An Officer and a Gentle Woman

by Doreen Owens Malek

“Both my parents died young and tragically. Do you think people pay in the long run for the mistakes they make?”

  “No,” Lafferty said. “Stop talking that way. If there is one thing I learned on this job it’s that there is good and bad in everybody, and anybody can take a wrong step.”

  Alicia was silent, staring out the window. In the sudden glow of oncoming headlights Lafferty saw the moisture on her cheeks.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked.

  She put her head back against the seat. “I don’t care. Back to Scarsdale.”

  “Alicia, you should eat something. You had half a slice of lettuce for lunch and nothing since then. There’s an inn about two miles down this road with a restaurant. Let’s stop there.”

  “The Inn at Fox Crossing? They know my grandmother there. They know me. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I certainly don’t want to explain to the staff why I am dining with a mystery man at a hotel a stone’s throw from Hannah’s house.”

  “All right. I’ll book a suite and you can come up afterward. We’ll order from room service. No one will see you. We should really stay the night, Alicia. You don’t look ready for a long drive.”

  She shot him a sidelong glance. “That bad, huh?”

  “Fishing for compliments?” he said, and grinned.

  He was relieved to see that she smiled wanly in response. “Thanks for not asking a lot of questions,” she said.

  “No problem,” he said evenly.

  “I’m still so tired,” she said. “I feel like I have climbed Mt. Everest in the last few days.”

  “It’s emotional overload. Am I included in that great fatigue?” Lafferty said, turning into the Inn’s parking lot.

  “You’re the sherpa who dug me out of the avalanche on the way to the summit,” she said, and reached over to touch his hand.

  “Count on it,” he said, and she closed her eyes in gratitude.

  Lafferty pulled into a space and stopped the car. “Stay here,” he said to Alicia, and she nodded.

  She waited, reliving the session with her grandmother in her mind until he returned and said, “It’s done. I checked the place out, there’s a secluded back entrance. We’ll go in that way.”

  Alicia stepped out as he opened her door and put his arm around her, shielding her face against his shoulder. They threaded their way through the guests arriving for dinner and slipped around to the rear of the building, where Lafferty had propped open a service door. They went inside and ascended to the second floor via a staff elevator, which was occupied by a bored housemaid with a cart of linens. She looked them over carefully and then devoted herself to staring at her damaged manicure.

  “I’m afraid she recognized me,” Alicia said nervously as they got off the elevator on the second floor and walked down a hall of guest rooms.

  “Nah, she just thinks we’re clandestine lovers,” Lafferty said, stopping before a numbered door and sliding the plastic keycard into the slot.

  “Well?” Alicia said, and he looked back at her and smiled as the metal guard lit up and the door opened.

  He went inside and took off his jacket as Alicia looked around at the spacious room, which was done in the same rococo style as the lobby and restaurant, with a brocade spread on the king-size bed, matching drapes at the windows and cherry furniture.

  “What do you want to eat?” he asked.

  “Anything.”

  “Anything it is,” he replied, unfolding a cardboard room service menu.

  “As many times as I have been downstairs I’ve never seen one of these rooms,” she said. She sat on the edge of the bed, and its softness was so inviting that she immediately lay down. She was dimly aware of Lafferty on the phone ordering food, and then he sat next to her and took her hand.

  “How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

  “Fine, as long as you’re here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He put his arm around her waist and pulled her into his arms. She didn’t resist.

  “Were you thinking about your mother?” he asked. “You must be looking at the past now with new eyes.”

  Alicia nodded. “She was my real mother, no matter what the biology books would say. Nobody will ever love me like that again. What she must have lived with all those years—the fear that I would be taken away from her, that my father would go to jail. Even the Green money would not have saved him on a charge like that if word of it got out.”

  Lafferty stroked her hair.

  “When I was little she would put her arms around me and say, ‘You are my girl, my girl.’ I never knew how significant that was until now.”

  She reminisced for a while; he held her and let her talk. When she was quiet again he said, “Alicia, I want to talk to you about Ambrose Kirkland.”

  She sighed deeply. “I know we have to see him next.”

  “Yes.”

  “But tomorrow is a problem. It’s the first day for the home tutoring I set up for the children and I should be there....”

  “Alicia, I think I should see him alone.”

  Alicia drew back and looked at him.

  “It’s your life and your case and I will do what you want, but I think it’s going to be a very unpleasant interview,” he said.

  “I expected that.”

  “No, I don’t think you know what I mean.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “I have heard of this guy Kirkland. He was a hatchet man for the rich, he would do their dirty work for them for a price. Illegal abortions, illegal adoptions, bigamous marriages, questionable quickie island divorces...you name it. He was a fixer for the bluebloods and he did very well from it financially for forty years.”

  “After what my grandmother said I didn’t think he was Prince Charming.”

  “Okay, let me put it this way. I think I would be more effective alone.”

  Alicia closed her eyes. “Mike, what are you going to do that you don’t want me to see?”

  “Whatever is necessary to get the truth out of him.”

  “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” Alicia responded.

  Lafferty pulled her back into his arms.

  “If I have to hang him upside down by his heels and shake him until the information falls out of his mouth, I’ll do it.”

  “Michael, the man has to be eighty years old.”

  “I don’t care if he is Methuselah, if he blocks my path I’ll mow him down.”

  “How can you be so sure he’ll help? He can only tell you about my adoption, right?” she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt.

  “There’s a link here to who killed your husband. I can feel it. Instinct is involved in doing my job, it’s what separates the good cops from the average joes.”

  “And you’re a good cop,” Alicia said.

  “Damn straight.”

  “And you may never be a cop again.”

  Lafferty was silent.

  “Do you think I don’t know that you’ve risked everything for me? If you can’t turn this thing around and I’m convicted, your career is over at NYPD.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Alicia. Have a little faith in me, please.”

  Alicia clutched him silently. She wanted to have faith in him, but it wasn’t so easy. The social differences between them that bothered Lafferty didn’t matter to her at all. But trusting him completely was still a stretch. Right now Lafferty wanted to help her and secure her release because he was caught up in the intoxicating infatuation that had consumed them both. But would it last after the novelty wore off and day-to-day life took its place? Would he get bored with her? Joe had. Would he cheat and stray like her father? It was possible. Would he even want to be with her once the crisis was over and the drama had subsided?

  Even more important, what would his reaction be if his optimism was unfounded and she was convicted? Would he stay with her then?

  “Woods isn’t undefeatable,” Lafferty added, interrupting her thoughts. “He’s wrong
about you and we’re going to prove it.”

  Alicia sat up and blinked rapidly, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “Some dame you hooked up with, eh?” she said, laughing lightly. “A sexy guy like you should be able to find a woman with a few less problems.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want anybody else.”

  He kissed her, tentatively at first to see if the time was right, then with certainty when she responded avidly. He pulled off his own sweater and then hers, answering her murmur of pleasure as skin met skin with a sharp intake of breath when she reached for his belt. A silence fell, broken only by slight sounds: the whisper of silk against flesh, the creak of the bed as they moved, the sigh of a woman’s gratification.

  “I can never get enough of you,” he muttered as he entered her. “You’re like a drug.”

  Alicia dug her heels into his hips and arched against him. He groaned.

  “Are you addicted to me?” she whispered, running her hands down his back and pulling him deeper inside her.

  “Hopelessly,” he said hoarsely.

  “Good.” She rocked him and he rolled her over, leaving her sitting astride him, moving gently but persistently as he closed his eyes and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

  Alicia fell forward and embraced him; their mouths met and connected avidly.

  A knock sounded at the door. Neither heard it, wrapped as they were in their sensual dream.

  It was quite some time before they claimed the meal from the cart room service had left against the wall outside their door.

  Chapter 8

  District attorney Woods was having a good day The Walker murder case was falling into place nicely, and just that morning Judge Halperin had assigned the date for the preliminary hearing. As Woods had requested, the Walker case had been permitted to take precedence over other pending matters and been given a date just a month away. This would put pressure on the defense team as well as get the case into court while the headlines were still fresh.

  He was confident that he couldn’t lose.

  He was whistling cheerfully when the telephone on his desk rang.

  “Ya?” he said distractedly, thinking about his lunch with Councilman Paretsky. He listened for several moments and then said, “I know Lafferty is off the case. He took himself off it, took a voluntary leave of absence.”

  As he listened his pen stopped its motion and then fell from his fingers onto the desk. “What do you mean he is still investigating?” Woods sat still in his chair, the folder he had been notating forgotten.

  The tinny voice from the other end continued to deliver its message.

  “You’re saying there is a personal relationship with the Walker woman and now he’s helping her?” Woods asked, his expression getting darker.

  Woods closed his eyes as his caller responded.

  “Who is Ambrose Kirkland?” Woods then demanded.

  The answer did not please him.

  “How could he figure into this?” Woods asked, leaning forward in irritation.

  The other phone on his desk buzzed, and he yanked the cord out of the wall.

  “You don’t know? You don’t know!” he yelled into the receiver. “Is this what I am paying you to do? I don’t want to hear ‘I don’t know’! Find out!” He slammed the phone into its cradle and shoved his chair back from his desk. He got up and paced around the room several times, then picked up the receiver again, poised to dial.

  Then he thought better of what he was about to do. He replaced the phone and left his office to get into his car and make the call from a pay phone a distance away.

  His day had suddenly turned very bad.

  “My, my, we’re chipper, aren’t we?” Helen said, entering the Scarsdale kitchen as Alicia, humming to herself, chopped a stalk of celery for salad.

  “Chipper for anyone? Or chipper for a person about to be indicted for murder?” Alicia asked dryly.

  “Chipper as befits a person who spent the weekend with the luscious Detective Michael Lafferty.”

  Alicia looked at her.

  “Maizie told me when I called yesterday,” Helen said, dropping her purse on the counter.

  “We went to visit Hannah,” Alicia said.

  “Oh? Is that all you did?”

  “He’s helping me with my case, Helen,” Alicia said, blushing furiously.

  “Is that what they call it now?” Helen asked, sitting on a kitchen chair and swinging one foot, shod in a David Evans pump, back and forth. She was grinning.

  “Oh, go ahead. I know you’re dying to speak your piece, so say it.”

  “Say what? This whole episode has turned out exactly as I had hoped. And anticipated.”

  Alicia looked at her. “You were telling me to stay away from him and concentrate on my case.”

  “Not exactly. I told you that if seeing him was making you upset and confused you should stop seeing him in order to concentrate on your case. But if he is now working with you that is another situation entirely. The situation I would much prefer, actually. So when is the wedding?”

  “I think we’d better get through the trial first.”

  “Come on. Give me all the details.”

  “All of them? How much time do you have?” Alicia said, putting the salad in front of her friend and going into the dining room to get the bottle of wine she had brought up from the cellar. She waved to her son, who was being tutored at the dining room table while her daughter occupied the den with her teacher. Alicia returned and opened the wine while Helen nibbled on an olive.

  “Don’t let me have more than one glass of that,” Helen said, gesturing toward the wine. “I have to be coherent this afternoon.”

  “Then eat something more than rabbit food,” Alicia replied, handing Helen a crab cake on a Limoges plate.

  Helen eyed it suspiciously and then said, “You are avoiding my question.”

  “Which one?”

  “The details.”

  Alicia took her salad and sat across from Helen. “Well, it’s a complicated story, full of family secrets and past misdeeds and payoffs made in the dark.”

  Helen eyed her narrowly. “I’d rather hear about Detective Lafferty in bed. That’s what I’ve been looking forward to since I got your message asking me to come to-day.”

  “You’ll have to wait for the book on that one.”

  Helen sighed. “I knew you were going to be a prude about it. So what’s the big family secret?”

  “I’m adopted,” Alicia replied.

  Helen’s eyes widened. “Get out of town!”

  Alicia nodded, picking apart her crab cake with a fork.

  “Tell me,” Helen said.

  For the next hour Alicia filled Helen in on all the details she had learned about her past. Helen listened and stared, her meal forgotten.

  “Hannah told you this?” Helen said, when Alicia was done. “After what team of forty horses dragged it from her?”

  “I think by this time she really needed to get it off her chest. When Mike told her we wanted to talk to her she seemed ready to give up the information. She thinks it is related somehow to Joe’s murder. Mike does too.”

  “How?”

  Alicia shrugged. “I have no idea. He says that a history of criminal behavior connected to my past raises more possibilities about who might have shot Joe. Today he’s going to see Ambrose Kirkland, the man who arranged my secret adoption ”

  “Kirkland? That fossil? He’s just going to open up and tell all, I suppose?”

  Alicia sighed. “I doubt it. Mike didn’t want me to go with him so he expects it to be...difficult.”

  Helen downed the rest of her wine in one swallow. “Wow. How do you feel about this? How are you taking it? Your mother wasn’t your mother, your father was paying blackmail to keep that quiet, your grandmother knew about it all along...good grief.”

  “You mean how do I feel about all that in addition to being prosecuted for my husband’s murder, a crime I
didn’t commit?” Alicia asked, smiling thinly.

  Helen nodded slowly.

  “I must be numb. Maybe all of it hasn’t registered yet”

  “How do you feel about Mike?” Helen asked quietly.

  “I can hardly think about anything else besides making love to him. And when I’m not thinking about it, I’m doing it.”

  “Sounds like a happy fate.”

  “For a murder suspect? I think we’re both dancing in the dark.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

  “Who knows what will happen once my legal crisis is over, one way or the other. We are not in normal circumstances and can hardly establish the basis for a future. It’s as if this relationship is taking place outside of space and time, in some sort of a vacuum.”

  “So you don’t think it can last?”

  Alicia looked down at her plate and speared a lump of stringy crab. “I don’t know. Even if I’m absolved of the murder charge, my experiences with my husband and my father have hardly set me up to trust a man. And Mike is divorced. We’re not lambs in the woods skipping down the path toward happiness. I just don’t know if there is anything between us to base a life on. We were thrown together by extraordinary circumstances—once those circumstances change what will happen?”

  Helen surveyed her friend’s downcast eyes, sighed and patted her hand. “Don’t worry about that right now. One step at a time. Let’s just hope he can get Kirkland to talk.”

  Lafferty got out of the taxi and glanced up at the tan brick facade of the brownstone. The neighborhood was in the east Eighties. Old money. Kirkland had done all right with his shady dealings if he could afford these digs. The old man lived with his daughter, who had initially maintained that an interview with her father was not possible. Lafferty had persuaded Captain Cramer to call her and throw a few phrases like “obstruction of justice” around until the daughter caved in. She finally had, adding in irritation that she would have a doctor’s note waiting that would outline the conditions of the visit.

  Neither Lafferty nor Cramer had mentioned that Lafferty was on a leave of absence.

  The daughter answered the door.

  “Mrs. Claiborne? I’m Detective Lafferty to see your father,” Lafferty said smoothly.