Tess Gerritsen - The Mephisto Club

“Okay, Mom,” sighed Jane. “What did Dad do?”

“You won’t hear it from me.”

“Then who am I going to hear it from?”

“I won’t poison my children against their father. It’s not right for parents to bad-mouth each other.”

“I’m not a kid anymore. I need to know what’s going on.”

But Angela did not offer an explanation. She continued to rock back and forth, hugging the baby. Regina looked more and more desperate to escape.

“Um…how long do you think you’ll be with us, Mom?”

“I don’t know.”

Jane looked up at Gabriel, who’d been wise enough so far to stay out of the conversation. She saw the same flash of panic in his eyes.

“I might need to find a new place to live,” said Angela. “My own apartment.”

“Wait, Mom. You’re not saying you’re never going back.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m going to make a new life, Janie.” She looked at her daughter, her chin jutting up in defiance. “Other women do it. They leave their husbands and they do just fine. We don’t need them. We can survive all by ourselves.”

“Mom, you don’t have a job.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past thirty-seven years? Cooking and cleaning for that man ? You think he ever appreciated it? Just comes home and gulps down what I put in front of him. Doesn’t taste the care that goes into it. You know how many people have told me I should open up a restaurant?”

Actually, thought Jane, it’d be a great restaurant. But she wasn’t about to say anything to encourage this insanity.

“So don’t ever say to me, You don’t have a job. My job was to take care of that man, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. I might as well do the same work and get paid.” She hugged Regina with renewed vigor and the baby let out a squawk of protest. “I’ll stay with you only a little while. I’ll sleep in the baby’s room. On the floor is perfectly okay with me. And I’ll watch her when you two go to work. It takes a village, you know.”

“All right, Mom.” Jane sighed and crossed to the telephone. “If you won’t tell me what’s going on, maybe Dad will.”

“What are you doing?”

“Calling him. I bet he’s all ready to apologize.” I bet he’s hungry and wants his personal chef back. She picked up the receiver and dialed.

“Don’t even bother,” said Angela.

The phone rang once, twice.

“I’m telling you, he won’t answer. He’s not even there.”

“Well, where is he?” asked Jane.

“He’s at her house.”

Jane froze as the phone in her parents’ home rang and rang unanswered. Slowly she hung up and turned to face her mother. “Whose house?”

“Hers. The slut’s.”

“Jesus, Ma.”

“Jesus has nothing to do with it.” Angela took in a sudden gulp of air and her throat clamped down on a sob. She rocked forward, Regina clutched to her chest.

“Dad’s seeing another woman?”

Wordlessly, Angela nodded. Lifted her hand up to wipe her face.

“Who? Who’s he seeing?” Jane sat down to look her mother in the eye. “Mom, who is she?”

“At work…” Angela whispered.

“But he works with a bunch of old guys.”

“She’s new. She-she’s”-Angela’s voice suddenly broke-“ younger. ”

The phone rang.

Angela’s head shot up. “I won’t talk to him. You tell him that.”

Jane glanced at the number on the digital readout, but she didn’t recognize it. Maybe it was her dad calling. Maybe he was calling from her phone. The slut’s.

“Detective Rizzoli,” she snapped.

A pause, then, “Having a rough night, are you?”

And getting worse, she thought, recognizing the voice of Detective Darren Crowe.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Bad things. We’re up on Beacon Hill. You and Frost will want to get over here. I hate being the one to tell you about this, but-”

“Isn’t this your night?”

“This one belongs to all of us, Rizzoli.” Crowe sounded grimmer than she’d ever heard him, without a trace of his usual sarcasm. He said, quietly, “It’s one of ours.”

One of ours. A cop.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Eve Kassovitz.”

Jane couldn’t speak. She stood with her fingers growing numb around the telephone, thinking, I saw her only a few hours ago.

“Rizzoli?”

She cleared her throat. “Give me the address.”

When she hung up, she found that Gabriel had taken Regina into the other room, and Angela was now sitting with shoulders slumped, her arms sadly empty. “I’m sorry, Mom,” said Jane. “I have to go out.”

Angela gave a demoralized shrug. “Of course. You go.”

“We’ll talk when I get back.” She bent to kiss her mom’s cheek and saw up close Angela’s sagging skin, her drooping eyes. When did my mother get so old?

She buckled on her weapon and pulled her coat out of the closet. As she buttoned up, she heard Gabriel say, “This is pretty bad timing.”

She turned to look at him. What happens when I get old, like my mom? Will you leave me for a younger woman, too? “I could be gone awhile,” she said. “Don’t wait up.”

Maura stepped out of her Lexus and her boots crunched on rime-glazed pavement, cracking through ice as brittle as glass. Snow that had melted during the warmer daylight hours had been flash-frozen again in the brutally cold wind that had kicked up at nightfall, and in the multiple flashes from cruiser lights, every surface gleamed, slick and dangerous. She saw a cop skate his way along the sidewalk, arms windmilling for balance, and saw the CSU van skid sideways as it braked, barely kissing the rear bumper of a parked cruiser.

“Watch your step there, Doc,” a patrolman called out from across the street. “Already had one officer go down on the ice tonight. Think he mighta broke his wrist.”

“Someone should salt this road.”

“Yeah.” He gave a grunt. “ Someone should. Since the city sure ain’t keeping up with the job tonight.”

“Where’s Detective Crowe?”

The cop waved a gloved hand toward the row of elegant town homes. “Number forty-one. It’s a few houses up the street. I can walk you there.”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” She paused as another cruiser rounded the corner and skidded up against the curb. She counted at least eight parked cruisers already clogging the narrow street.

“We’re going to need room for the morgue van to get through,” she said. “Do all these patrol cars really need to be here?”

“Yeah, they do,” the cop said. The tone of his voice made her turn to look at him. Lit by the strobe flashes of rack lights, his face was carved in bleak shadows. “We all need to be here. We owe it to her.”

Maura thought about the death scene on Christmas Eve, when Eve Kassovitz had stood doubled over in the street, retching into a snowbank. She remembered, too, how the patrol officers had snickered about the barfing girl detective. Now that detective was dead, and the snickers were silent, replaced by the grim respect due every police officer who has fallen.

The cop’s breath came out in an angry rush. “Her boyfriend, he’s one, too.”

“Another police officer?”

“Yeah. Help us get this perp, Doc.”

She nodded. “We will.” She started up the sidewalk, aware, suddenly, of all the eyes that must be watching her progress, all the officers who had surely taken note of her arrival. They knew her car; they all knew who she was. She saw nods of recognition among the shadowy figures who stood huddled together, their breaths steaming, like smokers gathered for a furtive round of cigarettes. They knew the grim purpose of her visit, just as they knew that any one of them might someday be the unfortunate object of her attention.