let out a quiet sob.
He nodded. He understood. The holding pattern that he and Christine had been in for six years was hardly fair to anyone, least of all their daughters.
“Does it have something to do with the woman we saw at the restaurant that night?” Erin asked, keeping the napkin pressed to her eyes. “The woman from the hospital?”
Crawford pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. He took the balled-up napkin from her and pushed it to the side of the table. “It does.”
Meaghan, remarkably composed, started the interrogation regarding Alison. “How did you meet?”
Crawford explained that they had met when he was investigating a murder.
Erin kept his handkerchief over her face, not wanting to look at him. “Do you love her? Are you going to marry her?”
He didn’t know and he told them as much. “She’s a little mad at me right now.”
Meaghan laughed. “What did you do?”
He was in awe of her maturity. She didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the conversation and had obviously come to terms with her family situation. He found himself looking at a very confident young woman and couldn’t remember when the transition from childhood had taken place. “Well, I didn’t explain our situation all that well. She met Mom at the hospital and…”
Meaghan winced. “I get it.” She looked down at the table. “You really blew that one.”
He had to agree. He asked Meaghan to change seats with him and he slid into the booth next to Erin. He pulled her close and she sobbed on his shirt. He stroked her hair and waited until she didn’t have any more tears left.
She pulled back. Her face was red and tearstained. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s okay,” he said. The waiter came and delivered their drinks, assessed the situation and said that he would be back in a few minutes to take their order. “I’m sorry, too.” He looked at Meaghan. “Are you all right with everything?”
She nodded and took a long sip from her water glass. “I’m all right with everything.” She smiled, a little sad, but resigned to the truth: her parents were better off apart. And as divorced, or almost-divorced, families went, theirs was pretty functional. Neither parent used Meaghan or her sister to their own gain, they saw their father as much as they possibly could given his crazy work schedule, and their parents seemed to genuinely like each other, even if they didn’t love each other anymore. There were no financial issues to speak of; their father took very good care of them and made sure they wanted for nothing. There was no ill will or resentment in the air when their parents spoke. As she tried to tell Erin, it could be much, much worse. She gave her father a punch in the arm. “And frankly, Dad, you need a woman. You’re getting awfully cranky.”
Chapter 8
I woke up the next morning after a fitful night’s sleep. I dreamed that I was making mad, passionate love to Crawford, only to find that it was really Ray when all was said and done. And next to us in bed was Terri.
You didn’t have to be a psych major to figure that one out. Calling Dr. Freud…
Max and I had spent a couple of hours on the computer Googling all sorts of things related to murder. It became apparent to us that a corpse missing its hands and feet had been killed by a Miceli foot soldier before; that seemed to be their trademark in murder. Something about identification being harder without fingerprints and all. I guess the Micelis had never heard of facial identification, dental identification, or DNA. What a bunch of morons. I made a mental note to tell Crawford, even though I assumed he was smart enough to have already researched this signature and was all over it.
But if we could Google and get this information so easily, so could anyone with a computer and Internet connection. It didn’t really prove anything beyond the fact that someone knew how the Micelis signed off on their executions. And that still left Jackson and Terri on my short list of suspects.
I got up and stumbled around the bedroom. I had on the oversized navy blue NYPD T-shirt that Crawford had given me in the spring and a pair of underpants. I padded out to the hallway and down the stairs, hoping that I had enough coffee beans in the cupboard to make a big,