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She turned up Gran’s narrow street of mostly big, multifamily homes built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Iris Dunning had managed to buy one of the few single-family houses on the street, an 1896 two-story stucco with a glassed-in front porch, an open back porch and a detached one-car garage, not that common in crowded Somerville. She’d planted flowering trees and perennial gardens, battling skunks, cats, raccoons and the occasional neighborhood miscreant.
Susanna kicked off her boots in the front hall and found her daughters doing their homework in the dining room. Gran was already off to Jim’s Place for clam chowder. She never missed chowder night.
“Dad called,” Maggie said. She was wrapped in a 1950s shawl she’d found in Gran’s attic and had on fingerless Bob Cratchit gloves. Drama, Susanna thought. Gran liked to keep the house cool, but not that cool. “He wants you to call him back. He said to call him on his cell phone.”
Ellen looked up from her laptop. “We told him about the snow. Mom, can you believe less than a week ago we were in south Texas and now it’s snowing? I hope they cancel school.”
Susanna smiled. “Be careful what you wish for. Gran’ll put you to work shoveling.”
She grabbed the portable phone off the clunky dining room table and sat in a chair badly in need of refinishing. It was a comfortable, lived-in room with its dark woodwork and flowered wallpaper. Her parents liked to tease Gran about coming in and redoing the place, stripping the wallpaper, tearing up the rugs, getting rid of all her tacky artwork, but she paid no attention. She was happy with her house just the way it was. As long as the roof didn’t leak, she didn’t plan to change a thing.
Susanna dialed Jack’s number, and he answered on the first ring. “I’m on the patio,” he said, laying on his slow, deep Texas drawl. “It’s a beautiful night.”
“Liar. It’s in the fifties and raining.”
“Ah. You checked.”
“Only because we’re tracking a nor’easter. Thank God it didn’t blow in last week when the girls were flying. What’s up?”
“I wanted you to know Alice Parker is out of prison. She took a room in San Antonio for a few days. Now she’s gone. Her friends in prison say she was obsessed with Australia. Maybe she’s headed in that direction.”
His voice was businesslike, but not matter-of-fact. Susanna glanced at the girls, both pretending not to be listening. Maggie was frowning over her math homework, Ellen tapping keys on her laptop.
“She’d need a passport, money—” Susanna took a breath, noticing that Maggie and Ellen were no longer making any pretense of studying. “Jack, are you worried she’ll come after you? You investigated her. She thinks it’s your fault no one’s ever been charged in Rachel McGarrity’s murder.”
“Alice Parker isn’t required to tell me or anyone else where she is or what she’s doing. Provided she doesn’t break the law, she can do whatever she wants.”
Susanna frowned. “Then why tell me she was released from prison?”
He didn’t answer at once. “No particular reason.”
What was that supposed to mean? Jack Galway didn’t do anything for no reason. Everything he did and said had a purpose. He was the most deliberate man Susanna knew. She felt hot, jittery, as if he had her in an interrogation room and she was lying to a Texas Ranger, not just having an ordinary conversation with her husband. “Well, I hope Alice Parker gets her life back on track. Do you want to talk to the girls?”
“Sure,” he said, his tone impossible to read. “Put them on.”
She handed the phone to Ellen and ran into the kitchen, diving into the half-bathroom. She splashed her face with cold water. Her eyes were hot with tears. She was shaking, her reflection pale in the small oval mirror. She touched her lips with wet fingers and could almost imagine it was Jack touching her. She’d loved him so hard, so long. What had happened?
Susanna, Susanna...you don’t believe I killed my wife.
Beau McGarrity. She could still hear his cajoling, hurt voice that day in her kitchen. He’d never made an overt threat against her or her children. It was in his gesture, his tone, the fact that he had walked into her kitchen from her patio, without knocking. She’d been doing a tai chi tape in the family room. The girls were at theater and soccer practice. She hadn’t thought to lock the patio door.
She’d started the recorder, not knowing what he meant to do or say. At first, she didn’t even know who he was, except that she’d spotted him twice before that week, once in town, once at the school. Susanna had told herself it was coincidence and chided herself for starting to think like a jaded law enforcement officer, taking the routine oddities of life and turning them into something potentially sinister.
She hadn’t known Alice Parker was being investigated—or that Jack would arrest her that afternoon. Giving her the tape when she showed up at her front door had made sense at the time.
Saying nothing to Jack about Beau McGarrity’s visit had, too.
When he came home that evening and told her about Alice’s arrest and never mentioned the tape, Susanna assumed the tape was no good, completely irrelevant—and that Alice hadn’t mentioned it to him. Why should she? She was on her way to prison, her career ruined. If there’d been anything useful on the tape, she’d have turned it over, if only to nail Beau McGarrity and prove herself right.
Jack had been so taciturn that night, even more uncommunicative than usual. He was glad to have the Alice Parker investigation over with. The local police department would continue with the investigation into Rachel McGarrity’s murder. He’d opened a beer, took a long drink and laid back his head, shutting his eyes.
All Susanna could think about was how he’d react if she’d told him Beau McGarrity had been to their house. His work had never touched his family this way. Never. They were both accustomed to her being afraid for him. But not for herself, not for their daughters.
She’d found herself unable to tell him what had happened. She didn’t know what he’d do.
Her own fear was irrational, visceral. Just pretend everything was okay and go to Boston with the girls, let the dust settle, clear her head...then tell him.
Now Alice Parker was out of prison, and Susanna still hadn’t told her husband what had happened on that hot, confused day over a year ago.
But she loved him.
Oh, God, she loved him.
“Mom!” It was Ellen yelling. “Dad wants to talk to you!”
Susanna dried her face and hands and slipped out of the bathroom. The girls were in the kitchen, and Ellen handed her the phone, whispering, “We told him about the cabin. We thought he knew.”
“He’s pissed,” Maggie added, more as a point of fact than a warning.
Susanna nodded and ducked back into the half bath. She wanted total privacy for this conversation. “A cabin in the Adirondacks,” she said cheerfully. “Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?”
“When were you going to tell me?”
There was nothing calm, professional or deliberate about him now. This was Jack Galway at his stoniest. “I don’t know. I hadn’t even thought about it.” But that was an outright lie, and when she caught her reflection in the mirror, she saw the guilt. “I’m sorry. It was a spur of the moment thing, but I should have told you—”
“Don’t be sorry. I don’t give a damn what you do.”
He hung up.
Susanna stared at the dead phone. Then she hit redial. He let his voice mail take the call. She hit redial again. More voice mail. On her third redial, he picked up, but didn’t speak. She did. “Damn it, Jack, did you hang up on me?”
“Yes, and I’m going to hang up on you again.”
“And I’m going to keep calling you until you knock it off!”
“That’s harassment. I’ll have you arrested, even up in Boston.”
No one could get under her skin the way he could. “Just try.” She took a quick breath, decided not to fight fire with fire. This once, she could be reasonable. “I can see how you’d look at the cabin as a thumb in your eye, but that’s not what I was thinking when I bought it. Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking—it was like it was meant to be. I couldn’t resist. It’s in the most beautiful spot, right on Blackwater Lake. Gran grew up there. You’ll have to see it.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated dumbly. The man drove her mad. He knew the worst, most awkward, most difficult and probing questions to ask her. But he was a trained interrogator. He could get people to confess to murder, never mind to why they’d bought a cabin in the Adirondacks.
“Yes. Why do I have to see it?”
“I don’t know—it makes sense. You’re my husband.”
“It’s an open invitation?”
She licked her lips. He had her off-balance, and he knew it. “I suppose so. Sure.”
“You know what Sam says, don’t you?” His voice lowered, deepened. “He says I should go up there, cuff you and haul you back to Texas.”
Susanna nearly dropped the damn phone in the sink.
“I knew that’d leave you speechless,” her husband said. “Good night, darlin’. Enjoy your cabin.”
He hung up on her again.
This time, she didn’t call him back.
When she returned to the kitchen, Gran was back, heating up a quart of Jim Haviland’s famous clam chowder on the stove. The girls were setting the table. It was a comfortable scene, three generations of women in Gran’s simple, clean kitchen with its tall ceilings, old painted cabinets and framed samplers from her cross-stitch craze fifteen years ago. Even at eighty-two, Iris Dunning retained her tall, graceful build. Susanna could picture her grandmother as an Adirondack guide in her youth. People assumed she was a widow when she moved to Boston, but that wasn’t true. She’d never married. Now she was in her sunset years, her hair white and wispy, her skin translucent and wrinkled. But her mind was sharp, and she stayed active and socially engaged—she was taking tai chi at her senior center. Before her granddaughter and great-granddaughters had moved in, she’d rented rooms in the house to university students to supplement her income and give her company.
Susanna sank onto a chair at the table. Her knees were wobbly from her talk with her husband.
Gran glanced back at her from the stove. “Jimmy Haviland says you’re avoiding him.”
“I’ve been busy,” Susanna said. But that wasn’t entirely true. Busy, yes, but the last two times she’d stopped at Jim’s Place, its opinionated owner had asked her if she’d told Jack about her stalker. He would keep asking her until she said yes. He wouldn’t squeal to Gran. That wasn’t Jim Haviland’s style. He might to Jack, though.
Ellen set a sturdy white bowl in front of her. “Mom, we’re sorry we told Dad about the cabin—”
“No, no, that’s not your fault. I was going to tell him. It just slipped my mind.”
Maggie shot her mother a dubious frown, but said nothing. Ellen sighed. “We tried to talk to him while we were home. We told him he should try to be more romantic.”
“Romantic? Your father?” Susanna smiled, shaking her head with affection for her two clueless daughters. “He just threatened to handcuff me and drag me back to Texas.”
Gran set the steaming soup tureen of chowder in the middle of the table. “I don’t know,” she said, a mischievous gleam in her very green eyes. “I think it’s a start.”
Four
After thirty years of running a neighborhood pub, Jim Haviland considered himself a good judge of character. It came down to experience and survival—they’d honed his instincts about people. Still, he had to admit that the woman at the bar had him stumped. He guessed she was in her late twenties. Slightly built, short, curly, dyed red hair and pale skin, almost pasty looking. She wore a lot of makeup and about a half ton of gold jewelry. Dangling earrings, rings on both hands, bracelets, a thin gold necklace with a tiny heart pendant and a thicker chain necklace. He wouldn’t want all that metal on him in a nor’easter. But the snow had finally stopped, and the cleanup was in full force. The plow guys would be showing up later for the beef stew special.
The woman’s clothes made her stick out in this neighborhood, too. She had on a close-fitting baby blue ribbed V-neck sweater, tight Western-cut jeans and leather boots that would land her on her ass on an icy sidewalk. She played up her femininity, but there was a hardness to her, a toughness that Jim couldn’t reconcile with the jewelry, the clothes, the painted nails. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had a .22 strapped to her ankle.
After making sure he didn’t use a mix, she’d ordered a margarita. Her accent wasn’t local, but Jim was no good at placing accents outside of New England. He drew a couple of drafts for two firefighters who’d come in, complaining about the hazards of space heaters and overtaxed extension cords. Davey Ahearn, on his stool at the end of the bar, was listening in, nursing a beer and keeping an eye on the woman with the makeup and the margarita.
“New in town?” Jim asked her.
“Two days. It’s that easy to tell?”
“With that accent?” Jim smiled at her. “Where you from?”
“Texas. A little bitty town outside Houston.”
“Hope you brought a good winter coat with you.”
She gestured toward the coat rack next to the door, gold bangles sliding down her slender wrist. “No, sir, but I bought one on sale this morning. They said it’s a basic parka. I never knew there was anything but. I bought a winter hat and gloves, too. I think mittens would drive me batty.” She raised her gray eyes at him. “I’m holding off on the long underwear.”
She had an engaging manner, whoever she was. “That’s one thing about owning a bar,” Jim said. “I can get through a Boston winter without long underwear. You’ll like it here in the spring. Are you planning to stick around that long?”
“I’m hoping to relocate here, but have you checked out the rents lately? Whoa. They’re sky-high.” She sipped more of her margarita, looking as if she relished every drop. “I don’t know why you put up with it. Aren’t you the folks who dumped the tea in the harbor?”
“That we are. You have a job lined up?”
“More or less, yes, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“Audrey,” she said. “Audrey Melbourne.”
Jim studied her a moment, noticing she didn’t flinch under his frank scrutiny. Definitely a tough streak. “What are you running from, Audrey Melbourne?”
She shrugged. “What do any of us run from?”
“The law and husbands,” Jim said. Davey Ahearn glanced down the bar, not saying a word, but Jim knew his friend’s suspicions were on full alert.
“No, sir, I don’t believe that’s the case at all.” Audrey Melbourne slid off her stool, looking even smaller. “Mostly we run from ourselves.”
She walked over to the coatrack and put on her new parka, hat and gloves as if they might have been a space suit. She left without looking back.
Davey breathed out a long sigh. “Sure. I hope she comes back real soon. That pretty little number is trouble.”
One of the firefighters snorted. “All women are trouble.”
Two female Tufts graduate students took exception to this comment, and the argument was on. Jim didn’t intervene. The Bruins and the Celtics were having a lousy year, the Patriots hadn’t made the playoffs, and pitchers and catchers didn’t report for weeks yet. People needed something to do. Maybe he needed to wonder about a redheaded Texan coming into his bar. It happened now and again, a stranger popping in for a drink. He doubted Audrey Melbourne would be back.
* * *
An icy gust bit at Alice Parker’s face as she climbed over a blackened, frozen, eighteen-inch snowbank to get to her car. The Texas tags were a dead giveaway, but what the hell—so was her Texas accent. She’d arrived in Boston in the middle of a damn blizzard, and now it was so cold her cheeks ached and her eyeballs felt as if they were frozen in their sockets. Her chest hurt from breathing in the dry, frigid air.
“I should have bought the damn Everest parka,” she muttered, picking her way over an ice patch. Even sanded, it was slippery. She supposed she’d need new boots if she ended up staying more than a few days. Damned if she’d move up here on a permanent basis. She’d rather sit in prison.
She did not understand why Susanna Galway was living here on an old, crowded street in a working-class neighborhood, with the salt and sand and soot making everything even uglier. She had a nice house in San Antonio. A Texas Ranger husband. What the hell was wrong with her?
Alice tried fishing her keys out of her pocket with a gloved hand, decided that wouldn’t work and peeled off the glove. Winter was complicated. She couldn’t believe she’d driven a couple thousand miles in her crappy car to track down Susanna, just so Beau could think she still had the tape. Not that he was biting—he kept telling her she could go to hell and threatening to turn her in for blackmail and extortion. She was calling his bluff. He’d pay her to steal the tape and hush up about it. She knew he would. Things worked on his nerves. He was paranoid and dramatic. She’d made that one little remark about Rachel smothering him in his sleep, and less than a day later, her friend was dead.
Alice was confident he’d come around. He deserved to pay for something.
Of course, he could decide to shoot her in the back and go after the tape himself, but that was extreme. Even Beau couldn’t think he’d get away with two murders. He’d let her do his dirty work for him. And pay her.
If he did end up shooting her, Jack Galway and Sam Temple could catch him. At least he’d go to prison for her murder, if not Rachel’s.
An old woman pushed open the porch door to the stucco house just up the street. She had on pants stuffed into fur-trimmed ankle boots, a dark wool car coat, a red scarf, a red knit hat and red knit gloves.
It had to be Iris Dunning. Susanna’s grandmother.
Alice had found out from Beau that Susanna Galway was living up north with her daughters and grandmother. He’d obviously expected this information would make Alice give up on her plan. She’d thought about it. It was kind of nuts, traveling two thousand miles, taking the risk of breaking into Susanna’s house to steal something that wasn’t there.
