Notorious

by Carey Baldwin

  “Didn’t your mother become school superintendent?” Caity asked. Apparently, staying up drinking last night hadn’t stopped her from doing her homework.

  “She did, eventually. But she started out her teaching career in Head Start—­that’s a preschool program for underprivileged students, and it’s still going strong.” Heather rolled her shoulders back with obvious pride. “Anyway, Mom stayed in that district, even after she moved to a third-­grade classroom. I attended the school where my mother taught—­so I could see how the other half lived. And that’s where I met the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  There was something familiar about this story, but Spense couldn’t recall what. Caity, on the other hand, got an aha look on her face, indicating to him this was a fairly well publicized version of the first lady’s history—­or at least one easily found on Google.

  “How far did your dad go, in politics?” Caity asked out of the blue.

  “Started out as a councilman and made it all the way to the lieutenant governor’s office. He could’ve gone much further, I think, if only . . .” Her voice trailed. One thing Spense did remember was that Heather Cambridge’s parents had died tragically in a small plane crash. “Daddy had his eye on the presidency.”

  Like father, like husband?

  On the desk that housed the colored boxes, Spense noticed a photo. From where he sat he could see it was actually a framed newspaper article. He approached the desk for a closer look. “May I?”

  Heather nodded, and he picked up the frame. The news story included a picture of a young girl with bright blond hair and blue eyes—­looked to be around eight years old—­boarding a yellow school bus, waving back at a tall, distinguished-­looking man. That would most likely be Heather, being seen off to school on the poor side of town by her politico father. Spense quickly skimmed the article and confirmed it. Casting a sideways glance at Heather, who had a faraway look in her eyes, he couldn’t help wondering if she understood her parents had used her education to further her dad’s career. But maybe he was being cynical. Maybe they would’ve sent her to public school in any case and simply knew a good photo op when they saw one.

  “Tell us about the bobby pins?” Caity rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in her palm, seeming eager to get to the good stuff.

  “At the time, my last name was Applegate and Cindy’s was Beasley. Back then, they seated students alphabetically, so her desk was next to mine. One day, we were given an art assignment. I think Cindy drew a horse, and I was working on a frog. I was so intent on getting that froggy right, and I was getting quite frustrated. My hair kept falling in my eyes, and I kept swatting it away. I might’ve said damn.” She flushed prettily, but again, Spense sensed she’d repeated the story with the exact same phrasing on many occasions. “Okay, yes, I did. I said damn! Cindy giggled, and the teacher said we’d have to stay in from recess if we didn’t settle down. I went back to drawing and swatting my hair, and then, Cindy poked me—­at great personal risk—­but she was like that. Fearless. I looked up, and she opened her fist, and there it was, in her palm.” Heather dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief. “A bobby pin! The teacher made us stay inside to clean the chalkboards. After that, Cindy and I became inseparable. It never mattered that I had too much, or that she had too little. What mattered was we had each other.”

  Despite the rehearsed wording, Heather told the story with an authentic joy that moved even Spense. He pictured two young girls, from such very different worlds, finding a common denominator in something so seemingly unimportant: a bobby pin.

  A small act of kindness, from one child to the other, had led to a lifelong friendship.

  That said something about both women. Whatever Heather Cambridge’s current political aspirations might be for her husband, her friendship with Cindy Langhorne had been both real and enduring. She hadn’t been stumping for the White House in third grade.

  “Sounds like Cindy was kindhearted as a child, and you mentioned fearless,” Caity said. “I’m wondering what kind of teenager she turned out to be.”

  “A wild one.” Heather folded her hands in her lap. “I guess opposites not only attract, they make good friends, too. Cindy encouraged me to push boundaries, and I helped her see that sometimes those boundaries are there for a reason. I worried about her, but at the same time, I admired her spirit. She had a dazzling personality, and all the boys loved her. She had such a way with ­people. She sometimes dated several men at a time and wound up marrying too young.”

  “You knew her first husband.”

  “I knew everyone in her life, and vice versa. I introduced her to her first husband, and she introduced me to Matt. I certainly got the better end of that deal.” Heather took a sip of coffee. “Matt had a big crush on Cindy, but he wasn’t her type—­too safe and steady. Ethan Eckhart, on the other hand, was far too dangerous for me. So we swapped beaus. Ethan was handsome as sin but a player. To this day, I regret fixing them up. I knew he’d cheat, and I did warn her, but she said . . .” The free-­flowing words suddenly slowed, then dried up altogether, as if she was holding something back.

  Caity bit her lower lip, probably noticing the change in Heather’s speech pattern like Spense had. “You warned her not to marry Ethan Eckhart, because you thought he’d be unfaithful. How did Cindy take your interference?”

  “Oh, she took it fine. We had that kind of friendship. Honest and open. Believe me, she got into my business plenty of times.” Again Heather’s words faltered. She took a deep breath. “Cindy said she’d take her chances with Ethan. She said she didn’t love him, but she liked him a lot, and she wanted someone who had the means to take care of her—­not that she aspired to luxury. She was just tired of worrying about money all the time. She wanted that part of her life to be over.” The little line between Heather’s brows fought its way back to the surface. “That’s when I realized, that even though I thought I knew her—­I really didn’t. I only knew the bubbly, smiling woman—­the fearless Cindy. That’s the first time I understood, that deep down, Cindy was terrified of things I never gave a second thought: going hungry or not having a place to live.” Heather laughed nervously. “Anyhow, Ethan took care of her all right. The divorce set her up for life, but you probably already know that. Cindy never worried about money again.”

  “Did she stay in touch with her ex?” Spense asked. “Any ongoing animosity between them?”

  Heather waved her hand dismissively. “You’re asking if Ethan might have a reason to want her dead. The guy’s a straight-­up asshole, but he’s no murderer. And no, they didn’t keep in touch . . . not as far as I know. He’s married to a bunny, last I heard.”

  A puzzled look came over Caity’s face. It took a moment for Heather’s meaning to sink in for Spense, too. “You mean a Playboy model.”

  “Right. And as much money as Cindy got in the divorce, Ethan had plenty more. She wound up with just enough to teach him a lesson about sticking a fidelity clause in a prenup.”

  It seemed strange to Spense that Heather would laugh off Cindy’s cheating ex-­husband yet turn hostile on the subject of Dutch. But maybe it was simply a matter of water under the bridge with Eckhart. His marriage to Cindy had ended long ago. “Speaking of fidelity, there are rumors—­”

  “That Cindy cheated on Dutch? The rumors are true.” Heather stuck her chin up. “Doesn’t mean she deserved to die.”

  Spense gave her a minute to swallow her bitterness, then moved her back on track. “I’m wondering if the infidelity was a two-­way street. Did Dutch cheat on Cindy?”

  “You’re his Bureau buddy, why not ask him?” She picked up a finger sandwich, brought it to her lips, but set it down again without taking a bite. “Sorry. I don’t mean to snap at you. I’m sure you understand how upsetting this is.”

  Caity nodded sympathetically. “Take your time.”

  “The honest answer is I don’t know if h
e cheated. Dutch has always been a mystery to me. And frankly, I’ve never understood why she put up with him. I would have left a man who treated me like that, and I advised her strongly to file for divorce.” She sighed heavily. “Cindy just wouldn’t give up on that marriage, though, no matter how bad things got.”

  “But she was the unfaithful one,” Spense turned his palms up.

  “Only because she couldn’t get his attention. Dutch Langhorne’s not a cold fish. He’s a dead fish. The man’s impenetrable. A fortress of secrecy.”

  “He’s FBI,” Spense said, feeling a rush of empathy for his colleague. It was a rare woman who could tolerate being shut out from a man’s daily life. But classified is classified. No way around it. Being a G-­man’s spouse requires unconditional trust. His gaze fell on Caity. Marriage requires unconditional trust.

  “Dutch is a jerk.” Heather directed her comment to Caity, perhaps thinking a woman would understand better.

  “Then why did Cindy marry him? She had plenty of money after her divorce from Ethan Eckhart. No need to marry a jerk,” Caity fired back.

  Heather rolled her eyes. “She claimed she loved him.”

  “Obviously, you don’t believe that. But you just said the two of you were open with each other, and she admitted she never loved Ethan, so why would she lie about Dutch?”

  “I-­I don’t know. Maybe she did love him. It’s just hard for me to relate. I don’t see how anyone could fall for someone like him. I realize he’s good-­looking . . . and powerful. He’s a special agent and everything. That’s a pretty sexy job.” Her eyes darted to Spense and back to Caity.

  “But?” Spense asked.

  “He’s a block of ice, at least to me. And you never know what he’s thinking—­always looking at you funny, like he knows your hidden thoughts. He gives me the creeps. In the beginning, Cindy said he opened up to her a lot about his family. Had some kind of terrible secret from his childhood.”

  Caity’s face lost the little bit of color that had returned to her cheeks.

  “What kind of secret?” This was new information and, as such, interested Spense.

  “Cindy never told me. And I guess it made me angry that she kept his secrets from me. I told her everything—­but I’m getting off track.” She cleared her throat. “She said Dutch had a warm, mushy center, and that I just needed to get to know him. I tried to like him, but things never gelled between us. Back then, that didn’t matter, though, because he made her happy.”

  “What changed?” Spense asked.

  “Again, as the family friend, I refer you to Dutch.”

  “He’s not talking much these days.”

  Heather cocked an eyebrow. “Clammed up on you, too. See what I mean?”

  A rather clever misdirection on her part, Spense thought, since she was the one currently evading his question. She knew something, but she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m asking you, Heather. Did something happen to change Cindy’s marriage to Dutch?”

  “Yes and no.”

  He waited, giving her a look that let her know he wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

  “I say no, because the rumor wasn’t true. Yes, because Dutch, seemed to believe it. He wasn’t used to being in the high-­society limelight. He didn’t understand that the press exaggerates and sometimes downright fabricates events to sell papers. One summer, word got around that Cindy was sleeping with her tennis pro, and the gossip rags printed the story. It wasn’t true—­that pro was an oily loser. But the damage was done. Dutch totally withdrew from Cindy. She tried to reassure him it was all a lie, but he wouldn’t listen. Whenever he was on the road, he’d go long periods without calling her. And when he was home, he slept in a separate room.”

  “Did he act jealous? Threaten her in any way?” Caity asked.

  “Not at all. At first, it seemed as if he was punishing her with the silent treatment, but as time went on, it began to look like he really didn’t give a damn one way or the other.”

  “How did the rumor start?”

  “It could’ve been any of the women at the club. Most of them are phonies. Nice to your face and ready to stab you the second you turn your back. Cindy had it all. Looks, money, a hot FBI husband. She had a lot of enemies even before she’d done anything to earn them.”

  To Spense, up until this point, Cindy had been a bit of a caricature, painted in broad strokes by the press. But as Heather described her best friend’s life story, he began to get a feeling for the real woman. A flawed human being who’d tried and failed, then tried again, never quite finding her happy ending. “Did she ‘earn’ her enemies later on?”

  Heather cast her eyes to the far wall. “She wasn’t the hard-­hearted tramp the press makes her out to be, but she did wreck a home or two. In her defense—­not that there’s a defense for cheating—­they were homes already scheduled for demolition. She had affairs with her friends’ husbands, but only those with women on the side already. Cindy started out with so little in life, but she never wanted to take things away from anyone else. She wasn’t the envious sort. She never wanted to keep any of the men for herself though I suppose one or two of them fell hard for her.”

  “So what did she want? Fun?” Spense had to admit Heather Cambridge impressed him. Despite her prim-­and-­proper image, she didn’t seem judgmental—­at least not as far as Cindy Langhorne was concerned.

  “I don’t think she had a bit of fun. She put on that big grin of hers for show, but in private, she cried a lot. I think if Dutch had paid her an ounce of attention . . .” Her voice broke at that point, and the handkerchief came out once more. “All she wanted was for Dutch to love her. She wanted him to put his foot down and demand that she stop fooling around with other men, but no matter how brazen she was, he never said a word. Like I said before, a dead fish.”

  Spense tugged at his tie. Dutch had never been anything other than cool to him either. But this wasn’t a congeniality contest. It was a murder investigation. Spense looked Heather Cambridge straight in the eyes. “Do you believe he has it in him to murder his wife?”

  She gripped the arms of her chair, not shying away from Spense’s gaze. “Yes, sir. I sure as hell do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Thursday, October 17

  6:30 P.M.

  Dallas, Texas

  CAITLIN’S BREATH CAUGHT when the door swung open, and a handsome man with aristocratic features and a hint of gray at the temples strode across the field-­office conference room. James Edison, the Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas office, wore a perfectly tailored shark gray designer suit—­and a grim smile. His tanned skin, bolo tie, and ostrich boots marked him as Texan, while his assessing gaze, and the intelligent gleam in his slate-­colored eyes screamed FBI. She’d been eagerly anticipating meeting him, but now something had gone wrong. Dutch wasn’t present for today’s meeting, as originally planned, and she’d been inventing her own reasons for his absence—­none of them pleasant.

  Though an appointment had already been on the books for 8:00 P.M., Edison had sent an urgent, and cryptic, message pushing their meeting to ASAP. So she and Spense had driven straight from their interview with Heather Cambridge to the Dallas field office.

  The SAC approached, extending his hand. “Jim Edison. You must be Dr. Cassidy.”

  “Caitlin,” she said, the firmness of his grip nearly pulling her to her feet.

  He held the handshake a moment longer than usual, a sign of both confidence and friendliness. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I only wish our first introduction had been under different circumstances.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, sir. It’s a pleasure.”

  “None of this sir, stuff. I’m just Jim.” He drew Spense into a brief man hug, and his posture relaxed. “And you can ask this guy—­I’m practically family.”

  Spense nodded, and both men to
ok a seat. “Not practically—­Jim is family.”

  “Jack Spenser saved my life back in our army days. He was a great, great man—­and now his son is following in his footsteps.”

  Caitlin realized the SAC meant that as a compliment, but the idea of Spense’s following in his father’s footsteps soured her stomach. And just when she’d finally gotten over that fermented feeling brought on by too much drink last night and too much time in the car today. “Following in his footsteps . . . I’m not sure . . .”

  Jim drew his chair closer to the large glass conference table where they were seated. “I’m trying to say that Spense is a man of integrity, like his father before him.”

  Clearing his throat, Spense looked away. There was a long pause, then he said, in a voice that sounded deeper than usual, “Thanks, for that Jim. I’m not sure I deserve the comparison to my father, but I appreciate it.”

  Unease settled heavily over her. Spense certainly did not deserve the comparison—­he was a far better man. Scrutinizing Jim’s face, she saw no sign of turmoil. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact Spense had a beast of a misconception about his father. In fact, Jim seemed happy to feed the dragon.

  “Sir—­”

  “Jim.”

  Caitlin placed her forearms on the tabletop. “You mentioned the unhappy circumstances of this meeting. I can’t help wondering why Dutch isn’t here.”

  Jim arched a brow at Spense. “The lady doesn’t pussyfoot around, does she?”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Spense said. The approval ringing in his voice made her fidget in her chair. Keeping any secret from Spense seemed wrong, and keeping this particular secret from him took wrong to a whole new level. Yet here she was, colluding with Jim, who didn’t even know she knew—­and somehow that made her feel doubly dirty. But Dutch’s absence had her doubly worried.