The Cabin (4 page)

her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you two get all your

comments out of your system? Then we can finish

watching our movie in peace.”

“What comments?” Sam asked, pretending not to

understand. “That’s the guy from
Die Hard,
isn’t it?”

Ellen started refilling teacups. Their friends weren’t

about to say anything. “Dad and Sam actually want to

watch Jane Austen movies with us, Maggie, but they’re

afraid they might cry.”

Sam’s grin only broadened. “Hey, I read Jane Aus-

ten in high school. What’s the one with Darcy? I remem-

ber that name. Holy cow. Darcy. Can you imagine? It’s

a girl’s name now.”

Maggie exhaled loudly and refused to respond. Ellen

fixed her dark eyes on Sam. “You’re referring to
Pride

and Prejudice.
We have the 1940 version with Laurence

Olivier and Greer Garson and the 1995 miniseries with

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, if you’re interested.”

“Oh, man. You girls are tougher than I am.”

He grabbed a couple of watercress sandwiches and

headed for the kitchen. Jack went with him. Sam hadn’t

stopped by just to rib his daughters.

Sam pulled open the refrigerator. “I need something

to wash down these lousy sandwiches.” He glanced

back at Jack, grimacing. “What was that, parsley?”

“Watercress.”

“Jesus.” Sam took out a pitcher of tea, poured him-

self a glass without ice and took a long drink. Then he

30

Carla Neggers

settled back against the counter and looked seriously at

Jack. “Alice Parker got out of prison yesterday.”

“Happy New Year.”

“She’s renting a room in town.”

“Job lined up?”

“Not yet.”

Jack stared out at his shaded patio, remembering

how petite, blond Alice Parker had pleaded with him to

look the other way when he’d come to arrest her just

over a year ago. She was convinced Beau McGarrity had

killed his wife—she just couldn’t prove it. McGarrity

was a prominent south Texas real estate developer with

political aspirations. Alice was the small-town police of-

ficer who answered the anonymous call to check out the

McGarrity ranch and found Rachel McGarrity dead in

her own driveway, shot in the back after she got out of

her car, presumably to open the garage door. The auto-

matic opener was broken.

She and Beau had been married for seventy-nine

days. They’d known each other less than five months.

Jack could understand how Alice Parker might have

panicked coming upon her first homicide. It was late at

night, she was alone, and she was young and inexperi-

enced. But she didn’t just make ordinary mistakes that

night—she completely mucked up everything. Instead

of immediately securing the crime scene and calling in

an investigative team, she took matters into her own

hands and contaminated evidence to the point that vir-

tually nothing was of any use to investigators, never

mind being able to stand up in court. The classic

overzealous, incompetent loose cannon.

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31

But before anyone fully realized the damage she’d

done, Alice Parker tried to make up for her mistakes by

committing a crime herself. She produced an eyewitness,

a drifter who did odd jobs and claimed he’d seen Beau

McGarrity crouch in the azaleas and shoot his wife.

That was when her chief of police got suspicious and

asked the Texas Rangers to investigate. Jack unraveled

Alice’s story within a week. She’d found her drifter, paid

him, then coached, threatened and cajoled him into lying.

Jack refused to look the other way. Alice reluctantly

admitted to fabricating a witness and plea-bargained

herself from a third-degree felony to a Class A misde-

meanor, then settled into state prison to serve her full

one-year sentence.

As a result of her official misconduct—and incom-

petence—the murder of Rachel McGarrity remained an

open, if cold, case. Jack was convinced there was more to

Alice Parker’s story, but she’d kept silent all these months.

And now she’d served her time and was a free woman.

A week after he’d finished the Alice Parker investi-

gation, Susanna had headed for Boston. Jack didn’t be-

lieve it was a coincidence.

“She’s not on parole,” Sam reminded him. “She can

go anywhere, do anything, so long as she doesn’t break

the law.”

Jack nodded. “Let’s hope she puts her life back to-

gether.”

“She wanted to be a Ranger. That won’t happen now.”

But they both knew it wouldn’t have happened any-

way. The Texas Rangers were an elite investigative unit

within the state’s Department of Public Safety. There

32

Carla Neggers

were just over a hundred in the entire state, generally

drawn from other DPS divisions, not small-town police

departments.

Jack turned away from the patio doors, hearing the

closing music to
Sense and Sensibility
coming from the

family room. “Alice Parker was in over her head as a pa-

trol officer.”

“Maybe not as much as we think. Maybe little Alice

wanted us to believe she’s incompetent. Maybe she did

it—maybe she killed Rachel McGarrity herself.” Sam

drank more of his cold tea, obviously giving this idea

serious thought. “A year in prison on a plea bargain

beats the hell out of a lethal injection for premeditated

murder. Admit to incompetence and produce a phony

witness, draw attention away from what you really

did—shoot a woman in the back in her own driveway.”

Jack shook his head. “No motive, no evidence, and

I don’t think it’s what happened. Alice knew the victim.

She knew the husband. That’s one of the hazards of

small-town police work. She had the whole case figured

out in her own head and thought she could make it all

come together, put Beau McGarrity in prison and maybe

get a little recognition for herself.”

“Didn’t work out that way, did it? Dreams die hard,

Jack.” Sam set his tea glass in the sink. “Watch your back.”

Jack knew this was the real reason Sam had come to

his house on New Year’s Day, not to rehash the Alice

Parker investigation, but to communicate his misgivings

about what Alice Parker might do now that she was

free. Sam Temple had good instincts. He’d graduated

from the University of Texas and joined the Department

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33

of Public Safety, earning his master’s degree in crimi-

nal justice on the side. He was tough-minded, decisive

and naturally suspicious, but also fair. People liked

Sam—they’d probably make him governor of Texas one

day, if he ever decided to leave law enforcement.

He was frowning at the kitchen counter. “What the

hell is that?”

Jack followed his gaze. “An espresso machine. The

girls gave it to me for Christmas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Come on, Sam, you know what an espresso ma-

chine is.”

He grinned. “You start drinking lattes, Lieutenant

Galway, and they’ll throw you right out of the Rangers.”

But he turned serious again, calm. “If Alice Parker tries

to stick her nose back into the McGarrity case or come

after you—”

“We’ll find out. She’s not stupid. She knows she has

to put this behind her and move on.” Jack started back

toward the family room, clapping one hand on the

younger Ranger’s shoulder. “You’re just looking for

things to think about so you won’t have to eat any more

watercress sandwiches.”

“Not me. You’re the one who needs distracting. Su-

sanna was down here for New Year’s last year. Bet last

night was a long one for you.” Sam laughed, then said

out of the blue, “It’s cold in Boston, you know. High of

twenty today. Wind chill’s below zero.”

“Good.”

“If that was my wife, I’d go fetch her.” Sam’s black

eyes flashed. “I’d bring my cuffs.”

34

Carla Neggers

“Sam—”

He held up a hand. “I know. None of my business.”

He sauntered into the family room and gave the girls

more grief about the guy from
Die Hard.

“His name is Alan Rickman,” Maggie said coolly.

Sam shook his head. “You and Ellen have been up

north too long. You’re starting to sound like Teddy

Kennedy.”

Jack smiled from the doorway, listening to his

daughters give as good as they got from a Texas Ranger

more than fifteen years their senior. They weren’t

shrinking violets. Neither was their mother, although

sometimes Jack thought his life would be easier if Su-

sanna would be a little more of a shrinking violet, at

least once in a while.

Not long after Alice Parker was arrested, it became

apparent that Beau McGarrity wouldn’t be charged for

his wife’s murder anytime soon. People were even start-

ing to feel sympathy for him, believing he was innocent,

the victim of police corruption and a rush to judgment.

Jack felt the familiar mix of anger and frustration as-

sault every muscle, every inch of him. His entire body

stiffened. He was mad at Susanna, mad at himself—but

he knew what he had to do. One of these days, he and

his wife were going to have to have a talk about Beau

McGarrity.

Maggie and Ellen joined him on his run the next

morning. They all did five miles before Maggie pooped

out, declared she was on vacation and flagged down a

neighbor to drive her home. Ellen would have hung in

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35

for the full ten miles, but Jack wasn’t up to it himself

and veered off on a shortcut that took them back home,

settling for a solid seven-mile run.

After lunch, the girls did their laundry and started

packing for their trip back to Boston in the morning.

They sat folding clothes in the family room, the Weather

Channel detailing the frigid temperatures still gripping

the northeast.

Ellen plopped a laundry basket on the floor and sat

down cross-legged, pulling out a rugby jersey to fold.

“Dad,” she said, “Maggie and I have been talking, and

we’ve decided—well, we haven’t said much about you

and Mom…”

“We’ve tried to stay out of it,” Maggie added.

Here it comes, Jack thought. He eased onto a chair,

still feeling the seven miles in his calf muscles. Thus far,

his daughters had generally avoided lecturing him on his

relationship with their mother. But he knew they had

opinions. He could at least listen to what they had to say.

“Go on,” he told them.

Ellen took a breath, as if she were about to confess

to something awful or embarrassing. “We think Mom

wants to be wooed.”

“Wooed?” Jack nearly choked. This was a million

miles from what he’d expected. “How many Jane Aus-

ten movies did you watch yesterday?”

“We’re
serious,
Dad,” Ellen said.

Maggie was sorting through a stack of her vintage

clothes. She and Ellen and their friends had combed

through every secondhand store in San Antonio, raving

over sacks of clothes they’d picked up for a few dollars.

36

Carla Neggers

Most looked like rags to Jack. “We know Mom’s inde-

pendent and supercompetent and makes
tons
of money

and all that,” Maggie said, “and she’ll watch football

with you and talk murder and stuff—”

“But she needs
romance
once in a while,” Ellen

finished.

“Wooing,” Maggie added with a glint in her eye that

said she wasn’t as intensely serious about this conclu-

sion as her sister was.

Jack shoved a hand through his hair. It was dark,

more flecked with gray than it used to be, and not, he

decided, just because he was forty. Life with three fe-

males had taken its toll. When the girls headed off to col-

lege, he was getting a dog. A big, ugly, mean,
male
dog.

“Girls,” he said, “your mother and I have known each

other since we were college students.”

Ellen pounced. “Exactly! Dad, nobody likes to be

taken for granted.”

“What does that mean?”

She groaned, shaking her head as if her father was

the thickest man on the planet. She was in shorts and a

rugby shirt, the bruises on her legs finally faded. The

San Antonio sun had brought freckles out on her nose

and cheeks, lightened her chestnut hair. As far as Jack

knew, neither she nor Maggie had any long-term boy-

friends. Fine with him. He was in no hurry to see guys

“wooing” his daughters.

Maggie folded a pair of old-man striped golf pants,

circa 1975, one of her favorites. “Everyone wants to feel

they’re special.”

“This isn’t about blame,” Ellen said. “It’s not about

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37

who did what wrong. It’s about how you can take the

bull by the horns and…and…”

“Woo your mother back,” Jack supplied, deadpan.

Ellen frowned up at him.
“Yes.”