“I don’t want a sick woman like that dictating what my life will be like,” Marshall said. He meant it, but he was also relieved. I could hardly blame him; I’d worked hard for what I had, too.
“Then there’s the trick-playing thing,” I went on after a calculated pause. “I can’t go on being scared every time I step out of my house that someone’s going to put something on my doorstep or leave something on my car. Maybe if we don’t see each other for a while, that’ll let up. If it’s the same person who’s playing tricks on Thea, it’s someone who has serious feelings about you; maybe he, or she, will let you know about those feelings if I’m not around. You can deal with it, and I’ll be clear of it.”
“I don’t know what to say, Lily,” Marshall said. “I don’t want to lose you now that we finally…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, and got to my feet, ignoring the reawakened pain in my side. “We’ll see each other in karate class, and here sometimes.” I left before Marshall had to think of something else to say.
As I drove home, I became aware that I was feeling something I hadn’t felt in years: disappointment.
No sooner had I turned the corner to Track Street than I saw the police car at the curb outside my house. Leaning against it was Claude Friedrich, as solid and immovable as if he had all the time in the world.
I made a sudden decision to go grocery shopping, and after checking the traffic behind me, I backed up before Friedrich could see me and reversed my direction in a convenient driveway. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, least of all the all-too-perceptive Friedrich.
I hadn’t been to the store without a list in years. Sunday is the day I usually cook ahead, and my little freezer was almost empty.
The last time I’d been in Kroger’s, I’d been shopping for myself and for the return of the Yorks… Hey, they’d never reimbursed me for the groceries, or for the work I’d done last Wednesday. I hated the thought of bothering them, knowing how devastated they were by the trial of their granddaughter’s assailant, but if they felt better to the extent of being able to take a walk, they could pay me.
I was trying to remember all the ingredients of my favorite tortilla casserole when a cart slammed into mine. I looked up sharply and realized the anger rolling around inside me had found an excellent focus, here to my left, wearing a modest shirtwaist dress and loafers.
The woman pushing the other cart was Thea Sedaka. Thea had bumped my cart on purpose; the stare she fixed on me aimed at contrite but never made it past loathing.
It had been a long time since I’d seen Thea this close. She was as pretty as ever. Tiny and small-boned, the future ex-Mrs. Sedaka has a sweet oval face outlined with shoulder-length dark hair cut to frame it perfectly. Thea had always made me feel like a hulking milkmaid to her dainty princess. I’d never known if the effect was intentional or a result of my own touchiness.
Now that I had the inside scoop on Thea’s character, I could see how she achieved my displacement. She looked up, far more than she actually needed to, to make me feel even taller, and she pushed her cart with a little frown, as if it was almost too heavy to manage.
Thea’s dark green dress was covered with teeny-weeny flowers in a sweet pink; nothing splashy or florid for Thea. She curled her lip at my workout clothes.
She guided her cart until she was at my side, right in the middle of the canned vegetables. I watched her lips curve in a venomous grin, and I knew she was about to say something she hoped would be painful.
So I beat her to the punch.
I leaned down to Thea and said with the widest smile I could stretch my lips into, “Drive past my house one more time and I’ll have Clause Friedrich arrest you.”
Thea’s expression was priceless. But she snapped back together quickly.
“Marshall is mine,” she hissed, reminding me vividly of my seventh-grade school play. “You’re trying to break up a happy marriage, you home-wrecker.”
“Not good enough,” I said. “You’d better warn Tom David to find another parking place.”
Once again, Thea was disconcerted. But being Thea, belle of Shakespeare, she rallied.
“If you’re the one leaving those awful things at my house”-and here she actually managed tiny tears- “please stop.” She said this just loudly enough for an older lady who was comparing soup cans to absorb her meaning and then eye me in horror.
“What things?” I asked blankly. “You poor little gal, has someone been leaving things on your doorstep? What did the police say?”
Thea turned red. Of course she hadn’t called the police; the police, in the person of Tom David Meiklejohn, had already been on hand.
“You know,” I said, with as much concern as I could muster, “I’m sure Claude would station someone outside your house all night if you think there’s a prowler.” The older woman gave me an approving nod and ventured down the aisle to compare the prices of tomato sauce.
I hadn’t said anything insincere in so long that it actually felt refreshing and creative.
Thea had to content herself with a low-voiced “I’ll get you” and a flounce as she laboriously pushed her cart toward the meat counter. A very weak finale.
I left the grocery store with several bags, and I managed to feel almost like myself when I got home.
Damned if the chief of police wasn’t still there. He’d just moved his car, probably to its parking space behind the apartments, but he’d returned his body to my carport. I pulled into my driveway and unlocked my trunk. I would not be kept out of my own home. Friedrich uncrossed his arms and sauntered over.
“What is it with you?” I asked. “Why do you keep turning up here? I didn’t do anything.”
“I might think I wasn’t welcome if I didn’t know better,” Friedrich rumbled. “Your face is looking a lot better. How’s the side?”
I unlocked my kitchen door and pitched in my purse and workout bag. I went back to the car for the first two bags of groceries. Friedrich wordlessly gathered the next two and followed me into the kitchen.
In silence, I put the cans away in the pantry, stowed the meat in the refrigerator, and slid the juice containers into the freezer of my side-by-side. When all that was done, when the bags were folded and put under the sink in their designated place, I sat down at my plain wooden table opposite Friedrich, who’d seated himself, and said, “What?”
“Tell me what you saw the night Pardon was killed.”
I looked down at my hands. I thought it over carefully. My goal in keeping quiet had been to keep the police from asking questions about my past. Well, Friedrich had done that anyway, and been too trusting of his subordinates; my past was out, and the results hadn’t been as dreadful as I’d always thought they would be. Or maybe I had changed.
If only Claude Friedrich was here to listen to me tell it, and I didn’t have to go down to the police station again, why not tell him the little I knew?
And maybe Marshall had spooked me a little, with his “woman who knows too much” scenario.
Friedrich was waiting patiently. I would feel much more comfortable in this big man’s presence if I had nothing to conceal; he would then drench me with his warm approval. My mouth went up at one corner in a sardonic grin. This ambience was undoubtedly what made Claude Friedrich such a good policeman.
“I’ll tell you what I saw, but it won’t make any difference,” I told him, making my decision abruptly. I looked him in the eyes and spread my hands flat on the table. “That’s why I didn’t see the need to tell you before.”
“It was you that called me that night, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was me. Partly because I didn’t want him to lie out there all night, but mostly because I was scared some kids might find him.”