Unlawfull Alliances Read online

  “Don’t tell me you’re working for your father,” she said, the word father dripping with disgust. Apparently she had stuck around for more of my conversation than I realized.

  I didn’t know what it was, maybe the inner work I had done over the past few years, or maybe I was simply short on patience, but I decided there was no better moment than now to stand up to my mother. After all, seeing as how we were driving down an isolated country road in my car, I pretty much held all the cards in my hand.

  “Mother, I will put this to you bluntly. If you wish to stay in my car, you will not say a single nasty word about my father.”

  There was something to this speaking your mind. The rest of the drive to Ned’s ferry and across the waters to the state ferry terminal was immensely peaceful. Apparently my mother still went by the old adage that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

  It wasn’t until we were sitting at a table on the state ferry, sipping our Starbucks that she uttered a word. “What do you do for him?” Right where we had left off. Only this time her voice was clear of judgment.

  “I help with his investigations, interview people. He has a lot of faith in my—” a sore subject. Was I willing to bring it up? Hell, why not. “My intuition.”

  She took a slow sip of her coffee. She looked out the window for a long time, then around the boat, everywhere in fact except into her daughter’s eyes. But when she spoke, she faced me square on. “You’ve always been close, haven’t you?”

  “Charlie and I? Yes.”

  She nodded, taking that bit of information in for a while. “In your eyes, he can do no wrong, can he?”

  I sighed. “What are you really saying, Mother?”

  “Just that maybe you don’t know all sides of him the way I do. Maybe you don’t want to see—”

  “Charlie is human. I don’t have him on a pedestal, if that’s what you think. We have our quarrels and differences of opinions. He’s stubborn as Hell. But we get along damned well. And we love—” Not a comfortable word for my mother. I had forgotten.

  “You don’t know him the way I do, Jennifer. If you did, you might not think he was the saint you’d like to believe him to be.”

  I counted to ten. Once, then again. Then I stared out the window at the tree-covered island we were passing. This was a ferry ride, I reminded myself. Ferry rides nourish me, feed my soul. I stood up and excused myself for a breath of fresh air. By the time I returned, I knew exactly what my mother was talking about. Nowhere was my intuition clearer than on a ferry boat.

  “You still think Charlie had an affair with Mitzi Bancroft.”

  She was too stunned to answer.

  “He didn’t,” I said.

  She raised a single eyebrow, now recovered from the fact that her daughter knew more than she would have liked her to. “How did you know about it?”

  “I overheard you fighting.”

  “What makes you so sure it wasn’t true?”

  I shrugged my coat off my shoulders and onto the back of my seat. I smiled to myself, realizing that it may very well have been the beginning of my career as a snoop. “It was after he left, after the divorce. I went to see her.”

  “How old were you? Why did you go?”

  “Twelve. Because I wanted to know the truth.” However, at the time, I believed that I did know the truth. My faith in my father had not wavered for a moment.

  She leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table as she awaited my explanation.

  “I asked Mitzi Bancroft straight out if she’d had an affair with Charlie. She told me she hadn’t. She’d been helping him on a case. That was all.”

  “Don’t you think she might have lied to protect you?”

  “After I left, I stood outside her open window for a while. She called Charlie and told him I’d been there.”

  “And?”

  “The one thing I remember her saying was, ‘you’re real cute, Charlie, but I wouldn’t risk losing my husband for ya.‘“ I would never forget those words or the New York accent with which they were spoken. They had confirmed my deepest intuition, and they had validated my trust in my father. They had also made me even more determined to move in with him as soon as the courts would allow it.

  My mother shook her head to discount my words. She could not alter her beliefs. She had too much invested in them—years of resentment, years of nursing her wrath to keep it warm. Thank you, Robbie Burns, for that image.

  “I know something happened—” Her voice faded. “All the evidence was there.”

  I might have felt sad for her, but I knew that wasn’t the real reason she had thrown away my father. She could not risk having anyone in her life who might dismantle the stronghold she had on her joy. She had tried, but she was not willing to give up her misery.

  When we reached Anacortes, I gave her the choice of riding with me on my detour to Bellingham or of taking the airport bus from the ferry terminal. It did not surprise me that she opted for the bus. Two days was long enough to spend with her daughter. Letting herself be vulnerable had come too close for comfort as well.

  She did not suggest stopping overnight in Seattle to see her grandchildren. Neither did I.

  Chapter 10

  He had deep blue eyes, nearly as beautiful as my Joe’s. He was wearing a Huskies sweatshirt, torn at the right elbow and frayed around the neck. Multicolored stains merged in the middle. Coffee? Spaghetti sauce? Wine? All of the above? Thick tousled auburn hair fell over his forehead, and I found my fingers itching to straighten it as I might my son’s. A three-day growth, from my assessment, covered his face.

  Three days. He knew his ex-wife was dead. And he cared.

  There was a view of the water from his dining room. Standing at his front door, I could see it. I imagined he stared at it as much as most men stared at football games on big screens.

  “Who did you say you were with?”

  I had not called ahead. I had taken my chances that he would be home.

  “McNair and Associates. It’s an investigative firm.”

  “And you’re here to—?”

  “To talk to you about Amy Morrison.”

  He winced, and I felt immediate compassion for him.

  He stared straight at me for more than a moment, not seeing me at all. “You don’t think it was an accident.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  He backed away from the door, motioning for me to come in. He had not remarried. The strewn clothes—all men’s—the piles of newspapers, and the dirty dishes told me that. He snatched up a plaid wool shirt from the couch so I could sit down.

  “How did you find out about Amy’s death?” I asked him.

  A guttural sound arose from his throat, half laugh, half cry. Then he slammed his fist into the coffee table, spilling liquid from two of the four cups. He didn’t seem to notice. “The goddamned newspaper. I was married to her for godsake and I found out she’s dead from the goddamned obituary in the goddamned newspaper. Can you imagine how that felt?”

  I couldn’t. Nor did I pretend to. “You must have loved her a great deal.”

  “Damned right I did.”

  My intuition told me not to ask the question on the tip of my tongue. What had gone wrong?

  “How did you meet Amy?” A safer question.

  He exhaled, releasing some of the tension from his shoulders. “I was her teacher. My first year, her last.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “She walked through the door to my classroom and I was smitten.” His smile softened his complexion and I reassessed his age from my original guess of late thirties to early thirties. If he didn’t still love her, he certainly cared for her.

  “And Amy? Was she smitten?”

  “She liked me.”

  “Liked?”

  “Love came later.”

  Was that the reason she married him? Or was it to escape the dismal childhood of a church mouse? “How much later?” If
Charlie had taught me one thing, it was not to assume answers.

  “A week or two.” His pride was showing behind his smile.

  “What was she like back then?”

  Wrong question or poorly phrased. It reminded him that she was gone. He covered his face with his hands and when he moved them, his eyes were damp and red. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you more pain. I’m trying to get to know who Amy really was.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “Yes, but not well. She was very quiet, solitary actually.”

  “You’re trying to figure out if it was an accident or if she would have taken her own life, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t throw in the third option. “Do you think she could commit suicide?”

  He looked away from me, staring out at the water that so misled us. How did it keep going on, never stopping its ebb and flow when our own flow could end with such a sudden jolt. Or did it? I had to believe that we too went on.

  “My opinion? No.”

  “Why?”

  “Just my opinion.”

  “It’s worth a lot,” I said, thinking that he knew her better than the rest of us did. “What was she like when you knew her, Daniel?”

  “She was young, innocent, vulnerable . . . young. But tough, you know?”

  No, I didn’t know. “Tough?”

  “Yeah, she had to be. To survive. She’d had a pretty lousy start, you know? First losing her father, then—”

  “Then?”

  “Hunh?” He looked back at me. “Oh. Just growing up in poverty.”

  Had she used him to escape that poverty? If she had, he did not seem willing to believe that.

  “What kind of books did she read?”

  He seemed surprised by my question. “Romances. Always romances. She liked happy endings. Predictable.”

  “Was she happy, Daniel?”

  “Yeah, she was happy.” He did not hesitate in his answer. His memories of his ex-wife were good ones. “Especially when she was playing the piano. I bought her one.”

  He walked over to the old upright that was sitting across the room. I wondered if it was the one he had given her. Probably not. She’d have taken that one with her. But when I saw the photograph sitting on top of it, I decided it was the same piano. It was a picture of Daniel and Amy together, smiling into each other’s eyes. I had never seen Amy look that beautiful, that innocent and that joyful.

  “It was a wedding gift,” Daniel was saying as he ran his fingers over the keys, too gently to make a sound. “She loved that piano. It wasn’t a great one. I couldn’t afford a great one on a high school teacher’s salary, but she loved it. I’ll never forget when she first saw it. She stood there running her fingers back and forth across the top of it, for hours, it seemed, before she sat down on the bench and played. It wasn’t in tune. We had to have it tuned. But she was crazy about it, said it was the most beautiful gift she’d ever received, having a piano of her own that she could play anytime, didn’t have to borrow someone else’s, like some beggar in the night.”

  “What kind of music did she play?”

  “Everything. But her favorite was jazz. God, could she play. And dance? She would get up and keep humming the tune and dance around the room like nobody I’d ever seen.”

  Amy, dance? Other than the calm and proper fox trot? But then an image of Amy letting down her hair and blaring jazz from her convertible roof flashed through my mind.

  “What else did she love to do?”

  He was still lost in memories. “Dance, play her piano, read, watch movies. She loved the movies.”

  “What was her favorite?” I asked when he came out of his reverie.

  “A Man and A woman. A French film. She saw it at least once every couple months, only the subtitled version, mind you, never the dubbed. She’d rent that film, pick up a couple of grilled onion and cheese burgers, some beer, and come home and settle in for the night.” He laughed. “And of course, I’d protest. No way was I going to watch that movie again, but once I was sitting beside her munching my burger and drinking my beer, I was lost in her world.”

  If his wife wasn’t a romantic, he certainly was.

  “Did you ever meet Scott Morrison?”

  “No. I never saw Amy after the divorce.” There was defensiveness in his voice, something I would ponder, I was sure.

  I hesitated before asking my next question. Did I dare ask? I didn’t have much choice, I decided. It would come out sooner or later. “Do you think it was possible that Amy could be disloyal?”

  “Disloyal? You mean cheat on her husband?”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head, and just when I thought he was going to tell me no, he shrugged and said, “Amy would do whatever she had to do to survive. She was a survivor.” It was the second time he had made that point.

  “What happened, Daniel? What happened to your relationship?”

  He looked up at me as if seeing me for the first time. His fingers wove their way through his already messy hair. “What happened? It got all messed up. That’s what happened.” A flicker of anger disappeared behind the guilt. He swallowed hard, losing the battle against his tears. “If there’s nothing more you’d like to ask—”

  I stood up on cue. Had he learned the art of dismissal from Amy, or she, from him?

  “I’ll call if I think of anything else. I’ll let myself out. Thank you for seeing me.” Before I closed the door, I said, “Amy’s funeral is tomorrow.”

  He had a right to be there. If I had learned anything from my visit with Daniel Walters, it was that he had loved Amy. If I had learned anything else, it was that he felt guilty about something, something that mattered.

  * * *

  “I told you to go straight home.” Charlie put on his angry face. I smiled. It was the expression he had forced when I was a little girl and I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to do. It didn’t come naturally to him. It didn’t even come convincingly. “I mean it, Jenny. You should not be here, at a funeral service of all places.”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a knot,” I said, stealing one of his favorite expressions. “I’m fine, Charlie, really.”

  “I’ll get my knickers in a knot if I choose to.” Then he encircled me in his arms. “I’m so sorry about Winnie, darlin’.”

  “I’m going to miss her, Charlie. I’m really going to miss her.” I wiped my eyes against his shoulder.

  “She was an amazing woman, she was.”

  “She knew how to live life, didn’t she?”

  “To the very fullest.”

  I sniffed back my tears and wriggled loose from Charlie’s embrace. If I let down now, the floods would be something for Noah to contend with. “So, what’s going on here? What have you learned since I talked to you last?”

  “A lot and nothing at all.”

  Charlie guided me away from the mourners and toward the garden. I inhaled the smell of jasmine. Spring was here. Life renewed. Ironic I should feel that at a funeral.

  “I went to Silverdale, met Amy’s mum. She was pretty bad off, having a bad day, the nurse said, doesn’t understand that Amy’s gone. Just kept talking as if Amy were a little girl with her hair in pigtails, playing her piano.”

  “Ah, yes, the piano.” I briefed Charlie on my visit with Daniel Walters.

  “What did you think of him?”

  “I liked him. He seemed very gentle and caring.”

  “And this guilt you picked up from him?”

  “I don’t know, maybe it had to do with their split up.”

  “Not murder?”

  “No. No. He’s a very gentle guy, loving. My intuition says he could not have killed anyone. Absolutely not.”

  Charlie laughed. “If anything muddles your intuition, Jenny, my love, it’s that.”

  “What?”

  “Your desire to see the best in everyone.”

  “Is that so bad?”

/>   “Only when you’re looking for a murderer.”

  He had a point. “But it was obvious he loved her, Charlie. I couldn’t be wrong about that.”

  “General consensus seems to be that she married the fellow to escape home.”

  “General consensus?”

  “Aye, when I went to see her mum, I took a spin around their old neighborhood. Pretty dismal, it was. You know the kind. Broken down cars on the lawns, broken windows with cardboard, lime green paint peeling off the walls, musty carpets if any at all, flies living off the kitchen trash cans.”

  “I hope you’re exaggerating.”

  “Not a lot. I saw the place where she grew up, it was an apartment over somebody’s garage. Pretty run down, but not as bad as some.”

  “Did anyone remember her playing the piano?”

  “Apparently she practiced on the piano that belonged to her mother’s boss. Her mum waited tables in some greasy spoon. The owner felt sorry for Amy and let her use her piano anytime her mum was working. Maxie said she would play at it all the while her mum was serving up coffee and hash. She’d just sit there and make up her own music. It was as if music lived inside of her, Maxie said.”

  “Maxie’s the diner owner?”

  “Right.” Charlie was blushing. I recognized that blush.

  “Took a fancy to my dad, did she?”

  “Your old man’s still got it, apparently. Propositioned me twice, she did.”

  “Ah, Charlie, you devil. So, tell me more.”

  “Well, it seems that the piano was the only friend that wee lass had. Her mum always took her with her to work, so she’d hang about the apartment behind the diner making her music.”

  “What kind, Charlie? What kind of music?”

  “I dinna ken, lass. Didn’t ask. Why?”

  “It just seems important, that’s all. Or it may be nothing.”

  “And if it isn’t nothing?”

  “I’ll let you know. What did you learn about alibis, Charlie?”

  “Everyone seems to have one.”

  “Except Scott.”

  “Of course.” Charlie pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and flipped back the cover. “None are airtight, mind you. All are estimates, very close to the time of the accident. Let’s see, from the firm, Richard Stratton was with his wife Erica.”