A Cold Christmas (13 page)

She grabbed her coat, told Hazel she was making one stop and then going home. “You all right until Marilee gets here?”

“Right as rain.”

“Would you admit it if you weren't?”

“No,” Hazel said with mock horror.

“What is it around here? A sin to get sick?”

“Grievous,” Hazel said.

The sky was black velvet with zillions of bright stars looking like part of the Christmas decorations. She shivered as she huddled over the steering wheel, waiting for the pickup to warm enough so it wouldn't die when she drove off.

Dark streets, lighted windows, decorations everywhere, crisp cold air. Small quarter of new moon. Christmas card stuff.

She felt nostalgic and weepy. Good Lord, what was the matter with her?

Stores were open for shoppers who seemed out in droves despite the cold. She hadn't yet done any shopping, which meant parents, a zillion nieces and nephews, and a few old friends to get something for. For the friends, she thought something from Kansas. What that might be, she didn't know. Cow chips, maybe?

She was tired and irritated. This homicide wasn't going anywhere and she'd just learned the victim didn't even have a name.

Ettie Trowbridge, Caley James's mother-in-law, lived in a small neat brick house with white trim and a deep porch across the front. It sat on a wide lot with large houses on either side, making it look only half grown.

Ettie, in her early sixties, was small and slender, her platinum hair cut short and styled in loose curls. She looked perky, dressed for the season in green pants and fleecy red tunic. The house smelled of cinnamon and brown sugar. Recently baked cookies? Nice grandmotherly thing to do, though she didn't look the grandmother type. She looked more the hiking and skiing type. The television was on slightly too loud, but Ettie picked up the remote and clicked it off.

“So nice of you to come,” Ettie said. “I'd offer you some coffee, but if I drink it this late it keeps me awake all night. A gracious hostess would offer it anyway and simply not drink it. I will, however, offer herbal tea. Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice.” Susan wondered what Ettie wanted.

“Let me take your coat.”

Susan turned it over and followed Ettie into the kitchen.

“I'm worried about Caley.” Ettie put water in a teakettle and set it on the stove.

“Worried?”

“She has this nasty flu—and no wonder, as cold as it is. I never realized how cold it got here. How do you stand it?”

Susan smiled. “Where are you from, Mrs. Trowbridge?”

“Texas,” she said as though it were on the other side of the world. “And please call me Ettie. How do people survive here?” The teakettle made a discreet little shriek and Ettie poured boiling water into the teapot.

“It doesn't get cold there?”

“Not like this.”

“It's usually not this bad, I'm told.”

“Oh, yes, I've heard that from everybody. If it's going to be this dreadful, it could at least snow for the children.” Ettie poured tea into china cups with pink roses and passed one to Susan, then put chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven on a plate.

“I make them for the children,” Ettie said. “I'm not good at baking, but cookies I can manage.”

“How long have you lived here?” Susan broke a chunk from one, the chocolate still gooey, and popped it into her mouth.

“Four or five months. I'm here because of the grandchildren. I had no idea how strongly I'd feel about them.”

Why had Ettie wanted to see her? “What do you know about Tim Holiday?”

“Oh dear, is that the poor man who was killed? I just wonder how that will affect the children. Probably give them nightmares.”

“How well did you know him?”

“Know him? Goodness me, I never even met the man. I can't imagine a young woman as pretty as you as a police chief. What made you take up this kind of work?”

That couldn't be why you wanted to see me. “What do you know about Holiday?”

“Not a thing. I keep telling Caley she should get out of that dreadful old house. Just look what happened.”

“Did she ever mention Holiday to you?”

“No.” Ettie sipped tea. “You probably wonder why I asked you to come.”

Right.

“This is difficult and I do wonder if I should mention it at all. Did Caley tell you someone is following her?”

“Who?”

“Well, that's just it. She's never sure it's real, or at least that's what she says.” Ettie sighed. “I do wonder if it's all in her mind.”

“You think she made it up?”

“Well— I love her dearly, but she has a strong imagination and she is awfully scattered.”

“Did any of the children ever mention that they were bothered or frightened by someone? Or see anyone around?”

Ettie shook her head. “This is awkward. I hesitate to say anything, but what if it was that—that man who was killed?”

What if, Susan thought. He'd apparently asked about Caley. Maybe he'd been stalking her.

“Oh,” Ettie said with exasperation, “Mat needs to get out of that tiny little place he's in and find someplace where they can all be together. Someplace decent.”

“I was under the impression they were divorced.”

Ettie brushed that aside. “A misunderstanding. They'll sort it out. Mat's in a little financial pinch at the moment, but when he gets it taken care of, they'll be all right.”

Susan wondered if Caley thought that.

“I worry about her,” Ettie said. “I worry about the children. Sometimes she doesn't have the sense God gave a goose.” Ettie sighed. “Maybe it's all just nothing. Her imagination. And, of course, if it was that poor man, the one who was killed, then there's no more problem. Oh, I don't know. I felt I simply had to tell you.”

Susan thanked Ettie and took herself back out in the cold.

When she turned into her driveway, she saw she'd forgotten to leave lights on again. The house stood in dark uninviting gloom under the big walnut trees. She drove into the garage, closed the door, and, head down to avoid the wind sandpapering her face, hurried toward the kitchen door.

Before she could get it open, she heard footsteps and turned to face whoever was coming up behind her.

15

“Susan?”

“Oh, Jen, you startled me. What are you doing out so late?”

Jennifer Bryant, a twelve-year-old who lived a few houses down, was slated to take care of the cat while Susan was away.

“Does your mother know where you are?” Susan asked. Mrs. Bryant wasn't all that crazy about Susan for complicated reasons.

“Yeah,” Jen said. “I only came over to give you some stew and stuff I made.”

“Wow, Jen, thanks. You want to come in?”

Jen hesitated. “I guess not. Are you going on your vacation?”

“I hope so. Remains to be seen.”

“Someone was here earlier,” Jen said.

“Who?”

“Don't know. I saw him come up to the door. I guess he knocked. Anyway, he waited a second or two and then left.”

“Was it a male?”

“Pants and jacket. I couldn't really see.”

“Big man? Small man? Fair, thin? What?”

“Kind of tall, ski jacket, so I don't know if he was skinny or fat, but I think not fat.”

“What time was this?”

“Not too long ago. Maybe an hour.”

“Okay. Thanks, Jen.” Susan waved as Jen scooted down the driveway and cut across the lawn next door on her way home.

Juggling the stew pot, a paper bag of she knew not what, and a bowl of salad, Susan stuck her key in the lock. Perissa the cat was waiting, yammering about serious neglect and starvation. Right, first things first. She fed the cat before she gathered the mail, then flipped through it as she listened to messages on the answering machine.

Three hang-ups, a call from her father asking when her flight got in, one from an old friend in San Francisco wanting her to call, and one from Fran, who said she'd have to call off their dinner, she felt lousy with this damn flu.

Susan dropped the mail in the office off the living room and picked up the phone. Fran's number got her the answering machine and she left a message of sympathy and reassurances that she would stop by in the next day or so to see if anything was needed.

Since the house was spotless, it must be Tuesday. Mrs. Dorr arrived every Tuesday and cleaned and polished. She'd worked for Susan's husband for years before Susan came and had simply continued showing up after he'd been killed. Every Tuesday she made sure the house was clean.

Unlike Caley's miserable house with all its dirt and clutter, Susan's wasn't falling apart and nothing crunched or made sticking sounds underfoot. No sounds of children playing and arguing, no hustle and bustle of family life. It was quiet and empty. She was all alone in her clean, well-kept-up house.

In the paper bag, she discovered fresh rolls Jen must have gone to a lot of trouble to make. Susan was weary to the bone—head-throbbing, muscle-aching tired. She put the stew in the refrigerator and a roll in the microwave.

When it clicked off, she got a fork, sat at the table, and read the
Herald
while she ate the salad and hot roll. The national weather report said Kansas City was fifteen degrees below zero, wind chill making it minus 30. San Francisco was sixty-two. Where would she rather be? She hauled herself up to bed.

The cat woke her in the morning. Perissa, named after a half sister in the
Faerie Queene,
meant “excess.” As a kitten she'd reduced the household to rubble. Much calmer now, she still woke Susan when she thought the day should begin. Poking her nose in Susan's ear even though it was still pitch-black, she purred until Susan stirred.

A shower blasted away the cobwebs and got her tiptoeing into the day. Clothes, and food for the cat, made it official. Another day had begun.

Her first stop at work was the coffee machine, then she checked the reports on her desk. Nothing about the burglar. Nothing about the missing Joseph from the crèche at the Baptist church. Nothing about fingerprints from the FBI. Too soon, she knew, but she'd hoped anyway. Who did she know with the feds?

It took a while before she remembered Morton Stoddart. He'd worked a couple of years for SFPD, then moved on to greater glory. She picked up the phone and, after being transferred from extension to extension, tracked him down at his desk. Where else? He always was a hardworking guy.

“Mort, hi. It's Susan Wren—uh, Donovan.”

“No shit? What are you up to?”

“Slogging through crap. You?”

“Same. Trying to clear a few things so I can maybe be with my family on Christmas Day.”

“You're married?”

“Boy, are you behind times. Two years now.”

“Happy?”

“Beats single. You?”

“Widow.” She didn't tell him her marriage only lasted four weeks.

“Hey, I'm sorry. I don't suppose you called to renew old times. What do you want?”

“Never could fool you.”

“Hey, I'm a trained agent. We're first-class at this detective stuff. You call to collect on the debt I owe you?”

She told him she was the chief of police in Hampstead, Kansas, and in answer to his questions, she explained where Hampstead was and how large it was, then held the receiver away from her ear until he stopped laughing. “I've got a murder here and the victim is proving slippery to identify. I sent prints…”

“Yes?” he said warily.

“Is there any chance you can speed things up?”

“Are you kidding! It's Christmas!”

“Didn't think so. Just thought I'd ask.” They spent another minute or so reminiscing about old times before she hung up.

Until she knew who the victim was, she wouldn't likely know who killed him. Leaving the coffee cooling on her desk, she snatched her coat and went out.

The library was new, built with money donated by a philanthropic woman whose parents, grandparents, and on back forever, had lived in Hampstead. It was glass and brick, up to date and efficient, but it didn't have the charm of the old one, which had been cramped, poorly lit, and didn't even have bathrooms.

A group of harried mothers with preschool-age children were trying to interest hyper kids in sitting still and listening to the nice lady reading a story. The kids wanted to run up and down the aisles dumping books on the floor.

Susan went up to the checkout counter and asked the frazzled-looking young woman about Holiday. “I can't help you. I don't know him. Beth is out with the flu. I'm temporary and beginning to think I don't know anything.” She sent a black look at two little boys racing past.

“Was that the man who got killed? So sad. And so close to Christmas too. Although”—she leaned closer and whispered fiercely, mouth going from smile to sharp teeth—”I, for one, will be glad when these monsters get back into preschool.”

She straightened and resumed her prim smile. “I think maybe he came in to read newspapers.”

“What papers?” He had the local
Herald
stacked in his apartment, so he must have read out-of-town papers.

“I don't know. I'm sorry, I really don't. You want me to ask Beth when she gets back?”

“That would be nice.”

Susan went back to the department and hung up her coat. She poured out the cold coffee and refilled the mug. With her feet on her desk, she made phone calls to banks in nearby towns, asking about a safe-deposit box in the name of Tim Holiday. Who'd have thought there'd be so many banks in so many little towns? This was the kind of grunt work she usually had flunkies doing. It was a needle-in-a-haystack kind of thing anyway. With everybody sick, everybody was overloaded and this was probably useless.

16

Zach sat in the tree house hugging Ollie. The big orange cat purred in his ear. Ollie was a glutton and a thief. Whenever Bonnie lugged him into the house, he stole anything on the table. Butter was his favorite. If Zach got lonely out here, all he had to do was bring out a cube of butter and Ollie would swarm up the tree and crouch by his knee, eyes slitted, purring like a jet engine.