Attempted Matrimony

by Joanna Wayne

  Everything appeared normal. Nothing felt that way.

  Dallas took Nicole’s arm as they stepped up to the door. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll make it.”

  “It’s not too late to back out.”

  “And go home, dig a hole and bury my head in the sand?”

  “It works for the ostrich.”

  “Then Malcomb should have married an ostrich.” She touched her finger to the doorbell, but hesitated, fearing she’d given Dallas the wrong impression. “I’m not certain what my husband’s relationship was with Karen Tucker, but I am sure he didn’t kill her.”

  “What makes you sure, Nicole?”

  “He’s…” The answer should have sprung to her lips. Instead she found herself burning under Dallas’s stare, searching her heart and mind for the reasons that would give her reassurance. “Malcomb’s a respected physician.”

  “That’s it?”

  She was saved from answering by Penny’s excellent timing.

  “I didn’t hear the doorbell ring. I guess it’s on the blink again,” Penny said.

  “Doorbell’s fine,” Dallas assured her. “We didn’t get around to pushing it yet.” He extended his hand. “I’m Detective Dallas Mitchell and this is Nicole Lancaster.”

  “Yes. I knew who you were from Matilda’s description. Come in, please.”

  Penny was petite, pretty in a soft, unassuming way. She was gracious, but there was no doubt that this was not a social call. The mood was too somber, Penny’s smile too fleeting. She motioned for them to sit on the sofa.

  “Could I get you something to drink? Iced tea or coffee? I’ve got both.”

  Nicole was about to refuse, but Dallas opted for black coffee, so she accepted as well.

  “It helps to take what they offer,” Dallas said, when Penny left to get the coffee. “Sometimes makes the questioning seem friendlier.”

  “I forget you do this for a living.”

  “It’s part of my job. Not always the best part.”

  “What is the best part of homicide, Dallas? It all seems so hideously gruesome. Madmen and lifeless bodies.”

  “You could say the same thing about doctors. They deal in disease and death.”

  “But they save lives.”

  “And so do I, if I’m lucky.”

  Penny returned with a tray bearing three brew-filled mugs. She took hers and settled into a slatted rocking chair. “I didn’t expect to be talking to you two when I woke up this morning. I was going to take Jamie to football practice and do some shopping.”

  “What changed your mind?” Dallas asked.

  “A visit from Dr. Lancaster.”

  Penny raised her eyes, and Nicole could swear she saw fear reflected in their dark depths. Another moment of truth. They were supposed to come few and far between, but they were flying at Nicole in rapid succession, each one more destructive than the one before.

  Dallas reached across the space that separated them and wrapped his hand around hers. She held on tightly. When one was going under for the third time, it wasn’t wise to be too choosy about who threw the life preserver.

  Chapter Eight

  Dallas was edgy, had no idea what Penny Washington was about to say about Malcomb Lancaster and didn’t totally trust the woman. If she had information about the murder of her friend, the logical thing to do would have been to call the cops, not Nicole. And if this was just to spread gossip, it was piss-poor timing.

  “Why did my husband come to see you?” Nicole asked, her hand still clasping his as if he could somehow protect her from Penny’s response.

  He’d like to do just that—drag her out of here and take her someplace where the putrid odor of murder didn’t reach. But the fallout from Karen’s death seemed to have hit right where Nicole lived, and he was powerless to control it, or to protect her from the sins of her husband.

  Penny sipped her coffee, then peered at them over the rim of the cup. “Dr. Lancaster wanted to know if Karen had told me the name of the man she was seeing.”

  A different angle than Dallas had anticipated, but it piqued his interest. “And did she?”

  “No. I tried to get it out of her, but she wouldn’t say. He was married, and she wanted to protect him from scandal.”

  “That was considerate of her.”

  “Stupid, if you ask me,” Penny said.

  He still had no idea where this was going or why, but he leaned forward, eager to get the information. “Was Karen seeing someone from the hospital?”

  “Yes, a doctor.”

  Nicole cringed and squeezed his hand tighter, though he doubted she was aware of the movement.

  “Do you think Karen was involved with my husband?” Nicole’s voice was strained, but she wasn’t backing down from questions that might lead to a very disturbing truth. Obviously she was still spunky as hell.

  Penny hesitated.

  “If you think Karen was seeing Malcomb, please, just come out and say it,” Nicole insisted.

  “She wasn’t mixed up with Dr. Lancaster. A lot of the nurses are attracted to him, but he ignores their flirting. He’s friendly, but all-business and obviously very much in love with you.” She offered Nicole a patronizing hint of a smile. “You’re a very lucky woman.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nicole let go of Dallas’s hand and leaned back, evidently relieved at Penny’s response. Dallas didn’t share the feeling. If it smelled like bullshit, it probably was. Another one of the first rules of being a good detective.

  “You’ve told us why Malcomb Lancaster came to see you,” Dallas said, “but I’m not clear why you called Nicole. What does any of this have to do with her?”

  “It’s just that I know Karen was planning to call and talk to her. I thought maybe she had.”

  “How would you know that?” Dallas asked.

  “Karen told me all about her plan the night before she was killed. She had everything figured out. And then this.” Penny waved her hands in exasperation. “Not that her plan would have worked.”

  “Why don’t you explain the plan,” Dallas said.

  “I hate telling you this,” she said, looking disgusted. “It seems as if I’m spreading rumors about the dead.”

  “In this case it’s to help the police find her killer, so I don’t think she’d mind.”

  “I know, and that’s the only reason I’m saying this. You’ll probably find out anyway, Detective, but Karen was pregnant. She didn’t want to tell me, but she came over one night a couple of weeks ago. I could tell she was upset, that she’d been crying. Anyway, I pressed her, and she finally blurted it all out.”

  “Pregnant by her married lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he know about the baby?” Nicole asked.

  “He knew, but the rat didn’t care. A piece of work, that man.”

  “The plan?” Dallas said, determined to keep Penny on track.

  “Karen thought that if his wife found out about the affair and the pregnancy, she’d up and divorce him. That’s why she came up with the idea of anonymously giving the information to you, Nicole.”

  “Why me?”

  “She hoped you’d tell her lover’s wife. She said that you and the woman are friends.”

  “This is just too bizarre,” Nicole said.

  “I know,” Penny agreed. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you in person. If you have any clue who the man might be, you should tell the detective, because I think he killed Karen to keep her quiet. I do, and I don’t care if he is a doctor. They’re not all saints, I can promise you that. I work with them every day. I know.”

  Penny picked up a throw pillow from the sofa and hugged it to her chest. “Karen was mixed up, but she was a nice person. So, if you know who this guy is, Nicole, you should tell the detective.”

  “I know a lot of the doctors’ wives from the hospital, but none are close friends,” Nicole said. “I can’t believe Karen didn’t tell you or Malcomb who she was seeing wh
en she seemed to tell you everything else about the affair.”

  Neither could Dallas, and it was time to get Nicole out of here. It was almost as if he could see the cogs turning in her brain, and he had no intention of letting her get involved in this any deeper than she was already.

  “We need to go now, Miss Washington,” he said, “but I’d like to call on you later to ask a few more questions about Karen.”

  “I don’t know much more than I’ve already told you.”

  “Sometimes you know more than you think. I’d like you to start a list. Keep it handy, and every time you think of anything about Karen, write it down.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Where she bought her groceries, had her hair cut, got her nails done. Where the two of you would go when you went out. Did she belong to a health club? Did she take classes? Did she walk or jog or bike? What was her daily routine?”

  “I don’t see how that can help.”

  “It may not, but hopefully it will.”

  “Then I’ll write down everything I can think of.”

  Nicole excused herself to use the powder room. As soon as she left, Penny walked over and sat down beside him on the couch. “There is one more thing, Detective.” Her voice was low and strained.

  Strange, he’d had the idea she’d been playing out a script ever since they’d arrived. Now she seemed nervous, and he had the feeling she was about to confess something not part of the act.

  “I didn’t want to say this in front of Nicole.”

  “Didn’t want to say what?”

  “Karen belonged to a photography club.”

  “Do you know the name of the club or where it met?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t a normal club. People went there. Men and women. They…well, they did things that weren’t moral.”

  “Are you saying it was like some kind of swingers group?”

  She sighed. “Worse than that. Women posed for pictures. Sometimes they had sex with the guys, but they didn’t have to. They only had to pose in vulgar positions. They got paid a lot. That’s why Karen got started. She had some debts from when her mother had cancer, and she was trying to pay them off.”

  “I see. Is this where Karen met the doctor she was seeing?”

  “No. She knew him from the hospital. But it was after she joined the club that they started seeing each other.”

  “How did she find out about this club?”

  “She was sought out. I don’t know how. That’s all she’d say about it.” Penny put her hand on his arm. “Please don’t let anyone know I told you this, Detective. If it gets out that I did I could be in real trouble. I have a son. I don’t need that kind of worry.”

  “I understand. But I will need to talk to you again. And if you could find out more about that club, specifically where it meets and how it recruits the women, I’d really appreciate it.”

  She nodded.

  Nicole rejoined them and Penny thanked them for coming. The two women hugged at the door, as if they were the best of friends. The way Dallas saw it, the only thing they had in common was that they’d both been snagged in the tangled web of a sordid murder case. But then he’d never understood a lot about women.

  Dallas’s thoughts were jutting off in a dozen directions as they returned to his car. Nicole was quiet, obviously apprehensive, though he’d have thought what Penny had said would have eased all her worries. Her husband was one in a million, the greatest thing since light beer.

  Frankly, Dallas hated light beer.

  And if his hunch was right, Penny Washington knew exactly who the father of Karen’s baby was. Dallas would lay odds it was Malcomb Lancaster. For Nicole’s sake, he hoped he was wrong.

  NICOLE STARED OUT the window of Dallas’s car as he drove through the neighborhood where Penny lived. Mowed yards, kids on skateboards, an old woman sweeping her walk, a young mother struggling to get a toddler in his car seat. People all going about the daily routine of life. God, she envied them.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Dallas said, turning the car onto Youree Drive and heading north, back toward the group home, where they’d left her car.

  “I was just thinking what a difference a few days can make in a person’s life. Two days ago I’d never even heard the name of Karen Tucker. Now she’s dead, and my life seems to be so intricately entangled with hers that it occupies all my thoughts and most of my actions.”

  “It’ll pass. Things will get back to normal.”

  “Not for Karen Tucker.”

  “No.”

  “Things won’t get back to normal for Malcomb and me, either, not that I’m certain what normal is anymore.”

  “Penny told you he’s a great guy.”

  “The Malcomb Lancaster she knows probably is.”

  “But not the one you know?”

  “I don’t really seem to know anything right now.”

  Dallas tensed. “He’s the one who left those bruises on your arm, isn’t he?”

  “He might have, while he was waking me from a nightmare.” Only she was still in the nightmare.

  The strain of the past two days caught up with her, fused with the disillusionment of a crumbling marriage, mingled with the grief of losing her father. And somewhere, deep inside, in a place she didn’t dare go, it wrapped around the past and Dallas. Tears welled, burned at her eyelids, pushed until they broke through her resistance and slid down her cheek.

  Once they did, there was no stopping them.

  Dallas swerved into the right lane, then turned into the park that ran along River Road. As soon as he stopped the car, he pulled her into his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, between body-racking sobs. He didn’t answer, just buried his face in her hair and held her while she cried.

  DALLAS WAS BREAKING every rule in the book—not only breaking them, but crushing them into a dangerous pulp that could destroy his investigation and shatter what was left of his heart. He could tell himself all day that what he was feeling was just male protectiveness, the offering of a shoulder and the warmth of an embrace, but he knew it went miles beyond that.

  He’d ached to take Nicole in his arms from the second he’d seen her sipping coffee at LSU-S. He’d imagined what she’d feel like in his arms, had envisioned the silkiness of her hair against his skin, the softness of her pressing against the hardness of him. He hadn’t wanted it to happen like this, not with tears flowing like the Red River at flood stage, but, nonetheless, his whole body was reacting to her nearness in ways that could never be described as anything short of arousal.

  Passion that should have died years ago. A craving that should have dissolved with time. He and Nicole were still miles apart in every area that mattered, but he wanted her as much as he had that night so long ago. Finally, she pulled away, and his arms felt painfully empty without her in them.

  “I’m sorry, Dallas. I didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”

  “Hey, a beautiful woman’s tears wetting my shirt. I’m not complaining.”

  He scavenged in the glove compartment and located a package of tissues. She took one and dabbed at her eyes and nose, looking so vulnerable, soft and tear-swollen, it affected his breathing. He had a sudden, practically overwhelming urge to look up Malcomb Lancaster and punch his face in.

  Think rationally, old buddy. Just because Nicole is crying in your arms doesn’t make her yours to protect, or give you any right to go meddling in her life.

  The warning skidded right past his brain. “If you want to talk, I’m a good listener,” he said. “Cop training.”

  “You might want to rethink that offer.”

  “No way.”

  She stared out the window, focusing her gaze on some ducks paddling down the narrow river that ran through the park. “Can we get out and walk?”

  “Sure.” He crawled from behind the wheel. Before he could get to her door, she’d already climbed out of the car and was pushing her hair back from her face. They walked
without talking for five minutes or more, the sun on their backs, the crunch of leaves beneath their feet, the water slowly flowing past.

  Two people, caught in time. Their relationship forever tied to one night of lovemaking nine years ago. Tied and yet separated by it at the same time. Pulled together, pushed apart, and reunited by a murder and a madman.

  Nicole stopped at the edge of the water. Dallas stared at her profile, once again shaken by the sheer force of the memories that played in his mind.

  “I suppose you’ve guessed that Malcomb and I are having more problems than just this investigation,” she said, her voice so low he had to move closer to hear.

  “I try not to jump to conclusions.”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “We already established that fact. I’m a good listener.”

  “But I have no idea what to tell you, other than that I’m sorry for the tears. I don’t even know what went wrong with the marriage exactly, or whose fault it is.”

  Dallas didn’t know the details, but he was certain the fault was not in Nicole. How was that for an unbiased assessment? He tried to think of something insightful to say. Nothing came to mind, and he suspected saying that Malcomb was a damn fool wasn’t exactly what she needed to hear. “Maybe it’s no one’s fault,” he said finally, thinking as he said it that it sounded like one of those vague statements that reeked of insincerity.

  “I’d like to believe that, but it seems like a copout.”

  “When did the problems start?” he asked.

  “I guess I’d have to say that the problems surfaced on our wedding day. At least that was the first time I witnessed Malcomb’s rage attack.”

  “Rage attack?”

  “That’s how I think of it. It’s more than anger, like something bursting inside him that releases a demon. His muscles tense and the veins in his face and neck swell into thick cords. And his eyes… I can’t describe them, but his gaze becomes so intense I’m almost afraid to look into them. Makes the saying ‘if looks could kill’ have real meaning.”