Becca stared at the screen. “They’re exactly alike.”
Jo nodded. “Completely disparate sounds, but they both originated from the same source. Broadcast from the same radio station, as it were. Becca, the timing of this capture is interesting to me. I was just about to hand you the doll when we heard the—”
“You know, it’s nights like this that I’m bummed I forgot to get married.” Becca had absolutely no notion where that had come from, and judging by Jo’s puzzled expression she wasn’t alone.
“I’m sorry?”
“No, I’m sorry. Stupid, random thought.”
She’d just felt so lonely, suddenly, even with Jo seated beside her. Staring at a graph of her dead mother’s voice, Becca had been swept, not for the first time or the hundredth, by an old longing for the familiarity and comfort of a life mate. A wife she had lived with for years, someone who knew all about her, knew what this meant to her. Someone she’d never found, and she’d stopped looking.
Becca made herself focus, and she rubbed Jo’s forearm as if brushing away lint. “What were you saying?”
“The timing of the…” Jo was quiet for a moment, watching her. “I’ve wondered about that. Wondered why.”
“About?”
“Why you’ve chosen to be single.”
Becca grasped this gift of distraction from painful memory and was grateful Jo allowed it. “You’re assuming being single is my choice?”
“Of course.”
Jo’s confidence in her desirability made her smile. “Eh, I’m not sure about that. I’ve always wanted what Marty and Khadijah have. Even what my aunt and uncle have. They really care for each other.”
“Then why don’t you have it?” Jo sounded logical, as if asking why Becca didn’t have a Bentley. A partner seemed just as remote a possibility at this point in her life.
“Not really sure. Maybe because no one can claim my parents modeled a happy marriage.” Becca had relied on this psychological chestnut all her life to explain her loneliness, but it had felt like an excuse, never entirely honest. “I haven’t dated many people. Never been with anyone for more than six months. I’m still good friends with most of them.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Jo set the Spiricom at her side.
“I haven’t been Sister Becca, mind you.” Becca wanted to lighten the mood a little. “I’ve had enough sex, especially in my wanton youth, to satisfy a…”
Becca trailed off, feeling her face warm with color. Jo hadn’t asked about her sex life, for heaven’s sake, and given their previous conversation about attraction, she’d rather not go back there tonight. She rested the back of her head against the wall.
“Anyway. It’s probably not going to happen for me, the partner thing, and I’ve accepted that. I thank whatever gods may be that I have so much love in my life, married or not. I’m so lucky, Jo, in my friends.”
“Your clan.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
They sat quietly together, and Becca felt her eyes drifting shut. It was late, and she knew it was time they got up and stretched out on their nice comfy living room furniture. They should sleep and dream among the radios and the Spiricom, and wait for shots to be fired or women to scream or weep. Becca shuddered with misery.
She was vaguely aware of her head sliding slowly, then resting on something both soft and firm, something like Jo’s shoulder. She started to apologize, but realized she was asleep, and dreaming of the gentle brush of Jo’s lips in her hair.
Chapter Twelve
The night passed badly. Jo doubted Becca slept at all, despite the comfort of the living room’s deep couch. The crease in her brow never quite disappeared, her body never fully relaxed into the cushions. Jo knew this because she kept watch over her from her armchair, their wakefulness accompanied by the soft hum of empty static from the radios. She was beginning to realize how much she was asking of Becca, these long nights in the house of her nightmares.
Thursday dawned hot and clear and remained so, a trend Seattle’s burgeoning LGBT clan prayed would last through Pride weekend. Jo weaved around another couple seated in the grass in Volunteer Park, still stymied by their destination. She had her preconceptions about meeting with a retired police detective, and they involved huddling around a small table in a dark bar, not traipsing through the gayest park in the city, the busiest week of the year. She glanced behind her to make sure Becca was keeping up.
“Was Pam Emerson specific about this little rendezvous? It’s a rather large park.” Jo knew she sounded testy, but stepping over the legs of yet another pair of men engaged in full liplock did that to her. Did none of these people hold jobs? This was more of a crowd than she would ever willingly tolerate for long.
“Pam said they’d be down by the reservoir.” Becca took Jo’s hand, a gesture increasingly common between them that pleased her inordinately. They passed the Asian Art Museum and headed downhill, toward the large cement pool of crystal blue water dancing in the sunlight. Jo vaguely registered the beauty of the Olympic range in the distance before she heard a sharp whistle.
“Hey, Healy!” Pam Emerson waved at them, a friendly enough welcome. She was seated on a blanket in the thick grass beside a portly man who proceeded to dash Jo’s remaining preconceptions about retired police detectives.
Luther Emerson didn’t bother to greet them as they joined him. Clad in a voluminous yellow and red Hawaiian shirt, he reclined on the blanket, braced by a portable backrest, head back to receive the sun. His full jowls were dusted with white bristles. Large sunglasses masked his eyes, and a truly disreputable cloth fedora perched on his head. The only note stereotypical of police officers was the open box of Mighty O doughnuts balanced on his formidable stomach.
“This courtly gentleman here is my dad, Luther.” Officer Emerson was more readily Pam today, casual in frayed shorts and a halter, apparently on a day off. Jo would have preferred her to be finding the men who broke into her office, but she had to appreciate her setting up this meeting.
“I retired in two-aught-aught-two.” The man’s voice was a rumbling bass, and that appeared to be all that he had to contribute to the conversation. Somewhat prissy lines had formed on either side of his mouth, and he kept his sunglassed gaze on the water.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” Emerson was clearly in his seventies, and Jo had been raised to speak respectfully to her elders. If this elder had unclasped his hands from atop his large stomach, Jo would have shaken one of them exactly twice, but he didn’t. Becca sat in the grass beside Pam, and Jo glanced at her to be sure it was all right if she took the lead, because she was learning to do such things. “We want to talk to you about the deaths of Scott and Madelyn Healy, in nineteen seventy-eight.”
“So my daughter tells me. And I believe I have just stated that I am retired.” Luther freed his hands long enough to scratch his throat with two blunt fingers. “I have been retired for ten wonderful years.”
“Yes, your daughter also mentioned your retirement.” Jo slipped her recorder from her pocket and switched it on. “I’d like to record our conversation.”
Luther lifted his sunglasses a bare inch and stared at the recorder balefully. Jo caught a glimpse of yellowed eyes before he lowered the glasses again, but he didn’t protest.
“You’ve just got to give him time to warm up,” Pam said. She leaned back on her hands, apparently enjoying the sun herself. “He’s like a real rusty old car. Go ahead, Pop, have another doughnut. I think there’s one tiny little vein in your left foot that isn’t clogged all to hell.”