“No, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I should check on her.”
“I’ve fixed her up a place in the sunroom. Less moving around that way. A few steps to the bathroom, a few steps to the fridge.”
The family room was a den on the other side of the kitchen, separated by the now ubiquitous breakfast bar. Hey, there’s another word I know, Lenhardt said to the woman who lingered in his head. “Ubiquitous.”
“Sergeant!” Nancy ’s voice squeaked with surprise. She was lying on a flowery sofa, a thin, summer-weight blanket covering her substantial bulk, the television on mute, a stack of paperbacks within easy reach.
“How you doing?”
“They say okay. It is what it is.”
What it was was toxemia, a potentially fatal condition for mother and unborn child, and Lenhardt was pretty sure that Nancy was scared to death, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to call her on her attitude. If she wanted to play strong for him, he was okay with that. A police should front for the boss.
“I can’t help feeling cheated. I counted on you working until the moment your water broke. I was looking forward to seeing how a pregnant woman functioned in interrogations.”
“You know they would have put me on desk work the moment I started showing.”
“Probably.” Lenhardt was tactful enough not to mention that Nancy, a big-boned girl, could have gone longer than most before that happened. “But you’re okay for now? And the kid’s okay?”
She nodded. “As far as we know.”
“And it’s a boy?”
“It’s a boy.”
“That’s good. Boys are…easier. Maybe because I’m a guy, but our boy seems awfully simple next to our girl.”
“Infante told me what you’re working on-murder in the girls’ room. You feeling kind of blue about teenage girls?”
Lenhardt hadn’t realized he was feeling blue, much less that someone might notice. “I don’t think I understand women of any age. I just talked to this teacher-young, younger than you. Swear to God, Nancy, I think she was coming on to me.”
“Ladies like you, Triple L.” That was Nancy ’s nickname for him, Triple L-Living Legend Lenhardt. “Did she touch your hand?”
“No.”
“Because if a woman touches you in any way-on the hand or arm-she definitely wants to sleep with you. That’s what women do.”
“Where do you learn this stuff? I mean, not just you. Women in general.”
“I could tell you-”
“But then you’d have to kill me, I know.”
“No. But if you knew all our secrets, you’d be even more irresistible, have more women chasing you. That’s not what you want.” A pause. “Right, Sarge? That’s not what you want?”
“I can barely handle the two I have.”
“Two?” She furrowed her brow, worried for him.
“Marcia and Jessica.”
They shared a laugh, but then Nancy started to hiccup, and Andy came in, a bottle of water clutched in his giant hands. Lenhardt let himself out, embarrassed that he had imposed on Nancy at such a time. She had too much on her mind to tend to his conscience.
But he had really wanted to know-not just where women learn such things but what he should do about his own daughter, how he could prepare her for this world without sheltering her from it. He didn’t want to think of his daughter in her twenties all but propositioning a married man old enough to be her father. He didn’t want to think about the man who might say yes.
What Lenhardt didn’t want to know was the truth about himself: If he could have gotten away with it, he would have. Under the right circumstances, if he could have had a fling with a girl like that and be assured he could never, ever get caught, he would have done it in a second. But Infante, with his two broken marriages-and, yes, marriage two was to the woman who broke marriage one-was proof that men did get caught.
And Infante wasn’t the only one who could smell crazy on a woman. There was more than a whiff of it on that teacher-not crazy-crazy, but romantic-crazy, the kind of girl who went in saying she knew the rules, and then, next thing you knew, she was calling your house, indifferent to caller ID. A woman like that claimed to be free and easy, but you paid in the end.
Still, if he could have gotten away with it-if there was some parallel universe where actions had no consequences-he would have. Wouldn’t anyone?
His phone rang, and he almost didn’t grab it. Probably Marcia, busting his balls for not making the swim meet. But he weakened and flipped it open, and the female voice that greeted his was refreshingly businesslike-Holly Varitek, the lab tech.
“Tell me something good,” he said.
“Can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything definitive. There are at least three sets of fingerprints on the gun, but I’ve only identified two.”
“Perri Kahn and Josie Patel,” he guessed.
“Yup. And not Kat Hartigan. We’ll have to bring the owner in, I guess.”
“What about-”
“Blood type on the tampon doesn’t match Perri, Josie, or Kat. But, fresh as it appeared to be, I can’t place it within a time frame that eliminates the very real possibility that someone else came in, did her business, and left. Sorry, Lenhardt, but it’s not like that damn television show, where a single pubic hair unlocks all the mysteries of the world.”
“I know. Problem is, juries expect it to be that way. So as long as that…that thing is floating around, it raises all sorts of questions without answering any. What do you think, Holly?”
“Sorry, you don’t pay me enough to think. And if you put me in front of a grand jury, all I could swear is that someone changed her tampon that morning.”
If I’d slept with that teacher, he thought, she would have told me the name. Maybe not the first time, but eventually.
When he got home, both Jessica and Marcia were giving him the silent treatment, which was infuriating. So he had missed the swim meet. It had been for work-at least, he thought it was for work when he headed out. And he hadn’t slept with her, had he? A young blonde had all but offered herself up, asking nothing more from him than help in moving a piece of furniture, and he had sent her on her way. A man was always getting in trouble for things he didn’t do, but he never got rewarded for the gauntlets he ran every day. Marcia might have him firmly in the debit column, but Lenhardt knew he had a million credits on his balance sheet.
Twelfth grade
33
Old Giff, as theater teacher Ted Gifford was known throughout the school, was not old, and his name was not Gifford. He had changed it legally at twenty-two, aware that the Polish surname he carried out of the western hills of Pennsylvania -Stolcyarcz-would never work for an actor. So he became Ted Gifford, a name designed to be so bland that casting directors would have no fixed idea of who he was or what he could play.