The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1) (16 page)

When Helen finished her story, Nathan had no reaction. Sam stared at his face looking for some sign of outrage. She noted, with surprise, that Nathan was actually a lot younger than she first thought. Her first impression had been that he looked like the actor Gary Sinese, who was probably in his late forties. On closer inspection, however, she could see that he was much younger, more like in his early thirties.
My contemporary
, Sam thought. He had a short hair cut. It wasn’t tight enough for boot camp but it was a trim cut. The brown hair on top of his head had enough length so that you could see his hair was curly. His face had the beginning of wrinkle lines around his eyes and in his forehead but for the most part his skin looked taut. I guess you would call his features rugged, Sam surmised. His eyes were too piercing, his nose looked like it had been broken at some point and his jaw was too square for his face to ever be considered pretty. But most women would find him handsome. Plus he was tall, definitely over six feet, and looked muscular, like a quarterback. Women liked that.

Sam caught herself, sat back in her chair and tried to correct her thoughts. Most unmarried women would find Nathan handsome. She smiled a bit at her ability to get off track. Of course, Doug would be considered gorgeous by most women, married or not.
Why do I feel the need to add that?
Sam questioned herself. She shook her head slightly to clear it and tuned in to what Nathan was saying.
Get back in this, Sam
, she told herself.

Nathan, meanwhile, was calmly directing Helen to tell him
exactly
(which he repeated twice) what her activities were from Sunday on. Sam felt like pointing out that Helen was a teacher and probably understood what “exactly” meant. She opened her mouth and then shut it without saying anything.

Helen started talking again, giving the details of her activities, and Sam started to feel uncomfortable as her name was brought into Helen’s story.
I haven’t done anything wrong
, she reminded herself. Nathan completely ignored her until Helen started recalling how she invited Clint and Marjorie over and Sam’s reaction and advice to them. At that point, Nathan finally glanced over at Sam and raised an eyebrow. Sam willed herself not to squirm. She carefully focused her gaze on Helen.

Helen then continued her story and brought up Pete, and Sam could feel Nathan switching his eyes back to Helen. He had quite an intense stare, as though he knew immediately that Sam had stolen two peppermint patties from the local drugstore twenty years ago. She had to admit he made her uncomfortable.
I guess that’s why he’s a good police officer
, she decided
.
When Helen mentioned that Sam had gone in first to find Pete and how upset Sam was when she came out of the school, Sam could see Nathan watching her again. Was that a shake of his head
?
It was hard to tell looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Helen went on to say that she thought Sam was scared.
Did I really look that bad
, Sam wondered? She again willed herself not to fidget.

Helen ended her recitation and Nathan quietly wrote on his notepad for a few minutes. Sam desperately wanted to talk, to fill in the silence with some conversation.
I thought I was over that? I thought I was comfortable with myself?
She felt like she was sliding backwards.

Nathan looked up finally and stared intently at Helen. “Okay. Did you legally change your name to Thomas?” Helen nodded yes. “Mrs. Thomas, is there any reason that you or any of your other friends would have bad feelings towards Dan?”

“No, of course not. We’re friends. We’re a family.”

Gosh, she is bad at lying, thought Sam. Helen sounded so openly desperate and she was looking over at Sam while talking.
Maybe she believes what she’s saying, but Helen knows I think differently
.

Nathan looked openly annoyed now. It was interesting to watch Nathan work, Sam thought. His questioning of Helen was a little less dramatic than television but still intense and focused like on television. She wondered what he would be like in an interrogation at the police station with an actual suspect.

Nathan cut Helen off from her continuing assertion about her old friendships. “Mrs. Thomas. Do not waste my time. Any long-term friendship goes through ups and downs. Of course you have had issues with these people over the years. Additionally, given your criminal past with them, there most certainly were tensions.”

Helen sounded like a stubborn little girl when she responded, “Well, we didn’t have anything significant between us. We’ve looked out for each other over the years. We’re committed to each other.”

Nathan stood up abruptly. Sam suddenly realized that this was an act and expected him to wave his arms next. He didn’t quite do that, but he stood up to his full height and raised his voice, not yelling, just loud and big. “Okay, Mrs. Thomas. This isn’t going anywhere. In a minute I’m going to ask you to take a walk, and I’m going to have a chat with Mrs. Sherman who has no stake in the outcome of this investigation. She’s got a family and will not want to lie or omit anything for their sake and hers. She has no rational reason to not tell the complete truth. So, if Mrs. Sherman tells me that your friends were angry at Dan for some reason, that is going to make you look as though you are hiding something. If that happens we are absolutely going to the station. Now, you need to concentrate, think hard, and answer my question.”

Helen looked over at Sam who looked right back at her. Sam nodded encouragingly to Helen. She half expected an outburst from Nathan but he kept quiet.

Helen sighed dramatically, Sam was reminded of Lindsey when she knew she had done something wrong and was cornered. Helen looked right at the table and explained that Marjorie, at some point, had slept with Dan, but she thought it was years ago. She then added that Pete was mad because he thought Dan was leaving their group, even though he was just moving to Chicago. She finished, paused a minute and then looked up defiantly, “It was a burglar that killed Dan, not one of my friends.”

Nathan again finished writing before responding. “Maybe, but we need to cover all the bases.” He then curtly kept going, getting all Helen’s friends’ addresses and then, kind of brutally, Sam thought, he dismissed Helen, “Thank you, Mrs. Thomas. That will be all for now. I need to speak with Mrs. Sherman. Can you take a walk? This will take about thirty minutes.”

Thirty minutes! What did he have to ask her that would take thirty minutes? Helen was nodding and looked like she was going to burst into tears.
Well, at least he can’t hang that threat of going to the station over us anymore
, Sam thought
.
She stood up to help Helen and shot a glare over to Nathan. “Helen has a bad hip and it’s one hundred degrees out there. Having her go outside is absurd.” It felt good to say something even though Sam was aware that she sounded more irate than the situation warranted.

Before Nathan could respond, Helen spoke up and said in a soothing voice, “Sam, it’s okay. I’ll just walk slowly. The doctor said that I need to be walking more anyway.”

“Are you sure?” There was no need to ask again. There was plenty of shade on the street and it probably wasn’t quite one hundred degrees outside but Sam realized she was itching for a confrontation with Nathan.
You need to calm down
, she told herself
.

Helen nodded and Sam quickly added, “Well, let me get you a water to take with you.” She realized as she opened her refrigerator that she hadn’t asked Nathan if he wanted anything to drink or eat. Good. She also hadn’t finished her sandwich which she noticed on the counter as she moved around her kitchen island. She was tempted to eat it in front of the detective but decided that was too rude, even if he deserved it.

When Helen had made it out the door, Sam headed back to the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to tell this idiot off. She marched into the kitchen and found … Nathan smiling at her? She stopped short. He actually had a nice smile. He began talking before she could lash out. “Look, Mrs. Sherman, I realize we got off to a rough start. I appreciate that you are a good friend to Mrs. Thomas, and I know you are the reason that a part of our investigation is getting cleared up. We’re both adults and I know we both want the right thing to happen here. So how about if we start over?”

Sam was not so easily cooled down, although she suddenly wasn’t quite as sure that Nathan was a total jerk. “Look, Detective Barrett,” she said in a snippy tone.

“Please call me Nathan. Can I call you Sam?” He smiled again.

Sam tilted her head at him and reluctantly smiled back. “Not bad, Nathan. You’ve almost convinced me that you’re partly human with that smile thing you’re doing.”

To her surprise, Nathan laughed. “I’m a very nice person, you know. I’m just not too showy about it.”

Sam tried not to smile as she sat back down. Nathan turned over the page on his pad and then started with his questions, “All right, Sam, here is what I need from you. You heard everything Mrs. Thomas told me. I need to know what she left out.” Nathan’s intense stare from his questioning of Helen was gone and he was looking at her like they were friends in a coffee shop talking.

His change of style worked and Sam felt herself relaxing and feeling like she was in that coffee shop. She even took a minute to think before answering. She finally said, “Well, I was actually surprised at how much she told you. That was everything that I know. The only thing I would add is that when Clint and Marjorie were here, Clint made a snide comment to Marjorie about monogamy and Marjorie snapped back. So I’m not sure how long ago the affair with Dan really was. They could have long memories or maybe it was more recent than Helen thinks. Oh, and I got the impression from Helen that it was more of a relationship than just sleeping together.”

“That’s good information, thanks. Now moving backwards, you were over at Mrs. Thomas’s house when Dan came to visit her on Sunday. Mrs. Thomas already went through what happened there. Can you tell me your impression of Dan? Is there anything you can add to her account?”

Sam went through her introduction to Dan and mentioned the Windy City comment. She explained her impression of him and then remembered her klutzy car moment. “There was one other thing.” She then relayed what she could hear of the conversation between Clint and Marjorie, “I don’t remember all the details, but they were agitated that they were coming over to Helen’s house. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed, I would have thought it odd since they were going to a Bible study. Who walks into a Bible study fighting? It’s obvious now that it wasn’t a Bible study, so maybe that’s not even relevant. I think that’s about all I have to add to Mrs. Thomas’s recollections.” Sam hesitated, watching Nathan jot his notes and then added, “I know I pushed Mrs. Thomas to talk to you about all this but most likely this was just a burglary, right? I mean, I don’t agree with what they did in the 60s and 70s, but it’s just a coincidence, isn’t it?”

Nathan stopped writing and set his pen down. “Most murders are committed by people who know their victims, so even in cases where the violence seems random we always have to cover all the bases. Besides, there are some things about this murder that seem odd.”

Sam got suddenly still. She almost remembered something ... She stayed still and fished around in her head. Finally, deep in thought, she said aloud, “The watch.” She didn’t realize that she said it until Nathan repeated what she had said. She shook her head and then blushed. “The watch. I don’t know, maybe it was a cheap one, but the burglar didn’t take Dan’s watch. I just realized that.”

Nathan nodded, “Or anything else for that matter. There are some nice antiques, paintings, and some silver in that place. They were all left. On the other hand, maybe it was just a burglary. His wallet was cleaned out.” Nathan quickly switched topics, “The last item on my list for you: tell me about your encounter with Pete and please include your impression of him.”

Sam told Nathan about her meeting with Pete. She was embarrassed but she went into all the details including how he scared her and then how he didn’t chase her as she ran away. She was surprised that Nathan didn’t laugh at her. In fact, he looked very grave.

“So Mrs. Thomas told you this guy was paranoid and had been permanently affected by drugs, and you sought him out by yourself? You also didn’t check in with the administrative office when you went into the high school?”

Sam knew deep down that what she had done by seeking out Pete alone had not been the smartest approach, but certainly it wasn’t as ridiculous a move as Nathan’s tone now implied. “Well,” she said defensively, “he works in a school around children. It was perfectly reasonable to assume that he was safe.”

“C’mon Sam. You know better than that. Not only did you know about the drugs and paranoia, but you knew that the guy still thought he was back in the ‘movement.’ You also knew that the movement he thought he was in placed a low value on human life.”

“Well, I guess we disagree. I can take care of myself.”

“Look, I know you were a pilot at one point but now, according to Don, you’re a happy housewife. You need to leave the police work to those who have been trained to do it. You were in over your head and the sooner you can admit that to yourself the safer you’ll be. Did you tell your husband about your adventure?”

Sam thought she could actually feel her blood pressure rising as she processed the multiple levels of condensation that Nathan had just thrown at her. Pompous, patronizing …
argh
! She opted to just respond to the last part of what he said. She knew that later on she would think of terrific comebacks to the first part, but nothing came to her now. “My husband? Look, this isn’t the 1940s, I can make a decision without my husband’s permission. You may run your house one way but that’s not how it is over here in the twenty-first century.” Nathan looked like he was about to say that’s not what he meant, but Sam was on a roll. “And just because I’m a stay-at-home mom, that does not mean I’ve lost my ability to make judgments and think critically.”