Point Of Departure

“Is that common?” Policzki said. “Hopping from agency to agency?”

“It’s not uncommon. An agent can sell real estate anywhere, but like anything else, it’s better to have the right fit.”

Policzki crossed the room and sat on the arm of the couch, uncomfortably close to her. “Where were you today, Ms. DeLucca?”

Another facet of Johnny Winslow’s legacy sprang to life in full Technicolor: rampant paranoia. “Excuse me?” she said. “Are you implying that I might have had something to do with this—this mess? Because if you are, Detective, I resent the implication.”

“It’s a routine question,” Abrams said. “You’re one of the most significant people in Kaye Winslow’s life. The homicide, and her disappearance, took place at one of your real estate listings. We have to ask.”

Mia raised her chin. “I was at a conference in Springfield. I left at six-thirty this morning and got back about a half hour ago.”

Policzki said, “Is there anybody who can confirm your whereabouts?”

Every time the young detective opened his mouth, she liked him a little less. Of their own volition, her fists clenched. Forcing them to relax, she snapped, “Just the hundred and fifty real estate agents who attended the seminar I ran from two to four this afternoon, ‘Maintaining Strong Sales in a Troubled Economy.’ I can give you a brochure if you don’t believe me.”

Abrams scribbled something on a notepad. Ignoring Mia’s sarcasm, she said, “If we need it, we’ll ask.” She dropped the pad into her briefcase and snapped it shut. Rising from the chair, she said, “Dr. Winslow, we’ll need a recent photo of your wife. A good, clear one.”

“Check the agency Web page,” Mia said. “You’ll find a recent photo.”

Policzki reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat, briefly flashing his service revolver in its underarm holster, and pulled out a couple of business cards and a pen. He handed one of the cards to Mia, then flipped over the second one and wrote the URL she gave him on the back.

“That’ll do for now,” Abrams said. “I trust you’ll both be available if we have any more questions.”

To Mia, it sounded vaguely like a threat. She glared at Abrams, then at her stone-faced partner. “So what happens next?”

“We keep doing what we’ve been doing, and hope we get a break. We’ll contact you if there’s anything you need to know. We’d appreciate you doing the same. If you think of anything, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem, please call. Oh, and one more thing. We’ll need you to make up a list of Kaye Winslow’s friends, coworkers, people she sees on a regular basis. Names, addresses, phone numbers if you have them. Everybody who’s a significant part of her life. We’d like it as soon as possible.”

Was there any end to the woman’s demands? Mia followed them to the front hall and held the door for them. Abrams breezed out without so much as a goodbye, but Policzki paused at the threshold. His eyes met Mia’s and stayed there for an instant. “Have a nice evening,” he said.

“Right,” Mia said. “You, too.”

And she slammed the door behind them.

The house seemed too quiet. Even the movement of traffic on nearby Tremont Street seemed hushed and distant. Sam returned to the living room, his footsteps silent on the Aubusson carpet. His coloring was ashen, his hair a mess from his habit of raking nervous fingers through it. “Can I get you a drink?” he offered. “Glass of wine? Something stronger? You look like you could use one.”

“That goes double for you,” Mia said. “Scotch, if you have it. What the hell is this all about, Sam?”

He moved to the bar, dropped ice from a bucket into a pair of squat glasses and poured two fingers of Glenlivet into them. Crossing the room, he handed one to her. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Who is this dead guy? Is there something going on that I don’t know about?”

He sat down across from her, in the chair that Lorna Abrams had used. “Of course not,” he said. But he didn’t meet her eyes, and Mia felt a flicker of fear.

“Sam?” she prodded.

He let out a long-suffering sigh and closed his eyes. “Fine,” he said, opening them again. “I might as well tell you. We had a terrible fight the other night.” Still avoiding her gaze, he lowered his chin to his chest and studied the movement of the ice cubes swirling around in his glass. “I said reprehensible things to her. Every one of them true, but still—” He raised the drink and knocked it back in a single swallow. “I didn’t tell them.”

“The cops? Why?”

His troubled eyes finally met hers. “There’s no sense in confusing the issue,” he stated. “I don’t want Abrams and Policzki wasting their time focusing on me. They need to find her.”

This wasn’t adding up. “Why would they focus on you?”

“Are you kidding? The husband’s always the first person they look at. And I don’t have an alibi for the time in question. If only I’d known she was going to disappear—” He choked back a laugh. “I could have managed to manufacture one.”

“Oh, Sam.”

Darkly, he said, “Good thing Mom never lived to see this day.”

Their mother had died far too young. Johnny Winslow had seen to that, and Mia still hated him for it. But Mom’s death had nothing to do with this situation. Bringing it up was Sam’s way of redirecting Mia’s attention.

“Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself,” she said.

“Damn right, I’m feeling sorry for myself! Yesterday, my life was rolling along the way it always does. Stale and boring and comfortably predictable. Now my wife is missing, she might have been involved in a homicide, and I can’t even tell the cops the truth for fear of tying a noose around my neck.”

“You don’t think her disappearance has anything to do with your fight?”

“I don’t know what the hell to think.”

“What was the fight about?”

He lifted clear blue eyes to hers. “Please. Allow me a little dignity. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”

“When was any fight ever pretty? But why keep it from the cops, if you don’t have anything to hide?” She gave her brother a long, considering look. “You don’t have anything to hide, do you?”

“For God’s sake, Mia. Don’t you know me better than that?”

She’d thought she did. But something wasn’t adding up here. Were there problems in the relationship? Issues she wasn’t aware of? She’d always believed that Kaye and Sam’s marriage was solid. Neither of them had given her any reason to believe anything else.

But now, he’d planted a seed of doubt. She wanted to prod, wanted to shake him if that’s what it took to get the truth out of him. But she knew her brother too well to push. If he’d thought it was any of her business, he would have told her. It would be pointless to pry. Instead, she asked, “Have you told Gracie yet?”

Sam shook his head. “She’s upstairs. I suppose I have to tell her something, don’t I?”

“Do you want me to do it?”

The ambivalence in his eyes told her he wanted to say yes. But to his credit, he shook his head again. “She’s my daughter. It’s my job. But thanks for offering.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Or, for that matter, what to do.” He rose from the chair, walked to the bar and poured himself a refill. This time, he didn’t bother with ice. “I have a job I need to get to tomorrow morning. Classes to teach. Exams to grade. The semester won’t grind to a halt because my wife has disappeared.”

For the first time, the enormity of the situation landed squarely on top of her. Mia set down her untouched glass. “I think you should tell the police about the fight,” she said. “Better they should hear it from you than from some loudmouthed neighbor.”

“How the hell do you propose I do that? Call Abrams up and tell her I forgot one tiny detail? That’ll go over big.”

“Abrams won’t be happy no matter how she hears it. But if she has to find out from someone else, it’ll make you look as if you’re trying to hide something. And they’ll waste precious time trying to prove that you had something to do with Kaye’s disappearance. Time they could spend on finding out what really happened. We don’t know who this dead man is. Or where Kaye is. If somebody’s taken her…” Mia paused, her own words sounding implausible “…there might not be much time.”

Gracie Lee Winslow was fat.

Kaye kept telling her it was all in her head, but Gracie knew the truth. She saw it every time she looked in the mirror. She was chunky. Hideous. In response to this catastrophe, Gracie had tried every diet under creation: Atkins, South Beach, low-fat, low-carb, grapefruit, watermelon, vegetarian and plain old starvation. She’d even tried that crazy Bible diet, the one where you only ate foods that were mentioned in the Bible. She’d joined an online chapter of Weight Watchers, had bought a totally gay workout video and exercised until she grew so weak she nearly passed out. She’d even given laxatives a try. But nothing she’d attempted had managed to change the reflection gazing back at her from the mirror. All she could see were her chipmunk cheeks, her pudgy belly that curved out instead of in, and the thunder thighs that rubbed together when she walked. Gracie hated her oversize nose, hated her frizzy hair, hated her snooty private school with its cliques of skinny girls with their perfect hair and their perfect faces and their perfect bodies and their perfect lives. She hated that her mom was dead, hated that her dad barely noticed she was alive. Hated everything about her wretched life.

Most of all, she hated her stepmother.

If Kaye had been a nicer person, Gracie might have been willing to tolerate her. But there was something about the woman that set her teeth on edge. Not that she didn’t understand why her dad had married Kaye. Like those perfect girls at school, her stepmother was drop-dead gorgeous. The woman exuded sex like a cloud of perfume. Pheromones. What man could resist? Even though it was beyond gross to imagine her dad having sex with Kaye, Gracie understood that he was a man, and men were all alike. They all wanted the same thing, and any woman who looked like Kaye Winslow would always have men groveling at her feet.

It made Gracie want to hurl.

For the last two years and seven months, her stepmother had been destroying her life. Like Casper the Friendly Ghost, Kaye tiptoed around the house, silently following Gracie from room to room, spying on her. Watching. Listening. Judging. Kaye had snooped in her bedroom while she was at school; she’d pawed through Gracie’s backpack, looking for God only knew what. She’d even gone through the call list on Gracie’s cell phone to find out who she’d been talking to. The bitch undoubtedly would have read all her e-mails, too, if Gracie hadn’t password protected her computer.

It was infuriating. At fifteen, she was entitled to her privacy. But Kaye was determined to know every move her stepdaughter made. Determined to turn over every rock and uncover every last one of Gracie’s secrets.

But if Kaye thought she held the upper hand, she had another thing coming, because Gracie wasn’t the only one with secrets. Her darling stepmother had more than her share, and the secrets Kaye held would blow her marriage right out of the water if Dad ever found out about them. Thanks to the floor register in her bedroom, Gracie had a front-row seat to everything that went on downstairs. All she had to do was roll back the Oriental carpet and lie on the floor, and she could see and hear everything through that register. Kaye was so damn stupid she didn’t even notice. Which meant that Gracie had accumulated a lot of dirt on her stepmother. A lot of dirt.

None of which meant diddly-squat compared to what she’d just heard. This was some serious shit.

When the cops had first come to the door, she’d freaked, afraid they were here about her. Afraid they knew what she’d done. But that hadn’t been it at all. Something had happened today, something bad. Kaye was missing, and a man was dead. There was talk of a gun. Murder. And Gracie had the sick feeling that she might have been the one to set all this in motion.

He was only supposed to follow Kaye. Find out where she went, who she saw, what she did when she was away from the house. Gracie’s directions to him had been very clear: Be discreet. Whatever you do, don’t let her know you’re following her.

Something had gone horribly wrong. Dad was downstairs right now, pacing the floor and drinking Glenlivet straight from the bottle. That wasn’t a good sign; Dad wasn’t much of a drinker, and that stuff tasted like crap. She knew how awful it was because she’d been taking the occasional nip since she was thirteen, since the day Dad first brought Kaye to the house and he’d looked at the woman that way. Like she was some piece of meat on a stick. That was the night Gracie’s life had started its downhill slide. It was also the first time she’d ever gotten shit-faced drunk. She’d woken up the next day with the mother of all hangovers, but at least she’d remembered to refill the bottle with water so nobody would notice how low the level of the liquid inside had dropped.

She flipped the carpet back over the floor register, went to her desk and logged on to her laptop. Please let him be online, she thought as she signed into AIM. Please, please, PLEASE let him be online. She typed in his screen name, then checked his availability.

AIM told her: Magnum357 is not currently signed on.

Gracie let out a hard breath as dread bottled up inside her chest. She swallowed a couple of times, just to make sure her throat still worked. She didn’t know any other way to reach him. They’d only started hanging out together a couple of months ago. She didn’t know where he lived, didn’t have his cell phone number. All she knew was his screen name—Magnum357—and his real name—Carlos—which, for all she knew, might not even be the real deal.

This was bad. This was really bad. If Dad found out she’d been seeing Carlos, who was definitely on the wrong side of twenty, not to mention dangerous, she’d be grounded for the next thirty years. And if the cops thought she knew something about Kaye’s disappearance—not that she did, but if they found out what she’d done it would make her look pretty damn guilty—she could go to jail. For a really long time.

This was a lose-lose situation, and guess who the loser would turn out to be? Sooner or later the truth would come out about what she’d asked Carlos to do. When it did, the shit would hit the fan.

And at that point, no matter how you looked at it, she was toast.

Four

“You got in late last night.”

Doug Policzki stood in a square of morning sunlight, his gaze focused intently on the shiny stainless toaster as he awaited the arrival of two perfectly browned squares of whole wheat bread. “New case,” he said. The toaster popped. He pulled out his toast, tossed his necktie over his shoulder to keep it clean, and picked up the butter knife.

“When you gonna get a chance to mow the lawn? It’s starting to look like Wild Kingdom.”

Policzki opened the dishwasher and dropped the butter knife into the basket. “I don’t know,” he said. “This is a complicated case. It’ll probably suck up a lot of my time.”

“They’re all complicated.”

He felt a twinge of guilt. His mother was right. From earliest childhood, he’d been made to understand that his primary obligation was to the people who’d raised and nurtured him and tried to mold him into a civilized and decent human being. And he’d been a dutiful son; after his dad died, he’d moved back home to take care of his mother. But over the last year or two, he’d been increasingly remiss in those duties. The truth was that homicide took up most of his waking hours. And it was hardly fair to his mother that he always seemed to place her lower on his list of priorities than the dead bodies of strangers.

“Maybe Bernie could do it,” he suggested. “Or one of the boys.” His oldest sister, Debbie, and her husband, Bernie, lived three houses down and had a new lawnmower and two strapping teenage sons, neither of whom ever lifted a finger to help out their grandmother. Under the circumstances, one of them should jump into the breach before the lawn reached shoulder height.

Sounding exasperated, Linda Policzki said, “Doesn’t it ever bother you?”

Policzki shot her a quizzical glance before he sliced the toast in half with a quick incision from corner to corner. “You mean Wild Kingdom?”

“Oh, for the love of all that’s holy. I’m not talking about the lawn!” His mother’s strong and capable hands momentarily stopped kneading the meat loaf she was preparing for dinner, and she gave him the evil eye. Which wasn’t good news. Strong men had been known to weep when Linda Policzki turned the evil eye on them. “I’m talking,” she said, “about the fact that all the people you meet are dead.”

“Oh.” He relaxed a little and leaned against the counter. “I meet live people all the time.” He punctuated his sentence with a bite of toast.

His mother snorted. “Right,” she said. “Cops and murderers.”

“And lawyers, and judges, and—” he took another bite of toast, briefly considered the lovely and sophisticated Mia DeLucca, who’d looked at him last night as if he were the lowest form of pond scum “—other people.”

“All that talk of autopsies must make for scintillating dinner conversation.”

“They’re my colleagues, Ma. These are professional relationships. We don’t do dinner.”

Linda went back to kneading, pouring all her energies into a meal he likely wouldn’t be here to eat. Guilt gnawed at him. That was probably why she did it. She wanted him to feel guilty. It was what kept her going. His mother needed something to complain about, and she’d been blessed with a son who always managed to excel at filling that need.

It was nice to know that he excelled at something, but he wished fervently that she’d find somebody else to focus on. Anybody else. He had three sisters. Why couldn’t she meddle in their lives for a change? All of them were married and, between them, they’d given her seven grandchildren. Managing the lives of seven kids should be more than enough to keep her busy. Especially Jake and Jesse, who could definitely use a little more management. Deb and Bernie were both lawyers, which meant that the boys had been raised by a series of housekeepers. Which was pretty much the equivalent of being raised by a pack of wolves. There’d been little structure and less discipline. Jake and Jesse could undoubtedly benefit from a little of Gram’s influence.

But no dice. Linda Policzki had apparently decided her mission in life was to focus all her attention, all her energy, on her youngest child and only son.

A few months ago, he’d tried to convince his mother to take a cruise. Fantasies of a shipboard romance had played in his head like an old-fashioned movie reel: Linda meeting up with some lonely widower and being swept off her feet. Then traipsing around the world on a once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon. He could picture his mother backpacking through the rugged terrain of the Himalayas or riding a camel across the desert. The woman was as solid and invincible as concrete.

He’d brought home a stack of brochures. He’d even gone so far as to offer to pay for her ticket. But she’d laughed at him. He needed her here, she’d said, and that had been that.

Policzki had a suspicion that somebody had gotten a raw deal. He’d moved back home to take care of his widowed mother, but it seemed that more and more, it was his mother who was taking care of him. Whether he wanted her to or not. He wasn’t sure which of them had gotten the short end of that stick. But one of them surely had. And he’d begun to wonder if, when his sisters had ganged up on him and practically begged him to move back home, that had been their intent all along.

Without looking up from the meat loaf she was spooning into a baking pan, his mother said, “I need a favor.”

Policzki froze, his morning cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. This could mean only one thing. He could feel it coming, could feel the change in the air, like the stillness before a storm. An electrical charge that hadn’t been there a moment ago. No, he screamed silently. Please. Don’t say the words. Don’t do this to me.

But it was too late. “Brenda Petrucci’s niece is visiting,” she said. “Melissa. She’s never been to Boston before. Brenda says she’s a nice girl, maybe a little backward socially, considering that she was raised on a farm in Iowa. She just graduated from veterinary school, and since Brenda doesn’t know anybody else who’s Melissa’s age, I told her you’d be happy to show her the town.”

He closed his eyes. Sighed. “Ma,” he said.

“What?” She carried her mixing bowl to the sink and filled it with hot water. “You’re too good now to do a favor for my oldest and dearest friend?”

“You know it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“You have to stop playing matchmaker. I’m fully capable of finding my own women.”

“I’m not playing matchmaker. I’m just trying to help out a friend. I asked your sister to invite her over for dinner. Maybe that’s matchmaking, too?”

“Stop trying to confuse the issue. I can see right through you. I’m thirty years old. You have to stop treating me like I’m twelve.”

Linda washed her hands at the sink. Drying them on a dish towel, she said, “If you don’t want to do it, fine. Brenda will be disappointed, but she’ll understand.”

“I’m in the middle of a messy case. I have an unidentified corpse and a missing woman who’s probably either the perpetrator or the victim of a homicide. Even if I did manage to find a few free hours, what would I talk to this girl about? I don’t know a thing about veterinary medicine, and I highly doubt that she’s familiar with police procedure.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right. I’ll just tell Brenda you can’t do it.”

He closed his eyes, knowing he was defeated. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

“Thank you.” She tossed down the dish towel and took his face between her hands, and Policzki felt the noose tighten around his neck. “I’m not asking you to marry the girl. Just spend a little time with her. Get to know her. Show her a good time.”

He didn’t dare to ask just how far he was expected to go to ensure that Brenda Petrucci’s niece, the Iowa farm girl who’d just graduated from veterinary school, had a good time during her first visit to Boston. It was probably better if he didn’t ask. He might not like the answer.

But he’d do what his mother asked. It wouldn’t hurt to escort Brenda’s corn-fed niece to a play or two, maybe to the Museum of Fine Arts, or even on a harbor cruise. It would make his mother happy, and it would assuage his guilt about being derelict in his familial duties.

Policzki picked up his travel mug and kissed his mother on her smooth, scented cheek. “Tell Brenda that unless somebody else dies an untimely and violent death, I’ll be happy to show her niece the town. And I’ll call one of the boys about mowing the lawn. Oh, and don’t hold dinner for me tonight. I might not make it home.”

Her voice followed him out the door. “Am I supposed to be surprised by that?”

Sam Winslow unlocked the door to his office and flipped the light switch. The overhead fluorescents sputtered to life, casting harsh blue light over a cinder block room just big enough for his desk, a file cabinet, a narrow bookcase and a single straight-backed visitor’s chair painted a hideous mauve. Sam set a steaming cup of McDonald’s coffee on his desk, dropped the exam booklets he’d taken from his mailbox, and pulled the door closed behind him. He prayed that he’d managed the ten-second sprint from the department office to his cubicle without being seen. The story of the unidentified homicide victim and the missing Realtor had been front-page news this morning, and he’d fielded a half-dozen phone calls before breakfast. Reporters looking for an exclusive. Friends who’d heard the news and wanted to offer their support. The last thing he wanted was to socialize, and if he didn’t hide behind closed doors, Nikki Voisine, the newly hired French instructor, was bound to stop by with her own cup of coffee to get the rest of the story right from the horse’s mouth.