Trophies (3 page)

I turned back in time to watch the mother,
her brooch flashing sunlight, tuck the little girl against her
shoulder. But the toddler twisted on her secure perch. Blue eyes
glared at me from beneath a mop of blond curls, and suddenly her
tongue shot out.

Nope, that one wasn't about to cry. This time
I turned my back. Beyond Hardenbrook's black gown the carved front
doors stood open, and beyond them stretched a dim interior that
seemed to vanish into some intellectual distance. William, I knew,
had walked through those doors and strode out again even more
perfect than when he'd entered.

I looked back up at Hardenbrook. "Bottom," I
said.

His eyebrows spiked up. "Beg pardon?"

I gathered my backpack and slung one strap
over my shoulder. "The character Bottom. I can picture myself in
that role."

His smile collapsed. I strode past him into
Corwald without looking back.

It was time to get the next seven years over
with.

current time

I couldn't get rid of the memory of Aunt
Edith, grey and staring, vanishing beneath the zipper of that body
bag.

"Patty, this can't be real."

"Don't cry, whatever you do. I can't bear
it." She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "You know, I
left the gallery early last night. If I'd stayed, perhaps I might
have been able to—" Her voice died away and she only mouthed the
final words:
do something.

I fought a shudder. Against this physical
reaction, I lost. "No. Take it from a professional. It's not
likely."

We were on our way to Patricia's place, which
was actually Aunt Edith's house and now, once past probate, would
be mine. Patty had driven me to my waterfront condo — with her
driving, an experience to be neither missed nor repeated — but she
insisted I pack a bag and stay with her a few nights. She didn't
say, until she could be certain I was sane, but her meaning was
clear enough.

At my condo, only a slight widening of her
eyes had commented on the old 9mm Walther P-38 I'd slid into a
hidden waistband holster. She didn't like guns and refused to touch
one, but I felt too paranoid now to forego carrying even for her.
I'd steeled myself then for her sniping, one of the less fortunate
aspects of our relationship, and her white-knuckled grip on the
steering wheel and lowering chin were bad signs. Perhaps I should
give in and learn to drive myself. Granted, I'd perform no better
after such a shock and with my brain, likely worse.

I'd mentioned the PTSD diagnosis to Patty
when I'd received it but avoided discussing the topic in any depth.
Ever since we'd been teenagers and summer buddies, I'd tried to put
up a good front for her, hoping she wouldn't believe my lousy
family reputation. For the past year that cover-up had extended to
camouflaging my newly-acquired craziness, as well. But it was
starting to appear I'd blown that cover and, judging from her
occasional sideways glare, that avoidance was about to cost me.

"All right," she said finally. "All right, I
should have expected something like that. You're male, you're
young, you're loaded with testosterone, you—"

"Patty," I said, "what in the hell are you
talking about?"

Another sideways glare and it was scathing,
stirring the embers of my forcibly banked combativeness. The
family's signature green eyes coupled with her sleek grace made
Patricia look like a feral cat, particularly in this mood. I
supposed I should be flattered; despite her genetics and feline
appearance, she was mousy as her hair and wouldn't fight with
anyone except me. "I thought you were going to hit that detective,"
she said.

No, she still didn't understand, which was
something of a relief. I unholstered my cell phone and scrolled
through contacts. "When he asked me my whereabouts for the previous
evening, I nearly did." My vital signs had stabilized, my pulse no
longer pounded in my ears, but the odds I was sufficiently stable
for this conversation were slim to none. "Hang on a bit and let me
make a call."

Within moments, Sherlock's gentle baritone
drawl answered. "Hey, Robbie. What's up?"

"Morning, boss. I can't make the training
camp." The NATO Rapid Response team, of which I remained a member
by the skin of my teeth, was scheduled for a week-long session of
controlled mayhem beginning Saturday, two days away.

"Why? What's happened?"

At the question, an unexpected lump swelled
in my throat. Startled, I forced it away. I hadn't cried since the
age of eleven and had no intention of starting, not even now. "My
Aunt Edith was murdered last night."

Sherlock paused. "Damn, Robbie, I'm
sorry."

For a moment I stared into a yawning chasm:
the empty hole she'd left behind. I could not go there and ducked
aside into a factual report. "She was shot on the front steps of
the art gallery. She'd organized a showing for my nephew and they
were there late last night, finalizing things prior to the opening.
When they left, it seems someone was waiting. Aunt Edith was hit
three times in the lungs and died on the spot. The security guard
closing up behind them was shot in the back, but nowhere important,
so they say he'll be fine. My nephew took one in the stomach."

Sherlock grunted, as if in sympathy. "How's
he doing?"

"Last I heard, not good." I rubbed my eyes.
"The police told me not to leave town."

The Taurus jerked forward then whipsawed
back, as if Patty had stiffened and her foot slipped from the
accelerator to the brake. The shoulder belt cut across my neck and
slammed me back against the seat. My sideways what-the-hell glare
met her apologetic one, she drove on, and I turned toward the
passenger's window. If she was going to drive like that, she didn't
need to hear the rest of this conversation.

"Have they charged you with anything?"
Sherlock asked. Hopefully he hadn't noticed that little interlude,
but fooling him was amongst the most difficult jobs on the planet
and I wasn't sanguine.

I lowered my voice. "No, but I am her
principal heir, I did help write her will, and I just happened to
be home alone last night, cleaning weapons — although I didn't tell
the police that little fact — so of course I have no alibi. That
will probably make me their prime suspect."

"Humph," he said. "It's circumstantial stuff,
but it's pretty powerful. I'll call the Kraut and let him know." He
paused. "Call me if you need help. I mean that."

We rang off. "You remember Sherlock," I said,
for something to say.

"He's not exactly forgettable." But I could
see Patty's mind wasn't there. Some of her tension seemed to have
drained with the little driving mishap, or at least she no longer
tried to squeeze the steering wheel to jelly. "Why in the world
would anyone murder Aunt Edith? Anyone bigger than a ten-year-old
could push her over and rob her. And that security guard, and Trés
— he's only seventeen, and so talented. I don't think I can bear it
if he dies, too." Her voice became tighter and tighter as she
rambled, and at the end she sniffed.

She turned off Brattle into the old
neighborhood where I'd grown up, swinging the Taurus wide into the
middle of the road. I scrunched my eyes closed and kept breathing;
it would be just my luck to survive the war and die on a
backstreet. "Has he inherited the family obstinacy?"

"A fair dosage."

"Then it will take more than one bullet to
kill him. And that wasn't a robbery. Aunt Edith's wedding ring was
still on her finger and her purse was found intact in her car."

"A robbery gone wrong, then. But Charles,
Aunt Edith had her purse with her in the gallery last night before
I left. She took some aspirin and I saw her digging around in her
purse looking for the bottle. The detective said she was killed on
the sidewalk by the stairs, so how did her purse get in the car?"
She pulled into the driveway and parked in front of the house, then
dug in her shoulder bag, produced her cell phone, and punched
buttons. "I'm calling Dad. I want to know how Trés is doing."

Last we'd heard, less than an hour ago,
William the Third was still fighting for his life in surgery.
Because he was my brother's son, I'd never met him, and couldn't
help wondering if he was as much a bullying sod as his father. But
rather than start another round with Patty, I stepped from the
car.

Even within this ritzy neighborhood, Aunt
Edith's house was a standout, a sweep of Tudor set back on a large
lot within a grove of elderly oaks. Dark beams contrasted with
white stucco, just as Aunt Edith's brilliant vivacity had offset
Uncle Hubert's stolid good nature. Hawthorns, roses, and begonias
bloomed in brilliant explosions in beds defined by rough-quarried
granite. Out near the road in a special bed, the statue of a
sword-maiden guarded a fountain and a park bench, my favorite spot
for reading Shakespeare.

I wouldn't mind staying with Patty if she
lived anywhere else. But she'd given up her apartment and moved in
with Aunt Edith two years ago, when she was laid off at the type
shop; Aunt Edith had insisted, and I was just as happy that neither
of my two favorite femmes lived alone in the big bad city. Now
staying with Patty meant being surrounded by memories of Aunt Edith
and that stupid lump in my throat swelled again at the thought.

Of course, it's also possible Patty simply
didn't wish to be alone in the house, either. That suspicion was
the only reason I'd given in and agreed to stay over.

Crossing the lawn and approaching the granite
steps was like walking backward through time. The sorry years since
Uncle Hubert's death fell away and only the few magical ones he and
Aunt Edith and I had enjoyed together remained. The garden, even
the towering oak grove, looked fresh and new, startlingly vivid as
if a fourth, Puckish dimension had squeezed in amongst the usual
three. Rose petals littered the surface of the sword-maiden's pond,
glittering like blood-red drops as the fountain splashed them—

—the picture window of the Carr Gallery, just
overhead, was splattered with something dark. More of it sprayed
the polished maple door, the brass railing and handle and mail
slot. A small hole in the door, at waist level, had been marked
with chalk—

—more dark stains, lit obliquely by the dawn
light, trickled down the red brick, dripped from one concrete step
to the next, painted the sidewalk. I suddenly realized I could
smell it—

—the smell of blood vanished within seconds
and the remembered, long-dead magic wasn't far behind. Adrenaline
surged again and suddenly I couldn't catch my breath, my heart
hammering.

The Army shrink who examined me after the war
called flashbacks an "out-of-current-body" experience. Caren
Gallardo, my erstwhile girlfriend and a psychiatrist herself,
referred to them as waking nightmares: one moment everything's
normal, the next, without warning, I'm reliving some private little
hell. Usually they passed quickly, as this one had, and for the
most part I'd taught myself to keep it together and let the
nightmare unroll on the movie screen of my mind without
demonstrating my oddities for everyone. Even when I smelled
blood.

But now the hemline of my self-control was
fraying and images of Aunt Edith vanishing beneath that zipper
haunted me. I needed to find somewhere safe, curl up within myself
for a bit, and recuperate. Sitting out by the pond beneath the
sword-maiden's shadow was tempting, but Patty wouldn't understand.
Inside the house it would have to be. She still sat in the Taurus,
cell phone to her ear, staring earnestly at an invisible something
a few inches before her nose. Distracted and not watching me.

I tugged my little maroon case from one hip
pocket and unzipped it, selecting a springy steel tension tool and
my favorite half-round pick. I'd lost my keys to the house when I
was fifteen and never bothered to replace them because I never used
them. Aunt Edith, of course, said nothing. Nor had she replaced
them herself.

The tension tool fitted into the bottom of
the deadbolt's keyhole and the pick above it. The lock gave off
distinctive clicks as I raised each pin to its opening point, and
the tension tool kept them there while I worked on the next
one.

This wasn't the simplest lock to pick, but
nor was it the hardest. Normally it didn't need more than a few
minutes, but today it took longer because something was in the way
inside the lock. An unfortunate insect, I supposed, or a bit of
pine needle. That was about all that would fit inside the keyway,
although both seemed unlikely. Patty's quiet footsteps padded up
the steps as I concentrated, then her shadow spilled over my
fumbling hands. It didn't matter. Aunt Edith had taught me to pick
locks when I was eleven and it didn't require a visual image, only
the sensation of the tumblers through the tools.

The deadbolt surrendered finally and the
usual moment of satisfaction gave me a smile even then. I pushed
open the dark oak door and stood aside for Patricia. She didn't
notice. She was too busy staring at me, staring at the tools before
I zipped the case and returned it to my pocket, and all the old
family rumors regarding my less-than-savory reputation were
accusations in her eyes.

"You never told me you could do that."

Oh, ruddy hell. The house and yard seemed to
invisibly explode around me, even though nothing visually changed.
But in the carefully balanced reality I cultivated, everything
changed, and irretrievably. My lockpicking skills were something
I'd intended for Patricia to never, ever see. I'd wanted her to
discount my family reputation as a thief and consider me as good as
them.

It was a worse gut-wrench than any flashback.
Every move I'd made that day was a flaming disaster and my raw
nerves craved a safe spot and some recovery time. Calling a cab was
tempting, too. But that would abandon Patty to staying in the house
alone. It would also give her far too much time to think about
those unmistakable lockpicking tools. Besides, this revelation was
my fault, not hers. I couldn't abandon her. I tugged her inside,
then closed the door and snapped the bolt.