Woman in Red (34 page)

 

He might have been any middle-aged man sitting there at the table in the window enjoying his meal—Judd Cove oysters, pan-fried flounder with butter-sage sauce, and a side of green beans. No messy ribs for him; he was too fastidious for that, Alice thought, watching as he delicately forked a piece of fish and brought it to his mouth. From where she stood, there didn’t appear to be anything remotely threatening about Owen White. He wasn’t big or menacing. If anything he appeared defenseless, sitting there in his wheelchair, his disproportionately muscular arms offset by the pampered softness of his belly. Next to the male visitors of her fellow inmates at Pine River, with their tattoos and piercings, their missing teeth and faces like roadmaps of their histories, he seemed almost comically bland.

But she knew what he was capable of.

Even as he sat minding his own business, his presence was creating a stir. He was like a stone plunked into a well, sending out ripples that could be felt from one end of the
restaurant to the other. The other diners kept surreptitiously glancing his way and heads were bent together in whispered conversation. Soon they would be burning up the phone lines and everyone on the island would know.

But what would they know? Alice wondered. It didn’t appear the mayor was here to make trouble. All they would see was a man willing to let bygones be bygones. More than that, one who was showing a generosity of spirit, not to mention a certain degree of trust, in partaking of a meal she had prepared.

Alice had a moment’s doubt herself. Had she blown things out of proportion? Seen a conspiracy where there was none? Then the moment passed, and she knew with a certainty that had little to do with logic or appearances, one that was bone deep, that Owen was up to something. She was almost certain that he was behind what was happening to Jeremy. Why else would the D.A. be adopting such a tough stance, treating a sixteen-year-old kid whose worst offense until now had been talking out of turn in class, as if he were a hardened criminal? But if Owen was applying pressure, she wasn’t sure what he hoped to gain. Was it pure revenge, using Jeremy to attack her in her most vulnerable spot? Or was it part of another, even more insidious plan?

All at once she felt as powerless as she had in prison, her body heavy with the same kind of inertia that had dragged at her those first months, when all hope for a retrial had faded and she’d had to accept that there was no way out.
Was there any way out of this?
Or was she doomed to have history keep repeating itself?

She became conscious of Jeremy edging up alongside her. She turned to find him eyeing her anxiously, and she was swept with a sense of déjà vu, thinking of the last time he’d
been at her side and Owen within striking distance. Jeremy had to be wondering what her next move would be.

She knew one thing: She was not going to cower in the kitchen like a cornered mouse. Rearranging her features in what she hoped was some semblance of calm, she said, “I should go see what he wants.”

“Maybe he’s not after anything. Maybe he just heard the food was good.” Jeremy sounded dubious even so.

“Maybe,” she said. “But what do you want to bet it’ll be the health inspector next. Looking for rats.”

“The only rat I see is the one sitting over there,” Jeremy muttered, casting a dark look at the mayor. Alice hadn’t shared her suspicions with him, but it was clear he had his own feelings about Owen White. He hadn’t forgotten that it was Owen who’d been the cause of his brother’s death and of his mother’s being taken from him.

As she pushed her way through the swinging doors into the dining area, Alice knew she had to be strong. If she failed by showing weakness, she’d be failing Jeremy as well. And that would be worse than anything Owen could dish out. Bolstered by that thought, she made her way over to his table.

At Pine River, she’d become a master at disguising her emotions. Cons had a nose like a bloodhound when it came to smelling fear or weakness, and they didn’t hesitate to use it to their advantage, so it had been a matter of self-preservation. And now, even with her blood running high and fear pushing up from her sternum like something trying to claw its way out, the face she presented Owen was one of cool professionalism.

“Mister White. I hope everything’s to your satisfaction.”

He looked up from the roll he was buttering, seeming not the least bit surprised to see her. Obviously, he’d been
expecting her. He swallowed the food he was chewing, his thin lips rolling back from his teeth in a smile that from a distance might have appeared sincere but that didn’t match the cold look in his eyes. The smile of a politician making false promises or that of a CEO getting ready to eviscerate an opponent. Or a man with a secret who would do almost anything to protect it.

“Perfectly,” he said, without a trace of irony. “In fact, that was the tastiest meal I’ve had in quite some time.” In the hush that had fallen over the room, his voice seemed to carry, loud enough for all those listening in to hear every word.

She acknowledged the compliment with a little nod. “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I must congratulate you, too, on what you’ve done with this place. It shows a lot of imagination.” He cast an admiring glance around before leaning in to add, in a lowered voice that for all its manufactured warmth seemed to hold a note of menace, “But we all know that’s something you’re blessed with in abundance.”

He was playing on Alice’s biggest fear: that maybe she
was
crazy. After all, she’d suffered a nervous breakdown and it had been
her
behind bars, not Owen. How could she not have questioned her sanity? Yet, seeing him now, there was no doubt in her mind. She hadn’t imagined any of it. For if Owen had nothing to hide, why was he going to such elaborate lengths to convince everyone of that? Aware that she was being scrutinized, she maintained a neutral tone, even with her heart pounding and every nerve quivering. “Is there anything else I can get you? Coffee? Dessert? We have an excellent crème brûlée today.”

“Tempting, but I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.” He patted his belly. “I have to watch every bite. It’s so easy to put on weight when you can’t get around on your own two feet.”

He spoke without enmity, but Alice knew that she was being reminded of the fact that she was the reason for his limited mobility. With a single, seemingly innocent remark he had her cornered. If she showed no remorse, she would appear heartless. If she displayed anger at the way she was being manipulated, she’d look vindictive, possibly even unstable. “Why don’t I have Katie box something up for you, in that case,” she told him, wearing a smile that felt as if it had been carved into her face with a box cutter. “Our mascarpone cheesecake. Compliments of the house.”

She signaled to Katie, who hurried over at once. From the anxious look on her face it was clear she was aware of what was going on. The exchange between Alice and Owen had taken place without a raised voice or even a harsh word, but it had been a showdown nonetheless, and all those listening in—Joe Miner, from Island Excavating; the harbormaster, Roman Delgado, and his wife, Jan; Danica and Kurt Fellows, who owned the Old Depot Inn—to name a few—had to be conscious of that.

It wasn’t until Alice was back in the kitchen that something in her let go and she began to tremble uncontrollably. When she went to pick up her knife, Jeremy reached over and gently pried it from her grip. “I can do that,” he said. He seemed to eye her with new respect.

“Watch your fingers. It’s sharp,” she cautioned, as he started in on the scallions she’d been in the midst of chopping when Owen arrived.

He glanced up at her, wearing a funny little half smile. “Relax, Mom. I know what I’m doing. Who do you think fixed dinner all those nights Dad was on the road?”

His tone had been lighthearted, but for Alice it was yet another painful reminder of the years she’d been away and the family meals she’d missed. Jeremy and Randy, from what she’d been able to gather, lived like a pair of bachelors, without any of the comforts of a real home. All because of an act that had taken place in mere seconds and which had caused a lifetime of untold grief.

“I should go see how Calpernia’s doing,” she announced, after a minute or so of circling the kitchen aimlessly, looking for something to do that wouldn’t result in a finger getting chopped off or third-degree burns.

“Mom?” She paused, turning to face him, expecting him to make some comment about Owen, but he only asked, “Have you talked to Aunt Denise lately?”

“Just the other day. Why?”

“I don’t know. Something Ryan said. Sounds like she’s pretty wigged about all this Spring Hill stuff. ”

“Oh, that.” Alice sighed. “You know her, she takes everything to heart.” Alice felt bad about it, too. Like Denise, she’d have loved nothing more than to see the island’s last true wilderness turned into a nature preserve. It had sentimental value for her, too; she had fond memories of catching tadpoles in the creek and of her grandmother taking her and Denise on hikes. But she had bigger worries at the moment than the impending development of Spring Hill. “What else did Ryan have to say?”

“Nothing much.” Jeremy resumed his chopping. He suddenly looked preoccupied, and she wondered if his cousin had told him something that he didn’t feel comfortable
sharing. Something having to do with the tension she’d noticed lately between Gary and Denise.

“I’ll call her tonight. See how she’s doing,” Alice said.

Jeremy shrugged, his head bent to his task. “Yeah, I think I will, too.”

Excavation of the twelve hundred acre parcel slated for development on Spring Hill had begun the week before. The handful of activists who’d chained themselves to trees had only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. They might have held out longer but for the weather, which had turned suddenly nasty. With temperatures plunging and icy rain pouring down, even the most hardcore among them were forced to concede defeat before the police could move in with their bolt cutters.

Denise would have been among them, if at the last minute Gary hadn’t put his foot down, saying he drew the line at having to arrest his own wife. In the end, Denise had backed down, but it had been a black day in their house nonetheless when the bulldozers rolled in. Their roaring could be heard all the way down to the main road as they bullied their way up muddy tracks made even slicker by the rain, uprooting trees and unearthing boulders that had sat untouched since their equally catastrophic formation a millennium ago in some mass, primordial upheaval. It had rained so incessantly that long-time residents whispered it was the curse of the Orcas Indians who’d once inhabited the island and who, it was said, had ancestors buried up on Spring Hill.

When, in the second week of the excavation, the bulldozers unearthed a moldering bundle of bones that proved
to be human remains, it seemed the old-timers had been right. It wasn’t until they were examined by a forensic expert on the mainland that it was determined they dated back no more than fifty or sixty years, and were those of a middle-aged man, a little over six feet in height, who’d died of a gunshot wound.

The consensus was that the unknown victim had been some vagrant passing through or perhaps an itinerant farm hand. Who else could it have been? Anyone else would have been reported missing at the time, and records showed no missing person who fit that description.

All except one.

When dental records established the deceased’s identity as none other than the long-missing Lowell White, the news rocked the island with a force not known since the last earthquake, back in ’88. Lowell, it seemed, hadn’t gone off to some South American country to live like a king with his mistress. He’d been murdered.

Excavation on Spring Hill was brought to a temporary halt and the case was turned over to the police. Owen White made a public statement that, though saddened to learn of his father’s death, he was gratified that the truth had come out at last. Even if the case was never solved, he said, at least his father’s tarnished reputation had been restored.

Alice, meanwhile, was enjoying a temporary reprieve—the court date for the hearing on Colin’s latest motion had been postponed due to a recent spate of arrests, those of protestors who’d attempted to block the excavation of Spring Hill. Taking advantage of the lull, on a Monday when the restaurant was closed, she decided to pay a visit to Colin. Since business had picked up at the restaurant she’d been so busy they hadn’t had much chance to talk, except when
meeting to discuss Jeremy’s case. Conscious of the fact that he wasn’t charging her for all those hours, she’d baked him a pie to show her appreciation. It was the least she could do, she told herself. Though deep down she knew that it was really just an excuse to see him.

Since that night at the restaurant when she’d sensed something between them, something so powerful it had left her shaken, she’d kept herself at an emotional distance. The last thing she needed right now was to add a whole new set of complications to her life by getting romantically involved, she’d reasoned. But that hadn’t kept her from thinking about him. Again and again she’d replayed that charged moment in her mind, imagining what it would have been like if he
had
kissed her. It had been so long since she’d known a man’s lips on hers, a man’s touch against her bare skin, she scarcely remembered what it was like—at the age of thirty-nine she was like a virgin all over again. And now it seemed that part of her, buried for so long she’d almost forgotten it existed, was rising up in revolt. It invaded her thoughts and dreams, and it was what had propelled her out the door and onto the road to Colin’s house, despite her asserting that she had absolutely no intention of sleeping with him.