No Harm (The Kate Teague Mysteries Book 1)

by Wendy Hornsby

  “We don’t have anything to tell them, yet.” Carl weighed the bat in his hands. “Who played cricket?”

  “They all did.” Kate tried the doors of the silver cabinet. They were locked. “Miles and Dolph and all their friends. They used to come and play on the bluff and drink pin gin all day.”

  He smirked. “I can’t imagine Miles and Dolph moving around fast enough.”

  “It was a long time ago.” She led Carl across the hall to Miles’s study. Everything seemed orderly. “Dolph played only when they were a man short, but Miles was the crack batsman. A leftover from his years at Oxford.”

  “Civilized.” He followed her down the hall toward Miles’s bedroom. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here. Maybe you saw the wind blow the curtains.”

  “Could be.” She was looking over her shoulder at Carl as she opened the bedroom door.

  “Oh, shit!” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. The room was in chaos, every drawer pulled out and dumped, their paper liners ripped out and wadded. “Don’t go in.”

  “Let go of me. I want to call Tejeda.” Kate pulled her arm free and rubbed it where Carl’s fingers had dug into the flesh. Dodging around the jumble on the floor she found the telephone and dialed 911 and left a message for Tejeda. Hands on hips, she surveyed the mess. She felt drained, defeated; it was such a frighteningly brutal intrusion into Miles’s carefully guarded private world. She looked up at Carl. “What could they have been looking for?”

  “Who knows? Don’t touch anything else in here. We’d better give the rest of the house a quick look-see in case this spook is still around. You want to wait for your boyfriend down here?”

  The remark cut, maybe because there was some emotional truth to it, made her feel a little like an unfaithful wife. She glared at Carl. “That was uncalled for.”

  “It was. Sorry.” He took her hand. “Coming?”

  “Damn right. I’m not staying in here alone.” Kate led Carl through the massive house. “Most of the house is shut up. Miles will only let Esperanza in here to clean for him, so he moved downstairs into the maid’s room to make it easier for her. I don’t think he uses the upstairs at all.”

  “Great place to hide, then.” Carl tried several switches on a wall panel before a dull light came on over the broad stairway.

  Kate walked up the stairs one step ahead of him, scared, staying close enough to him to feel his breath on her neck. A combination of fear and his physical closeness, she felt deep inside, somewhere behind her breastbone, a stirring, like blowing on an ember banked for the night under cold ashes. She leaned back a little. His hand came to the back of her neck, warmth spreading beyond the span of his palm. It was confusing, her sudden need to be close to him again. She smiled at him, remembering the little gestures, overtures to lovemaking.

  “You okay?” he squeezed her neck gently.

  She nodded.

  “Where do we begin?” He tried a few doorknobs. “Doors are locked.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.” Kate reached inside a tall cloisonné vase on a narrow table and groped around for the ring of old iron keys she knew was hidden there. She pulled them out and dusted them off on her skirt before she handed them to Carl. “Old family tradition, hiding the keys so everyone can find them.”

  Carl unlocked the doors leading into four completely bare rooms. “There’s nothing up here for anyone to take,” he said. “Looks like no one ever lived here.”

  “Let’s check the master bedroom.” Kate headed for the end of the hall and threw the double doors open. The enormous room was stuffed with heavy old furniture of a style popular forty years earlier. A choking layer of undisturbed dust blanketed tabletops, dimming the wedding photographs of Miles and Susan.

  “Pretty spooky,” Carl said. “Good place for a Halloween party.”

  “It’s depressing.”

  Carl hugged her. “Looks like Miles closed off this part of his life.”

  “Or put it on hold. Remember the scene from Great Expectations when Pip sees the old lady’s room with the decayed wedding feast? That’s what this house looks like to me. It’s as if Miles was waiting for someone. Or something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, no one’s been lurking up here. No footprints in the dust.” He closed the door behind them. “What happened to the rest of his furniture?”

  “Maybe his marriage to Susan ended before there was any more than this.” A soft thud from below stopped her. “What was that?”

  Carl held her tight against him, raising the cricket bat. “Who’s there?” he yelled.

  “Mr. Teague? Mrs. Teague?” A voice from the direction of the stairs. “Police.”

  “We’re upstairs. Be right down.”

  They hurried to the stairs, meeting a uniformed officer on the landing. His hand rested on the butt of his service revolver. “Back door’s unlocked. Called to you but no one answered, so I came on in.”

  “You gave us a start.” Carl led the way back down to Miles’s room. “Take a look in here.”

  The officer surveyed the room, shaking his head. “You touch anything?”

  “In here, just the telephone,” Kate said. “We were waiting for you.”

  “Okay. Lieutenant’s on his way over.” This fact seemed to impress the young officer, and he paused a moment, waiting for their reaction before he continued. “Someplace else we can wait?”

  “Come in the kitchen,” Kate said. “You thirsty? I am. Maybe there’s some Coke in the refrigerator. I’m hungry, too. Weren’t we going to get some dinner?”

  “Still talking about food?” Tejeda came through the back door just as they passed it. He wore an oversized T-shirt, white with black sleeves and “S.A.P.D.” across the back, and baseball shoes with rubber cleats.

  “Hello,” Kate said. “Home team losing its star player?”

  Tejeda laughed. “They won’t even know I’m gone. What’s happened here?”

  The uniformed officer straightened, snapping to military attention. “Looks like a four-o-eight, sir. Bedroom across the hall. I’ll show you.”

  “Let’s hold off a sec,” Tejeda said. “Wait for the lab boys.”

  “You don’t need us,” Kate said. “Be okay if we scramble some eggs?”

  Tejeda gave the kitchen a quick glance, then shrugged. “Doesn’t look like anyone was in here. Go ahead.”

  “Can we get you something?” she asked as she opened the refrigerator.

  The officer interrupted before he could answer. “Lab van’s here.”

  Tejeda smiled at Kate. “We’ll be in the other room.”

  Kate made eggs and toast for herself and Carl. They ate standing up at the kitchen counter, being very quiet so they could eavesdrop on the policemen working across the hall.

  They could just hear snatches, as the lab men moved between the back door and the bedroom. A variety of voices, all apparently deferring to Tejeda.

  “Good bolt, Lieutenant. No scratches on the lock.”

  “Had to be a key.” Tejeda’s voice. “Harvey?”

  “Lots of prints. Lots of partials.”

  “It ain’t here.” A different voice boomed outside the door.

  “Where is it?” Tejeda following.

  Kate looked at Carl, his head cocked to one side, straining to hear. She laughed. “Don’t break your neck. C’mon. You wash, I’ll dry.”

  Tejeda came into the kitchen as she was putting the last plate away.

  “Find anything?” Carl asked.

  “Lost something,” he said. “Did your uncle keep anything of particular value in his room?”

  Kate thought for a moment. Miles was always so secretive, so insistent on his privacy. “I don’t really know.”

  “From the looks of it, someone was looking for something specific. Left behind jewelry, a little cash, a TV.”

  “Sounds like Mother’s purse,” Kate said.

  “Like that,” he agre
ed, leaning against the counter and folding his arms. “Know what’s missing?”

  “What?”

  “A drawer from a nightstand.”

  “Full of loot, maybe?” Carl said.

  “Could be. Either our burglar wanted everything in the drawer or he didn’t have time to sort through it when you two came in, so he took the whole shebang.” Tejeda sighed, looking tired. “Where does that get us? What do you keep in a nightstand drawer?”

  “Books.” Kate shrugged her shoulders. “Things you want during the night, or want to get to in a hurry in case of emergency.”

  “Rubbers. Diaphragm,” Carl said.

  “Right,” she elbowed him. “I was thinking of a flashlight, candles, the insurance man’s card. What do you keep there, Lieutenant?”

  He thought a minute. “My service revolver and the kids’ christening pictures, you know, a little album. And the socks that don’t have mates, just in case the washer kicks one back.”

  “We should go quiz the guys in the other room,” Carl said. “This is fascinating. Probably broke in just to see what Miles kept there.”

  “Small things,” Kate said, ignoring Carl. What Tejeda had said reminded her of something. “Small personal things like photographs. Did you find any photographs?”

  Tejeda nodded. “A few.”

  “Show me.” Kate felt excitement rising as Tejeda put a small carton on the kitchen table and carefully took out an old black leather album. She reached for it, then stopped. “What about fingerprints?”

  “Go ahead,” Tejeda said. “The paper’s too old and porous to hold prints.”

  She leafed through the crumbly pages, looking for the rest of the woman and the boy with good postwar shoes. Miles had arranged the album chronologically, beginning with his year at Oxford, ending with a few baby pictures of Kate. The photographs were still firmly held in their black corners, but toward the back of the album, there were gaps. On the last page sixteen photo corners defined the spaces of four missing pictures. Lodged in one of the corners was the torn edge of a yellowed, black-and-white print. She flicked the tiny fragment loose and looked up at Carl.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “About the same vintage as the one I found on the beach.”

  “How can you tell anything from that little bit?” he challenged.

  “For one thing, I can come pretty close to its date; around nineteen fifty.”

  Tejeda leaned over her shoulder. “How can you know that?”

  “Easy. That’s when I was born. The empty page comes right after my first baby pictures. Look here,” she said, carefully turning back to the middle of the album. “Here’s the first gap. Beside it is Mina in her Ambulance Corps uniform, so it was taken before nineteen forty-five, during the war. There are two gaps on the next page and Dolph in his uniform, hugging Mina. See the suitcases next to him? This is probably when he came back from Europe, about nineteen forty-six.”

  Kate turned two more pages. “Oh, my God! Look, it’s Esperanza. Can you believe how skinny she was?”

  “Esperanza?” Carl said. “I didn’t know she’d worked here so long.”

  “She came when Mina and Dolph got married. I think she worked for Mina’s family until Mina’s father went to prison. But Grandpa somehow got her to switch, to come and work in his house to help take care of me when I was little.”

  “You’re a pretty good detective, Mrs. Teague,” Tejeda smiled. “What else can you tell us about the missing pictures?”

  “I shouldn’t tell you anything,” Kate said, “after what you said today about our bastard. But, look here.” She flipped the pages, showing that, until the end of the album, the gaps came in a fairly regular pattern. “My guess is that there’s about a year between each lacuna, beginning in maybe nineteen forty-three or forty-four, about the time of our bastard’s birth. My guess is they’re birthday pictures of a little boy whose mother could afford good shoes.”

  Kate closed the album and handed it back to Tejeda. “Esperanza’s still at the hospital. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I will,” he said, tucking the album under his arm. She noticed then the holster bulging under his loose shirt. He followed her gaze and patted the bulge almost fondly. “You get used to it,” he said.

  “Lieutenant?” An officer came into the kitchen. “We’re through in here.”

  Kate stayed by the back door, seeing the lab crew out, while Carl and the officer checked the rest of the house to make sure all the doors and windows were locked.

  Tejeda waited with Kate in the kitchen until the others left. She thought he had something to say to her, but he was quiet. His silence began to make her uncomfortable.

  “Are you going to look for my bastard?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He put his hand on her shoulder, like a prelude to a good-night kiss. Reflexively, it seemed, she leaned toward him. She caught herself and backed up, faking a cough as a cover.

  There was a flicker in his dark eyes as he reached out to shake her hand. “Take care of yourself.”

  “I will. Thanks.” Embarrassed a little, she closed the door behind him, trying to fathom the quickening he set off inside her. It was all confusing, a mixing of old feelings for Carl with her attraction to Tejeda. The pleasure she felt when Tejeda was around was tinged with the sense that somehow Carl was betrayed. Hardly a mystery, these dangerous feelings, she thought. How long had it been since she’d last had sex? Three months? Four? Too long.

  Carl came back through the kitchen. “How you doin’, sweetheart?”

  “Funny you should ask,” she laughed softly. “Have any qualms about bedding a woman with a black eye?”

  “Thought you’d never ask, he chuckled, wrapping her in his arms. “Let’s go home and I’ll tuck you into bed before you fall off those gorgeous gams.”

  Kate leaned against him as they walked home, her head barely reaching his chest. Comfortable with his arms around her, she closed her eyes against the approaching night. She matched her steps with his, as she would if they were dancing, trying to concentrate on the movements of Carl’s body to keep her mind from racing over the events of the past few days. Through the dark came flashes: her mother’s battered face in the morgue, four legs in the corner of a torn photograph, the beach stairs looming in front of her as she fell. The rush of frightening images made her shudder.

  “Cold?” Carl tightened his arm around her.

  “Just hold me,” she said, burying her face against him. She reached her hand under his jacket and pulled out his shirttail so she could burrow her hand inside to feel the warmth of his bare skin, the assertiveness of the muscles underneath.

  “I want you, Kate.” His mouth covered hers.

  A little alarm went off somewhere near the pit of her stomach. For a long time before their separation sex had hidden the deep chasm between them. But even now, every time she was near him, unless he said something to ruin it, she felt the tremendous pull his sex had on her.

  Then he stroked her back and the memory of the sheer pleasure his body could give her overpowered any reservations, impelling her to press closer to him, just to feel again the trembling he could set off through her. It had been a long time. And what was the harm?

  “My place or yours?” he said, a tremor in his voice.

  She brushed her lips across his cheek. “More room in mine.”

  In her room he lifted her, bringing their faces on a level, pressing his mouth over hers in a long, familiar kiss. “It’s all right,” he said, nuzzling the sensitive place at the base of her neck.

  “Yes.”

  They helped each other to undress, feeling the well-remembered flesh as it was exposed.

  Kate locked her arms around him and he carried her onto the big antique bed. He stretched along beside her, caressing her body with long, firm strokes that ignited her like flint striking in dry grass. She rolled on top of him and lowered herself to bring him inside. But he grabbed her at the waist and held her away. He slid out from under
her and rolled away.

  “What?” She felt as if someone had sucked her breath away.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay.” She lay on her side, tight against him, one leg draped across him to keep his warmth next to her. “You want to play a little?” Easily, up on one elbow, with her hand she traced the long sinews of his big thighs from his knees up to the tiny dimples in the small of his back, punctuation marks in a patch of soft blond hair. She kissed him there, running her tongue over the hard, twin mounds of buttocks. Her hand slid down between his legs. She closed her eyes, remembering every texture of him, the fresh-bread warmth of him. She wanted him, now, probing, filling her as the pleasant ache inside became insistence.

  “Enough. All right?” The sharpness of his voice chilled her.

  “Sorry.” She pulled away. “I thought you wanted this.”

  He sat up against the carved mahogany headboard, covering his lap with a pillow. He looked straight ahead. “I’m not sure I can do this, Kate. It’s been awhile for us and it’s not as easy as I thought it would be.”

  “It was never that easy for us. Just relax, sweetheart. Let muscle-memory take over.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, twining her fingers in the coils of his chest hair, trying for a cool, detached tone when she felt anything but. “Let’s talk.” She concentrated on the carved edges of the headboard cutting sharply into her bare back so that she could begin breathing regularly again.

  “I’m sorry.” He tossed the pillow aside. “I’ve been planning this for three days now. It’s been all I could do at night to keep from breaking your door down.”

  “It hasn’t been locked.” This part was familiar, too. The endless analysis of what had gone wrong between them. Right now she didn’t want analysis. Her needs were more basic. She looked at him, concern etching lines on his face. He was manipulating her even now, and she would have been mad, except for that face. God, what a terrific face.

  She smiled, challenged. “Listen, it’s been a rough day. Relax.” She pushed him gently forward, kneeling behind him to massage his taut neck and shoulders, rubbing out the impressed leaves and whorls from the headboard. “For that matter, it’s been a helluva week. We’ll do it later,” reaching her arms around him to knead his flat belly. “Tomorrow. Or the next day.” She nestled her face against the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “Mmm.” She licked the pink rim of his ear with the tip of her tongue. “You smell so good,” a low whisper. Smiling to herself, she felt his hips begin to move, sending a new flood of warmth through her own body. She pressed her erect nipples against him as she leaned around to find his parted lips with her own. She heard the catch in her voice, and liked it: “And you taste so good.”