When I stepped from the shower with only a towel wrapped around my body, a man stood in my bedroom.
Chapter 10
Black balaclava’d face, black leather jacket, black jeans, black engineer boots. Dark brown eyes. A long hunting knife in black leather-gloved hands.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. I hadn’t set the alarm.
I shrieked. Turns out I was good at it. The cops probably heard me three counties away.
“Shut up.”
Instantly, the Montague asserted itself. “Don’t tell me to shut up in my own house.”
He advanced toward me, the knife point glistening in the half-light spilling from the bathroom door. The bedroom was dim, but I tried to see and memorize the details of him: Oval face under the mask? Wide shoulders under the jacket? Or were they padded? Long lean legs in the jeans, large feet in damp, snow-crusted boots. He couldn’t have been indoors very long.
“What’s that for?” I took a step back and pointed at the knife with the hand that wasn’t clutching the towel closed above my breasts.
“To make sure you listen.”
“Fine. You’ve got my attention. What is it you want?”
“Your mother killed Hugh. Let it go.” The knife seemed to sharpen as it moved closer. A hunting knife, not a kitchen knife, it curved into a notch near the handle. I wondered what the notch was for, and then figured I didn’t really want to know.
I wondered why now, of all times, the intuition had gone dark. Useless gift. Idly, I noticed his jacket had fringe on the sleeves, like a biker jacket. For some reason, this suddenly made me furious.
Why was everyone wound up about me? I hadn’t killed anyone. I hadn’t even been here for the past decade and a half. Why wouldn’t they leave me alone? Why did they think they could waltz into my house whenever they wanted and leave dolls and threaten me with knives?
“I know nothing! How many times do I have to say that!” Still damp from the shower, I felt myself start to shake.
“You know more than you should, and my employer is willing to send me again with a stronger message, if necessary.” He lunged at me, the knife wounding the air by my cheek. I leapt back, lost my balance and landed on the floor with the towel open to expose my thighs, my waist, my vagina. Before I could cover myself, he got himself a long look. He raised his eyes to mine, and laughed, low, dirty, and mean. Then he turned and disappeared out the door.
I scrambled to the bedside phone, hugging the towel tightly and trying not to cry. I called the police. Fifteen minutes later, Chief DuPont strode through my front door. I had dressed, but my hair still hung wet, and I couldn’t stop shaking. I hadn’t, in all my travels—not even in that Swiss asylum bed—felt so exposed and vulnerable.
The chief called to the officer who had accompanied him. “Get her a blanket, would you?” He turned to me. “Where’s the kitchen?” I pointed, my finger wobbling through the air like a drunken bird.
He made me sit at the kitchen table while he fixed hot chocolate—lots of sugar, caffeine, protein. Things to calm the shock. The officer, Joe Munson, found a towel to wrap my damp hair and draped a chenille blanket from our living room sofa over my shoulders. Its weight and warmth comforted me.
The chief plopped a large mug in front of me. “Take me through it.”
I did.
“Fringe? A hunting knife?” he asked, when I’d finished.
“Why would I make that up?” Anger felt reassuring. This was an emotion I was well acquainted with.
“Not questioning your memory. Just confirming.” He shot Munson a look, and Munson disappeared.
“Did he have a scent? Garlic? Cigarette smoke? Anything?”
I closed my eyes to remember, but instead of an image of the intruder, I saw the chief on patrol, surrounded by mud and debris, a dark speck in the middle of a shining disaster. Now I got a vision? Seriously? I opened my eyes. “You from New Orleans?”
“Good guess,” he said, bemused, “but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“He smelled like talcum powder and shampoo, like he’d cleaned up to come scare me. It was creepy. I mean, what kind of criminal does that? Is it like taking a bath before you go to work or something?” I put my face in my hands, trying to keep the shakes from starting again. I could feel them circling in my gut.
He nudged the chocolate closer. “Drink this.” I picked it up as he looked around at the vast kitchen. Mother had redone it a couple years ago in green granite and cherry cabinets, with a stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator and a six-burner gas range with a grill. Who cooked in here? Not her and not me. Caterers probably appreciated the equipment when they prepared for her parties. Even so, after six years, it was probably due for an update.
He said, “Is there someone you can stay with tonight?”
“Oh, please, can’t you just stay?” I blurted it without thinking, felt my face get deep, red hot.
“Well,” he drawled, amused, “while I might certainly be interested in that offer on some other occasion, as the Chief of Police investigating your mother as a murder suspect, I can’t see it doing my reputation in this town a whole lot of good, and since I’m new, I need that reputation. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly look the same as most of the people around here.”
“I know I know I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so…so…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “I’d really rather not rouse one of my friends. What time is it, anyway?”
He looked at his watch, a rather expensive and very thin Movado. How did a police chief afford that? “Quarter to three.”
“The night is nearly done. I’ll be fine. He’s delivered his message, and he won’t be back until he—they—whoever—figures out that I’m going to ignore it.” There. I’d made a commitment to stay the course, and I’d done it in clichés. Bravo for me.
“You can’t do that.” His face lost its indulgent look.
“Montagues don’t negotiate with thugs. And you wouldn’t back down if it were your family.” There it was again, the proud gene, Constance by another name. I wish I didn’t feel so scared saying it.
“Yeah, you and the American government and your mother, whom you seem to be channeling again. As for the other part, I’m a trained police officer, and I grew up fighting the bigger kids on the streets in New Orleans. You are…what are ya’ll, anyway? Do you work?” His sudden descent into drawl made me suspicious.
“I’m working for Andrew Winters, remember?” I summoned my tattered dignity and sipped hot chocolate, but the cup was empty and I sucked air.
“I meant for money.”
“I don’t need money.” Between my father’s business and my inheritance from him, I had more than enough.
“Of course you don’t. My mistake.” Frustrated, he ran his hand across a scrim of dark hair as thin as a ruler.
“You’re awfully antagonistic.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “It’s late, Miz Montague. I recommend sleep, and in the morning, assuming your other commitments aren’t too pressing, if you could come to the station and sign a statement, the police force would be eternally grateful. That way, the police department can investigate this incident instead of leaving it to your superior investigative skills. Please set the alarm after I leave, so I don’t have to get up again in the middle of the night and waste my time coming out here to help someone who obviously doesn’t want my help.”
The next morning, even though His Grouchiness wasn’t there to take it, I gave the police my statement. I had to make do with Pete Samuels and his dark charm.
“You Montague ladies sure are asking for trouble.” Pete crossed his forearms on his desk and leaned toward me with a sympathetic look that didn’t quite fit his features. “Must be tough having your Mom jailed and then finding someone in your bedroom in the middle of the night. You okay?”
�
�Life’s a challenge.” I just wanted to give my statement and get out of there.
“Sounds like a bit more than a challenge.” He tipped his chair back and looked over my shoulder into the bullpen. “If I took you for dinner some night, I could fill in some gaps our charming new police chief might not be willing to share.” He looked back at me and rolled his eyes.
“That’s so nice of you,” flew out of my mouth before I could censor it—or wonder what his problem was with the chief. Pete would give me only the information he wanted to, but maybe he would slip up if I asked the right questions.
“Great.” He patted my hand, let it linger a little too long. “How about tonight? I know a great place north of the parkway.”
I nodded my assent, signed my name to my statement, and stood up.
His chair smacked to the floor like a whip-crack. “I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty.”
I arrived at the campaign barely on time and feeling shaky, but being there was a routine, and routine was good. As I pulled up the campaign donor data I’d been reviewing yesterday, Andrew walked in, Jennifer trailing him like a bedraggled puppy. Her hair was pulled back in a scrunchie, and she wore blue jeans with the right knee ripped out and a tee shirt with what looked like a blueberry stain on it.
I forced a smile as she crossed next to my desk. “Morning.”
She looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. Maybe she hadn’t. She was that sort of woman. “Who did you say you were again?” Andrew had disappeared into his office.
“Clara Montague. Constance’s daughter.”
She blanched. “You-you’re, um…What are you doing at our computers?”
Brain dead. The bleach must be working on more than her hair. “I work for your husband. I’ve been in the office for several days, and I attended Mary Ellen’s fundraiser last night.”
“He told me he’d hired someone. I—I…I didn’t put it together.”
“Is there a problem?” Why would it matter if it were me or the man in the moon?
“Uh, no. Of course not.” She straightened her WASP backbone and waved her hand vaguely in the air. “I just didn’t expect, um, anyone to be here when we came in.” She wandered off unsteadily.
What was that about? My stomach started flip-flopping, and I dropped my coffee in the trash.
So someone wanted me to back off asking questions about Mother’s problems. Who? If they thought they could scare me off, they didn’t understand my resistant personality. My soon-to-be-ex-husband understood that now. My lawyer had gotten her claws into him, and he was whining at me from the answering machine, calls I deleted every afternoon when I came home. I knew I’d have to deal with him eventually, but I couldn’t face him yet. One crisis at a time. I started listing questions:
Did last night’s intruder also leave the voodoo dolls?
Why did someone want me to stop asking questions? Did that mean Mother was innocent?
Who killed Hugh and why?
What was Mother’s trauma? Did the medical report from the cottage relate to it? Who could I ask to review it with me?
Who were the suspects?
Mary Ellen and Mother had a long history, but would she risk Andrew’s candidacy? Hetty had a grudge against me, but why would that make her kill Hugh and frame Mother? Maria seemed innocent, but the common wisdom said to look to the spouse. Did she have a motive? Why had Winken freaked out when Mother said she knew who the murderer was?
Hugh would know where the bodies were buried, but Hugh was gone, which took me back to Mother’s file. Maybe I could persuade Paul to give it me. Or maybe I should just go back to Plan A: chat up some of Mother’s friends. I wondered if Ernie Brown would tell me when and why Mother rented the cottage. The complicating factor was that I’d inherited my father’s half of their landscape architecture business, and a conversation about my role in the business was on the longish list of things I’d avoided for fifteen years.
Round and round the questions spun in my head. Who would give me a hook to pry open this Pandora’s box?
Late in the day, Mary Ellen arrived, dressed again in black Prada and spiky boots. She sidled my way and planted her tiny butt on the edge of my desk. “Working on anything interesting?”
“What’s up, Mary Ellen?” I could see why my mother had lost patience with this woman a long time ago.
“Just curious about how you’re getting along.”
I wondered idly if she saw herself as guileless. “Since you’ve known my mother for such a long time, maybe you can tell me about the major trauma in her life.” Going on the offensive made me feel I was getting off the merry-go-round in my brain.
Mary Ellen went still, like a lizard, but it took her only a moment to regroup: “I have no idea what that might be.” She stood, brushing off her skirt, as if my desk had sullied her designer wear.
So she did know.
She and her boots clacked their way to the door marked “Private.” It led to Andrew’s office, which he rarely used and which no one treated as private. He’d left hours ago for a meet and greet. She picked up the phone and turned her back even though I was too far away to overhear her conversation.
As I closed out the files, I noticed one from the first fundraiser I’d attended, where I’d seen Mayor Nat. Nat had been kind to me that evening and had said he would help. Mayors were public servants, right? That meant they always worked late…
Maybe I could catch him before he left for the day. I had plenty of time before I had to meet Pete at eight-thirty. I shouted a loud goodbye and hustled out. The cold December afternoon had added wind to its icy package, and ribbons of it wound up through my sleeves and around my neck. I scooted along the sidewalk, noticing that the windows were decorated festively with red and green velvet and those cutesy little caroling dolls that people collected and displayed in cloying groups. Too bad they didn’t do something useful, like actually carol rather than just spewing tinny recorded music from their tiny mouths.
The door to the town hall was open; I was in luck. The security guard—a token addition after 9/11 (what terrorist would bomb our town?)—lazily checked my bag and waved me through. Mueller’s office, he said, was on the third floor, elevator to my right. I rode up alone, marveling that buildings in this world still contained fake paneling and green indoor/outdoor carpet. Stepping into the hall, I recognized Lyle Lovett’s album It’s Not Big It’s Large working its way under a 1950s frosted glass door. “All Downhill” was the tune playing.
I knocked and heard a growled “What is it now?”
I turned the knob and went in.
He was huddled behind a desk piled high with papers. A large 7-Eleven cup rested precariously on a stack of books about campaign finance. Two green leather chairs faced him, one with duct tape patching its torn seat.
He grunted. “Wondered when you’d show up.” He waved at the chairs, and I sat.
“What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have brought up the dancing.” He brushed his hand across his face, and I had a sudden image of him gray-faced and gasping for breath.
The image disquieted me. “When did you last get some exercise?”
Surprised, he pulled at an eyebrow. “Exercise? In this job? That consists of walking to the podium.”
“You should make time for it,” I said, insistence perhaps too evident in my tone.
“You shouldn’t—” He faltered, then gave me a thoughtful look. “I’ll try. Now, what can I do for you so I can go home?”
“Do you know anything about Mother suffering a trauma? Does it, would it…have anything to do with Hugh’s murder?” I unwound my scarf, suddenly warm.
He fiddled with some documents on his desk. “If she did suffer some trauma way back when, Clara, why bring it up now? Wouldn’t that hurt your mom’s case more than help her?” He leaned back in his chair so
far that he could have toppled through the window behind him if it were open.
“Only if it connects with Hugh’s death. Does it give her a motive? They’ve been friends all these years. Why would she want him dead now?”
He looked a little shocked. “You’re jumping to conclusions, Clara. Your mother’s not a killer.”
“I need to know what happened if I’m going to help her clear her name.”
He cracked his neck first on the left and then on the right, toyed with his wedding band. A lot of tics to decide if he should tell me. “You should talk to your mother,” he finally said.
“She won’t talk to me. Someone broke into the house last night and threatened me with a knife. I need to know—I’m involved now.”
“It’s her story,” he insisted. “I can’t tell it for her. Anyway, she didn’t tell me everything.” He turned his head away.
“What’s your relationship with her like?” The leather creaked as I leaned forward.
He smiled a little, breaking the tension. “Your mother was my first kiss.”
“Really?” I laughed. “That’s great!” I settled back, feeling my body unkink a smidgen. Finally, something benign and a little racy about her, the upstanding model citizen.
He looked a little surprised. “She never told you?”
I shook my head. “She hasn’t told me a lot of things.”
He shrugged. “We were eleven or twelve, I don’t remember exactly, at a party, some birthday for a friend who moved away a couple years later. We were drunk on cake and ginger ale, running around in the hot sun, jumping in and out of this guy’s pool. Your mother was beautiful, even then. She was as graceful and powerful as that Arabian she always wanted your grandfather to buy her.”
He paused and ran his hand over his head. The streetlight through the window gleamed off the damp sheen his hand left behind. “Anyway,” he continued, “I persuaded her that an amazing bug was lurking behind a big bush in the garden. I took her hand and pulled her over there with me, although I didn’t have to pull too hard. She’d just come out of the pool, and her body was sleek with water. She smelled like chlorine and sunshine, and her hand was cool and a little sticky.
Shadow Notes Page 10