The sour cherry surprise bam-6 Read online

  The sour cherry surprise

  ( Berger and Mitry - 6 )

  David Handler

  The sour cherry surprise

  David Handler

  PROLOGUE

  And now Molly Procter dribbles the ball downcourt with eleven seconds left on the clock. The UConn Lady Huskies trailing Tennessee by one, 65-64… ten seconds… nine. The fans are on their feet… Coach Geno Auriemma has the ball in the hands of UConn’s best clutch scorer since Diana Taurasi. And with the national championship on the line in… seven seconds, there’s no one he trusts more than the southpaw from Dorset with the droopy socks… Five seconds… This is it, folks. Geno’s Huskies against Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols for all of the marbles… Three… Procter’s at the top of the key. Quick swing pass to Montgomery, who ball fakes to Houston, then swings it back to Procter with the championship on the line… One… Procter lets it fly from eighteen feet and… she… SCORES! UConn wins! UConn wins! Her teammates are mobbing Molly! She disappears under the pile of blue and white Husky jerseys. Oh, my, this has to be the most exciting game I have ever… Molly Procter, age nine and three quarters, faked left, dribbled right, and heaved the ball to the portable basketball hoop in the driveway, tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth. Nothing but net. She pumped her fist in the air as Jen Beckwith pulled into the driveway in her red Saab convertible. It was Jen’s driveway. Jen’s hoop. Jen lived in the little cottage right across Sour Cherry Lane from Molly’s and was starting point guard on the Dorset High Fighting Pilgrims. Really nice and not at all stuck up even though she was a star athlete, straight A student, gorgeous, and her grandmother was the richest woman in town. Jen and her mom weren’t rich themselves. Jen’s dad died a few years back, and her mom had to work day and night at a chiropractor’s office. Jen was working fulltime herself that summer at the bakery in The Works. Just home from work now in her bright green employee’s T-shirt. “Okay, squirt, show me what you’ve got.” Jen positioned herself to defend Molly one-on-one. Molly ran a hand through her head of unruly gold ringlets. She was a gangly, freckle-faced girl with a rabbity pink nose. Her wire-rimmed glasses were slightly bent out of shape. Her T-shirt and gym shorts hung loose on her frame. Baggy white socks drooped down to her scuffed sneakers. “You’re on. Prepare to be dazzled.” She gave Jen her awesome head fake, then dribbled right and- Jen promptly slapped the ball away. “You still telegraph when you’re going to the hoop.” “Do not.” “Do too. You stick your tongue out.” “So did Michael Jordon.” “Guess what? You’re not M. J.” “Duh, I know. I’m M. P.” “Tell me, M. P., when was the last time you tried combing that hair? And what is up with those dorky socks?” “They’re my trademark. When I turn pro, Nike is going to pay me a fortune for them.” “I see…” “That’s what you need. A trademark.” “So that’s my problem,” Jen sighed, turning gloomy on her. “Hey, are you okay?” Jen mustered a faint smile. “Sure, you bet.” “Just because I don’t have breasts doesn’t mean I can’t keep secrets, you know.” “I know.” “Is this about that party you threw when your mom was gone?” “Work on your head fake, squirt,” Jen growled. “And dinner’s in about an hour if you want some.” Then she headed for the house and went inside. Molly had been spending more and more of her time over at Jen’s ever since her own mom had taken up with Clay. Molly had zero interest in letting Clay be her new dad. She already had a dad. Besides, she’d hated Clay ever since that first morning three weeks back when he came slouching out of her mom’s bedroom with no shirt on and his jeans slung low; a wiry, rough-looking stranger with a lit cigarette between his lips. Molly was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away on her mom’s computer. Clay popped open a can of beer first thing and drank deeply from it, watching her. The very first words he said to her were, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Molly said, “I live here.” And he said, “Well, so do I from now on. And I don’t like lippy little girls.” “I’m not a little girl.” Then Clay ordered her to stay out of the root cellar underneath the kitchen from now on. “You’re never to go down there, understand? There are snakes down there.” “I’m not afraid of snakes,” she snorted. “And you can’t tell me what to do.” “Girl, don’t ever talk back to me again,” Clay shot back, smacking her in the ear with his open hand so hard that it rang for a whole day. And so she had stayed away from the root cellar. Molly used to have a happy life. Her mom was beautiful and talented and sweet. Author of a really cool series of kids’ books about a Kerry blue terrier named Molly (in honor of guess who) that solved mysteries on a farm. All of the characters in her books were animals. The farm was based on Aunt Meggie’s place up in Blue Hill, Maine, where they usually spent every August. Molly’s dad was a historian at Wesleyan and just a really wise person. He knew the Latin words for things, and loved to work with his hands. He’d made their kitchen table himself out of oak. He’d put in French doors to brighten up the kitchen and built a raised teak deck outside it where they could eat supper at another table he’d built. Molly helped him do everything. She was his Designated Measurer. Always, no matter how busy he was, her dad made time for her. Taught her how to use her mom’s computer when she was really little so she could communicate with him by e-mail when he was at the university. But Molly’s parents weren’t the same people anymore. Her mom wasn’t lively and bright-eyed, wasn’t there. In her place there was a glassy-eyed stranger who scarcely seemed to notice that Molly was even alive. She’d stopped writing-Clay even dismantled her computer and stashed it in a closet. She didn’t go out to the grocery store or anywhere else. Some days, she never came out of her room. Just stayed in there with Clay. Or with Hector, the Mexican man who worked for Clay. Once, she was in there with both men at the same time and Molly could hear her moaning real loud. After that, Molly took to sleeping in the tree house that she and her dad had made together in the old sugar maple. She had a sleeping bag up there and a flashlight so she could read. She was plenty comfy unless it rained. Then she’d tap on Jen’s window and Jen would let her sleep with her. Molly wanted her dad to come home. She wasn’t sure why he’d left, except that her mom had made him. He’d told Molly he’d be staying with a friend for a few days. But a few days turned into a few weeks. And then her mom started going out to the Indian casinos after dinner and stumbling home late, drunk, and sometimes not alone. Clay was the third man she’d brought home, and the first who’d stayed. Molly sure wished her dad would kick him out and everything would be like it used to be. But it wasn’t. Now that school was out for summer she either worked on her game in Jen’s driveway or headed out to her own job on Big Sister Island, which was close to Sour Cherry. The footpath through the woods at the end of the lane led right into the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. The wooden causeway out to the island was just across a meadow from there. Molly’s friend Mitch used to live on Big Sister until he went away. Mitch watched movies for a living and had the hugest collection of DVDs Molly had ever seen. He was real cool about loaning them to her. Real cool period, even though he was a Knicks fan and everyone knew the Knicks sucked and the Celtics ruled. Molly missed him a lot. Although the old lady who’d moved into his house, Bella, was okay. Bella rescued stray kitties-eighteen of them at last count. She kept them in Mitch’s barn while she tried to find homes for them. She paid Molly five dollars a day to feed them and clean up after them. Some of the kitties liked to be petted. Others, the feral ones, would hiss at Molly and try to rake her. Big Sister was where Molly took her dad the night he did try to come home. It had been a total disaster. Clay went chest-to-chest with him out in the driveway. Told him he didn’t live there anymore, then proceeded to beat the snot out of him. Molly watched it all in horror from her tree house. Clay flailing away at
him with his fists, kicking him in the ribs after he was down. By the time Molly had scrambled down and screamed at Clay to stop, her dad was lying on the ground in a bloody, sobbing heap. Clay told Molly if he ever saw her dad anywhere near the house again he’d “cut” him. Molly had taken her dad by the hand and led him through the woods out to the island. He didn’t respond when Molly talked to him. Just kept sobbing. He needed her to take care of him and so she had. There was an ancient, tattered sofa out in the barn. She got him settled on it, found a few tarps to cover him with, and told him he’d be safe there. In the morning, she cleaned his face and gave him some food from Bella’s refrigerator after Bella left to run errands. Bella had no idea Molly’s dad was out there. Mustn’t know. She might not like the idea. Every morning at dawn, Molly would sneak out there and hide her dad somewhere on the island for the day. In the boathouse. Or a nice sheltered area of beach, where he’d nibble at whatever food Molly had pilfered from Bella. He was incredibly sad. Cried a lot. Hardly ever spoke. The only words he ever said to her were: “They won’t let me back in.” “I know, Daddy. Are you okay?” “They won’t let me back in.” Evenings, Molly would tuck him back in the barn for the night. She didn’t know how else to help him. She loved her dad. She wanted to be a good daughter. On her way home through the woods one night, Molly stumbled upon a man who was crouched there in the darkness with a pair of binoculars. “Hey, quit that!” she protested when he shined a flashlight in her eyes. He immediately shushed her. So she whispered, “What are you doing here, mister?” “I’m a biologist with the D.E.P. We’re trying to track down a fisher that’s been spotted in these woods.” “What’s a fisher?” “It’s a carnivorous predator. Sort of like a bobcat. Lets out a god-awful shriek. Eats small dogs, cats…” “Next you’re going to tell me it eats little girls,” Molly scoffed. “I’m perfectly serious. They wander down from Canada. Speaking of which, where did you wander from?” “Prunus Cerebus.” “Prunus Cerebus? Which planet is that?” “It’s not a planet, you dope. That’s Latin for Sour Cherry.” “Oh, I get it. You live on Sour Cherry Lane. What’s your name?” She told him. “What are you doing out here this time of night, Molly?” “Exploring.” “Well, you’d better get on home.” Which she had, though she thought he was full of it. There were no fishers in the woods anywhere near Dorset. If there were, her dad would have told her. Besides, if that man really were a biologist with the Department of Environmental Protection he’d know that Prunus Cerebus wasn’t a planet. No question about it, Molly’s life was turning strange. And then it went from strange to just totally sucky. Somehow, Bella got wind that Molly’s dad was staying out there. She called in that mean trooper lady, who sent him away to the hospital. Then the trooper lady tracked Molly down when Molly was trying to shoot hoops over at Jen’s. He was going to be okay, she promised Molly before she started asking her a whole bunch of questions about Clay and her mom. Acting like she wanted to be Molly’s friend. Her dad really did start to feel better. He even found a place to stay that was right nearby. His first night back, as Molly lay there in her tree house reading a library book by flashlight, she allowed herself to hope that maybe everything would be okay again. Clay and Hector would go away soon. Her dad would move back in and her mom would smile and be herself again. Everyone would be happy. It was a warm night. Somewhere down below her a skunk was marking its turf, the stink wafting its way up to Molly’s nostrils. Scarcely a breeze stirred the leaves around her. All was quiet. Until she heard rapid footsteps somewhere down the lane. And a fierce struggle of some kind. Someone groaning. Then a horrifying shriek that pierced the still of the night. It was a sound unlike anything Molly Procter had ever heard before. And it was not any fisher. Molly knew exactly what it was. It was a man dying.

  TWO DAYS EARLIER

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a crisp, beautiful fall afternoon. They’d thrown their mountain bikes into the back of Mitch’s plum-colored Studebaker pickup and driven out to Bluff Point with its miles of bike trails that meandered their way alongside the cliffs overlooking Long Island Sound. Mitch pedaled along next to her, his pudgy cheeks flushed. There was no one else out there. Just the cormorants and them. And lord, was that man pedaling hard. He was even pulling away from her.

  “Come on, stretch!” he called to her over his shoulder. “I’m putting you to shame.”

  “Doughboy, you have a vivid imagination!”

  They arrived at a scenic outcropping with an unobstructed view of the whole coastline and climbed down off of their bikes, chests heaving.

  She had sandwiches and water in her day pack. “Want something to eat?”

  “No, I want to kiss you.”

  And so he did, the two of them standing out there on that rocky ledge with the water lapping beneath them. And there was no one else, nothing else. Just them and their love and desire. His hands found their way up under her T-shirt to her breasts. She let out a soft gasp. And now he was whispering something in her ear. Not words exactly. More like a buzzing. Or a ringing, ringing…

  And with a start Des was awake. She dove for the phone, the sleeping lump beside her in bed not so much as stirring. The illuminated dial on the alarm clock told her it was just past one A.M.

  “Resident Trooper Mitry,” she said softly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she listened to the Troop F dispatcher. Her forehead felt damp. The night had turned warm and humid. The bedroom curtains hung limp. “Fine. I’ll be right there.”

  Naked, Des got out of bed. Fumbled in her closet for a summer-weight uniform, in her dresser for a sports bra and thong. She padded silently into the bathroom and showered quickly. She was just starting to towel dry her lean six-foot one-inch frame when she felt another dizzy spell coming on. The bathroom was spinning. Her heart racing faster and faster. She slumped to the edge of the tub with her head between her knees, praying she wouldn’t black out like she had the other evening, when she’d hit the kitchen floor with a thud and been out for something like five minutes. Thank God he hadn’t gotten home yet. Breathing slowly in and out, Des steadied herself. Felt okay enough to finish drying off and get dressed. She ran a comb through her short, nubby hair. Put on her heavy horn-rimmed glasses. Des wore no makeup. She needed none.

  His nightstand lamp was on now. He was sitting up in bed, bare-chested, his impossibly broad shoulders tapering down to an even more impossibly narrow waist. Pecs and abs rippled. Dark skin glowed in the lamplight. Truly, he was the most beautiful black man she had ever seen. All she wanted to do right now was tear her uniform off and stretch her naked self out against all seventy-eight inches of him.

  “Desi, where are you going at this time of night?” he yawned, running a hand over his stubbly jaw.

  “Drug overdose at a party. Teenagers, apparently.”

  He let out a laugh. “In Dorset? Get out.”

  “It happens here, Brandon.” She perched on the edge of the bed and slipped on her socks. Stepped into her shiny black brogans, tied the laces. “It all happens here.”

  “Okay, but why do they always have to call you?”

  “Because it’s always my job, silly man.”

  “Then it’s time to get you a new one. You ought to put in for a transfer. Get back on Major Crimes. Lord knows you’ve paid your penance.”

  “And you ought to go back to sleep,” responded Des, who didn’t like him or anyone else trying to run her career.

  “Will you at least answer me this…?” His rich burgundy voice was a purr now. “How does a woman in uniform look so beautiful at one o’clock in the morning?”

  “You, sir, are still asleep and dreaming.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m wide awake and looking.” He smiled at her. The smile that instantly turned her back into a bashful, knock-kneed giraffe of a high school girl with insides of melted caramel. “And that’s not all I’m doing.”

  “Don’t start anything you can’t finish.”

  “Try me.” He reached for her playfully.

  She darted fo
r the door. “Baby, I am gone. Get back to sleep. That’s an order.”

  “Whatever you say, master sergeant.”

  Des got the coffee going in the kitchen, which opened out into the dining room and living room to form one airy space. When she’d redone her little house overlooking Uncas Lake she’d wanted to take maximum advantage of the view and the light. Back when she shared the place with her friend Bella Tillis, the living room had served as Des’s studio. Here, she’d created her passionate, horrifying depictions of the murder victims she’d encountered on the job. Capturing their hollowed eye sockets and congealed brain matter on paper had been her way of dealing. But now that Brandon was back in her life, the living room was a proper living room with sleek black leather sofa, matching armchairs and glass coffee table. Her easel and 18? 24 Strathmore 400 drawing pad now resided down in the garage, formerly known as Cats Landing. But their gang of rescued strays had moved out when Bella had. Brandon hated cats. It was mutual.

  Brandon’s very first night back Kid Rock peed in his $1,200 Il Bisonte briefcase.

  The damp, windowless garage wasn’t nearly as desirable a studio space. But that wasn’t a big problem because Des had felt zero desire to draw lately.

  Her Sig-Sauer was in the hall closet along with her shield and big Smokey hat. She snapped her holster onto her wide black belt, taking note of the fact that her uniform trousers, which had been snug a few weeks back, were now almost falling off of her hips. She wasn’t eating. It was that knot in her stomach. The one she always used to have before she’d met Mitch. The only time in her whole life it had ever gone away was when the two of them had been together.

  Odd that she’d been dreaming about him just now when the phone rang. It had been three whole months since she’d given him back his grandmother Sadie’s engagement ring. Had to after Brandon had shown up on her doorstep and begged her to forgive him. He’d split up with Anita. Got himself transferred from D.C. back to Connecticut. And he wanted her back.