Shadow Notes

by Laurel S. Peterson

  “At about that time, she began working for the Winters campaign—just some canvassing in her neighborhood, a couple of donations here and there, which she couldn’t really afford since the farm was just starting to break even. Then, she attended two or three fundraisers to scope out likely ‘targets.’ That’s what she called them, and that’s when I started to get uneasy.” She looked up at Ernie, and he took her hand and nodded. A little click fired in my brain.

  “I pressed her a bit on this man’s identity, and when she remained adamant about not telling me, I presumed he was married. Ernie and I also believe he was connected to the campaign, her reason for putting in so much time. She told me she would bring him home to meet us, but the time wasn’t right. I tried to tell her being involved with someone married was a painful and disastrous choice, even if—or maybe especially if—the man did leave his wife. Hetty wouldn’t listen. She said I didn’t know what I was talking about.” Her voice broke, and she paused to regain her composure. “I must have pressed too hard because she finally told me to mind my own business. We hadn’t talked since.”

  She stopped. The wall clock snapped through several seconds. “When was that?” I asked.

  “About when you returned home.”

  I thought about the campaign office. Would Winters Senior—just about the only guy who fit the description—risk an affair during the campaign? It seemed unlikely. He wanted this seat more than anything, and the voters didn’t look too kindly on sexual peccadilloes. So who could it be?

  Mother walked me out to the car, and I insisted we had to talk. “Two people have died, Mother. How much longer before we put our heads together?”

  She agreed to meet me at home at the end of the day. Despite her urging, I wanted to put my time in at the campaign. I didn’t know what she was going to tell me, but I was still collecting donor notes, and until I had answers, I didn’t want to close down any options. Besides, something nagged at me in what Loretta had just said, something that went along with something Winken said, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. That something, I was sure, was somewhere in those notes.

  When I got home that afternoon, I left Mother to open the Chinese take-out containers, while I printed out the notes from my laptop. When I returned, she handed me a set of chopsticks and got herself a fork. She spooned precise, but very small portions of each dish onto her plate and ate them separately, savoring each bite and refusing to talk until she’d made her way through one full glass of wine. I drank a glass of seltzer. Last night’s excesses were still with me, and I wanted a clear head.

  Mother put down her fork. “Loretta’s right, you know. You and I need to deal with our own conflict first.”

  No, no, no. First we needed to talk about how we were going to keep someone from murdering us in our beds. “Mother—”

  She waved me off with her fork and poured more wine for herself. “Fine. Show me those papers.”

  I shuffled the pages into alphabetical order. I would get to the vision and the DNA in a moment. “These are names and accompanying data that I’ve, uh, borrowed from the Winters campaign files.”

  Mother looked horrified. “You’ve stolen their data? They could prosecute you.”

  I ignored her. “Something’s not right. I’m not sure what it is, but you know these people. And something Loretta said…” I shook my head. It was right there. I just couldn’t catch it.

  Mother peered at me over the rim of her glass. The wine distorted her, as if half her face had aged faster, the jaw softening and warping. The lines had deepened around her eyes and mouth, enhancing that same sad expression of loss. As Loretta said, things happened to people and they never fully recovered. What had happened to Mother?

  Sharply, a slash of light rent my vision and I felt as if I were burning. Where had that come from? Just as quickly, it passed, leaving only a sheen of sweat.

  She saw, but she didn’t ask, as usual. I pushed the papers across to her. She settled her glasses on her nose and started to read. About halfway down the first page, she frowned. “Get me a pencil?”

  I rummaged in my purse and found a pen. She made a check mark and flipped to the next page, reading, frowning again, checking again. I cleared the table. By the time I’d packed everything away in the refrigerator and dishwasher, her glasses had slid to the tip of her nose and she was staring into space, ticking the pen absentmindedly against the wooden chair arm.

  “Well?” I prodded. “You see them, right? Those notations? BRK? BSA? and so on?”

  She nodded. “I think I know what they are. Can you call Bailey tomorrow? I’d like to run it by both of you, but I want to think about it a little more first.”

  “You know she’s his campaign lawyer.”

  “That’s why she should know.”

  “She’ll be at Richard and Paul’s tomorrow for Christmas Eve. We could talk there.”

  “I’m invited?” She looked genuinely surprised.

  “It’s Christmas, Mother.”

  “I know, but…I didn’t assume you would want to spend it with me. I made plans with Ernie and Loretta.”

  “I’ll call Richard to see if there’s room for two more.”

  She looked grateful, so grateful I almost couldn’t bear it. How could this be the mother I thought I knew? She was totally self-sufficient. She didn’t need anyone or anything. She could have gone to Richard and Paul’s whether I wanted her to or not. I turned away before she could see my tears.

  Then, foiling me yet again, she swept the pages up and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, firmly closing the door. There would be no more discussion of anything tonight.

  Chapter 20

  Christmas Eve dawned brilliantly white and cold—unusual for Connecticut, which for the past few years had preferred its Christmases almost green and in the forties. Bailey was working; we would have to wait for Paul and Richard’s party to confer. I was worried we might not have a chance to get away—Paul and Richard’s parties could get very festive—but Mother reassured me that we would find time.

  As for the other topics, she said, “It can wait until after Christmas.” She raised an eyebrow. “It will be all right, Clara.”

  Screaming my frustration wouldn’t help anything, so I shoved it down and hoped the dreams would cooperate with Mother’s plan. The slug was still lurking, sloshing lazily at the back of my brain.

  At seven, we arrived at the party: Richard and Paul were opening the first bottle of champagne, and playing Earth, Wind & Fire on the stereo. They’d just gotten glasses in our hands when the doorbell rang again. A blast of cold air blew in Bailey, Sondra, Joellen, Alcott, and Morrie. Sondra and Joellen were Richard’s last remaining friends from the office, a pair of bottle blondes with expertise in computer languages I’d never heard of.

  Alcott and Morrie, looking like a pair of mimes with their dark, slicked down hair and fair skin, had known Paul—and me—since grade school. They had barely gotten their scarves unwound when Loretta and Ernie arrived, bringing a large covered dish.

  Everyone carried brightly colored packages and bags and bottles. Richard poured glasses of bubbly, everyone got kissed, and Paul took care of the food and directed the packages to the tree.

  “We’re so sorry about Hetty,” Morrie said to Loretta. The group hummed their agreement.

  Loretta glanced at Ernie, her eyes tearing up. “We’re still trying to figure out how to talk about it.” She put her hand on his arm. “We don’t even know what to say to each other yet.”

  Morrie responded by doing the perfect thing: he folded Loretta into a bear hug for several moments, then kissed the top of her head as he released her.

  “Nothing I can say will make it better,” he said. “Do you want us to talk about it tonight or not?”

  She shook her head. “If you have nice memories of Hetty, yes, but I don’t want to talk about her death. I want a little
joy for us, for all the time we had with her.”

  They nodded, almost as one, and each of them hugged her on the way into the living room. We’d settled around the fire when the doorbell rang again. Richard and Paul glanced at each other, then at me.

  “What?”

  Richard shrugged coyly. Paul said, “Bailey mentioned that you’d ­probably forgotten to invite him yourself.” He opened the door to Chief DuPont. “Shining Star” started playing. I looked daggers at Bailey.

  The chief handed a large bottle of Bombay gin to Paul. “I thought, since you were entertaining Clara, you might need this.”

  Oh yeah, very funny.

  Paul barely suppressed a smile. “Good thinking.” Richard was already pouring another glass of champagne and making introductions. “Sandra and Joellen, Alcott and Morrie, this is Police Chief Kyle DuPont.”

  “Kyle is fine.” He settled on a chair at the opposite end of the room from me, nodding in greeting when Richard’s introductions swung around to my part of the circle. He was dressed casually in a dark gray V-neck sweater and black pants. A red tee shirt showed at the V and made his brown face glow. His shoes gleamed and he had on that thin Movado watch.

  The group glanced from Mother to Bailey to Kyle, no doubt wondering about the state of the murder investigation. But they were too polite to ask outright.

  A tray of rich goodies sat on the coffee table: dates stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped with prosciutto, fresh strawberries dipped in sugar, liver pâté crostini, baked brie, salmon mousse. People nibbled and gestured with their glasses, laughing and poking gentle fun at each other. Paul told a funny story about Hetty dressed as a chicken in a grade school play, something about tickling feathers and a sneezing fit she gamely turned into cock-a-doodle-doos. I even saw Mother and Loretta smile.

  The political race provoked lots of speculation. The room leaned away from Winters and toward the Democratic candidate, Sherilyn Ambroise. She had cornered the black and Hispanic vote, and was now gaining among middle-class whites and class-conscious wealthy liberals. Winters had to be a little worried.

  “You know Clara is working for Andrew Winters, don’t you?” Kyle interjected. Ten interested faces turned my way.

  “Not because I support him,” I ­protested. Six of them looked puzzled.

  Kyle looked satisfied, as if he’d driven out a piece of information in a ­successful interrogation.

  Richard and Paul had invited him because they thought I was attracted to him, but was he attracted to me? We had so many complications standing in the way of any relationship—Hugh’s murder and my pending divorce for a start. Yeah, I was a prize, all right. Why would he take a risk on me?

  “Then whyever be part of the campaign?” Morrie asked.

  I pulled myself back to the conversation. “It’s long and complicated,” I said.

  Mother rescued me. “Clara’s trying to help me.” The interested expressions turned in her direction.

  Sondra lowered her voice to a whisper, as if that would make what she said more palatable. “You mean because of the murder?”

  My mother raised her eyebrows at me.

  Sondra said, “Do you think Winters did it? Oh, wouldn’t that just be dish? I would love to see that man go down in flames. He’s so awful.”

  “Dish?” Richard shook his head.

  “What makes him awful?” Kyle shone his charm in her direction, but his eyes were watchful.

  Joellen answered for her. “He’s just slimy. Can’t you feel it coming off him in waves? Sliding off him, I guess, if it’s slime!” She laughed.

  “Ha!” I exclaimed, looking at Kyle triumphantly. “‘Slimebag Winters.’ You see? My pet name was totally appropriate!”

  He looked bemused, though he hadn’t lost his watchfulness.

  “I can’t even listen to him talk!” Sondra nodded her agreement. “Have you met his sister? She can be nice, but she always has an agenda. When I worked with her on a committee to help build a new children’s playground, it was clear she was only on it to further her brother’s career. Does she have any life of her own? I never see her without him.”

  “That’s a little creepy, isn’t it?” Alcott brushed long fingers through his slicked-back hair, releasing a torrent of it from its moussed perfection.

  “What are you suggesting?” Morrie tried to look offended, but broke into giggles.

  Bailey said, “I think we can safely rule out incest. For the record, I’m ­subbing for the lawyer who’s supposed to be working for the campaign.”

  “What does a campaign lawyer do?” asked Joellen.

  “Help the candidate avoid corruption, scandal and financial misconduct.”

  “How ya’ll doin’ on that?” the chief drawled, a little pointedly.

  She shrugged. “It’s Christmas. Can’t we talk about something besides work?”

  He laughed good-naturedly and let her off the hook, but it looked like a lawyer-cop standoff to me.

  At dinner, I was place-carded next to Kyle. Paul sat to Kyle’s right at the head of the table. Mother sat to my left, and after a speculative look at Kyle, engaged Loretta in a long chat about horses. Paul, when he wasn’t helping Richard pour wine or serve courses, stayed fully focused on Sondra, seated to his right. Kyle dipped his spoon into the creamy scallop stew and ignored me, while I tried to ignore the occasional brushes with his lovely, strong shoulder.

  About halfway through the soup, it occurred to me that this matchmaking had been done out of love. I hadn’t succeeded finding someone on my own; perhaps I should allow my friends to do it for me. Plus, the little voice in my gut that sent out low growls when Andrew Junior or Pete Samuels inserted himself in the picture remained completely silent for Kyle—or crinkled up with silvery excitement.

  He said, “You’re not going to stop, are you?”

  How could he know I’d been thinking about him? I licked a drop of soup off my spoon and set it on the charger. Richard was using his Christmas china and the deep green stripe on the rims reminded me of the color I’d seen at Hetty’s murder site. “Stop what?”

  “Trying to find out who killed Hugh and Hetty.”

  Not psychic after all. That was a relief. Two of us in one relationship would make for more stress than I could handle.

  “Someone came after my mother and used Hugh’s death to do it. Then they threatened me, and that night in the restaurant, I saw how frightened Hetty was.”

  “It’s my job to solve those crimes, not yours.”

  “I’m not out to bug you, you know. I liked it better when you liked me.”

  “I still like you.” His voice was gruff. From the corner of my eye, I saw Paul suck in a little breath. “I don’t want you getting hurt, and you’re doing everything you can to invite harm.” He wiped a bit of soup from the corner of his mouth with the barest flick of the napkin.

  “I’m sorry.” He turned slightly in his chair. I don’t think Paul was breathing at all, even though Sondra probably hadn’t noticed he was hardly paying attention to her story about the South Norwalk Maritime Aquarium. “How about you tell me what you know?”

  I breathed in and out three times as I considered this. Yes, I counted my breaths. I also counted to twenty while I was breathing. “How about you sit with Mother, Bailey and me later and talk through some ideas? I’ve, uh, ‘liberated’ some information from the campaign office, and Mother’s found some anomalies. We wanted to see what Bailey thought.”

  “What do the Winters have to do with anything?”

  “Probably nothing, but we’ve found some funny numbers, enough to take a look at. Plus, the photographs of Mary Ellen on Hetty’s wall connect the players to each other.”

  I didn’t know yet what the DNA or Hetty’s affair meant.

  “You bring me in, it’s official.”

  “Listen as a friend rather
than a police officer.”

  “They aren’t separable like that, Clara.”

  “Nothing we have is hard evidence. It’s all speculation.”

  He took in the sideboard covered with silver serving dishes, the red and green candles flanking the holly, evergreen, and red apple centerpiece, the flushed faces of my friends. I wondered what it would be like with him as part of this little family, if he would be comfortable, or if he spent his life watching other people for transgressions.

  He said, “I’ll think about it, but I can’t promise you anything.”

  Richard whisked away Kyle’s soup bowl. Paul leaned over with the wine bottle. “More?”

  Kyle shook his head. “I’ve got to drive.”

  “Surely not for a while.”

  Kyle looked at me.

  I said, “We’re only on the first course.”

  Kyle nodded, and Paul filled his glass and then mine. When Kyle wasn’t looking, Paul winked.

  The scallop stew was followed by roast beef with crispy brown pan ­potatoes, gravy, braised leeks, Loretta’s corn pudding, and Brussels sprouts with bacon. A basket of homemade cranberry bread made its way around the table. Dessert was chocolate and white mousses twirled around each other in a clear wine glass and topped with fresh raspberries. Paul had made extra thin sugar cookies and rolled them in tubes. By the time the Godiva chocolates and port arrived, I was too stuffed to touch them.

  Luckily, Kyle and I got off the subject of my bad behavior and discussed movies (we both liked comedies and political thrillers and disliked horror films), music (almost anything but Wagner and gangsta rap, he said), and free time activities (running, travel, reading, gardening and cooking found common ground). I’d even coaxed out a couple of smiles.

  After dinner, Richard and Paul insisted on a game of Charades, which was nearly impossible to play in their tiny living room. Kyle and I lost and were tasked with the dishes. While he washed and I dried and put away, I decided to pursue the intuitive image I’d had of him patrolling in the muddy aftermath of Katrina.