I decide to ignore Harry’s apparent amusement. I’ve no interest in discussing Louisa Rawlings’s many assets with him.
“The Kydd picked a hell of a day to sleep in,” I say as I head out of his office.
“Don’t worry,” he answers my back. “He’s done your warrant research.”
“How do you know that?” I turn and lean in the doorway again.
“He was here yesterday,” Harry says. “A man on a mission.”
“Yesterday? I thought you went fishing yesterday.”
“I did. But not until late afternoon. I stopped in here first for an hour or so to check messages and pick up a little.” He sweeps the room with one arm, as if he might have a shot at a job with Merry Maids.
I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. It’s scary to think this is the after-cleanup picture.
He frowns when I look back at him, apparently insulted. “Anyway,” he says, “the Kydd was already working when I got here and he was still hard at it when I left. He said he would be tied up last night. Wanted to get the job done by the end of the day.”
This information should make me feel better. But for some reason I can’t articulate, it doesn’t.
“And he looked like the future of civilization depended on the results of his research,” Harry continues. “So I think you can relax.”
I’m not relaxed. Harry’s news unsettles me. The Kydd made a point of telling me he had no plans. But so what? Plans develop sometimes. And why the hell should I care anyhow?
Harry rests his head against the back of his tall leather chair and looks up at the ceiling for a moment. “You know,” he says, pointing his pen at me, “I think maybe the Kydd has found himself a woman.”
“A what?”
“A woman,” he repeats, laughing. “You’ve heard of the species?”
I stand up straight in the doorway. As usual, my stomach races ahead of my brain.
“Think about it,” he continues, smiling and tapping the pen in his palm. “Big plans for last night. Working like hell so he could keep them. Later to the office than usual this morning. I smell a romance brewing.”
I’m speechless.
Harry winks at me.
I don’t wink back. The Kydd’s red pickup—parked in Louisa Rawlings’s driveway early yesterday—pops into my head. Morning dew undisturbed.
Harry chuckles. “Maybe my offer to hook him up with a good-looking inmate got to him, scared him into finding a sweetheart on his own.”
Now I see different scenes: the Kydd matter-of-factly negotiating the hardware on the double doors of Louisa’s veranda; his familiarity with the steam room switches in the Queen’s Spa.
I force myself to answer Harry. “Maybe you’re right,” I tell him. But I hope like hell he’s wrong. And it’s not because I begrudge the Kydd a love life.
I hurry back to the front office, grab my briefcase and jacket, and head out the door. Harry’s wrong, I tell myself. And so am I. It’s as simple as that. We’re just plain wrong.
The lean red fox in the road ahead hesitates when my Thunderbird speeds toward him and then he darts back into the bushes he came from. He’s staring after the car when I check the rearview mirror, his head and neck sticking tentatively into the road. He lifts his aristocratic snout in the air as he reemerges, apparently unhappy about riffraff in the neighborhood. Slow down, I tell myself. Even the wildlife deems this errand ridiculous.
And it is. The Kydd knows better than to get involved with a client. And what interest would Louisa Rawlings have in a boy little more than half her age? For God’s sake, she’s old enough to be his mother. Hell, she’s old enough to be his big brother’s mother too.
My head hurts.
But my stomach feels worse. It knots when I pull into the Rawlingses’ driveway. The Kydd’s red pickup is here, right where it was yesterday, roof and hood dew covered. Its windows are fogged, just as they were yesterday, and tiny dew-fed rivers once again trickle down the misty glass.
The front door of Louisa’s house is closed, but predictably unlocked, and I barge in as if I’m a one-woman SWAT team. From the foyer, I hear the steady pelting of water in the first-floor shower. I pause for just a second—haste is often an effective substitute for courage—and then crack open the door to the master suite.
Apparently Louisa got first dibs on the Queen’s Spa. The Kydd is ensconced in her king-size bed, leaning against a mountain of pillows, the lilac sheets pulled up to his stomach. He’s naked above the sheets, one arm draped over Pillow Mountain, his hand pressed against a bedpost, a lit cigarette dangling between his fingers. I didn’t know he smoked.
He jumps about a foot and a half when the door squeaks.
“Jesus Christ, Marty. What the hell are you doing here?” He bolts upright in the bed, yanks the sheets up to his chest, and damn near drops his cigarette underneath them in the process.
“What am I doing here?” I find it hard to believe we’re having this conversation. “What am I doing here? That’s not really the question, is it, Kydd?”
He says nothing for a moment, stares down at the sheets he’s clutching as if he’s never seen them before, and then returns his gaze to me. His expression suggests he’s genuinely surprised to realize he’s not wearing a suit. “Please,” he says finally, swallowing hard and pointing toward the bathroom door. “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you outside.”
“You’ll meet me inside,” I tell him. No need to invite the neighbors to this gathering. There aren’t any neighbors at the moment, of course. But still. “In the sunroom,” I add.
He nods like a bobble-head doll. He’d agree to meet me in Hades right now if it’d get me out of Louisa Rawlings’s boudoir. He throws his long legs over the side of the bed farthest from me, careful to keep the sheets pulled up above his hips.
“And Kydd.”
“What?” He twists back toward me, then jumps up and does a little dance behind the sheets. He really did drop his cigarette this time. “What?” he repeats.
“Don’t forget your goddamned pants.”
“Are you out of your mind, Kydd?” I slam the sunroom doors and don’t wait for an answer. It’s pretty clear that he is. “She’s a client, for Christ’s sake.”
“But she won’t be,” he says. “Not after today.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.” I don’t normally hiss, but it comes naturally at the moment.
The Kydd’s wearing faded blue jeans and a short-sleeved under-shirt. He’s barefoot and beltless. “Marty,” he says, his tone suggesting this is nothing more than a minor misunderstanding, “Louisa didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s death.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“This is your professional opinion?”
“It is,” he says, his grin not nearly sheepish enough.
I throw my hands in the air.
“Marty,” he tries again, “she didn’t. And it’s obvious she didn’t. Mitch Walker will see that as soon as he talks with her this morning. That will be the end of this whole damned thing. She won’t be a client anymore.”
The sunroom doors open. Enter Louisa, elegant as ever, even with wet hair. She’s in a pale blue dressing gown—satin. It hangs to her ankles, clings to each curve along the way. “Marty,” she says, sounding genuinely happy to see me. “Good morning.”
Good morning? Has the world gone tilt?
“Oh,” she says, looking from the unshaven, almost-dressed Kydd to me. She seems to recall—slowly—the connection between the two of us. “Oh, dear,” she adds after a pause. “This is awkward.”
“No,” I tell her. “We passed awkward a long time ago, Louisa.”
The doorbell. This is swell. With any luck it’s a delegation from the Board of Bar Overseers, preferably with a Cape Cod Times reporter in tow. A photographer would add a nice touch too. This is a Kodak moment if ever there was one.