Loving Laura (The Cantrelle Family Trilogy) (23 page)

Before Laura had time to react or even think, he helped her into the car and shut her door firmly.

Then he walked away.

* * *

Neil had enjoyed watching the two women together. They were nothing alike physically, and until lately, he would have said they were nothing alike, period. But obviously, he had been wrong, for they shared an inner strength and a sense of humor that had helped them survive some tough times.

When it was time to leave and Alice and Laura hugged, he could tell how much they liked each other. He couldn’t help but compare their budding friendship and mutual admiration to the relationship between Erica and Alice when he and Erica had been married. Alice had tried to be nice to Erica, but Erica had resented Alice. She’d called her “simpering” and a “goody-goody” and she hadn’t made any real attempt to get to know Alice. Now that he thought about it, Erica had not had any women friends.
Fool. That should have told you something.

The whole evening he wondered if Laura had any idea just how difficult it was for him to maintain emotional distance from her. He wondered if she thought about him the way he thought about her, if she still thought she was in love with him or if maybe over the past weeks she’d had a change of heart. He also knew he couldn’t ask her. He had no right to ask her.

As he drove home, and later, as he lay in bed, he continued to think about Laura and the differences between her and Erica. Too bad Erica couldn’t have been like Laura. If she had been, his entire life would have been different. But she hadn’t been, and no amount of wishing or thinking would change the past. The most he could hope for was that he’d learned a few things and he wouldn’t repeat his mistakes.

The next morning he called the drugstore and asked to speak to Margaret Chase, Erica’s mother.

“Margaret, this is Neil. I’d like to call Erica. Would you mind giving me her phone number?”

“What for?”

Neil clenched his teeth. “It’s personal, Margaret.”

“Mebbe she don’t want to talk to you.”

“Then she can hang up, and I won’t bother her again.” She grumbled for a few more minutes, then finally read him the number. Neil wrote it down, repeated it, and thanked her civilly.

Two minutes later he was listening to the ringing at Erica’s home in California. After four rings, a soft Spanish- accented voice, said, “Savage residence.”

“May I speak to Erica, please?”

“Who is calling, please?”

Neil hesitated. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to announce his name first, but he had a feeling the maid wouldn’t call Erica unless he did. “Tell her it’s Neil.”

“Neil? Is it really you?” Her voice sounded just as honeyed, just as seductive as he’d remembered it. The only difference was that it no longer elicited the response it once had. Now all he felt was curiosity.

“Yes, Erica, it’s really me.”

“I can hardly believe it. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has. How have you been?”

“I’ve been wonderful! Didn’t my mother tell you? I’m assuming that’s how you knew where to find me.”

Erica had always been sharp about some things. “I
did
talk to Margaret. You’re right—she gave me your number.”

“Are you calling from Florida, or wherever it is you went? Or are you home—in Patinville?”

“I’m in Patinville.” He gave her a brief report on Norman’s accident.

“I’m sorry, Neil. Give Norman my love.”

She sounded sincere, which really didn’t surprise him. Erica was selfish, but she wasn’t completely thoughtless, and she’d always liked Norman. She’d laughingly referred to him as a “big teddy bear” and enjoyed teasing him and making him blush. “Thanks. I will.”

“So... to what do I owe the honor of this call? I’m sure you didn’t call to check on my health.”

“Erica...” How to start? “Listen, there’s something I have to know. A question I want you to answer—”

“Ahh, I sense a little mystery here.” Now her voice sounded coy.

“No mystery. It’s just something I should have asked you three and a half years ago, but didn’t.”

“Well, come on, don’t keep me in suspense.”

‘‘That night... the night Jimmy was killed.. .why did you follow me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you follow me? You never acted like you didn’t believe me before that night. Why, all of a sudden, did you doubt my story and follow me? Was there a reason?”

She was silent so long, Neil almost asked if she was still there. Finally she spoke. “It was because of Willis.”

Neil stiffened. “Willis?”

He could almost hear her shrug. When she spoke, there was a ring of apology in her voice. “I’m sorry, Neil. I should have told you then, but I was so angry with you and our relationship was so strained by then, I purposely didn’t tell you, even though I had a pretty good idea Willis planted the idea knowing full well what I’d do.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“Willis came over that afternoon. He used to drop in a lot, and I... I encouraged him because I was feeling neglected. Anyway, when I complained about the stakeout, he acted as if there might not really be a stakeout. He hinted that maybe you were seeing another woman.”

That snake. Willis knew damn well the stakeout was authentic. Everyone in the department knew about Tony Abruzzi and his girlfriend.

“I was furious to think you’d been lying to me. Up until that moment, I never considered that there might be someone else. I always thought your job was my rival, not another
woman!”

“I never saw another woman while I was married to you, Erica,” he said. “I know I had my faults, but unfaithfulness was not one of them.”

“I know that now. But at the time, I was so angry with you... anyway, I guess I... wanted to believe it.”

Neil was amazed. This was a new Erica he was talking to. This Erica sounded as if she might have grown up in the last three years. “So you followed me when I left that night.”

“Yes.”

Willis. Willis had planted the seed of doubt in her mind. What had he hoped to accomplish? Surely he hadn’t intended for Jimmy to die. Was that why he’d sent the check? Because he’d started something that ended in tragedy? A tragedy he hadn’t intended? Neil had always known there was something unexplained about that night despite what Internal Affairs had said. And now, finally, he might be on the verge of discovering the whole truth.

“Neil... can you forgive me? I... I know how much Jimmy meant to you, and... and I’ve always felt guilty about his death. If I hadn’t come that night... maybe Jimmy would still be alive.” Her voice trembled.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Neil said resignedly. “We can’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come. Everything might still have ended the same way. But if anybody’s to blame here, I think it’s Willis.”

“What are you going to do?”

She’d asked the same question Alice had asked the night before. “I’m not sure. One thing I do know, though. I’m going to have a nice, long talk with my cousin Willis. A long overdue talk.”

Neil hadn’t been in the mayor’s office for years. But he did remember that old Henri Tremayne, who’d been mayor of Patinville for more than fifteen years, had had a secretary older than he was. Everyone in town knew Esther Riddley, and the smart-looking brunette sitting behind the secretary’s desk today was definitely not Esther. Neil looked at the brunette’s legs as she walked toward Willis’s office to announce him. No, definitely not Esther.

He wondered what Willis would think when the brunette told him Neil was there.

He didn’t have long to wait. A smiling Willis emerged from his office only moments later. “Neil! What a surprise. Come on in.”

Neil forced himself to smile in front of the secretary, then followed Willis into his office, shutting the door behind him.

It was a nice office, Neil thought, occupying the comer and most of the back half of the third floor of the city building, which also housed the water and sewer departments as well as the rest of the administrative staff. Although Patinville wasn’t a big city, with a population of about 30,000, it had a respectable number of city employees.

“Moved up in the world, haven’t you?” Neil said, eyeing the plush green carpeting and shining mahogany furniture.

Willis flushed, and his smile slipped a little. “Well, yes, things have worked out nicely for me.” Then, as if he’d just remembered his manners, he said, “Sit down, Neil. Can I get you some coffee? Hell, this is an occasion. How about a drink?”

“No, thanks.” Neil took the proffered chair, and Willis walked around and seated himself in the swivel chair behind his desk. Neil leaned back in his own chair and tented his fingers. In a slow, thoughtful voice, he said, “Yes, things have worked out nicely for you, Willis.’ ’ He allowed himself a small smile. “But then, after all, it’s only what you deserve, isn’t it?”

“Well, I uh...” Willis’s voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Not like me, right? I mean, isn’t that what you told Lt. Richardson?”

“Now that’s all water under the bridge, Neil. I was wrong. I know that now. It’s time to forget about all that.”

Neil smiled again, and Willis couldn’t meet his eyes, although he tried. But the effort only lasted seconds, and for the second time, his gaze slid away. “It’s big of you to say that, Willis. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a reason you wanted to forget about that night.” Neil stood and slowly walked to the window behind Willis’s desk. He gazed down at the street below. There was the usual flow of midday traffic on Main Street. “But that’s crazy, isn’t it?” he continued slowly. “What possible reason could the upright, honest, newly elected mayor have for wanting to bury the events of that infamous night?”

“You know, Neil, I thought you came here to mend fences,” Willis blustered, “not to make snide innuendos about me.”

“Snide innuendos? Is that what I was doing? Gee, Willis, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend your sensibilities. Can you ever forgive me?”

The flush on Willis’s face deepened, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m a busy man, Neil. I don’t have time to play games with you.”

Neil almost laughed. Bluster hadn’t worked, so now Willis was obviously going for the bluff. Very deliberately, he walked toward Willis, stopping only inches away, so that Willis had to look up to see him. “I’m a busy man, too, Willis. In fact, I’ve been very busy. You wouldn’t believe how busy. Why, in the last two weeks I’ve discovered that a mysterious check for ten thousand dollars that some anonymous donor sent to Alice Kendella after Jimmy’s death was actually purchased by you, and I’ve found out that a telephone call came in to the department the very same afternoon of the day Jimmy died—a telephone call from my snitch—a call that you took because I wasn’t there. And I’ve also discovered the reason my ex-wife decided to show up that fateful night is because you planted the idea in her head that I wasn’t really working. You very cleverly led Erica to believe that I was seeing another woman. That’s why she followed me, and that’s why things happened the way they did, and that’s why Jimmy died.”

Willis’s face had gone white. “You’re crazy!”

Neil, who had been fighting to keep his temper in check, grabbed Willis by the collar, and even though his cousin outweighed him by a good forty pounds, he lifted him out of the chair effortlessly. “Listen, you worthless bastard,” he ground out, “I’d as soon beat the crap out of you as look at you, so don’t lie to me.”

“I’m...I’m not lying,” Willis sputtered, pulling at Neil's hands.

But Neil was relentless. Three and one-half years of guilt and pain and dealing with the knowledge that his life had changed irrevocably because of that night drove him, would continue to drive him, until he knew the truth. Only then would he be able to forget. Only then would he be able to build a new life. “You might as well tell me the truth, because I know it anyway. The only thing I don’t know is what you hoped to accomplish by pushing Erica into following me that night. Did you know Tony Abruzzi was going to show up then?”

“I told you! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Suddenly all of it—the pain, the years of sadness and guilt, everything—combined to enrage Neil. He let Willis go, and Willis staggered backward, falling against his chair.

“I’d like to kill you, do you know that?” Neil said through clenched teeth. He wanted to smash Willis’s face in, but he knew there were better ways of taking care of Willis.

“You just try it!” Willis shouted, eyes blazing with hate. “My secretary would have the police here so fast your head would spin. You think you’re so smart, don’t you? You’ve always thought you were smarter than me. Well, who’s sitting here in the mayor’s office and who ran away to Florida, answer me that!”

“I don’t have to answer anything. You’re the one who’d better come up with some answers, and quick.”

Willis’s eyes narrowed, and his face had turned a mottled shade of red. “Get out of here, Neil. We’re not kids anymore. You don’t carry any weight in this town, and I do.”

“You haven’t gotten any smarter, have you Willis?”

“I’m smarter than you’ll ever be!”

“If you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll realize that I don’t have to prove anything to cause you a lot of trouble. All I have to do is start spreading rumors around. The last thing a politician with ambition needs is rumors.”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’d haul you into court so fast, you wouldn’t know what hit you,” Willis said, but not before Neil had caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes.

“Fine. If you want to go to court, have the bank’s records subpoenaed, have that whole mess opened up again, that’s fine with me. I have nothing to hide. I also have nothing to lose.” Neil smiled coldly. “You, on the other hand, have a great deal to lose.”

Suddenly, all the bluster left Willis, and he sagged into his chair, his face draining of color. “What do you want from me?” he said.

“For starters, tell me why you did it.”

Willis didn’t look at Neil. He squirmed in his chair and reached for his collar, loosening his tie as if it was suddenly choking him. “I... I didn’t think anything like that would happen. I never thought anyone would get hurt. And you’re right, Lester, your snitch, did call that day. He said he’d heard a rumor that Tony Abruzzi was going to contact his girlfriend that night. I... I told him I’d tell you. And I went over to your house
to
tell you, but then.. .Erica was there, and she was mad and she kept on and on about you and your job, how she just knew things would only get worse when you got that promotion... and suddenly, I started to get mad.” Now he looked up, and his blue eyes were filled with bitterness.