The Winter Widow (2 page)

The radio said seven fifteen.

The weather's bad, the roads slick.

Automatically, her hand reached toward the drawer for a pack of cigarettes before she remembered she'd quit smoking.

He's fine.

She tossed kindling in the fireplace and set a match to it, put Vivaldi on the cassette player, sipped coffee and leafed through the
Hampstead Herald.
Her eyes kept sneaking glances at the clock. Seven-thirty. Seven-forty. Seven-forty-eight.
Sleet, cars sliding, smashed metal.

At eight she phoned the station and got young O. C. Pickett, who gulped and stammered. Osey always gulped and stammered when he talked to her. He said he didn't know anything, he'd find out, he'd call her back.

Three minutes before ten, the doorbell chimed and she yanked open the door. Ben Parkhurst, a compact man of average height with smooth black hair and olive skin, stood on the porch.

No. Involuntarily, she took a step back and folded her arms tightly across her chest. He came in, closed the door behind him and stared at her. His face was set, dark eyes flat and guarded.

No. She knew that look, that was the look a cop got when he came to say— No.

A muscle rippled at the corner of his jaw. He pulled at the fingers of his black leather gloves, slid them off and shoved them in the pocket of his fur-lined gray jacket. A black scarf hung loose around his neck.

“I think you better sit down.”

“No.”

“Please sit down.”

“Tell me.”

He hesitated; his black eyes seemed to glitter. “Dan's been shot.”

“No!”

Parkhurst took two strides, caught her shoulders and walked her backward until her legs hit the chair, unlocking her knees, and he forced her down. He left and returned a moment later with a glass. “Scotch. Drink it.”

She took the glass, sipped Scotch and stared at the fireplace, seeing each individual stone: the shape, the rough uneven texture, the pale creamy color. She heard the sound of Parkhurst's voice telling her where Daniel's body had been found, but the moment the words were spoken, they were gone. She couldn't hold onto them, couldn't realize anything but the varied irregular shapes of the fireplace stones. Creamy white. Limestone, Daniel said.

Parkhurst, seated on the hearth, was saying sharp, hard words like shiny bright diamonds that immediately wavered and flattened and melted to ooze together and slip away like raindrops down a windowpane.

She swirled the amber liquid in the glass and heard the ice cubes rattle. She took a sip. “Where is he?”

“The body's been brought in. The medical examiner is—”

“I want to see him.”

Parkhurst looked at her. She felt his anger and his impatience to be away from here and back to the investigation, and beyond that, she thought, worry about her. She'd barely reacted, barely spoken.

“Is there someone I can call to stay with you?” he asked.

“I don't know anyone here. Take me to Daniel.”

“You shouldn't be alone. If I can use your phone, I'll call Hazel.”

Hazel? Oh, yes, the dispatcher at the station.

“You listen to me.” Susan put emphasis on each word. “You will take me to Daniel. Now.” She tossed off the Scotch, slammed down the glass so hard ice cubes bounced out on the carpet, and stood up. “If you don't, I'll go myself.”

She strode to the door, turned, crossed her arms and stared at him.

The muscle rippled in his jaw. He leaned forward to pick up the ice cubes and dropped them in the glass with a little clink, clink. “You'll need a coat,” he said quietly.

*   *   *

THE dim hallway seemed endless, and she experienced the nightmare illusion of forever moving woodenly along its length and never getting nearer a destination. My husband is dead and I've been married not yet six weeks.

Parkhurst put a hand on her elbow, opened a door and herded her through. Bright overhead light sent slivers of pain through her head and pungent odors filled her nostrils.

A large white-haired man with heavy dark eyebrows, wearing a green surgical gown, scowled at them. “What is it? I haven't even begun. Who is this?”

“This is Mrs. Wren,” Parkhurst said.

The large man closed his mouth, exhaled a long breath of shocked reproach and spoke earnestly. “Mrs. Wren, I'm Dr. Fisher. I extend my deepest sympathies. My dear, you shouldn't be here.”

Daniel— Daniel— On his back on the stainless-steel table.

A rush of sound surged over her. She couldn't breathe. Clenching her hands in the pockets of her down jacket, she felt nails biting into her palms and heard her flat-heeled boots clomp against the tiled floor. I can't think—I can't realize—

Blood on the leather jacket and blue shirt. Large ragged wound. Exit wound?

“Turn him, please.”

“What?” Dr. Fisher stared at her, startled.

“Turn him, please, so I can see his back.”

“Dear lady, this is too much for you. Let Ben take you home. Come.” He took her arm to draw her away.

She raised her glance. “Turn him,” she repeated.

Dr. Fisher, face flushed with outrage, looked at Parkhurst. Parkhurst shrugged.

Reeking of disapproval, Dr. Fisher eased the body onto its side, gently and carefully.

She stared at the blood, more blood on his back, stared at the bullet hole high in the spine. Entrance wound. Daniel had been shot in the back.

She nodded at Dr. Fisher and he replaced the body in its original position with the same care and gentleness. Only then did she allow herself to look at Daniel's face. It was unmarked, but gray and slack, mouth slightly open, eyelids slitted over crescents of white.

Her throat closed; a pulse pounded in her ears. She touched his cheek with the back of one hand. Cold and unyielding.

The pounding in her ears grew louder. I've got to get out of here. With shallow panicky breathing, she turned her back on Daniel.

Parkhurst opened the door for her, his dark eyes expressionless and watchful. Any sympathy he might feel was buried deep inside the man, and the police officer observed her, ready to exploit her confusion and grief if it would further his investigation.

In the dim hallway, a young woman called out, “Ben!” and hurried toward them with a tweed coat swirling around high-heeled boots.

To hold herself together, to block out images of Daniel dead on an autopsy table, Susan concentrated hard on the young woman: plaid skirt, white sweater, black belt slung low around her hips.

When she got nearer, Susan recognized Lucille Guthman, a reporter for the local paper. Lucille had been at the house this afternoon looking for Daniel. Danny, she had called him, and eyed Susan with surprising hostility until Susan realized Lucille hadn't come so much to see Daniel as to get a look at his wife.

“I've been looking everywhere for you,” Lucille said to Parkhurst, then darted a glance at Susan. “Oh. I didn't—”

“Mrs. Wren,” Parkhurst said.

“Yes, I know.” Lucille's blue eyes got teary. She raked a hand through the ash-blond curls spilling around her gamine face. “I'm sorry, so very sorry,” she said awkwardly, hesitated, and then turned back to Parkhurst. “What have you found out?”

“We're proceeding with the investigation.”

“But, Ben, why was Danny killed? Who had a reason to kill him?”

She looks frightened, Susan thought. I wonder what I look like.

“Questions that need to be answered,” Parkhurst said.

“What can you tell me? Have you got any leads?”

“I'll let you know when we have anything definite.”

“I have a right to know.”

Parkhurst raised an eyebrow.

“For the paper,” Lucille insisted. “As a reporter I need to write the news.”

Susan's mind was detached, observing from a distance, as though none of this had anything to do with her.

“What did you find at the scene of the crime?” Lucille stuck a hand in her coat pocket, then yanked it out again as though her fingers had been stung.

“I have nothing to give you yet.” Parkhurst took a step and reached for Susan's elbow.

“Wait, Ben, what—”

“It's too soon.” Parkhurst looked angry.

Something scary about him, Susan thought, some aura of suppressed violence. The pressure of his hand tightened and she allowed herself to be guided down the hallway. She felt Lucille's eyes staring at her back and wondered why Lucille had been looking for Daniel that afternoon, and if she'd found him.

At home, Susan refused to let Parkhurst walk her to the door, refused to let him call anyone to stay with her, told him to leave. I want to be alone, she thought, and choked on a swell of manic laughter at that tired old line.

From a kitchen drawer, she took a pack of cigarettes, held it in her hand and stared at it, ran a thumb across the smooth cellophane. She'd quit because she and Daniel were flirting with the idea of a baby. There wasn't going to be any baby. She opened the pack and lit a cigarette.

*   *   *

HOURS stacked up like unclaimed packages.

On Friday people came: Daniel's sister; Sophie the cat lady; the Reverend Mullet; the cops on Daniel's force; neighbors. They brought food and spoke gently, sadly, quietly in shocked voices.

She turned a cold face and stony eyes on all of them and left Daniel's sister, Helen, to cope with casseroles and expressions of sympathy.

Her mind was filled with distances, mists and wraiths. Her parents arrived from San Francisco; Patrick Donovan brusque and grim, Anna pale and anxious. Susan felt the expensive softness of her father's cashmere jacket against her cheek as he held her too tightly. With the exactness of a camera recording, she noted his look of helpless anguish.

Through the next two days, she moved with heavy effort and made decisions about her husband's funeral. Emmanuel Lutheran Church, every pew filled, people standing in the rear, pulsed with strains of Bach. She sat in the front row and heard the Reverend Mullet speak about Daniel. All these people had known him longer than she had.

The day after the funeral, her father told her the plane reservations were confirmed and she wasn't to worry about anything; he would send someone out to deal with all the legal matters, pack up the household and sell the house.

For the first time in four days, she felt a crack in her icy numbness, felt a flicker of relief just behind her breastbone.

In the bedroom, she sat on the end of the bed she had shared with Daniel, smoked cigarette after cigarette and stared blankly at the deep blue carpet under her feet. A suitcase lay open beside her; her mother neatly and efficiently folded garments and placed them inside.

“Susan?”

She focused her eyes on her petite, fair-haired mother.

“Darling, do you want to take this coat? It seems suitable for Siberia. Probably entirely too warm to wear at home.”

Home. Susan looked around the bedroom, at the solid oak chest and dresser, the white walls and blue drapes. This was Daniel's home, for ten days hers and Daniel's. She gazed at the small silly painting Daniel had bought at a street fair in San Francisco, a wolfhound with an expression of apprehension, apology and half-concealed alarm. A haughty, elegant Siamese cat crouched between his outstretched paws.

“That's us,” Daniel had said with glee. “The one with the dopey-ass look is me.”

They had been drunk that day, on love and crystal sunshine and heady discoveries of each other. They were funny and clever and their games were inexhaustible. Laughter affected them like wine. Every color was sharpened, every odor pungent and every sense overreceptive.

With incomparable clarity, she saw him standing on the balcony of her apartment. She had a sharp-colored image of his profile with the strong line of chin and jaw. Blue-green water dazzled in the marina below. Tearing off chunks of French bread, he threw them to the gulls in flight. She came out through the open sliding door with two glasses of red wine and joined him at the railing.

Cupping her face with his capable, long-fingered hands, he smiled. “This sure doesn't look like Kansas, Toto,” he had said and kissed her.

“Susan?” her mother said.

She blinked. For God's sake, where is my brain? She thought back over the last few days and looked at the packed suitcase, angry and appalled with herself. She felt fragile and light-headed as though she were just awakening from a long illness.

At least my mind is working again.

I can't go home.

CHAPTER THREE

THE child lives on in the adult body, she thought as she paused in the kitchen doorway, ridiculously nervous about telling her father she was staying here.

Patrick Donovan sat at the kitchen table, suit coat draped over the back of the chair, white shirtsleeves rolled up, reading the
Hampstead Herald.
In appearance, she was definitely her father's daughter. She had his height and dark hair and blue eyes; her facial features had been planed down to a feminine version of his. She had none of her mother's gentle blondness, as though even Anna Donovan's genes had given way to those of her overpowering husband.

Patrick looked up and shoved the paper aside. “Daring to beard the lion in his den?”

As she sat down across the table from him, she felt a cottony rush of nostalgia. He still had the provoking ability to read her mind. She loved her father and knew how much he loved her, but they had always fought. As a child, she'd been defiant. So many fights took place in the kitchen, her mother had started calling it the lion's den.

“I'm glad you came, Dad. This one was—” She waved a hand, searching for words to explain her confusion and paralysis. “An inextricable problem.”

“I'm always here for you, baby,” he said with a soft smile and reached for her hand to stop its movement. “But ‘inextricable' doesn't quite fit with ‘problem.'”