A Dark and Lonely Place (16 page)

The young man asked John not to go back there because his fiancée
was showering, but John did and drew his gun when he heard pounding that echoed like a pulse beat in his head. She lay unconscious on the tile floor, her hair wet, her pale skin glistening as the laughing trio took turns stomping her once-pretty face with their heavy boots.

He caught two, handcuffed them to a pipe, called for backup and rescue, then chased the third into the headlights of an arriving patrol car. He arrested all three but was sick that he hadn’t stopped them sooner.

Helen’s face was so swollen, her fiancé didn’t recognize her. Paramedics, convinced she was circling the drain, gave her little chance to survive. But after three months, she awoke from her coma and eventually returned home, her mind a blank, unable to recall the attack, and barely able to speak.

In the meantime, she’d become a cause célèbre. Photos of her battered, bandaged face ran on front pages beside photos of the lovely, fresh-faced young girl she would never be again.

The rookie cop who saved her from certain death became Officer of the Month and received awards from half a dozen organizations, most related to the hospitality industry. John never believed for a moment that he deserved them because he could have, should have saved her sooner. The department, mired in the scandal of the moment, needed the positive press. John became their poster boy. He hated it. But then, at the peak of the publicity, he crossed paths with Ron Jon Eagle, and saving Helen saved his job.

“I still wish I really did save her,” he said.

“You did.” Laura sounded indignant. “Starting over, no matter how tough it is, beats being dead. Don’t blame yourself for not arriving sooner. Blame the morons too stupid to put gas in their car, who hung around too late in the dark, people you had to save when you had more important business. They’re the people who always expect others to take care of them.”

She took out some yogurt and another granola bar. They gazed hungrily at each other. They wanted so much more. But food was safe; its pursuit would take them out of that small room dominated by beds. Since he was already expected, he invited her to his parents’ for supper.

“Hm, low-fat yogurt or southern home cooking?” She pondered.
“Southern cuisine or condensed soup?” She shoved the yogurt back in the fridge and slammed the door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

She changed into blue jeans, a white blouse that hugged her body, and a leather belt with a western-style turquoise and silver buckle and brushed her hair. As she dressed, he pushed the bed nearest the door away from the wall.

Food, conversation, and company were always first-rate at Ashley family gatherings. John had four brothers and four sisters, along with spouses, nieces, nephews, cousins, and more. “The in-laws and the out-laws,” as his father liked to call them.

John hoped to lift Laura’s spirits and have the chance to brainstorm with his brothers, especially the cops—Robby, the youngest, a Miami-Dade deputy, and Frank, a North Miami detective.

After he was sure they weren’t followed, they switched to his car, a silver Ford Expedition, then drove south to where he grew up. His parents lived in Morningside, a historic neighborhood a few short miles and a thousand light-years away from the endless traffic jams, neon glitz, and mirrored towers of downtown Miami and Miami Beach. Built by Miami pioneers in the 1920s, its wide, tree-lined streets skirted the bay east of Biscayne Boulevard.

Miami erases its history with bulldozers. But not here, he told Laura. With its wealth of restored art deco, Mediterranean revival, and mission-style homes, Morningside is the finest intact example of a suburb built during South Florida’s early land boom. Open porches, built before air conditioning, catch the bay breezes. The stables, now garages, are behind the houses. The medians are wide landscaped islands in a sea of huge tropical shade trees.

“My family can be a noisy, nosy bunch,” John warned her. “The first thing my mom will ask you is the date, time, and place of your birth.”

“Is she a cop?”

“Nope. An astrology buff who wants to chart your horoscope. You don’t have to tell her. Make up a date, any date.”

“I never even read my horoscope in the newspaper,” Laura said thoughtfully. “Given our current situation”—she melted him with a smile—“this might be a good time to start.”

He laughed. “We tease her, but a couple of years ago she warned that
underground workers were in danger, because of Pluto, a planet connected to miners. Then whammo! Twenty-nine lost in a West Virginia coal mine disaster. Then, on the same day something moved into Pisces, ruled by Neptune, the BP oil rig blew, and we had the big Gulf spill. Right after that,” he said, “I was looking for a stockbroker who shot his wife and kids to death. He’d dropped off the map. She did his chart, said he was suicidal and most likely dead. Turned up in a bathtub at a Georgia motel. He’d shot himself.”

“She’s the perfect parent for a detective.”

“Sure. But what do I do when I’m working a case and she calls to warn me that Neptune is in retrograde?”

“You listen,” she said, and patted his knee. “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

As he parked at the house, the front door flew open. His niece Lindsey, seven, and nephew Bobby, six, burst out, saw John coming up the front walk, and dove at his knees.

They all discussed Lindsey’s newly missing front tooth as they stepped inside, where they were overwhelmed by mouthwatering aromas from the kitchen, friendly conversation, lighthearted laughter, and a guitar being played in the Florida room.

John’s mother bustled out of the kitchen after a bright burst of light and nearly bumped into the couch. “Son! You’ve come after all and brought someone!” She was tiny, her chestnut hair shot with gray, her laugh lines untouched, her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

She greeted Laura warmly, still blinking as John introduced them. “Something in your eye, Mama?”

“No, son.” She sighed. “I’ll be fine.”

Laura inhaled, her eyes closed. “Mrs. Ashley! Your kitchen smells like heaven, just like my gram’s house! Is that corn bread?”

“Just out of the skillet, darlin’. When’s your birthday, girl?”

Laura gave her the correct date, March 12, 1987.

“Pisces,” cried his mother. “So is John! You are like-minded people. Do you know your time of birth?”

“Mama always said it was four ten in the mornin’, after ‘a very long night.’ The midwife wrote it in my baby book as well, so it’s most likely accurate.”

Laura cut her eyes at John as his mother pulled a pencil from her
apron pocket and scribbled in a little notebook. “And where are you from, Laura?”

“Upstate, near Fort Myers, a little fork in the road along the Caloosahatchee River.”

“A Florida girl! I knew it when I first laid eyes on you, darlin’! And that’s where you first saw the light of day?”

“Yes, ma’am, at the home place where me and my gram still live.”

His mother caught Laura’s hands in her own. They couldn’t have looked happier. He’d been right to bring her, John thought. Both seemed about to cry, but in a good way.

“Here comes the storm,” warned Katie, his favorite sister. John frowned. From where Katie, the family beauty, sat, she couldn’t see the sky.

“Uh-oh,” chirped Anna Mae, his brother Frank’s wife.

“Hear you’re working on a big case, son.”

“Where’d you hear that, Mama?”

She winked.

As he rested his right hand at the small of Laura’s back, he heard a familiar voice.

“Fancy seeing you here, John. You are so full of”—Lucy restrained herself—“surprises.” Her cheeks red, forehead moist, she had just stepped out of the kitchen. The camera she held explained the earlier flash of light and his mother’s temporary blindness.

“Hello,” Laura said, her hand still on his arm. She smiled sweetly at Lucy, who returned an icy stare.

John’s sisters and sisters-in-law alerted like hungry wolves. His brother Robby stopped strumming his old guitar.

“Lucy was just saying how busy you are, how dedicated, how hard you’re working.” Katie struggled to keep a straight face.

“Mama always said they weren’t a match,” his sister Rose Ann said in a stage whisper.

“Mama scores again!” Robby thrummed his guitar in an ominous minor key.

“Do you want to leave?” John whispered.

“No way,” Laura said. “I love it here, and I’m hungry.”

His mother served southern-style pot roast surrounded by onions,
carrots, and potatoes, with warm corn bread, pecan muffins, and sweet sun tea. For dessert, she ladled icing over fresh-baked Bundt cake, and served warm, extra-dark chocolate walnut brownies smothered in vanilla ice cream.

John wished Laura looked at him the way she did the food. Her sensual sighs and ecstatic moans after every mouthful set him afire as Lucy shot daggers across the table at them both.

“My gram fixes everything just the way you do,” Laura told John’s mother, “’cept she serves fried okra and tomatoes with it.”

His mom smiled and returned moments later with a serving dish of fried okra and tomatoes. Serious eating created a conversational lull, until Lucy spoke to Laura. “Haven’t seen you, honey, since they brought you up to Homicide.”

A high-pitched meow came from the far end of the big dining room table. John glared at his brothers.

“That’s right!” Laura licked her glistening lips, then patted them daintily with a napkin. “That’s where I saw you!” As radiant as an angel, she pointed her finger at Lucy. “Aren’t you Tracy, the one they all call Dick?”

Snickers.

“The name is Lucy. City of Miami Detective Tracy Luisita Dominguez,” she said coldly. “John’s fiancée.” She waggled her left ring finger at Laura. The diamond glittered in the light from the dining room chandelier.

“How lovely.” Laura admired it. “I once had an engagement ring with a similar setting.”

“Did you marry him?” Katie asked.

“No.” Laura shook her head and smiled. “That’s what engagements are for, to decide if you’re really a match. Sometimes, it’s just not in the stars.”

John’s mother lit up.

Lucy’s eyes widened.

“Rings aren’t important,” Laura said. “They’re symbolic, and nice. But what counts is commitment and true love.”

John’s mother nodded, her eyes on his dad at the head of the table.

“So I gave it back, without a single regret. My heart,” she placed her
right hand over her breast as though the flag were passing, “said, ‘Wait, find your soul mate.’ I did wait and it’s finally happened.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Lucy turned to John’s mother as though she hadn’t heard a thing.
“Mamacita,”
she asked, pen poised. “What’s the secret to gravy this smooth? Look, no lumps. How do you do that?”

John’s mother smiled shyly, then nodded at Laura, who spoke up. “The secret is to brown the flour with the butter, and add the milk very, very slowly.” She drew out the last three words with her long, slim fingers.

“I didn’t ask you,” Lucy blurted. “I’m asking my future mother-in-law.” She turned again to John’s mother.

“Well, bless your heart, honey. It’s just like Laura said. Brown the flour with the butter, then add the milk real slow.”

Katie, the romantic, broke the silence. “Laura’s right. Finding your soul mate is what matters. Did you see that story in
People
? Jewelry that the former king of England and the woman he loved gave to each other was auctioned for millions of dollars. The king could have had any woman except the one he wanted, an American divorcee. When he couldn’t live without her, he gave up his throne, left his country, and spent the rest of his life in exile, with her.”

“Musta been one hell of a woman,” John’s dad said.

“He musta been one hell of a man,” Katie said, dreamily. “They called it the love story of the century.”

Joe Ashley caressed his wife with his eyes. “They just didn’t know about us.”

The laughter and applause made her blush.

“Love is alive,” Laura murmured, and gazed over the top of her glass at John.

“You’re right,” said his shy cousin Francie, who rarely spoke up. “It happened to one of our neighbors,” she said. “She had two teenage boys. Her husband, Ralph, had a good advertising job. They were high school sweethearts, the perfect couple, an ideal family, until a quiet older man moved in down the street. He was a writer who’d been divorced a few times. Ralph came home one day and found Sandy stirring soup. She said she’d heard the new neighbor was sick, down with the flu,
and all alone. She took the soup down to his house—and never came back.”

“What do you mean, never?” Robby asked.

“Didn’t even go home for her toothbrush,” Francie said dramatically. “Ralph was beside himself. He finally divorced her and she married the writer who died one morning, twenty-two years later, asleep in his own bed, at home, while she, his much-younger wife, was out buying his favorite pastries for breakfast.”

“Way to go,” Frank said.

“You hear about people who fall in love at first sight and stay together forever, no matter what,” John’s sister-in-law Danielle piped up. “I knew two of ’em.”

She pursed her lips and put down put her fork. “My mother’s cousin, a journalist, went on an assignment to the Bahamas for the
Atlanta Constitution
and crossed paths with another reporter. They had lunch together and never slept apart again.”

Katie hung on every word, eyes shining.

“But it wasn’t all romance and smooth sailing,” Danielle said. “Both were married and they had nine children between ’em.”

Jaws dropped. Women gasped.

“That’s right,” she said primly. “He and his wife had four little ones; she and her husband had five under the age of twelve. The divorces were bitter. Both lost visitation, but they honeymooned for eighteen years, till she died of cancer. On her deathbed she told my mother that they knew they were soul mates the first time they looked into each other’s eyes and were convinced they’d been lovers in a prior life.”

“How romantic,” Katie murmured.

“How cruel and selfish,” blurted Ann Lee, Robby’s outspoken young wife. “How could they, with all those little children?”