Black Widow (14 page)

“I’m always up for pizza,” she said. “But I’d rather have you.”

Her words soured his mood considerably. He changed into his uniform, checked his gun and holstered it, rubbed at a smudge on his shoes. He felt guilty all the way to work, guilty for leaving her alone, guilty for being a cop when everybody else’s father was home every night at 5:30. Guilty for screwing his brains out with the prime suspect in a homicide investigation.

He poured himself a huge cup of Rowena’s hi-test coffee before he went in. Nodding toward his office, he whispered, “Name?”

“Melcher,” Rowena said. “Special Agent Richard Melcher. And if I were you, Chief, I’d consider takin’ two cups instead of one. Our friend Melcher’s gettin’ a little testy.”

He poured a second cup for Melcher and carried them both into his office. “Thought you could use a refill,” he said, and set it down in front of his visitor.

“Mr. DiSalvo,” Melcher said. “So nice that you could drop in and join us this morning.”

Melcher was the kind of cop Nick hated on sight. Somewhere around twenty-five years old, he was one of those buzz-cut, spit-and-polish, by-the-book assholes who thought he had all the answers. Young, desperately earnest, and green as fresh-mown grass. Nick sat down in his chair, rolled it back against the wall, and propped his feet up on his desk. While Melcher waited, he took a long, satisfying sip of coffee. Rowena knew how to make a cup of coffee. Maybe she could give Kathryn a few pointers.

“Now that we have the amenities taken care of,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what’s your interest in the case?”

“A convicted killer is turned loose and comes back to the sleepy little hamlet where the only murder in the last thirty years was her husband’s. Ten days later, the State’s prime witness in her conviction turns up dead, conveniently carrying the lady’s phone number in her pocket.” Melcher leaned back in his chair and adjusted his perfectly creased pants. “You tell me what our interest is.”

Nick smiled agreeably. “Maybe you’d like to tell me just how you happened to come by that little piece of information.”

Melcher returned the smile. “Let’s just say a little bird told me.”

“The conviction in that case,” he said over the rim of his coffee cup, “was overturned.”

“Following the testimony of some little old lady who probably can’t tell her ass from her elbow.”

“Come on, Melcher. Do you really think Kathryn McAllister is stupid enough to kill Wanita Crumley and leave her own phone number in the victim’s pocket?”

“You and I, DiSalvo, have both been around long enough to know that anybody is capable of doing anything, given the right motive and the right opportunity. We have motive, and we have opportunity. Now all we need is physical evidence, and we can nail her ass to the wall.”

A muscle twitched in his eyelid. “This is my town,” he said quietly. “This is my investigation. I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help. Now, why don’t you toddle on back to Raleigh, or wherever the hell you came from, tell your boss that we’re doing just fine on our own here in Elba, and let me get on with the business of solving this homicide?”

“Sorry, DiSalvo. No can do. I’m not budging until I get some answers from Kathryn McAllister.”

He dropped his feet to the floor so suddenly that the kid jumped. In a deadly quiet voice he said, “She had nothing to do with it.”

“Fine. Then she has nothing to be afraid of, does she?”

She was getting ready to take Elvis for a run when the police cruiser pulled into her driveway and Bucky Stimpson climbed out. He took a moment to hike up his pants and adjust his gun belt before he walked gingerly up the driveway. Furious, she flung open the front door and glared at him. “I told DiSalvo I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said, “and I’m not!”

“Ma’am?” Bucky stood there on her porch, bouncing on the balls of his feet and throwing nervous glances at Elvis, who stood rigidly by her side. “The Chief asked me to come down and pick you up, escort you down to the station.”

“Down to the station?” she said. “Why does he want me at the station?”

Bucky tucked his hands into his pockets and squirmed. “Well, ma’am,” he said, “there’s a fellow down there from the SBI—” He paused and adjusted his hat. “That’s the State Bureau of Investigation,” he clarified.

“I know what it is!” she snapped.

Bucky cleared his throat. “Seems this fellow wants to question you regarding the killin’ of Wanita Crumley.”

She didn’t bother to change out of her running clothes. It didn’t really make any difference, anyway. She sat stiff and silent in the backseat of Bucky’s patrol car, her purse clasped tightly in her hands, her knuckles white. The last time she’d ridden in the backseat of a police cruiser, she’d been covered with Michael’s blood, and numb with fear. At least this time, there was no blood. The irony wasn’t lost on her, though. She’d been wearing running clothes that time, too.

She followed Bucky wordlessly up the walk of the municipal building, past the blooming geraniums, up the front steps and through the door. Rowena looked up as she passed, gave her the evil eye, and returned to her knitting. Her breath was a fiery pain in her chest as Bucky knocked on the door and opened it. “Chief?” he said. “Miz McAllister’s here.”

She walked through the door like a woman walking to her execution. Nick sat behind the desk, long legs sprawled, wearing his cop face, the one that would have identified him as a cop anywhere, even if he hadn’t been wearing a gun and a badge. The SBI agent was young, clean-cut, and wore a gray suit with a red power tie. “Ms. McAllister,” he said wryly, “do come in.”

She stubbornly refused to take her eyes off DiSalvo, refused to hide the hurt, and he just as stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. The man who’d made passionate love to her just hours earlier was gone, replaced by a stone-faced stranger whose eyes looked at her with an indifference that was far more painful than the act of being hauled in for questioning.

“Go ahead, Melcher,” he said to the agent, “it’s your party.” And without even glancing in her direction, he got up from the chair, turned his back on her, and walked over to the window.

She stared at him for a moment in disbelief, and then she turned to the eager young agent. He reminded her of a half-grown pit bull. “Richard Melcher,” he said briskly, “SBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions concerning the Crumley homicide.”

Her stomach had gone sour, and for a moment she was afraid she might vomit. She sat down heavily in the chair and folded her arms across her stomach. “I don’t know anything about the Crumley homicide,” she said.

“What was your relationship with the victim?”

“I didn’t have a relationship with her. Shouldn’t my lawyer be present, Mr. Melcher?”

“There’s no need for that, Ms. McAllister. We’re just having a friendly little Q&A here. Did you or did you not know Wanita Crumley?”

“I knew her. So did everybody else in Elba.”

“Did you hate her?”

“I don’t like what you’re implying by that question
_—
”

“Because I would sure as hell hate anybody who did to me what that woman did to you. She aired your dirty laundry in public, Kathryn. She let the whole world know that you couldn’t keep your husband satisfied. That must have made you very angry.”

“My husband,” she said, “never touched that little tramp. And you may not call me Kathryn.”

“Maybe you’d like to explain to me why we found a slip of paper in the victim’s pocket with your phone number on it, along with the words
Lake Alberta, 8:00 Friday
.”

She glanced at Nick. He must have known. He must have known last night, when he came back to her house. But he’d come anyway. He’d made love to her anyway. She silently begged him to turn around, but he never moved a muscle, just stood there rigidly at the window, his back ramrod straight. “I have no idea,” she said.

“Come on, Kathryn. We’re all intelligent people here. Did you or did you not have a meeting with Wanita Crumley at 8:00 last night?”

She debated how to answer, decided on the truth. “We’d scheduled a meeting. Wanita never showed up. And my name, Mr. Melcher, is
Ms. McAllister
.”

He got up from his chair and began walking around the room. She followed him with her eyes, not trusting the little worm as far as she could throw him. “Why did you schedule a meeting with her?” he said.

“She phoned me two nights ago and told me she had information that might prove useful to me. I agreed to meet her and pay her fifty dollars for the information. That’s the kind of woman she was, Mr. Melcher. She would have sold her own grandmother for a fifty-dollar bill.”

He sat on the edge of Nick’s desk and adjusted the crease in his pant leg. “What information?” he said.

“About who killed my husband. It seemed rather important at the time.”

Nick turned away from the window, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms. She glared at him, but those chocolate eyes never flickered, never softened.

Melcher tapped his hand against the edge of the desk. “Why did you come back to Elba?” he said.

“Mr. Melcher, am I being charged with anything?”

“I told you, this is just a friendly little—”

“Q&A, yes, I remember. In that case, I’m leaving now.”

“You’re free to go at any time. Chief DiSalvo? Is there anything you’d like to ask Ms. McAllister while she’s here?”

Nick gazed steadily at her. “No,” he said, his voice as flinty-hard as his eyes.

“Fine,” she said, her eyes locked with his. “Then goodbye, gentlemen.”

Her hand was on the doorknob when Melcher stopped her. “Ms. McAllister?” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t plan any sudden trips out of town.”

She paused with the door half open to look back at him. He was sitting on the edge of Nick’s desk, one leg swinging in midair, a look of supreme satisfaction on his face. She looked at DiSalvo in disbelief. “Is this guy for real?” she said.

And she slammed the door behind her.

Chapter Nine

She came close to kicking the dog, thought better of it and hurled a water glass across the room instead. The act was childish, petulant, and thoroughly satisfying as she watched it shatter and imagined it slamming into Nick DiSalvo’s head and bursting it like a watermelon. “That son of a bitch,” she told Elvis, who sat watching her with his ears pricked and his ugly face radiating curiosity. “I trusted him,” she ranted. “
I trusted him!
And he’s no different than the rest of them!” For emphasis, she slammed her fist against the side of the microwave.

Pain shot through her knuckles, and the stack of mail she’d tucked into the cubbyhole a few days earlier fell to the floor. Tears flooded her eyes as she brought her knuckles to her mouth and bent to pick up the forgotten mail. A four-year-old electric bill. A couple of flyers. And the damn bank statement.

She glared at the envelope. The way this day had started out, it couldn’t possibly get any worse. “Screw it,” she said, and tore the envelope open. She set the statement on the counter and, still sucking on her injured knuckles, began thumbing through the checks.

She found it near the bottom of the stack, stopped riffling to backtrack and take a second look. It wasn’t a big thing, just slightly odd, a check made out to Francis Willoughby for $250, and signed in Michael’s neat, elegant handwriting. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She flipped over the check. It had been endorsed with one of those personalized stamps that said
Willoughby Contracting—For Deposit Only.

Why on earth would Michael have paid a contractor two hundred and fifty dollars?

She opened the drawer and took out the phone book, opened it to the yellow pages, riffled through them until she found Willoughby Contracting. She dialed the number, then stood at the sink, running cold water over her bruised and bloody knuckles, while it rang. “Willoughby Contracting,” a soft female voice said.

Kathryn turned off the water. “Francis Willoughby, please.”

“Just a minute, hon. Fran, it’s for you!”

Obviously a highly professional setup. Kathryn tapped her toe as she waited, and then Francis Willoughby came on the line. “Mr. Willoughby,” she said, “this is Kathryn McAllister.”

The silence at the other end told her he knew who she was. She took a deep breath and made her voice as pleasant as possible. “I’m looking for some information. I just came across a check that Michael wrote you two weeks before he died. It was for two hundred and fifty dollars. I was wondering if you could tell me what it was for?”

There was a long silence. And then he blurted out, “I would’ve paid the money back, but you was in jail, and
_—
”

“No, no,” she said, “I don’t want the money. I just want to know why he gave it to you.”

“It was a retainer. He hired me to rip out the kitchen in the Chandler place and build a new one.”

Blankly, she said, “He was going to renovate the kitchen?”

“He said you’d been wantin’ a new kitchen ever since you bought the house. I came over and checked it out one day while you was at work. It was in sorry shape, Miz McAllister. We decided the best thing to do was to gut it out and start over. Your husband wanted me to tear down the wall by the dining room, put in an archway, install new flooring, new ceiling, new appliances and countertop. New everything.”

“Why would he have done that without telling me?”

“He was gonna surprise you. It was supposed to be an anniversary present.”

She thanked him and hung up the phone. Went slowly to the open back door and stood there, looking out through the screen, her eyes slowly filling with tears. “Oh, shit,” she said, and leaned her head against the screen. Elvis walked over to her, nudged her thigh with his nose, and she reached down absently and scratched his head. If Michael hadn’t died, her life would be so different now. The house that was sitting empty out on Ridgewood Road would be the showplace they’d always intended it to become. They’d have a couple of toddlers playing in the yard, sunny and blond, with their father’s laughing eyes. And she would still be Mrs. Michael McAllister. Still young, still innocent, still in love.

Not the greedy, grasping woman who’d rolled wantonly around the living room floor with Nick DiSalvo.

The phone rang. Ignoring it, she bent to pick up the shards of broken glass. She walked to the wastebasket and dropped them in, ran cold water over her hands. Her knuckles were throbbing, and the phone continued to ring. Woodenly, she went to it and picked it up. “What?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” DiSalvo said softly.

Her stomach turned inside out. His voice was low and intimate, like they were pals or something. “I have nothing to say to you,” she said, and hung up the phone.

It rang again almost immediately. The man was nothing if not persistent. She took out the broom and dustpan and finished cleaning up the broken glass, then turned Elvis loose into the backyard, where he immediately lifted his leg on Raelynn’s mother’s peony bush.

After a while, the phone stopped ringing. She brought Elvis back in and tossed the bank statement into the trash. There was no sense in wallowing in the past. Michael was dead, those beautiful blond babies would never be born, and last night with Nick DiSalvo had been the biggest mistake of her life.

Five minutes later, the Blazer came roaring down the street and sailed into her driveway. He stomped on the parking brake and opened his screeking door and stalked up the walkway and onto the porch.

“That hinge could use a little WD-40, DiSalvo,” she said through the locked screen door.

His dark eyes were wild. “Why’d you hang up on me?” he demanded.

“I told you, I have nothing to say to you.”

“Damn it all, Kathryn, it wasn’t my fault. He insisted on talking to you.”

“And just when were you planning on letting me know I was a suspect in another murder? Christmas? Arbor Day?”

“Look,” he said, “I have a teenage daughter who’s hounding hell out of me to be a proper father. I have an unsolved homicide hanging over my head and the mayor breathing down my neck to get it solved. I have a twelve-year-old hotshot who thinks he’s Efrem Fucking Zimbalist sniffing around in my investigation. I don’t need this shit from you!”

Her fingers tightened on the door frame. “You knew, Nick! You knew last night, but you didn’t bother to let me in on it. You used me!”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t do anything you didn’t want as much as I did!”

“Are you familiar with the word betrayal?”

His face hardened. “Let me in.”

“No.”

“I’m not standing out here on the damn doorstep and telling everybody in Elba our business. Let me in the damn house.”

“Your truck spent the night in my driveway, Nick. Everybody in Elba already knows our business!”

“I just want to talk to you. Alone. In private. That means without the whole neighborhood listening in.”

“No.”

“McAllister, you are the stubbornest damn woman I ever met! Why the hell won’t you let me in?”

“Because if I open this door, in five minutes we’ll be rolling around on the floor! I can’t do this, DiSalvo!”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! I won’t touch you. Just open the goddamn door and let me in.”

She grasped Elvis’ collar and held it tight. From somewhere deep in his throat, the dog made a low, growling sound.

Nick gaped at him in disbelief. “Call off the dog,” he said.

“No.”

Elvis growled again, and Nick scowled at him. “Call off the frigging dog, Kathryn.”

“If you try to touch me,” she said, “he’ll rip your throat out. He has very large teeth. He could kill you in fifteen seconds.”

“And I’m carrying a loaded .38 that could kill him in one shot.”

Appalled, she said, “You would
shoot
my
dog
?”

He clenched his fists, and a vein stood out on the side of his neck. “I AM NOT GOING TO SHOOT YOUR DAMN DOG!”

“And I’m not letting you in, DiSalvo. You seem to have this warped idea that you can come slinking up to my doorstep every time you have a hard-on, and then refuse to acknowledge me in public. I won’t be treated that way.”

“I’m trying to keep your ass out of the slammer!” he shouted. “What was I supposed to do? Tell Melcher I’d just finished rolling in the bedsheets with you?”

“Yes! And then walk down Main Street beside me, right in the light of day!”

“I could lose my job, Kathryn. I’m the goddamn chief of police, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Right. I forgot you’re a cop. The job always comes first with you, doesn’t it, Nick?”

“You’re missing the point, McAllister. If I lose my job over this, I can’t protect you. And that’s the goddamn bottom line!”

Her anger dissipated, leaving her feeling strangely deflated. “Jesus, DiSalvo,” she said. “Are you really naïve enough to believe you can protect me?”

“Nobody’s touching you,” he said grimly. “I won’t let them.”

“If the State really wants me,” she said, “they’ll have me. And there’s not a thing on God’s green earth you can do about it.”

“Kat,” he said, and his voice was silken, seductive, reaching into every soft, feminine place inside her. “Open the door. Please.”

It took every ounce of strength she possessed to turn him down. “Not until you’re willing to acknowledge me in public,” she said. “Go away, DiSalvo.” And she shut the door in his face.

Rowena was knitting again, and he was just steamed enough to call her on it. “I’d appreciate it,” he said, “if you wouldn’t do that during working hours. It makes us look like a bunch of backwoods hicks.”

Her mouth fell open and she nearly dropped her knitting needles. “Why, ah
_—
Whatever you say, Chief.”

“Thank you. I’m calling a staff meeting in my office in a half-hour. See that everybody’s notified.”

She hastily tucked her knitting into a bag beside her chair. “Everybody?” she said.

“Everybody who’s employed by this department. Make it crystal clear that if they want a job tomorrow, they’d best show up.”

A half-hour later, they assembled in his office, curious, silent, and nervous. He sat down in his chair and without speaking a word, looked at each of them in turn. Rowena. Bucky. Earl. Teddy Crane, the night dispatcher. Linda Barden, who filled in on a part-time basis nights and weekends.

His little kingdom. His little army. One of whom was a rat. “I want to know,” he said grimly, “which one of you tipped off the SBI about the note that was in Wanita Crumley’s pocket.”

They looked at him, looked around at each other. Bucky cleared his throat nervously, but nobody spoke. Nick stood up and walked around the corner of his desk. “The information didn’t just up and walk its way to Raleigh,” he said. “It had to be one of you. Nobody else knew about it. Did they?”

Bucky cleared his throat again. “Not as far as I know, Chief.”

“Well, then?”

The silence grew uncomfortable. “Bucky?” he said.

“Sir? Uh, no, sir, of course I didn’t tell anyone. I’d never do that.”

“Earl?”

“Twern’t me, Chief. I went home the same time you did and fell into bed.”

“Teddy?”

Teddy shifted his weight to rest on the other leg. “The only person I told,” he said nervously, “was my wife. But she wouldn’t tell nobody. She’s never even heard of the SBI.”

“Rowena,” he snapped.

“Sorry, Chief. I slept like a baby last night. Didn’t know anythin’ about it until I read it in the
Gazette
this morning. Agent Melcher was already here when I got to work.”

The exhaustion was catching up to him. He ran both hands down his face, rubbed his eyes. “Linda?” he said.

“I wasn’t even on duty last night, Nick. My kid was sick.”

Nick walked slowly to the window and gazed out at the street. Turned around and looked at them again. “Somebody’s lying,” he said. “And when I find out which one of you it is, I’m going to wrap my fingers around your throat and squeeze as hard as I can.”

Rowena and Bucky exchanged glances. “You feelin’ all right, Chief?” she said.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we are running a police department here. This is not a craft club or a meeting of the Ladies Aid Society. Nor is it a gambling hall, a flea market, or a kaffeeklatsch.” He looked at them again, one after the other. “It’s a fucking police department!” he bellowed. “And we are going to start acting like one! Is that understood?”

For the third time, Bucky cleared his throat. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly.

“Fine. You can leave.”

In unison, they turned like rats escaping a sinking ship. “Not the rest of you!” he yelled. “Just Bucky!”

Rowena paused with her hand on the doorknob. Earl stopped dead in his tracks. Teddy and Linda looked uncertain. “I want to hear it from your own lips,” he said. “Each of you.
Do. You. Understand?”

His response was a chorus of
yes sirs
in varying tones. “Good,” he said. “Now get the hell out of my office.”