“She did break in,” Lucas protested defensively.
From my ignoble position on the floor, I fastened my gaze on Lucas. “Don’t you watch any TV, Lucas? You’re supposed to say, ‘Freeze, asshole!’”
“I am not an asshole,” Lucas said. “And do you ever think not to break into people’s houses?”
“I wasn’t breaking in, and I wasn’t calling you an asshole. Sorry, Lucas.” Suddenly, I felt consumed with guilt. Lucas appeared bleary-eyed and defeated. He’d just lost his father. “Sorry,” I said again. “I was—”
“Mrs. Schulz?” the sandy-haired policeman interrupted. His name tag said his name was Katz. “Your husband will be here directly. He was in the area and shouldn’t be long.” Officer Katz smiled at me. “So I’m finally getting to meet the infamous Mrs. Schulz.”
“She’s infamous?” Lucas asked.
“Hey, buddy?” Katz said to Lucas. “Don’t talk unless I ask you a question, okay?” To me, he said, “You want to tell me why you’re in this house?”
“Will you help me up first?”
Katz offered me a strong hand, and soon I was sitting on Jack’s couch. The dark-haired policeman, not wanting, I figured, to be bawled out by Tom for being unhelpful to his wife, scrambled to get me a glass of water from the kitchen. I felt dizzy and in pain. On the floor not far from where I’d fallen was a small brass lamp with a broken bulb and smashed shade. It was the bulb and shade, I figured, that Lucas had swung at the side of my head, leaving me stunned, confused, and lying on the floor. I wondered if he could be arrested for assault.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I was doing here.” I felt in my sweatpants pocket that held the keys, not the one with the travel clock. Seeing Katz’s immediate look of alarm, I pulled out my hand. “I’m not going for a weapon,” I assured him. “You want to feel in my pocket? I was getting the keys Jack gave me, and the note in his handwriting saying he wanted me to have them.” I gave Lucas another angry look. Lucas shrugged and stared at the ceiling.
“It’s okay,” said Katz, “I trust you. Get out the keys and the note. I’m not going to go feeling around in the pockets of the wife of my superior officer, thanks.”
I withdrew the note and the keys, which Katz studied. If he wanted to make sure the keys worked, then he could go and test them on the door. But I had the feeling he believed me.
The dark-haired policeman came over and handed me the water. His badge indicated his name was Allen. He furrowed his eyebrows at Jack’s handwriting.
I had, of course, left the travel clock securely in the bottom of my other pocket.
“This your father’s writing?” Katz asked Lucas, who stared down at the note. “These his keys?”
“Yes,” said Lucas. “I’m sorry I panicked and hit Goldy—”
“All right, then,” Katz interrupted noncommittally as he handed the keys and the note back to me.
“Don’t give those keys back to her,” pleaded Lucas. “She doesn’t belong here.”
“Could you give it a rest, please, Lucas?” I asked gently. I trained my gaze on Katz. “Let me explain. We live across the street.” My breath hitched, and I fought to maintain calm. “Jack Carmichael was my godfather.” Tears began their unwanted streaming down my face. “He…died last night, in Southwest Hospital,” I managed to say. I cleared my throat and paused to compose myself. As they’re taught to do, the two cops waited patiently. Lucas was shifting his weight from foot to foot. I went on, “Here’s what happened. Last night, Jack Carmichael was attacked at a wedding I was catering out at Gold Gulch Spa. He actually died early this morning. Our priest came to tell me, and I thought, since Jack had insisted in the hospital that I take the keys, maybe he wanted me to…I don’t know, water his plants, feed a pet—”
“But he has no plants and no pets,” Lucas interjected. “As you very well know, Goldy.”
“Lucas,” I began again, “could you please just stop? Why are you here, anyway?”
He reddened. “Well, I do have keys to the house.”
I asked, “So what were you doing here, then?”
“Hold on, kids,” said Katz. He and Allen exchanged an unreadable look. Before Lucas and I could keep arguing, there was a sharp knock on the door. Lucas and I both jumped. Allen held up both hands, indicating everyone should stay where they were. Then he walked over quickly and opened the door. When Tom strode into the room, my shoulders relaxed in relief, while Lucas groaned even louder.
“Schulz,” said Katz. “Thank God.” He was clearly relieved not to have to sort out what was going on between Schulz’s wife and the dead man’s son.
But alas. Tom did not seem relieved. I recognized the attitude he assumed, but was usually successful at concealing, when he was mightily ticked off. He gave me a bitter look, and I could just imagine the questions he’d pepper me with as soon as we got back to our house: So, how’d you do with Marla at St. Luke’s? Get those diocesan letters straightened out, did you? Oh, wait, you didn’t do that.
The cops briefed Tom as to Lucas’s phone call to 911: he’d heard an intruder in the living room, who had been me, and he needed law enforcement to come as quickly as possible. Then he proceeded to sideswipe me with a lampshade.
“I want this house sealed,” Tom said to Katz and Allen. “Nobody else comes in except our guys, understand? We’re looking into a suspicious death, and this residence is off limits to anyone not involved in the investigation.”
“Oh no, you are not going to seal this house,” Lucas protested. “My father had a history of heart attack and he had another, fatal one early this morning. It is simply not fair for you to—”
Tom’s stance—not menacing, but not even close to conciliatory—his penetrating green eyes, his lifted chin, all these he trained on Lucas Carmichael, who closed his yappy mouth. Thank God.
“Okay, everybody out,” Katz ordered, and I was only too glad to meekly follow Tom out of Jack’s house.
“GOLDY,” SAID TOM, once we were in our kitchen and I had downed some aspirin for my sorely aching head. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t really thinking.”
“That much is obvious. Down at the department, they’re going to have a field day with this. ‘Schulz’s wife broke into the house of a guy whose death was suspicious. What d’you suppose she was looking for?’”
“Katz and Allen will say all that? Why?”
“Because they’re cops, Goldy, and they’ve got to talk about something when they come off their shift. And the more trouble you get into, the more news you make, Miss G.”
“I wasn’t getting into trouble! I just wanted to find out why Jack left me his keys!”
“And did you?” Tom moved over to the espresso machine.
“No.”
There was a pause while we looked at each other. Then Tom exhaled, smiled, and shook his head. “You want some coffee?”
“I’ve been thinking I should switch to decaf.”
Tom laughed. “You?”
“All right, all right, the good stuff.” While Tom rattled around retrieving cups, I said, “There was a new set of golf clubs in his living room.” I didn’t elaborate, as I didn’t want to mention the clock. Stealing merchandise from a potential crime scene? Not something I wanted to share with Tom. My head hung, and I felt an acute sense of misery. I could barely form the words, but I had to know. “So did Jack die, you know, naturally? Of a heart attack, I mean. Or was the death suspicious?”
“Miss G.” Tom pulled shots of espresso for each of us, brought them over to the table, and sat down. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You know that since Jack was attacked, and died shortly thereafter, his death is suspicious by definition. I’ve already called down to Southwest Hospital to have the body sent up to our pathologist. We have to determine cause and manner.” He reached out for my free hand. “You know this.”
Yeah, okay, I knew it, but the knowledge just increased my misery. The mental image of Jack being cut open, his parts being dissected and weighed, made me ill.
“Drink your coffee,” said Tom, as he placed an espresso in front of me.
Just to placate him, I took a tiny sip. It was hot and scalded my tongue. “Have you found out anything else?”
Tom said, “We’re still working on getting the analysis back on the vial from Finn’s trash. These things take time. But we found out a bit more about the break-in at his house.”
