Broken Promise (17 page)

“I’m not looking for a room,” he said. “That was pretty rude of you, cutting me off like that.”

Her eyes danced. “Huh?”

“On the phone, a few minutes ago. When I was asking for Sarita.”

“How’d you find where I live?”

“You pay the bill on that cell phone, Mrs. Selfridge. There are some things you don’t need Homeland Security for.”

“I told you before, I don’t know any Sarita.”

“I’m thinking you do.”

She started to close the door but Duckworth got his shoe in.

“You got no right,” she said.

“I’m guessing Sarita likes to keep under the radar, so you let her use your phone. That way she doesn’t need to get one in her own name. You tack on a little to the rent every month for the service?”

“I don’t know what you’re jawin’ about.”

Duckworth looked around, like a would-be buyer appraising the house. “When’s the last time you had a fire inspection, Mrs. Selfridge? Someone to go through, room by room, make sure everything’s up to code?”

“You’re talking crazy talk.”

“I could give them a call right now if you’d like. Invite them over to—” He stopped midsentence, his nose in the air. “What’s that I smell?” he asked.

“That’s chocolate-chip banana bread,” she said. “I just took it out of the oven.”

Duckworth gave her his warmest smile. “My God, that smells wonderful. I have this theory that when you arrive in heaven, the first thing you smell will be something like that.”

“I make it whenever I’ve got a lot of old bananas that are too ripe to eat. But you mush them all up and bake ’em and they’re good to eat.”

“My mother used to do that. She’d even put black bananas in the freezer until she got around to making banana bread.”

“I do that, too.” Anxiously, she said, “This business with the fire inspection. I’m pretty up to code here, smoke detectors and all that. There’s no need for them to come in here and get their shorts all in a knot about little picky things.”

“They can be picky,” Duckworth said. “I suppose we could talk about it over some of that banana bread.”

The woman gave him a withering look, sighed, and opened the door wide.

“You don’t even have to tell me where your kitchen is,” he said. “I can follow the scent, like a dog chasing down a rabbit.”

Seconds later he was parked at the woman’s small kitchen table.

“This is asking a lot,” Duckworth said, “but would you mind cutting me off an end piece? Where it’s crustier? It’s never better than when it’s still warm.”

Mrs. Selfridge obliged. She cut him a slice off the end, and one more, set it on a chipped pale green plate, and placed it in front of him.

“You want it buttered?” she asked.

“No, no, that’s fine,” Duckworth said. “I’m trying to cut back.”

“You want milk with it?” she asked. “That’s the way my Leonard would have it. And I got a splash of coffee left in the pot if you’d like that.”

“Coffee’d be just fine,” he said. She set a mug in front of him and sat down. Watched him bite into the end piece.

“Dear God,” he said. “That’s wonderful.”

“Thank you,” she said. She paused, then asked, “So what is it you want to know about Sarita?”

Duckworth held up a hand. “Nothing just yet.” He took another bite of banana bread, then sipped his coffee. “I really needed this. And I don’t even feel guilty, because I haven’t had any other treats today.”

“You trying to lose weight? I’m not saying you should. I’m just asking.”

He nodded. “I could stand to lose a few. But it’s hard when you love to eat.”

“You’re telling me,” she said. “Some days I look down and wonder where my feet is.”

Duckworth laughed. “Aren’t we entitled to a little pleasure in life? And if good food gives us pleasure, can we not be forgiven for enjoying it?”

Mrs. Selfridge nodded slowly, rested her hands on the table.

“And I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Today is twenty years.”

“You’ve been married twenty years?”

He shook his head. “Twenty years with the police. It’s my anniversary today.”

“Well, congratulations. They do something special for you today at the police station?”

“Not one damn thing,” Duckworth said, taking another bite.

The woman watched him eat. She said, “I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“Hmm?” the detective said, like he’d forgotten why he was here.

“Sarita. I don’t know where she’s at.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Yesterday. Late afternoon.”

“What’s her name? Her last name?”

“Gomez. Sarita Gomez.”

“And she rents a room here from you.”

“Yeah.”

“Does she live here alone?”

The woman nodded.

“Since when?”

“She’s been renting from me going on three years now. Never a speck of trouble from her. She’s a good girl.”

“How old?”

“Twenty-six? Seven? Something like that. She makes money and sends it home to help her family.”

“Her family where?”

“Mexico, I think. Don’t know where exactly. It’s never been any of my business. But she told me that much.”

“You know how she makes a living?”

“She did some work looking after some lady’s baby, and she also did shifts at a nursing home or two, I think. She couldn’t afford a cell phone, so I always let her use mine, just so long as she didn’t run up long-distance charges to Mexico on it.”

“You know which nursing home?”

Mrs. Selfridge shook her head. “Beats me. But the people she did nannying for are named Gaynor. Lady’s name is Rosemary. But I don’t know much more than that. But Sarita must have had a shift yesterday, ’cause she was dressed for it. In like a nurse’s uniform.”

“And tell me about yesterday. The last time you saw her.”

“I heard the front door open real hard and then running up the stairs. Her room’s right over mine and I could hear her banging about, so I went up to see and she was stuffing some things into a suitcase. I says, ‘What’s up?’ And she says she’s going away.”

“Going away where?”

“She didn’t say.”

“She say for how long?”

Mrs. Selfridge shook her head. “But she didn’t say she was giving up the apartment or anything. But I’ll tell you this, she was rattled pretty good.”

“Did she say why?”

“Nope. But I says to her, ‘You okay? You’ve got some blood on your sleeve there.’ And she looks at it and starts taking her uniform off and putting on something else and she’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off, right? And she runs downstairs with her bag and there’s a car waiting for her out front.”

“A car?”

“I didn’t get a look at it. Just black. And it took off. It might have been a boyfriend. I think she might have had a boyfriend, but she never had him here, not overnight. But the last thing she says is not to tell anybody anything about her, not to say where she went, but I don’t even know, so I guess I’m really not doing anything wrong by telling you.”

“I appreciate it,” Duckworth said. He finished off the second slice of banana bread and downed the last of his coffee. Smacked his lips with flourish.

“Whaddaya say we go have a look at Sarita’s room,” he said.

TWENTY-TWO

“I
want something done about that man,” Agnes Pickens said as she, her husband, Gill, and their daughter, Marla, entered the Pickens family home.

“Agnes,” Gill said, “the detective is just doing his job.”

“Why am I not surprised that you would take his side?”

“For Christ’s sake, it’s not a question of taking sides,” Gill said. “Duckworth has a murder to investigate, and he follows things where they lead.”

“He’s got no business following them to our daughter.”

“She had their goddamn baby!”

His voice bounced off the walls of the oversize foyer. Marla stood behind them, arms limp at her sides, her eyes dead.

“For God’s sake, Gill,” Agnes said, taking her daughter into her arms, shielding her as though her husband’s words might physically strike her. “That really helps.”

Marla’s arms remained motionless.

Agnes said, “You go up to your room, sweetheart. Why don’t you lie down? It’s been an exhausting day for you. We’re going to take care of this.” Turning to Gill, she said, “I just hope Bondurant knows what she’s doing.”

“I liked her,” Marla whispered. “I thought she was nice.”

“Yeah, well, she needs to be a lot more than nice,” Agnes said.

“When can I go back to my house?” Marla asked.

“That’ll be up to the police,” Gill said. “I’m guessing they’ll tear the place apart.”

“Can you go get my computer?” she asked. “So I can do my work?”

“Yes,” Agnes said. “Look into that, Gill.”

“They’re not going to give her back her computer,” her husband said, exasperated. “They’ll be reading all her e-mails and checking her browsing history. That’s what they do in these kinds of investigations.”

“You’re some sort of expert?” his wife asked.

He shook his head. “Have you watched
any
television?”

Agnes looked at her daughter. “Is that going to be a problem, sweetheart? Are they going to find anything you’d rather they didn’t on your computer?”

She looked into her mother’s eyes. “Like what?” she asked.

“Well, we won’t worry about that right now. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

“I could use a drink,” Gill said, and started heading for the kitchen.

“Maybe some toast,” Marla said.

“Okay, we can—”

The doorbell rang.

Agnes Pickens let go of Marla and opened the front door. Standing there was Dr. Jack Sturgess, who had been among those at the hospital board meeting that morning.

“Agnes,” he said.

“Oh, Jack, thank you for coming.”

Gill stopped and turned. “Jack?”

“I called and asked him to stop by,” Agnes said. “I filled him in on the phone. I thought he should have a look at Marla, make sure she’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” Marla said.

“Gill, take Marla into the kitchen and get her something to eat while I talk to Jack.”

Gill mumbled something, then took his daughter by the arm and led her away. Once he and Marla were out of earshot, the doctor said, “It’s a horrible thing. Just horrible.”

“Yes,” Agnes agreed.

“How on earth did she come into possession of that baby?” he asked.

“I have no idea. My God, there are only two possibilities, and they’re both unimaginable. One is that she actually killed that woman and ran off with the child, or she’s actually telling the truth and someone delivered the baby right to her. I mean, how could that happen?”

“How’s she now? Did she believe the child was really hers?”

Agnes shook her head. “No more than she did when she tried to take that baby out of the hospital the other time. But we need to get to the bottom of this.”

“I wonder if I need to prescribe something, to calm the nerves.”

“For her, or me?” Agnes asked.

“Agnes, I—”

“You should have anticipated this, Jack. That there would be lasting trauma from what she went through. Losing a child, that’s an absolutely devastating thing for a person to deal with.”

“For God’s sake, Agnes, that never occurred to
you
? You’ve had Marla seeing someone; you’ve done all you could. No one could have predicted Marla would react this way, going around stealing babies and—”

Gill reappeared. “Jack, a drink?”

The doctor shook his head. “No, that’s okay, but thank you, Gill.”

“How is she?” Agnes asked her husband.

“I showed her the leftover spaghetti Bolognese that was in the fridge and she said she’d like some of that. It’s one of her favorite things. It’s warming up now in the microwave. So, Jack, what do you think?”

“I hardly know what to think,” he said. “It might be a good idea to get another psychiatric assessment. God forbid, if the police charge her, you want to start planning a strategy, and her state of mind will play into that.”

“I’ll talk to Dr. Frankel,” Agnes said. “She’s been seeing him for nearly ten months now. I’m sure he’ll say whatever we need him to say.”

“It might be better to get someone who’s not connected to your hospital,” Gill said. “Frankel’s part of the PFG psychiatric unit. That might work against Marla if this, as Jack says, ends up before the courts. Frankel’s testimony could be tainted by his connection to you.”

There was a
ding
from the kitchen microwave.

“I’ll be back,” Gill said, and disappeared.

Dr. Sturgess had his mouth open to say something when he and Agnes heard Gill shout, “Jesus, Marla!”

The two of them ran to the kitchen, where they found Gill on one side of the table, Marla on the other. She was standing, holding a steak knife in her right hand, poised over her upturned left wrist.

“Stay away from me,” she said.

“Marla!” Agnes said. “Put that down! Right now.”

Marla did not obey. Her cheeks were tearstained as she looked at her mother and Dr. Sturgess.

“Why?” she asked.

“Sweetheart, just put that knife down,” Agnes said.

“Why did you have to let my baby die?”

Sturgess cleared his throat. “Marla,” he said quietly, “we did everything we could. We truly did.”

“I’m so sorry,” Agnes said. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

“You should have saved her.”

“There was nothing we wanted more,” her mother said. “It was just . . . all I can tell myself is that it was God’s will.”

Gill was slowly moving around the end of the table, trying to close the distance between himself and his daughter.

“Why wouldn’t God want me to have her?” Marla asked. “Why would He be so mean?”

“There are things we can never understand,” Gill said. “Horrible things happen, I know. But we have to try to move forward. It’s hard. But we can help you. We can help you do that. I love you very much.”

“We
both
love you,” Agnes said.

“She was so beautiful,” Marla said. “So perfect. Wasn’t she, Mom? Wasn’t she perfect? I close my eyes and try to picture her and it’s hard.”