Color of Blood(25)

“I do have some other things going on in my life, but that’s private.”

“Hey, I came clean,” Dennis said. “In fact, to be perfectly honest, Judy, I don’t remember the last time I just blurted that kind of stuff about my life to a near stranger. It’s your turn.”

“Fine,” she said, looking at him and jutting her chin. “I just went through a divorce. It was not pleasant for me or my son.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Dennis shifted again in his seat.

“No, it’s fine. I’m over it, or I like to think I am. My family is not quite coming to my defense, unfortunately.”

“What’s wrong with your family?” he pressed.

“Let’s just say they’re suggesting I told you so.”

Dennis’s earlier meetings with Judy had been perfunctory and in keeping with his self-absorbed, focused investigative style. He’d barely noticed her. Now he began to examine her closely from behind his sunglasses. She was perhaps five feet six inches, he guessed. Her sandy-blonde hair was long, running down to the top of her shoulders. She wore bangs on her forehead that made her look like a schoolgirl.

He could see just a few wrinkles around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She was, he decided, quite attractive, but he had not a single clue whether she was thirty-five years old or forty-five.

“Do you know anything about the Vietnam War?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Did you know Australia fought alongside the United States there?”

“Yes, I did. I gather they were excellent fighters.”

“Do you know how many Australian soldiers died there?” she asked.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“There were four hundred fourteen combat deaths of Australian soldiers. My father was in the three hundreds.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“He was a military trainer, and he had married my mum right before he shipped out. I never knew my father, of course, but he managed to get Mum pregnant before he was shot down in a helicopter.”

Although Dennis had encouraged her to speak about her background, the intimacy of her family tension bothered him. He could feel the waves crashing one hundred yards away, and he could make out two people laughing at a nearby table.

“My mother remarried almost immediately,” Judy said. “He is my stepfather. My parents later had two girls, my stepsisters. We are a very close family. I attended school and went to university here in WA. That’s where I met Phillip, my former husband. He was very charming.”

“What did you like about him?” Dennis asked.

“Oh, the usual stuff. He was quite handsome and charismatic—and very smart.”

“Your family didn’t like him?”

“No, not really. My sister Annie, in particular, thought he was a little shady. Of course I was completely smitten. My mother didn’t want me to date Phillip, but I kept seeing him, anyway. I really fell in love with him.”

She stopped talking and took a sip of wine.

“I thought things were going well between Phillip and me,” Judy started again. “Our son was doted upon by my mother and sisters, of course. I mean, we had plenty of friends, went on trips together, did all the things a happy couple does. And then Phillip comes home from work one day about a year ago, sits down across from me at the kitchen table, and says he wants a divorce. Just like that—a divorce. My God, I thought I was going to faint. The bastard had fallen in love with one of the young women in his office. Just like that. Seventeen years of marriage gone just like that. And of course my mother and sisters have been insufferable since.”

Dennis thought she might cry and wondered how he’d handle that, but she abruptly gathered herself.

He was vaguely aware he should leave the subject alone, but the dominant curiosity gene that was buried deep in his DNA and had caused him so much awkwardness in life exhibited itself yet again.

“Why did your family disapprove of Phillip?” Dennis persisted.

“I suppose they saw something in him that I couldn’t,” she said. “I thought my mum was too judgmental and overly protective when she pointed out that Phillip seemed to exaggerate excessively. And she said he was too eager to please. What was the word she used? Unctuous. Yes, that was it, Unctuous.”

“What did your stepfather say during all this?”

“Actually, he kept pretty quiet,” Judy said. “I think being a stepparent is really difficult. I mean you’re not really the blood parent, but you are a parent and, well, it’s hard to find your place in the conversation, especially in my family with all the women. But to answer your question, I could tell that my stepfather thought my mum was correct, but he was not going to voice his opinion. I appreciated his tact at the time, but in the end, alas, they were right and I was wrong. He was a cad.”

He did not know what to say. Should he be consoling or would that be patronizing? On the other hand, he couldn’t stay silent. In the space of fifteen minutes, she had divulged painful secrets and he did not know how to react. A cheating station chief, yes: a wounded and brittle woman, no.

“Well, Judy, I don’t really know you that well, of course,” Dennis said, “but you don’t want to be part of a relationship with a man who acts like that. You’re an attractive woman with a full life to lead. You’ll get past this and be stronger for it. You’ll see.”