The Mill River Recluse (12 page)

“Hi, Rowen,” she said, but before she could say anything to Kyle, Rowen interrupted her.

“Miss Simon, guess what? I got a cat! Dad got it from a lady who died and now he’s mine!”

“You did?” Claudia said, looking at Kyle, who grinned back at her. “What’s her name?”

“
His
name,” Rowen said, placing extra emphasis on
his
, “is Sham. He’s a Siamese and has blue eyes. We have to get him cat food.” Rowen was looking curiously into Claudia’s cart. Spying the half-hidden Entenmann’s box, she pursed her mouth and squinted up at her father. “Hey, Dad, Miss Simon is getting doughnuts, so why can’t I get one?”

Claudia thought she would shrivel into a prune. If Kyle noticed her reddening face, though, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed a little embarrassed by Rowen’s antics.

“Oh, all right,” he said awkwardly. He looked at Claudia sheepishly as Rowen took off toward the bakery counter. “But only one,” he called in the direction of the doughnut case.

“She’s got a major sweet tooth,” Kyle said as he put another loaf of bread into the cart. “You’d think that getting treats from the bakery all week, and pancakes for breakfast this morning, would be enough for her.”

“Well, I guess when it comes to doughnuts, I can relate,” Claudia said with a wry smile. “And you’re only a kid once.”

“That’s true,” Kyle said. “So, Miss Simon, how have those fourth-graders been treating you?” He looked at her with genuine interest, and Claudia hoped that whatever she managed to say wouldn’t sound idiotic.

“Oh, please call me Claudia. And things are pretty good. I’m getting to know the kids, which is hard when you come in halfway through the school year and they’re used to someone else. Their teacher resigned rather than come back after her maternity leave, and the kids were disappointed when they started school after Christmas and found me there instead. I really appreciated you and Officer Underwood coming in to talk to them. The kids enjoyed seeing you.”

“That’s good. Visiting your class was way more fun than patrolling or checking drivers’ licenses. And you should call me Kyle, by the way. None of this officer stuff. Same goes for Leroy, if you happen to run into him.”

Claudia hoped that she
wouldn’t
see Leroy again. She remembered how Kyle’s partner had leered at her throughout their visit to the classroom. But Kyle was standing in front of her, looking at her expectantly, and she refocused her attention on him.

“Fair enough,” Claudia said, smiling, as Rowen returned with what appeared to be a Bavarian creme doughnut in a little waxpaper bag.

“Look, Dad, I got one with custard inside. Can I eat it now?” she asked. “Pleeaase?”

Kyle rolled his eyes at Claudia as she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, I’ve got a stack of papers to grade at home, and it looks like you’ve got more decisions to make,” she told him. “And I’ll see
you
in class tomorrow,” Claudia said to Rowen as she turned her cart away.

“Take care,” Kyle said, as Rowen waved goodbye with her mouth already full.

Claudia headed toward the checkout lines with her heart singing. She hadn’t made a fool of herself in front of Kyle, even after the doughnut fiasco. In fact, she thought, as she removed the box of doughnuts from her cart and shoved it onto a shelf at the end of an aisle, she was truly happy, and she didn’t need doughnuts to stay that way. At least, not today.

~~~

With the end of their shopping trip finally in sight, Kyle and Rowen made their way to the pet food aisle. As they turned around the end of an aisle, Kyle caught a glimpse of Claudia standing at the checkout, rummaging in her purse and chatting with the cashier. It was strange that he hadn’t noticed how attractive she was the first time he’d seen her. Then again, he’d been in her classroom, in front of his daughter and twenty-two other fourth graders.

“Here’s the cat food aisle. Dad, come
on
,” Rowen said, tugging at the cart. Her doughnut long gone, she wanted only to return home and play with Sham.

Somewhat reluctantly, Kyle tore his gaze away from Claudia and followed his daughter. He was surprised to realize that he was actually interested in someone. He hadn’t felt that way about any woman since Allison had died. Even better, Kyle thought as he watched Rowen pull a bag of cat food from the shelf, was that finding a way to see Claudia again would be no problem at all.

~~~

Leroy Underwood was doing some rummaging of his own.

Parked two blocks from Claudia’s house, he watched her shovel the snow from around her car and drive away. She had cleared the walk around back too, which was just as well, since he had no desire to leave footprints in the snow leading up to the door. Once she drove out of sight, he crept to the rear of the house and let himself in through the back door. Like most other back doors in Mill River, Claudia’s was rarely locked. He had watched her for almost a month now. He knew her routine. She worked out every Sunday morning and always went out for groceries afterward. She would be gone for at least an hour.

Until today, he had never been so bold as to enter her house. Oh, he had looked into her windows plenty of times, watched as she sat and graded papers at night, ran on her treadmill, lounged on the sofa in front of the television. He had taken some pretty good pictures of her. But he craved her, needed to know more of her. He had worn his police uniform, so that if he were seen, he could simply explain that he was checking out a report of a peeping Tom. He figured such a situation would be unlikely, though, and fortunately for him, it appeared that he was right. Even in broad daylight, no one was around.

Now he stood in front of her bedroom dresser, running his coarse fingers through her underthings, breathing in the lavender scent of her lingerie sachet. He pulled out silky panties and camisoles and nightgowns that slid like liquid over his hands. He looked down at her bed, imagined himself beneath her covers. Some day, he would lie here with her.

Carefully, he selected a lacy thong panty from her drawer and put it in his pocket. It was silky black with thin embroidered sides. He would use the thong at night when he looked at his pictures of her.

He began to grow nervous. She might be on her way home by now, and he needed to leave.

He passed the bathroom where the warm, moist smell of shampoo still hung in the air. In Claudia’s orderly kitchen, he opened her refrigerator. Nothing in it appealed to him.

He closed the door and examined the many notes and photos under her assorted refrigerator magnets. There was a picture of her, wearing tight jeans and a low-cut sweater and smiling demurely over her shoulder. Next to it was a picture of the back of an enormous woman, taken so that her face didn’t show. He didn’t know who this woman was and didn’t care--he was much more interested in the picture of Claudia. His eyes were drawn again to the tight jeans. Her ass was firm and round--a perfect cushion for the pushin’. Leroy thought of the black panties in his pocket, and the front of his jeans, already uncomfortably tight, felt like it would burst.

Leroy flinched as a loud knock sounded on the front door. He froze for a moment, listening.

“Yoo-hoo, Miss Claudia, are you home?” a voice called through the door. Whoever it was knocked again.

Leroy stole a glance out the kitchen window and cursed to himself. It was Crazy Daisy, dressed like a damned Eskimo and looking expectantly up at the door.

She’ll go away after a few minutes
, he thought as he stood in the kitchen, but then he heard a car pull into the driveway and his heart began pounding even faster. He knew well the sound of that car. Claudia was home.

His mind was racing. He heard a car door slam, heard Daisy’s sing-song voice chattering about some love potion and Claudia politely trying to refuse Daisy’s solicitation. He would have to go now and hope that they were too distracted by each other to notice him leaving.

Leroy was out the back door just as Claudia stepped in through the front. He hid behind a thicket of trees in her backyard in case she looked outside. He watched Daisy walk past the house on her way toward St. John’s. The little round woman paused for a moment when she passed the thicket in which he was hiding and then kept going. She probably hadn’t seen him. Once Daisy was at the front door of the church, he walked casually around the back, down to where his car was parked. The adrenaline still coursed through him, but he was beginning to feel intense satisfaction at his accomplishment. He stuck his hand in the pocket where the panties were. Though he had never imagined he would, he felt a sort of grudging gratitude toward Crazy Daisy. As batty as she was, her showing up had enabled him to escape with his treasure.

Chapter 10

Two months after their wedding, Mary was standing at her bedroom window in her nightgown, watching Patrick leave for work. His new midnight blue Packard Clipper coupe, the wedding present promised by his father, rolled smoothly down the driveway and disappeared. After a few moments, she caught sight of the car again, moving up the main street of Mill River heading toward Rutland.

Although Vermont’s autumn glory was at its peak, Mary barely noticed the bright orange and flaming red of the sugar maples. Her gaze bypassed the golden aspens interspersed among dark green pines. The rolling hills surrounding Mill River had become a rich natural palette, but one that held no interest for Mary.

She turned her tear-stained face from the window and gingerly flexed her wrist.
Perhaps some ice would stop it from hurting
, she thought. She headed downstairs to the kitchen. There, she pulled a tray of ice cubes from the freezer and slammed it on the counter. A handful of cubes popped loose. She wrapped the ice in a towel and applied the cold, lumpy mass to her wrist.

Mary stood over the sink in the kitchen for several minutes. The ice in the towel melted, spreading coldness through the plush cotton fibers. Water droplets began to fall into the sink.
Drip. Drip
. In the quiet interior of the marble house, the droplets sounded like sharp blows of a hammer. Mary leaned against the counter and began to cry again.

How could she have been so happy and so wrong at the same time? The two months that she had spent as Patrick’s wife felt like two years. The man that Patrick was today was not the man she had married. Or perhaps he was, and she had been too naive to realize it.

The towel holding the ice cubes was almost completely soaked when Mary finally dropped it into the sink. She held up her wrist. It was slightly swollen. Reddish-purple bruises had appeared on each side, left by the vice-like grip of Patrick’s hand. She flexed it again and was surprised that it felt much better. Mary took another towel, dried her hands, and pressed it lightly against her damp cheeks.

The tree branches outside the kitchen window twisted gently in the wind. She thought of how that cool breeze would feel on her face and headed back upstairs to get dressed. She really needed to get out of the house.

Mary pulled a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of her comfortable work pants out of her bureau. The first time she had seen Patrick, she had been wearing clothes like this. He hadn’t given any indication that it bothered him then, but the last time she dressed this way in front of him, he screamed at her to go change immediately, because no wife of his would dress like a pauper.
A different person
, she thought again, as she peeled off her nightgown. Her injured wrist made it difficult to dress, but she managed. Mary went downstairs, slipped on her riding boots, and headed to the stable through the back door of the house.

True to his word, Conor had had a stable built for Patrick and Mary on the land behind their new home. The barn held three horses—Penny, Patrick’s new chestnut Thoroughbred mare, Monarch, and Ebony. The horses turned expectantly as she opened the door. Ebony swung her dark head over the stall door and nickered.

“Good morning, pretty girl,” Mary said to the black horse. She rubbed the mare’s nose and forehead before she went to the feed room.

While the residents of the barn busied themselves with their morning oats, Mary sat on a bale of straw, her brow furrowed in thought. She had tried so many times to talk to Patrick. Lately, he had been in such a foul mood. He wouldn’t open up to her, and had taken to staying at work later and later. Perhaps it was just the pressures of his job. He had complained several weeks ago that as the war in Europe escalated, demand for marble was steadily dropping. And, for what orders they did have, they were short on workers since men at the Marbleworks were being drafted into the military or transferred to war-related industries.

There was also other pressure that Patrick must be feeling. As much as she tried not to think about it, he could be drafted as easily as any of the other employees at the Marbleworks. When his conscription questionnaire arrived, he had filled it out and returned it as he was required to do. He had been assigned a number, like all of the young men in Rutland County, and every month, the Rutland Herald printed columns of names of the men whose numbers had been drawn by the local draft board.

Her great fear was that it was something about her that bothered him. In the few weeks after they had returned from their honeymoon, he had wanted her to go to dinner or attend some other social function with him almost every night. She had acquiesced. During these outings, Patrick seemed to delight in presenting her to his friends and acquaintances, which made her quite uncomfortable. She had become much better at quelling any anxiety that she felt in those situations, but she now understood that she would never come close to matching Patrick’s social prowess.

This morning over breakfast, when he had mentioned an upcoming dinner engagement, she had asked if they might decline the invitation and enjoy a quiet evening together alone.

“Mary, you know it would be rude to do that.”

“Well, surely, Patrick, people don’t accept every invitation they receive. Don’t you think we could decline this one?”