sure I would’ve made it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We all do what we have to do to survive.”

  Raelynn dimpled. “Listen, sugar, there’s food in the fridge and fresh linens on the bed. I have a client coming in at three, so I have to scoot. Think you’ll be okay on your own?”

  Freedom. Glorious, blessed freedom. After four years of being told when to get up, when to go to bed, when to go to the bathroom, she wasn’t sure she remembered how to handle being in charge of her own life. But after all she’d survived, she was certain she could relearn the art of independence. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just as soon as I figure out where to start.”

  Raelynn eyed her tee shirt and jeans, and grimaced. “Well, sugar,” she said, “far be it from me to tell you what to do. But if I were you, I’d start with some new clothes.”

  Police Chief Nicholas DiSalvo sat in his swivel chair, feet up on his desk, doing his best to perform his sworn duty to protect the good citizens of Elba, North Carolina, by tearing sheets of paper off a legal pad, crumpling them up, and free-throwing them into his office wastebasket.

  He’d seen Michael Jordan play once, when the Bulls went up against the Knicks at the Garden. Now, that was something truly beautiful: Jordan and Ewing, head to head. He paused a moment to savor the memory before he wadded up another sheet, aimed, and sank it with deadly accuracy.

  Outside, on the street, traffic moved lazily. Inside the municipal building, with its twelve-foot ceilings built long before the days of central air-conditioning, the clock ticked indolently in the sultry heat. Crime in Elba, North Carolina, population 2,703, ran primarily to barking dogs and kids shoplifting Jujubes at the Bijou. Hardly worth writing home about. But for a man who had nothing left to live for, Elba was as good a
place as any to bury himself.

  He crumpled another sheet of paper, took aim, and raised his arm. From the open doorway, Rowena Hathaway pointedly cleared her throat. The sound did double duty, serving as both salutation and criticism, for there was no love lost between Chief DiSalvo and the secretary he’d inherited from his predecessor. Rowena had made it abundantly clear, when Shep Henley retired and Nick took over the job of Chief, just where her loyalties lay.

  With a sigh of regret, he lowered his arm and swiveled around in his chair. “Rowena, my sweet,” he said with a wolfish grin. “What can I do for you this fine morning?”

  She refused to rise to the bait. Sternly, she said, “There’s somebody here to see you. I swear, I never thought the day would come when I’d see the likes of that woman here at city hall. Leastways, not on this side of a cell door.”

  His curiosity was piqued. Score one for his visitor. If Rowena didn’t like her, she had to be doing something right. “By all means,” he said, “send her in.”

  With a sniff of disdain, she turned and stalked away, her spike heels tap-tapping in the cavernous corridor. He heard the murmur of voices, Rowena’s scorn obvious even though her words were indecipherable. Footsteps approached his door, and a young woman paused at the threshold.

  She wore a short-sleeved white blouse over a splashy flowered cotton skirt and white high-heeled sandals. Beneath the clothing, she had the long, lean body of a runner. Spectacular legs, he noted, before his eyes moved northward past a slender waist and softly rounded breasts to the blonde hair she’d pulled back into some kind of convoluted affair. The hairdo was obviously intended to play down her looks, but in reality, it had just the opposite effect.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” she said in a soft voice that carried the broadened vowels of New England. Massachusetts, he thought, or maybe New Hampshire. “I’m Kathryn McAllister.”

  She paused, as though expecting that the name would have meaning for him. Nick quickly ran through his mental files, but drew a blank. “Nick DiSalvo,” he said, standing to shake her hand. He indicated the chair opposite his desk. “Have a seat.”

  Reclaiming his own chair, he leaned back, propped his feet on the desk drawer that refused to close, and folded his arms across his middle. “So, Ms. McAllister,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

  He knew the instant she recognized Brooklyn in his voice. In this Southern paradise, he’d grown accustomed to heads swiveling the minute he opened his mouth. Her chin snapped up and her eyes narrowed, holding his in a lengthy stare. They were blue, those eyes, a cool, distant blue, like the Hudson River on an overcast winter day. “You’re from New York,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Damn accent gives me away every time.”

  Still looking at him, she said, “I’m here about a murder.”

  After sixteen years as a cop, he’d become adept at hiding his feelings. Nick dropped his feet to the floor, straightened his spine, and wheeled his chair closer to the desk. In a deliberately neutral voice, he said, “A murder.”

  “My husband’s murder. Michael McAllister.”

  The name clicked, and it all fell into place. After four years, the locals still talked about the biggest scandal in the town’s history. A rising young architect, the son of one of Elba’s most prominent families, brutally stabbed to death in his own home by his pretty young wife. Nick picked up a pen and began idly tapping it against a pile of papers atop his desk. “I thought there’d been a conviction in that case,” he said, and met those cool blue eyes head-on. “His wife.”

  She gripped the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles went white. “Last week,” she said, “the conviction was overturned.”

  He kept his expression politely professional. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

  She leaned forward, determination etched in every line of her body. “I spent four years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit,” she said. “I lost everything, Mr. DiSalvo. My husband, my freedom, my reputation, my self-respect. And the person who stole my life from me is still walking around free. One way or another, I intend to see that he pays.”

  “I see.” He didn’t see, but he was willing to play along for a while until he figured out what she was really after. “And how do I fit into that scenario?”

  She recrossed her legs, demurely smoothed the flowered skirt over her knees. “I want you to reopen the investigation,” she said.

  He dropped the pen and leaned back in his chair. “I can’t do that,” he said.

  The fire in those blue eyes banked itself and cooled. “I see,” she said, and stood up. “Well, I certainly do want to thank you for your time, Chief DiSalvo. I’m so sorry to have troubled you.” She glanced around the office and set her lips in a thin line. “I can see what a busy man you are.”

  “Ms. McAllister. Sit back down, and listen to me. You have to know that the case isn’t in my hands anymore. And even if we were in a position to reopen a four-year-old homicide investigation, I can’t spare the manpower to waste time looking behind every bush and under every rock when the only suspect in the case is standing right in front of me.”

  The mask dropped, for just a moment, allowing him a glimpse of the fury behind it. “I didn’t do it!”

  “And you’re walking free right now. Why don’t you just count your blessings and go on back to New Hampshire or wherever it is you come from, find yourself some nice guy, and start making babies?”

  “Somebody killed my husband,” she said bitterly. “Do you understand that? We’d just bought our dream home. Michael’s career was finally taking off. In another year or two, we were going to start a family. And now that’s gone. All of it, just like it never existed. Do you have any inkling of how I feel?”

  He picked the pen back up and slapped it against his open palm. Cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t help you.”

  “Fine,” she said. “But remember one thing. With or without your help, I’ll find this monster, and I’ll put him away.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Now I’d like you to remember one thing. If, in the process of putting him away, you step an inch beyond the line of the law, I’ll nail your ass. Capisce?”

  Rowena’s disdain was nothing compared to the contempt he saw on Kathryn McAllister’s face. “Goodbye, Chief DiSalvo,” she said. “Don’t bother to get up. I know where the door is.”

  After she was gone, he leaned back in his chair and pondered the situation. The chances that she was innocent were slim to none. The D.A. couldn’t have convicted without substantial evidence. So why the hell was she back out on the street? No judge would overturn a murder conviction without a damn good reason.

  In the flowered skirt and the virginal white blouse, Kathryn McAllister looked soft and feminine, but beneath the surface, she was one tough lady. Still, Nick knew enough about pain to recognize it when he saw it. The lady was hurting. But did that pain come from grief or remorse? It was hard to say.

  Idle curiosity. That was all he was feeling. Since he had nothing better to do, he wandered out to the front desk, where Rowena was busily knitting a crib blanket for her newest grandchild, due in September. The needles raced, clicking softly as the monstrosity in her lap doubled in size almost daily. He paused by her desk, and she shoved harlequin glasses, the height of fashion back in 1962, up her bony nose. “Yes?” she said, as though he were interrupting something of vital importance.

  He jingled a fistful of change in his pocket. Casually, he said, “I’d like you to pull the file on the McAllister homicide.”

  Rowena’s mouth fell open, and Nick continued on down the hall to the soda machine. He dropped in three quarters and made his selection. He’d lived for thirty-five years without tasting RC Cola, but after just four months in Elba, he was hooked. He returned with the can of RC, already beading up with condensation. “Jesus,” he said, “it’s hotter than a bastard in here.” He popped the top on the RC and added, “Where�
�s the file?”

  Rowena’s eyebrows drew together in disapproval at his flagrant abuse of the Lord’s name. One more thing she’d made abundantly clear. “It’s not there,” she said.

  He paused with the can of RC halfway to his mouth. “What?” he said.

  “The McAllister file. It’s not in the drawer.”

  He lowered the can. “Well, where is it?”

  She looked at him as though he were a very small, very stupid child. “If I knew where it was,” she said, “we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation, now, would we?”

  If she’d been an officer, he would have been tempted to charge her with insubordination. “You’re sure it’s not there?” he said. “It’s not misfiled or something?”

  The knitting needles paused mid-click. “Chief DiSalvo,” she said, her voice cold enough to induce frostbite, “I’ve been workin’ here for thirty-two years, and I have yet to misfile anything. If it’s not there, it’s because somebody took it out of the drawer and didn’t return it.”

  “But there was a file— I mean, this department did conduct an investigation into the McAllister homicide, correct?”

  “There most certainly was,” she said. “Chief Henley himself headed the investigation.” She pursed her lips. “It was a terrible thing. A handsome young man like that, cut down in his prime. His Momma and I attend the same church, you know. First Baptist, down on Wabash Street.” Lips still pursed, she resumed her knitting. “Poor Neely just went to pieces when Michael died. He was her only child, you know. She hemorrhaged when he was born, and they had to take out half her insides. She couldn’t have any more babies.”

  Nick closed his eyes at the vivid picture her words evoked. “Thank you,” he said, and retreated to the safety of his office.

  He sat at his desk for a while, idly rotating the can of RC in his hands while he reminded himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t get involved. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Kathryn McAllister. He’d come to Elba four months ago to bury himself in a place where life was sluggish, a place where there’d be no life-and-death decisions to make, a place where he could pretend he’d been born the day he drove into town. He’d been doing a damn good job of fooling himself until Kathryn McAllister walked through his door.