His Only Defense. Carolyn McSparren

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      JUD LEFT COLLEEN IMMERSED in math homework at the table while he cleaned up the kitchen after dinner.

      What would Liz Gibson ask him over breakfast? He found he was actually looking forward to seeing her again. That was crazy, considering their adversarial relationship.

      Jud had no idea whether married detectives wore wedding rings on the job or not. He hoped Liz Gibson wasn’t married, although there wasn’t much he could do about that under the present circumstances. It was nice to meet a woman as tall as Liz, who looked cool enough to handle a gorilla on a rampage. He hated being around fragile little women. He was always afraid he’d break them.

      That was one of the reasons he’d been attracted to Sylvia. She’d been so sure of herself, so confident. She hadn’t looked or acted breakable.

      Nor had she turned out to be. He didn’t think a thermonuclear explosion could have shaken her, but he hadn’t known that when he fell for her.

      Seven years was a long time to be celibate. Jud had managed for three before he allowed himself to be swept into an affair with the wife of one of his clients. Separated, but still officially married, as he was. He wasn’t particularly proud of himself, but they’d parted friends, when she went back to her husband.

      Since then there’d been a couple of other women. He’d been up-front about the fact he still considered himself married and unavailable for anything except a casual relationship. Some women saw it as a challenge. He knew that on some level he was a catch, even with a teenage daughter as part of the package.

      Suspicion of murder, however, was not an added inducement, particularly when the victim was his wife. Having a fling with the police detective who was trying to prove he was a killer was a very bad idea.

      He should have petitioned for divorce years ago on the grounds of desertion, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that to Colleen. He and Sylvia might have been dancing around divorce when she disappeared, but their daughter didn’t know that. Once Sylvia vanished, Jud couldn’t add divorce for desertion to the list of problems Colleen had to deal with. Better to wait the requisite seven years to be safe.

      Those first years, he’d expected Sylvia to walk back in the front door as casually as though she had never left. That would be just like her.

      But seven years? There was probably a reason that period had been chosen by law in the first place.

      He watched Colleen poring over her books. Physically, she took after her mother. Her dark gold hair was streaked by the sun, where Sylvia’s had been expensively streaked in a salon. The effect, however, was much the same. Colleen had her mom’s elegant bone structure and natural grace. Not that you could tell after soccer practice.

      Her personality wasn’t much like Sylvia’s, thank God. She was basically kind and loving, although at the moment she was going through a bad patch of teenage sulks and temper. His mother-in-law reminded him that these phases would pass, and sooner or later she’d grow into a fine adult. If he lasted that long.

      Colleen usually looked and acted normal, but he knew how fragile she was inside. He and Irene worked diligently with her teachers, counselors and coaches to prop up her self-esteem. At age seven, children often fear anything bad that happens was somehow their fault. Colleen believed her mom had left because she herself failed her in some way.

      The sad truth was that Sylvia had never wanted children, had wanted to abort the fetus she found she was carrying the year after Jud and she married. Only fear of her own father’s wrath made her carry the child to term.

      Maybe if they’d had a boy…

      But seeing Colleen at fourteen, Sylvia would have considered the beautiful girl competition. On some level, he supposed, many women felt twinges of jealousy as they watched their daughters grow into young women, no matter how much they loved them. Sylvia would have done everything she could to cut Colleen down to size. That was not normal.

      In the countless counseling sessions he’d attended since Sylvia’s disappearance, he’d learned that children, like cats, tended to be most devoted to people who were not attracted to them. They clung to the abusive parent.

      Jud knew Colleen loved him, but she’d fought as fiercely as a seven-year-old could fight for her mother’s love. She had to believe Sylvia was dead.

      He still believed Sylvia was sitting pretty with a new life and a new identity. Maybe on the Riviera or the Costa Brava. Maybe in Canada or Brazil. He had no doubt she could come up with a stake or a sugar daddy.

      The dirty casserole pan wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher, and would never get clean without elbow grease, anyway. He set it in the sink and went to work on it with a scrubbing pad. The meal had turned out rather well for a first attempt at a new recipe. Shrimp and pesto and fettuccine noodles topped with cheese. He’d add it to his arsenal of one-dish recipes.

      He’d always done the cooking, even when Sylvia was still with them. In the seven years since, he’d become pretty fair at it. He wished Colleen would show more interest in learning.

      “I’ll never be as good as you are, Daddy,” she said whenever he tried to entice her into fixing dinner for them. Teenage shorthand for “I don’t want to.” He let her get away with it.

      Shoot, he let her get away with nearly everything. So far she hadn’t pushed him too far, but sooner or later she’d put him in a position where he’d have to lower the boom. He wouldn’t be doing her any favors if he let her get into bad stuff. The world would not make allowances for her.

      He prayed she’d stay a good kid, and that Irene would know how to deal with tantrums or boys or drugs or alcohol or tattoos or fast cars or Goths.

      Colleen didn’t realize it, but her life was much happier without her mother, just as his was.

      But the policewoman could make both of their lives a living hell. He’d have to keep her away from his child.

      “HEY, MA’AM, THAT’S NOT a good place to park.”

      Liz stood beside her unmarked car and looked around for the source of the voice. She saw an old man standing beside a small brick ranch house set back in the woods on her side of the road. She could barely glimpse the house through the closely planted pines. She leaned on her door and called, “May I park in your driveway? I’d very much like to speak to you if you’ve got a minute.”

      “Sure. Better move your car before somebody comes flying around that curve and creams you.”

      She moved the car. As she climbed out, the man walked over to her, removing his beat-up John Deere cap with the aplomb of a Victorian gentleman.

      “Folks in the country drive twenty miles faster than the road can handle.” He grinned. “Can’t tell you how many accidents I’ve seen on that curve in the forty years I been living out here.”

      She stuck out her hand and told him her name and her business.

      She could feel the bones in his fingers, but the skin felt like well-tanned leather. His face looked like leather, as did the scalp that showed through his sparse white hair. He shoved his cap back on his head. “Name’s Taylor Waldran, ma’am. Lord, don’t tell me y’all are trying to find that woman’s body again.”

      “Again?”

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