(2013) Four Widows (22 page)

“He has nothing to hide. He’s not on the run,” said Suzanne, exasperated.

“Just on the run from you.”

To summarise, Suzanne explained patiently that Ted was a kindred spirit with whom she had exchanged vows in the eyes of God, for better, for worse. She also reiterated that you don’t just stop loving someone even when this person has done you wrong–even in cases of abandonment. “You can’t just undo love like a shoelace,” she said.

Cece banged her glass down, giving the impression she wished it was Suzanne’s head she was knocking sense into. “Hold up, you thought he was
dead
. You grieved for him. I’ve helped you hand out posters, trawl through internet forums. We’ve driven everywhere and nowhere cos there had been a ‘sighting’. Remember?”

“I do remember. Of course I do.”

“Did you tell him you were about to become an official widow–that you haven’t so much as looked at another man when he was off finding himself.”

Suzanne bit down on her lip. “There’s so much to take in.”

“Damn right there is. In the meantime, tell him to go to hell.”

“I don’t
want
to,” Suzanne snapped, voice quavering. “My prayers have been answered. It’s all I ever wanted–him to come home. I love him. I’ve tried to stop but I can’t.”

“Hell, this is worse than when I took anti-malarial pills and started hallucinating about elephants sittin’ on me–I can’t breathe. Can anyone breathe?” Cece’s hand fluttered to her chest. “He let you think he was
dead
for seven years. Doesn’t this sound even a little bit… I dunno, weird. Even to born-again you?”

“It is… misguided, yes.”

“STICK INTOLERABLE CRUELTY IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT.”

Kate sighed, shushing Cece. “I think Cece’s trying to say, he didn’t do right by you.”

“Don’t sweeten a word I say,” snapped Cece.

“I have faith in him and he deserves a second chance. We all do.” Suzanne sounded determined even though her bottom lip trembled.

Cece wasn’t done. “You are making the mother of all mistakes.”

“You could take time out to think about it. Ted can find another place to live while you… readjust?” I suggested.

Cece ploughed on. “How can you
not
question his whereabouts? I thought he was the one needing professional help–now I’m thinking you do, too.”

“Ted is not mad. He made a mistake.”

Cece stood up abruptly, incredulous. “
You’re
the one making a mistake.” She looked at Kate and me, “Tell her this ain’t right.”

I hesitated, deeply uneasy about the situation, Cece was probably right but I also understood Suzanne’s reasoning. When you pray to God for seven years to bring your husband back home, you show willing at the very least. This is me thinking in Suzanne’s shoes.

Cece shook her head, disappointed in all of us. “You know what? Knock yourself out celebrating Ted’s return. I need to get back to Ribbons.”

Cece’s abrupt departure left an awkward silence, which prompted us to throw down the fizz in record time while Suzanne did her best to convince us that she was going to be okay and
had
made the right decision.

I too soon made my excuses and left the bar, never so glad to be outside in the sunshine. I dashed back to the office, picking up a peace offering for Jim en route:
Def Music
magazine and a packet of
Percy Pigs
. In the light of recent revelations, he was definitely forgiven. Life is too short.

I quickly brought him up to speed and told him that Suzanne was taking her errant husband back without a flicker of doubt. Even after seven years.

Jim whistled. “Hell, even John Lennon’s lost weekend with May Pang only lasted a year and a half–and that was
with
Yoko Ono’s permission.”

“Yeah, well, this is taking it to a whole new level.”

“You okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“We’re good?”

“Never better.”

I zoned out for a second. There are different kinds of kisses including impulsive, tender, indifferent and forbidden. There is a real kiss and bad timing. What’s more, Jim had seen too much of the ugly stuff. He had fallen for the wrong me. McCarthy, I reasoned, had seen it all and wouldn’t resent someone with a horrible history. He had a hard-weather finish. This thought filled me with desire and despair; guilt weighed me down, so much so I almost leave wet-cement footprints beneath me.

“About the kiss,” I said.

Jim offered me one of his piggy sweets. “Never happened. We’re okay, okay?”

“It was the first kiss since Harrison died.”

Chapter Thirty Three

Rescue-me Fantasies

We left Cece to cool down, which took until after the weekend: an immeasurably long time for someone who is always in constant contact. She said she had been hectic at work and we left it at that. I got the feeling she was bitterly disappointed in us for not nailing and jailing Ted on the doorstep. No word from Suzanne.

Kate couldn’t get much time off work either so we agreed to meet her at the coffee shop next door to her office. Monday, start of the week.

“Of
course
he left her for someone else,” said Cece. “Isn’t it obvious? He disappeared so effortlessly because he had somewhere to go.” She had her head in the menu comparing the prices with Ribbons.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Kate said. “He most likely had friends in Crieff who took him in.”

“Give me a break. Suzanne can put her Mary and Joseph spin on it but we’re not talking about him sleeping in the stables for the night. He had an
accomplice
.”

Kate snorted. “Cece, honestly.”

“What was his brain saying? This behaviour is acceptable: leave a wife; find a lover?”

“We don’t know the details,” warned Kate.

“No, but
we
are going to find out.”

Kate and I looked at each other, knowing it would come to this.

Cece wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Head to Crieff and find out what we can. I’ll take my car. An hour’s drive.”

My first thought was to be more terrified of Cece’s driving than what we might find out in Crieff. “I can drive,” I said lightly.

“Motion sickness, darling. I’m the worst passenger on the planet.”

“It’s her goose. Let her chase it,” Kate said.

I’d a bad feeling about this and not just because Cece thought the right side of the road was the right side of the road.

Cece jumps on door handles to open a door; full weight and a shoulder shove when entering a room, which invariably has us jumping in our seats each time.

“Christ, Cecelia Lee, can’t you walk through a door like a
normal
person?” yelled Kate. We were at Ribbons, planning our road trip to Crieff around childcare, deadlines and restaurant bookings.

“Says she who passes through woodwork by osmosis–I’m like eleventy hundred pounds heavier than you.”

“Look, Lori’s thrown her drink over herself. What’s up?”

“Detective’s here.” She looked at me, eyes theatrically wide. “Wants a word.”

I didn’t get more notice than that when McCarthy walked through Ribbons’ door.

Cece pretended to be absorbed in her latest imported copy of
The New York Times
but I could tell she was desperate not to miss this. I was nursing a glass tumbler filled with white wine and hoped it would pass for apple juice. It wasn’t quite 11am.

He didn’t bother with hello. “I left voicemails.”

“Yes…I…”

He cut me off. “Someone said I’d find you here.”

Cece moved first, propelled out of her seat as if by explosive charge: we waited for the parachute to be deployed.

“Cecelia Lee.” She stuck her hand out and introduced Kate also.

He shook hands and turned his attention abruptly back to me. “Do you wish to go somewhere…” he looked around the restaurant, “…more private?”

“Here is fine,” I mumbled, looking down. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. “Kate and Cece are friends.”

“Are you sure?”

“GOOD FRIENDS,” repeated Cece, loud and firm.

McCarthy stared at me. “I wanted to make sure you were holding up. Did anyone attempt to make contact?”

Cece put down her newspaper. “What’s happened?”

McCarthy let me answer this. “I thought someone was following me in the car. I freaked out.”

“You didn’t tell us.” Cece sounded hurt.

“Wasn’t worth mentioning.” I’d later tell them I was someone who had colour blindness when it came to cars: unreliable witness.

“You’re not sleeping,” Kate sounded sympathetic.

Cece pursed her lips, trying to hold back questions.

I wasn’t loving the attention at this point. “I’m okay, really I am.”

McCarthy persisted. “You’re being watched and followed.”

“You still believe the accident wasn’t an accident,” Kate sounded sceptical. “Really?”

McCarthy repeated what he’d previously told me. “It wasn’t a crash black spot. Also, we assumed Dr Warner hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt because he’d been flung from the car; yet his injuries show chest and abdominal abrasions and sternal fracture.”

I note the collective “we.” McCarthy too professional to blame his colleagues.

It is difficult to listen to this. I’m suddenly too big for the skin I’m in. Breathing becomes blister-painful and makes me want to scratch until I bleed.

McCarthy continued. “The accident report states he had gone through the windscreen–but no facial lacerations were detailed.”

Cece has a simple explanation. “He releases his seatbelt and staggers a short distance from the wreckage?”

“With considerable spinal cord injuries?”

“Are you honestly saying,” said Cece, dropping her voice an octave, “that someone dragged him from the wreckage and left the scene?”

I drained the contents of the tumbler and needed another drink. Last request.

McCarthy didn’t answer Cece and instead turned his attention to me. “Actually, I’m here to find out if his phone was ever recovered?”

I took a second to think. “No. No, it wasn’t.”

“You were given his personal effects?”

Watch, wallet, wedding ring
.

“Yes.”

“No phone.”

“What is it?” McCarthy saw me hesitate.

I stumbled over the words. “I used to call him after he was gone. I still do.”

Cece raised her hand as if she was in the classroom. “Officer, you really can’t trace an email?”

“It was sent from an anonymous server. With a confidential IP address.”

Kate, meanwhile, leaned over and asked how I was feeling.

“Fine, honestly.”

“There have been no more emails?” Kate asked.

I shook my head.

McCarthy stood up. “Answer my calls. You’re receiving hate mail and someone is following you.”

“
I’m
not receiving hate mail. The letters are for Harrison.”

“Take this seriously.”

“I am.”

“You don’t answer the phone. I had to come here.”

Kate was quick to defend me. “Lori is still mourning the loss of her husband. It takes over
everything
else.”

He ignored Kate and looked at me. “This is serious. You are caught in the middle of this. Do you understand me?”

Abruptly, he shook hands with us all and left, insisting that I keep in touch.

“Wooh, how’s that for a water-cooler conversation?” I tried to make light of what had just happened.

Cece looked at me. “This is serious.”

“Yeah, I heard what he said.”

“He means there will probably be a second murder.
You
.”

“What! No, he doesn’t.”

“Yu-huh he does. Damn curse strikes again.”

Kate rattled Cece over the knuckles with a teaspoon. “Reign yourself in, woman.”

“Okay, okay, y’all want me to change the subject?” She tapped me on the arm, eyes narrowed. “What’s going on with you and detective inspector?”

“What?”

“Aw, sugar, you know.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Lemme see, he walks into the room and you come over all Cher in
Moonstruck
.”

“Leave her, Cece,” warned Kate.

I had to address this before Cece sold the Mills & Boon rights to a publisher. “She’s right. I had ridiculous ‘rescue-me’ fantasies but didn’t act on them.”

Cece shrugged. “Hell, it happens. Did he encourage you?”

“
No
, absolutely no.”

Kate reassured me that I wasn’t the world’s worst widow. “Lori, you are allowed to have
feelings
; losing a husband is an emotional fuckover.”

“She’s right,” breezed Cece. “People go cuh-ray-zay–look at Kate.”

Kate ignored her. “Ed McCarthy wants to help, I can understand why you would lean into someone like that. We both do, don’t we, Cece?”

Cece nodded. “Hell, yeah. But that’s another story over tequila sometime.”

I felt a rush of relief. “He has a wife and three teenage daughters.”

Cece picked up her newspaper. “Of course he does, honey. The good ones always do.”

Chapter Thirty Four

The Chocolate Box

No word from Suzanne. So we set off to Crieff with Cece at the wheel, Kate in the front seat and me in the back attempting to cool down a banging hangover with my forehead pressed against the window. I had been up all night drinking and thinking: someone had moved Harrison from the car. His phone, where the hell was it? Why hadn’t I noticed? I am a reasonably intelligent woman and yet seem to be oblivious to clues.

We started off excessively slow and switched between demonic spurts of speed for no reason. Then lurched back to slow. I’ve never experienced carsickness in my life, but, clearly, there is a first time for everything. One hour in the car with Cece felt like a road trip from Albuquerque to New York. Interminable.

It was a Friday morning and we should have been at work but we all made our excuses.

“Easier for you than Lori and me,” grumbled Kate.

“It’s the right call,” Cece said, undeterred.

“This doesn’t feel right,” said Kate, crunching mints. “Suzanne is back with Ted and obviously doesn’t
want
to know where he has been.”