Chill Factor (13 page)

When Dixie entered her house, the phone was ringing. Mud met her at the door with a single bark, then pranced toward the instrument as if to hurry her along. The clock suggested it would be Parker calling—this was their usual time to talk.

“How’d the snooping go?” His baritone voice resonated with restrained sexuality.

Or maybe that was her own hormones backing up. Whichever, it sent a shudder of longing through her.

“I didn’t find a picture of Edna’s boyfriend,” she admitted. She heard a TV commercial playing in the background.

“Like I said, could’ve been a salesman.”

“You don’t believe that, Parker. The man didn’t strike you that way at the time.”

“No.”

Mud put his front paws on the kitchen counter and whined softly at the phone.

“Is that my good buddy?” Parker asked.

“He misses you.”
And so do I.

“Let me talk to him.”

“Parker! He’s a dog. He does not do telephone.”

“Sure he does. Just lay the receiver down.”

She did as he asked. As soon as it
thunk
ed on the Formica, she heard him say, “Hey, boy!”

Mud chuffed happily.

While her two best friends
conversed
, Dixie hooked a Shiner Bock from the fridge and drank half of it. Finally, Mud dropped back to his feet and chuffed at Dixie.

“Oh, it’s my turn again?” She looped an arm around his great ugly head and gave him a smooch, then picked up the phone.

“So, tell me what you
did
find at Edna’s,” Parker said.

Dixie gave him an abbreviated rundown on the clothing and cosmetics, the checkbook notations, the photographs—including Marty’s peculiar reaction to the snapshot of J. Claude Hager—the fitness books, and the circled birth date on Edna’s calendar.

“What a guy. Forgets his mother’s birthday … doesn’t notice she’s become a glamorous Ma Barker.” The fierceness in Parker’s words seemed excessive.

“How long since you called
your
mother?”

“Too damn long. And I can’t remember if I sent a birthday card.”

“So you and Marty have something in common.”

“Yeah. We loved the same woman.”

“Come again?”

“You and Marty made a handsome couple. I saw the prom photo on Edna’s bookshelf.”

A duplicate of the photograph in Kathleen’s album—Dixie had scarcely noticed it tonight.

“That was taken a long time ago, Parker, and Marty was only a minor-league boyfriend.” Parker’s mixed messages were damned confusing. For three months it’s “let’s just be pals.” Yet now he’s jealous of a high school sweetheart? And Dixie hadn’t missed the past tense, “…
loved
the same woman.”

“Guess I don’t like anybody you kissed before you kissed me,” he grumbled, as if surprised at his own words. “Or maybe I don’t like him on general principles—like being an inconsiderate son.”

Or maybe Marty’s oversight reminded Parker of his own maternal neglect.
Please pass the guilt.
Nothing to do with Dixie at all. Not really.

“Hey, what’s that on the news?” Dixie’d heard the words “Texas Citizens Bank.”

He turned up the volume, and Dixie finished her beer as they listened.

“…
all managers have been briefed on new procedures in the event another branch is targeted by the Granny Bandits. In a related interview, Houston Police Chief Edward Wanamaker stated that police response to the robberies was neither reactionary nor unnecessarily violent.”

The newscast cut to an interview with Wanamaker.

“
Chief, the first robbery occurred in HPD jurisdiction and did not result in an exchange of gunfire. Do you care to comment on that?”

“The suspect of the first robbery was not apprehended.”

Wanamaker’s tenor voice, which Dixie admired when she’d heard him sing in Christmas presentations, sounded pitifully immature on television.

“Would you say then, Chief, that the shootings were justified?”

“I can’t speak for the Webster Police Department. In yesterday’s incident, a Houston officer was critically wounded. The other officers had no recourse but to return fire.”

When the newscast switched to a commercial, Parker lowered the volume.

“What does that idiot reporter expect cops to do when they’re shot at?” Dixie demanded. “Call time out?”

Mud responded to her indignant tone by nudging his head under her hand for scratching.

“She’s doing what all reporters do these days,” Parker said. “Playing to the audience.”

“Well, I hate it.”

“I know.” Their bedtime ritual while Parker lived with Dixie had been watching and arguing over the news together. “So what’s next? Will you follow up on those names from Edna’s records?”

“Might as well. I might stumble on something interesting.”

“Or dangerous.”

Now they’d hit the point where their conversations usually ended. Dixie refused to respond this time, allowing silence to stretch the moment. She spied the invitation she’d received from Mike Tesche, folded tent style near the phone.

“Seriously, Dixie, will you call me if—?”

“If I get another .38 pointed at my face—absolutely.” She opened Mike’s invitation to the map inside.

“I know he’s an old friend—”

With her thoughts on Mike, Dixie felt confused for a second before realizing Parker meant Marty.

“—but this time maybe you should consider letting the cops handle it. Edna got herself involved with a radical bunch of women, these Granny Bandits, and whatever her reason, she paid for it with her life. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“I don’t plan to rob a bank, Parker.”

“I’d bet my next sale that Edna didn’t plan to rob a bank when I saw her last. Anyway, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know. What happened to, ‘This time I won’t try to talk you out of it’?”

“I reneged.” He sighed. “But you
will
call if you need help?”

“Yep.”

After they said good night, Dixie stared at the phone awhile, Mike’s invitation still in her hand.

Thursday morning

The baby was crying.

Officer E. Arthur Harris shoved his cereal bowl into the dishwasher and listened for his wife’s footsteps. Hearing no sound from the bedroom didn’t surprise him—she’d been socked in pretty hard. Ann liked her beauty sleep.

Checking his watch, he saw that he could spare a few minutes this morning before leaving for his shift. He sprinted down the hall toward Peggy—christened Margaret, after her paternal grandmother, but much too small and feisty for such a heavy handle. They’d been arguing—
discussing
, as Ann insisted—whether to call her Maggie or Meg when the old Buddy Holly song “Peggy Sue” came on the radio. Then they’d looked at each other and started laughing.

He peeked in at Ann as he passed the bedroom. Though the baby’s cry sounded louder on the monitor than here in the hallway, his wife hadn’t stirred. Art worried about that at times, worried that he’d be gone and Ann would sleep right through an emergency.

“Honey, Peggy’s awake,” he called. “And I have to get out of here.”

The doctor said a mother’s instinct kicked in when her baby really needed her, but Art had a hunch Ann’s genetic mix didn’t include motherly instinct.

The instant he leaned over the crib, Peggy stopped crying.

“Hey, kiddo, what are you fussing so hard about so early in the morning?”

A tiny bundle of energy, she responded with one of her heart-melting smiles, waving and kicking like he’d just told the best joke in the whole world. She liked her daddy.

The crib sheets were printed with bunnies wearing eyeglasses and reading storybooks. A brightly colored “busy” toy hung from each corner of the crib, and a mobile of baby seals danced overhead. Art lifted her out and carried her to the changing table.

Somebody should have told him what a joy babies could be; maybe he’d have given in years ago—well, a couple of years, anyway. He and Ann were approaching the big five, anniversary-wise. He cherished their first years together, when they couldn’t get enough of each other. But with Peggy, the days seemed fuller, even more satisfying than before.

Ann, on the other hand, seemed to resent these months away from her career. Art almost wished he was the one to take time off and stay home, especially considering these past couple days.

He wiped the sleep from Peggy’s eyes with a damp cloth and changed her wet diaper. Then came the good part.

Tossing a blanket over his shoulder to protect his fresh uniform shirt from her slobbery mouth, he snuggled her on his shoulder, next to his heart, which she’d stolen the moment she popped into the world squalling and bloody and full of life. Hearing about it from other guys, he hadn’t thought it possible to feel anything but relief that the ordeal was over and he hadn’t done anything to screw up. And now, nuzzling her soft baby hair, smelling that sweet, distinctly Peggy smell, feeling the silken skin and the five perfect fingers of her hand clutching his big thumb, he figured he’d done damn good.

Ann had managed her part pretty well, too. It was afterward that wasn’t going so well for her.

“Honey! I need to go.” He’d be screwed for sure if he didn’t leave soon. After the shooting, and the endless interviews, they’d put him on desk duty—standard practice—but he knew Internal Affairs wasn’t through. No matter that his wasn’t the only bullet that had taken down Edna Pine.

And Lucy Ames.

Damn, that’d been freakish. Even when she got out of the car with the gun in her hand, Art had thought sure they could talk her down. Nobody wanted to shoot—

Except Ted Tally had charged out of his unit like the lady was one of America’s most wanted.

And then she’d started firing. How could that happen twice?

He carried Peggy in and laid her in the crook of Ann’s arm. Ann stirred, frowning.

“Why don’t you call in sick?” she asked sleepily.

“Can’t.” He kissed them both, Peggy still holding tight to his thumb. “You have a good day, pretty Peggy, you hear?”

She smiled and kicked, and he brushed his lips across the tiny fingers.

Minutes later, in the driveway, as he opened the door of his Cougar, Officer E. Arthur Harris felt a blow to his head. He hadn’t heard the sniper’s bullet, and he didn’t feel a thing as he fell to the concrete.

Dixie entered her Thursday morning classroom frustrated, irritable, and late. After a restless night reliving a troublesome day—reclaiming her financial identity, snooping through a dead friend’s personal effects, and feeling a whole lot like Parker’s emotional yo-yo—she’d scarcely dropped off when the alarm sounded. Slapping it silent, she closed her eyes for a few extra minutes … and when she finally stumbled out of bed two hours later, there was no time left for her own workout.

She arrived to find most of her students already stretching in front of the mirrored walls. Curbing her peevishness, Dixie walked beside the blue mats, murmuring encouragement.

“Looks good, Ruth, but keep it smooth. Don’t bounce. Nice, Janice, now this time twist harder. That’s it, that’s perfect.”

The good turnout lifted her spirits. Dixie’s only compensation for teaching this class came from seeing the women take control of their own safety. When they failed to show up, or put forth less than their best effort, she could think of a dozen ways to make better use of ninety minutes. Today her students were in good form. By the time Dixie approached the end of the room, her irritability had nearly vanished.

Then she saw Joan’s face, marked with fresh bruises.

“You went back to your husband,” Dixie said. Not much of a
guess. Joan’s marriage was a series of close encounters with a mean fist. Dixie’d seen the woman messed up worse than today, and with even more makeup covering her injuries.

Joan glanced away, caught her own image in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, and lowered her eyes.

“We went to dinner. You know, just to talk. I can’t help loving him, Dixie.”

“Talking doesn’t bust your lip.”

“After dinner, I went back to the house with him, to get some of my things. Have some coffee.”

“Just coffee?”

“You know, some brandy in it. I was so nervous, he said a little brandy would relax us both.” She smiled with one side of her swollen mouth. “He’s the doctor, I told him.”

Joan was not a stupid woman. Dixie didn’t understand why smart women made stupid moves when it came to dealing with the men in their lives. But she needed to understand, to get past her own anger before they began practice. Seeing that busted lip, knowing Joan had gone back to the bastard again, made her itch to slap some sense into the woman. Where was the logic in that? The guilt phantom cackled at her even thinking it. Is that what Joan’s husband did: try to batter his own brand of sense into his hardheaded wife?

“I just wanted him to, you know, hold me a little. It’d been so long. I
needed
him to hold me.”

Dixie felt the ghost of a tingle where Parker’s hand had touched hers last Friday during dinner. In the past three months they’d spent a lot of time
not
touching. Some mornings she awoke with a mangled pillow and her arms aching with emptiness.

“Did you talk with a counselor?”

“She’s not in yet.” The relief in Joan’s voice suggested she might conveniently disappear if a counselor did come in today. Why had Joan even bothered to show up for defense class?

“Are you planning to see your
loving husband
again tonight?”

“We have to work this thing out between us, Dixie. He promised he’d go to counseling.”

“Did he promise that before or after he hit you?”

Joan’s torn lip quivered. “He can be so sweet” Tears slid
from her eyes, and she wiped them away roughly with the back of her hand. “You just don’t know. I’ve never met a man more thoughtful, when he’s not … you know, stressed out. An anesthesiologist is under so much pressure. Why, he’s more responsible for a patient’s life than the almighty surgeon.”

Or so he tells his wife repeatedly.
Dixie was getting in deeper here than she wanted to be. She hadn’t the training or the patience to be a psychologist. All she could do was teach Joan how to defend herself physically and pray the woman used that knowledge before her husband beat her to death.