Madam of Maple Court by Joan Elizabeth Lloyd Read Free Book Online Page A

brown envelope, in the hall closet. She hadn't had the nerve to open anything until now. Well, she had to do what had to be done, so she steeled herself on the slow walk to the closet. Her mind drifted.
    "Are you Ms. DePalma? Ms. Vincent DePalma?" the police officer who had rung the doorbell had asked. He'd looked very cold, and snow covered the shoulders of his uniform. His breath came out in little streams of vapor. It had been unseasonably cold that day.
    When she saw his face she'd known that her life was about to change and she hadn't wanted to hear what she knew he was going to tell her. "I'm Pam DePalma."
    "I'm afraid I have some difficult news for you. There's been an accident."
    Not wanting to allow her mind to go where it needed to go, she'd thought,
I wonder who you have to have anger to get the job of telling bad news to unsuspecting wives
. She wanted to make it easier for him. "He's dead," she said, her voice flat.
    "I'm so sorry for your loss. He was on the Hutch, doing in excess of the limit in the snow, and his car went out of control and hit a bridge abutment. I'm so sorry."
    She looked at the cop. He was probably no more than twenty, with a baby face, flaming red hair, and cheeks full of freckles. Funny, she must be numb. All she could think of was comforting him. When she didn't react immediately, the cop said, "Is there someone I can call for you? Family, a friend, someone from your church?"
    "There's no one I need right now," she said. Was there someone she wanted to be with at this moment? She couldn't think of anyone. "It's okay. I'll be all right." She'd ushered him out and sat in the living room for a long time.
    The following morning a police detective had taken her to identify her husband's remains. It wasn't the real thing, just a photograph of his face, and she could barely make out his features through her tears. The detective had put his arm around her shoulders and she'd accepted the comfort he'd offered. "That's my husband."
    He'd given her a cup of coffee and suggested that she might want to see her physician and have the doctor prescribe a sedative, then he'd handed her Vin's briefcase and a fat brown envelope with Vin's personal effects inside. She'd seen the doctor, filled the prescription he'd given her, and, except for the funeral arrangements, most of which Mark had taken care of for her, and the actual event, she'd slept for more than a week. She'd spent the following week in a fog, taking antidepressants like they were candy, hoping that each morning the emptiness would lessen. Emptiness. Not sadness but an overall purposelessness. What should she do? The heads of each of her charities had called, expressed their sympathy, and told her that she should take her time getting back, if she went back at all. They spouted platitudes and told her how much they sympathized, but she got the feeling that they were thinking,
Thank God it's not me
. Both Doug Haskell and Walt Roth had called to offer their condolences. She answered all the calls with brief good grace.
    Had it been almost four months already? She opened the closet door and pulled the envelope down from the shelf. She returned to the desk, tore the envelope open, and spilled the contents on the desktop. His cell phone and his personal organizer. His watch. A Lucian Piccard day, date chronograph. She'd given that to him for their tenth anniversary. She looked at the back. MTYLTT. More than yesterday, less than tomorrow. Had she meant that then? Did it really matter? He was gone and that was that.
    She put the watch back on the desk and picked up his wallet. Eel skin. That had been for his twenty-ninth birthday. He'd dropped hints for weeks, saying that everyone who was anyone had eel skin wallets. Six hundred dollars later he had one, too, with his initials in gold on the front. His cufflinks, gold and ruby. He had a dozen pair with different stones, nothing under a thousand dollars. She'd sell those, along with much of her jewelry,