Part 6 (1/2)
He wondered if he knew anyone, really knew knew them. ”How could my mother live with that sort of deception?” He met Norma's gaze. ”How could you?” them. ”How could my mother live with that sort of deception?” He met Norma's gaze. ”How could you?”
She didn't even flinch. He'd expected to see guilt, regret. Instead, her eyes blazed with something he couldn't understand.
”Your mother was happy, happier than I had ever seen her,” Norma said with a rush of feeling. ”I loved your mother like a sister. I wanted to see her happy.”
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. ”What about my dad and us kids?”
”I knew she would never leave your father or you kids.”
”How do you know that?” Slade demanded.
”She loved him, loved you and Sh.e.l.ley, too much.”
He snorted at that. ”You don't have an affair if you love your husband.”
”Don't you?” she challenged. ”Whatever she got from this man, she wasn't getting at home.”
He stared at her, shocked by her att.i.tude as much as her words.
”Sometimes a woman needs more than her husband can give her,” Norma said. ”And I'm not talking about s.e.x.”
Slade could only stare at her. ”You sound as if you-”
”As if I know firsthand?” She looked away. ”It was a long time ago. I was very young. I wanted children. L.T. was working all the time- ”I don't want to hear this,” Slade said, suddenly getting to his feet, slos.h.i.+ng coffee from his cup onto the tablecloth.
”Maybe you should should hear this. You are so quick to judge your mother.” hear this. You are so quick to judge your mother.”
He felt as if she'd slapped him. ”I'm trying to find my mother's killer. That's all.” But he knew she'd struck a chord. He'd seen his mother as perfect. Just as he had Norma. He swore under his breath as he sat back down, took a paper napkin and began to sop up the spilled coffee. ”It's just such a shock. You think you know someone...”
Norma nodded. ”People are human. Sometimes they make mistakes.”
”Was your your affair a mistake?” affair a mistake?”
”No,” she said flatly.
He stared at her. Was she saying marrying L.T. had been her mistake? ”Did you ever think about leaving the chief?” he had to ask.
She dropped her gaze in answer.
He was almost too shocked to ask. ”What happened to the man?”
”He was in love with someone else.”
He shook his head, beyond disillusioned. ”You have no idea what my mother would have done. Maybe she was planning to leave us and the man didn't want that.” A thought struck him. ”Or maybe he was married and my mother threatened to tell his wife. Whatever happened between my mother and this man, it got her killed. I'd stake my life on it.”
He looked at Norma, the last person he would have expected to have an affair. No, he thought, his mother was the last person. Norma sat with her hands wrapped around her coffee cup, huddled over the hot dark liquid as if needing the heat. He could see the weight of the deception in her shoulders, the weight of keeping her best friend's secret, of keeping her own. ”You never told the chief?”
She shook her head, not looking up. ”It would have killed him.”
Slade nodded. ”I think it killed my father.”
AS HE DROVE AWAY, Slade thought back to his childhood. His mother always at the stove when he and Sh.e.l.ley came home from school. She seemed always to be cooking. His father was usually late because being a cop wasn't like a desk job.
Had his mother been different on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Not that he could remember. He'd always thought his mother was happy. Had everything been a lie?
Another thought wormed its way in as he drove through town. His father had been a cop. If Joe Rawlins had suspected something, wouldn't he have investigated? What would his father have done if he found out his wife was having an affair?
The thought shook him as he pulled into the visitors parking lot of the Dry Creek Police Department.
”WHY DIDN'T YOU tell me before this just whose family plot you wanted to dig up?” Curtis demanded after Slade told him.
Slade stared dumbly at the chief as he closed the door to the cop's office. ”You knew Wellington?”
”Dr. Allan Wellington? d.a.m.nation, Slade.”
”The baby isn't Allan's. Allan's been dead for over a year,” Slade snapped. He didn't want to talk about Allan Wellington. He didn't even want to think about him. Not now. ”And who the h.e.l.l cares about Allan Wellington anyway?”
”I see,” Curtis said in his so-that's-the-way-it-is voice. ”Judge Koran will care. And Inez Wellington will care a whole h.e.l.l of a lot.”
”Inez doesn't have to find out.” Slade said.
”Judge Koran is a good friend of Inez Wellington's. Need I say more?”
No, Slade thought. It seemed Inez had powerful connections.
Curtis let out a loud sigh as he sat back down behind his desk. ”Only you would take a client who was married to Allan d.a.m.n Wellington, of all people.”
He wondered how Curtis knew who Wellington was when Slade had only a vague feeling he'd heard of him.
”Holly was only married to him for a matter of days. And what did he do anyway, invent a cure for cancer or something?” Slade demanded, taking a seat across from the chief. Why hadn't he even thought to ask Holly what kind of doctor her husband had been? He knew the answer to that one. He didn't like the man. Didn't even have to know anything about him to know that.
”He was just one of the the top infertility doctors in the U.S.,” Curtis said. ”He made it possible for top infertility doctors in the U.S.,” Curtis said. ”He made it possible for thousands thousands of couples to have children.” of couples to have children.”
Something in the way he'd added the last- ”You and Norma went to him.”
The expression on the cop's face hardened. Curtis wouldn't like his wife confiding their secrets. ”We were one of the couples he couldn't help. It seems I'm sterile.”
Slade heard the bitterness, the disappointment. ”I'm sorry.”
”I don't want your sympathy,” Curtis snapped. ”At least I'm not responsible for bringing you into the world.”
Slade pulled up a chair and sat down, feeling tired and lost.