Wilma hadn’t lived in the village when Violet was born, but Molena Point, like all small towns, enjoyed a complicated network of-as some put it-domestic intelligence. A web of personal histories and sensitive facts embroidered liberally with imaginative conjecture.
Lilly Jones had always been reclusive, and more so after the baby came. She was never seen in a restaurant or at the library or at village celebrations; nor was the child seen except walking alone to school and home again, alone, always alone. Lilly was about thirty when the baby came. She was around fifty-five now, though she looked far older. Watching Violet head for the stairs, Wilma felt too stubborn to plead, and she knew that was stupid, stupid not to try.
“If you leave me, Violet, Cage will kill me just the way he shot Mandell Bennett.”
Violet turned, her eyes widening with shock. “Cage didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Turn on the news, you’ll hear it. And if he kills me, too, that will be your fault. You’ll be an accomplice. It’s a federal offense, to be involved in the murder of a federal officer. You’d do hard time, Violet. Time in a federal prison. Those women would make mincemeat of you.”
Violet looked back at her, her narrow face sour and un-giving. Saying nothing, she rolled up the sleeves of her oversized shirt.
Her thin arms were red and purple with bruises. She pulled up the long tails of the shirt to reveal a mass of red and purple marks across her stomach and back, and one broad and ugly red bruise. “If Cage don’t kill me, this is what Eddie will do.”
Wilma had never gotten used to the signs of abuse. No matter how often during her working career she had witnessed this and worse, such violence sickened her. “What Eddie does to you…That’s all the more reason for us to get out of here. I promise I’ll find you a place to hide, a good place. And I’ll see that you’re protected.”
“Not the cops!” But Violet approached again, slowly, and stood watching her.
“Not the cops,” Wilma said. “If we can get away, if time hasn’t run out, there are others you can trust. Private organizations. Abused women who have escaped, themselves, and who understand, who will hide you and protect you.”
To promise this battered person protection, promise her a secure shelter away from Eddie Sears, was very likely useless. If Violet ran true to form, if she was like most battered women, she would just go back to him. Wilma knew too many who did; she knew too well the terrors, and the hungers, of an abused woman. To try to help a battered woman, to try to bolster her courage and self-respect, often had no effect at all; many wouldn’t listen, they were just as addicted to abuse as were their abusers.
But she had to try. If she meant to live, she had to try. Because it looked like Violet Sears was the only chance she might have.
She looked at the week-old newspaper on the counter, wondering if it was Violet who had kept it-maybe out of some twisted fascination? Or because she felt a kinship with the murdered woman?
Or was it Eddie who had dog-eared the page, reading it over and over? She looked at the picture of Linda Tucker, then looked at Violet.
“I knew her,” Violet whispered. “I knew who she was, I’d see her in the grocery when we lived in the village, when Eddie let me go out to the store. I saw the look in her eyes, and I knew…She always wore long sleeves, and her shirt collar buttoned up. I knew…,” Violet repeated in a whisper. She looked at Wilma, desolate. “Now there’s been another one. Tonight. Another murder, a woman at home alone, in her bed. The paper calls it a break-in murder.” Her eyes narrowed. “Those weren’t break-ins.
“This woman who died tonight, she was the same as Linda Tucker. I’d see her, too, in the grocery or drugstore…The same look, same cover-up clothes. We knew each other. We’d look at each other, and we knew.”
She pressed her clenched fist to her mouth. “There was no burglar to murder those women. Eddie…He just keeps reading about Linda Tucker, reading it over and over.”
She looked for a long time at Wilma. “He’s been reading that paper all week, like…like he would read a dirty book. Real intent, drinking beer and looking at her picture and reading about what her husband did to her.”
“You have to get away from him, Violet. We can get out of here now, together, and I’ll help you. Now, quickly, before they come back-before they kill us both.”
The village streets and unlit doorways were inky between soft spills of light from shop windows. Only above the rooftops where Dulcie and Kit raced did the last gleam of evening reflect a silver glow across the shingles; the two cats flew over peaks and dodged between chimneys and crossed above the narrow streets on the twisted branches of old and venerable oaks-but they were not as fast as the squad car.
When they landed on Kit’s own roof, Max Harper’s big white police car was already parked at the curb, heat rising up to them with the faint stink of exhaust; the chief still sat at the wheel, talking on his cell phone. Quickly the cats scrambled down an oak tree that overhung the street, then crouched on a low branch, listening.
Harper’s voice was coldly angry. “…and call me back, Charlie! Now, at once.”
Shocked, Dulcie and Kit stared at each other. Max never talked to Charlie like that. The Harpers had been married not quite a year, they were still newlyweds, he loved his redheaded bride more than life itself. Loved every freckle, loved her unruly carroty hair, loved her sense of humor and her quick temper. The tall, lean police chief loved Charlie Harper in a way that made both cats feel warm and safe. Now, did Max feel guilty that Charlie’s aunt Wilma had disappeared, on his watch? Was that what made him cross? That didn’t make any sense; it wasn’t his fault.
But a lot about life didn’t make sense, a lot about humans didn’t make sense. They watched him step out of his unit and head up the brick steps to the wide porch; as they trotted across an oak branch to Kit’s little cat door in the dining room window, and pushed through into the house, they heard the door chimes and watched Lucinda hurry to answer.
Opening the door, the tall old lady laughed with pleasure. “Max! This is a nice surprise. Come in.” Then she saw his expression and drew in her breath. “What? What’s happened?”
18
B eyond the Greenlaws’ open windows, an owl hooted; and a pleasant breeze wandered through the big living room of the hillside house, cooling the hot night as the tall, lean, eightysomething newlyweds welcomed Max Harper; they stood waiting quietly for whatever bad news Max had brought them. Across the room, on the upholstered bench before the big front windows, Dulcie and Kit listened, trying to look as if they’d been there a long time, quietly napping. This was going to be terrible, Kit thought. It was scary enough that Wilma had disappeared; she didn’t want Lucinda to become sick with worry over her good friend.
Kit worried about Pedric, too; but Pedric Greenlaw was tougher. Equally thin and frail looking, but wiry and hardy, Pedric Greenlaw’s dry humor had seen him through all kinds of crises in his younger days, and through some questionable scrapes with the law, too. His checkered past had left him with a quick turn of mind, fast to act and shocked by very little.
Now, though Lucinda turned pale as Harper laid out the details of Wilma’s disappearance, Pedric asked clear, precise questions: Had Wilma left San Francisco? Had she checked out of her hotel? At what time? Which stores did she favor? Did she usually pay with her credit card, which could be traced? Had the sheriff been notified? Max hid the little twitch at the side of his mouth and patiently answered Pedric’s questions; Pedric should know he had done these things, but that was how Pedric Greenlaw approached a problem.