impatience, and even a tinge of completely unfounded revulsion, at their weakness, their willingness to crawl back like beaten dogs to lick the hand of their tormentor. When confronted by a woman who persisted in an abusive relationship, Kate inevitably found herself stifling the question, Why hadn’t the woman just hauled off and brained her husband with a skillet?
But then again, maybe this one had.
Everything about the recent widow in front of Kate was apologetic and unassuming, from her limp handshake to her slumped shoulders. The heavy frames of her cheap glasses nearly hid the washed-out brown of her eyes, her face was a pale contrast to the flat black of hair that showed gray at the roots, and the drab cotton dress that hung over her dumpy figure had been washed to the point of colorlessness. Kate began by expressing her sympathies over the loss of her husband; Emily Larsen responded by wincing, her eyes filling. Kate sighed quietly to herself.
“Ms. Larsen… Emily. I believe that Ms. Lomax has told you that your husband was killed, on Monday night or Tuesday morning? That he was murdered?”
Kate waited for a response from the woman before she went on, expecting either a meek nod or silent tears. What she saw instead made her sit back sharply, the usual string of questions cut short. A small grimace had puckered up Emily Larsen’s mouth—brief, but clear. Why on earth would the woman react to Kate’s words with
“Were you and James separated, Mrs. Larsen?”
“A trial separation,” Emily admitted in a small voice.
“Your husband had a history of abusing you. Was that the main reason?”
“I was…yes.”
“You were afraid of him, I do understand. He hit you, didn’t he?”
Emily glanced at Carla, mouth open as if to protest, but she subsided and only nodded.
“Did he hit your kids as well?”
The woman looked up quickly. “Never. He wouldn’t. Jimmy’s— Jimmy was a good man. He loved us, he really did. He just… lost control sometimes.”
“When he was drinking.”
Another nod.
“Did you ever get the feeling that your husband was involved with someone outside the home?”
“Involved? You mean, like with another woman?” The very idea was enough to shake Emily Larsen in a way nothing else had.
Kate hastened to reassure her that her loving husband hadn’t been taking it elsewhere, so far as she knew.
“Not necessarily a woman. Gambling, maybe, going to the races, perhaps something mildly illegal that he wouldn’t have wanted you to find out about?”
“I really don’t know. There’s nothing I can think of, and Jimmy never went away much except to work and bowling and stuff. And someone having… you know, an affair, they always say they’re working overtime, don’t they?”
“Did your husband ever have money that wasn’t explained by his salary?”
“No,” Emily replied, reassured that Kate wasn’t about to spring a rival on her, but obviously bewildered by the questions. Kate let it go. A baggage handler behind the scenes at a busy airport might have opportunity for crime, but if Larsen had indulged in smuggling or rifling bags, he had kept it from his wife. Kate would try another tack.
“Mrs. Larsen, did your husband come up to San Francisco a lot?”
“No. He never did.”
“Never?”
“Except for the airport, of course, and to Candlestick or whatever they’re calling it now. He mostly liked football, but he’d go to baseball games if he could get cheap tickets. And if he was going to Oakland, he’d go through the City even if he came back around the Bay. To save on the bridge fare, you know? Jimmy hated to pay the fare.” Toll on the Bay’s various bridges was collected only one way, although as far as Kate knew, it was cheaper to pay it than to drive clear around the Bay. James Larsen may have been one who resented the fare enough to spend the gas money, and an hour longer on the road, to avoid paying it.
“So you have no idea what he was doing in the Presidio on Monday night?”
Emily shook her head, as much in wonder as to indicate a negative. “It seems a strange place for Jimmy to go.”
“Was he a golfer?” Kate asked desperately, thinking of the Presidio golf course—although Larsen had not been dressed for golf any more than he had been for jogging. Emily looked as if Kate had suggested nude sunbathing or jai alai, and told her no.
No drugs on the body, no unexplained cash, no extramarital entertainment on the side. Larsen’s death was proving more and more enigmatic. “Mrs. Larsen,” Kate said finally, “do you have any idea why someone would have wanted to kill your husband?” she asked, and for the second time Emily Larsen’s answer gave Kate a jolt. This time the woman looked directly into Kate’s face, her eyes theatrically wide.
“No. Of course not,” she said. “Who would want to kill Jimmy?”
She had all the guile of a child, her lie so blatant Kate couldn’t help glancing at the lawyer. Carla Lomax was sitting motionless in her chair, working hard at not reacting to her client’s words, but Kate had the distinct impression that the lawyer was as dismayed by Emily’s response as Kate was.
At that juncture Kate had two choices. She could press Emily Larsen until the woman came clean or broke down—or, more likely, until Lomax put a halt to it. If Kate knew what was going on, if she even had a clear suspicion of what lay behind Emily’s odd evasiveness, she would not hesitate to push, but there were times when it was better to pull away and go do some research, and all Kate’s instincts were telling her this was one of them. Find out who Emily Larsen was and what pushed her levers, and with that weapon in hand, come back and pin her to the wall.
Kate arranged an expression of openness on her face, and nodded as if in acceptance of the answer. “When was the last time you talked to Jimmy?”
“About, oh, a week ago?” She looked at Carla Lomax, who knew better than to give her an answer. “It was —oh right, it was last Tuesday. I called to let him know I was okay, and not to forget that the gas man was coming the next day to check a leak I’d smelled. We didn’t talk much. I asked him how he was and told him I was okay, and he said when was I coming home and I said I wasn’t, and then he started getting mad and so I just hung up on him,” she said proudly, and then spoiled the effect by letting out a sad, deflating little sigh halfway to being a whimper, and adding parenthetically, “I don’t even know if he stayed home to let the gas man in.”
“So you didn’t call your husband on Monday?”
“Oh no, I sure didn’t.”
“And you didn’t talk to anyone else who might have told him where you were? A neighbor, maybe? Or a friend you saw in the street?”
“I didn’t see anyone, no.”
“Where were you on Monday night, Mrs. Larsen?” Kate slipped the question in as if it had no more weight than the others, and Emily answered it before her lawyer could stir in her chair.
“I was staying at a shelter that Carla set up for me. I’m still there.”
“And did you leave at all, any time after, say, six on Monday night?”
“No, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I didn’t—there was a meeting and then I stayed up talking to some people until, golly, near midnight.”
Kate slapped her notebook shut before Carla Lomax could voice an objection.
“We’d like to borrow the keys to your house, Mrs. Larsen. We need to do a search, to see if your husband may have had visitors or something. We won’t disturb anything, and we’ll be out of the way before you get back.”
Carla Lomax automatically began to protest Kate’s need for a warrant, but Emily, in a rare gesture of assertiveness, overrode her. “I really don’t mind, Carla. I think I’d rather they were in and out before I got there.
