The Woman by David Bishop Page A

her home. Instead, she took her black sweatshirt off the clothesline and wrapped the gun in its hoodie. Then she buried it in the sand beside the sea grass on the far side of a berm, a short distance behind and to the right of her condo. Away from the trail the locals used to go down to the beach.
    Back inside, after relocking her front door and checking the window locks, she sat on her bed. Too nervous to sleep, even to lie down, she went to the kitchen sink and filled her tea pot. While at the sink, she looked out the window. The night seemed unusually dark. Most nights the moon, glancing off the surface of the ocean, provided ambient light that gave the sand a sheen as it snaked around the scattered berms crowned with sea grass. But tonight the choppy surface of the ocean denied the reflection, reducing the moon to a ragged spot on the distant water, the sand to a lifeless matte gray.

Chapter 11
    “Ms. Darby. Linda. It’s Chief McIlhenny. I hope this isn’t too late to stop by?”
    “It’s only a little after nine.” Linda stood back and held her door open. “Come on in.”
    Ben was a solidly built man around six-foot-three, with good facial features, except for his habit of cropping off his sideburns level with the tops of his ears. When he had on his service cap it looked as if he had no sideburns.
    “How you doing, Linda? Have you had any dinner?”
    “Haven’t felt much like eating. I’m making some tea, though, chamomile. It’s steeping. Wanna join me? I got a full pot on.”
    “That’d be nice.”
    “Can we sit outside, Chief? It’s a little cool, but I like the night.”
    “Outside is good. Call me Ben, Linda. We’ve known each other too long.”
    Linda had met Ben McIlhenny two years ago when he first took the job of police chief. He had asked her out, more than once. Twice she had come close to accepting his dinner invitation, but so far she had held fast to her self-imposed rule: no relationships beyond one-night stands and never with men who knew her for real.
    “I’m sorry,” she replied. “I didn’t mean to be overly formal . . . I just don’t know how one should talk about . . . a murder.”
    She walked toward the back of the house. He pushed the sliding screen door over, the glass slider was already open. They stood looking at the ocean for a minute or two. Then Linda swiped at a tear. Ben came to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She collapsed against him. Her head pressed into his chest, and she let her tears flow.
    Ben said nothing, just held her in a comforting way. After a few minutes, she stepped back and went inside. When she came out, she handed Ben a cup of tea.
    “While you were inside,” he said, “I noticed the way the moon dies in the rough sea. Still, at night, the ocean . . . well, it’s just beautiful, the stars. We don’t need to talk right away, drink your tea.”
    Linda sipped. The warmth relaxed her some. She had great difficulty accepting that a man this sensitive, this gentle, could not be trusted. Neither of them said another word until their cups were empty. Then the chief broke the mood.
    “I’ve been police chief for a few years and outside of an occasional bar fight over a ballgame or a woman, Sea Crest doesn’t have much that takes any big-time law enforcement. No drugs. Well, hardly none, sometimes a little marijuana from the growers over the ridge. A home burglary now and again, and there’s a guy who books a few bets, penny-ante stuff. The guy even has a full time job to support his family. Now . . . this.” He waved his hand before letting it fall to his side. “I guess I better get on with it. So, you and Cynthia Leclair were really close?”
    “Close enough that I told her about my terrible teens: wearing red tennis shoes, chewing gum with my mouth open, wearing tops just because they showed my bra straps, having my lip and nose pierced for rings. Like the girls I see downtown now, anything to show a little rebellion, get some