one.”
Policzki didn’t respond. It was just as well. When she was in this kind of mood, heads were likely to roll, and Doug Policzki’s head, being the nearest one, was in danger of becoming her first victim.
None of the three telephone numbers listed on Kaye Winslow’s business card had yielded results. The first, her cell phone number, was useless because in the abruptness of her departure, Winslow had left her BlackBerry behind. The second, her private line at Winslow & DeLucca, rang twice and then went directly to voice mail. Lorna had left an urgent message, but the chances of getting a response were probably zip and zilch. That left door number three. But by the time they’d finished up at the scene, it was well past closing time, and the realty office answering machine had directed her to call back after eight o’clock in the morning.
“Three strikes and you’re out,” she muttered.
Policzki glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Having a bad day, are we?”
“They postponed the court date on the Moldonado case. Again.”
Arturo Moldonado, a soft-spoken supermarket meat cutter who’d lived in the same East Boston apartment for two decades, was known for taking in strays—both the human and the animal variety—and handing out penny candy to the neighborhood kids. One day last October, he’d come home early and discovered his wife in bed with a twenty-two-year-old college dropout friend of their son. Upon seeing his inamorata engaged in steamy passion with another, much younger and more virile man, Moldonado had tiptoed to the kitchen and taken out a meat cleaver—which, in consideration of his occupation, he kept razor sharp—then returned to the bedroom and the still unsuspecting couple, and proceeded to hack them into a jillion pieces. Afterward, he’d called 911, then sat calmly on the couch with the bloody cleaver and waited for the authorities to come and take him away.
“You can’t control the court calendar,” Policzki said. “They’ll do what they’re going to do. All we can do is roll with it.”
His logic was flawless. And maddening. “That isn’t even the worst of it,” Lorna said, rubbing at her throbbing temple. “It’s those crazy people I call relatives that have me one step from the edge and peering down into the abyss.”
“Oh,” he said as the light dawned. “Wedding stuff.”
“Yes, wedding stuff! You know what I did today? I spent my lunch hour watching my nineteen-year-old daughter try on wedding dresses. Do you have any frigging idea how much those things cost?”
Policzki made a noncommittal grunt of sympathy. Of course he was noncommittal, she thought irritably. He didn’t have a clue how much wedding dresses cost. He lived at home with his mother and banked all his money. “Too damn much,” she said, answering her own question. “That’s how much. All for a kid who has her head in the clouds and doesn’t have a clue what life is really about.”
And that was the crux of the matter: Krissy was too young to get married. She was nineteen years old, barely out of high school. A baby. She was also headstrong and determined, so the wedding preparations rolled merrily along, gathering momentum and gaining in size, until they threatened to crush anybody who failed to jump out of the way.
“Silk and taffeta,” Lorna grumbled. “Tulle and organza. What the hell is organza, anyway?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
She glanced out the window, down a darkened side street. “Ed and I got married at city hall. I wore a navy-blue suit and carried a bouquet of carnations. We spent our wedding night at a hotel in Revere, then got up and went to work the next day. We did not—I repeat not—spend two weeks on Maui. Who the hell was the idiot that decided the bride’s parents are supposed to pay for the wedding?”
“The tradition dates back to ancient times,” Policzki said, “when the bride’s family was expected to provide a dowry to the family of the groom, presumably in payment for taking her off their hands.”
Lorna snorted. “If I’d known that was all it took, I’d have gladly paid Derek to take her off my hands. He’s welcome to all of her—the nose ring, the messy room, the Real World addiction. The posters of Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. He’s an easygoing kid. I could’ve paid him off for a tenth of what this wedding will cost me. They could’ve eloped. Think of the money I would have saved.”
“I think this is it.” Policzki pulled up to the curb behind an aging Volvo wagon. Soft light spilled through a bay window of the South End town house onto the shrubbery below, giving the place the cozy, inviting look of a Thomas Kinkade painting. A shadow moved behind a curtained window. Policzki turned off the engine, and by silent agreement, they simultaneously opened their doors and stepped out of the car.
The day’s warmth had given way to a crisp, clear evening. As they moved briskly toward the front door of the house, Lorna said, “So I’ll be good cop and you can be bad cop.”
“How come I never get to be good cop?”
“Are you kidding, Policzki? With that grim expression of yours, you’d scare people half to death. Tell me. Do you take the face off when you go to bed at night, or is this a 24–7 kind of thing?”
“Hey, that’s not fair. I love babies and flowers and puppies.”
“I know. You’re just incredibly earnest. Or incredibly dedicated. Or incredibly something.”
They climbed the steps and Lorna rang the bell. Muffled footsteps approached and the door opened.
Lorna’s first thought was that Sam Winslow—if, indeed, the man standing in the open doorway, outlined by soft lamplight, was Sam Winslow—was a sinfully handsome man, with coal-black hair worn to his shoulders, electric blue eyes and a lean, craggy face topped by cheekbones sharp enough to slice diamonds. Somewhere in the vicinity of forty, if the wisps of gray at his temples were any indication, he could be a model—or a stand-in for George Clooney—if he ever tired of teaching. She could imagine him in a magazine layout, standing in a room full of glamorous and playful people, wearing Armani and sipping from a glass of Chivas Regal.
Christ on a crutch. His female students must be tripping over their own feet just to get close to him. Probably a few of the male ones were, too.
He eyed them warily. “Yes?”
“Sam Winslow?” Policzki said.
“Yes.”
The young detective held up his badge. “Policzki and Abrams, Boston PD. Is your wife home, sir?”
“My wife? I—no, actually, she’s not. What’s this about?”
“May we come in?”
“It’s dinnertime. I really don’t think—”
“Professor Winslow,” Lorna said, “there was an incident this afternoon involving your wife. I think you’d better let us in.”
“An incident?” He hesitated, looked momentarily nonplussed. Then he nodded and moved away from the door.
Winslow closed the door behind them, cleared his throat and ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “What’s this about?” he repeated.
“Professor Winslow,”
