In Self Defense (14 page)

Only then did she remember to press the panic button.

***

Dusty and Erin heard the shots explode just as they got to the front door.

“Oh my God,” Erin cried, panicked because she didn’t know about the Beretta.  “He
did
change his pattern!  We’ve got to get in there.  If he’s killed her, we can’t let him get away!”

If the alarm had been on, it wasn’t now.  The red light was off, but the door was still locked.  No one stopped to wonder why.

“Break it down,” Dusty shouted, and two of the officers standing behind him moved up immediately, fired several rounds into the lock, knocking it out, and pushed the door open.

“Let’s go,” Erin ordered, and with two of the group staying back to cover the door, the rest headed for the stairs.  But just as they reached the top and started down the second floor hallway, bumping into a terrified Nina Jacobsen as they went, they heard the scream.  Only it wasn't a scream, exactly, the way one would expect a human to scream.  It was more of a grotesque howling sound, so chilling that it filled them all with a terrible sense of dread.

Expecting the worst, they pushed forward, only to find Clare, alive and well, dressed in a flimsy nightgown, standing in the middle of her bedroom, which was now fully lit by a sparkling crystal chandelier, still gripping the Beretta, and staring down at the bullet-ridden body of her husband, Richard.

Clare huddled in a corner of the bedroom, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, rocking slowly back and forth, her unblinking eyes riveted to the spot where her husband lay, and then, after his body had been removed, to the spot where his blood had oozed into the lush gray carpet.
  Nina somehow managed to get a robe around her, but was unable to get her up off the floor and away from the horror.

Dr. Ahrens came again from Ballard and, as he had just two nights earlier, gave her a sedative that was, so far, having little, if any, effect.  The only noticeable difference was that the frenzied howl had muted into a whimper.  But it was a whimper of such agonizing pain, as Nina would later describe it, that it was in some ways harder to endure than the scream had been.

“That sedative should have knocked her out cold,” Ahrens murmured, shaking his head.  “It was such a big dose, I don’t dare give her another for at least a couple more hours.”

Clare remained where she was, wedged between the wall and the bureau, oblivious of the crime scene analysts who continued to pick meticulously over everything, her eyes glazed, her body wracked with uncontrollable shudders.

“Are you thinking of this as some sort of crime?” Nina asked Erin, eyeing the analysts.  “Could Clare go to jail for this?”

“We have to investigate everything, that’s standard procedure,” the detective told her.  “But I’m sure this is going to be ruled an accident.  I certainly don’t expect any kind of charges to be filed.”

Nina sighed.  “Between you and me, I don’t see her getting over this,” she confided to the detective.  “I know she puts on the career-woman face five days a week and then the social face two or three evenings a week, but Richard was her life . . . Richard and the children.”

“What a horrific mistake,” Erin murmured.             

“It’s all my fault, you know,” Nina confessed.

“What do you mean?”

“She was so afraid of the stalker.  I’m the one who told her she needed the gun.  She didn’t even know how to use it.  That’s the awful irony of it all -- Richard had to show her how.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Erin said.  “You couldn’t have anticipated anything like this happening.”

“I just don’t understand -- he wasn’t due back until tomorrow,” Nina said.  “That’s why I was here.  So someone would be with her on Doreen’s day off.”

“That was our understanding, too,” Erin confirmed.  But she already knew this was going to be trouble.  Not anticipating Clare being run off the road on Mercer Island was one thing.  Staking out a home while the man of the house walked right in and got himself shot dead was quite another.

***

Clare Nicolaidis met Richard Durant a week after her eighteenth birthday, and she would never forget a moment of the encounter.  It was in her father’s office, it was early summer, and it was Richard’s first day at work for the medical conglomerate.  She was wearing green, he was wearing gray, she was giddy, he was nervous, and when she told him not to believe the rumors about her father barbequing his assistants for lunch, he smiled at her, and her whole world turned upside down.  He had the most radiant smile.

Despite her unusual combination of light hair and dark eyes, Clare was not what one would call beautiful and, as the daughter of an immigrant, she surely didn’t qualify for membership in high society.  But she didn’t come to the table totally devoid of credentials, either.  After all, she was the daughter of Gus Nicolaidis.  And in the mid 1990’s, that had come to mean something in Seattle.

For Clare, on that warm day in June, it was as close as she would ever come to love at first sight.  Although they did nothing more than exchange a few words and shake hands, it was enough.  The feel of his fingers gripping hers sent a rush of excitement up the length of her arm that quickly spread throughout her whole body, leaving her flushed and breathless.

Never mind that she was barely out of high school and on her way to the university come fall.  And never mind that he was ten years her senior.  She knew, with absolutely no hesitation, that this was the man who was going to define her future.

              Richard’s first reaction, on the other hand, was more one of polite indifference -- indifference because, to him, she was a mere child and he could have all the women he wanted, and polite because she was, after all, his new boss’s daughter.

She made her plan and proceeded to reel him in, slowly and patiently.  After all, she was young, she had her whole life ahead of her, she was in no particular rush to get where she was going, and she had no doubt in her mind that she would win him eventually.

It began with impromptu visits to her father’s office, where she displayed an uncanny knowledge of, and interest in, Nicolaidis Industries.  It was genuine.  She hadn’t spent her whole life at her father’s knee for nothing.

“Are you being groomed to take over when your father retires?” he asked her once.

“No,” she told him with a complete lack of guile.  “You are.”

When she felt she had sufficiently impressed him with her intelligence, she set about showing off her domestic side, making sure her parents invited him to dinner often enough so that he got accustomed to her culinary adroitness.  Helen Nicolaidis was a superb cook, who, finding her daughter to be a willing student, taught her everything she knew.

After spending some months demonstrating her expertise with Coq au Vin, Cioppino, and Paella, Clare discovered, to her surprise, that Richard liked Greek food.  To her delight, he took immediately to Moussaka, a Greek version of lasagna, Piroski, little meat-filled pastries, Saganaki, which combined clams and mussels with white wine, and the stuffed cabbage rolls known as Lahanodolmathes, at all of which she excelled.

“You’re wonderful to cook for,” she told him.  “You like whatever I give you.”

“My mother is the best woman in the world,” he explained, “but the only things she knows how to fix for dinner without brutalizing are spaghetti, meatloaf, and tuna casserole.  It’s nice to know that something more can come out of a kitchen.”

Then it was time to show him how fit she was.  During the summer, she saw to it that her father invited him to their cabin at Birch Bay for water skiing and parasailing.  And as soon as autumn turned to winter, she insisted that her father encourage him to join them at their ski lodge up in Glacier.

“I’m not going to compete with you, either on the water or on the snow,” he told her.  “I think I’ll do a lot better if I just stick to the safe sports, like tennis and golf.”

“Coward,” she chided, but they were both smiling.  She knew he had once climbed Mount Rainier.

Finally, it was her feminine side’s time to shine through -- at charitable affairs, when she cajoled him into accompanying her, and he could hardly refuse, and at company events, when her parents included him at their table.  Clare Nicolaidis might not have been high society, but she was still able to open doors that would have been otherwise closed to Richard Durant.

“You know a lot of important people, don’t you?” he marveled.

“You think so?”

“Sure, don’t you?”

But Clare only shrugged.  “As far as I’m concerned, they’re no more important than anyone else,” she told him.

It wasn’t long before her feelings for him developed into something deep and lasting, and, as soon as that happened, she had only to wait until he caught up to her.  It took four years, but eventually, she was able to convince him that she was no longer a child, and he could do a lot worse than hooking up with her.  After that, it was two more years, helped along to no small degree by her father, through a series of promotions, big hints, and financial incentives, before he had the courage and the wherewithal to propose.

“You’re positive this is what you want?” Gus would ask Clare almost daily, even as he was helping to put everything in motion.

“Yes, I’m positive,” she would tell him.  “You like him, don’t you?”

“I like him as an assistant,” her father assured her.  “He’s bright, he’s ambitious, and he’s got good ideas for the company.  That doesn’t mean I have to have him as a son-in-law.”

Clare smiled.  “It’s okay, Dad, don’t worry,” she said, and meant it.  “I won’t hold you responsible if he spends more time at the office than he does at home.”

***

It was an unusual wedding, as weddings usually go.  To begin with, Gus paid for it all -- not just the hall and all the trimmings, but everything else, as well.

Richard’s parents lived in a trailer park in Lacey.  His father worked as the maintenance man for the park, his mother cleaned other people’s homes.  In addition to the bride’s gown, the maid of honor’s gown, and the bridesmaids’ gowns, Gus paid for the tuxedos worn by the groom, his best man, and his groomsmen.

And although they had no formal part in the ceremony, he also paid for the tuxedo that Richard’s father wore, and the gown that Richard’s mother wore.  The tuxedos came from Brooks Brothers.  The gowns came from Neiman Marcus.

“I’ve never had such a wonderful, extravagant dress,” Richard’s mother was heard to say during the fitting.

“I could sure get used to living like this,” Richard’s father was heard to say.  “I never even owned a suit before.”

Three hundred people filled the modest little church in Ballard -- but that was all the modesty there was in the event.  The flowers that adorned the altar and the ends of each pew had been flown in from the world-renowned Aalsmeer flower market in The Netherlands.  The catered reception, at a local hotel, featured the specialties of none other than Helen Nicolaidis -- except for the wedding cake, which came from Izabella’s Sweet Creations.  The champagne was Dom Perignon White Gold.

“It might be a little over the top,” he told his daughter.  “But nothing is too good for my only child.”

“I think it was perfect,” Clare’s mother declared.

Gus paid for the honeymoon, as well -- a two-week cruise through the Mediterranean.  It was the first time Richard had ever been out of the country.

As they left for the airport, Gus hugged his daughter tight.  “You are beginning your own life,” he whispered.  “But you never need worry.  I have seen to it that you will be taken care of, no matter what.”

***

The newlyweds’ first house was a cute, two-story gingerbread renovation in Ballard, not far from her parents.  Gus gave it to them as a wedding present.  For Richard, brought up on the fringes of poverty, it was as nice a home as he had ever lived in.  But it wasn’t going to be the nicest.  Three months after Gus retired, having anointed Richard as the new CEO of Nicolaidis Industries, the Durants packed up and moved to Laurelhurst.  Richard found the place in one day, and didn’t even try to negotiate the multimillion-dollar price tag.

“If you have to quibble about price at that level,” he told Clare proudly, “you can’t afford to buy it.”

Clare loved the little gingerbread house, but she was never quite as comfortable in the Laurelhurst home, feeling far more like a visitor than a resident, even after ten years.  Richard, on the other hand, gloried in all five thousand square feet and two-plus acres of it.

“I never realized,” he would say, breathing deeply, “how much I hate small spaces.”

For twenty years, her life had been wrapped up in the man, his dreams, his drive, his direction.  They were supposed to have lived happily ever after.  And now it had all come to this -- a blood-soaked carpet in a mauve and gray bedroom suite that was larger than the entire trailer Richard had grown up in.

The man who hated small spaces was about to spend the rest of eternity in a box barely bigger than he was.

***

              Erin sat at her desk, ignoring the cup of coffee growing cold in front of her, as she tried to figure out how everything could have gone so wrong.  It was eight o’clock on Friday morning, and she had not yet been home or tried to sleep.

She was the last to leave the Durant home, just after five, and she could still see Clare backed into that corner, could still hear her pathetic whimper.  The detective dropped her head into her hands.  Nothing had gone according to plan.  The stalker had played them for fools.  They had tied up sixteen additional officers for three days and had come away with nothing but egg all over their faces.  Worst of all, Richard Durant was dead.

She wondered if anything would have been different had she and Dusty known about the Beretta, but of course she was only grasping at straws.  Clare had every right in the world to protect herself, and if the police didn’t know about the gun, it was only because it never occurred to them to ask.

There would be an investigation, of course, she knew.  Internal Affairs would crawl all over this, and she and Dusty would take some heavy heat.  Richard Durant’s death was a tragic accident, and would likely be ruled as such, but where did that leave them?  The stalker was still out there, and there was no reason to believe that he wasn’t still after Clare.

And with Richard now permanently out of the picture, that could happen at any time.

“Why do I have this strange feeling?” she wondered aloud.

“What strange feeling?” Dusty inquired.