Weaving his way through the notorious Friday afternoon rush traffic was always an exercise in frustration for Drayco. Even more so today, with that protest Sarg mentioned adding a slew of road closures and detours into the mix.
Drayco couldn’t tell what the protest was about from the glimpses of signs sporting the usual banner words, “justice, murder, action.” Different day, different battle, different players. Shades of the gray life in the nation’s capital—parades of protesters below and the incessant military helicopters above.
After what normally would be a half hour drive turned into ninety minutes, with “tinks” of occasional sleet on the windows and one cellphone call from Benny, Drayco finally pulled his blue Starfire in front of his brick townhome near Capitol Hill. The building didn’t have the terracotta trim and marble glitz of the Mayflower Hotel, but it was as welcome a sight as a five-star pleasure palace.
Ordinarily. As he drove up in front, his elderly neighbor was standing outside chatting with a younger woman whose blond hair was tied into a neat braid, almost camouflaged against her blond leather jacket.
The neighbor, Coraline Chapman, was hard of hearing, but her eagle eye cataloged all his comings and goings as well as his visitors. After he parked the car and climbed out, Coraline asked, “Is this your new girlfriend, Scott? It’s time you hooked up with someone different. I didn’t like the last one, the brunette. That one’s a hussy if I ever saw one.”
Nelia beat Drayco to the punch. “Just a colleague, Mrs. Chapman, I’m a Sheriff’s Deputy over on the Eastern Shore.”
“You know what they say. Cops should marry cops because they know what they’re getting. Fewer divorces that way.”
Drayco had patiently tried to explain to his neighbor the difference between cops, deputies, FBI agents, and consultants, but to her, they were all cops. Like Keds or Xerox or Coke. One generic name fits all.
Nelia didn’t smile at the older woman’s quip but did look in Drayco’s direction as she said it. A light mist enveloped them in a cold mesh of dense dampness, and when it started to sleet in earnest, Mrs. Chapman scurried inside her front door. Nelia and Drayco dashed into his place, welcoming the dry warmth from the wall radiators.
Drayco took her coat and laid it on a table above one of the radiators to dry off. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, Tyler. That is, so soon.” Tyler, Drayco. Always professional, just two colleagues hanging out together.
Nelia invited herself to grab a beer from his refrigerator and settled into the soft leather sofa across from the blue abstract painting on his wall. It was the same painting that matched what he saw when he listened to a Prokofiev piano sonata.
She propped her feet on the coffee table and took several swigs of the beer. He waited for her to say something, but she just stared at the painting and remained silent.
When her beer was half-drained, she finally said, “It seems we’re always apologizing to each other. But I should have told you about law school.”
He sat on a chair to her right, a bottle of his favorite Manhattan Special espresso soda in hand. “I didn’t peg you as insane.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he continued, “Law school, working for Benny, and sheriff-ing? God knows when you find time to do your coursework.”
“Georgetown has a part-time law degree. Most of my classes are at night during the week, and I get Fridays off. Sheriff Sailor’s letting me work half-time and managed to convince the county bean counters it was a good thing. He’s using the other half of my salary as a sort of time share to pay a new deputy, another woman. She just had a baby, so job share works well for her, too.”
“Still don’t see how you can do it all.”
“I already know a lot more than most first-year students.”
“How long will the degree take, then?”
“Four years, but it’s doable. If the back-and-forth commute doesn’t kill me first.”
“Well then, I’ll make that mostly insane.” He rubbed his chin. “Why now?”
She shrugged. “I guess it was all those cases I’ve worked where I couldn’t help anyone. Just arrest them. Or maybe it was your situation. With the review board.”
So perhaps her disapproval with him wasn’t as severe as he’d first thought. Then why no word from her all this time? Hell, he knew why. It was the five-ton pachyderm in the room. “What does Tim think?”
“Officially, he’s real rah-rah. Underneath, I think he resents the time away from him.”
“I could fly you over to save some of the commute time. Not sure Tim would like that idea.”
“He already thinks you and I are—”
“Yeah.”
Nelia looked around the room, then asked, “How’s Darcie these days?”
She was probably half-expecting to find more of Darcie’s lingerie lying around as she had on one occasion. Thankfully, Darcie had taken that red bow “outfit” from Valentine’s Day with her when she left. He replied, “Good. I mean, she’s fine. As in healthy. She’s very ... healthy.”
Nelia hid a smile, then exchanged the beer for her feet on the coffee table. “I was worried about you today.”
“Benny assures me the hearing will be a piece of ‘devil’s food.’ His words.”
“Not that. I mean, yes that, but your mother, too. I never wanted to pry. Yet I did wonder about her. How could any woman do it? Up and leave her family?” Nelia rested her arms on her thighs. “Does she know about your sister, about Casey’s death?”
“I spoke with her briefly. We didn’t get into personal details. Just the murder. She says she didn’t do it, by the way.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to believe her?”
Drayco looked at a web in one corner of the ceiling. What a lucky spider with only three goals in its little life—spin web, catch food, eat. “My father just wants her to disappear again, and part of me agrees with him.”
“But you’re going to investigate this, aren’t you?”
“I wish I could say no.” He raised his shoulders and tilted his neck until he heard a crack. He spied a bottle of aspirin on the table next to Nelia’s coat and got up to take a couple.
When he returned, she motioned him over to the sofa, and he sat beside her as she said, “Turn around, so your back is facing me.”
He complied and soon her hands were massaging his upper back and shoulders, expertly digging her thumbs into his sore muscles. He relaxed into her touch and closed his eyes. “God, you’re good.”
“Surely you’ve had massages before? Maybe a pre-concert massage?”
“None this nice.”
“Not even the violinist who seduced your virginity away from you?”
He’d almost forgotten he told her about that. Hard to forget her reply that it was technically statutory rape since he was sixteen and the violinist in her thirties. “That was a different kind of massage.”
Nelia’s hands finished with one knot on his right shoulder and then stopped. “That should help a little.”
He turned around to face her. “Has your husband hit you again?”
It was her turn to be tense, and he quickly added, “I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to mention that. Want another beer?” He hopped up without waiting for her answer and rummaged around in the fridge. “Here you go,” and handed the bottle to her.
There was safety in silence, and they sat within that safety zone for several minutes, marred only by the occasional swig from his espresso soda or her beer.
Nelia was the first to break the zone. “Benny filled me in on the details of the murder. As much as he knows right now, of course.”
“As much as any of us knows. He called my cellphone while I was in traffic to tell me the arraignment isn’t until Monday. Bail is looking like a no-go.”
“Hope I can be there. Will you?”
Drayco rubbed his forehead. “Probably not a great idea under the circumstances. You and Benny can be my stand-ins.”
She glanced at the painting again and shook her head. At his response or the painting? He didn’t have a chance to ask before she continued, “What struck me is how nearly impossible it would be for your mother to stab the victim hard enough to kill and not get any blood on her. Not even her shoes.”
“Unless she changed clothes.”
“They didn’t find any. And then to wait there meekly for the police to pick her up? She’s either a patsy or a criminal genius.”
Two equal possibilities, and the latter, in particular, he couldn’t ignore. Was this all a calculated plan to use an insanity defense? Was she counting on Brock or her son to rush to her aid as pawns in some elaborate scheme?
He deserved answers. And tomorrow he’d begin nailing them down one by one, starting with the victim’s estranged daughter and brother. The faster he could get a chance to interview some of the actors involved, the better. For Maura’s sake, Benny’s, and Sarg’s—before Halabi pulled out his leash.
Nelia stood. “I should go. To deal with some of that coursework you mentioned.”
He popped up to join her. “It’s a five-hour drive to Cape Unity.”
“But only a five-minute drive to the room I’m renting near campus. One of Tim’s friends is cutting me a break on the price.”
“Five minutes?”
“Um hmm.” She walked to the front of the room and grabbed her coat from the radiator. “I have a roommate. Gary.”
“Gary?” Drayco folded arms across his chest.
“He’s nice. Quiet. Studious. Handsome, too.”
She smiled at him as she opened the front door. Before disappearing, she added, “He’s gay.” And then she left.