Woman in Red (19 page)

Thankfully cooler heads would prevail in this current debate as well. With a few well-placed phone calls, the mayor had made certain of that. The court would rule in favor of the Lighthouse Foundation, the charitable institution to which the late Elroy Cuthbert had bequeathed eleven hundred acres of pristine woodland, with views of the sound that stretched from Moran State Park to Mount Independence. No matter that Cuthbert had left the land to the foundation intending that it never be built on or that Cuthbert’s daughter, Eunice, was contesting the proposed development. The language of the trust was such that nothing specifically prohibited the sale of the property, which Owen interpreted to mean that the old man had been of two minds. The Spring Hill development—a hundred and eighty residences, as well as a golf course and a man-made lake stocked with trout—would go forward as planned and the money Owen had discreetly invested in it would yield a hefty return.

He glanced at his watch now and saw that it was close to four. In exactly two minutes the deputy chief of police would come knocking on his door. Owen insisted on punctuality; he believed it to be a sign of respect, respect for oneself as well as the person whose valuable time you were taking up. And he had little use for slackers and fools. Gary Elkins was neither. His problem was merely one of unfortunate circumstance: He had the bad fortune to be related, if only by marriage, to the woman responsible for ruining Owen’s life.

Oh, he knew he was viewed as a success story, someone who’d triumphed over adversity, but Owen wasn’t thinking about that or the prestige he enjoyed as mayor. He glanced
down at his atrophied legs with a small, crooked smile. It was the first thing people saw when they looked at him: the wheelchair. Thirty-five pounds of steel and polyurethane that in a perverse way had proved to be the making of him. Because of it, people saw him differently, as noble, saintly even. Which was why Owen seldom referred to the tragic incident that had left him partially paralyzed; there was no need to: He made a statement simply by entering a room. Both times he’d run for office, first as county commissioner then six years later as mayor, it was what had been chief on voters’ minds, how admirable it was that he hadn’t allowed his handicap to limit him in any way.

He’d proved himself in other ways as well. Chiefly, in emerging from the shadow of his father, long gone but far from forgotten in the minds of the townspeople. A triumph, given that Lowell’s mysterious disappearance had been the defining fact of Owen’s existence from boyhood on. He’d grown up hearing the stories whispered about his father, endured the cruel rhymes chanted by the other children in the schoolyard.

For it was discovered after Lowell’s disappearance that there were certain discrepancies in his books. Large sums of money were missing from his corporate account, money slated for shareholders of the limited partnerships he controlled. Rumor had it that the money was tucked away in a Swiss account, and that Lowell had gone off to start a new life in some foreign country with some mistress—for wasn’t it a known fact he was a womanizer? Others put forth a more innocent explanation, that he’d been out on his boat that night and fallen overboard (which would have been hard to do with the yacht moored in its berth at the time).
Whatever the explanation, he was gone, leaving his family to a lifetime of uncertain status: his mother a widow for all intents and purposes without a grave to lay flowers on, his children not knowing whether to revere their father or revile him.

It hadn’t helped that Owen was a sensitive, sickly child. His mother, without her husband to focus on, had fussed over her only son, her obvious favoritism putting a wedge between him and his sister Caroline. It wasn’t until Owen went off to college that he was finally able to carve out an identity separate from his parents. Eventually he returned to take over the family business. He married and became active with his church and various charitable institutions. Under his careful management, the business became more profitable than ever. If it hadn’t been for Fate casting Alice Kessler into his path, like a bad throw of the dice, he might have gone on that way indefinitely, quietly living out his life, doing only good works.

No one, not even his wife, had been aware of the extent of his drinking. He’d never embarrassed her in public and his conduct at work was never once called into question. And if, during his rare blackouts, he’d come to his senses on more than one occasion to find himself behind the wheel of his car, luckily no one had been the wiser.

Until the night he’d run over David Kessler. Drunk as a lord and taking a turn too fast in his Mercedes, he’d been unaware of the little boy riding his bike along the shoulder of the road until he felt the sickening thud and heard the horrid crunch of metal beneath his wheels.

After that, he’d quit cold turkey and hadn’t picked up another drink since. Time might even have softened his memory of that terrible event, or at least allowed him some measure
of peace, except for one thing: the boy’s mother. Each time he’d looked into Alice Kessler’s face, those unforgiving eyes, it had been as if he were peering through a window into his own soul. Even if he were to beg for her forgiveness, she wouldn’t give it to him. And when she’d run him down that day, she’d done more than make a cripple of him, she’d sentenced him to a purgatory in which his failings were compounded by every sympathetic look, every show of compassion he received, in the very pedestal he’d been placed on. Each time he hoisted himself into his wheelchair a small part of him knew it was because of a little boy who was dead because of him.

And now, just when he’d begun to put the past behind him, Alice was back to torment him again. And this time she wouldn’t rest until she’d finished what she’d started. Not that he was worried she’d do something rash. All those years in prison, he didn’t doubt she’d had ample time to regret her actions, if only for the toll it had taken on her. No, it was her mere presence that he feared; it was like a cancer eating away at him. Ever since she’d come back he’d had trouble sleeping at night, and the nightmares had returned—terrible nightmares of screeching brakes and wheeling headlights, of a small crumpled body lying in the middle of the road, that had him lurching upright in bed, in a cold panic. And with the nightmares had come the headaches that used to plague him; not the ordinary kind, easily remedied with a couple of aspirin, but ones like some medieval torture device clamped to his skull, growing more excruciating with each turn of the screw.

Owen knew that if he didn’t find a way to get rid of her, permanently this time, there would be no peace for him, ever. No escape from those eyes that saw him as he really
was, the mind that knew the truth and the heart that wouldn’t forgive.

Not that she would be so easily gotten rid of. Not as long as her son was on the island.

From a distance, Owen had watched the boy, Jeremy, grow to manhood, knowing it was only a matter of time before Alice returned to reclaim him. He knew that Jeremy was a good student but that he’d had fallen in with the wrong crowd at school, a thuggish bunch led by a sterling character named Kurt Rudnicki. While Jeremy was busy polishing his college resume, Rudnicki was working on his rap sheet; at sixteen he had already been busted twice for shoplifting and once for minor drug possession.

Owen didn’t think Jeremy was in any real danger of following in his buddy’s footsteps—he was too smart for that—but he knew that bad things tended to come from keeping bad company, so who knew what might happen?

Which was why he was keeping his eye on the boy. On the rest of the family, too. It was like a game of chess: You always had to think several moves ahead. All he had to do was get his pieces in alignment while eliminating hers one by one, until she had no choice but to call it quits.

A knock on the door roused him from his reverie. With a hint of annoyance he called, “Yes, what is it?”

The door eased open and Gary Elkins poked his head in. “Sir? Is this a bad time? I could come back later on, if you’d like.”

“No, no. Come in, Gary. Sit down.” Owen waved a hand toward the leather sofa in the seating area at one end of his large office and wheeled himself out from behind his desk. “I was so caught up, I hadn’t realized what time it was,” he said with a smile. “This business with the parking meters—it
took an hour just to weed through the memos.” And if the tree huggers thought putting in a few extra parking meters downtown was a call to arms, what would they do when they learned of the court ruling on Spring Hill? Owen felt a grim pleasure at the thought. “What can I get you? Coffee, tea?”

Gary shook his head, his polite smile vanishing almost as quickly as it appeared. “I’m good, thanks.” Owen watched him lower himself onto the sofa, looking as uncomfortable as a child called into the principal’s office. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“Nonsense. I’m never too busy for my deputy chief of police,” Owen said. He propelled himself over to the sofa, the mag wheels of his Invacare Tracer EX2 cutting twin tracks in the dense pile of the carpet. “I don’t mind telling you, it’s a comfort knowing I can count on you, with all that’s been going on.” He gestured vaguely toward the window, through which drifted the chants of the crowd gathering on the street below. “We may not always see eye to eye, but we both know how to get the job done, even if it means ruffling a few feathers along the way.”

He chuckled softly, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirrored cabinet against the wall just then: a pale, balding man dressed in chinos and a navy sports coat over a pale blue Izod shirt, his upper body disproportionately bulky against his atrophied lower half. Despite the confident look he wore the strain he’d been under was apparent, if only to him, in the deepening of the lines around his eyes and mouth and in the pallor underlying his tan, which gave him a faintly jaundiced look. Disturbed, he averted his eyes, focusing on Gary instead.

Gary shifted on the sofa, his eyes darting around the room as though he feared that if he looked directly at Owen’s they
would betray him. Finally, when it became clear to him that the mayor wasn’t in any hurry to state his business, he cleared his throat and asked, “Was there something in particular you wanted to see me about?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.” Owen waited a beat, his expression hardening before he got down to business. “I want to know everything there is to know about your sister-in-law. Keep close tabs and report back to me. She doesn’t make a move without us knowing about it. Do I make myself clear?”

Gary’s face, with its broad Nordic cheekbones and deepset eyes, a rough draft of the more handsome one it might have been had it not been so crudely drawn, flushed a mottled crimson. “I’ve already told you everything I know.” A surly note crept into his voice. “It’s not like there’s a law against opening a restaurant.”

“No. But may I remind you that she’s on parole. All it would take is one little slip.” He leaned forward in his wheelchair, fixing Gary with his ineluctable gaze. “You’re an officer of the law. It’s your business to stay on top of such things. Do you have a problem with that?”

Gary flashed him a look of pure hatred, then quickly dropped his gaze, mumbling, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m not asking you to
see
what you can do. I’m asking you to do it.” Owen’s tone hardened.

Gary brought his head up to look at Owen. His eyes glinted and the mottled red in his cheeks had deepened to the color of old bricks. “It’s just . . . if my wife ever found out I was spying on her sister—” He broke off, swallowing hard.

“Spying? I think you’ve seen too many James Bond pictures.” Owen’s face relaxed into a smile, and he lifted his arms off the padded leather rests of his wheelchair to show
he meant no harm. “Let’s not make more of this than there is. All I’m asking, Gary, is for you to do your job. And to keep me informed, so that there are no . . . surprises. Under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s unreasonable, do you?”

Gary met his gaze with surprising defiance. “Sir, I have to tell you I’m not comfortable with this. I’m not saying I don’t think you have a right to feel the way you do.” His gaze involuntarily shifted downward, taking in the wheelchair. “But, hell, she’s family. And she’s paid her debt. All she wants is the chance to start over, make a new life for herself.”

“Do you see me preventing her from doing that?” Owen spoke in a soft, unthreatening tone. “If I wanted to put her out of business, all it would take is a single phone call.”

“I don’t see what you need me for then,” Gary said sulkily.

Owen looked at him as if he were a dim-witted student slow in getting it. “You’re a team player, aren’t you, Gary?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.” Gary eyed him warily.

“I don’t believe I need to remind you of a certain matter that would be very embarrassing to you and your family if it should get out.” Owen paused to let the message sink in. “Your son’s on the football team, isn’t he? And your daughter’s, what, in the fourth grade? This is a time for them to enjoy being kids. It’d be a shame to spoil it for them,” he went on in the same unthreatening tone. “Now, don’t get me wrong, Gary. I like you. I like what you’re doing for the community, and I’d hate to lose a good man over something like this.”

Gary’s whole body went rigid. Owen felt a strange sympathy for him in that moment. It wasn’t as if Gary had accepted a bribe to turn a blind eye to some sleaze ball dealing
in meth or child porn. It had only been to look the other way should one of the customers get a little too friendly with one of the girls at the gentleman’s club out on Route 6. But a bribe was a bribe, and Owen had it all on videotape. He and the owner of the Kittycat Club, a lowlife by the name of Buck Duggan, had an understanding: Buck tipped Owen off to any dirty cops, in exchange for which he was allowed to remain in business. Owen had found it helped having members of the law enforcement in his pocket. Gary didn’t know it, but he wasn’t the only one. He merely happened to be most useful at the moment.