Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery)

by Annelise Ryan

  As expected, both Tux and Rubbish were stretched out on the bed. They barely acknowledged my entrance, each of them opening one eye, shifting their positions slightly, and then going back to sleep. Hurley followed me but stopped just inside the bedroom door.

  “You’re pregnant,” he said again, but a statement this time rather than a question.

  “Yes, I am. I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “A couple of months. I found out the same day you and Emily left town.”

  Hurley frowned and looked away. I could tell he was thinking, calculating, and when he finally looked back at me, his expression was nervous. So I decided to answer the question I thought he was too afraid to ask.

  “I haven’t been with anyone except you, Hurley.”

  Hurley raked a hand through his hair, turned around, and took two steps into the living room, then spun around and returned to his original spot. “You and I are going to have a baby.” He said it with a flat tone, and the expression on his face was equally benign. I couldn’t read him at all. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I wanted to do it in person. I didn’t think it was the kind of news that should be delivered over the phone. Plus, you had a lot of other things on your mind with Kate and all.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “Izzy knows. He guessed after Dom figured it out. And I told my sister and her family tonight right before I came home. Obviously the owner of the clothing store I was at today knows, so I suspect the news will get out pretty fast now.”

  “What did Izzy have to say about it?”

  “He said we would need to talk, about the job and such. I was supposed to join him for dinner tonight, but then he got the news about Dom’s father and had to leave. So I don’t know what he was planning to tell me.” I paused and took a breath. Hurley was still staring at me with that benign expression. “I’m really sorry this happened, Hurley. I didn’t plan for it. The doctor said the antibiotics I took back in December interfered with my birth control pills. Apparently it happened that first night . . . the night Kate and Emily showed up.”

  Hurley smiled and gazed off at nothing. “That was one hell of a night.”

  “Yes, it was.” I wasn’t smiling, mainly because I was recalling the humiliation and depression I felt when Kate showed up and announced that Hurley was not only married to her, but the father of her teenage daughter. It wasn’t hard to guess what part of that night Hurley was remembering.

  “Okay,” Hurley said, refocusing on me, “when should we do the deed?”

  “Do the deed?”

  “Yeah, when should we get hitched?”

  I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded, and didn’t say a word.

  “Oh, should I do it all romantic like?” He got down on one knee, and I immediately turned away from him.

  “Get up, Hurley. We’re not going to get married.”

  “We’re not? Is it because I don’t have a ring, because I can get one.”

  I turned and looked back at him. He was so damned adorable down on one knee, his face imploring. “I don’t need a ring, Hurley.”

  “Fine,” he said, rising to his feet. “No ring. But we should still get married.”

  “We should?”

  “Yeah. We’re having a kid. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “And that’s precisely why we’re not doing it,” I said. “I’d never be able to convince myself that you didn’t marry me simply out of some sense of duty and obligation.” Hurley opened his mouth, presumably to object, but I didn’t let him get a word out. I had an advantage in this debate; I’d been practicing it for the past two months. “And I have several more reasons,” I added quickly. “One, I don’t want to lose my job, and if you and I are married, one of us is going to have to change jobs. Two, I just killed a man . . . granted he probably deserved it, but still . . . so it really isn’t the time to be talking about future plans. And three, I know you felt duped, trapped, and not ready when the whole Kate and Emily thing happened, and I’m not going to do that to you. You have enough on your hands right now with Emily. And speaking of Emily, how is she going to handle the news?”

  Hurley gave me a wounded look, and his lips pinched tight. He moved closer, and I resisted the two opposing urges I had: to back away from him and to run into his arms. “Look,” he said, stopping a few feet away, probably because Rubbish—who was asleep on the bed with Tux, both of them oblivious to the chaos going on outside—opened one eye and stared at him. I saw Hurley shoot the cats a wary glance before he continued. “I know I said some things when Kate showed up that implied how unhappy I was with the surprise she sprang on me . . . several surprises for that matter. But you and I . . . we’re different. I don’t feel trapped; I feel excited about this. And as for the job situation, we can do a justice of the peace thing and keep it quiet for now. No one has to know.”

  “Get real, Hurley,” I said, feeling my heart break. The one thing I wanted to hear from him and didn’t was that he loved me. “We live in a small town where gossip spreads faster than flesh-eating bacteria and with a similar end result. We’ll both be skinned alive. There’s no way we could keep something like that a secret. Not only that, you’re just coming off of another relationship, and I don’t want to be your rebound wife.”

  He let out a sigh of exasperation. “Kate and I didn’t have a relationship. As for Emily, she’ll do fine with it. She’s a great kid.” He paused and cocked his head to the side, looking at me with a sad, longing expression. “I missed you, Mattie, and I—”

  Whatever he was going to say next was cut short when there was a loud knock on my door. Hoover, who up until now had been sitting at our feet, his head moving back and forth as he looked at whoever was doing the talking, barked and ran for the door.

  “Mattie?” It was Junior Feller yelling from outside. “Dr. Henderson is here, and he wants to talk to you.”

  “See?” I said, trying not to cry. “Not a good time.”

  I made a move to walk past him, but he grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Look, we need to discuss this,” he said. “If not now, then very soon.”

  “I agree. But for now, can we keep things on the down-low? I don’t need any more complications in my life right now.”

  “Is that what I am to you? Is that what this is to you? A complication?”

  “Come on, Hurley. You know what I mean. We’ll talk more about it later. Now is not the time.”

  “Whatever,” Hurley said a bit snidely, raking his hair with his hand again. He looked confused, shell-shocked, frustrated, and a little hurt. “But it will be soon.”

  He let me go then, and I hurried over to the door and opened it. Junior was standing on the front porch with Gary Henderson. Hoover took one glance at them and then promptly stepped forward and started sniffing at their shoes like they were raw hamburger. Then I realized that, considering the scene outside, it might have been something frighteningly close to that he smelled, so I grabbed his collar, pulled him back inside, and told him to sit.

  Gary Henderson was a tall, somewhat gangly man with wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a friendly smile. He was wearing rectangular-shaped glasses and was dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. The lumberjack outfit seemed a sharp contrast to his otherwise nerdy appearance.

  “This is Mattie Winston,” Junior said, nodding toward me. “Mattie, this is Dr. Gary Henderson. I briefed him on what happened, but he still needs to talk to you.”

  “Of course he does,” I said with a smile. “Come on in.”

  “Actually, I’d rather not,” Dr. Henderson said. “This is your home?”

  “Yes. I live here, and Izzy lives in the main house.”

  “Yes, well,” he paused, cleared his throat, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Given the proximity of the . . . um . . . incident to your home, this is part of our crime scene. As such, we need to secure it until we’ve had a chance to
investigate the matter more thoroughly.”

  “What? Why?” I protested. It was bad enough that my car was likely to be out of service for who knew how long. Now I was going to lose my house, too?

  I felt rather than heard Hurley come up behind me. I could feel the heat from his body radiating onto my back. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Hurley said. “I’m Detective Steve Hurley with the Sorenson Police Department. I was with Mattie when she entered the house, and the front door was locked. Everything that happened did so outside.”

  “Yes, well . . .” Henderson paused and pushed his glasses up again. “You know how closely we need to guard our evidentiary processes these days after that scandal in Milwaukee. And given that Ms. Winston here works closely with all of you, I think we should bring in someone from the outside to investigate this matter, both to process the evidence and to conduct the investigation.”

  “Are you suggesting that we’re trying to hide something here?” Hurley asked, his voice surly. I suspected he was about to vent his suppressed anger from our little chat on Dr. Henderson.

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” Henderson said with a forced smile. “Bringing in outside investigators is as much to protect all of you as it is to protect any evidence. I’m sure the investigation will show that Ms. Winston was perfectly justified in running over the man outside.”

  I winced at his blunt wording, and his equally blunt tone, which somehow belied his words.

  “That man she ran over was trying to kill her,” Hurley said, still angry. “The guy shot at her, for Christ’s sake. Did you bother to look at her car? Clearly this was a case of self-defense.”

  Henderson’s phony smile grew even phonier. “Now, now, detective, I understand why you’re upset about this given that Ms. Winston here is a colleague of yours.”

  Something like that, anyway.

  “And I assure you that the investigation will be done swiftly and fairly,” Henderson continued in the tone of voice a parent might use on a child having a tantrum. “If what you say is true, then Ms. Winston should be exonerated in very short order. But in order to ensure that all of the evidence is processed properly and the investigation is conducted properly, we need to be very transparent and objective about things. And if you investigate this case, and Ms. Winston’s coworkers process the evidence, it will appear as if you are trying to sweep things under the rug, whether you are or not.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Hurley seethed.

  Sensing that things might get out of control rather quickly, I spun around and put a hand on his chest. Since the angle of our positions hid my other hand from view, I slid it into the belt on Hurley’s pants. “It’s okay, Hurley. Let it go. If you think about it, you know Dr. Henderson is right about this. I don’t want any lingering doubts when the investigation is concluded. I need to have my name completely cleared, with no shadows or gossip that might taint things in the future. You understand that, don’t you?”

  I said these last two sentences in a tone of voice meant to make him realize I was implying more than just my own future. Just in case he didn’t get it from that alone, I tugged on his belt as I said it. My gambit seemed to work. At first Hurley’s hands were closed into fists, his face looked like an overripe tomato ready to explode, and his entire body was tensed, ready to spring. But by the time I finished my little tug-and-speech, I saw the spark in his eye fade and felt his body begin to relax.

  I released my grip on his pants and turned back to face Dr. Henderson. “I understand completely, and I agree with you,” I said, which triggered what appeared to be a genuine smile from Henderson. “We are in the middle of investigating another case at the moment. Is it all right if I continue to be a part of that?”

  Henderson narrowed his eyes in thought. “Are you referring to the case Dr. Rybarceski told me about before he left town?”

  I nodded, smiling at his formal use. Izthak Rybarceski was just Izzy to the rest of us. I couldn’t remember the last time he was called Dr. Rybarceski by anyone, although I imagined it happened when he had to testify in court. That was one of the job duties he’d been prepping me for of late, though I hadn’t yet set foot inside a courtroom. I thought I might have to in order to finalize my divorce from David, but that was all handled by lawyers. Now it appeared as though my first court appearance might be as a defendant rather than a witness. Like everything else in my life of late, this was not the way I’d planned it.

  “As long as you don’t have anything to do with this investigation, I don’t see any reason why you can’t continue with the other one,” Henderson said finally. “Although we should rule out the possibility that this incident might be related to that case.”

  “I don’t see how it could be,” I told him. “We don’t have a clear suspect yet, and so far my involvement in the investigation has been limited to some photography and some interviews Detective Richmond conducted with the victim’s family members and associates.”

  “Well, while I don’t discount your interpretation of the situation, I will need to talk to Detective Richmond first before I decide, to get his take on it. If he agrees with you that this shooting isn’t related, then I don’t see why you can’t resume work on that case. However, I should probably oversee any evidence that is handled by you or anyone in your office. I’ll bring in some techs from Madison to handle the evidence from this case, and they’ll be working side by side with you and your coworkers as you process any evidence from your case, at least until this investigation is closed.” He paused and nudged his slippery specs back up his nose again. “I will discuss all this with Dr. Rybarceski, of course, but I believe that is how we should proceed.”

  I heard Hurley let out a frustrated sigh behind me, and he muttered something I couldn’t make out. Fearful he would work himself into a lather again, I quickly said, “I’m sure that will be fine,” even though I knew it was a lie. Like Hurley, neither Richmond nor Arnie would take well to having someone from the outside looking over their shoulders, particularly Arnie, who could find a conspiracy hiding in his underwear drawer. On the up side, since Richmond was the detective in charge of the Derrick Ames case, Hurley shouldn’t be impacted much by this temporary change, which was just as well given his current demeanor.

  Hurley brushed past me, and for a second I was afraid he was going to deck Dr. Henderson. But he bypassed him harmlessly, muttered, “I’ve got things I need to do,” and stalked off. It tore me up inside to watch him go, but I shoved my emotions down deep inside and refocused on Dr. Henderson.

  “I guess I need to find another place to stay,” I said to no one in particular.

  I briefly considered my options. My sister’s place was out of the question. She and Lucien were still working things out. The last thing they needed was a pregnant, emotional, possible felon complicating things. Clearly Izzy’s house wasn’t going to be acceptable. My mother’s place didn’t even bear consideration. Even without the pregnancy issue, there was her germophobia. My mother doesn’t just keep her house clean, she keeps it sterile. She wears a biohazard suit every time she has to empty her vacuum cleaner bag, which, not surprisingly, is after every use, which, also not surprisingly, is several times a day. Since I had two cats and an often messy dog to take with me, it was a recipe for certain disaster. Hurley might have been a dreamy option if not for the little problem of my pregnancy, Emily, and the current tortured state of our relationship. That left me with only one other choice.

  “I’ll put myself up at the Sorenson Motel for now,” I announced. “I need to take some clothing and such with me. Will that be okay?”

  Henderson nodded. “Sure, but I want to supervise you while you pack.”

  “Whatever,” I said, giving him a smile every bit as phony as the one he had used on me.

  Henderson didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Look, I know this is awkward for you, but I’m just doing my job.” He sounded sincere, and my building anger deflated faster than Hurley’s hopes for the future had.

/>   “I know that,” I said, resigned to my fate. “So let’s start moving and get this over with.”

  Henderson sent Junior to fetch Richmond and the other uniformed officers and tell them to stop whatever they were doing and focus on securing the scene. Then he got on his phone, and as he tailed me into my bedroom so I could pack some clothes, he made the necessary arrangements to have a crew come to Sorenson to handle the investigation into my shooter’s death.

  When he was done, he disconnected his call, slipped the phone into his shirt pocket, and then redeemed himself some when he discovered Tux and Rubbish sleeping on my bed. “Cute cats,” he said. He walked over to give Rubbish a little scratch behind the ears, and my cat rolled over and offered up his belly. Before I could warn him, Henderson went to scratch that, too, and Rubbish wrapped himself around Henderson’s arm the way John Hurt’s alien wrapped over his face. I anticipated blood and an angry man, but to my surprise, Henderson grabbed Rubbish by the middle and scooped him off the bed into his arms. Then he used his other hand to start scratching under Rubbish’s chin. Just like that my cat fell in love. If only it was that easy for people.

  “Clearly you’re a cat person,” I said.

  “I have two of my own back in Madison.” Rubbish was a ball of furry putty in his hands.

  “Who’s looking after them while you’re in Sorenson?”

  “A neighbor lady. I live in a town house, and the woman next door is an elderly retired widow with nothing better to do.” He shrugged. “It works out for both of us. She’s a good friend. I mow her lawn, shovel her walks, and do some fix-ups around her place, and in exchange she cooks stuff for me.”

  “That’s nice.”

  I dragged a suitcase out of the closet and started throwing some clothes into it, most of which I wouldn’t be able to fit into much longer. I almost told Henderson then that I was pregnant, but before I could, he said, “It’s a good give-and-take; Marian makes a mean lasagna.” He smiled, and I got a sudden sense that he was a lonely person. Not hard to believe, given his line of work. It’s a real relationship destroyer when you tell someone on your first date that you work with dead bodies on a regular basis.