Loving Constance

by Lyn Cote

  Connie stiffened her spine. I can’t sit here and wallow. I’ve got to do something. But what?

  O’Neill’s angular face came to mind again. She’d hated hearing Annie telling him very personal facts about Troy. Connie knew in her head that this was the way it was done. But her heart objected to having a stranger dipping his hands into Troy and Annie’s life. Still, O’Neill was involved in their lives now. And he had been kind.

  She glanced at the clock. Only an hour before lunch break. After going over the fire marshal’s report again, she could stop by the police department to check on some facts about her case and then drop in on O’Neill. It might be a transparent ploy, but it’s all I can come up with now.

  Seeing Connie striding toward his windowed office at the police department didn’t surprise Rand. In that first interview with Annie Nielsen early on Saturday morning, he’d noted Connie’s take-charge personality. Ms. Constance Oberlin didn’t take things lying down.

  So her appearance here on Monday morning right before lunch didn’t throw him. What startled him, however, was his marked physical reaction to seeing her. Some switch inside him had been flipped and a restless energy surged through him.

  He rose to meet her. “Ms. Oberlin.”

  She gave him a barely polite smile. “You remembered my name.”

  I remembered more than that. He pictured her as she moved quietly around the Nielsen kitchen Friday night—unassuming but a magnet to him. This admission cost him. This attractive brunette came in a very stylish package—nice enough to gain even his attention. But did her charm, her quality, go all the way through or was it just skin-deep?

  “Your name’s in my report, Ms. Oberlin,” he said in a casual tone. “If I type something down, I usually remember it. Please sit down.” Why are you here? Is there something you think I need to know but couldn’t say in front of the missing man’s family? “Do you have any information for me?”

  She sat on the edge of the chair. “Please call me Connie,” she reminded him. “I was hoping you would have something for me.”

  “You believe in instant results like on TV? Crime solved in less than an hour?” Rand didn’t attempt to curb the sarcasm in his voice.

  “No.” She squirmed, trying to make herself comfortable? Or trying to avoid his eyes? “It’s just… Troy’s missing. He may be in danger or lying somewhere hurt.” Her carefully controlled voice quivered on “danger.” Natural or a ploy to grab his sympathy?

  She spoke innocent, seemingly sincere words. He was sorry for her. But he steeled himself to it.

  The reality was that violence or crime had entered her existence and that was unchangeable. No matter what had happened to her friend, what he uncovered about Nielsen, once cruelty entered a life, things were never the same—ever.

  “I think,” Connie went on, heedless, “in such a case, I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I were content to let the matter slide, do you?”

  “The matter isn’t sliding.” He tried not to take offense. I’m looking for him. Whether it looks like it to you or not. Missing persons cases were the ones he worked on the hardest. Always. But she didn’t need to know why. And he didn’t need to tell her.

  He leaned toward her. Catching a hint of her spicy scent, he tightened his control over himself. She’s involved in the case. She’s a source. Ignore everything else. “I’m following the evidence, it’s just not leading me to Troy Nielsen at the moment.”

  “Any more news about the blood on the seat?” Her gaze didn’t leave his face.

  Sizing me up, Miss Oberlin? That works both ways. From years of experience, he made himself sound matter-of-fact. “Lou Rossi said Troy had injured himself that day, nothing serious. So that may explain why it was there.” He felt her penetrating gaze. “But I’ve sent a blood sample to the lab to have a DNA test done to it, so we can be sure its his blood.” What was it about this woman that challenged him, riled him? “But those tests aren’t done in a moment.”

  He rested his shoulders back against the chair. “The blood did test out as the same blood type as Nielsen and it didn’t appear to be the result of an attack. At least, not an attack that took place inside the truck. The blood was just a small smear, no spatter pattern or anything.”

  He went on, “The forest preserve was searched exhaustively. We’re still on alert for Nielsen, as is the Chicago P.D. There’s been no ransom note and no reason for Nielsen to be a target of kidnapping. Believe me, if there was the slightest evidence of foul play, we’d pursue it to the end. But there isn’t any. None.”

  She nodded, biting her lower lip.

  Have you got some details you’ve withheld out of concern for your friends’ privacy? Maybe this conversation could lead somewhere with a little gentle, astute prompting. He lowered his voice. “You said you are a longtime friend of the Nielsens?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at the wall clock. “How about a sandwich? My treat?”

  She looked surprised at his switching gears. Lunch together would get them in a different, less intimidating setting. And he’d found long ago that people talked more freely to him if they were in a more casual setting and eating food paid for by him.

  “Well…” she stalled.

  “We’re both busy people and we both have to eat. Let’s go across the street to the deli.” He stood up, forcing her to come to a decision.

  Her lips a straight line, she rose. “All right.”

  He ushered her out of his office and through the department out into bright summer sunshine.

  Rand noted with a wry twist the envious glances other officers cast him as they took in the woman beside him. With her glossy hair and stylish outfit, Connie Oberlin was appealing, but more than that, she projected a persona of competence and sophistication that was palpable. Maybe that accounted for his continued response to her. Some women just commanded a reaction.

  But he knew how to handle people involved in cases, how to get what he needed from this woman. If she had it.

  Jim’s Deli, rich with the aromas of garlic and onion, was already busy with people lined up at the counter. Connie made her choice, Rand gave their order—two pastrami sandwiches on rye with the works. They poured their own drinks at the fountain and then he led Connie over to a booth.

  “I’ll have to remember this place.” She glanced around. “It smells delicious in here.”

  Again, he noticed that the woman across from him was one of the most physically beautiful, certainly the best-dressed, women in the deli. Did she use clothing as armor? As a way of keeping others like him at bay? “You’ll love the pastrami. In my opinion, the best in the Chicago area.”

  “High praise. I look forward to it. Now what did you bring me here to find out?” She took them back to their reason for being here together.

  “I need to get,” he chose his words with care, “a feeling about the relationship between the husband and wife. Can you tell me about them—not in way it would appear in a police report? Do you know what I mean?”

  She avoided his eyes.

  “I’m not asking you to divulge anything you’ve been told in confidence,” he assured her. “I just need to get more information than people are usually willing to say around a stranger.”

  Her eyes lifted. They were a rich brown and very earnest, almost grave. “I wouldn’t tell you,” she said with a trace of grit, “anything I’d heard in confidence.”

  “I don’t think you would,” he said. This appeared to appease her. He admitted grudgingly to himself that this woman with her steady gaze would speak the truth. This one doesn’t flinch.

  She drew in a long breath and began. “We all grew up in the same neighborhood. Troy and I were in the same class. We dated in our freshman and sophomore years in high school but broke up.” She looked at him and a smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “We were more like friends than sweethearts anyway. Then a very pretty redhead moved into our neighborhood.” She grinned, though with a bittersweet expression on he
r face. “Troy dated her for a while, not long. I think Annie was already catching his eye.”

  “So when did his interest in Annie develop?” Rand prompted, watching her every expression, noting a subtle but very real tension behind her words. Something more than he’d expected from a missing person’s friend.

  “A few years after we finished high school.” Connie focused on a point over his shoulder as though looking into the past. “I think he’d been waiting for her to get old enough. He asked her out when she started high school. Her dad, Mike, didn’t like it at first, Gracie wrote me. Gracie and I are the same age, a few years older than Annie, so I was off at college.” She sipped her drink. “Troy was already out of school and working for his uncle as a carpenter apprentice. Mike thought he was too old for Annie.”

  “Ah.” Rand took a drag on the straw in his cola.

  “But after a while, Mike decided that Troy was a good guy.”

  “Sounds like a fairy-tale romance,” Rand said, concealing his skepticism behind a light tone. “Annie said that they’d had trouble a year ago?” He watched Connie’s face, her chin firmed.

  “Yes, Annie moved out for a while.” She looked at him from under lowered lashes, thick black lashes.

  “Moved out?” Now that’s interesting. But not unexpected.

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions.” She lifted both hands, palms up. “Annie told you that Troy was upset that she had started back to school last summer.”

  “But Mrs. Nielsen…Annie,” he objected, pulling out an interesting fact he’d discovered this morning, one he’d been waiting to spring on Connie, “didn’t tell me that she had filed for separate maintenance last year.”

  Stiff silence.

  The waitress at the counter shouted out their number. Bad timing. It would give this woman time to spin this. Rand hated to, but he got up and left the lady with her thoughts. He returned with two wax-paper-lined baskets of fragrant pastrami on rye sandwiches, each with a large whole kosher dill pickle. He settled back down across from her.

  “Annie,” Connie said, concern tingeing her voice. “probably didn’t say that because it makes their problems last year sound worse than they were.”

  He weighed her obvious caution. “You understand then how important it is for me to get all the facts, even the unflattering ones?”

  She nodded stiffly and continued. “Troy was upset with Annie for leaving him…for not staying to fight out their argument over her going back to school. He told her she couldn’t see their boys until she moved back—”

  “And she retaliated by serving him with separate maintenance papers.” What Connie said sounded plausible. Tit for tat. A too-common operating procedure.

  “Yes,” Connie admitted. “If she’d consulted me…I was a law student at the time, it might have been handled differently.” Connie picked up half of her generous sandwich. “But she didn’t want to involve anyone—friend or family—in the dispute.” She bit into her sandwich.

  “How long were they separated?” He took a bite of his crisp dill pickle.

  She finished chewing and wiped her lips with her paper napkin.

  Watching her try to eat the juicy, overflowing sandwich like a lady lifted one corner of his mouth in amusement. A spot of mustard on her upper lip had eluded her.

  He handed her another napkin. “Right there.” His index finger hovered above her small, well-defined mouth. Her skin glowed creamy and smooth in the sunlight flowing through the floor-to-ceiling window beside them.

  Stop noticing. He picked up his sandwich to distract himself from her.

  She looked chagrined as she wiped the spot away. “I don’t know the exact length of time. But it was all over before the fall semester started. After some counseling, Annie and Troy came to an understanding fairly quickly.”

  He could easily check this out. Again, his gaze was caught by her clear, intelligent eyes. “I wish people would understand that it only makes me more suspicious—rather than less—when they color the facts to make them more…”

  “Complimentary?” Connie shrugged. “Isn’t that just human nature?”

  “Guess so,” he agreed. “Anything else you can tell me?” he asked, offhandedly. “Anything that might lead me to someone having a grudge against him or Annie?”

  She shook her head. “Troy and Annie aren’t rich or powerful or nasty. No one could profit financially from harming them. And they’re not the kind of people who bring out the worst in others. Something like this shouldn’t be happening to them.”

  He struggled against the sympathy she engendered in him. He couldn’t give into it. How did this woman keep breaching his defenses?

  “Hey, bro!” a familiar voice hailed Rand. “Hey.” His brother Chuck slid into the booth, bumping Rand over to make room. “Hello, pretty lady. Don’t tell me my brother finally got a lunch date.”

  Chapter Three

  “This is a business lunch,” Connie said in a starched tone.

  The connection between them shattered. Aggravation sputtered through him at his brother’s poor timing and sad attempt at humor. I was gaining her confidence, actually getting somewhere with her. “Sorry, Ms. Oberlin,” he said, using her formal title to impress on Chuck that this was indeed business. “This is my brother, Chuck O’Neill. He thinks he’s amusing.”

  “Sorry.” Chuck offered her a hand across the table.

  “No problem.” Connie shook his hand and allowed a small polite smile. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “No, I mean I’m sorry you’re not my brother’s lunch date,” Chuck explained with gusto. “He never—”

  “That’s enough,” Rand cut him off. “So? What do you want?”

  Chuck clicked his tongue. “Bad manners, big brother. I’ll have you know that tomorrow I’ll be Taperville’s newest detective.”

  Rand stared at his brother. “I thought you’d decided to go back to college—”

  “No, you convinced yourself that you’d convinced me.” Chuck winked at Connie.

  Rand scowled at Chuck, his jaw clenched.

  “Congratulations, Chuck,” Connie said with obvious, yet polite, disinterest.

  “Fine. Congratulations,” Rand growled. “Now you may leave. Ms. Oberlin and I were discussing a case.” He glowered at Chuck.

  Connie glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to be going. I have a one o’clock meeting.”

  Was that true or was she taking advantage of the interruption so she wouldn’t have to continue answering his questions? Rand bumped against his brother, trying to get him out of the way so Rand could head Connie off. Chuck didn’t budge an inch.

  She edged out of the booth and nudged her basket toward Chuck. “I never touched the other half of my sandwich if you’d like it.”

  Rand gritted his teeth. By the time he could oust Chuck, she’d be gone. To acknowledge her departure, Rand stiffly lifted himself where he sat. “Thank you for your time, Connie. I’ll be calling you soon.”

  “Thank you for lunch.” The pretty young lawyer left with a wave of her hand.

  Chuck moved to the other side of the booth and scooped up the remaining half of Connie’s sandwich. “Free lunch—great.”

  Rand glared at his brother. “That wasn’t very professional. I was in the midst of interviewing her as a source.”

  “A source?” Chuck grinned. “She looked like she could be the source of many interesting develop—”

  “Don’t go there.” Rand felt hot under his collar. Not the least from the fact that his brother should have taken his advice about finishing his degree. He’s too young, too green. This job will eat him alive.

  Rand pinned Chuck with his gaze. “She happens to be a new lawyer in town. And I wouldn’t go making any sexist remarks in her vicinity. I think she has a long and very accurate memory.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Chuck held up one hand. “Mea culpa. What’s the case?”

  “A close friend of hers disappeared here Friday night.” Rand kept his voice eve
n.

  “I heard about that.” His brother eyed him as though looking for…what? Some weakness, some admission about the past? “Tough one.”

  Ignoring his brother’s scrutiny, Rand shrugged. Missing person cases were always tough for everyone. Not just him. “This case is slippery. I can’t get a handle on whether we’ve got a victim or—”

  But Chuck’s interest was wandering. He stood up and waved. “Hey, Sheila, over here!”

  A young attractive uniformed officer with short red hair approached their booth. “Have room for me? I don’t want to take my sandwich back to the department.”

  “I always have room for you, Sheila,” Chuck schmoozed.

  Rand stood as the young woman sat down beside Chuck and across from him. He’d finish his sandwich and get back to his computer screen. The Internet provided so many places and ways to look for someone who’d gone AWOL from his life.

  “Nice manners, Rand,” she commented and then glanced at Chuck. “Why don’t you learn some?”

  Chuck grinned and went on eating.

  Rand wasn’t fooled. He already knew that Chuck was pursuing Sheila and she was giving him a good run for his money. Rand suddenly felt a hundred years old. Unlike him, maybe Chuck would be one of the few lucky ones. He’d find love and keep it.

  Rand switched his thoughts back to the Nielsen case and Connie. He tended to believe her take on the trouble the couple had experienced last year. But what might that separation have led to, if anything? Or was it totally unrelated to Troy’s disappearance? This just doesn’t feel like a kidnapping. No ransom note. Troy, where are you and why did you ditch your pretty little wife? Jerk.

  Four days had crawled by since Connie had interviewed her client in the arson case. Routine legal work, contracts and depositions for other cases had eaten up her time each day.

  Each night she’d spent at Annie’s, helping out with the twins and generally being there to relieve and support the family. Patience and her husband had had to go back to their home downstate. Annie was putting up a good front especially when the twins were around. Still, Connie’s stress level spiked each time she’d walked into Annie’s place. And she’d waited to hear from Rand O’Neill in vain. Was no news really good news?