Found Art (Maine Justice Book 3) Page 5

  I said to Mike, “I wonder if it would do any good for one of us to go undercover and start buying art at auctions and shows.”

  “Too expensive,” Mike said. “We’d have thousands of dollars tied up for a long time. And it’s such a long shot. If they were victimizing the customers of a particular dealer, it might work.”

  We both went back to our budgets, but it churned in the back of my mind.

  Jennifer was working on her cross stitching when I got home. Beth Bradley had gotten her started on that while they lived together. She had done a little laundry and had a casserole in the oven, which told me she was feeling pretty good.

  When supper was ready, she sat down with me, and I brought her a plastic bottle of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator.

  “I don’t need expensive water,” she said. “I can drink tap water.”

  “Nothing but the best for my baby.” I set the bottle on the table and leaned over to kiss her. Her left hand went up to the back of my hair, and her fingers twisted in it.

  “Your hair’s curly.”

  “I know. I need a haircut.”

  “Let me do it.”

  “You’d better try to eat something first, and drink some water. Margaret will be over here sticking needles in you if you don’t hydrate.”

  “I guess this has been pretty awful for you,” she said.

  “No. I just feel helpless.”

  “That’s what’s awful for you.” She laughed. “My lord and protector, and you can’t do anything about this. Eddie must be really revolted. He hasn’t been around for two days.”

  “He’s very concerned about you, but he feels a little out of his element. He was just getting used to the idea of us having a baby when you started being nauseous all the time. That’s pretty unnerving for a single guy.”

  She shook her head. “The Invincible Duo, reduced to jelly.”

  She really did seem better that evening and sipped away dutifully at the bottle of water while we watched a new British drama on PBS. I felt as if I’d been wound up tight, and very slowly I was uncoiling.

  “I wanted to call John Macomber tonight,” she said around eight o’clock.

  “Do you have his number?”

  “It’s in my computer desk.”

  I got her address book for her.

  “You know, I think I could eat another jelly doughnut now.”

  I laughed and went to the kitchen to get it for her, and when I came back she was talking on the phone to John. I sat and listened to her end, and it sounded like John was very interested. They were discussing whether Jennifer should sell her program to him outright, or take royalties on sales.

  “It has a limited market,” she said to me when she’d hung up.

  “But it’s a fairly large one,” I pointed out. “Once police departments learn about its capabilities, they’ll all want it.”

  “If they can get it into their budgets, which you know is very hard.” She took a bite of the jelly doughnut. “How come food tastes good one minute and awful the next?”

  “I dunno. You okay?”

  “Yeah, this is great. But don’t let it near me before ten in the morning.”

  “You’re beautiful with jelly on your nose.”

  She laughed and grabbed a tissue to repair the damage.

  “We need to talk about names.” She took another bite.

  “What kind of names? For the computer program?”

  “No, baby names.”

  “You mean, like Bubby and Junior?” I laughed.

  “Harvey Junior.”

  “No, no, no. I refuse to name my son Harvey Junior, or Harvey Anything. Or Anything Junior, for that matter.”

  “Well, what will we call him, then?”

  “Are you so sure it’s a boy?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t think a little girl would be this ornery. And it’s what you want. A son.”

  “I don’t care,” I said honestly. “I really don’t, as long as—”

  “As long as he’s healthy?” she asked.

  “That’s what everyone says, isn’t it?”

  “Not everyone. But lots of people.”

  “I really mean it. A boy or a girl, I don’t care, as long as you feel good again and it’s a healthy child.” I tried not to think about the nameless baby who would be in college now if he’d lived. I didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. Pastor Rowland said I would see my child in heaven. I’d wrangled with it, and with God’s grace, I’d reached a place where I could live with that.

  “I hope it’s a boy.” Jennifer sounded wistful, and I wondered if she’d read my mind and caught a hint of sadness. She held out the plate with half a doughnut on it.

  “Had enough?” I asked.

  “For now.” She took a drink from the water bottle and leaned back on the couch. “So, should I take royalties or a lump sum?”

  “What did he offer you?”

  “Ten percent of profits or two thousand dollars.”

  “What will it retail for?” We talked it over, and I did the math. “He might sell it to hundreds of departments.”

  “Maybe. In time. I think I’ll take the two thousand.”

  “He might give you more when he sees it in action. And I’ll write a glowing testimonial telling how it’s helped me solve cases.”

  She smiled and stroked my stubbly cheek. “I’ll talk to him again tomorrow. We’ll see.”

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday, September 22

  The art theft case lay dormant. Eddie had been in court half the day Wednesday, for Jason Cuvier’s indictment in the poisoning episode and hearings on the smuggling case. We’d been handed a triple homicide, and I put Clyde in charge of it because he had so much homicide experience, and because I wanted to observe him. Arnie and Nate supported him.

  They had the killer in custody almost from the beginning, but handling the evidence was tricky, and all of the officers had to practice meticulous care. It was new territory for Nate, who hadn’t been in on many homicide investigations. I watched Clyde closely and was satisfied with his procedure and management.

  While they handled the details, I sat in on interviews for three candidates for the deputy chief’s position. All were from outside Portland. One was the current chief in Ellsworth; another was the female deputy chief in Dover-Foxcroft. The third possibility was a chief from New Hampshire. The city council grilled them all and argued over their qualifications.

  “Looks like a tossup to me,” Mike said when we’d retreated to the Priority Unit after the meeting.

  “Nobody in our department qualifies?” I asked.

  “Can’t think of anyone. At least no one I’d want to work with that closely.”

  “I hope they don’t take the New Hampshire guy. Too many of the laws are different.”

  Mike shrugged. “That can be dealt with. Anyhow, the council thinks we need to consider women more.”

  “Do you want a woman deputy?”

  “I don’t suppose it would matter much, and it would make the city look good.”

  I was surprised that the idea didn’t make me uncomfortable. But not the woman we’d just interviewed. She had a condescending streak. “Get another bunch of candidates in here.”

  “I dunno. I’m thinking maybe they’ll pick the Ellsworth guy.” Mike left me, and I put it out of my mind.

  Abby came back to Portland on Friday. I took my lunch hour late so I could meet her and Jennifer at Margaret’s office for Jennifer’s checkup.

  “You’re better,” Margaret pronounced after taking Jennifer’s vital signs. “Still not eating enough, and maybe a little dehydrated, but better than you were last time I saw you.”

  Jennifer smiled at Margaret and me. “I feel better.”

  Margaret set her up for an ultrasound. It was the first time either of us had seen it, and it took my breath away.

  “Look, Jenny. We can see our baby.” My eyes filled with tears. She squeezed my hand tight, watching the mon
itor. Margaret pointed out the organs that were developing, but still so immature. The beating heart eclipsed everything else for me. I stared at the screen and squeezed Jenny’s hand.

  “You’ll see a lot more in another month,” Margaret said matter-of-factly.

  I took a deep breath and fumbled for my handkerchief. Jennifer kissed my eyelids and said, “I married such a softie.”

  Margaret made some notes on Jennifer’s chart. “All right, keep eating. You’ve lost four pounds, and you can’t afford to lose any more. We need to get the scale going the other way. Harvey, keep buying doughnuts, or whatever she’ll eat. Jennifer, when you can, drink milk. You might have some nausea for another few weeks, but you need to try to get back to a balanced diet. And keep up those vitamins!” She laid down the clipboard and smiled. “I want to see you again in two weeks.”

  It seemed to me that two weeks was pretty soon, so either Jennifer was special or Margaret was more concerned about the morning sickness than she let on.

  She popped a disk out of the sonogram machine and handed it to me. “Home movies of the baby. Enjoy.” She kissed Jennifer on the cheek and was out the door to see her next patient.

  Jennifer got dressed, and I sent her home with Abby. I left them with orders for naps all around. Abby had worked from eleven to seven the night before and hadn’t had any sleep.

  A touchy new case landed on my desk that afternoon, and I had to supervise Nate and Eddie closely, leaving Arnie and Clyde to close out the homicide. The new one was the kind of case that’s emotionally draining, a sexual assault that left the victim in the hospital and the perpetrator at bay.

  Eddie and Nate laid the groundwork and got a solid I.D. from the victim. They brought in the rapist early that evening, but he was still arrogant. I felt filthy just looking at him. Nate and Eddie were pumped because of their success, and I was glad they had the guy off the street.

  When I got home from work an hour later than usual, Jennifer and Abby were both zonked, and I started scrounging for food in the refrigerator. There was plenty, including an uncooked meatloaf. I put it in the oven and decided I could microwave some leftover mashed potatoes. I was working on a salad when Jenny came padding out in her sock feet, her white terrycloth robe over her baseball shirt nightgown.

  I kissed her and sat her on a stool where she could watch me cut veggies. “Have you watched the video?” I asked.

  “Six times. He’s so…perfect.”

  I laid down the knife and put my arms around her. “This is going to be great, you know.”

  “I’m starting to believe it.”

  “It is. He’s going to be healthy and strong, and he’s going to look like you.”

  Jennifer laughed. “I hope not, if it’s a he.”

  “Like Jeff, then,” I corrected. “Boys who look like you will look like Jeff.”

  “I’ll be ecstatic if he looks like you,” she said.

  I pulled back and frowned at her. “You know all my baby pictures are funny looking.”

  “You were cute.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “I am not!”

  “What’s to eat?” Abby said from the doorway. “I’m starved. Are you cooking that meatloaf I left in the fridge?”

  “I certainly am.”

  The three of us got the dishes and the food onto the table, and I sat down with Jenny on one side and Abby on the other. Bookends.

  “This is weird.” I looked from one to the other. Jennifer’s face was much thinner now, and she still had little dark smudges under her eyes, but otherwise it was uncanny for two women who weren’t twins. They both had the Rapunzel look that night, with one long braid dangling over a shoulder. Jennifer’s was a foot longer than Abby’s, but even Abby’s was long.

  *****

  The next morning, Jennifer was sick again. I made her rest all weekend. The only way she would stay in bed was if I stayed in there with her, so we read a Mrs. Pollifax mystery out loud to each other and started a new Tess Gerritsen.

  By phone, she cemented a verbal contract with John Macomber for $2,500 for the computer program, and he said he would bring the papers over on Monday. She would deliver the program to him within two weeks. She was definitely feeling better, and chafing at my bed rest orders.

  “John says he’ll pay me in full when I give him the program, with the understanding that I’ll work with him to fix any bugs he finds,” she said. “I should start working on it.”

  “Only if you work on the laptop, in here.”

  She frowned at that. “John’s excited about it, and he’s ready to talk to his advertising firm about a marketing campaign. Oh, and he said the programs he bought from me before are doing well. He’d like me to do some freelance programming later.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “You need to gain some weight and quit tossing your breakfast first.”

  She pretended to pout, but she wasn’t stingy with her kisses, so maybe she was secretly glad I was pampering her. She conducted her business from the sleigh bed in the master bedroom, sitting up against a bank of pillows with her day planner and calculator and file folders spread out on the comforter and a bottle of spring water on the night stand.

  “Knock, knock.” Abby came to the doorway late Saturday afternoon in faded jeans and a Skowhegan Indians T-shirt.

  “Are you ready for your first night on the new job?” Jennifer asked her.

  “All but the uniform. Can’t wait.” Abby came over and sat on the foot of the bed.

  “Are they going to make your high school change its mascot?” I asked, looking at the Indian profile on her shirt.

  Abby shook her head. “I don’t think so. There was a big to-do about it a decade or so ago, but the school board stuck to their guns on it being a heritage thing. Funny, the Maine Indians aren’t insulted. It’s the militants out west that want it changed.”

  “I hope they don’t change it,” Jennifer said. “I can just see it—the Skowhegan Moose.”

  “How about the Skowhegan Skunks?” I suggested. Abby lunged for a pillow to throw at me.

  I retreated to the garage, and Bud Parker wandered across the street when I put the overhead door up.

  “What are you up to, Harvey?” he called from the driveway.

  “Thinking about mowing the back lawn one last time for the season,” I said. “Come on in.”

  He stood around and talked for a few minutes, getting an update on Jennifer and asking me about the homicide Clyde and the other men were working on. It had been major news in the paper and on the local TV broadcasts, and I’d made Clyde handle the publicity.

  “Figured you’d be in the middle of it.” Bud sounded, a little disappointed.

  “No, I’m just watching from the sidelines. The men are doing a good job.”

  “You aren’t just pushing paper now, are you?” he said anxiously.

  “No, I’m working on some other things, and if they need me I’ll be there, but I think they’ve got it under control. I’ve got some good men.”

  “I kind of hate to see men get promoted out of what they’re good at,” he said.

  “No, Bud, I’m still kicking down doors once in a while. But mostly I tell the other guys when to do it.”

  “So what are you working on now?”

  “Well, there’s a burglary ring we’re looking at, and there was a violent rape case yesterday. My two most experienced men were busy with the homicide, so I had to get in on that. One of my men had never handled a rape case before, so I went through it with him and Eddie.”

  “Don’t they have policewomen for that kind of thing?”

  “Well, yes, we had a female officer work with the victim, but when you go to arrest the perpetrator, that’s not the case you want to send a female out on,” I told him.

  “I don’t know, women these days think they can do anything.”

  “I know it. Maybe they can, but somehow it doesn’t seem right to me,” I said with a shrug. “We’ve got female cops
who think they should be assigned just like the men, and for the most part they are, but on a case like that—well, I guess I’d better not spout off too much or someone will be calling me a bigot and demoting me.”

  Bud laughed. “I guess management has its pitfalls nowadays.”

  “You got it.” I had the lawnmower ready to go, and started it up. Bud went back across the street.

  *****

  Eddie met me at six Monday morning to run, then went home to shower and change, but came back to eat breakfast with me at seven-fifteen. Jennifer got up and sat with us, but I made breakfast. She was drinking water—milk was still too much in the morning—and nibbled at a scrambled egg and dry toast. Eddie and I ate a pile of eggs and sausage and toast.

  Abby drove in, returning from work, and joined us for breakfast—her supper.

  “Hey! How’s the job going?” Eddie asked as she sat down and reached for the orange juice.

  I put my arm across the back of Jennifer’s chair, watching her eat while they talked. I tried not to count the bites she swallowed and reminded myself it was a lot more than a week ago.

  Abby seemed optimistic about things at the hospital. She told us about her shift and some of the things that were different down here than at the Waterville job.

  “And the hospital is so much bigger,” she concluded. “I’ll probably lose weight just walking from the parking lot to my station.”

  “How are your folks doing?” I asked her.

  “Pretty well. I think they’re worried about Jennifer, and they miss Jeff, too. Now that I’m down here, it probably seems really quiet to them.”

  “Empty nest.” I was glad we wouldn’t go through it for twenty years or so.

  Eddie pushed his chair back. “We’d better get going.”

  “Right.”

  Abby got up and walked outside with him. I leaned over to kiss Jennifer goodbye.

  “Take it easy today,” I told her. “I’ll call you later, and I want you to still be feeling as good as you are now, or better.” She kissed me again, and I knew she was more than I deserved. The baby was a bonus, a precious, sacred gift.