Memory of Murder

by Kathleen Creighton

  Alan didn’t say anything, and they stood together in the night, under the floodlights, gazing at the activity all around them. Then Carl said without turning, “They’re probably about done with her. Why don’t you take her home?”

  Alan looked at his partner. He felt tired, suddenly, more tired than he’d ever felt in his life, that he could remember. And at the same time, oddly wired, as if there was a low-voltage current running just under his skin.

  Carl took the evidence bag with the manila envelope from Alan’s hand. “Go on,” he said. “I got this covered. No need for you to stick around tonight.”

  Alan watched him walk back up the driveway toward the house. After a moment he took the folded piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, read what was written there, then folded it again and put it back in his pocket. Then he straightened up and walked down the driveway, down the sidewalk to where Lindsey was.

  Alan unlocked her door for her, then stepped in and took a quick look around before standing aside to let her go in ahead of him. He always did that. Force of habit, Lindsey thought; he probably wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

  She walked slowly across the tiled entry and stepped into her living room, which always before had given her a sense of warmth and welcome. Now the room seemed only vaguely familiar to her, like a room in a house she’d maybe visited once or twice. Feeling desperately weary, she turned to look at Alan, who had closed the door behind him and dropped the key onto the table in the entry, and stood now, watching her, hands in his trouser pockets.

  “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” she asked, smiling a little.

  “Not unless you want me to,” he said gravely.

  She snorted, and after a moment said, “Well, I’m not about to beg.”

  “You don’t have to beg,” he said. “Obviously. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, you’re here-or rather…there. Which is fine, if that’s where you want to be, because like I said, I’m not going to-” As she was rattling on he was moving toward her, and before she could finish he’d gathered her into his arms, and her world once again became a warm and safe place.

  He smelled so good…so clean. After a while she expelled a sigh against his shirtfront and murmured, “You must think me terribly needy.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Hmm…right.” She pushed away from him and looked down at the jacket someone-one of the EMTs, maybe-had given her to put on over her blood-stained clothes. It was way too big and covered the worst of it, even on her pants. She’d washed her hands after they’d tested her for gunshot residue, but she still felt sticky. And the smell…She touched her nose with the back of her hand and gazed around at nothing as she fought back a wave of nausea. “Um…can I get you anything? Some coffee?”

  “You don’t need to wait on me,” he said.

  She knew, without looking at him, that his eyes would have the softness that had first appealed to her when he’d spoken so gently to her mother. But it wasn’t the kind of softness she wanted now.

  “Yes,” she snapped, “I do.” While she talked she was moving again, just…moving, barely knowing where. Then she was in the kitchen, closing the curtains across the glass patio doors, opening cupboards, closing them again.

  She felt his hands on her arms, turning her. He pulled out one of the stools beside the counter and sat on it, then drew her onto his lap.

  “I need to do…something,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” he said, “but there are better things.”

  “Like what? Oh-I guess I should take a shower,” she said, answering her own question.

  “That’s one,” Alan said, nodding.

  “I knew it-I stink.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Liar.” She’d stiffened, and was trying to get off his lap, but he only settled her more closely against him, one hand coming to guide her head firmly into the curve of his neck and shoulder.

  “You don’t stink,” he said, “but if you did, I wouldn’t care.”

  She went still, and for a long time lay against him listening to the sound of his heartbeat and the words he’d spoken. They seemed to rumble around in her head like some sort of distant and continuous thunder. Finally, she lifted her head so she could look at his face, and said, “Wow. That’s…wow.”

  She touched his cheek…laid her hand along the side of his face, feeling the prickle of his beard against her palm. His eyes gazed steadily back at her. She stroked her thumb across his lips, and they parted slightly. A shiver ran through her, and, to her wonderment, through him, too.

  “I thought you said this was a bad idea,” she whispered.

  His lips curved in a wry smile. “It’s growing on me.”

  Laughter…pleasure…two things she’d thought she’d never experience again…bubbled deep inside her. She stirred a little and said with a tiny hiccup of laughter, “That’s not all that’s growing.”

  A chuckle shook his chest. “I know. What can I say?” He kissed her forehead and drew her head back down onto his shoulder. Then he said huskily, “But this isn’t about sex. I can just hold you all night long, if that’s what you want.”

  She slipped off his lap and turned to look at him. “I would be very disappointed if you did that,” she said gravely.

  He unfolded himself and rose slowly from the stool. “Why is that?”

  “What do you mean, Why? Because I would very much like you to make love to me. But like I said, I won’t b-”

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her, stopping the words in her mouth.

  He’d kissed her before, but this was different. She knew it…felt it. She felt weak and shaky inside, and gripped his wrists and held on to them for support. When he lifted his head at last, she stood for a long moment with her eyes closed, then whispered, “But first…a shower.”

  “I’ve got no problem with that,” he said, smiling.

  Later, lying naked and spent beside him, Lindsey said, “I wouldn’t-I don’t-blame you. Or hold it against you. But I do blame myself. You were right about that.”

  His hand didn’t stop stroking her back. “Why?”

  “He asked me to forgive him, but I was in such shock…I couldn’t look at him. I shrank from him, Alan. And that’s when he…when he…”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe he did the only thing he could.”

  She rose up and stared at him, and he touched her cheek and then went on. “He’d lost everything, love. Everything that mattered. You…your mother. The rest didn’t mean much.”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed, then said thickly, “He was wrong, you know. He hadn’t lost me. I think I would have forgiven him. I have forgiven him. Maybe that’s crazy, but no matter what he did, he was my dad. He loved me. Nothing can ever change that.”

  “No,” Alan said. “Not crazy.”

  She lay quietly in his arms for a while, then raised herself again on one elbow to look down at him. “I want you to know,” she said, in a voice that shook only a little, “that this isn’t all about needing you to help me make it through the night.”

  “No? What is it, then?” Was he daring her? His smile seemed…tender.

  Steeling herself one last time, she took a deep breath, and stepped out of the shadows and into the light. And felt more naked…exposed…vulnerable than any time before in her life.

  “It’s about me loving you,” she said solemnly, “and offering you sex so that you will stay with me and grow to love me back.”

  His smile widened briefly, then vanished, to be replaced by an expression more appropriate for a priest hearing someone’s most sacred secrets. He cleared his throat. “Uh…not that I don’t appreciate the sex-am pretty happy about it, in fact-but it’s not necessary in order for me to stay with you. Or love you back.”

  She looked at him for a long time. Then, whispering, “For real?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a raspy voice. “For real.”

  “What chan
ged your mind?”

  “About loving you? Nothing. I started doing that quite a while ago. But about giving us a chance…well, you did for starters.” His smile flickered. “I didn’t much like being called a coward. But what really did it, was…well, just a minute.”

  He shifted her and sat up. She watched him, her head propped on her hand, as he walked naked across the room to where he’d left his clothes, hung over the back of a chair.

  He took something from the pocket of his shirt-a folded piece of paper. He came back, sat on the edge of the bed and handed the paper to her. His eyes seemed uncommonly bright. Tears? she thought. No. Impossible. This is Alan. Tough, hardened, homicide cop. It can’t be tears.

  “This is the last page of Alexi Kovalenko’s confession-I had Carl make me a copy.” His voice was rough; he paused to clear his throat. “I think he meant it for you. I guess you could say they’re his last words.”

  Lindsey looked at him in wonderment, half in fear. Then she took the paper from him, unfolded it, and through a shimmer of her own tears, read what was written there:

  I could never understand why she survived.

  Of course, I did not believe in God, then.

  Later, I came to believe He had given both of us a second chance.

  She looked up at him, smiled radiantly and whispered, “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  Epilogue

  San Diego, California

  Thanksgiving Day

  Holt Kincaid paused on the doorstep of the one-story, Spanish-style apartment. He turned to Brenna, who was holding their son, Jamie.

  “You do know, she probably won’t have any idea who I am.”

  “I know,” Brenna said. “But that’s okay. You know.”

  She smiled at him and briefly leaned her head against his shoulder. Jamie reached out his fat baby hand and patted his face and whispered, “Dah.”

  Holt took one more breath and knocked. Lindsey opened the door. Her face seemed flushed, and her eyes were brilliant. Behind her, he could see Alan, just hovering, one hand on her shoulder. Protecting her. Holt liked that.

  “Hi-come in,” Lindsey said, sounding slightly out of breath.

  Holt moved past her, into a small living room, and Brenna followed him. “Smells fantastic,” he said.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” Lindsey said. “Turkey’s about done-there’s enough food for an army.”

  “Wouldn’t be Thanksgiving,” Holt said. “Where…is she-”

  And then Alan was there, and on his arm, as if he were escorting a princess, a tall, slender woman wearing an apron over her blouse and slacks. Her salt-and-pepper hair was worn in an old-fashioned pageboy style. Her smile was brilliant but uncertain.

  “Mom,” Lindsey said, taking her mother’s hand, “company’s here.”

  Gamely, like a little girl remembering her manners, Karen McKinney smiled and held out her hand, first to Brenna. “Hello-do I know you? Who is this?” She touched Jamie’s cheek. “Such a pretty baby.” Her eyes moved on…found Holt’s face. She seemed to stagger. Her hands rose, shaking, to her face, and her eyes widened and filled with tears.

  “James,” she whispered. And then, as the tears rolled down her cheeks: “Oh, James, where have you been? I thought you were dead. I’ve missed you so!”

  Holt looked at Lindsey, who gave him a shrug and an apologetic smile. He wasn’t sure what to do. Thinking he ought to just go along with the fact that his mother had obviously mistaken him for her husband, he took his son from Brenna’s arms and said, “This is Jamie.”

  To his surprise, Karen laughed. “Silly, it’s Jimmy, not Jamie! Think I don’t know my own sweet boy?” She held out her arms, and, still not sure what to do, Holt handed his son over to his grandmother. Jamie promptly wriggled, demanding to be put down.

  “Tell her,” Lindsey said quietly. “Go ahead and tell her the truth. Tell her this child isn’t her Jimmy, but her grandson, and that you are Jimmy, all grown up. She may not understand completely…but then again, I think she just might.”

  Holt hesitated. His mother, straightening up after setting her grandson down, gazed at him in bewilderment. He took her hands in both of his…feeling her hands for the first time in forty years, and yet…he felt as though he knew their touch. He lifted a hand and gently brushed away a tear from his mother’s cheek.

  “Hello, Mama,” he said huskily, smiling through tears. “It’s me…Jimmy. I’ve missed you, too.”

  KATHLEEN CREIGHTON

  has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old timer’s tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines all her loves in romance novels.

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