JULIA SCROLLED THROUGH apartment listings on her phone while she waited for Ray at the Starbucks the next day.
The last time she’d lived in an apartment, she’d been struggling through law school and an unplanned pregnancy as her husband, Michael, focused on the nascent newspaper career he’d later abandon in favor of the comparable low salary and infinitely better benefits of the military.
At the time, she’d paid scant attention to the apartment’s worn carpeting, its windows whose loose frames readily admitted the savage winter gusts howling out of the mountains, the stovetop with only three functioning burners, and the balky freezer that produced ice cubes with defiantly liquid interiors. But she’d shared it with Michael, falling exhausted—but never too exhausted—into bed with him after hours of studying, waking barely less exhausted but at least well loved and smiling because of it.
Until recently that apartment was the last place she’d thought herself happy. She’d moved into Beverly’s spacious Victorian when Michael was deployed and had lived there since, gradually becoming accustomed to a level of comfort well beyond what she could afford on her own, a fact that became painfully apparent as she looked at the offerings in her price range.
She’d had hazy images of finding a place in one of the older, refurbished homes near the center of town, a house like Beverly’s that had been divided into two or three units with high ceilings, tall windows, and maybe even a fireplace. Lots of charm with the added advantage that she could continue to walk to work and to Calvin’s school.
She found those listings quickly, and almost as quickly abandoned them. The most she could afford was a studio or one-bedroom, and of course, with Calvin, that wouldn’t do. She widened her search, and widened it again, ending up with listings on the far edges of town in buildings not much of an improvement over that long-ago apartment she’d shared with Michael. She’d have to get up half an hour earlier than her already zero-dark-thirty rising time in order to get Calvin to kindergarten, and they’d get home even later each evening—and there wouldn’t be a home-cooked meal courtesy of Beverly awaiting them.
She’d also lose the twice-weekly free evening babysitting that had allowed her semisurreptitious encounters with Dom while Elena worked her volunteer shift at the refugee center. Then she remembered that she and Dom were through and remembered why. Even in the anonymity of Starbucks, she ducked her head in embarrassment, as though the people waiting in line for their overpriced drinks had a way of divining her thoughts.
She looked at the time. Ray was late. Typical. She texted his Tracfone, using the familiar tone they’d adopted over the years. Dude. Where are you?
She went back to the rental website and looked again at the apartments closer to town, the ones with loads of character and little closet space, and recalculated her budget. If she cut out her daily coffee runs to Colombia—but no. She shuddered at the thought. Anyway, even the obscene annual amount she spent at the coffee shop wouldn’t give her the necessary budgetary breathing room.
“Christ.” A half hour had passed. She had to get back to work. She texted Ray again. One of us takes their commitments seriously. I’m going back to work.
She returned downtown, heading for the side street several blocks from the courthouse that offered free parking. It was enough out of the way that other downtown workers had either not discovered it or viewed it as not worth the extra effort. Claudette had tipped her off to it, so Julia wasn’t surprised to see her friend emerging from her own car as she drove up. She wondered what task had been sufficiently urgent to demand the attention of Claudette, a militant practitioner of working through lunch hour.
Claudette approached with quick, firm steps, her face set, tugging at Julia’s car door before Julia had even freed herself from her seat belt.
Julia lowered her window. “Didn’t your fancy new job come with a free parking space at the courthouse? And aren’t you the boss? Can’t you do something about that?”
Claudette just looked at her.
Julia glanced at the sky, checking to see if a cloud had just veiled the sun, something that would explain the chill icing her veins.
“I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“Oh God. Is Calvin—?” Julia couldn’t even form the question. She scrambled from the car. If anything had happened to her son … but the school would have called. Or Beverly. This had to be something to do with work.
She relaxed.
Too soon.
“It’s Ray.” Claudia grasped her by the elbow, as though bracing her against imminent collapse. “He’s been arrested again.”
Julia shook herself free. “Jesus, now what?” She tried to think of the dumbest thing Ray could have done—which, given Ray, would be monumentally foolish indeed. No matter what, he’d find himself back in jail, his freedom, albeit supervised, yanked away within twenty-four hours of being granted. How stupid could one man be?
“Did he go after, oh, let’s say the Girl Scouts? Maybe steal some boxes of cookies from their setup outside the supermarket? Please tell me he was at least dressed this time.”
Claudette didn’t crack a smile.
“He went back down to the creek last night.”
Okay, that was ill advised. He had no business going back to the scene of the crime, no matter who had committed it. This would play havoc with her defense. Maybe she’d kick the case to Tim Saunders after all.
She pressed her key fob. The car locks clicked. “Thanks for letting me know. I wonder how long it’ll be before the judge grants a release on recognizance for anyone again. So what did Ray do—allegedly—down there, anyway?”
Claudette’s hand was back on her elbow, her fingertips digging in through Julia’s heavy coat.
“What?”
“The woman known as Miss Mae. You know who I mean?”
“I met her the other day. See her on the street, you’d think she was a solid citizen.”
Claudette gave a grim chuckle. “That solid citizen has a helluva reputation. She rode the rails for years. Still did until fairly recently. Way I hear it, she was handy with a switchblade. Women out there alone don’t have an easy time of it, but word on the street was that nobody messed with Miss Mae.”
Julia tried to put her finger on something bothering her about Claudette’s biographical sketch. That was it. The past tense.
“Was handy?”
Claudette clutched her tighter still.
“They found her this morning. Bashed in the head, just like Billy Williams, only worse. Whoever attacked her left her naked in the snow. Maybe sexually assaulted her. You think Ray was in trouble before? That’s nothing compared to what he’s up against now.”