The Cabin (29 page)

you know where you are.”

Susanna gave up. “Okay.”

Her grandmother cast her a sideways glance. “You’re

a smart-mouth, Susanna Dunning Galway. I can see

how you give that husband of yours a run for his money.”

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Carla Neggers

“Most of the time he deserves it, you know.”

“I imagine that’s a two-way street.” They came to the

car, and Gran paused, looking out at the cemetery, the

snow, the evergreens, the blue sky. “It’s lovely here,

isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But I don’t want you burying me here. I’ll have to

put it in my will. I want to be incinerated and my ashes

scattered in Florida.”

“Florida?” Susanna shook her head in disbelief.

“You’ve never even been to Florida!”

“Yes, I have. I went with Muriel in 1963. I remem-

ber, because it was right after JFK was assassinated. Her

family stuck her in a cold grave in Malden.”

“Gran, are you serious?”

She smiled then, breathing in the cold, dry Adiron-

dack winter air. “Yes, by God, I think I want my ashes

scattered on Miami Beach.”

��

Fifteen

Jack fell three times cross-country skiing before he fig-

ured out he was leaning too far back and throwing off

his center of balance. Maggie and Ellen thought it was

hysterical to watch him fall. They were on a groomed

trail at a cross-country ski center a few miles from the

cabin. No lesson. He thought he’d remember enough,

and the girls said they could show him what to do. Over-

reach on both counts. They weren’t much better on

skinny skis than he was.

They rounded a curve, Maggie and Ellen ahead of

him. “I don’t laugh when you fall,” he commented.

Ellen glanced back at him and grinned. “That’s be-

cause it’s not as funny when it’s us.”

Probably not.

Their beginner trail looped through an evergreen for-

est on a rare stretch of flat land. They had to stay far enough

apart to keep from crashing into each other, which created

a sense of separateness and allowed them to experience

their surroundings without having to be out there all alone.

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The rhythmic gliding over the snow helped his

thoughts settle, simmer, refocus.

The call from Sam Temple had flipped this situation

into a higher gear. Alice Parker contacted Beau McGar-

rity before she moved to Boston, and now he’d left

town. Jack had already learned that Alice was a mix of

good intentions, guile, loyalty, strong survival instincts

and romantic ideas about herself—all of which, to-

gether, had landed her in prison.

This was no longer about a nonviolent ex-convict

showing up in his wife’s neighborhood. However pro-

vocative, it wasn’t illegal. It was also about an open, if

cold, murder investigation.

Beau wouldn’t want the tape of him coercing a Texas

Ranger’s wife to intervene on his behalf to go public. If

it wouldn’t convict him of murdering Rachel McGar-

rity, it would certainly reveal him as a desperate man

who’d stepped over the line. Public opinion would shift

right back against him. He could kiss his social and po-

litical comeback goodbye.

Was Alice trying to blackmail him with the tape? Ex-

tort money from him to finance her dream of a new life

in Australia?

Where the hell did Destin Wright fit in, if anywhere?

And his wife. Where did Susanna fit in? The tape

would be more valuable if she’d kept it. It wouldn’t be

tainted by Alice’s misconduct in the Rachel McGarrity

investigation. Was Alice trying to make it look as if Su-

sanna had never given her the damn thing?

Shaking down a murder suspect was just the kind of

complicated, dramatic, dumb-ass scheme that would

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243

appeal to Alice Parker. Jack had investigated her—she

was dedicated and well-liked, but law enforcement

wasn’t a good fit for her personality and abilities. An-

other woman on the town force described her as drawn

to the idea of law enforcement, not its reality.

Jack tucked his poles under his arms and coasted

down a long, gentle slope, not feeling the cold after

ninety minutes of cross-country skiing. He, Maggie and

Ellen made their way to the warming hut, leaning their

skis against a rail fence and heading inside for hot cider.

The cider was in a big pot on a woodstove, and Jack

filled three mugs and brought them back to the small,

rickety table where the girls had plopped down, flushed

from the exercise and the cold.

“Mom would love this place,” Maggie said, blowing

on her steaming cider. “She told us we could forget any

notions of sitting in the cabin all week, reading books

and watching the fire—we were to get out and ski,

snowshoe, enjoy the great outdoors.”

Jack leaned back in his wooden chair, smiling. “Is

that a note of sarcasm I hear?”

She smiled back. “Dad, she bought us
snowshoes.
”

He shrugged. “This vacation means a lot to her.”

“I think she fell in love with it up here,” Ellen says.

“What if she moves up here? I know it’s beautiful and

everything, but, Dad, she’d go bonkers.”

Not with the kind of money she had in the bank,

Jack thought. If she got bored, she could afford to do

something else—like rent a villa in the south of France

for a month. Although he had strong opinions on where

his wife should live, he decided a measured response

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was called for. “Your mother will figure out what she

wants to do. We can have our opinions, but we can’t do

it for her, anymore than she and I can decide for you

what college you ought to attend.”

“But she’s almost forty,” Ellen said.

Jack smiled. “And?”

“She should already have her life figured out.”

“Maybe it needs refiguring.”

Maggie stretched out one leg, wincing as she ran her

hand along an obviously stiff muscle. “Do you think

Mom’s having a midlife crisis?” she asked. “Maybe she

got herself in a panic about Ellen and me not being

around. Our guidance counselor at school talked to us

about how our parents might have problems of their

own with us leaving for college. We’re not the only

ones experiencing change.”

“I thought guidance counselors were supposed to

talk to you about grades and colleges and not screwing

around in the lunch room.”

“They do,” Maggie said, “but that’s not all.”

Jack drank some of his hot cider while he debated

how to get off this subject. If he said the wrong thing,

Susanna would hear about it. If he said the right thing,

she’d hear. And this was about Maggie and Ellen’s re-

lationship with their mother, not with him, not with

both of them. “So what do they do, tell you to keep an

eye on your parents in case they get depressed when you

go off to school?”

Maggie nodded, stretching her other leg. “It can hap-

pen even before we leave. Pre-empty nest syndrome.”

He stared at her. “You’re serious?”

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245

She and Ellen both nodded.

“Do they do this in Texas, too?” he asked, teasing.

They laughed, but Ellen’s laughter didn’t last.

“Dad,” she said, avoiding his eye, “maybe if you’d

tell her what you want—if you said you wanted her

back—” She let it go at that, leaving the rest to her fa-

ther to interpret.

His first instinct was to tell Ellen that she’d stepped

into territory that was none of her business, but her con-

cern was palpable. Maggie was drinking her cider, pre-

tending not to care as much as her sister did. Jack knew

he was on tricky ground. Whatever happened with his

marriage, he and Susanna were these girls’ parents. This

was their immediate family, the four of them. They de-

served his care and attention in addressing their concerns.

But he’d rather go through the whole business about

Beau McGarrity and Sam Temple heading to Boston

than to negotiate this emotional minefield.

“Ellen, I never wanted Susanna to leave.” He spoke

carefully, thoughtfully. “But it’s not her fault she did. It

took both of us. Relationships are complicated, and right

now ours is probably more complicated than most.”

Ellen seemed relieved that he’d treated her question

seriously. “Because you’re a Texas Ranger and she’s a

financial planner?”

“That’s one reason.”

“She’s rich, you know,” Maggie said.

Ellen nodded. “She won’t tell us how much she’s

worth. She says we have no concept of money.”

“She’s right,” Jack said.

Maggie, who felt she was entitled to know every-

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thing, made a face at him. “Do
you
know how much

she’s worth?”

He’d had enough cider and pushed his mug away.

The one-room warming hut was filling up with people,

not the best place to have a heart-to-heart family discus-

sion. “We’re off the subject.”

“You should have called instead of just turning up in

Boston,” Ellen blurted.

That he didn’t regret. His life with Susanna had al-

ways had its sparks. He shook his head. “She’s still

paying for the time she let the air out of my tires when

we were in college.”

Maggie’s eyes lit up. “She
didn’t.
”

“Why would she do that?” Ellen asked.

Because she’d lost her virginity to him the night be-

fore, and when he put it that way to her, she got pissed,

said it was old-fashioned and male to say something like

that. Which was beside the point. She was in love with

him. She knew he’d be a force in her life forever. It

scared the hell out of her. So, she let the air out of his

tires. He saw it as her way of asserting to him that she

was smart, strong, independent and not incapable of

sneak attacks.

The minute he saw his tires, he knew she was the guilty

party, but it took him months to drag the truth out of her.

No shrinking violet, this love of his life. And now she

was rich.
They
were rich.

But he told their teenage daughters, “I guess it

seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“Gee, Dad,” Ellen said, “Mom’s always had guts,

hasn’t she?”

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247

“Don’t you two get any ideas. I could have had her

arrested.” Except she’d covered her tracks well. But he

knew he wasn’t finished with this conversation, and after

they returned their skis to the rental counter and started

back to Davey Ahearn’s truck, Jack made himself go on.

“Your mother got caught up in one of my cases through

no fault of her own, and she ended up fearing for your

safety—for her own. It rattled her down deep.”

Maggie nodded with understanding. “The classic

fight or flight impulse. Normally Mom’d fight—that’s

always her first impulse. Or she’d resist either impulse

and think things through, analyze, choose her next

move. That’s what she’s always telling us what to do.

But this time, she fled.” She gave her father a small

smile. “I took psychology last semester.”

“You could be right, Mag, I don’t know. But I might

have handled things differently if she’d run up to Bos-

ton just because she was bored with me—”

“Mom’s never bored with you,” Ellen said. “She tells

us that all the time—
your father’s never boring.
But,

Dad, be honest, it’s not just this Alice Parker thing. It

wouldn’t hurt if you—well, you know you’re about as

romantic as a rock.”

“Aren’t you two being old-fashioned? All this talk of

wooing, flowers, fancy soaps—”

Maggie shook her head. “If you needed a break from

Mom because
she
was an uncommunicative lunkhead,

we’d tell
her
to be more romantic.”

“I’d get flowers and fancy soaps?”

“Dad.”
Ellen smothered a laugh, trying to be serious.

“We know Mom’s a hardheaded businesswoman. We’ve

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had her go MBA on us, just like you go Texas Ranger

on us.”

Her sister nodded in agreement, and Jack saw their

pride in their mother’s accomplishments. Ellen said,

“We’re not being retro. We’re just—I mean, who doesn’t

like to be romanced? You and Mom need more flowers

and silk nighties and jewelry and stuff like that going on.”

“Less murder and money,” Maggie added.

Jack knew he was beat. There was nothing to do now

but concede and get the hell off this subject. He was sup-

posed to give Susanna flowers, silk nighties, fancy soaps

and jewelry—and he couldn’t even get a decent blan-

ket off her.

“Point well taken,” he said, neutral.

“If it’s any consolation,” Maggie said, “whenever

Mom calls you a rock-headed son of a bitch, she always

apologizes and says she didn’t mean it that way.”

He cast his daughter a look. “What way do you sup-