Joyce Sullivan - In His Wife's Name

Luke laughed dryly. Samantha stopping chewing on her biscuit at the deep unfamiliar sound and looked at him in sudden interest, her delicate bow-shaped brows lifting as if questioning what her mother was doing conversing with this strange man in their home. Luke gave her an amused grin.

“She’s a cutie. How old is she?”

“Almost ten months.”

“She’s walking early. My brother’s kids were closer to a year old when they started walking. His son could crawl up bookcases and cabinets.”

“Thankfully Samantha isn’t that adventurous. She never quite got the hang of crawling, but I think her natural curiosity to touch things out of her arm’s reach propelled her into standing, then walking. She loves brightly colored objects, especially flowers. Right, baby?”

Eyes gleaming, Samantha gave her mother and Luke a coquettish smile.

Luke laughed. “I’ll bet she just likes mischief. With a smile like that, she’s going to break a lot of hearts when she hits high school,” he predicted.

“You think?” Mary laughed and playfully dabbed at a splotch of drool on her daughter’s chin. “I hope she has more teeth by the time she hits high school.”

Luke took a stab at shifting the conversation to the more personal. “Did you go to high school here in Blossom Valley? Place doesn’t look big enough to have a high school.”

“There’s a high school in one of the nearby towns.”

Luke kept his smile steady despite the way she’d sidestepped his question. Again. “I’ll bet you got all A’s in art class. Is that where you learned to paint—in high school? Or did you major in art at university?”

“Actually I taught myself to paint from books and magazines, then took a few craft classes. I was an administrative assistant before I decided to turn my hobby into a business. I have to say I much prefer being my own boss to being someone else’s gofer.”

“What kind of company did you work for?”

“The government,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand as if all government offices were the same. “It gave me a whole new perspective on office politics. Though I miss the regular paycheck. That’s one thing you might want to keep in mind if you’re going into business for yourself,” she said pointedly.

“There’s that,” he agreed. “I guess I’d miss my soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law and the rest of his crew. It must be isolating working for yourself.” Luke took a sip of water, deliberately waiting to see if Mary picked up the thread and carried the conversation. Perhaps mention the department where she’d worked or the names of co-workers she missed or still kept in touch with. Anything that might help him confirm her identity.

Usually if you waited long enough, people felt obligated to fill silences.

And Luke was vitally aware that this Mary might have the answers that would fill the yawning silence in his heart. His gaze settled on her expectantly.

She moistened her lips. “I’m too busy to feel isolated. Taking care of Samantha and keeping up with orders keeps me on my toes. Speaking of orders, what hours are you available tomorrow?” she asked, rocking the baby on her hip. Dropping her gaze, she pulled a pencil from a jar, her expression all business as she examined the day planner open on the table.

She’d changed the subject so effectively Luke realized he couldn’t push the topic any further today without raising her suspicions. But while he might have surrendered this minor skirmish, he wasn’t going to lose the war. As Mary penciled in a four-hour shift on the calendar for the next day, he promised himself that someday soon, whether she liked it or not, he’d be downright intimate with her personal history.

BILL OAKES WAS HOME when Luke rang the bell beneath the faded sign reading Shady Pines Resort, Management. He was an elderly man with humped shoulders, elfin ears and a cheek-splitting grin that declared life still agreed with him. Or else he was showing off thousands of dollars worth of dentures, Luke mused.

The resort caretaker’s shrewd brown eyes assessed Luke as he explained his desire to rent a cottage for two weeks and gave Mary Calder’s name as a reference. “She’s hired me to do some woodworking for her.”

Bill Oakes nodded. “Mary’s a nice girl. She re-painted my butterflies for me.” He gestured at five vibrantly painted wooden butterflies that looked as if they had just alighted on the blue siding of his residence. “My wife—God rest her soul—bought those for the cottage years ago. They were looking faded. I’m not good with paints and such, but Mary offered to do them for me. Didn’t charge me a cent.”

“She did a wonderful job,” Luke said. “Has she been your tenant long?”

“Oh, let’s see…A year ago last April. It was right after her husband died. She needed a change, what with the baby coming and all.”

Luke quickly computed the dates. Mary had been murdered in March of that year, on St. Patrick’s Day. “Yes, she mentioned he’d died and that she wasn’t from this area originally,” he murmured conversationally, grateful that Mary had suggested there might be a cottage available for rent at the resort. Renting here could provide him with additional opportunities to find out more about the woman with his wife’s name.

“She’s got a mother and an aunt in the East, I believe,” Bill Oakes said, withdrawing a ring of keys from his pocket. “Now I do have a couple of cottages available for weekly or monthly arrangements. One’s a lot nicer than the other. Come on, I’ll give you a tour. We’ve got our own private beach.”

Luke waited for Bill Oakes to lock the front door, then walked with the elderly gentleman along a series of paths that wound from one lot to the next. Glimpses of Kettle Lake were visible through the trees, diamonds of sunlight dancing across its blue waters. Regaling Luke with tales of his six siblings, their children and grandchildren, Bill Oakes extolled the virtues of Shady Pine’s sandy beach, then showed him the two available cottages.

Luke chose the smaller of the cottages, a drab decaying structure that boasted one bedroom the size of a janitor’s closet and indoor plumbing. The furnishings smelled musty and damp, but it was a two-minute walk to Mary’s cottage. And Bill didn’t have any objection to his moving in that evening.

On his way to the motel to grab his luggage, Luke mulled over the two kernels of information that Oakes had given him about Mary: she might originally be from the East, and she’d arrived in Blossom Valley a couple of weeks after his wife’s murder. It wasn’t much to work with, but combined with Mary’s vagueness about her history and her coincidental resemblance to his wife, it opened the door wide to the possibility that there might be some connection between this woman and his wife’s murder.

Luke’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel as the unease that had lingered in his belly all day like an undigested meal rose sharply in his throat. Despite the steady wave of cool air blasting from the air conditioner, Luke broke out in a cold sweat. He’d arrested people from all walks of life and knew that almost anyone given enough motivation was capable of committing the most heinous of crimes. But the thought that this Mary Calder had been involved in such a brutal act sickened him. Slamming on the brakes, he pulled off the road and bounced onto the grassy shoulder of a peach orchard. A bell pinged repeatedly, reminding him he’d left his keys in the ignition as he climbed out of his rental car. He needed fresh air.

He gulped in two ragged breaths, then doubled over and vomited onto the freshly mown grass.

THE PHONE RANG at ten-thirty in the evening just as Mary was washing her paintbrushes. She’d finished the fine-detail work on the plant pokes and gotten a head start on the signs, but she was too tired to do more tonight. She quickly dried her hands on a paper towel and reached for the phone. Who could be calling her at this hour? Her mother and Aunt Jayne were in Halifax—in a time zone three hours ahead. And they always called from pay phones so Shannon’s number couldn’t show up on a phone bill.