Rosemary Remembered by Susan Wittig Albert Page A

business has brought out the cop in me. I just need to know you're safe. You and Brian."
    "We're safe."
    He held me closer. "Oh, no, you're not. Somebody who looked a hell of a lot like you was shot dead, in our truck."
    "And she could have been killed by her ex-husband, who was stalking — "
    "Robbins has an alibi, for God's sake." McQuaid lifted my chin so that I had to look into his eyes. "It's not just you. Brian's easy game. I'm going to tell him to stay home until this is over."
    "But that's prison," I objected.
    He turned to stir the onions and garlic in the skillet. "More like protective custody."
    At that moment, Khat strolled through the hallway door, whiskers twitching, tail held high, a gourmand inquiring delicately about the progress of dinner.
    I put my hands on my hips. "If protective custody isn't prison, I don't know what is. And what do you mean, 'until this is over'? When will it be over? Jacoby did his time. He played by the rules, such as they are, and he earned his freedom. If he wants to drive from New Braunfels to Pecan Springs, you can't stop him. It's his constitutional right."
    "Spoken like a goddam defense attorney," McQuaid said through his teeth.
    "Well, somebody sure as hell has to speak up for people's rights," I snapped.
    McQuaid was about to reply when he was preempted.
    Khat saw Howard Cosell's butt sticking out from under the stove and succumbed to temptation. He unsheathed the claws on his right forepaw, took aim, and fired. Howard yelped and turned, teeth bared belligerently, to defend his left flank. Khat hissed and struck again. The fur, as they say, flew.
    McQuaid had just put the dog out and I was trying to coax Khat down from the top of the refrigerator when Brian came into the kitchen. He looks a lot like his dad: blue eyes, dark hair, dimples. He sniffed.
    "Something's burning," he said.
    "Oh, shit," McQuaid said. He grabbed the skillet, burning his thumb. "Ow! How come you're late?"
    "I'm not late," Brian said reasonably. "We just got out of the movies." He wrinkled his nose. "Are onions any good if they're burned?"
    "Absolutely," McQuaid muttered, holding his thumb under the cold water. "Charcoal's good for you."
    "That's a crock," Brian said with cheerful insolence.
    "Don't be insubordinate," McQuaid thundered, raising his voice over Howard Cosell's indignant baying. "Now, go upstairs and start your homework. When I get this casserole in the oven, you and I have something important to discuss."
    "It's summer," Brian said. "I don't have any homework."
    "Upstairs!" McQuaid began to scrape burned onions off the skillet.
    Brian stomped off, McQuaid went back to his cooking, and I cut off a piece of aloe vera for his burned thumb. Then I finished the margaritas, thinking nostalgically about the old days, the halcyon days, when I had no one to take care of but myself, a cat, and a small, undemanding herb shop surrounded by tidy gardens. Why had I joined this circus?
    While Khat and Howard Cosell ate their dinners (one in the kitchen, the other in the backyard) and McQuaid and Brian conferred upstairs, I took my drink out to the porch swing, where I pushed myself back and forth, watching two squirrels chase one another around the pecan tree. Reluctantly, I considered McQuaid's theory. Rosemary and I looked alike; even Grace Walker had mentioned it. Rosemary had been driving McQuaid's truck. And Jacoby was living less than fifteen miles away. Even if I didn't buy McQuaid's conclusion, I had to acknowledge that it had a certain logic.
    But my theory was just as logical. Rosemary's ex-husband had a history of abuse, and abusers can turn murderous, especially when the victim has the temerity to get a divorce. Robbins had showed up at the hotel and raised a ruckus; he might just as easily have waited for her in front of her house and shot her. His alibi? Well, I've heard plenty of trumped-up alibis concocted by family members. My theory seemed every bit as plausible as McQuaid's.
    But it