Jenna Ryan - Mistletoe and Murder

“Are you spoiled, too, Romana?”

“By my parents and my mother’s very Irish parents, yes. By my father’s mother, no. I’m Grandma Grey’s namesake, and she’s one tough cookie. She raises thoroughbreds in Kentucky. She’s putting one in the Derby next year. I have a great deal to live up to, in her eyes.”

“In what way?”

“Top of the list, I’m obliged to bear another namesake. My brother, Brendan, hoping to ease the pressure on me, named his first son Roman, but it didn’t work. Grandma Grey wants a girl. She came from a completely male-dominated world, and she’s hell-bent on flipping the status quo.”

“Huh. How did Grandma Grey feel about you becoming a cop?”

“Oh, she was fine with that. Didn’t agree with my college-age marriage, but she helped me get through the divorce and the repercussions of Connor’s unlawful activities relatively unscathed.”

“How did your ex come out of it?”

“The way a Hanson always does, with only a few surface scratches, and a huge family debt, which he’ll pay for the rest of his life.”

“You don’t sound very sympathetic.”

“I don’t, do I? But I’m not as resentful as you might think.” She played with the fingers of her white gloves. “It seemed like everything came to a head six years ago. Belinda Critch died and her husband tried to kill you. Connor’s crimes were discovered, the hospital and the police department were simultaneously roasted in the press, I started to realize that being a cop wasn’t what I wanted, and on and on and on. Before Critch even went to prison, I realized I couldn’t shut off my emotions, and I couldn’t push them down far enough on a daily basis to be a really effective officer. So I sat down and thought.”

“About your marriage or your career?”

“Both. I shouldn’t have married Connor, I knew that almost before the ceremony ended. But I was eighteen, and he was twenty-seven, and our mothers were college roommates, so I’ve known him for pretty much my whole life.”

“And he was charming and handsome, and he swept you off your feet.”

“This is my fairy tale, Knight. I’ll draw the characters.”

“But he was charming.”

“To an eighteen-year-old, yes. He was also handsome and insecure and a lot angrier than I realized.”

“Angry at his family?”

“Cigar’s yours, Detective. Getting back on track, I thought about the decisions I’d made, both marital and career. I even made a pro/con list. Topping the pro list was the fact that I’d graduated from high school at sixteen, so I already had three years of college under my belt when I entered the Academy.

Long story short, after a visit to Grandma Grey’s Kentucky ranch and a couple of really gruesome CSIs, I decided to go back to school. Now I teach kids rather than arrest them. So you see, it all turned out well in the end.”

“You like teaching, huh?”

“Love it.” She cocked her head, sent him a grin. “As it happens, I’m also good at it. When my parents moved to Boston two years ago, my father wanted me to come with them and work there. But I grew up in Cincinnati, five of my brothers are here, and I just plain enjoy the city. End of the Romana Grey story.” She let a teasing light enter her eyes. “That was a lot to say, Knight, even for me. Now I know you’re not a talker, but play fair, and tell me one small thing about your life. Anything will do, even your favorite color.”

When he braked for a red light, Jacob regarded a twinkling Christmas logo on the delivery truck ahead. “Belinda and I were involved for three months twelve years ago. It ended before she married Critch. The goodbyes were mutual.”

Surprised he’d taken that direction, Romana offered a casual, “Obviously you stayed friends.”

“We were never friends.”

“Then why did…?” She waved a glove. “Sorry, not my business.”

“And that’s going to stop you from asking?”

“I don’t pry. Well, not much.”

“Prying’s what we do.”

“Not on a personal level. I’ve always been fastidious about separating my career from my private life.” She summoned a sweet smile. “What did Critch’s parole officer have to say?”

His stare seemed to reach right into her head. When amusement tickled her throat, Romana went with it and gave her drying hair a final fluff.

“Weapons down, Knight. We’re not fighting a duel. This is a third-party threat, directed at both of us. My guess is Critch plans to pull the trigger on the twenty-first.”

“Don’t count on that.”

“Why not? It’s logical. That’s when his wife was killed.”

“And what he’ll expect us to think.” Jacob glanced in the rearview mirror. “Snow’s getting heavier. To answer your question, Critch’s parole officer is pissed off as hell that he’s lost one of his charges. He said he was going to report Critch in the morning. He did it tonight instead.”

Romana laughed. “You have such a persuasive way about you, Detective. Does he have any idea where Critch might be?”

“None that I could persuade him to share.”

“So we’re down to Critch’s family, his friends, maybe his teaching cronies.”

“And his theater buddies.”

“Critch was an actor?” She tried to form the image, but no matter how she sketched it, she couldn’t picture the lanky chemistry teacher with his sandy-blond hair and semirugged features on a stage. “I thought he was into nature and weird experiments. I read that he had an extensive lab in his basement.”

“Science lab in the basement, costume storage in the garage.”

“Huh. What kind of theater?”

“Local amateur stuff. I imagine Belinda got him into it. She belonged to a community arts club.”

“Really. That sounds so Rob and Laura Petrie, so suburban and, I don’t know, happy, I suppose.”

“Maybe they were happy.”

“Then why did she…?” The question that had almost slipped out earlier came close to slipping out again. With a sigh for the quirk of his lips, she finished it. “Okay, I’ll pry. Why did Belinda want to meet with you two days before she died? You weren’t friends, she might have been happy with her husband. What did she want from you?”

Jacob checked the mirror again. “She said she was being stalked.”

“I take it she didn’t know by whom.”

“She said she didn’t. That could have been the truth. Belinda flirted with men.” At her silent look, he added, “All men, Romana, not just your ex.”

“Go in another direction, okay? Belinda was being stalked. Could it have been by her husband?”

“It could have been by any number of people, with names known only to Belinda. She wouldn’t give me anything specific. She simply wanted to know how to obtain a restraining order.”

“And after you told her, she… What is it, Jacob?” Romana demanded when his eyes strayed to the mirror for a third time. “Is someone tailing us?”

“For the past two miles.”

“And you’re only telling me about it now?” She zeroed in on the headlights behind them. “So that’s why we’re zigzagging all over the city core.” She tried to gauge the distance, but it was difficult with the heavy snowfall. “I think he’s closing in.”

Jacob turned left, away from the busy downtown streets, toward Riverview Park. The vehicle behind them made the same turn.

They wove a path into an older part of the city. Tall, thin houses seemed to sprout straight out of the white-coated ground. Many of the windows were dark, a few were boarded up. Romana counted five Christmas trees in total, plus a trio of inflatable snowmen rocking in the wind.

In the middle of the street, a woman pulling a toboggan piled high with bags walked against the wind. Jacob swerved to avoid both her and a parked car. At the last minute, so did the vehicle behind them.