Detective Defender. Marilyn Pappano
pretty, smiling, well-nourished, blue-eyed blonde shouldn’t have a thing in common with the underweight, hard-worn, weary woman they’d seen in the cemetery this morning, but he had no doubt they were one and the same.
Murphy knew, too, but he still offered his cell phone to Martine. She glanced at the picture—quickly the first time, as if afraid there might be damage she didn’t want to have in her mind, then for a still quiet moment. Shivering, she held her hands to her coffee mug before lifting it for a drink.
“Her name is Paulina Adams. We grew up together in Marquitta. She called yesterday afternoon and asked to meet me by the river.” Her voice sounded hollow and distant, making its way through a thick haze of shock and emotion and guilt and sorrow. Jimmy had heard that voice a hundred times from a hundred different people, when he broke the news that someone they loved had died. God, he hated that part of the job. Today, because it was Martine, he hated it even more.
“Did you meet her?” Murphy asked. Of course she did. Jimmy wouldn’t even have asked.
“She, um...she looked like she’d been having a tough time. She was frightened. She said...” Her breath sounded loud in the room. “She thought someone was trying to kill her. I thought she was being paranoid. But I guess it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you, right?” Her smile was faint and sickly and slid away faster than it had formed.
With prompting from Murphy—a lot of it; the hesitations and pauses started long and got longer—she related the conversation with Paulina. Paulie, she’d called her, and in return Paulina had called her Tine. After a time, she fell silent, locking gazes with Murphy. “How did she die?”
Death notifications were Jimmy’s least favorite part of the job, and definitely the least favorite part of that job was answering questions like that. No one wanted to hear that their sixteen-year-old daughter was raped before she was murdered, or that their elderly father had been beaten with a baseball bat by the thugs who broke into his house. Certainly Martine did not want to know that her friend’s heart had been cut from her chest.
“We’re waiting for the autopsy report,” Murphy said gently. All cops, no matter how tough or gruff or abrupt, had a gentle side—even Jimmy himself. Granted, the only people who ever saw his were the victims and the officers he worked with. Martine couldn’t see anything when she pretty much pretended he didn’t exist.
“Why would someone want to kill Paulina?” he asked, part curiosity, part to remind her that he did exist.
Martine breathed deeply, her fingers running along the edge of the storage bin in a slow back and forth pattern. Her nails were painted dark red, and heavy silver rings gave an elegant look to her hand. Those hands could perform magic. He’d felt it for himself that last night, when everything had been full of promise. He didn't know even now what he had expected at the time—a few hours, a few dates, maybe even something serious—but what he'd gotten was rejection and her never-ending scorn. Most of the time, he was okay with that. Most of the time, he provoked her just because he could. But sometimes he caught himself wondering what if...
Realizing he was watching her, she stopped the rubbing and clasped her hands. “I don’t know. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen her in twenty-four years.”
“But you were best friends.”
“Were,” she repeated for emphasis. “In school.”
“What happened?”
Again she drew a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to imply her annoyance at being questioned by him or if she was using the time to figure out the right answer. Right answers never needed figuring. The truth came easier to most people than evasions or lies.
“We were kids. We went to the same school, the same church, had the same interests. Then we graduated and...things changed. We changed. The ones who went to college went elsewhere. The ones who didn’t moved elsewhere, too. We wanted to see what the world had to offer, and we lost touch after a while.” A narrow line creased her forehead. “Are you still in touch with your best bud from high school?”
“I am. I introduced him to his wife. His kids call me Uncle Jimmy.”
The crease deepened into a scowl. “Of course they do.” Snideness sharpened her tone. “Most of us move on after high school. We all found new lives and new friends.”
“And yet when Paulina was having a tough time, when she thought someone was going to kill her, she came to you, someone she hadn’t seen in twenty-four years. Doesn’t that seem odd? That she wouldn’t go to one of those new friends you all replaced each other with?”
Martine’s face flushed, giving her the first real color he’d seen since she’d found them at her door. Anger? Embarrassment that she didn’t have an answer for a perfectly reasonable question? Guilt that if she wasn’t outright lying, she was at least not being entirely truthful?
He had to give her credit: she didn’t shove back from the table, pace around the room or throw him out of her house. He’d watched plenty of people do all three. He’d even been on the receiving end of a few punches in the process of being thrown out. No, Martine might have surpassed the limits of her tolerance for him, but she retained control.
“I don’t know where Pauline’s new life and new friends are,” she said, a clenched sound to her words. “I don’t know where she went after school, what she did, how she lived, whether she married or had children, if she kept in touch with her family or anyone else. No one could have been more surprised than I was when I heard her voice on the phone, or when I saw her, or when she ran off into the fog. We were friends a lifetime ago, but after twenty-four years, she’s as much a stranger to me as she is to you. I’d have better luck coming up with suspects who want you dead than Paulina.”
If the conversation hadn’t been so serious, he might have laughed at that. He’d been a cop for eighteen years. Everyone could come up with a list of people who wanted him dead.
She slid her chair back and stood, replaced the picture in the bin and closed the lid. “I have to get ready to open the shop, and I need time to...”
Jimmy silently completed the sentence for her: grieve over a stranger who’d once meant the world to her. He needed time to figure out whether he believed everything—or even anything—she’d told them. His first two questions for himself after an interview were Did she lie? and Why? He wasn’t looking forward to telling Murphy he believed his wife’s best friend had lied.
Murphy made the small talk to get them out the door—thanks, sorry, take care—then they took the stairs in silence. The street was just as empty of life as it had been when they came.
Murphy started the engine and turned the heat to high before thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Notice how she just happened to have that box on the table? The yearbooks were inside there, too. A lot of pictures, souvenirs, old cards. Seeing Paulina yesterday upset her more than she wanted to show.”
“Maybe she was wondering how Paulina went from that kid at the prom to that woman on your phone. Or maybe seeing her made her nostalgic for the good old days.”
Murphy snorted. “I know you didn’t miss the fact that she wasn’t telling us everything, so don’t make excuses. I love Martine, but I’m not here because she’s my kids’ godmother. My job is to find who killed Paulina and why.”
“But you can’t forget that she’s your kids’ godmother, can you, and that makes the job harder. Evie and the kids would never forgive you if you treated her like a suspect or an uncooperative witness.”
“Hey, I can be tough,” Murphy said in self-defense. “I once handcuffed Evie and took her to jail.”
“Yeah, and you’ll never do that again, will you?” That arrest had been the end of their relationship the first time around. Once Murphy realized he’d been duped, he’d had to solve a few murders, arrest a few corrupt feds and grovel like hell to get back into Evie’s life. In Jimmy’s opinion, that was a hell of a lot of work