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“True, but it’s worth more brownie points if I keep it in the family.”
“Christ, Policzki, you need a life. Matter of fact, what you really need is your own place. How long have you been living with your mother?”
“Six years,” he said. “Six long and—did I mention long?—years.”
“Lord love a duck. If I had to spend six years living with my mother—or worse, Ed’s mother—I’d tie a rope over the nearest rafter and end it all.”
“She’s not that bad. She means well.”
“Of course she means well. She’s your mother. It’s part of the job description. So is making your kid’s life hell if he’s past twenty-five and still living at home.”
“It wasn’t my idea to move back home.”
“Which is why you need to move out. Listen to me, kid. I know what I’m talking about. You’ve paid your dues and then some. If you don’t cut the apron strings pretty soon, you’re going to wake up some morning and realize you’re forty and still living at home with Mom. Get a clue, Policzki. You must have enough money saved up by now for a down payment. Buy yourself a condo. Something small, something you can turn over in a few years if you get married and need more space.”
“And leave my mother alone? I’d never be able to live with myself. The guilt would do me in.”
“Oh, but you see, Policzki, there’s where you’re wrong. That’s one more thing about mothers. We’re really good at playing the guilt card. But you know what? You’re not helping her by living there.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You’re creating an unhealthy dependence. She needs to reclaim her independence. She’s a strong woman. You step back a little and watch what happens. I bet you’ll see her bloom.”
“You’ve been watching Oprah again, haven’t you?”
“I’m serious, Policzki. The two of you need some space between you or you’ll never figure out that you’re two separate people. And how convenient for you—you just happen to know a genuine, card-carrying Realtor.”
“Mia DeLucca? Be serious. She hates my guts.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. To know you is to love you.”
“Not if I’m eyeing your brother as a possible murder suspect.”
Lorna thought about it, shrugged. “I suppose that would tend to put a damper on my enthusiasm,” she said.
“You think?” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head, then lowered them. “So, tell me. Did you have any luck with the M.E.’s office?”
“Nothing yet,” she said, “although not due to a lack of badgering on my part. How about you?”
“Salvatore’s starting work on the BlackBerry. He’ll fax us over a list of all Winslow’s calls, all her appointments. We should have it by noon. Delvecchio just e-mailed me a couple photos of the victim. Maybe they’ll help us with the ID.”
“Shit. Can’t Salvatore put a rush on it? I have a feeling we need to move fast on this one.”
“That is his version of a rush. Just because you eat Wheaties every morning, Abrams, doesn’t mean the whole world does. Some of us have to sleep occasionally.”
Dryly, she said, “I’ll try to remember that.”
“I just shot the photos of the vic to the laser printer. And while you were on the phone with the M.E.’s office, I went to the Winslow & DeLucca Web page and pulled Kaye Winslow’s photo. I’m having copies distributed even as we speak. I also have Jiminez working his way through the list of Winslow’s friends that Mia DeLucca dropped off this morning. If he runs across anything worth more than a phone call, he’ll let me know and I’ll follow up with a visit in person.”
Lorna rested her chin on her hand. “You know,” she said, “something about this really bothers me.”
Policzki leaned back in his chair and studied her with interest. “Besides the obvious?”
“Besides the obvious. Kaye Winslow fled the scene. What does common sense tell you?”
“That she’s more than likely the perpetrator. But since when is homicide supposed to make sense? And we don’t know for sure that she fled the scene. She may have been coerced.”
“There’s something about Sam Winslow. I don’t like the guy. He’s hiding something.”
“Which might or might not be germane to the case.”
“You did see the tears, right? Tell me I didn’t imagine them.”
“I saw the tears.”
“Crocodile tears. That guy is as substantial as toilet tissue, not to mention insincere.”
“Polite and cooperative on the surface,” Policzki said, “but, yes, I could see a boatload of hostility in those eyes.”
“Oh, yeah. The body language was a dead giveaway that something’s rotten in Denmark.”
“He certainly didn’t seem too distraught for a guy whose wife is missing.”
“Missing and possibly dead. Almost as bad as missing and possibly responsible for somebody else being dead. He didn’t even bother to worry about Kaye until he realized he’d better make it look good if he wanted us to believe him. That’s when the crocodile tears came into play.” She mentally chewed on it awhile longer. “What’s your take on the sister?”
“DeLucca? She struck me as pretty straightforward. A little protective of her brother.”
“Interesting,” Lorna said, “how she danced her way around saying that she and Kaye Winslow were friends.”
“I caught that. What do you suppose that’s about?”
“Beats me. She seemed genuinely concerned about Winslow’s welfare, and she admitted they have a good working relationship. But she wasn’t about to commit to anything as intimate as friendship.”
Policzki considered for a moment. “You think there’s something there?”
“Something. Might not have anything to do with what’s gone down, but it’s there. Her body language didn’t scream guilt, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on. She’s maybe not as fond of her sister-in-law as she’d like us to think.”
“If it was a crime to dislike your in-laws, half the population of the United States would be behind bars.”
“Good point. Understand, I’m not ready to write her off completely. But I like the husband better for this.”
“So you think he did her?”
“I dunno.” Lorna picked up a pen from her desk and began doodling on the desk blotter. “Scott Peterson was polite and cooperative with the authorities, too. At least he was at first. Handsome son of a bitch, too. Just like Winslow. Didn’t seem particularly distraught, either, if memory serves me.”
Policzki nodded slowly. “Mark Hacking reported his wife missing and then went out, cool as a cucumber, and bought a new mattress.”
“Lot of wives going missing these days.”
“Lot of guys who seem tired of being married.”
“Guy reminds me of Chuck Stuart. Slick, sincere, good-looking. With a dark side lurking underneath the surface.”
“I know I’ll hate myself later for asking this, but who’s Chuck Stuart?”
Lorna grinned. “I forget you’re just a baby. You were probably in diapers when the Stuart murder came down.”
“Hey, watch it. I’m not that young. The name’s vaguely familiar. I just can’t place it.”
Lorna got up, walked to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup of sludge. Perching on the corner of her desk, next to the stack of empty paper cups that were starting to resemble antique collectibles, she crossed one leg over the other and said, “Guy’s driving back from Lamaze class with his pregnant wife. They’re somewhere in Mission Hill when he calls 911, says they were robbed and shot by a black man. He’s got bullet wounds in the leg, the abdomen. Wife was shot in the head. She never stood a chance. Baby was born by C-section, but he never really had a chance, either. The case started one hell of an uproar. Black perpetrator, middle-class white victims just minding their own business. Everybody was, ‘Poor Chuck this,’ and ‘Poor Chuck that.’ Except that poor Chuck’s story started unraveling after his kid brother admitted he’d ditched a gun for big brother that night. Once the story fell apart, so did Chuck. A couple months after his wife and kid died, he took a header off the Tobin Bridge. And if you think racial tension was bad before he jumped, imagine how much hotter things got when the truth came out that there was no black man, that Chuck’s gunshot wounds were self-inflicted.”
“Sounds to me like the plot to a bad Lifetime movie.”
Lorna took a sip of coffee. “Now that you mention it,” she said, “I believe they turned it into one.”
Policzki tapped his PaperMate against the edge of his desktop. “So you think Winslow’s tired of being married?”
“I couldn’t say for sure, but you know what they say. If it walks like a rat and smells like a rat, has a long, skinny tail and likes cheese—”
“Chances are pretty good,” Policzki said, “that it’s a rat.”
“Exactly. I think we should do us a little checking up on the good professor. Open a few closet doors, see if we rattle any skeletons.”
The show must go on.
The old showbiz cliché ran through Mia’s head all Wednesday morning. No matter how hard she might wish it, the real estate industry wasn’t about to grind to a screeching halt because there’d been a homicide and her partner was missing. Mia still had to check the Multiple Listing Service for new listings, still had to answer a raft of e-mails and wade through a dozen voice mail messages. She had to finish the comparative market analysis she’d promised a new client who was in a rush to put his condo on the market because he’d just been transferred to San Francisco and had to move in three weeks. She had to make follow-up calls to touch base with contacts she’d met at yesterday’s seminar who might prove useful to her in the future. A closing to attend at eleven-thirty, which meant she probably wouldn’t get a copy of the settlement statement until ten forty-five, at which time she would have to call the client to make sure everybody was on the same page before they all converged on the title company. She had to follow up with a nervous buyer who needed a gentle nudge to commit to bidding on the house she’d looked at three times but couldn’t quite make up her mind about.
In her spare time, Mia had to deal with the fallout resulting from Kaye’s absence. The story had hit the papers this morning, and the phone was ringing off the hook. The ever-competent Bev was a godsend, juggling phone calls and walk-ins, routine paperwork and the random crisis with a finesse so smooth it seemed choreographed. She gleefully hung up on reporters, then, in an abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde, offered warm reassurance to clients who phoned to inquire about Kaye’s welfare.
Yolanda Lincoln, the part-time agent Mia and Kaye had brought in six months ago, did her best to help pick up the slack. But Yolanda and Mia both had their own busy schedules to keep, so plugging the holes Kaye left was a challenge. She’d been scheduled for two closings today. Mia sent Yolanda to the nine o’clock in her place, but Yolanda was already tied up midday, and Kaye’s own one o’clock was too close to Mia’s eleven-fifteen to guarantee that they wouldn’t overlap. So Mia conveyed her regrets to the title company via Bev, then called the buyer and spent twenty minutes calming his fears and convincing him that everything was in place, just as it should be, and that he’d make it through the closing just fine without his Realtor by his side.
The closings were the only piece of Kaye’s schedule that Mia was privy to. Because they worked in a small office with only three agents, she knew many of Kaye’s clients, just as Kaye knew quite a few of hers. But without access to the woman’s electronic date book, she had no way of knowing where Kaye was expected to be or when, not until a disgruntled client phoned to complain, or a stranger walked through the door to announce that he had an appointment with her.
Mia forwarded Kaye’s calls to her own phone and left a message on her partner’s voice mail saying that she was away from the office until further notice. This thing would probably blow over, or at least that was what she tried to tell herself. Kaye would come home, everything would be explained satisfactorily and her disappearance would turn out to be just a simple misunderstanding.
Kevin called from school around ten o’clock. “You didn’t give me an answer about Tampa,” he said.
With all the chaos surrounding Kaye’s disappearance, Mia had completely forgotten about Tampa. Or maybe it was just unconscious avoidance. She glanced at her watch and said sharply, “Why aren’t you in school?”
“Relax, Mom, I have a free period. I’m sitting in the cafeteria right now, drinking an orange juice. You should be proud of me. It’s not even carbonated.”
It was a not-so-subtle dig at her determination to save her son from the self-imposed junk food diet he was equally determined to live on. They’d had a number of go-rounds on the topic. She’d lectured him on good nutrition and he’d pointed out that he was a teenager and that junk food went with the territory. They’d finally reached a compromise. He agreed to eat the healthy, nutritious meals she prepared for him at home, and she agreed not to ask what he was eating when he walked out the door. What else could she do? Soon he would be eighteen, and her flimsy parental control, such as it was, would be ended for good. She might as well start getting used to it. Once he went off to college, she’d be an empty nester, rattling around that big old house all by herself. She might as well start getting used to that, too.
“Well?” he said. “Can I go or not? They need an answer today.”
She’d loved him since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. It seemed only yesterday. Hard to believe that seventeen years had passed, harder to believe that it was time she started loosening the apron strings. She knew she was an overprotective mother, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Fine,” she said. “You can go. But I’ll want to talk to Mrs. Olson before you leave. And you’ll have to promise to call me while you’re gone.”
“Mom, it’s only four days.”
“And you’re the only kid I have. Humor me.”
“Thanks, Mom. Listen, I gotta run, the bell just rang. If I’m late for English class, Miss Crandall will have a bird. See you tonight.”
And he was gone, the connection broken, leaving Mia holding a dead telephone receiver. She should be glad he was growing up, should be proud of the man he was turning into. And she was. It was just happening so soon. She wasn’t ready. Maybe she never would be.
She’d just hung up the phone when her brother burst into her office, looking like a wild man, his hair awry, his shirt wrinkled and blind fury in his eyes. He flung a sheaf of papers on her desk and demanded, “Did you know about this?”
“What’s going on?” she said. “Have they found Kaye?”
Her brother planted both fists on the edge of her desk and loomed over her, his face dark with fury. “You heard me, damn it! Did you or did you not know about this?”
She’d never seen Sam like this, not even when they were kids and he’d had one of his weekly go-rounds with their dad. Fury didn’t set well on her brother’s handsome features. His complexion was mottled with rage, his eyes bloodshot and wild. Like some kind of caged animal.
“I don’t know,” she said, reining in her own too-short fuse. “Maybe it would help if I knew what ‘this’ refers to.” She fumbled for her reading glasses, slid them onto her face and peered through them at the paperwork he’d so unceremoniously deposited amid the sales contracts and the flyers and the gazillion notes that littered her desk. “‘Petition for Divorce,’” she read. “‘Katherine Bradford Winslow, plaintiff.’” Mia raised startled eyes to his, then continued reading. “‘Samuel L. Winslow, defendant…’ Christ, Sam. I had no idea.”
He continued to sway over her desk, so close she could smell the coffee on his breath. And something else, something slightly medicinal. Had he been drinking? At ten-fifteen in the morning?
“No idea,” he said. “You’re her business partner. Her sister-in-law. You see her, you talk to her, every blessed day of your life. And you want me to believe she decided to file for divorce and didn’t bother to mention it to you?”
Mia’s anger caught up to her. “Believe what you want,” she snapped, removing the reading glasses and tossing them down on the desk. “But you might want to take a look in the mirror before you attack me. Because it seems she didn’t bother to share her plans with you, either.”
“Jesus Christ.” He wheeled away from the desk, raked his fingers through his hair as he paced to the window and back to Mia’s desk. Through the open doorway, she saw Bev watching, her hand on the phone and her face etched with concern.
Behind Sam’s back, Mia frowned and shook her head. Bev took the hint, discreetly moving to another corner of the office, where she pulled out a file drawer and focused intently on her filing.
“Shut the door,” Mia ordered him.
His mouth set in a grim line, Sam closed the door with a little more force than was called for. “This is a place of business,” she snapped. “You can’t just come storming in here, roaring like a lion and sending people running for cover. Around here, we act civilized.”
“How could she do this to me? After all the shit I’ve gone through with that woman, how could she do this now? I’m on the verge of getting tenure. The least little thing rocking the boat could end it all. I could strangle her.”
Mia just stared at this wild-eyed stranger who looked like her brother, walked like her brother, even sounded like her brother. Except that the words coming from his mouth made no sense. “Under the circumstances,” she said, “that’s a pretty unfortunate choice of words.”
“If I don’t get tenure, my career is over!”
“Your wife is missing,” Mia said. “Maybe dead. And all you can think about is your career? I don’t think I know you anymore, Sam. I don’t think I want to know you anymore.”
He deflated abruptly, like a balloon stuck with a hatpin. “Shit,” he said.
“Will you please sit down? Have you called Detective Abrams yet?”
He slumped onto the chrome-and-tweed chair opposite her desk. “I’ll get to it.”
“You’ll get to it,” Mia repeated. “While your wife is out there God knows where, maybe hurt or kidnapped or dead, you’ll eventually get around to telling the cops about evidence you’ve been withholding?”
“I’m not withholding evidence!”
“You lied, Sam. That’s withholding evidence.”
