Mommy Said Goodbye

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Threatened? Oh, no. We couldn’t make out enough of what was said to suggest that.” She paused. “Although in retrospect…”

  “In retrospect?”

  “Well, it’s rather suggestive, isn’t it? That they should have a screaming match, and then she should vanish the next day. Don’t you think? So, of course, we’ve wondered ever since what we would have heard, if we’d…well, gone out in the yard.”

  “Would have heard” was not something you took in front of a jury. Ann let her partner thank Ms. Beckman and step politely aside so that she could go through the door ahead of him. Or so that he could watch the sway of her hips. Ann couldn’t tell, because he did not wait politely for her to go ahead.

  She’d had a lifetime of feeling this unhappy suspicion that she was some sort of genderless creature. She’d always been a tomboy, mostly to please her father. But suddenly, about the time she turned sixteen, he decided she should become a real woman, only she didn’t have the skills. So she kept forging on, trying to please him the only way she knew, only that was never good enough.

  He’d give her a dismissive glance. “Chunky thing like you, what good would you be when a perp goes ballistic? For God’s sake, why don’t you find a husband?”

  Because I don’t know how! she’d wanted to cry. But also because she didn’t want a husband; she wanted to prove herself, not wave pom-poms for some man.

  She’d made her choices, but it did rankle sometimes to be so lacking in something so basic as sexual appeal.

  On the other hand, she decided at a slow simmer, if Diaz had a grain of common courtesy, he wouldn’t make his opinion of her lack of womanly appeal so obvious.

  He thanked Carol Beckman, held her hand a moment longer than necessary, then walked out without glancing back to see if Ann followed. If she hadn’t scuttled at his heels and leaped into the car, he probably would have driven off without remembering he had a partner.

  She opened her mouth to…what? Bitch that he hadn’t held open a door for her?

  But he took her by surprise. “Okay. What happened to them hearing Craig Lofgren yell, ‘I’m going to kill you if you don’t…?’”

  Those had been the exact words her father had written in his notes. Don’t what? he had asked, but they hadn’t heard the tail end of the sentence. She was impressed that Diaz remembered the exact phrasing.

  “I don’t know,” she said, frowning ahead. “They’ve revised their story, but why?”

  He bounced his fist on the steering wheel as he thought. “Maybe it’s not intentional. Maybe they’ve just talked it over endlessly, until they remember it differently. Or maybe they never did hear a threat. Could be they got excited and blew up what they had heard, just to be important or because suddenly all that yelling did seem threatening.”

  Ann nodded. “Or else they did hear it, but now they’re trying to protect Lofgren.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “Why would they?”

  She lifted her chin and met his stare. “I don’t know. How about this? Because Ms. Beckman is having an affair with Craig.”

  “What about the Mr.?”

  Ann shrugged. “She’s convinced him he didn’t really hear what he thought he heard. She seemed to me like a woman who could convince a man of anything.”

  Diaz’s expression changed, and she realized she’d sounded resentful.

  In a hurry, she continued, “Maybe they’ve decided in the meantime that he’s a great guy and he couldn’t have hurt his wife. But you have to concede that they might be lying.”

  His fist bounced a couple more times. “What,” he said thoughtfully, “if they know damn well where Julie is?”

  Ann stared. “You mean…they murdered her?”

  “Unlikely. I was thinking more that they knew she’d taken off and are covering her tracks.”

  “By throwing suspicion on her husband?”

  “Why not? But now they figure she’s made her getaway, so they’re trying to get him off the hook.”

  “That’s convoluted,” she argued. “The woman walked out on her kids if she left voluntarily! How could they support her doing that? Anyway, they weren’t even close friends with her.”

  “We don’t know that Julie and Carol Beckman weren’t good friends,” Diaz pointed out. “And remember, the Beckmans don’t have children. Maybe they chose not to because they don’t like kids. Could be they figure she was showing some sense ditching the brats.”

  Ann hadn’t much liked either Beckman, but that was really coldhearted. She shook her head in automatic denial.

  “You know, I think the first explanation makes the most sense. They blew up what they heard at the time because they were in the middle of a police investigation.”

  After a moment, Diaz nodded, then reached for the ignition. He started the car, put it in Drive, then gave her a long, considering look. “There’s one other possibility.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, puzzled.

  “That they never did say they’d heard a threat.”

  “What?”

  “That your father made it up. To bolster his belief that Lofgren had killed his wife.”

  She gaped at the preposterous suggestion. “He was a good cop!”

  “Haven’t we all exaggerated here or there, to support what we know to be true?”

  “But…to lie…” Shaking her head hard, Ann said, “No. No, he wouldn’t have done that.”

  Diaz studied her face for another long moment, then shrugged. “Just thought I’d throw out the idea.”

  “Well, stuff it back wherever it came from!” she snapped.

  He didn’t say anything, simply drove.

  Michael Caldwell might not have been perfect; he’d had a temper and…well, a streak of intolerance. A big, commanding man, he never accepted excuses, not even from his daughter. Ann wished he had loved her more unconditionally.

  But he was hard to please partly because his standards were so high! Anger burned in her chest. How could a fellow cop who’d known her father well think for a minute that Sergeant Michael Caldwell would lie to make a man look guilty?

  As if he’d read her mind, Diaz said abruptly, “I thought it had to be said.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “Forget it, then.”

  How could she? Ann knew she’d never see the dark-eyed cop the same again. He didn’t know what loyalty or friendship meant.

  But she did. She believed in her father, and she would finish what he had started.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE MAN WHO RANG Robin’s doorbell wasn’t the same one who’d watched his son play soccer the afternoon before. Robin would have sworn he wasn’t, except that the outside package was the same: dark hair, gray eyes, broad shoulders, great cheekbones.

  But the eyes were expressionless, the mouth tight, his voice clipped. “Is Brett ready?”

  Robin blinked. “I don’t know.” One hand on the door, she turned and called up the stairs, “Brett, your dad’s here!”

  She turned back. He hadn’t relaxed one iota. No Hey, hope he had a good time. Or Gee, hope Brett wasn’t too much trouble.

  No conversational gambits at all. He simply waited on her front porch, as if she wasn’t there at all.

  No, that wasn’t right; maybe he was looking through her, but he knew she was there.

  “Is something wrong?” Robin asked. She hated how timid she sounded.

  His mouth thinned. “Wrong?”

  Sixth graders liked to play this game. She didn’t.

  “You look angry,” she said bluntly.

  “I have a lot on my mind.” None of your business, he might as well have said.

  Why had she let herself sympathize with him? And where were the boys?

  “You’re going to scare your son if you don’t hide whatever it is you have on your mind a little better.”

  A nerve jumped beneath of his eyes. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry.” He bowed his
head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t mean to take out my mood on you.”

  Idiot that she was, her annoyance melted away. “Um…do you want to come in? I don’t know what the boys are doing, but I can offer you a cup of coffee.”

  That’s good, she told herself; invite a murderer into your house. A Buffy fan, she wondered if this was something like inviting a vampire in once and losing the right to refuse him forever after.

  Craig looked at her as if she were crazy. “A cup of coffee?”

  “I have some brewed. I was just having a cup myself.”

  He turned his head each way as if checking to see who was watching. “Uh, sure.”

  “Do you have Abby in the car?” Robin peered past him.

  “No, she’s my next stop. She spent the night at a friend’s, too.”

  Robin stepped back. “I could lie and say I haven’t cleaned house, but the truth is, I’m a slob.”

  A reluctant grin tugged his mouth. “Then Brett’s right at home here.”

  “Really?” Letting him shut the front door, she led the way to the kitchen. “That’s funny. Mal’s so organized, it scares me. He never drops anything on the floor, puts his dirty dishes straight in the dishwasher and lines up his shoes in his closet.”

  Her house wasn’t that bad, just…comfortably untidy, in her opinion. She excused herself on the basis that it wasn’t big enough. After the divorce, this two bedroom fixer-upper was the best she could afford. With no home office, she tended to spread papers she was grading across the kitchen table—there was no dining room—then have to shove them aside to eat. Their computer stood on a cheap desk wedged in a corner of what the Realtor had optimistically called the “eating nook.” Along with occasional embroidery, Robin was writing—trying to write—a young adult novel, with several versions of the first chapters along with notes and some research books stacked helter-skelter on the measly desktop. Poor Malcolm had to work to find room to lay out his binder when he used the computer.

  Craig glanced around while she took a mug from the cupboard and poured coffee. “I can see why an organized son scares you.”

  He was teasing her. That had to be a good sign.

  “It’s easier to be neat when you’re a kid and you don’t have that much going on,” she protested. “I’m a busy woman, that’s all. Lots of projects in the works.”

  “Uh-huh.” There was definitely a smile in his eyes now.

  “Sugar? Creamer?”

  “Black.”

  She handed him his mug and picked up her own. “I wonder where the boys are?”

  “Lose ’em?”

  “I didn’t hear the back door, but maybe…” The single window in the kitchen wasn’t positioned above the sink. No, it was squeezed between a wall cupboard and the refrigerator. If she ever came into a little bit of money, the kitchen was first on her list of remodeling projects.

  She saw them immediately, bouncing a soccer ball between them, off a knee here, a head there. Brett was laughing, his face lit with good humor. The sulky James Dean effect was gone.

  “No wonder they didn’t hear me. They’re practicing headers, or something, out in the backyard.” She turned. “Let’s go in the living room and have our coffee in peace before I call them again. You can tell me why you looked so grim.” When his face tightened again, she said more tentatively, “If you want to, that is.”

  Bookcases lined two walls of the living room, leaving room only for a couch under the large window, a television in one corner and two easy chairs facing it. The carpet, a faded rust and twenty-five years old if it was a day, was second on her remodeling list. It looked worst next to the cream and taupe striped furniture and gleaming side tables left from her more prosperous married days.

  “Please. Sit down.”

  He nodded and chose the couch. Robin curled one foot under her and took the big overstuffed rocker. Letting silence settle, she sipped her lukewarm coffee.

  “The police came around yesterday.”

  She didn’t know how to react. Did she feel dismay, for his sake, or relief, because her police force was determined?

  “So they’re still, um, pursuing the case? Even though that officer died?”

  “One of the two that visited me was his daughter.” Despair carved lines in Craig Lofgren’s face, making him less handsome and more…human. “Can you believe it? A daughter, prepared to take up her daddy’s quest. Which, unfortunately, was to see me put away for twenty years.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That she’s his daughter? She admitted as much. That she wants to put me away? Oh, yeah.” His voice seemed to scrape his throat. “She sat there in my living room looking at me as if I were the scum of the earth. She’d made up her mind.”

  “Surely they have other suspects.” She swallowed at the expression on his face. “Why do they think…”

  What an awful thing to ask someone! It really wasn’t any of her business. She opened her mouth to say, No, forget I asked, but too late.

  “Because neighbors heard us quarreling the night before Julie disappeared.”

  Quarreling. That word could cover quite a lot of territory, from his wife snapping, “Damn it, why didn’t you take out the garbage?” to a violent domestic disturbance that had brought the police to his door.

  “Did any of them call 911?”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Why would they? We raised our voices.” Then understanding flickered and his face went expressionless. “Are you asking if I hit her? The answer is no.” He set down his nearly full coffee cup and started to rise.

  “Sit!” Robin ordered, as if he were a sulky eleven-year-old.

  Craig froze, then obeyed.

  Frowning at him, she said, “You’re the one who raised the subject. Since you did, I’m trying to understand. You and Julie had a fight. Lots of married couples fight. My husband and I did, thus the divorce. Usually the police don’t assume a shouting match means you’re a murderer.”

  “Usually,” he pointed out, “one spouse doesn’t vanish the next day.”

  “Well, sure, but…hadn’t you quarreled before?”

  His eyes smoldered with suppressed emotion, but his face remained impassive. “Apparently not loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.”

  “What was the result of your fight?”

  “Result?”

  She waved her hand impatiently. “I mean, did she demand a divorce? Did you make up?”

  “Oh.” Lines in his forehead deepened. “Neither. I stalked out, went for a walk and slept in the guest room. I left for the airport without seeing her again. I assumed her claim of ‘smothering’ was histrionics.”

  “Smothering?” Robin stared at him. “What did she mean?”

  Strain showed on his face, and he looked away. “Julie hated being left for days at a time with the kids, even though my schedule actually has me home more than most fathers. I sometimes thought…” He stopped and clamped his mouth shut.

  “You thought?”

  “Never mind.”

  She gave him her most severe schoolteacher look. “You can’t start that kind of sentence and not finish it.”

  His expression didn’t lighten. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me.” Why on earth was she challenging him? she wondered in a kind of panic. She’d liked Julie. She probably wouldn’t believe whatever he told her. But…she was coming to like him, too, which might be incredibly dumb of her.

  “All right.” He looked at her with that blank face she now realized hid a powerful well of emotions. “I was going to say that I sometimes thought Julie didn’t want to be a mother anymore.”

  Robin echoed, “Didn’t want to be…”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah, she was mother-of-the-year. I know. I said you wouldn’t buy it.”

  “Darn it, give me a chance!”

  Startled, he met her eyes again.

  “She was room mother for both kids, right? She had them in all kinds
of activities. Why did she spend so much time with Brett and Abby if she wanted to escape them?”

  “Because…” He swore and shook his head. “This sounds ridiculous. Even I know that. It’s just that…room mother was who Julie had decided to be.” He hesitated, then said abruptly, “She didn’t want kids. She didn’t give me a vote. But she got pregnant by accident, and next thing I knew Julie was Suzy Homemaker. She bought pretty pink maternity clothes. She started pureeing and freezing baby food because the commercial stuff wasn’t good enough, she read endless ‘how to parent’ books and decorated the nursery. I couldn’t open a single damn drawer in the house because they all had child-proof catches on them. Brett was barely born and she had them signed up for Mom ’n Me yoga and swim classes. I told myself I was glad. She’d discovered she was wrong. Motherhood was turning out to be great for her.”

  “But you weren’t glad,” Robin said, trying to understand.

  He shoved his fingers through his hair, making it stand up. “It wasn’t that. I was glad. But the change was so sudden, so complete, I’d find myself listening to her chatter at the dinner table and think, where’s Julie? Who is this?”

  “People do change.”

  “Slowly. Painfully. This was more like…” He shook his head, as if unscrambling his thoughts. “More like she’d been possessed. Same body, same face, but even her expressions had changed. The way she thought. She pretty much threw out her wardrobe and bought new clothes—suburban mom. Traded in her Camaro for a Volvo station wagon. This while she was still pregnant. She looked dreamy while she ran the blender turning peas into baby mush instead of irritated because she was stuck in the kitchen.” He shook his head again, but this time looking baffled. “I’d say, ‘What happened to not wanting children?’ and she’d give this tinkly laugh and tell me she hadn’t meant it. She used to pick up speeding tickets so often our insurance was sky-high, but all of a sudden she had a Baby On Board decal in the back window and was horrified at anyone who went a mile over the speed limit.”

  Robin had known only the Julie he was describing now. The devoted mother, sweet-natured, giving PTA president, classroom volunteer. The woman who’d bandaged knees, handed out treats, cheered on everyone’s children.