A Southern Promise. Jennifer Lohmann

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СКАЧАТЬ out of his pocket. Her tissues were in her purse, which sat on the front passenger seat. Close enough for her to smell the lotion inside melting in the heat, but a million miles away for all that she could reach it.

      His handkerchief smelled of laundry detergent and dryer sheets. Heavy smells, but it was soft against her eyes and nose.

      That the handkerchief smelled like the detective was too intimate for a moment like this one, but she held on to that secret knowledge like she held on to the cloth. A small thing to comfort herself with. She gave her eyes another wipe with the handkerchief, then crumpled it in her hand and looked down at the soggy white square. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered her a handkerchief.

      No, she could. Binnie had offered her one, last summer when Julianne had been over for tea and had received a text that Lewis had remarried. Tears Julianne had thought she was done with had welled up in her eyes, and Binnie had pulled out the handkerchief that she always kept tucked under her shirt and offered it to her.

      Binnie, who was dead.

      The subtle reminder of reality outside this car was all it took for the sense of loss that had been building to burst. What had been ladylike tears slipping down her face became a flood no handkerchief could contain. She cried because Aunt Binnie had been murdered, just like her husband—her worst fears come true. She cried because Aunt Binnie had died frightened and alone. But mostly she cried because last spring, when Binnie had asked Julianne to come over and help her plant tomatoes, Julianne had said she was too busy and now she would never get that conversation back to do over. She’d never plant tomatoes with Binnie again.

       CHAPTER THREE

      HOWIE HADN’T INTENDED to offer Ms. Dawson anything but his sympathy and a handkerchief, but somewhere between when the reality about her aunt had sunk in and now, he’d opened up his arms and she’d practically crawled onto his lap, sobbing into his shirt. Which was fine, he guessed, because there was no way the square of cotton she clutched in her fist by his ear would do anything but run away like a frightened hound dog from the amount of tears pouring from her.

      He rolled the tips of his fingers along the inside of his collar, which was damp from sweat. He had left the door open, but the slight breeze wasn’t enough to make up for the greenhouse the car had become. Or for the damp warmth of her tears, the heat and softness of her body against his, the spicy, musky scent of her hair so close to his nose.

      Christ. One of the first rules of good detective work was that everyone is a suspect until proved otherwise. And that included Julianne Dawson, née Somerset, who had grown up as Durham’s princess. Even though big tobacco had left the city, the Somerset family still owned large swatches of land.

      Julianne Dawson was as likely to have murdered her aunt as anyone. A stabbing meant the crime had been personal. And the messiness of it suggested that the person had expected stabbing someone to death to be easier than it was. Durham’s princess probably didn’t have much experience with the force required to break through human skin.

      Duty required him to keep that thought front and center, though it didn’t stop him from resting his chin on the crown of her head and filling his lungs with her rich smell.

      Howie sat up straight, distancing himself from her. He didn’t quite push her away, but he didn’t pull her along with him, either, as he leaned out the door and asked Henson to turn up the AC. Even after Henson moved away, Howie kept his face to the open door, letting the breeze blow away any preconceptions he had about Julianne Dawson and her family.

      The only thing that mattered was whether the woman curled up in his arms had killed her aunt. Instinct told him no, but instinct was also a fool who’d encouraged him to lean over and sniff her hair.

      Once he could feel tendrils of cooler air work their way into the backseat, Howie leaned back into Julianne, easing her upright and pulling the door closed again. The movement seemed to be the jolt she’d needed to stop crying. She pushed his left arm. When he released her, she scooted away from him, her face a mess of tears and some emotion Howie couldn’t put his finger on. Something buried under her grief. Embarrassment, maybe? From the other side of the patrol car, she reached out, offering the handkerchief back to Howie. He shook his head. “You might still need it. And you needn’t return it to me today. We’ll be talking again.”

      She nodded, and it looked as if the movement hurt. She held herself stiffly, as if any movement might hurt. Or maybe she was afraid. Her arm was still extended out between them, rigid, to match the tension in her face, while the white cotton hung lazily.

      Howie wanted to pull her back into his arms and comfort her. He wanted to know her well enough to have a pet name for her—Annie maybe. But neither was possible. While her eyelids blinked rapidly, his mind skimmed through all the reasons she had to be afraid, stopping at the ones that involved her aunt’s death and picking over them. He didn’t stop until she drew her arm back and his desire to grasp hold of her hand dimmed.

      “I’ll be happy,” she said, then choked on the word, folding her hands in her lap, worrying the fabric with her fingers, “to talk with you at your convenience.”

      “If you’re up for it, I’d like to ask you some questions now.” He said the words gently, but he could tell by the widening of her eyes that they both knew he was going to ask her questions, whether she was up for it or not.

      For a split second, defiance flashed over her face. He knew the look, had seen it a million times in his job. She was about to insist that she be allowed to call the mayor. Insist that she be allowed to go home and schedule this meeting at her convenience, on her turf. Insist on privileges owed to her because there was a line between citizen and public servant, and she was on the right side of it.

      Then her features settled back into grief and resignation. “Of course,” she said, twisting the square of cotton. Despite the temptation to save his handkerchief, Howie didn’t snatch it out of her hands. He was banking on her telling him enough useful information that losing his handkerchief—or its being returned in pieces—would be a minor loss.

      “When is the last time you saw Mrs. Somerset?”

      The concentration of thinking halted Julianne’s hands. She must have noticed the lack of movement in her body because she looked down at her lap with a bit of surprise, then smoothed the fabric across her thigh and folded it into a neat, damp square. Seemingly satisfied that she’d put this small piece of her life back together, she answered him. “Last Wednesday, when she... Well, when she called the police department.”

      “You were the voice in the background when Mrs. Somerset called me last week. You were always the voice in the background.” The suspicion he was trying to keep hold of slipped as an image of the callous woman he’d imagined her to be wavered in the light.

      If he worked at it, he could tighten his fingers around his distrust, imagine all sorts of reasons for her to try to control a wealthy, elderly aunt.

      In the end, he let his suspicions remain loose about him, neither falling completely into the warmth of her chocolate-brown eyes nor holding so tightly to it that his knuckles whitened under the pressure.

      “And you are the detective she always called. Thank you for always being polite and respectful, even though...”

      Julianne didn’t say the words. She didn’t need to. They could both fill in the blanks with what other people had said about Mrs. Somerset. Even though she was a crazy old lady.

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