Point Of Departure. Laurie Breton

      And that was the crux of the matter: Krissy was too young to get married. She was nineteen years old, barely out of high school. A baby. She was also headstrong and determined, so the wedding preparations rolled merrily along, gathering momentum and gaining in size, until they threatened to crush anybody who failed to jump out of the way.

      “Silk and taffeta,” Lorna grumbled. “Tulle and organza. What the hell is organza, anyway?”

      “I haven’t a clue.”

      She glanced out the window, down a darkened side street. “Ed and I got married at city hall. I wore a navy-blue suit and carried a bouquet of carnations. We spent our wedding night at a hotel in Revere, then got up and went to work the next day. We did not—I repeat not—spend two weeks on Maui. Who the hell was the idiot that decided the bride’s parents are supposed to pay for the wedding?”

      “The tradition dates back to ancient times,” Policzki said, “when the bride’s family was expected to provide a dowry to the family of the groom, presumably in payment for taking her off their hands.”

      Lorna snorted. “If I’d known that was all it took, I’d have gladly paid Derek to take her off my hands. He’s welcome to all of her—the nose ring, the messy room, the Real World addiction. The posters of Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. He’s an easygoing kid. I could’ve paid him off for a tenth of what this wedding will cost me. They could’ve eloped. Think of the money I would have saved.”

      “I think this is it.” Policzki pulled up to the curb behind an aging Volvo wagon. Soft light spilled through a bay window of the South End town house onto the shrubbery below, giving the place the cozy, inviting look of a Thomas Kinkade painting. A shadow moved behind a curtained window. Policzki turned off the engine, and by silent agreement, they simultaneously opened their doors and stepped out of the car.

      The day’s warmth had given way to a crisp, clear evening. As they moved briskly toward the front door of the house, Lorna said, “So I’ll be good cop and you can be bad cop.”

      “How come I never get to be good cop?”

      “Are you kidding, Policzki? With that grim expression of yours, you’d scare people half to death. Tell me. Do you take the face off when you go to bed at night, or is this a 24–7 kind of thing?”

      “Hey, that’s not fair. I love babies and flowers and puppies.”

      “I know. You’re just incredibly earnest. Or incredibly dedicated. Or incredibly something.”

      They climbed the steps and Lorna rang the bell. Muffled footsteps approached and the door opened.

      Lorna’s first thought was that Sam Winslow—if, indeed, the man standing in the open doorway, outlined by soft lamplight, was Sam Winslow—was a sinfully handsome man, with coal-black hair worn to his shoulders, electric blue eyes and a lean, craggy face topped by cheekbones sharp enough to slice diamonds. Somewhere in the vicinity of forty, if the wisps of gray at his temples were any indication, he could be a model—or a stand-in for George Clooney—if he ever tired of teaching. She could imagine him in a magazine layout, standing in a room full of glamorous and playful people, wearing Armani and sipping from a glass of Chivas Regal.

      Christ on a crutch. His female students must be tripping over their own feet just to get close to him. Probably a few of the male ones were, too.

      He eyed them warily. “Yes?”

      “Sam Winslow?” Policzki said.

      “Yes.”

      The young detective held up his badge. “Policzki and Abrams, Boston PD. Is your wife home, sir?”

      “My wife? I—no, actually, she’s not. What’s this about?”

      “May we come in?”

      “It’s dinnertime. I really don’t think—”

      “Professor Winslow,” Lorna said, “there was an incident this afternoon involving your wife. I think you’d better let us in.”

      “An incident?” He hesitated, looked momentarily nonplussed. Then he nodded and moved away from the door.

      Winslow closed the door behind them, cleared his throat and ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “What’s this about?” he repeated.

      “Professor Winslow,” Lorna said, “when was the last time you spoke with your wife?”

      “This morning,” he said. “We had breakfast together. Then she went her way and I went mine. You still haven’t told me what’s going on. What kind of incident?”

      “It’s almost seven o’clock,” Policzki said. “Your wife isn’t home, and you haven’t spoken to her since this morning. Is this your typical daily routine?”

      “Kaye works crazy hours. Look, I wish you people would tell me what the hell is going on. Is Kaye in some kind of trouble? Has something happened to her?”

      “Your wife had an appointment this afternoon to show a house on Commonwealth Avenue,” Lorna said, watching his eyes carefully for even the merest flicker of recognition. Or guilt. But she saw neither. “When the client arrived, Mrs. Winslow wasn’t there.”

      Winslow wrinkled his brow in puzzlement and ran a hand along his jaw. “I don’t understand. You mean she never showed up?”

      “Oh, she showed up,” Policzki said. “Her briefcase was there. Her PDA and her wallet were there. But no Kaye. We did find somebody else there, though.”

      Winslow crossed his arms. “Who?”

      “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Lorna said. “Whoever he was, he’d been shot in the head. Does your wife own a gun, Professor?”

      Two

      Winslow’s color wasn’t good. He sat on a cream leather sofa, directly across from Lorna, who’d snagged herself a comfy armchair, while Policzki wandered the room, taking a casual inventory of its contents. The professor had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, but to Policzki he still looked like something that should be hung out to dry on a wash day morning. His pallor might be due to the shock of learning that his wife was missing. On the other hand, it could be traced to a more sinister source. Guilt had a way of taking its toll on a man.

      “The very suggestion is ludicrous,” Winslow said.

      Lorna leaned back in her chair. “Why is it ludicrous?”

      “A, we don’t own a gun. And B, even if we did, there’s not a chance in hell that Kaye would ever shoot it. She’d be too worried about breaking a nail or getting her hands dirty.”

      His ears attuned to every nuance of their conversation, Policzki studied the collection of African tribal masks that hung on the wall above the fireplace mantel. They looked like the genuine article. Somebody—presumably the good professor—had done a good deal more traveling in his lifetime than had Douglas Policzki of Somerville, Massachusetts. Six semesters spent at an Arizona university was hardly in the same league as a trip to the Dark Continent.

      The Winslows had eclectic tastes. An antique open-fronted china cabinet housed a large collection of Hummel figurines. At least the Winslows kept them all in one place. Policzki’s mother collected Hummels, and she had dozens of them scattered all over the house, an excess of cuteness so saccharine it made his teeth ache.

      “My wife did not kill anybody,” Winslow said. “There has to be some other explanation. Have you talked to the owner of the building? Maybe this dead guy is one of the Worthingtons.”

      Policzki picked up one of the offending objects, a dimpled boy in knee pants and tight curls who carried a shepherd’s crook. Odd, he thought, absently running his thumb over its cool, smooth surface, that Winslow should seem more interested in the dead man than in his missing wife.

      “Technically, the house is owned collectively