"Looks like she got distracted," I said.
Naddie turned to me. "Corinne is always distracted."
I looked at the girl again. She had closed her eyes, and her companion had begun some major-league nuzzling. "Get a hotel room!" I muttered.
“Too late," Naddie said. "Corinne's pregnant."
I could see that now. Under her stretchy black top the girl's belly gently swelled.
Naddie tugged on my arm. "Don't gawk, Hannah!"
I stood firm. "If they don't want people to see them, why the hell are they sitting in the window?"
Mrs. Bromley punched me playfully with her cast, then reached for the doorknob of the coffee shop with her good arm.
Before I could follow Mrs. Bromley through the door, Corinne opened her eyes and noticed me standing on the sidewalk. She straightened, adjusted her top with one hand and shoved her companion away with the other.
The neck nuzzler turned. He had cut off his ponytail, but there was no doubt about it. The nuzzler was Brian Stone.
Hot rage boiled up inside me as I did the math. Corinne was showing. That meant she was four to five months gone. Four to five months ago, Valerie Stone had still been alive.
I rapped on the window. Brian started. He blushed from the pale curly hairs sticking out of the neck of his shirt all the way up to his scalp, where the hair was thinning.
I knocked again. I waggled my fingers.
Brian stood up, tucking in his shirt.
The door had already closed behind Naddie, so I yanked it open and stalked into the coffee shop. I don't know what I planned to do. Punch Brian out, maybe?
"Hannah! Good to see you." He'd decided to play it cool.
Behind him, Corinne was struggling against her low center of gravity, trying to get up from the sofa.
Brian turned and offered Corinne a hand. "You remember my friend, Corinne Winters?"
I glared at Brian as pieces of the puzzle began tumbling into place.
"Coffee, Hannah?" Mrs. Bromley was saying behind me. “Tea?" If she was hoping to distract me, she'd need something more than coffee. A bomb, maybe, with a short fuse, placed directly under my feet.
Corinne was Brian's "friend"? Give me a break! I skewered the creep with my eyes. "Valerie didn't die soon enough for you, Brian?"
He took a step backward. I took one forward, closing the gap.
I poked a finger, hard, in his chest. "Thought you'd have all that glorious money to yourself, did you?" I poked him again. "Thought you'd be able to spend it all on Corinne here and… and-” I waved in the direction of Corinne's bulging midsection. "… and little Whatsitsname.
"When's the baby due, Corinne?" I held up my fingers and counted them off. "Let's see. June, May, April, March, February… am I getting close?" Corinne's face was colorless.
"January!" I crowed. "That means you and lover boy were having it off even before he took Valerie on that cruise. How did you feel, Corinne, when he took his wife away on the QE2 instead of you. Jealous?"
"Bitch!" Corinne had found her tongue a last.
I turned to Brian. "So, this is the woman you've chosen to be the mother of your children? The woman who'll be Miranda's stepmother? Excellent choice!"
Brian held up his hands defensively. If he hoped to deflect my words, he was dead wrong. "You don't understand-" he began.
"Oh, I understand perfectly. So does Mrs. Bromley here." I turned to Naddie, who was standing silently next to the pastry case.
"Valerie was sick. She was dying!” Brian choked. "She was so weak. We couldn't… we didn't-"
"How fortunate that Corinne was there to comfort you in your hour of need."
"You don't understand," he whimpered.
But I understood perfectly, more than he knew. During my own chemotherapy, Paul had been desperate to comfort me, but I'd kept him at arm's length. By some perverse logic, I'd convinced myself that I was damaged goods, that he was being nice to me only out of pity. I'd actually suspected Paul of being unfaithful, but when the opportunity-in the form of an attractive student-had come his way, Paul had resisted.
"Didn't work out the way you intended, did it, Brian?" I pressed. "Valerie got well, Corinne got pregnant. What were you going to do?"
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mrs. Bromley tapping her cast against her fingertips, making a desperate "time-out" sign. But I was taking no prisoners.
"The only thing I don't understand is how you did it. How did you murder your wife?"
Corinne doubled over and made a mad dash for the rest room at the back of the shop, where presumably she would upchuck her latte. Brian stared after her with a worried look on his face, but although I must have provoked him, he said nothing.
"I wonder what the phone records will show, Brian?"
"I was miles away when Valerie died, in Harpers Ferry, working on a story."
"So you said. The police left a message on your cell phone, didn't they?"
Brian nodded.
"And you returned the call."
"That's right."
"They can track those things, you know, Brian. Cell phones." I mused, "One hundred forty million human-tracking devices. When you place a cellular phone call, your phone seeks out the nearest receiving tower, which serves a distinct area. Know what they call those areas, Brian? Cells. The tower routes the call to its destination. Your cell phone provider keeps a record of that."
Brian blanched.
"I wonder where your cell phone company will tell the police you were when you made that call?"
Everything about Brian was clenched: his teeth, his jaw, his fists.
"How did you do it, Brian? With a pillow? Did you put a pillow over your wife's face and hold it there until she stopped struggling?"
"You are out of your fucking mind." He emphasized every syllable.
"When you laid her out, Brian, you forgot something very important. I shared a hospital room with Valerie. I know how she sleeps. She gets hot, a foot hangs out. She tosses, she turns. Blankets here, blankets there. The nurses were always picking blankets up off the floor in the middle of the night.
"Do you know Miranda found her mother, you worm? Valerie was snug as a bug in a rug with the blankets pulled up neatly under her chin." I shook my head. "You and I both know that's not very likely, is it?"
The way I looked at it, Brian had two choices: he could punch me out, or he could run.
Brian ran. He bolted from the coffee shop, heading south on Maryland Avenue toward State Circle.
Almost at once Corinne appeared, dabbing at her face with a paper towel. "Where's Brian?"
"Brian's gone."
"But-"
"Don't worry, Corinne, the police will find him." I was busily punching Officer Tracey's number into my cell phone. "But I think you'd better find somebody else to attend Lamaze classes with you."
"Fucking bitch!" she screamed.
"Oh, I think you already have that territory all wrapped up."
Corinne had run out of steam. She blinked and sputtered and dashed out of the coffee shop, looking both ways as she reached the sidewalk. She must have spotted Brian, because she hustled off in a southerly direction.
I'd almost forgotten Mrs. Bromley, waiting at the counter, behind which stood a paralyzed and wide-eyed barista. I eased into an upholstered chair at one of the tables. "I think I'll have that cappuccino now, Mrs. B."
I punched the talk button. Mike Tracey picked up. "Officer Tracey? This is Hannah Ives. I have some information I think you will find very interesting."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Proving once and for all that they are certifiably insane, Emily and Dante acquired a puppy, a three-month-old chocolate Labradoodle named Coco. They brought Coco along when they came for the Fourth of July, and we soon discovered that the animal had a three word vocabulary: sleep, eat, and rollick.
Chloe and Jake were nuts about the dog, of course. Children and dog, they seemed to be everywhere. They careened around the yard, rolled about on the lawn, ricocheted off the furniture, and whether the children were chasing Coco or Coco was chasing the children, it was hard to tell.