Unlawfull Alliances Page 6

  Three minutes later, I opened the bathroom door and headed back to the library. Only this time, the door was scarcely ajar. Did I dare peek? But as I inched toward the entrance, I heard voices, and stepped back in surprise. Actually it was only one voice I heard. There was no mistaking it for Amy Morrison’s. I seemed to have an innate sense of timing and location when it came to using the bathroom. I stood with my body against the wall and my ear as close to the gap as possible.

  “What do you mean we can’t meet for a while?” She spoke with a controlled hysteria. I listened for the man’s voice, but heard nothing. He must have been calmer than she was. He was certainly quieter.

  “But if we’re careful— Please. He doesn’t have to find out. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  I stepped away from the door. How could she be so frightened of Scott? This man who was so gentle with his infant son? But, as Charlie had told me more than once, the only way to truly know a man is by his treatment of his wife—in private.

  Now all I had to do was wait patiently inside the bathroom, and wait for her lover to appear. I slipped quietly back inside the granite room, leaving the door ajar and my hand resting on the knob, so that it would appear that I was just opening the door. Time clicked by and I felt an anxious knot forming in my stomach. Perhaps I should simply knock on the library door and enter in all innocence. Just as that thought crossed my mind, the library door swung open and out walked Amy.

  She forced a smile and I smiled back as I exited the bathroom.

  “Are you—?”

  “Finished,” I said, and stepped out of the way so she could once again wash her face. We really had to stop meeting like this.

  As soon as the door closed and locked behind her, I took a step toward the library but was stopped when a hand gripped my arm. I stifled a shriek at the realization that it was a very familiar hand that was touching me.

  “Joe!”

  “What are you doing, Jenny?”

  “What’s it look like? Using the bathroom.”

  “You were spying, weren’t you?” he whispered, his face a blend of horror and disbelief.

  “I just happened to need to use the bathroom, that’s all.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do this, Jenny.”

  “I told Charlie I’d help him.”

  “Of course.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means Charlie’s your father. You can’t possibly let him down.” The air left his chest like a deflated soccer ball.

  I stood, waiting. Joe always said more if I left him enough space.

  “Sometimes I wish you didn’t always have to be so damned self-sufficient.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you. Christ, Jenny, you don’t even ask me to change light bulbs anymore.”

  I thought that was a good thing. Apparently I was wrong.

  “Need help, honey?” Joe came up behind me in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around me, kissing the back of my neck as he eased the pickle jar from my hands, and grinning, turned the lid on the jar.

  Somewhere along the way I had learned to thump the stubborn lids on the base of the cabinet beneath the sink. And yes, over the years I had learned to change light bulbs, and even an occasional tire.

  But this wasn’t about light bulbs, tires, and pickle jars. It was about my husband, feeling that I didn’t need him anymore. But I did. I always had. I was terrified of being alone. I knew that about myself. Perhaps that was why I had gotten pregnant so easily, despite the birth control. Didn’t he know that about me?

  “I need you, Joe. I need you desperately.”

  He shook his head. “For what? You have Charlie. He’s your best friend. And your Aunt Winnie and your teachers, they’re the ones you turn to for advice. What do you need me for?”

  I stood quietly for a moment, letting the oxygen soothe my body with its slow process. Then I looked up and said, “I still can’t build a fire in the wood stove.”

  He laughed. Thank goodness. “Well, don’t expect me to teach you. I’m glad there’s something you need me around for.”

  I smiled at him, then gently reached up and cupped my hand over his cheek. “I need you for a lot more than that, Joe.”

  He pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad to hear it.” When he let me go, he was looking at me and shaking his head. “Why can’t you just be something normal, Jenny, like a teacher or a—?”

  “Housewife?” I filled in the blank. “Or how about a lawyer?”

  He laughed and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “What do you say we blow this joint?”

  “Sounds good to me. But I left my purse outside. Could you get it for me?” After all, he did like doing things for me. Besides, there was something I had to do.

  “Sure, be back in a minute.”

  As soon as he was out of sight, I tapped on the library door that was closed. When there was no answer, I pushed it open slowly. The room was empty. Of course. My snooping skills were rusty. Since when did I assume that there was only one exit door in a room.

  I walked across the evergreen carpet toward the breeze that was blowing in from the garden. The French doors were opened wide. I glanced in the direction of the garden party. No men lingering away from the gathering. I had missed my chance to discover Amy’s lover. Even Jake the bartender was on duty, and I would have no way, without raising suspicion, of discovering if he had briefly left his post.

  Just as I turned to head back to the hallway to meet Joe, I spotted Anthony Morrison walking away from his parents and son. I wondered if I had missed another confrontation of sorts. This seemed to be the day for them.

  Jack was shaking his head as he watched Anthony. Then he turned back to Scott, smiling at his beloved grandson. Family dynamics. Get you every time. I switched my attention to the man of the house, as he strolled across the lawn. Like his son, he too had a story. As did Jack Morrison, I was sure. When Anthony reached the dog run, far removed from the guests, he unlatched the gate and entered. A man after my own heart, after all. He liked dogs.

  He had three of them. He crouched down so that they could lick his face. What surprised me even more was that not one of them was purebred. They were all tail-wagging, slobbering mutts, just the way I liked them.

  As much as I could relate to a man who loved dogs, I wished he could have saved some of that affection for his son. Despite his father, Scott had learned to love. His gentle spirit had to come from somewhere. Otherwise, how could he hold his infant son with such tenderness, and look at his wife with pure adoration? Did it come from his mother? His grandparents?

  Or perhaps an acting class. Was his display of love and tenderness and adoration purely for the benefit of onlookers? Was Scott Morrison simply a very skilled actor?

  Chapter 5

  There were three messages on the answering machine when we got home. I was guessing that one was for Joe, one was Charlie, and the third was a sales call. My intuition was reasonably sharp when it came to telephone calls.

  I filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove as I listened. The first was from Hugh. Joe listened to his partner’s message. The next one was from Charlie, asking me to meet him at the pub tonight. He was playing with the Dixieland band. He didn’t say it, but I knew he wanted to know what I had discovered at the afternoon garden party. Joe edged toward the den, waiting long enough to see if the third message was for him.

  “Sales call,” I said, quite pleased with myself for calling the first two accurately.

  I was wrong. That would teach me to be smug.

  It was my Aunt Winnie. “Hello, dear ones. How are you? I miss you. Come visit. Soon, sweet Jenny.” Her voice softened. “Soon.” There was a pause and I could imagine her forcing her aging body into a stiff upright posture as a smile floated across her lips. “Remember life does not live itself. Joy, my darling, joy.”

  Matthew came into the kitchen and stood beside me, leanin
g against the fir cabinets. My near-to six feet tall son snatched an orange from my homemade bowl, rolled it around in his hands and peeled it in two pieces. I liked having him home. I was glad he had not opted for a college across the country or even across the state. My fingers were itching to straighten his messy brown hair but I knew better. After all, I wanted him to keep coming home for weekend visits. Twenty-year-old sons did not appreciate mothers fixing their hair.

  “Winnie sounds a bit frail, doesn’t she?” Matthew said.

  “As feisty as ever though, don’t you think?”

  “She’ll go down feisty. Always sneaks in a bit of wisdom too, doesn’t she?” I laughed. “That’s my Great Aunt Winnie.”

  “I think my favorite is, ‘If you tell a lie, tell one that people will believe.’ What about yours, Mom?”

  My laugh softened with my thoughts. “That’s easy. ‘Never start anything you don’t want to get stuck doing forever. And never finish anything you had no business starting in the first place.‘“

  Matthew’s breath ended on a sigh. “She’s so different from Grandma, isn’t she?”

  He did not know my mother well, but he knew her well enough to know she was nothing like her unconventional aunt.

  “That woman. She lives like a bohemian, still to this day.”

  One of the reasons I adored her.

  “No,” I answered my son. “She’s nothing like her.”

  Matthew gave me a quick squeeze. “I see that smile.”

  “Can’t help it. I’m crazy about her.”

  “In spite of Grandma? Or to spite her?”

  I ignored my son and dialed Winnie’s number. The answering machine picked up and I left a message. She must have gone into town, or maybe out in the boat. I would call her again this afternoon, right after Joe and I spent some time together.

  “What’s Charlie want?” Matt asked. “Sounds anxious to see you.”

  “I’m helping him with another case.” The tea kettle whistled and I poured the steaming water over a mint tea bag.

  “So, are you and Dad going down to the Shamrock and Thistle to hear him play?”

  “I doubt your father will want to go.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “I’d love it, honey, but we will be talking business.”

  “How about I drive you down, stay awhile, then make myself scarce.”

  “Sounds perfect. Or are you playing escort? And baby-sitter out of some misguided sense of duty?”

  “I love hearing Charlie play.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. He’s a great—”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, he may not be the greatest trumpet player that ever lived, but he’s certainly the loudest.”

  Matthew was not exaggerating. We sat in the back of the pub. We didn’t tell Charlie the reason.

  It was my usual table. I felt at home here. Not just at the table, but in this pub. The walls were cluttered with paintings of the Scottish and Irish countryside and of course, portraits of Robbie Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Scottish and Irish soldiers and royalty. Robert the Bruce and Bonnie Prince Charlie were the only ones I recognized, but I trusted that the others were of equal bravery, if not fame. The rest of the wall space was dark stained wood. Joe hated the clutter. It wasn’t my taste either. But it seemed as important to a pub atmosphere as the dart board and the mirrors adorned with beer labels that hung behind the bar.

  Matt waited until his grandfather had finished a set before leaving. He was crazy about Charlie. I was glad my children were close to my father. It helped make up for the distance between them and my mother.

  “Hey, Grandpa, that was great. Especially ‘Ain’t Misbehaving.’”

  I loved that Matthew appreciated Dixieland and Big Band music. It had come with listening to his grandfather’s music and from the swing dancing he had done in his spare time in high school. A way to get girls, he had claimed. I knew better.

  Charlie hugged Matthew and patted him on the back. “You’re a smooth talker, just like your old grandpa. What’ll you have? A Belhaven or a Guinness, Jenny?”

  “Belhaven, Charlie. And a TK root beer for your grandson.”

  Matt’s puppy dog brown eyes twinkled. It didn’t seem to bother him that he couldn’t be served beer yet. But I was soon to realize he had other things on his mind, and an ulterior motive for escorting me after all.

  “So, Charlie, do you think I’d have a place to stay if I went to Edinburgh this summer?”

  Charlie’s eyes flashed from mine to Matt’s and back to mine.

  “I didn’t know a thing about it,” I said.

  Charlie looked back at Matt. “Of course, laddy, several, but I wouldn’t advise staying with my brother Jimmy.”

  “Why not?” Matthew asked. “He’s not as bad as that, is he?”

  “A bit of a scoundrel, he is,” Charlie said, but there was a note of pride in his voice.

  “You’re better off staying with one of the others. Sarah, Anne, or Dougal will be pleased to have you, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know, Jimmy sounds like more fun to me.”

  “So, what made you decide to go on a journey?” Charlie asked, eyeing Matthew suspiciously. I knew he was asking for my sake.

  “Why did you come to America, Charlie?”

  My father chose his words carefully. “Well, laddy, one day when I was but a wee fella of twelve years perhaps, my father said something to me. He said, ‘Charlie, my lad, this is it. This is all there is. This is the hand God dealt you. Nothing more. Take it or leave it.”

  “So you set out to prove him wrong?” Matt said.

  “I set out to live a better life than the one my father said I was dealt. I figured if God put someone as bullheaded as me on this earth, he’d sure as Hell—sorry, Jenny, luv—want me to do something more than sit back and let life do me in. So now, tell me, why do you want to go to Edinburgh?”

  Matthew thought for a moment, then smiled. “To find out what kind of life I would have had if you had settled for the one you were dealt.” My son. Too bright for his own britches.

  “Aye, I’ll make some phone calls tomorrow. Assuming it’s all right with your mother, that is.”

  I nodded. “As long as it’s not Jimmy McNair you stay with.”

  Matthew smiled that impish smile that reminded me of his grandfather. “Well, I know you two have business so I’ll head on back to the dorm. I trust you’ll make sure the lady gets home safely,” he said in his best imitation of a Scottish accent.

  “If she doesn’t mind sitting through the next set.”

  “Don’t worry. Joe won’t be home until late. He had to go to the office to help Hugh with a case they’re working on.” I hoped my tone did not reflect the resentment I was feeling over the interruption to Joe’s and my rather romantic plans for the afternoon.

  “So, what was so urgent, Charlie?” I asked, after my son had whistled his way out the door.

  “I dinna ken. But I’m feeling a bit anxious about this one. Can’t explain it.”

  “What do you know so far?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Absolutely nothing. I followed Amy Morrison from morning ‘til night two days in a row. Both days she dropped the baby off at her in-laws. Went to the country club to exercise one day, play tennis the next. Stayed a couple hours one day, three, the next. Went to have her hair done. Then the library. That surprised me a wee bit. I’d think she’d prefer bookstores. But wasn’t meeting anyone, just searched the shelves.”

  “What kind of books?”

  “Romances mostly. Then went home and stayed there the rest of the day, read some, played the piano, read some more. It’s a good job she left the shades up and the window open. Made my job easier.”

  “When did she pick up the baby?”

  “Never did. Scott did, on his way home from the office, I suppose.”

  “Hmm. No shopping?”

  “Not while I was watching. Although I’ve known
the lad a while now, I did run a background check on Scott. Seems to be a well-liked fellow, wherever he goes.”

  “Except where it matters,” I mumbled.

  “Aye, I got that too. His father can be plenty hard on him.”

  “What else?”

  “He does have a history of crashing cars. Smashed a couple Porsches and a Corvette in his youth.”

  I exhaled some toxic tension. “Hurt anyone?”

  “Only himself. And a tree here and there. Cuts, bruises mostly, a broken arm, broken leg—different times.”

  “Self-destructive behavior big time. How long ago?”

  “College years. All before age twenty-five.”

  “I wonder what turned him around.”

  “Not the love of a good woman,” Charlie said.

  “Except his mother. I wonder if it was his father’s high expectations of him in school that drove him—sorry, accidental pun.”

  Charlie smiled and patted my hand which was en route to the handle of a beer mug. “It’s a good job his mother gave him a Volvo station wagon after the third strike.”

  I laughed, despite the mouthful of beer. “A Volvo to look after him. Doesn’t surprise me. Volvos have souls, you know.”

  “Do they now?”

  “Aye.” After wiping the beer that had dribbled gracefully down my chin, I said, “Maybe he just matured. And decided that life was worth living after all.”

  “Maybe,” Charlie said.

  It was something I would think more about—or as Joe would say, overanalyze.

  “So, how about you? Did you find out anything at the party?” He pulled out a wee notebook and pencil. Charlie had a lot of faith in me.

  “Don’t get too excited.”

  “Did you tune in—?

  “Charlie, I’m no more intuitive than anybody else. In fact, right now it seems to be less than anybody else. I can’t look at people and read their minds. I just get a strong sense of something, occasionally. An image. Or a thought pops into my mind.” Until recently, anyway. Even my predicting telephone calls and callers was off.