Mummy Said Goodbye

She smiled at him for the first time, momentarily becoming beautiful. “I never give up on my students, Mr. Lofgren. As you will find.”

Was that a promise? he wondered, walking back through the school halls. Or a warning?

CHAPTER THREE

“DAD, I GOT PROMOTED to Homicide today.”

Ann Caldwell stood beside her father’s grave. She hadn’t brought flowers, which were allowed only on specific holidays. Instead, she stood straight, as if awaiting inspection, feet braced and hands clasped behind her back. The hot September sun baked her.

Today had been the last day she needed to wear her uniform to work, a thought that brought both pride and a fluttery sense of anxiety. Her uniform defined her in ways she knew to be unhealthy. But she had badly wanted this promotion, so that she could finish her father’s work.

Make him proud.

“I’m opening the Lofgren file tomorrow. He won’t get away with murdering his wife. I promise.”

Hearing footsteps and the low murmur of voices, she bowed her head and stayed silent until a middle-aged couple passed, holding hands. She felt their curious glances, and knew it was the uniform that drew them. The uniform that she wore because she had followed in her father’s footsteps.

When she heard car doors open and slam shut, she focused again on the velvet green sod, laid like a carpet since this earth had been opened only ten days ago to receive her father’s body. If she searched, she could find the seam where roots had not yet entangled with other roots. But as she’d approached the grave earlier, she had felt a massive sense of disorientation. The ground should be raw. Dad was barely gone! Instead, he might have lain here for a year, or ten years. He might never have seen her receive her badge, or the commendations that she had believed—oh, with her whole heart!—would make him smile and say, “You’re a chip off the old block.” Or, “You made me proud today, girl.”

“I asked to take over your cases, Dad,” she told the green swale interrupted only by the brass plaque. “I can finish what you started. I won’t be working with Reggie. He’s going to be taking a desk job. Can you believe it? Big Reggie Roarke pushing paper? But he says he has high blood pressure and he figures this is the time. I’ve been assigned to Diaz.”

A man eight or ten years older than her, Juan Diaz had looked her up and down with critical dark eyes and then shrugged. “Here’s hoping you’ve got half your old man’s goods.”

She had felt a tremor inside, a moment of doubt she rarely allowed herself. Then she’d given him a steady gaze. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

She’d show him. He couldn’t be half as hard to please as her father had been.

“Well.” Ann took a deep breath. “That’s all I came to say. Someday I’ll be back to tell you I’ve arrested Craig Lofgren. I’ll put him away.”

This one had mattered a whole lot to her father. More than she’d ever quite understood, except that he’d boiled at what he’d called “rich boy crime.”

“They think they’re above the law,” he’d ranted. “They dress good and they hire fancy lawyers and somehow they walk. They don’t look like criminals. I could see in this bastard’s eyes that he didn’t even think I’d suspect him. After all, he’d called us, hadn’t he? Full of concern. Where could she be? But he knew. By God I could feel it. He knew the whole time.”

Dad knew, too. Julie Lofgren was dead, slain by her husband’s hand. But proving what he knew was another matter. He had to find her body. Even some blood. A witness. Something.

It ate at him, that good-looking airline pilot who must make $200,000 a year but wouldn’t let his wife go. Didn’t want to pay alimony, or maybe his pride was just stung. Could be he was one of those men who refused to lose anything that had once been his. Didn’t much matter why he’d killed her rather than grant her request for a divorce.

What did matter was his cocky attitude. In every way but words he let the cops know they couldn’t touch him.

Ann had seen pictures of him, handsome and smug. Tomorrow she was going to open the fat manila folder that held photos, reports and her dad’s notes. As soon as possible, she’d visit Pilot Craig Lofgren and let him know that someone was still watching, still waiting. Maybe she could shake him up a little.

Aloud she said, “Julie Lofgren deserves a grave, too. When she has one, I’ll put flowers on it for you.”

Then, having finished what she came to say, Ann walked back across the grass to her car. She felt stronger for having put into words what she meant to do.

Solving the mystery of Julie Lofgren’s disappearance would end any doubts—other people’s and her own—about whether she was anywhere near the cop her father had been. Even Dad would have had to concede that if she could accomplish what he couldn’t, she’d have earned her badge and more.

After unlocking her car door, Ann took one last look at the curving slope of old trees and new graves.

Even Dad, she thought one more time, would see that a woman could do this job, and do it well.

THAT VERY SAME EVENING after she’d talked with him at school, Robin called Craig Lofgren. She dialed the minute she hung up the phone from talking to Ralph.

The soccer coach had been doubtful but willing. “Yeah, yeah, the kid was good,” he’d said. “But if he makes trouble, he’s off the team.”

“Deal,” she had agreed.

In the middle of the second ring, someone picked up the phone. “Hello?” said a high girl’s voice.

“May I speak to your father?”

“Who is calling, please?”

Robin smiled at the child’s by-rote manners. “Robin McKinnon. Brett’s teacher.”

“Ohh! Is Brett in trouble? I’ll get Daddy.”

He came on a minute later, sounding guarded. “Ms. McKinnon?”

“Please, call me Robin.” Alarm flared in her chest. What? She was trying to get friendly with a man who might have killed his wife? She cleared her throat. “Um, I spoke to the coach. He says it’s fine if Brett wants to rejoin the team.”

“Really?” Craig Lofgren sounded stunned.

“You didn’t think he’d agree,” she realized. Or did he not think she’d even bother to ask?

After a moment, he said, “No. I didn’t.”

Something in his voice gave her pause: a kind of grief, perhaps, that she had never heard before. The truth was, he didn’t expect anyone to give his kids a fair shake. The understanding made her sad and even more determined.

“Will you talk to Brett? The sooner he starts practice, the better. He’s already missed two games.” She hesitated. “The coach doesn’t promise a lot of playing time. Since he’s so late starting.”

“Brett will understand. The others have earned their positions.” He was quiet for a minute. “I talked to Brett about his journal. He claims to have been venting.”

“I showed it to the principal,” Robin told him. “I had to, you know.”

“Is he going to expel Brett?”

“No. I persuaded him to let me handle the situation, for now. He does insist on a psychological evaluation.”

Craig swore.

Robin clutched the phone. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” His voice was deep, raw. “You’re going out of your way to help. I shouldn’t have said that.” He paused. “He may even be right.”

She hated to concede that Brett could be so troubled. Robin feared her own guilt was manipulating her in uncomfortable ways. She had failed him, so now she had to make him better. But if he wasn’t really disturbed, that meant what she had or hadn’t done wasn’t very important. For entirely selfish reasons, she needed this one sullen boy to be okay.

And she hated to admit even to herself that her motives were at least partly self-centered.