Cold Springs(78)

Prost didn't look at Sergeant Damarodas, who was leaning against the refrigerator behind him, but Chadwick could feel the tension between the two policemen. Citing the need for interdepartmental cooperation, Damarodas had politely insisted on staying, and the local cops moved around him with a flustered kind of annoyance—the way pedestrians move around public modern art.

“Mr. Chadwick,” Prost said. “John Zedman's ex-wife was your employer at Laurel Heights. Correct?”

“The answer was yes an hour ago,” Chadwick said. “It's still yes.”

“You and Mrs. Zedman keep in touch since?”

“Not really.”

“No? So after nine years of not keeping in touch, she calls you out of the blue to help kidnap her daughter—”

“Escort,” Chadwick corrected. “Legally escort. At the custodial parent's request.”

“Escort.” Prost nodded neutrally. “And at the time of the escort, two weeks ago, did you speak to John Zedman?”

“No.”

“Yet this afternoon, you visited him.”

“That's right.”

“By your own account, there was an argument. You accused John Zedman of causing his ex's financial troubles—the ones that made the headlines this morning.”

“I discussed the matter with him.”

“The friend you paged to come up here, the lady waiting outside—Ms. Jones? She implied it was a little worse than a discussion.”

Chadwick caught Damarodas' eyes.

In some ways, the sergeant had been less than Chadwick expected from talking to him on the phone—not over five-ten, cheap suit, pale skin and brown hair and facial features that reminded Chadwick of an overgrown field mouse—but his eyes were startling blue and sharp. The message in those eyes was a silent warning, No.

“John and I had a discussion,” Chadwick told Prost. “That's all.”

“I see. So when you came back this evening and broke into Mr. Zedman's house—you did that just to check on Mr. Zedman's welfare. Do I have that right?”

“Detective, we've been through this. Unless you're charging me with something—”

Prost spread his hands. “Oh, you're free to go anytime, Mr. Chadwick. Tom!”

A bored-looking deputy poked his head in from the living room. “Sir?”

“Mrs. Zedman get here yet?”

“'Bout five minutes ago.”

“Show her in.”

Chadwick's hand closed into a fist. “You made Ann Zedman drive up here?”

“Escorted her,” Prost corrected. “Strictly voluntary.”

“She has enough to deal with.”

“Why, Mr. Chadwick, I thought she'd be concerned—father of her child, and all.”

Chadwick shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. “You son of a—”

Damarodas cleared his throat. “Been a long night, Mr. Chadwick. Let me walk you out.”

Prost was about to add something when Ann came into the kitchen, her expression like a highway crash survivor's—one of the commuters in the fifty-car pile-ups on the Grapevine who go wandering through almond orchards in the fog.

“Ann?” Chadwick said.

There was a three-second delay before she focused on him. “I just—Two calls in a row. Mark Jasper, forced leave of absence from school. Then the detective here. John's blood . . . ?”

“Don't do this now,” Chadwick told her. “I'll take you home. Get some sleep. Get a lawyer.”

“No, no. That's not . . . I mean, that's not necessary, is it?”

“No, ma'am,” Prost said. “We have some coffee, if you'd like.”

Ann gazed blankly around the kitchen that used to be hers. “I haven't been in . . . so long. He changed the countertops.”

Prost smiled sympathetically. “Have a seat, ma'am. Mr. Chadwick, thanks for your time.”

Chadwick didn't move. He needed to believe that Ann was unshakable. Even after Katherine died, after he'd quit the school and given up all hope of having Ann in his life, he needed to know she was still at Laurel Heights, working with children, dreaming about the ideal school. As much despair as Chadwick had encountered working for Cold Springs, no matter how many terrible situations he'd walked into, how much proof he accumulated that the American family was dying a slow and painful death, he needed to believe that Ann's optimism survived. Now her fragility paralyzed him and he saw that he had relied on her too much, been intoxicated by her faith too long, to believe that she could be broken.

In the space of twenty-four hours, her life's work had been stolen from her. Her soul had spun off balance. If Detective Prost harbored the same suspicions Norma Reyes did, he'd have Ann admitting to anything.

“Let me stay with you,” he tried again. “You don't have to—”

“It's all right,” she murmured, not looking at him. “You go on.”

“Sound advice,” Prost agreed. “And by the way, Mr. Chadwick, just as a formality, I should tell you it'd be a bad idea for you to leave the Bay Area for the next few days.”

“I'm flying to Texas in the morning. You know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Prost smiled, as if nothing could've suited him better. “I suppose I knew that.”