Behind Closed Doors

by Carla Cassidy

  The early morning air once again hung thick with humidity, portending storms in the near future. He wouldn’t mind a little rain to ease the heat wave they’d endured for the past two weeks.

  As he got into his car his mind whirled with all the things he needed to do. He wanted to follow up on Barry Namath, make sure the man had been telling the truth about what brought him to Ann’s house yesterday morning.

  Nasty notes, harassing phone calls, a near hit-and-run and a poisoned cat. “And no clues,” he murmured aloud with a frown. Again he had the feeling of escalating danger, but didn’t know how to stop it without knowing who was behind it.

  All he knew for certain was that it was somebody with intimate knowledge of Ann’s life, somebody who knew where she lived, knew her love for her cat. A student? Greg Thorton? Or just a nut who’d focused his obsession on Ann?

  He was determined to crack this case before he left the department. The thought of leaving his job and handing Ann’s case to another officer who knew little or nothing about it bothered him. He needed to know she was safe. before he left.

  From Ann’s place he drove to his apartment. Once there, he showered and dressed in clean clothes. As he left for the station, he wondered how Twilight was doing. He hoped the cat had made it through the night, would continue to be all right. Ann’s grief over the cat had touched him deeply.

  As she’d cradled Twilight in her arms, murmuring words of encouragement and love, for a moment Clay had been able to imagine what kind of a mother she’d make. He had a feeling any child would be lucky to have her as a mother.

  If he had any regrets about his future plans, the fact that he’d never have children was one. He liked kids, enjoyed playing uncle to Raymond’s brood. He would have liked to have a few of his own, but had never met a woman whom he felt compelled to marry. Now it was too late. Retirement wasn’t the time to start thinking about having a family.

  As for Ann, eventually she’d find a nice man to marry and probably have a couple of kids. Whomever she married would work to help her pay for the luxury condo, keep her and the kids in nice clothing. She and her husband would live an upper middle class life...and endure all the stresses that life-style brought with it.

  “Not me,” he said firmly as he wheeled his car into a parking space at the station. He thought of the plane ticket inside his bureau drawer. Less than a month and he’d be warmed by the heat of a tropical sun with no worries or responsibilities to clutter his mind. But first he wanted to fix Ann’s life...and time was growing short.

  Entering the station, the first person he met was Raymond, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other. “Hey, partner,” Raymond greeted him.

  “I see you’re still on a diet,” Clay said wryly and looked pointedly at the donut.

  “I think Ginger is trying to kill me. Every night for dinner all she feeds me is lettuce and fat-free stuff. It’s gross.”

  “Yeah, well last night somebody tried to kill Ann Carson’s cat. Fed him poison.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Raymond hurried to catch up to Clay, who’d continued toward his desk. “Is the cat all right?”

  Clay reached his desk and sat down. “As of last night he was stable. If we’d found him a minute or two later, he’d be dead.”

  Raymond sank down in the chair in front of Clay’s desk. “What kind of a creep does something like that?”

  Clay pulled out the note that had been left beneath the cat. He’d bagged it at his house, although was certain no fingerprints would be found on the sheet of paper. He placed it in front of him, where Raymond could read it.

  “Where do we go from here?” Raymond asked.

  “Did we get back anything on Barry Namath? I want him checked out thoroughly. It’s some coincidence that yesterday morning he was caught in her backyard, and last night I found her cat half dead on the back patio.”

  “The report came through earlier. It’s on my desk.”

  Raymond left to retrieve it. He returned a moment later and handed the report to Clay.

  “Barry Namath...forty-four years old. Two prior arrests. Breaking and entering and assault and battery. He served eighteen months.” Clay frowned and read further. According to the report, Barry Namath had broken into his girlfriend’s house while she was at work. He’d waited for her to return, then had beaten the hell out of her.

  “Not a nice guy, huh,” Raymond said, stating the obvious.

  “Not a nice guy,” Clay agreed. “He told the officers he was doing a favor for a fellow student by delivering some papers to Ann. Maybe we should talk to this fellow student, make sure Barry’s telling us the truth.”

  Raymond finished his donut and licked his blunt fingers. “Let’s go.” He stood up.

  Clay pulled out his notebook and checked to find the name of the student Barry had mentioned. Dean Moore. “Hang tight, I need to find an address.” He grabbed a phone book and thumbed to the M’s.

  Within minutes he and Raymond were headed toward Dean Moore’s residence. “You think this Barry is the one tormenting Ann?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Clay admitted. “All I know is whoever is after Ann is smart and evil and that’s a combination that worries me.”

  “I still say whoever it is, he’s somebody from Ann’s past. That last note you showed me said something about revenge being sweet when it’s long in coming.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all relative, isn’t it? I mean, long in coming could be years, or in the mind of a madman, it could be mere days.” Frustration ate inside him and Clay hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Dammit, I keep feeling like there’s something we’re missing.”

  “Hey, buddy, take it easy. It’s just another case. We can only do what we can do.”

  Clay drew in a deep breath. Just another case? Somehow, someway in the past week, it had become more than that. Watching Ann get out of bed to lock her bedroom door last night had twisted something inside Clay’s soul, had touched him in a place he’d never been touched before.

  “I warned you about losing your objectivity,” Raymond said softly.

  “I haven’t lost my objectivity,” Clay protested vehemently. “It’s just, you know, this is my last case. I want to walk away from this job with all the ends tied up neatly. I don’t want to leave the department with this case not solved.”

  “Then we’ll solve it,” Raymond replied, then shot a sly glance at Clay. “Of course, if we don’t in the next couple of weeks, you could always put off your retirement plans. Hawaii will still be there no matter when you decide to go.”

  “No way. I’m not going to let anything stand in the way of my plans. I watched my dad put off and postpone his dream of a fishing cruise for years until finally it was too late for him. I’m not going to make the same mistake.”

  He steadfastly refused to dwell on the sweetness of making love to Ann the night before, the thought of walking away from her knowing she would still be in danger while he lounged on a distant beach.

  Although he felt a certain emotional bond with her based on their physical union the night before, he presumed he would have felt that same bond with any woman he’d slept with. It had nothing to do with love and he certainly wasn’t about to sacrifice himself and his dreams because he’d enjoyed a night of lovemaking with her.

  He was grateful when they spotted Dean Moore’s address on the front of a neat, small bungalow. Time to get his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  Dean Moore lived only a couple of miles from Ann’s condo, but that meant little. Most of the students in her class were from her general area of the city.

  As the two officers approached the house, Clay saw the front curtain lift momentarily, then fall back across the window. Somebody was home.

  They walked up the stairs to the porch. Clay knocked on the door and it was immediately answered. Dean Moore sat tall in the wheelchair, his silver-shot hair glistening in the sunlight that shone through the doorway. “May I
help you?” he asked, his wheelchair blocking their entrance into the house.

  “I’m Officer Clinton and this is my partner, Officer Misker. Can we come in? We’d like to ask you a few questions about Barry Namath.”

  Dean smiled and nodded. He rolled backward, allowing them inside. “I figured somebody might be contacting me. This is about yesterday, right?” He motioned them to a worn sofa. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. Barry called me yesterday afternoon, screaming and cussing for getting him into trouble.”

  “So you asked him to go to Ann Carson’s place?” Raymond asked.

  Dean nodded. “I have a lot of time on my hands and writing has become my passion. Ms. Carson has been kind enough to tell me she’ll critique whatever I turn in, but sometimes getting the work to her is difficult for me. Yesterday morning I called Barry and asked him if he would mind dropping off some papers at Ms. Carson’s house.”

  Dean folded his hands in his lap and shook his head. “I had no idea Barry would get into any trouble. He’s not in trouble, is he?”

  “Not unless he was the one who poisoned Ann Carson’s cat last night,” Raymond exclaimed.

  Dean’s dark eyes widened. “Somebody poisoned her cat? Ms. Carson must be heartbroken.”

  “Luckily, the cat didn’t die,” Raymond returned. He stood up and shot a glance at Clay, indicating as far as he was concerned their work here was finished.

  Clay also rose, frustration winging through him. It would have been so easy had Barry been their culprit, had they been able to prove that he’d been at Ann’s for nefarious reasons.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Moore,” Raymond said as they walked to the door.

  “Certainly, glad to help. I just hope you find whoever is responsible for the attack on Ms. Carson’s cat. She’s such a nice lady.”

  “Thanks again, Mr. Moore.” Together Clay and his partner left the house and got back into their patrol car. As Clay started the engine, Raymond turned to look at him. “You got awfully quiet.”

  “Frustration.” Clay frowned. Something niggled at the back of his brain, something he sensed was important. But, he couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

  He thought again of Ann leaving the comfort and warmth of her bed to lock the bedroom door. In that single act, she’d raised the stakes for him, made herself more than just a case.

  When they got back to the station, Clay called her, wanting to check to see what she’d found out about Twilight’s condition.

  “Dr. Turwell says he’s doing as well as can be expected,” she said. “He wants to keep him for another day or two just to be on the safe side.”

  “How are you doing?”

  She hesitated a moment before answering. “Okay, I guess. I never realized how much company Twilight was for me, how often I spoke to him. The house seems very quiet without him here.”

  Again Clay felt an unexpected tug on his heart. His mother had expressed the same kinds of sentiments right after his father had died. The quiet of the house, the loss of a companion, the knowledge that when she spoke, nobody was in the house to hear her. “I’m taking my mom out for dinner tonight. Why don’t you come with us.” The invitation was purely spontaneous, without any thought other than it might do her good to spend a few hours away from the house.

  “Oh, Clay, I don’t want to intrude on your time with your mother.”

  “You wouldn’t be an intrusion,” he protested. “Besides, my mom would love to share dinner conversation with somebody other than me. I aggravate her. You’d be doing both of us a big favor by coming along.”

  She laughed and he could easily imagine the sparkle of her eyes. “How can I say no when you put it like that?”

  “Good. I’ll pick you up about six, okay?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Clay hung up, wondering if he’d just made an enormous mistake. Usually he tried to keep his dates very separate from his mother, who had a tendency to matchmake for her poor, misguided, unattached son.

  Oh well, it was done now. Surely if Ann could survive a near hit-and-run by a car with a madman at the wheel, she could survive an evening with Rosemary Clinton.

  Ann had been rather nervous all afternoon anticipating her evening with Clay. She’d barely been awake when he’d left that morning, thankfully missing the morning-after small talk and awkwardness.

  She’d found herself daydreaming through her afternoon classes, replaying the entire night with Clay in her mind. Just as she’d suspected, he’d been a caring, giving lover. For a brief moment in time, while he’d held her, she’d been able to forget the darkness of her past, the uncertainty of her future and just dwell in the glow of being with him.

  At least with Clay she knew exactly where she stood. In less than a month he’d be gone. They could enjoy each other’s company until he left, but there would be no commitment, no future with him.

  Rather than make her feel bad, this knowledge relieved her. She would never have to tell him about her past, never have to bare her soul. She would enjoy what he had to offer her, the time they had together, then they’d both move on to the rest of their lives.

  It was exactly six o’clock when he knocked on her door. She opened it and smiled at him in surprise. “Do you know this is the first time I’ve seen you in regular clothes?”

  He grinned and ran a hand down the front of his gray sport shirt. “I get so used to wearing my uniform, I sometimes forget how to dress like a regular guy.”

  Ann glanced at his shirt, the black slacks and loafers. “You look very nice,” she replied with a touch of shyness.

  “And so do you.” He eyed the pale apricot-colored dress she wore, creating pinpoints of heat each place his gaze lingered. He cleared his throat. “We’d better get out of here. I told Mom I’d pick her up about six-fifteen.”

  Ann locked her front door and together they walked to his car.

  “Did you have a good day?” Clay asked once they were on the road to his mother’s house.

  “Yes, what about you?”

  He sighed. “Raymond and I spoke with Dean Moore this morning. He confirmed that he’d asked Barry to deliver those papers to you. We’re running background checks on the list of names you gave me, but it all takes time. You’ve got a lot of men in your writing class. That struck me as unusual.”

  “The college put a male-appeal spin on the class description, indicating we’d be doing action-adventure and science fiction writing among other genres.” She looked at him in appeal. “Let’s not talk about the case tonight. I don’t even want to think about any of that for the rest of the evening.”

  “It’s a deal,” he agreed. “Let’s talk about you instead.”

  “Me?” She looked at him in surprise. “What do you want to know about me?”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  Ann relaxed at the benign nature of his question. “Yellow,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Why?”

  “Why? I don’t know, I guess because to me it implies warmth, dawn...hope.” She laughed uneasily. “Is this some sort of a test?”

  “Not at all. I just realized after last night I know your body intimately, but don’t know much else about you.”

  Ann felt her blush warm her cheeks. “I could say the same thing about you,” she replied, her mind filled with a vision of his nakedness. Yes, she’d learned intimate secrets of his body...the mole that decorated the inside of his thigh, the swirl of hair that covered his chest, the faint appendectomy scar that slashed across his lower abdomen. “What’s your favorite color?” she asked, shoving the erotic image out of her head.

  “I don’t think I have one,” he said, then shot her a wicked heated glance, “although at the moment I think my favorite color is orange.”

  Her blush grew hotter as she realized he was talking about the color of her dress. “You are a tease, Clay Clinton.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” he agreed easily.

  He pulled into an apartment-comp
lex parking lot and swerved to the curb in front of one of the units. “Wait right here, I’ll get Mom.”

  She watched as he got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk. She would miss him when he left. She’d miss his easygoing demeanor, his quick smile and the desire that lit his eyes when he gazed at her.

  Still, she was glad he’d be leaving, that there would be no chance of her seeing his eyes darken with revulsion. She’d never have to tell him about her lost years, never have to confess the black void that was her childhood.

  As Clay and his mother came out of the apartment, Ann looked at Mrs. Clinton curiously. With her dark, curly hair and bold features, she looked like an older, feminine version of her son.

  Clay opened the back door for his Mom. “Ann, this is my mother, Rosemary. Mom, this is Ann Carson.”

  Ann turned in her seat and smiled at the older woman. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Clinton.”

  “Please, make it Rosemary. Whenever anyone calls me Mrs. Clinton I look around for my mother-in-law, God rest her soul.”

  Clay got into the car and slid behind the wheel, then took off. “We’re going to my Mom’s favorite Italian restaurant.”

  “Manconni’s,” Rosemary said to Ann. “Have you ever eaten there?” Ann shook her head. “Oh, the food is to die for. They have the best lasagna I’ve ever eaten.” Rosemary leaned forward. “So, how did you and my son meet?”

  “We met through my work, Mom,” Clay answered.

  “You’re a police officer?” Rosemary asked.

  “No, I’m a teacher. I teach creative writing,” Ann explained.

  Rosemary frowned. “The police are taking writing classes? My son, the writer?”

  Clay laughed. “No, Mom, Ann isn’t teaching writing to the police. She teaches at the community college. I met her because she was having some problems with somebody leaving her anonymous notes.”

  “Ah.” Rosemary patted Ann’s arm. “Don’t you worry, my son is a good policeman. He’ll find whoever is bothering you.”

  Ann smiled first at Rosemary, then at Clay. “I’m counting on it,” she replied.