Black Widow (9 page)

“Certainly. My husband is in the sunroom. Why don’t we join him there? It’s so much nicer than the parlor.”

He followed her in a circuitous route through the house, past a small fortune in antiques, to a sunny room off the kitchen. “Kevin and I had this room added on about ten years ago,” Neely said. “The kitchen was just so gloomy. May I offer you something? Iced tea, perhaps?”

“Thanks,” he said, “but I’m all set.” He nodded toward the man across the room. “Judge.”

Kevin McAllister was seated at an easel near the window, applying delicate brush strokes to an oil painting of the orchids that grew in wild profusion just beyond the windowsill. Without looking up from his work, he said, “Chief DiSalvo.”

“My husband,” Neely said dryly, “as you can see, is a painter.”

“And a damn good one,” Nick said, edging closer for a better look.

“He painted the portrait of our son that hangs in the front hall. Perhaps you noticed it as you came in?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Your son was a handsome man, Mrs. McAllister.”

“Yes, well, he of course took a great deal of his looks from his father.” Her mouth thinned. “Among other attributes.”

Still looking at the painting, he said, “I bet the girls flocked around him like ants at a Sunday school picnic.”

“Oh, yes. Right from the time he was a boy. Michael was such a charmer, you know. He loved the girls, and the girls loved him.”

“But once he met Kathryn,” Nick said casually, “that was it, right? The end of his roving days.” He peered critically over the Judge’s shoulder. “Nice use of that viridian,” he said.

“Kathryn Sipowicz,” she said coldly, “was never good enough for my son. She was nothing more than a little Polack tramp who undoubtedly slept with every boy she dated. She wasn’t quality people, Mr. DiSalvo. Most certainly not of a caliber to have earned the right to call herself a McAllister.”

“Now, Neely,” the Judge said evenly.

“Well, it’s the truth, Kevin, and you know it. She had Michael mesmerized. Did you know, Mr. DiSalvo, that the entire four years they were married, Michael refused to take a penny from us? That boy had grown up with every advantage a young man could ever hope for. But he preferred livin’ in poverty with that little slut. It was a disgrace.”

“You’ll have to excuse my wife, sir,” the Judge said genially. “She and Kathryn never did quite hit it off.”

“Obviously,” Nick said. “Tell me, Judge, have you been painting for a long time?”

“Years and years,” Neely said petulantly. “Not always to the benefit of his family, I might add.”

“Mrs. McAllister,” Nick said, “did you know that Kathryn is deathly afraid of snakes?”

There was a sudden and deafening silence before Neely said, “May I ask why on earth you are badgerin’ us with these ridiculous questions, Mr. DiSalvo?”

“Chief,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s Chief DiSalvo. Did you know that she suffers from a pathological phobia when it comes to snakes?”

“I can’t say as I recall,
Chief
DiSalvo. Now, if you don’t tell us where you’re headin’ with this line of questioning, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Watching her eyes, he said, “Somebody left a five-foot rattlesnake in a box on her porch last night.”

Behind him, the Judge said, “Good Lord!”

Neely stared at him without blinking. “Are you suggesting,” she said, “that the Judge or I might have had somethin’ to do with this incident?”

Nick shrugged. “It’s not an illogical conclusion. Especially considering that you publicly denounced her during her trial. At this point, I’d have to say that you’re at the top of my list of suspects.”

“I see. And precisely how long is that list, Mr. DiSalvo?”

He smiled thinly. “Right now,” he said, “there are exactly two people on it.”

She raised her chin imperiously. “Let me tell you one more thing, Mr. DiSalvo, before Althea shows you the door. Neither Kevin nor I had anything to do with puttin’ a snake on Kathryn’s doorstep.” She paused, and then she smiled. “But I do bitterly regret that I wasn’t the one who thought of it first.”

He paid for the damn dog himself.

It was a mixed breed, part Rottweiler, part something that nobody but its mother would ever know, and the lady in question wasn’t about to divulge the details of her indiscretion. Three-quarters grown, it already weighed seventy-five pounds, and had teeth sharp enough to rip out the throat of a grown man. It sat upright in the passenger seat of the Blazer, tongue lolling out the open window, on its face a look of such idiotic delight that he wondered how it could possibly have passed training school. Maybe, like the illiterates being turned out by high schools these days, the dog had just been passed along from class to class, his grades rubber-stamped in order to graduate him with an age-appropriate group of his peers.

“You’re getting hair all over my upholstery,” he said irritably.

The dog looked at him, decided he was a person of no importance, and turned back to the open window.

“You probably eat your weight in raw meat every day.”

The dog’s ears pricked in interest. He pulled the Blazer into Kathryn’s driveway behind the pathetic excuse for a car that Forrest Whitley had bilked her out of nearly eight hundred dollars for, when everybody in town knew he’d bought it from Dewey Webb a month ago for less than half of that.

The dog followed him up onto the porch and sat obediently at his feet while he knocked. “Who is it?” Kathryn said from behind the door.

“It’s me,” he said. “I brought you something.”

The door opened and she stood there looking out at him. Her gaze dropped, and she stared. “What’s that?” she said.

“It’s a watchdog. I thought, since you’re too stubborn to listen to anything I have to say, you might consider
_—
”

“What am I supposed to do with a dog that big? He’ll break what’s left of the furniture.”

“Wait. He’s not done growing yet.”

“He’ll eat me out of house and home.”

“He’ll rip the throat out of anybody who tries to lay a finger on you.”

“I suppose,” she said, “that would be an advantage.” She opened the screen door and knelt. Gingerly, she said, “Nice doggie.”

“His name’s Elvis.”

Those blue eyes looked at him in disbelief. “Elvis?” she said. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Come on, McAllister. Could this face lie to you?”

Warmth replaced the skepticism in her eyes. “I hope not,” she said.

Over Elvis’ head, he said casually, “I paid a visit to your in-laws today.”

Her hand, busy scratching the dog’s neck, paused. “Did you?” she said. “I’ll bet they were anxious to inquire about the state of my health.”

“That’s some spread they have there, isn’t it? Nope, they didn’t ask about the state of your health, but we did have a nice little chat about snakes.”

She returned her attention, and her eyes, to Elvis. “Learn anything useful, DiSalvo?”

“I learned enough.”

Her fingers toyed with the dog’s ear, stroking, smoothing the fur. Still looking at Elvis, she said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

He got the distinct impression that Kathryn McAllister wasn’t comfortable with apologies. He opened his mouth to respond, and his pager went off. He muttered a quick curse. “Can I use your phone?” he said.

“In the kitchen.” She sprang to her feet and stepped back out of range so he could pass without touching her.

“This is DiSalvo,” he said, when Rowena answered. “What you got?”

“Bucky’s got a bad wreck out on Highway 1 near Shoney’s. Couple of DOAs. He’s requesting backup.”

“Great,” he said. “Just what I needed to complete my day. Anything from the lab yet?”

“I’d tell you what they said, but considerin’ the kind of day you’re having, I dare say we’d both be a lot happier if I waited until tomorrow.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to know. Tell Bucky I’m on my way.”

“Ten-four. By the way, Chief, I hear you bought a dog.”

“Where the hell did you hear that?”

“My sister-in-law, Marjorie Clemens, lives next door to Sylvia Fellowes, who heard it from her cousin Lottie, who cleans house for Edie Hastings, who runs the K-9 training school where you acquired that mean-tempered beast.”

“Jesus Christ. Can a man take a leak in this town without the entire population knowing about it before it hits the ground?”

“I dare say, Chief DiSalvo, that any man who had the audacity to attempt doin’ it on the ground in this town would find himself locked up in your jail a good half-hour before it hit.”

He coughed to cover the laugh he couldn’t quite choke back. Damned if the old bat wasn’t starting to grow on him.

Chapter Six

The Magnolia House was Elba’s finest restaurant, the kind of place where ladies of quality met for iced tea and pecan pie on lazy summer afternoons. Raelynn Wilbur was already waiting for him when he sat down across from her. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “We just got back the lab results on those prints we lifted from Kathryn’s house the day it was vandalized.”

“Anything?” she said.

“Nah. Everything we got was hers. The perpetrator must have worn gloves.”

“Damn. I don’t like this. I don’t like it a bit.”

“Neither do I. Listen, thanks for meeting me today. I know how busy you are.”

“Don’t be absurd. I want to get to the bottom of this mess, just like you. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

The waiter came and took their order, and then Nick leaned back in his chair, water goblet in hand, and studied Raelynn Wilbur. She was an extremely attractive woman. A bit flamboyant, but that only added to her attractiveness. “You grew up in this town,” he said. “You must have known Michael McAllister.”

She took a sip of water. “Everybody knew Michael McAllister,” she said.

“According to everything I’ve heard, he was as pure of heart as Dudley Do-Right. Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”

“Oh, Michael was all that, and more. Handsome, intelligent, charming, rich
_—
and a Boy Scout at heart. What more could any girl ask for?”

“Did he date a lot of girls?”

“Like a revolvin’ door, sugar. Michael had a girl for every day of the week. At one point or another, he broke the heart of most all of Elba’s debutantes.”

The waiter returned, bringing coffee in fine china cups. “Thank you,” Nick said, and stirred sugar into his. Trying to figure out how to grip the delicate handle with his oversized male hand, he said, “Did you date Michael?”

Raelynn smiled wryly. “My family, Chief DiSalvo, wasn’t in quite the same social class as the McAllisters. I grew up in a one-room shanty out by Persimmon Creek. Due to the unfortunate circumstances of my birth, I was forced to admire young men like Michael McAllister from afar.” She took a sip of sparkling water. “My mother took in laundry for folks like the McAllisters.”

“How’d you end up in law school?”

“By the grace of God, who made poor little Raelynn Wilbur from the wrong side of the tracks the beneficiary of the razor-sharp brain that lies beneath these ebony curls.”

“What about the house Kathryn’s living in? I thought it was your mother’s.”

“This business of lawyerin’ being rather profitable, I was able to provide for Momma in the last years of her life. She lived in the house, Chief DiSalvo. The deed has my name on it.”

“I see.” He studied her over the rim of his teacup. “Did Michael screw around on Kathryn?”

“My, you certainly do go right to the heart of the matter. I like a man who knows what he wants and goes after it.” She ran a finger along the rim of her water glass. “Now, you must understand, for the first three years that Kathryn and Michael were married, I was away at Columbia University.”

“Ah,” he said. “New York.” It explained a great deal.

“That’s right. But from all I saw, all I heard, Michael McAllister was totally besotted with his lovely Yankee wife.”

“So you don’t think he was sleeping with Wanita Crumley?”

Raelynn threw back her head and laughed. Several proper matrons swiveled their perfectly coifed heads to frown in disapproval of her flagrant breach of etiquette. “Have you met Wanita Crumley?” she said.

“I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“That’s what I suspected. If you had, you wouldn’t have asked such a ridiculous question. Beside Kathryn, the woman’s a sow. Michael wouldn’t have touched her if his pecker had been on fire and she’d been carryin’ a bucket of water.”

Their meal arrived, poached salmon for Raelynn, a club sandwich for him. Nick removed the top slice of bread and glopped on a thick layer of mustard. He took a huge bite and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

“Whenever I watch a man take such great pleasure from eating,” Raelynn said, “it always makes me believe he likely finds other pleasures most enjoyable, too.”

He almost choked on his sandwich. He set it down and busied himself dabbing at his mouth with a snowy linen napkin. Cleared his throat and took a drink of ice water. “So tell me,” he said, “who
did
Michael date?”

“If you’re lookin’ for a list of names, sugar, you’d be better off asking who he didn’t date.” Raelynn picked up a forkful of poached salmon. “The list would be shorter.”

Nick took a bite of his sandwich, chewed and swallowed. “Then let me rephrase the question. Did he date anybody who might still be carrying a torch? Somebody who might have killed him in a jealous rage? Somebody who might be jealous enough, even after all this time, to leave that snake on Kathryn’s porch?”

Chewing thoughtfully, Raelynn considered his question. “Well,” she said, “now that you mention it, I do recall that the summer before he met Kathryn, he and Georgia Pruett were quite an item. The way I heard it, they were goin’ at it hot and heavy every chance they got. A lot of folks expected they’d get married.” She took a tiny nibble of asparagus. “In the eyes of certain segments of society, it would have been an ideal match, what with Michael’s daddy bein’ on the bench, and Georgia’s daddy being a state senator.”

He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Do tell,” he said.

“Georgia,” she said, leaning over the table, “apparently had her heart set on being the next Mrs. McAllister. It didn’t set too well with her when Michael came home from college with a wife trailin’ along behind him. And a Yankee wife to boot.”

“I can imagine.”

For a time, they both concentrated on eating. “So,” Nick said, polishing off the remains of his sandwich, “where’s Georgia now?”

“Oh, she’s still right here in Elba. A respected member of the Junior League. Married and divorced several times. She’s now with husband number three. Eugene Pepperell, Junior. But everybody just calls him Junior. Richer than Midas. It’s a pure shame he has the body of a troll.” She pursed her mouth in distaste. “Some women,” she said, “really sell themselves short. You know what I mean, Chief DiSalvo?”

He cleared his throat. “I believe I do, Ms. Wilbur.”

“You know
_—
” She paused with her fork in midair, a tiny sliver of asparagus perched on the tip. “Not that it has any bearing on the case, but with all these questions you’re asking about Michael’s cattin’ around, I thought you should know you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re looking at the wrong McAllister.” She brought the fork to her mouth and delicately nibbled at the asparagus.

“What?” he said. “What do you mean? Are you saying Kathryn was fooling around?”

She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Not Kathryn,” she said. “The Judge.”

He leaned forward with a great deal of interest. “Judge McAllister cheats on his wife?”

Her laugh was low and husky. “Kevin McAllister,” she said, “is one of the biggest whoremasters in Rowley County. He even hit on me once. Although, according to rumor, he prefers dark meat.” She lifted her glass. “Young dark meat.”

“Son of a gun.” He remembered the vague missiles that Neely McAllister had launched in the direction of her husband, and suddenly they made sense. “I imagine his wife probably doesn’t care much for his indiscretions.”

“Let’s just say she likely prefers that he keep them discreet. Beyond that, I doubt she cares much what the Judge does. The way I hear it, Neely McAllister hasn’t opened her legs to Kevin for nigh onto twenty years.”

“Yet they’ve stayed married.”

“Because they’re both gettin’ what they need out of the marriage, sugar. It looks good on the outside. Kevin has an attractive wife to manage his household and accompany him to social affairs. Neely has the McAllister name, not to mention the money, and a solid place in society. She turns a blind eye to Kevin’s whoring, and in turn, he leaves her alone. It’s a marriage made in heaven.”

“I guess that depends on your definition of heaven.”

She glanced at the slender gold watch on her wrist. “Oh, Lord, look at the time. I’m sorry to rush off, but I’m due in court in forty minutes.” She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and rose from her chair. “Thank you, Chief, for lunch.”

He dropped his own napkin and stood. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s been a most enlightening conversation.”

She opened her purse, pulled out a compact, and opened it to check her makeup. “By the way,” she said casually, studying her reflection, “if Kathryn finds out I told you this, I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that you’re a liar. But
_—
” She snapped the compact closed and slipped it back into her purse. And smiled at him like a cat about to dive into a bowl of cream. “I do believe, Mr. DiSalvo, that our little friend has a major case of the hots for you. What I want to know, sugar, is what you plan to do about it?”

When she exited the room, amid whispers and stares, his mouth was still hanging open.

* * * * *

He was at his desk, thumbing through the snake book Ingram had given him, when the phone rang. He picked it up absently. “DiSalvo,” he said.

“Nick, it’s Lenore.”

His attention sharpened instantly. Something in her voice. And she never called him at work. Not since the divorce. “What’s wrong?” he said.

“Janine’s run away from home.”

His backbone straightened like a steel rod. “
What?
Why the hell would she do that? Have the two of you been going at it again?”

“Go ahead,” she said, “blame it on me. Blame everything on me, Nick. If Janine had a father who was there for her, maybe this kind of thing wouldn’t be happening.”

A ball of fire ignited in the pit of his stomach. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’m not the one who went whoring around,” he said, “so you’d better be careful where you’re tossing blame, Lenore.”

“This has nothing to do with you and me, Nick. This has to do with your relationship with your daughter. You’ve never been there for her. All you cared about was your damn job.”

The ball of fire expanded to volcanic proportions. “Look,” he said, “we can sit here all day and sling mud at each other, but it’s not getting us anywhere. If you’d just calm down, maybe we could
_—
”

“My baby’s out there somewhere, and I don’t even know where she is! Maybe you can stay calm, buster, but I sure as hell can’t!”

He reminded himself that no matter how much he wanted to reach through the phone and wring Lenore’s scrawny neck, Janine was her daughter, too. “I know you’re upset,” he said. “I’m not exactly jumping with joy myself.” He tried not to think about the runaways he’d seen on the streets of New York, or how most of them ended up. “What happened?” he said.

“She left sometime during the night. When I went in to wake her up this morning, she was gone. Along with my suitcase, and most of her clothes. No note, no nothing.”

“Did you try her friends?”

“That was the first thing I did. I called everybody I could think of. Nobody’s seen her. Walter’s been out all morning, driving around the neighborhood, looking for her.”

“What about this boy she was talking about? Robbie somebody?”

“He’s in Vermont with his parents. They left three days ago.”

“She wouldn’t have gone up there, would she?”

“I don’t think so. I talked to Jenny Giulio, and she said Janine told her Robbie Morrison was a dork.”

He drew a notepad across the desk and began doodling on it. “Have you called the cops?”

“Of course I’ve called the cops!” she snapped. “You know what they told me?”

He sighed. “That there are thousands of runaways every year in New York City alone, and they’ll call you if she turns up.”

“Damn it, Nicky, isn’t there something you can do? You’re a goddamn cop, for Christ’s sake!”

“Not much,” he said. “Especially from six hundred miles away. Who’d you talk to?”

He wrote down the name and number she gave him. “I know the guy,” he said. “I’ll give him a call. Look, she’s probably hiding out at a friend’s house. Try not to panic yet. I’ll see what I can do from this end. And for Christ’s sake, let me know if you hear anything.”

He hung up the phone and sat there with his head bowed, running his fingers through his hair. From the doorway, Rowena said, “Everythin’ okay?”

“It’s my daughter,” he said. “She’s run away from home.”

“Oh, Lord. How old is she?”

“Thirteen. Goddamn kids think they’re invincible, you know?”

She let his vulgarity pass unnoticed. “That’s a very difficult age,” she said. “I imagine her mother’s about fit to be tied. I would be, if it was my daughter.”

“She’s probably just at a friend’s house,” he said, “but it’s still enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Kids don’t realize what can happen to them out there. I was a New York cop for sixteen years. I’ve seen what happens to kids on the street, and it isn’t pretty. But they don’t think about that. They don’t think it can happen to them. And they sure as hell don’t understand the fear we parents go through, every damn day of our lives. I guess you have to be a parent yourself before you really understand.”