Devlin's Light (20 page)

Corri’s girlish giggles on the phone brought her back to the present. India made Corri promise to have lots of pictures taken in her mouse costume, and in return she promised Corri a weekend in Paloma, just the two of them. They talked about what they might do, what movie they might see, what exhibit might be at the museum that weekend, what clothes Corri should pack. By the time she hung up the phone, Corri was squealing with anticipation, prompting August to thank India for getting Corri “all wound up just before bedtime.”

India locked up the house and carried her stack of mail upstairs to her second-floor office, her bare feet sinking silently into the plush blue carpet. She turned on the light and dumped the junk mail into the trash and the real mail in the middle of her desk. She wanted a hot shower and a quick dinner before surrendering the rest of the night to reading over the investigative reports on a new case that had opened and been assigned to her while she had been home.

She headed back downstairs for her suitcases, which had been dropped unceremoniously inside the front hall. She
passed the second bedroom, the small one with the two windows that faced the back yard, and turned on the light. The room was empty. She’d always planned to make it into a guest room, for Aunt August or Darla, but since neither of them had ever expressed an interest in staying overnight in Paloma, she hadn’t bothered.

It would make a cute room for Corri, though.

India tried to envision the room in perhaps a pale yellow, or maybe a very light pink. A striped wallpaper, maybe, or a floral. She snapped the light off. Corri should decide for herself. It would, after all, be her room.

And maybe, if she likes it well enough, just maybe, someday, she’ll want to stay.

Chapter 12

Waking to a Paloma morning was never quite the same as waking in Devlin’s Light, India conceded after she had slapped the alarm clock silly, hoping to silence its uncivil buzz. For one thing, her bedroom in the city, while pretty and bright and comfortable, overlooked a city street, with all its attendant noises and bustle. For another, she missed the smell of the bay sifting through the windows. In Devlin’s Light, one awoke with an awareness of the sea. In Paloma, one’s awareness centered more on traffic reports and alarm clocks and the sounds coming through the common wall she shared with her next-door neighbors. A retired army officer, Colonel Danvers was nearly deaf and a devotee of John Philip Sousa. India looked at the clock next to the bed and held her breath. It was almost time for the cymbals to meet and greet the dawn with a thunderous welcome.

There! The marching band had gathered to send the good captain to his shower with an invigorated step. India shook her head and laughed goodnaturedly. He was a dear, the colonel was, as was his lady. They were well into their seventies, and India figured if it took a good Sousa march to get them moving in the morning, then they were entitled to it. She always awoke before them anyway, so other than the first week, when she had been unprepared and therefore a bit disconcerted, she figured a little wall-rattling crescendo
in the morning never hurt anyone. And besides, it was still preferable to the previous owner of the house on her other side, who had watched horror movies late into the night. For months, she’d spent evening after evening listening to Freddy Krueger’s victims shrieking on the other side of the wall. Given the choice, she’d take the marching bands any day.

While her morning coffee brewed, she played the messages on her answering machine. Shirley, the secretary she shared with Roxie and two other A.D.A.s, reminding her about a department meeting on Monday morning at nine; a woman she’d met at the library last month telling her about a new mystery book club that was just forming; a neighbor across the street who was putting together a petition regarding the need for a stop sign at the end of the next block; Gif, her boxing coach, wanting to know “where ya bin” and three hang-ups. She poured her coffee and stepped out onto the deck, her inquisitive nose seeking the scent of autumn in the crisp morning air. It was there, but barely. No matter how hard she tried, October simply did not smell the same in Paloma as it did in Devlin’s Light.

Oh, there were oak leaves, orange and yellow and brown, from a tree in the colonel’s yard, and the leaves from the sugar maple that stood back behind the small shed. But they didn’t seem to hold the scent of the season as they did back on Darien Road. And they didn’t seem to crunch underfoot with the same decisiveness, the peremptory crackle, as those that plumped up like feather beds on the sidewalk in front of the old Devlin place. The acorns were smaller too, little gumballs compared to the rocks that fell from the tree in front of the library in Devlin’s Light. And here, in Paloma, one might see an occasional formation of Canadian geese winging south, whereas a day couldn’t pass on the beach without dozens of honkers passing overhead. For years she and Ry had staged their own Christmas Day bird count out on the point where the Light stood, keeping record of the sightings of the migratory flocks and the occasional strays. The trees around the townhouse seemed to hold little other than pigeons, crows, grackles and various members of the sparrow family.

India leaned over the deck and watched a small finch try
to coax a last bit of seed out of the bird feeder she’d nailed to the tree last winter. She’d have to remember to pick up some bird seed when she went to the store.

And some India feed might be a good idea, she mused. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been to the supermarket. She probably needed everything. Her coffee was cooling rapidly in the frosty morning air, and she wrapped her sweater around her. Days like this called for a plate of Aunt August’s waffles. Bowls of warm applesauce. Or, better yet, warm apple pie, like the one Aunt August made. Or the one Nick had made to share with her.

Sighing, she thought back to the night they’d sat on the deck overlooking the bay, watching the moon and listening to the sounds of the night. It had been romantic, and that had made it scary; she could admit that now that there was more than a mile’s distance between them. Nick Enright was everything a man should be. Everything she needed a man to be. And it scared the hell out of her. It was hard enough to take on Corri, bringing a child into a life that had been, up until now, pretty much unencumbered, without taking on Nick too, hard enough to learn to parent the one without worrying about becoming lovers with the other. Learning to love one at a time would be enough. Surely Corri needed her more than Nick did.

But still the question nagged at her: Which did she, India, need more, the child or the man?

Both, she acknowledged. She needed them both. Nick and Corri. But one step at a time. Walk before you run, she cautioned herself. Her life was here now, Nick’s was in Devlin’s Light for however long his research might take, and then who knew? Better to be cautious. Why set herself up for a fall—set Corri up for a fall—if she didn’t have to? They could be friends. They could keep their relationship platonic.

Who was she kidding?

India poured the cooled coffee over the railing and sighed. It had never been platonic, right from Ry’s funeral when he had sought her out and found her on the swing on Aunt August’s back porch. It had only been a matter of time.

And what to do now, she wondered. She had a child to
raise, a child she was still getting to know. And a job to do. Alvin Fletcher was coming to trial in two weeks, and she had to be ready for him. She had looked into the eyes of a shell-shocked father and promised him that she would do whatever it took to put Alvin Fletcher away for the maximum number of years permitted by law. She owed that much to the young girl who had been the victim of a brutal rape and beating at Fletcher’s hands. How could she keep her promises if she couldn’t keep her mind on the facts of the case?

Maybe it would be better to put distance between herself and Nick than to watch an Alvin Fletcher walk, better to lose Nick than to lose a conviction. It was more important—wasn’t it?—that she put the bad guys away? Someone’s life could depend upon it, the life of his next victim, should she fail.

But what about her life?

All this early morning deliberation was giving her a headache, and she rubbed her eyes behind her fisted hands.

India sighed and pushed it all away, choosing to leave it all outside on the deck with the fallen leaves and the half-eaten acorns discarded by the neighborhood squirrels. She’d deal with it later. Right now she had work to do.

At ten o’clock on the following Saturday morning, India was preparing to leave the house to drive to the train station to pick up Corri, who was to be accompanied on her travels by Amelia Johnston, a friend of Aunt August’s, who was coming into the city to visit a sickly sister. She stepped out onto the small front porch, thinking about how much she had missed the little girl. She was just imagining how Corri’s tender face would light up when she spied India in the station when she turned on the top step to see Corri pop out of the passenger seat of a white utility vehicle.

“What on earth …”

“Nick was coming to see his sister. She’s a dancer and her name is Georgia.” Corri made a beeline for India, her mouth moving as quickly as her feet.

“What about Mrs. Johnston?”

“Oh. Her sister died. So they shipped her to Buffalo. Isn’t that a funny name for a place, ‘Buffalo’? If I was naming a
city I’d never call it ‘Buffalo.’” Corri hugged India, wrapping her arms around her neck.

“Well then, what would you call it?”

“I’d call it ‘Zebra.’ Or ‘Antelope.’” Corri giggled and squirmed to get down, her feet already itching to get on with the day. “Can we have lunch?”

India watched as Nick approached her uncertainly, as if measuring the distance and finding it too far but not sure of the best way to breach it.

“How did you get roped into a trip to Paloma?” She raised her eyebrows, following his every step, watching him as he watched her, his pale brown eyes seeming to drink her in.

“Well, I had told August I’d be coming in this weekend,” he said, swinging Corri’s bag over his shoulder, “since Georgia’s in town and I promised my mother I’d make it to at least one performance. So when Mrs. Johnston changed her travel plans, I offered to bring Corri.”

“She talk you to death in the car?”

“Nearly. Not as bad as Halloween, however. She had plenty to talk about that night, I can assure you.”

India laughed and unlocked the front door, swinging it open for him to enter behind Corri.

“Old Mrs. Leamy gave quarters instead of candy,” Nick told her as he passed into the warmth of her house.

“So I heard.”

“But the Andersons gave out caramel apples, which made up for it.”

“Heard about that too.”

“I really missed you, India,” he said softly, and he stopped her in her tracks by placing a feather of a kiss right below her left ear before whispering, “Don’t tell me you heard that from anyone else.”

Grinning, she closed the door behind her.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked when he reached the living room. “If I’m intruding into your plans …”

“Not at all. I’m grateful that you brought Corri. To tell the truth, I was worried about her taking the train with Amelia Johnston. She takes her knitting everywhere she goes, but as soon as she starts clicking those needles together, she falls asleep.”

“Are you afraid that someone would snatch Corri from the train?” He stopped in midsentence, her face having darkened suddenly and her eyes for the briefest second turning wild.

“Things can happen when no one’s watching,” she told him, brushing past him to follow Corri into the kitchen.

“Can we have pancakes? Are we going to the museum? Nick said we could go to the ballet tonight to see his sister dance. Can we, India?” Corri propped herself up on her knees on the edge of a kitchen chair. “I never went to a real ballet.”

“Corri, I said you should see if India had plans for tonight,” Nick reminded her. “Maybe she has made other plans to do something else.”

“Actually, I had plans for today but not for tonight,” India said, leaning back against the counter.

“Coffee?” Nick pointed to the carafe which rested on a hot plate.

“Help yourself.” She handed him a purple mug with “Paloma Jazz Festival ’96” written on one side in pale pink letters. To Corri she said, “The Museum of Natural History has an exhibit based on an archeological dig from central Asia.”

India searched through papers on her kitchen counter to find the brochure she had received some weeks earlier and had held on to in the event that a break should occur in her schedule that would permit her a free day.

“Here.” She waved the buff-colored flyer in her right hand before smoothing it out and skimming the text. “The exhibit features fossil exposures of the Gobi Desert. Dinosaur bones. Apparently the Gobi had been a nesting site for dinosaurs called protoceratops.” She looked up from her reading to explain, “This says that protoceratops were dinosaurs that were six to seven feet long and had claws, a wicked-looking beak …”

Nick nodded. “The American Museum of Natural History sponsored an expedition to the Gobi back in the twenties that resulted in a huge find. When the photographs of the protoceratops fossils were published, some scientists actually thought that they were the remains of griffins.”

“Really?” India poured herself another cup of coffee.

“What are griffins?” Corri asked.

“Mythical creatures with heads and talons—claws—like eagles and bodies like lions.”

“Are they real?” Corri made a face.

“No, sweetie. That’s what
mythical
means. Something made up, out of stories from long ago. But not real.”

“Ummm, is there anything else at that museum?” Corri asked warily.

“Maybe it doesn’t sound as interesting as I think it might actually be.” India smiled apologetically at Corri, mentally berating herself for forgetting that she was, speaking to a six-year-old. She should have made the subject matter sound as appealing as she suspected it really would be once they got there to view the exhibit. “I really think you will like it, Corri. Are you willing to give it a try?”