The Way You Look Tonight (10 page)

‘Where's Evan?' she asked.

‘At the office. Joe's taking the day off, too, and we couldn't all be gone. Besides, Evan had a court appearance at ten. Someone has to prosecute the bad guys out there.'

‘I wish someone were out there to prosecute Artie Lieber,' Deborah said dismally.

Barbara walked over and put her hands on Deborah's shoulders, looking up at her. ‘Don't make assumptions. We don't know that Lieber had anything to do with Steve's disappearance.'

‘What else could it be?'

‘A hundred things. Steve could come walking in that door any minute.'

‘You keep saying that, but he won't. You know it and I know it.'

Barbara's short-lashed dark eyes slid away from her.

She believes the same thing I do, Deborah thought. And she's not being much more convincing with her reassurances than I was with the kids. ‘I think I'll make another pot of coffee,' Barbara said suddenly. ‘That blend you have is scrumptious. What is it?'

‘Gevalia,' Deborah answered absently. ‘It's Swedish. I order it.'

‘I think I'll order some, too. Evan seemed to like it. It would be good in the mornings. Of course, he doesn't spend the night with me too often. Claims my mattress is bad. I don't stay with him too often, either.' She looked troubled and Deborah feared Barbara was about to confide intimate details of her relationship with Evan, which Deborah was
definitely
not in the mood to hear this morning, but she was spared as Barbara went on about the coffee. ‘I could order some delivered to his house. I think he'd like that.'

Barbara poured coffee grounds into the filter and flipped on the automatic coffee maker. They talked desultorily, both screamingly aware of the troopers searching the back yard. Barbara seemed jittery, and five minutes later she leaped up from her chair and announced with desperate gaiety, ‘The coffee's ready!'

And strong enough to snap already frayed nerves, Deborah thought, but she took the mug Barbara offered and smiled as the bitter concoction slid down her throat. Barbara took a sip and said thoughtfully, ‘Maybe I should have added a little more water.'

‘It's fine.'

‘Lots of body, right?' Barbara said drily. ‘You don't even need a backbone with this stuff in you.'

Deborah was laughing softly as the troopers came back into the house. There were two of them. The young, homely one introduced himself as Muller. The older, handsome one with immobile features and a tall, spare frame was named Cook. ‘We'll be going upstairs now, ma'am,' Muller said as Scarlett danced around his legs, begging for attention. He bent and petted the dog. ‘He's real cute. Not any particular breed, is he?'

‘It's a she,' Deborah said. ‘Her mother was a beagle-terrier mix and her father a German Shepherd.'

‘That's quite a blend,' the young man laughed.

‘I like purebred dogs myself,' Cook announced loudly as if everyone was interested. ‘And I don't like them inside the house.'

‘How fascinating,' Barbara snapped. ‘Come on – I'll take you up to the storage room.'

The older man gave Deborah a stern look. ‘You'll have to keep this dog out of the way. Got to keep the scene as clean as possible.'

‘I'll shut her in the garage.'

Scarlett looked at her reproachfully as she spread an old throw-rug on the cold garage floor and motioned for the dog to lie down on it. ‘What a sourpuss that Cook is,' she muttered. Tail between her legs, Scarlett crept over to the rug, interpreting Deborah's actions as punishment. ‘I'll get you out of there in a jiffy,' she said, rubbing the dog's ears in reassurance. Scarlett relaxed and lapsed into what Steve often called her ‘stupid look', her expression growing increasingly vacant. ‘I swear you can see her IQ drop by the second,' Steve would laugh. Deborah couldn't help smiling as the dog flopped on her side in complete abandonment. ‘You're a good girl, Scarlett. Just don't get into any trouble for the next few minutes.'

Joe arrived a moment later. ‘Kids delivered, principal notified,' he said shortly. ‘He also said they could stay for the party, but he'd rather they not finish out the week. Too much responsibility for the school to accept.'

‘I guess I can't blame him,' Deborah said.

‘Cops upstairs?'

‘Yes.'

‘Know who it is?'

‘Cook and Muller,' Barbara said.

‘Muller's okay. Sort of a friend of mine. Cook's a pain.' Without another word Joe left her and Deborah heard his boots beating on the stairs. She sat in front of her abominable coffee, her mind revolving helplessly. Steve, where
are
you? she thought. ‘God, I'll give ten years of my life if you'll just return him to us safe and sound,' she murmured. But her mother had told her long ago you shouldn't try to make deals with God. ‘Everything that happens in this world is God's will,' she would say as she sat over sewing or pasting recipes into an album, as if they were family pictures. ‘What will be, will be. God's got a divine plan and we can't change it.'

‘But if there's a divine plan and we can't change it, why do we bother to pray?' Deborah had asked.

Her mother would look at her, disturbed. ‘What on earth do you mean, child? We pray to thank God.'

‘Not most of the time,' a twelve-year-old Deborah had argued. ‘Mostly we ask for things to turn out a certain way. Just last Sunday in church we prayed for old Mr McCallister to be healed of his black lung.'

‘You don't understand.'

‘No, I don't. Explain it.'

‘I can't. It's too complicated. But don't let your daddy hear you talkin' like that.'

‘What's wrong with asking questions?'

‘Just keep your questions to yourself, Deborah. Daddy doesn't like questions.'

Especially from me, Deborah had thought, the child who had lived while her two older brothers had died as babies. He'd resented Deborah, as if it were her fault each of the two boys had been born too premature to live, while she'd been a healthy eight pounds. She'd always been aware of that resentment, even when she was too young to analyse its cause.

So Deborah
had
kept her questions to herself, but she'd never stopped wondering at the contradiction. Even now, as she sat at the kitchen table, she felt that, on the one hand, she should be praying for her missing husband, but on the other, that prayers were useless.

Thoughts of her parents triggered thoughts of Steve's. They should be apprised of the situation, but she didn't know where to reach them in Hawaii. Besides, would they even care? Of course they would care. He was their only son. They must have some shred of feeling for him. But if she could phone them, she couldn't tell them without bringing up Artie Lieber's name, and she wasn't sure she wanted to do that. But what if Lieber were still a danger to Emily? Was it possible that he could get into the nursing home? Should the staff be alerted?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the policemen coming back down the stairs, Barbara and Joe trailing behind. ‘Do you always leave the window to that storage room unlocked?' Muller asked Deborah.

‘No, of course not. Not on purpose, anyway. Why?'

‘Because there's no sign of forced entry.'

‘So the window was unlocked. I guess it's possible. We hardly ever went in there. I suppose one of us could have unlocked and opened it in the summer, then forgot to lock it. It's just that my husband was so careful about those kinds of things.'

‘But you said the door to the tool shed was left unlocked,' Joe pointed out.

‘The tool shed, yes. But locks on the house – no, Steve was very careful about that. After what happened to Emily…'

‘Who's Emily?' Cook asked.

‘My husband's sister,' Deborah said. ‘She was raped and beaten when she was a teenager. Her attacker got parole a couple of months ago and was spotted in Charleston two days ago. I thought Evan Kincaid had already gone over this with you people.'

Cook's handsome face flushed. ‘He talked to the city cops, not us. Nobody mentioned the sister's name to us, and we're not mind-readers.'

Joe held up his hands in a placating manner. ‘Okay. No big deal. Mrs Robinson isn't an expert on jurisdictional matters.'

But I know that much, Deborah thought unhappily. I'm too flustered to think straight. ‘Did you get any fingerprints?' she asked.

‘We'll have to wait for the evidence team,' Cook said. ‘They'll have quite a job ahead of them since I heard you had that big blowout here Saturday night.'

‘I'd hardly call our Christmas party a
blowout
,' Deborah bristled. ‘Besides, we didn't entertain guests in the storeroom.'

‘Whatever,' Cook said, unfazed by her sarcasm. ‘Someone should be here within the hour. They'll have to get yours, too, Mrs Robinson. Unfortunately, Mr Pierce here said your husband's prints aren't on file.'

‘But Lieber's are,' Joe said. ‘If he was the one in the room last night and careless enough to leave prints, we'll get him.'

‘I just don't understand why Artie Lieber would break into the house,' Deborah said. ‘Steve had been missing for hours. What would be the point of Lieber breaking in here if he already had Steve?'

‘We don't know that this guy, this Lieber creep, has anything to do with your husband's disappearance,' Muller said.

Cook cast a cold gaze at Deborah. ‘Or maybe he isn't satisfied with just Mr Robinson.'

Deborah went rigid. ‘You mean he could come after the children and me?'

Cook shrugged, looking disdainful and self-important. ‘Why not? Lieber probably has a big hate thing going about the guy who put him away, and meanwhile got himself a successful law career, a young wife and a couple of kids while
he
was rotting away in prison.'

‘Oh, lord,' Deborah murmured, feeling weak. ‘Then we're all in danger.
Real
danger.'

Joe gave her a long, level look. ‘You could all be in danger
if
Lieber really is out for blood,
if
he's really done something to Steve. We have absolutely no proof of any of this.'

‘No, Lieber just happened to turn up in Charleston this week and Steve just happened to vanish last night,' Deborah said grimly. ‘That's enough proof for me.'

Thirty minutes later the troopers left. Deborah had been fingerprinted, had found a fairly recent photograph of Steve, and had presented the troopers with one of Steve's sweaters and his hairbrush – the sweater to give bloodhounds his scent, the brush for hair so they could get a DNA sample to match with the blood left in the car.

Before going out the door, Cook said, ‘You hear anything, you let us know.' He flung an accusatory look at Deborah, as if he thought she was going to object for some nefarious reason.

Muller lingered behind, muttering a soft apology for his partner's abrasive manner. ‘He's got troubles at home, ma'am. Don't hold it against him.'

‘I won't,' Deborah said, although she thought if she ever saw Cook again it would be too soon. Barbara let Scarlett back into the house. The dog spent the next five minutes shivering violently. ‘For heaven's sake, you'd think you'd been in the Yukon for the last hour,' she laughed.

‘Kim picked the perfect name for her,' Deborah said. ‘She definitely has Scarlett O'Hara's gift for the dramatic.'

Shortly afterward, the doorbell rang. ‘I'll get it,' Barbara offered.

Deborah shook her head. ‘I haven't completely fallen apart. I can still answer my own door.'

On the front porch stood a man of medium height with very short light brown hair and deep crow's-feet around unflinching light blue eyes. ‘Mrs Deborah Robinson?' he asked. She nodded. ‘I'm Charles Wylie, FBI.'

‘FBI?' she repeated in confusion. He showed her identification. ‘You're here about my husband?'

‘Yes. May I come in?'

Joe and Barbara were sitting in the living room. ‘This is Mr Wylie with the FBI,' Deborah said. Barbara's expression was as confused as her own, but a quick, wary look passed over Joe's face. ‘He's here about Steve. Mr Wylie, this is Barbara Levine and Joe Pierce. They both work in the Prosecutor's office with my husband.'

Wylie nodded to them, then turned to Deborah. ‘I'd like to speak with you alone for a few minutes.'

‘There's nothing about my husband's disappearance that Barbara and Joe don't know,' Deborah said.

‘Nevertheless, I need to ask you some questions. I'd rather do it alone.'

‘Do you have evidence that Steve was taken across the state line?' Barbara asked, not at all daunted by the agent's unsmiling demeanor. Deborah wondered briefly if practicing a stone-face was part of the FBI training.

‘I just found out a couple of hours ago about Mr Robinson's disappearance,' Wylie answered. ‘I have no evidence as of yet.'

‘How did you find out my husband was missing?' Deborah asked.

‘The West Virginia state police put a notice about your husband's car on the teletype system and we saw it.'

‘But I still don't understand why you're here.'

‘As I said, I have some questions for you, Mrs Robinson.'

‘All right,' Deborah said. ‘Barbara, Joe, since Mr Wylie wants to talk with me alone, would you mind waiting in the kitchen?'

Joe and Barbara rose simultaneously. Barbara still looked puzzled and more than a little suspicious, but Joe's face had that odd, closed look that meant he knew something. He and Evan
both
knew something they weren't telling her, something that Evan had apparently not even told Barbara.

Deborah motioned to the couch. Agent Wylie sat down and took a small notebook out while surreptitiously surveying the room. Deborah felt absurdly guilty and wondered why. Was it because of the cold penetration of Wylie's gaze? Or was it merely because she'd never come into contact with the FBI before?