The Sour Cherry Surprise (2 page)

I
T WAS A CRISP,
beautiful fall afternoon. They’d thrown their mountain bikes into the back of Mitch’s plum-colored Studebaker pickup and driven out to Bluff Point with its miles of bike trails that meandered their way alongside the cliffs overlooking Long Island Sound. Mitch pedaled along next to her, his pudgy cheeks flushed. There was no one else out there. Just the cormorants and them. And lord, was that man pedaling hard. He was even pulling away from her.

“Come on, stretch!” he called to her over his shoulder. “I’m putting you to shame.”

“Doughboy, you have a vivid imagination!”

They arrived at a scenic outcropping with an unobstructed view of the whole coastline and climbed down off of their bikes, chests heaving.

She had sandwiches and water in her day pack. “Want something to eat?”

“No, I want to kiss you.”

And so he did, the two of them standing out there on that rocky ledge with the water lapping beneath them. And there was no one else, nothing else. Just them and their love and desire. His hands found their way up under her T-shirt to her breasts. She let out a soft gasp. And now he was whispering something in her ear. Not words exactly. More like a buzzing. Or a ringing, ringing …

And with a start Des was awake. She dove for the phone, the sleeping lump beside her in bed not so much as stirring. The illuminated dial on the alarm clock told her it was just past one
A.M.

“Resident Trooper Mitry,” she said softly, rubbing the sleep
from her eyes as she listened to the Troop F dispatcher. Her forehead felt damp. The night had turned warm and humid. The bedroom curtains hung limp. “Fine. I’ll be right there.”

Naked, Des got out of bed. Fumbled in her closet for a summer-weight uniform, in her dresser for a sports bra and thong. She padded silently into the bathroom and showered quickly. She was just starting to towel dry her lean six-foot one-inch frame when she felt another dizzy spell coming on. The bathroom was spinning. Her heart racing faster and faster. She slumped to the edge of the tub with her head between her knees, praying she wouldn’t black out like she had the other evening, when she’d hit the kitchen floor with a thud and been out for something like five minutes. Thank God he hadn’t gotten home yet. Breathing slowly in and out, Des steadied herself. Felt okay enough to finish drying off and get dressed. She ran a comb through her short, nubby hair. Put on her heavy horn-rimmed glasses. Des wore no makeup. She needed none.

His nightstand lamp was on now. He was sitting up in bed, bare-chested, his impossibly broad shoulders tapering down to an even more impossibly narrow waist. Pecs and abs rippled. Dark skin glowed in the lamplight. Truly, he was the most beautiful black man she had ever seen. All she wanted to do right now was tear her uniform off and stretch her naked self out against all seventy-eight inches of him.

“Desi, where are you going at this time of night?” he yawned, running a hand over his stubbly jaw.

“Drug overdose at a party. Teenagers, apparently.”

He let out a laugh. “In Dorset? Get out.”

“It happens here, Brandon.” She perched on the edge of the bed and slipped on her socks. Stepped into her shiny black brogans, tied the laces. “It all happens here.”

“Okay, but why do they always have to call you?”

“Because it’s always my job, silly man.”

“Then it’s time to get you a new one. You ought to put in for a transfer. Get back on Major Crimes. Lord knows you’ve paid your penance.”

“And
you
ought to go back to sleep,” responded Des, who didn’t like him or anyone else trying to run her career.

“Will you at least answer me this …?” His rich burgundy voice was a purr now. “How does a woman in uniform look so beautiful at one o’clock in the morning?”

“You, sir, are still asleep and dreaming.”

“No, ma’am, I’m wide awake and looking.” He smiled at her. The smile that instantly turned her back into a bashful, knock-kneed giraffe of a high school girl with insides of melted caramel. “And that’s not all I’m doing.”

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish.”

“Try me.” He reached for her playfully.

She darted for the door. “Baby, I am gone. Get back to sleep. That’s an order.”

“Whatever you say, master sergeant.”

Des got the coffee going in the kitchen, which opened out into the dining room and living room to form one airy space. When she’d redone her little house overlooking Uncas Lake she’d wanted to take maximum advantage of the view and the light. Back when she shared the place with her friend Bella Tillis, the living room had served as Des’s studio. Here, she’d created her passionate, horrifying depictions of the murder victims she’d encountered on the job. Capturing their hollowed eye sockets and congealed brain matter on paper had been her way of dealing. But now that Brandon was back in her life, the living room was a proper living room with sleek black leather sofa, matching armchairs and glass coffee table. Her easel and 18 × 24 Strathmore 400 drawing pad now resided down in the garage, formerly known as Cats Landing. But
their gang of rescued strays had moved out when Bella had. Brandon hated cats. It was mutual.

Brandon’s very first night back Kid Rock peed in his $1,200 Il Bisonte briefcase.

The damp, windowless garage wasn’t nearly as desirable a studio space. But that wasn’t a big problem because Des had felt zero desire to draw lately.

Her Sig-Sauer was in the hall closet along with her shield and big Smokey hat. She snapped her holster onto her wide black belt, taking note of the fact that her uniform trousers, which had been snug a few weeks back, were now almost falling off of her hips. She wasn’t eating. It was that knot in her stomach. The one she always used to have before she’d met Mitch. The only time in her whole life it had ever gone away was when the two of them had been together.

Odd that she’d been dreaming about him just now when the phone rang. It had been three whole months since she’d given him back his grandmother Sadie’s engagement ring. Had to after Brandon had shown up on her doorstep and begged her to forgive him. He’d split up with Anita. Got himself transferred from D.C. back to Connecticut. And he wanted her back.

“Brandon, you don’t even know me anymore,” she had said.

To which he had said: “Yes, I do. You’re still the woman I fell in love with. We weren’t ready for each other, Desi. And we both got a little lost. But now we’ve found each other again.”

When he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her it was as if he’d never left. And she had never even known that overweight Jewish film critic from New York City named Mitch Berger. There was Brandon and there was no one else. He was everything she’d ever wanted. Everything. They belonged together. So she had forgiven him. That’s what you did when you loved someone. Okay, sure, their marriage had failed. But Des believed in their marriage.
Believed in commitment. That was who she was. Life with Brandon was who she was. He had a new high-powered federal prosecutor’s gig in New Haven. Exciting plans to run for the U.S. Congress as the Democratic Party’s great black hope. They were getting along great. Life was good. It was all good.

Mitch hadn’t been a mistake. He was simply what she’d needed at the time. Just as her art had been what she’d needed. Her walk on the wild side. The one she’d never had when she was such a straight arrow at West Point. She would always look back on Mitch fondly. Dream about him, too, apparently. But that time in her life was over now. She was back to real.

When the coffee was ready she filled her travel mug and went out the side door to her Crown Vic, sipping the strong brew as she eased her way down the hill to the Boston Post Road, then south toward Old Shore Road. Soon it would be Des’s busy season here on the Gold Coast. After the Fourth of July Dorset’s sedate year-round population of 7,000 would swell to a boisterous 14,000. Right now, the historic shoreline village at the mouth of the Connecticut River, halfway between New York and Boston, was fast asleep in the hazy dark of night. Des drove with her high beams on, the eyes of night creatures shining at her from the brush alongside the deserted road.

She got off Old Shore Road at Turkey Neck Lane, which wended its way through meadows and marshland before it arrived at Sour Cherry Lane, onetime home of the landing for the ferry that in days of yore was the only way across the river to Old Saybrook. These days, Sour Cherry was a remote little enclave tucked away among the wild orchards that gave the lane its name. There were three weathered farmhouses, rentals, all of them. And perched high on a rocky ledge above them, a white-shingled mansion that commanded a view of the farmhouses, the river, Big Sister Island and Long Island Sound. There were lights on in the mansion.

And lights blazing inside and outside the first farmhouse on the left, where Dorset’s volunteer ambulance van was wedged in the driveway between a red Saab convertible and a portable basketball hoop. The name on the mailbox said Beckwith. Des knew the Beckwith name. Patricia Beckwith, who lived in that mansion up there, was the village’s richest, most fearsome old widow. Des also knew Sour Cherry. Keith Sullivan, the young electrician who’d rewired her house, lived in a little place next door to this one with his new bride, Amber, who was a grad student at Yale. Des had been to a cookout at the Sullivans’ house back when she and Mitch were still together. She did not know who lived in the house directly across the lane from the Beckwith farmhouse. The van parked in the driveway there, which belonged to Nutmegger Professional Seamless Gutters, reminded Des she needed to call someone to come clean out her own downspouts. Because when it came to such dirty household chores Brandon qualified as a never.

Marge and Mary Jewett, two no-nonsense sisters in their fifties, ran Dorset’s volunteer ambulance service. Marge was loading their gear back into the van when Des got out of her cruiser. Mary was still inside the house.

“Hey, Marge, what have we got?”

“A slightly freaked out sixteen-year-old named Jen Beckwith,” Marge responded with cool professional detachment.

No familiarity. No warmth. Just that same cold shoulder so many of the locals had been giving Des since the breakup. Her romance with Mitch had been a feel-good story in Dorset. The single black female trooper and the Jewish widower from New York were beloved prime-time entertainment. But now that Mitch was out and Brandon was in, Des was simply one half of That Black Couple who lived on Uncas Lake Road. She hadn’t known how good she’d had it before. She’d enjoyed Dorset at its most
welcoming. Now she was experiencing its other side. In a small town, other people felt they owned your life.

“It seems Jen was hosting a party,” Marge continued crisply. “There were boys. There was alcohol. And she’s on Zoloft, a prescription antidepressant that does not interact well with alcohol. She claims she downed a couple of Mike’s Hard Lemonades. Then her heart started racing so fast she thought she was having a heart attack and she called us. But her heart rate was totally normal when we got here. Blood pressure, too. She’s alert, responsive and seems completely sober. Frankly, if she had more than two sips of anything I’d be surprised.”

“Were they doing drugs?”

“She says no.”

“And do we believe her?”

“I
do,” Marge said defensively. “With all due respect, I know Jen. She’s as straight as they come. A National Merit Scholar. First team All-Shoreline at basketball and soccer. My guess? Reaching out to us was her way of hitting the panic button. Something was going on here tonight that upset her.”

“Something sexual?”

“Doesn’t look like she was fighting anybody off. But she won’t tell us a thing.”

“Any of the other kids still around?”

Marge shook her head. “They were hightailing it up Turkey Neck just as we were getting here.”

“Recognize any of them?”

“I was just trying to keep my bus on the road. But I do know who some of her friends are, if it comes to that. They’re athletes, most of them. Good families.”

“And where are her parents?”

“Single parent, Kimberly. Jen says she’s out of town for a couple
of nights.” Marge gestured with her chin over in the direction of the mansion. “Jen’s dad was Johnny Junior, old lady Beckwith’s son. He died three, four years ago.”

Now Mary Jewett came out the front door of the house and joined them. Marge was three years older but the sisters looked enough alike to be twins.

“The latest I heard,” Mary put in, “is Kimberly’s been having her spine readjusted by Steve Gardiner, that chiropractor over in Old Saybrook. He’s her boss. He’s also married, which is nothing new for Kimberly.”

“She left Jen here alone?”

“Her grandmother’s supposed to be looking out for her,” Marge answered.

“You’re not expecting
us
to call her, are you?” Mary’s voice grew heavy with dread.

“No, I’ll take over from here. You girls can go back to bed.”

The small living room was strewn with beer cans and hard lemonade bottles. Since Des hadn’t personally witnessed any illegal drinking she had wiggle room, which was a good thing. Under a new Connecticut state law, adults were being busted for allowing underage drinking in their homes—even if they hadn’t known it was going on. The law complicated her life as a resident trooper. She preferred to work with parents and their teenaged kids, not treat them like felons.

Cushions were heaped here and there on the floor. A lot of candles lit, the lights turned low. The air reeked of heavy perfume and cologne. She did not smell any pot smoke. Saw no roaches in the ashtray on the coffee table. What she did see on the table were five, six, seven different lipsticks in colors ranging from tangerine to bronze to grape.

Right away, Des had a pretty good idea what had been going on. She just hadn’t known it was going on in Dorset.

The lipstick Jen Beckwith had on was hot pink. She wore no other makeup. Jen was a slim girl with blue eyes and long, shiny blond hair. She was almost but not quite pretty. Her forehead was a bit high, chin too pointy. And her mouth was drawn terribly tight. Hers was not the face of a girl who smiled easily. Jen wore a cropped, sleeveless belly shirt, a pair of thigh-high shorts and flipflops. She took care of her body. There wasn’t an ounce of extra flab on her toned, muscular arms or shapely golden legs. Her right knee jiggled nervously as she sat there on the sofa. Her hair and clothing appeared totally neat. No scratches. No signs of a struggle.