The Widow

I am a widow.

CHAPTER 2

The tip had come to her the night before in theatrical fashion.

It was the second Saturday in July, the day Abigail and Chris had chosen for their wedding seven years ago. She had spent the day alone. She always did, despite her friends and family who would call and invite her to barbecues and dinners, a movie, a Red Sox game.

Once, her mother, a corporate attorney with a high-powered husband, a woman who’d learned how to relax, had offered to book Abigail a spa day. “Get a massage. Get your toes done. You’ll feel better.”

Only her mother, Abigail had thought. But Kathryn March had made her widowed daughter smile with that gesture-mission accomplished.

Her father was a different story. He never tried to make his only daughter smile on her anniversary. He knew he couldn’t. Abigail had told him he couldn’t.

“Was Chris killed because of you?”

“Abigail…don’t…”

“Was he?”

“I was the father of the bride on your wedding day. That’s all.”

“Did you put him up to something on his honeymoon? You’ve seen the file on his murder. What’s in it? What aren’t you telling me?”

The truth was, there was nothing in Chris’s file. Otherwise his murder wouldn’t have remained unsolved. Investigators wouldn’t release certain details to a family member-in their place, Abigail wouldn’t, either. But the Maine State Police and the FBI weren’t hiding anything from her. Although he was a director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a hard-driving, self-made man, a former Boston cop himself, John March had no advantage when it came to his son-in-law’s murder.

He couldn’t produce a killer any more than she could. The evidence just wasn’t there. He couldn’t even console his daughter.

Not that she needed consolation. Not anymore. What she needed was resolution.

Answers.

But on the second Saturday in July, Abigail thought only of the man she’d loved and their time together. She didn’t think of Chris as the FBI special agent brutally murdered on his honeymoon, nor did she let her mind wander to the stack of materials she’d collected herself for her own investigative file on his death.

She’d landed at their favorite restaurant on Newbury Street and asked to sit by the window, where she could see the outdoor tables, crowded with diners enjoying the warm July evening, and passersby, young lovers holding hands, older couples out for an evening, perhaps celebrating their own wedding day.

Abigail wasn’t celebrating, but she wasn’t mourning, either.

“I love you, Abigail. I’ll always love you.”

She wanted to crawl back in time and tell him…don’t! Don’t love me! Love someone else. Live, Chris. Live.

But, because she couldn’t, she ordered a glass of Pinot Noir and thought of her wedding flowers-hydrangeas, roses-and that sparkling Maine afternoon, and how handsome Christopher Browning was as he’d waited for her to walk up the aisle on the lawn of the quaint seaside inn where they were married.

“Excuse me-ma’am? Are you Detective Browning?”

Her waiter’s words yanked her out of her memories and dropped her back into the real world. “Why-”

“You have a phone call.”

A call? Why not reach her on her pager or cell phone? She eyed the waiter. He was young, unfamiliar. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. I just-” He gestured back toward the bar. “Someone gave me the phone and said it was for you.”

“All right. Don’t go far, okay? I might want to talk to you.”

He nodded, retreating fast.

Abigail held the phone to her ear. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to disturb your dinner.” The voice was unrecognizable, barely a whisper. She couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. “Are you having your husband’s favorite wine?”

“Who is this?”

“Pinot Noir, correct?”

Damn. She pushed back the emotion of the evening and called on her law- enforcement training and experience. Keep whoever it is talking. “That’s right. Are you here? Join me.”

“Another time, perhaps.”

“Did you know my husband?”

“Shh. Shh. Just listen. Your husband turned over too many rocks. Bad things crawled out. He was eliminated.” The static whisper made the words seem even creepier, more menacing. “His death wasn’t a random act of violence.”

“I need you to be more specific-”

“You need to listen.” It was the first time the caller had put emphasis on any one word. “Things are happening on Mt. Desert. Again.”

“Is someone else in danger?”

“You’re the only person the killer fears.”

“Are you suggesting I’m in danger?”

“I’m suggesting you’re the one who can find the answers. Detective.” A brief pause. “You’ve gained experience over the past seven years. You haven’t lost your determination to solve your husband’s murder. The killer knows you won’t stop until you do.”

A cold finger of emotion penetrated her cloak of professionalism. “How do you know what the killer knows?”

“I have to go.”

“Wait-you said ‘things’ are happening. What kind of things?”

“No more.”

“What about the rocks Chris turned over-what crawled out? Give me an idea. Otherwise, once I hang up, I drink my wine, have a nice dinner and dismiss this as another crank call. I’ve had several over the years, you know.”

“This is the call you’ve been waiting for. You know it is.”

“Don’t-”

Click.

It was done. The call was over. Abigail set the phone on the table and dug her detective’s notebook out of her handbag and tugged off the Bic pen she kept attached to it. The waiter, who must have been watching, wandered back to her table, but she held up a hand, silencing him as she wrote down every word the caller had said to her.

When she finished, she flipped the pad shut and sat back, eyeing the waiter. A kid, really. “What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Trevor-Trevor Baynor.”

She took down his address and phone number, learned that he worked at the restaurant twenty hours a week- the rest of the time, he studied jazz at the Berklee College of Music. Piano.

“I need to get back to work,” he said.

“Sure. First tell me who took the call I just received. The bartender?”

He nodded. “Her name’s Lori.”

“What did she say to you when she handed you the phone?”