The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [70]
“I’m sorry, Detective, but Lieutenant Houlihan is currently unavailable.”
“Officer, you don’t understand. This is urgent, I mean urgent. I just drove up forty minutes from Bristol to make sure Houlihan gets the news. I need to speak with him.”
The officer wavered. Detective Beaumont leaned forward.
“Please. We think we may know where Jim Beckett is. I have to get word to Tess Williams or Lieutenant Difford immediately. Help me out here, Officer. Speed matters.”
She caved in with a sigh. “See that man standing over there? That’s Sergeant Wilcox. He’s in charge of the safe house. He can probably help you.”
“Sergeant Wilcox?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Thank you, Officer. You’ve been very helpful.”
EDITH SMOOTHED A hand over her old blue flannel shirt and tried not to shift too much on the front porch. Last night she’d received a call from Martha, stating that she would arrive first thing this morning—the poor woman had been driving all the way up from Florida over the last few days. That was Martha for you. At sixty years of age, the woman was as proud and independent as they came. She’d moved into the neighborhood only a few years earlier, but the first evening she’d knocked on Edith’s door and offered a pint of scotch. The two women had sat on Edith’s patio, opened the fifty-year-old bottle, discovered a mutual love of cigars, and spent two hours agreeing that there hadn’t been a decent president since Eisenhower.
Edith appreciated such relationships. She was too old for foo-fooing or fussiness. Most women her age started off talking about Jell-O salad and soon fled from the premises when Edith stared them straight in the eye and declared, “Who the hell cares about Jell-O? It’s the rapid proliferation of assault weapons that keeps me awake at night.”
She didn’t want platitudes or shoulder-shrugging. Everyone should say what they wanted. It saved time.
Martha spoke tersely. At times she could be imperious, but Edith figured that’s what came from living your whole life head and shoulders above the rest. Martha was tall, and that was an understatement. Of Swedish descent, she had her father’s impressive height and shoulders, though neither was so attractive on a woman.
Most men were too intimidated to come anywhere near a woman of Martha’s impressive bulk, but apparently she’d met an equally impressive Swede in her youth and before he’d died, they’d had one sizable blond son. Edith had never met the son. From the few things Martha had casually mentioned, he was a salesman of some kind and moved a lot. Martha didn’t see him often and generally didn’t go on and on about him the way some mothers did.
Edith appreciated that. Having spent all her life childless, she got impatient with endless stories about whose son was being promoted to what position and whose daughter was giving birth to how many grandchildren. Good Lord, the world was already overpopulated and overextending the earth’s resources. Didn’t people give the matter any thought?
An old brown Cadillac turned down the street like an unwieldy boat. Martha had arrived. Minutes later Edith was pumping her neighbor’s hand vigorously.
“Lord, Florida was good for you!” Martha’s faded blond hair had lightened to a snowy white, which looked natural with her sun-darkened skin. It had been years since they’d last seen each other, but after one glance Edith could tell that Martha was Martha. She still had the same startling blue eyes and smooth complexion; Swedes aged so nicely. Martha’s taste in clothes hadn’t changed either. Today she sported a huge pair of brown polyester pants and a man’s oversize red flannel shirt. A wide-brimmed straw hat perched precariously on her head, smashed there at the last minute.
Martha patted her generous waistline. “The food was too good,” she drawled huskily, her voice still carrying a hint of Swedish mountains. “But the weather was too hot. I missed snow.”
Edith shook her hand again. “It’s good to have you back,” she repeated. And it was good. She tried to pretend she didn’t see things. She tried to pretend she didn’t feel things.