After Caroline

by Kay Hooper

  “More unlikely than reincarnation?”

  In an injured tone, Mark said, “I’m just sharing the sentiments of the town with you.”

  “What did they do, fax you all their ideas?” Griffin demanded.

  Mark grinned. “Near enough. You wouldn’t believe how many calls’ve come in since this morning. What should I tell ’em, boss?”

  Griffin zipped up his windbreaker and settled his shoulders. “You tell them we don’t butt into the business of innocent tourists, no matter who they happen to look like. Spread the word, Mark. I don’t want anybody in this office adding fuel to the gossip.”

  “It won’t need fuel,” Mark said.

  That was true enough, Griffin thought as he went out through the quiet lobby of the building. Gossip in Cliffside wasn’t generally malicious, but it did get brisk whenever interest was aroused.

  Joanna Flynn had definitely aroused interest.

  Griffin didn’t try to deny his own interest—to himself, anyway. And he didn’t try to deny his apprehension. He sensed a matching uneasiness lurking just below the surface of Cliffside’s calm, a tension that hadn’t been there this time last year, and he was worried that an eerie replica of Caroline McKenna showing up here—especially now, so soon after her death—could only make things worse.

  There was nothing he could put his finger on to explain what he sensed, and all his cop’s instincts could offer was the awareness of silence where there should have been words, and sidelong glances closed and guarded. Everything seemed the same, at least on the surface. People smiled and greeted one another, and life went on as usual. But Caroline McKenna’s death had somehow changed the town, and Griffin wondered if it could ever be as it had been.

  The rain had slacked off a bit by the time he stepped outside, so Griffin was able to walk across the street without getting soaked. He went into the library, which was a fairly small building but held three floors, and saw no one except the middle-aged librarian, who was working at the desk.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” she said when she looked up and saw him. She was a pleasant looking woman, and her voice was unexpectedly loud and cheerful for someone who worked in the traditional quiet of a library. But then she reverted to type by adding severely, “You’re overdue.”

  It took Griffin a beat to remember he’d checked out a few books a couple of weeks before. “Sorry, Mrs. Chandler. I’ll get them back in tomorrow, I promise.”

  “Have you read them?”

  “No,” he admitted sheepishly.

  She closed her eyes a moment in anguish. “Well, don’t bring them back in unread, for heaven’s sake. If anyone needs them, I’ll call you—but read them before you turn them in!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Meek doesn’t become you,” Mrs. Chandler observed.

  “I’ll try to work on that.” He smiled at her. “In the meantime, is Joanna Flynn here?”

  “Yes,” she replied, making no pretense of not knowing who he was talking about. “She’s upstairs with the microfilm reader. Seems to know her way around a library.”

  “What’s she reading up on?”

  “Town history, so she said. Asked about the town founders, and which families could trace their roots back. Said the property around here was lovely, and wondered who owned what. She copied a few maps and plats. She seemed pleased that we keep the birth, death, and marriage records here instead of City Hall. And the newspaper morgue.” Mrs. Chandler paused, then added deliberately, “Strange how much she looks like Caroline, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the coloring and the voice…”

  “Yeah.” Since Griffin had no good official reason for wanting to talk to Joanna, he didn’t offer one. He merely nodded to the grave librarian and made his way upstairs to the second floor, where most of the town’s archives—such as they were—were kept.

  The old stairs and floorboards creaked beneath his weight, but the woman at the microfilm machine was so intent on what she was doing that she obviously didn’t hear his approach. Griffin paused a few feet away and studied her, trying to be objective. It was unexpectedly difficult. Even under harsh fluorescent lighting, her hair gleamed gold, and despite frowning in concentration, she was lovely. Yet even in profile, the resemblance to Caroline was amazing. A long-lost twin? Looking at her, it didn’t seem so unlikely.

  He might have risked money on that possibility himself if he hadn’t known with fair certainty that Caroline had never had a sister.

  Griffin drew a breath and walked toward her at about the same moment as she realized she was no longer alone. She started when she looked around and saw him, and perhaps that was why her hand moved suddenly—or perhaps she had quite deliberately made sure he wouldn’t see what it was she had been reading with such intentness.

  He wasn’t happy to realize he suspected the latter.

  “Sheriff. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Miss Flynn.” He sat down in a chair near hers and in that moment caught the light scent of her perfume. He liked it, but it also unsettled him for some reason he couldn’t immediately put his finger on. Then he realized. He had expected her to smell of cigarette smoke.

  “Oh, please, Sheriff, call me Joanna.” There was dry-ness rather than friendliness in her tone. “I mean, since we’re apparently fated to turn up in the same places day after day.”

  Griffin’s silent debate was a brief one; he decided not to let her sarcasm get under his skin. Not today, at any rate. “I’m not following you around, if that’s what you think,” he told her. “My office is across the street, and I saw you come in here. Do you realize you’ve been here for at least three hours?”

  “So?” she demanded somewhat belligerently.

  “So I thought you might be ready for a break. Why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  She eyed him uncertainly. “Is this a trick question?”

  He laughed despite himself. “No. Look, I was ready to take a break and I thought you might be too. There’s a cafe just down the street where they happen to make great coffee. What do you say?”

  After a moment, she shrugged. “Sure, why not. Just give me a minute to put things back where I found them.”

  “Through for the day?” he asked mildly.

  “I think so. Spending more than three hours in a library on my vacation, even on a rainy day, sounds a bit too obsessive, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That probably depends,” he said, “on what you’re looking for.”

  Joanna paused in rewinding a spool of microfilm and looked at him steadily. Then, in a reflective tone, she said, “Tell me something, Sheriff. Suppose you went to a quiet little town on vacation, and when you got there you discovered that you looked an awful lot like someone who had recently died. What would you do?”

  “I think I’d do what you’re doing,” he replied, matching her thoughtful expression. “Find out all I could about that person, just out of curiosity.”

  She nodded. “Then why do I get the feeling you disapprove?”

  “It isn’t disapproval. If anything, it’s concern. Caroline McKenna’s death is still a raw wound to a lot of people.”

  “I imagine it is. Any death in a close-knit community is bound to affect a lot of people. Why do you think I’m in here reading back editions of newspapers instead of out asking questions? Because I don’t want to upset anyone more than I already do just by looking like her.” She drew a breath. “I had an unexpected encounter this morning. With Caroline’s daughter. I don’t want any more surprises, Sheriff. Not like that one.”

  He watched her nimble fingers coping with the microfilm. She had beautiful hands, he thought, but what he slowly said was, “It must have been difficult for you.”

  “More difficult for that poor little girl than for me, but I might have handled it better if I hadn’t been caught by surprise.”

  “I see your point.”

  “And understand?” She folded up a stack of papers—undoubtedly copies she’d made of some of the information stor
ed on microfilm, as well as the maps and plats Mrs. Chandler had mentioned—and put them into her large shoulder bag.

  “I understand your reasons for trying to find out what you can about Caroline.” He wasn’t conscious of having used only the first name until Joanna looked at him thoughtfully.

  “You knew her well?”

  How the hell do I answer that? “Well enough. It’s a small town, and I’ve lived here for more than nine years.”

  Without comment, Joanna got up to return the microfilm to storage, taking her shoulder bag with her. Griffin smiled grimly and got to his feet, waiting for her to come back. Yes, her reasons were perfectly understandable, but her attitude wasn’t. Why should she be so cautious if her interest was so innocent and easily explained?

  When Joanna came back, they walked downstairs, neither one of them saying anything. Griffin knew she was a little tense; he couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. It bothered him that he could feel it. Was it only because she looked so much like Caroline that he felt this sense of knowing her? Was he feeling Joanna’s tension only because he knew Caroline would have been tense in such a situation as this?

  “Find everything you were looking for, Joanna?” Mrs. Chandler asked.

  “Pretty much.” Joanna nodded at the older woman. “I may be back, though, especially if it keeps raining. It looks like you have a fine stock of popular fiction.”

  “Not bad, if I do say so myself. You come back anytime. We’ll be here,” the librarian told her.

  When they left the library, the rain had stopped, though the clouds continued to glower with the promise of more later, and the smell of rain was definitely in the air. Joanna paused for an instant and looked at her car, then said, “Hey, I’m in a one-hour parking zone.”

  “I noticed,” Griffin said.

  “I didn’t. Are you going to give me a ticket?”

  “No.” When she sent him a wary look, he shrugged. “We usually don’t bother to enforce the zone except during tourist season, when parking is at a premium. If you’ll look around, you’ll notice that nobody’d have to wait or circle the block looking for a place to park today.”

  She did glance around at the almost totally deserted street, and said, “I see what you mean. So you won’t get all official if I leave my car where it is while we have our coffee?”

  “This is my afternoon break,” he said. “I won’t get official at all unless somebody robs the bank over there.”

  Joanna turned obediently when he indicated the way, and walked beside him down the sidewalk toward the cafe a couple of short blocks away. “Is it usually a quiet job, being the sheriff of a small town?” she asked.

  “Usually.” He thought she was honestly interested, and so he added, “We’re more apt to have arguments than crimes, and we need a judge so rarely he only works a couple of days a week. Off-season, that is. During the summer, it gets a bit more lively, but for the most part all I do is see to it that civic ordinances and regulations are obeyed, and that the kids from the high school don’t get carried away on prom night.”

  She looked up at him rather curiously. “You said you’d been here around nine years, and somehow I don’t see you as a small-town product. Were you born in Oregon?”

  He shook his head, wondering if she was intuitive or if it just showed. “Nevada. Raised all over the place; my father’s career army.”

  Joanna nodded, but before she could comment, an older lady walked past them going in the opposite direction, murmuring a polite hello to Griffin but looking only at Joanna.

  “Not at all surprised to see me—but very definitely interested,” Joanna noted somewhat ruefully, keeping her voice low. “Bet she knows my name. I didn’t have to introduce myself to the guy who put gas in my car at the service station or to the librarian. Tell me something, Sheriff. Does everybody in this town know my name?”

  “If anyone doesn’t,” he said, opening the door to the cafe, “they undoubtedly will by nightfall. And my name’s Griffin—Joanna.” He held the door for her, and when she responded to his last remark with a quick smile, Griffin had to fight a sudden urge to reach out and touch her. He managed to resist it, but he felt even more unsettled as he followed her into the cafe.

  The cafe’s young waitress also needed no introduction to Joanna, and her curiosity was absolutely naked as she led them to a corner booth and then reluctantly left them to get the coffee.

  “Is it just me, or because you’re with me?” Joanna asked him.

  “It’s just her,” he answered lightly. “Liz is incurably nosy.”

  “I see.” Joanna glanced around at the dozen or so customers in the place and added, “A nosy town you’ve got here, Sheriff. I mean—Griffin.”

  “Afraid so.” He didn’t have to look to know that everyone in the place was watching them, and most openly. “You’ll be the hot topic of interest for at least a few days, I’d say.”

  She studied him with an intentness he found more than a little unsettling, and he wondered if she had any idea how strange it was to look at her. Unusual light brown eyes instead of blue, golden hair instead of black, but the features were almost identical. Christ, even the way she tilted her head thoughtfully was Caroline’s mannerism. Yet the differences were just different enough to confuse the eye—and the ear.

  “I suppose they will get used to me?” she offered hopefully.

  “Bound to,” he answered almost at random. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added, “I don’t suppose it’s possible that you and Caroline were sisters?”

  She lifted a brow wryly. “I admit I wondered about that myself. So I checked at the library and saw her birth certificate. She was born right here in Cliffside, to parents who practically founded the town. I, on the other hand, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, also to parents well rooted in their community—and three days after she was born. So unless there was incredible chicanery committed in two places thousands of miles apart and for no apparent reason, I don’t see how we could be related in any way.”

  “I guess not,” he said. “But for two women to look so much alike without being related … what are the odds?”

  Joanna looked reflective. “I don’t know. But if you consider the theory that we all have a double—or doppelganger—living somewhere on earth—”

  “Please, let’s not venture into science fiction.”

  Liz arrived with their coffee then, and Joanna didn’t respond to his comment until the waitress had left. Then she said, “Yesterday’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact. Or don’t you believe that?”

  Deliberately, he said, “I believe answers are usually ordinary and almost always simple, Joanna. Being a cop in a much bigger place than Cliffside for a few years taught me that much.”

  “So you’re a hardheaded realist?”

  “If you want to call it that.” He shrugged. “People are fairly predictable, on the whole, and their motives are seldom complicated. What you see is usually what you get. It makes my job easier.”

  “And what do you see when you look at me?” she asked him seriously.

  “I see … Joanna Flynn.”

  After a moment, she smiled. “You’re a bad liar, Griffin.”

  “I’m not lying.” He tried to keep his voice even. “Caroline McKenna is dead. Unlike most of the people in this town, I saw her body, so I couldn’t begin to convince myself that you’re her. Even if I wanted to.”

  Joanna’s smile had vanished. She looked down at her coffee, frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you—”

  “Of something painful? I was a cop in Chicago for nearly five years, Joanna; I’ve seen a lot of bodies. I can talk about her—and what that wreck left of her—without going to pieces.”

  She looked at him, grave now. “Given your job, I’m sure you can. But when I said you were a bad liar, I didn’t mean I thought you literally saw Caroline when you looked at me.”

  “Then what did you mean?” He knew he was so tense it sh
owed, and he knew his voice held a harsh edge despite all his efforts to sound detached. Most of all, he knew that his quick denial of any pain about Caroline’s death had sounded jarringly untrue.

  “What I meant was that you hadn’t gotten past the—the features I shared with Caroline. When you look at me, when anybody in this town looks at me, they see Caroline’s face. They see somebody who looks like Caroline looked. Nobody knows me. Nobody here has any idea who Joanna Flynn is, so they don’t see me at all.”

  After a moment, Griffin nodded. “Okay, fair enough. It’s … disconcerting, I admit.” And no doubt explained his own turbulent feelings, he thought. His brain was just trying to reconcile images of two women who happened to resemble each other even though he knew they had to be different in other ways. That was all.

  “How do you think I feel? People look at me as if they know me. They assume things. Do you know, when I went to the drugstore just before the library, the clerk automatically got a pack of cigarettes and pushed it across the counter to me?”

  “Caroline smoked,” Griffin heard himself say.

  “Yeah, so I was told when the clerk realized what she’d done. Mrs. McKenna smoked, she said, and she’d just assumed …” Joanna sighed. “The poor kid didn’t know where to look, and neither did I. It feels peculiar, let me tell you.”

  Griffin hesitated, then said, “Does that mean you’re going to cut your vacation short?”

  She sipped her coffee, those big golden eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face, and didn’t answer until she had set her cup back on the table. Then she merely said, “No.”

  “If we make you so uncomfortable…”

  Joanna shrugged. “If it gets too bad, I can always leave. In the meantime, according to the Chamber of Commerce, Cliffside offers just what I need—wonderful scenery, peace, and quiet.”