Maternal Instinct (33 page)

She had already prepared her defense, Hugh noted. Unfortunately for her, Irene Macy, bright and likable, would be a far more poised witness than she anticipated. And the gun … ah, the gun, if Ballistics came through, would speak for itself. He wondered how she would attempt to explain the gun.

By the end of the day, Ballistics had indeed identified the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson found in her bedside stand as the murder weapon, and Margaret was in jail while her attorney sought bail.

Since it was well after the dinner hour, Nell had already gone home. Hugh left at the same time as John, who parted from him with an affectionate and approving clap on the back.

"You used your smarts, little brother."

Behind the wheel of his Explorer, Hugh found himself driving not home but to his mother's town house. At the back of his mind all along had been an all-consuming need to tell her he'd arrested this murderer, the one who Mom had so passionately equated with the scum who got away with killing his father.

Weirdly, perhaps because he'd imagined this moment so many times, his exhilaration and sense of pride seeped away as he drove. By the time he pulled up in front of her town house, he felt cold.

What had he done that was so great? he asked himself. Ryman's ex-wife and children had been content thinking Gann had killed their daddy, that he'd been a random victim. Now they'd have to live through the trial of a woman who had broken up the marriage. How much dirt about a man nobody had liked would spew forth in the courtroom, staining the recollections those kids had of their father?

And Gann… So, he hadn't committed this murder, but if he'd seen Ryman earlier he'd have shot him without compunction. Margaret Bissell, thank God, had no close family, but there were probably parents or a sister or brother who would now have to live with what she'd done. Margaret herself wasn't likely to have been a danger to the community, a homicidal maniac who, once having discovered she could kill, would do so often. Hugh doubted if she'd actually
enjoyed
the experience. She'd seen an opportunity and acted on impulse.

Perhaps. He reminded himself she'd been carrying the gun in her purse, and she'd had the spine to risk meeting Gann face-to-face when she stepped out in that hall. She'd badly wanted Ryman dead.

And what in hell did any of this have to do with Hugh's father? Nada. Nothing, he answered himself.

You can't change the past.

And you just realized that? he mocked himself.

He saw movement behind the partially opened blinds at the front window of his mother's condo. He was caught, and couldn't head home.

But his mood was strangely grim as he walked up to her front door.

She was waiting for him in the open doorway, the lights on as dusk had arrived unnoticed. Her eyes searched his face as he stepped onto the porch. "What is it, Hugh?" she asked urgently. "What's wrong? Not the baby…"

Something inside that he hadn't even realized was frozen solid began to soften. At least she knew what was really important.

"No, Nell's fine. I wanted to apologize for not returning your calls," he lied. "And tell you that we made an arrest today. Jerome Ryman wasn't shot by Jack Gann. A co-worker with whom he'd had an affair murdered him. A woman named Margaret Bissell. It'll be in the papers come morning."

"A woman." She seemed stunned.

Not what she'd expected. Her husband's murderer had assumed supernatural proportions over the years, Hugh guessed—the idea of a woman jarred. How could this arrest satisfy any of her need for justice?

"They kill, too," he said.

"Yes, I know, but…" She shook her head, as if to clear it, then fixed her pleading gaze on his face. "Why?"

"Why did she do it?" When she nodded, Hugh let out a long breath. "We don't know yet. She's not confessing."

"But you're sure?"

"We're sure."

Hugh sat beside her on her floral brocade sofa and told her the whole story.

As she always did, his mother listened intently with her back very erect, head held high, hands unmoving on her lap. She was the personification of dignity and strength, at least in his eyes. John said he remembered her being different, before Dad was murdered, but Hugh didn't, not really. Those memories were hazy, good-night kisses and a soft laugh and Mommy solemnly applying a bandage to his skinned knee.

Hugh wondered what life would have been like if his father had survived, or if police had done their jobs and heeded warnings about the crazy who meant to shoot up the bank.

Life being what it was, he would never know. Wasn't meant to know.

"I'm sorry for things I said to you that day," he said awkwardly. "I became a cop because John was one and I admired him. Plain and simple. I … overreacted."

"Yes and no." Regret briefly made her fine-cut features gentler, more like that young boy's hazy image of his mommy. "I see more clearly now. I refused to accept Douglas's murder, as if my acceptance was surrender." She made a soft, regretful sound. "In a manner of speaking, I have carried your father with me long past the time when I should have laid him to rest. That is, perhaps, my greatest fault."

Hugh waited, sensing that she wasn't done.

If possible, her back became even straighter, her chin rose a notch higher. "It may be that I encouraged all three of you boys to take up a cause that I believed in with all my heart. These past weeks, with you angry at me, I've asked myself whether that is so wrong. It may not surprise you," her eyes had a brief, surprising glint of humor, "that I decided the answer is no. All parents have dreams for their children, expectations. They desperately want their sons and daughters to become men and women they can respect, like and admire. That is all I asked of you."

He had never felt so low. "I know that, Mom. Jeez. I wish I'd never said…"

As if he hadn't bumbled into speech, she swept on. "My good fortune is that all of you became everything I could have hoped you would. I'm proud of you, Hugh. Not only because you stuck to this investigation when no one believed in you. But because you are who you are. Just as I'm proud of your brothers." She drew an audible breath. "I only wish I'd said this more often."

To his shock, Hugh realized he was crying. God! He wiped frantically at his cheeks with his shirtsleeve. When he had himself under control, he looked at her lovely, cool face and said in a raw voice, "If we're worth anything, it's thanks to you. Every one of us knows that."

His mother gave a sad but generous smile like none he'd ever seen before from her. Once upon a time, before tragedy altered their lives forever, she might have smiled at his father like that, her eyes brimming with emotions that, later, she could not afford to let herself feel. "You will have wonderful children," she said softly.

In the next second, she collected herself and asked with composure, "May I offer you a cup of coffee?"

Hugh shook his head. "Nell will expect me home."

"Of course she will." A ghost of her younger self showed in this smile, too. "And you're anxious to get home to her." She stood with him. "Will we see you Sunday?"

He managed a crooked smile. "Yeah. Count on it."

He left her standing in the doorway. Dazed, Hugh had no idea what had just happened or why he was reeling from it. He only knew that he felt … healed.

It made no damn sense. He'd gone to her carrying an inadequate gift, hoping that nonetheless it would heal her in some small part. Instead, in a few words she'd given him what she'd withheld all his life: the knowledge that his mother loved him and was proud of him, that she always had been.

Why now? Was it possible that the small helping of solace he'd brought had been enough after all?

Time was, he might have grabbed the cell phone and called one of his brothers, asked, "Have time to talk?" Of course he would have had to angle into the subject, been oblique, because they were men.

Now, he didn't want John or Connor.

The times, they were a-changing.

Pulling away from the curb a little too fast, leaving a trace of rubber on the pavement like a teenager in a hurry, Hugh could hardly wait to get home to his wife.

Chapter 15

«
^

D
innertime came
and went with no word from Hugh. Nell wasn't surprised, of course; wrapping up a major case took time. Hugh wouldn't be careless. Nonetheless, she felt edgy, unsettled, having to wait and not knowing what had happened. She wished he'd call.

Perhaps fortunately, Kim was especially chatty.

"You know Hugh's brother, Connor?" she said, when they sat down to eat. "He asked me to call him by his name. He told me if I said, 'Mr. McLean,' they'd all come charging."

Nell smiled, amused at the image. "I do know him," she agreed gravely.

"Well, last Sunday when we went to dinner, he was telling me about his job. He's a psychologist who works with abused kids, or ones who've had something traumatic happen to them. Like, he works with a couple of girls who have been raped."

Nell nodded. She knew and admired the work Hugh's older brother did. Hugh had told her about the case that had triggered Connor's decision to quit being a police officer and go back to school for a master's degree.

"His work sounds so cool!" her daughter continued. "I was thinking I might like to do something like that. I used to think maybe I'd be a teacher, but what he does is more important. At least, when I get to college I'll take some psychology classes and see." She wrinkled her nose. "I wish I could take one now, instead of more English and PE—I mean, PE! Like, they're going to turn us all into
superathletes
in a semester?"

"You know," Nell suggested, "maybe you could take a class or two at the community college. It wouldn't even cost anything, if you were accepted. You know people who have done Running Start, right?"

"Yeah," Kim said thoughtfully. "Hey! That would be awesome! I'll talk to the counselor. Maybe I could even take a class spring semester?" She leaped to her feet. "Thanks, Mom! By the way, can you do the dishes tonight?" She was backing toward the hall. "I need to meet Tanya and Morgan at the library to study for a chemistry test."

"No problem," Nell assured her. Ruefully she thought, what else did she have to do, anyway? Worry and wait?

She'd just gotten started when Kim came back through the kitchen, her hair brushed and her makeup renewed. Heaven forbid she appear in public looking less than her cutest.

"I am
so
going to ace that
chem
test tomorrow!" was the last thing she sang out before the door swung shut behind her.

Nell shook her head in bemusement. Where had this new Kim come from? Starting her junior year, she was suddenly determined to get top grades and hunt scholarships so that she could go to a private school instead of a state one. She'd actually banked most of her summer earnings instead of blowing them all at the mall.

Nell silently offered thanks to her brother-in-law, whom she scarcely knew. Both Connor and John had been welcoming to Kim, and both, like Hugh, seemed to have a knack with kids. Their easy manner never patronized.

With the house newly silent, Nell cleaned up the dinner dishes and then thumbed through the
TV Guide.
Despite the fact that the fall TV season was starting, she saw nothing that appealed at all.

She settled in the living room and picked up a book she'd started the day before, but found herself turning the page with no idea what she'd read.

Where
was
Hugh? Had something gone wrong? Her imagination jumped from one scenario to another: Margaret had pulled a gun and shot the officers who came to arrest her, and then herself. Hugh's lifeblood soaked into the new carpet along with the murderess's. Or: she'd produced a witness who placed the temp somewhere entirely different from where she'd claimed to be. Hugh was even now, not dead, but being raked over the coals by the captain.

"Why doesn't he
call?"
Nell exclaimed aloud.

She heard the crunch of tires on gravel first, and craned her neck to see out the window without standing to peer out like an anxious wife. Kim wouldn't be home until the library closed at nine; it must be him.