The Widow's Secret

“Oh-ho, tetchy today, eh? Fair enough. Now that you mention it, you do look frayed a bit around the edges. Here—Tenner! Fetch Sergeant Whitlock. We got our own gen-yoo-ine agent from the Treasury Department back in town. Fill him in, and let’s watch how fast he hightails it over to the widow Tremayne’s.”

Micah tied the livery horse to a post three houses down from Jocelyn’s home, then checked the time. Seventeen minutes. He’d driven the buggy with imprudent haste through a maze of narrow streets, dodged two streetcars, an oncoming freight train, and clipped the wheel on a curb when he took a corner too fast on the edge of Monroe Park. He’d planned to return to Richmond a week earlier, but duty, not to mention Chief Hazen, bound him with chains he could not afford to break. Sighing, he thrust the watch back in his pocket. Ah, yes. Duty.

Katya’s round face lit up like a harvest moon when she opened the door. But her gestures spoke of urgency as she bustled him into the front parlor.

“Hello, Katya. You’re looking fine.” When the maid rolled her eyes, Micah smiled a little. “It’s all right, I came from the police station. I know about the break-in. Is she home?” he asked, glancing around the room, noticing the absence of a pair of green glass paperweights with flower etchings that had been displayed on the doily-covered table next to the window. A colorful urn in the foyer that had boasted several peacock feathers was also gone.

He started to say something else, but the words drained out of his head when Jocelyn appeared between the fringed draperies lining the entrance to the parlor. “Mrs. Tremayne.”

“Operative MacKenzie.”

She hovered, seemingly uncertain about whether to enter, or perhaps flee up the staircase. Her reception was so contrary to Micah’s expectations that for a moment he floundered in his own swamp of indecision. Then he looked more closely into her eyes and realized that her lack of warmth stemmed from causes other than himself. “I believe we agreed that ‘Mister’ is less official-sounding. What’s happened, besides your home being vandalized?”

“Oh…I’d forgotten. How did you know?”

With a wry look, he gestured to his wrinkled, travel-worn attire. “I went from the train station to the police station to your house as fast as I could. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. Katya’s back to looking anxious, and you’re looking—” he reeled in the words dancing indiscriminately on his tongue “—subdued,” he finished, and behind him Katya stomped the floor.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jocelyn said, waving a limp hand at her maid. “There’s nobody else I can ask….”

Micah waited, but when she didn’t elaborate, and a backward glance at the maid revealed her frantically writing in her tablet, he went with instinct. “Here.” He placed his hand under her elbow, exulting in the feel of her despite the alarming fragility that hovered all around her. “Come and sit down. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Anywhere you like.” He sat her down on one end of the luxurious sofa, and commandeered the other end for himself. “Perhaps…what happened the other night? The police report indicated that you weren’t home, so the only damage was to some of your possessions.” And he thanked God for it, though not aloud.

Jocelyn shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about that, not right now.”

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