CHAPTER
40
Petra stared at the doorway through which Stu had just passed, then she went after him.
He reappeared in the doorway before she got there. Cocking his head.
C’mere.
Oh yeah, faithful little junior partner will jump up on cue.
They locked eyes. His face was stone; no apologies. Deciding to maintain her dignity, she followed him down the stairs and out of the building to the rear lot, where his Suburban was parked. The truck, usually spotless, had dirty windows. Crusted bird droppings freckled the white hood.
She said, “What the hell’s going on, Stu?”
He unlocked the passenger door, motioned for her to get in, came around and sat behind the wheel.
“We’re not going anywhere,” she said, remaining outside. “Some of us have work to do.”
He stared through the windshield. Sun from the east traced the contours of his profile in orange. A paperback-book model couldn’t have posed for greater effect. Everyone a goddamn actor.
Petra got in and slammed the door so hard the truck shook.
Stu said, “I owe you an explanation.”
“Okay.”
“Kathy has cancer.”
Petra’s throat seized and closed, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Oh, Stu-”
He held up a finger. “She’s going in for surgery tomorrow. She’s been having tests done; we weren’t sure. Now we are.”
“I’m so sorry, Stu.” Why didn’t you tell me? Obviously, not close enough. Eight months of chasing bad guys doth not a deep relationship make.
“One breast,” he said. “Her doctor found it on routine checkup. They think it’s just a single tumor.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, thanks, we’re covered. Mother’s taking the kids and Father’s dealing with the hospital.”
His right arm rested on the center console. Petra put her hand on his sleeve. “Go home, Stu. Wil and I will handle everything.”
“No, that’s the thing, I was going to take a leave of absence, but Kathy insisted I shouldn’t. She wants me home tonight to take her to the hospital, told me I can stay until she falls asleep. And tomorrow, when she comes out of surgery, I’ll be there. But in between she insists I keep working. Even when she gets radiation… maybe they can do just a lumpectomy, they’re not sure.”
“You’re planning to stay on the job?” said Petra.
“Kathy wants it. You know Kathy.”
Petra knew very little about Kathy. Gracious, pretty, efficient, supermom, never without makeup. High school prom queen, with a teaching credential she’d never used. During the family outings, Petra had observed a superorganizer.
A bit reserved-let’s be honest, more than reserved. Despite superficial friendliness, the woman had always maintained distance, and Petra had thought of her as an ice queen.
Thirty-six years old. Six kids.
Petra thought of her own father, raising five children by himself. And all the while, Stu’d been fighting to maintain.
“She’s so strong,” Stu said. “I’ve never slept with anyone else.”
Saying it with wonderment. Petra patted his arm.
“Most guys get tired of being with the same woman. All I ever wanted was Kathy. I really love her, Petra.”
“I know you do.”
“You try to do the right thing, live a certain way-I know there are no deals with God, He’s got His own plan, but still…”
“She’ll be fine,” said Petra. “It’ll work out, you’ll see.”
“Look at Ramsey,” he went on. “Has a healthy wife, does that to her. The Eggermann woman. All the things we see.”
He put his head down on the steering wheel, broke into startling, phlegmy sobs.
Vivian Boehlinger, now this.
This was different. This was part of her.
Petra reached over and held him.
CHAPTER
41
As she approached the elevator, Mildred Board heard footsteps from above. Then a toilet flush, the bathwater running. The big house was built beautifully, but if you stood in certain places, sound traveled freely through the rafters.
Missus drawing the bath herself. There was something new.
Perhaps it would be a good day.
She returned to the kitchen, ate the shirred eggs and drank the coffee at the old yew-wood table, dumped the coffee, made a fresh pot and waited, allowing the missus a nice long time to soak. By 8:45 she was riding up with the second batch of breakfast.
No newspaper on the tray. But not because she’d screened it for nastiness. The delivery service had skipped the house this morning. Again. Such a slipshod world.
She’d take care of it after serving, get right on the phone with the newspaper subscription office, give them what for.
Sometimes she wished the missus would allow the subscription to lapse. There was no need to read the kinds of things they printed.
The lift let her out on the carpeted top landing. She walked past the space where the upstairs Steinway grand had stood, past the ghosts of the Regency chest with its intricate tortoiseshell front, the pair of monumental Kang Xi vases, blue as the sky, white as milk, sitting high on Carrara-marble pedestals. A patch of dust in an alcove made her stop and wipe with the hem of her apron.
The walk to the missus’s suite took her past the echoes of Chinese porcelain, the gilded cases, one filled with animalier bronzes, the other teeming with Japanese inro, jade, ivory, mixed-metal vases.
All irreplaceable. Like the boulle chest. It was illegal to kill tortoises now. Unborn babies, yes, but not reptiles.
She knocked on the missus’s door, received the expected faint reply, and went in.
The missus was in bed, wearing the cream satin bed jacket with the covered buttons-what a quest it had been finding a proper dry cleaner for that-hair wrapped in a white French towel, no makeup but still beautiful. Rosewater scent sweetened the enormous room. The only items on the nightstand were a Limoges tissue-box holder and a black satin eye mask. The bed covers were barely mused; even in sleep the woman was genteel.
But the missus was acting strange-staring straight ahead, not smiling at Mildred.
Bad dreams again?
The room was still dark, both sets of drapes drawn. Mildred stood there, not wanting to intrude, and a second later the missus turned to her. “Good morning, dear.”
“Morning, ma’am.”
