Death in a Cold Hard Light by Francine Mathews

Author:Francine Mathews [Mathews, Francine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Police Procedural, Scallop fisheries, Nantucket Island (Mass.), Mystery & Detective, General, Folger; Merry (Fictitious character), Heroin, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Marine biologists, Fiction, Police chiefs
ISBN: 9780553576252
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1999-05-03T23:00:00+00:00

Hannah Moore swept her long black hair away from her face and into a knot at the crown of her head. She secured it with a pair of number-two lead pencils and then bent over the microscope in front of her. Her lips moved soundlessly as she counted something. Then she straightened, seized a third pencil, and scribbled numbers on a pad.

“Got it nailed down? Got it all figured out?” her husband asked, from his position in the doorway.

She looked up, her face expressionless, and met Charles Moore’s eyes. Then she looked back down at her notepad and continued writing.

In the first year of their marriage, Sunday had been reserved for play. They had taken long walks over the moors together; had browsed for books in the local shops; had bicycled to the old military bunker at Tom Nevers Head, and eaten sumptuous brunches at Chanticleer. All that had changed with Hannah’s growing obsession for her work. Now she spent more hours in her Quonset huts than she did in the house. It had been a long time, Charles thought, since she had greeted him with a smile. Much less run to throw her arms around him with helpless joy.

But helpless joy had never been much in Hannah’s line. He would have settled for grudging lust.

He wandered around the interior of the lab his money had built, disturbing piles of paperwork and fingering the labeled slides. He peered into tanks with blatant ignorance, and stirred the bubbling waters with an idle fingertip. He did it deliberately, hoping to provoke.

“What exactly do you want, Charles?” she burst out, finally, at the end of her short patience. He whirled to face her.

“A return on my investment,” he said. “Some gain for expenditures expended.”

Silence. She set down her pencil.

“We aren’t doing very well, are we, Hannah? Our projects seem to have failed miserably.”

“Our projects didn’t take a hurricane into account.”

“No. But that doesn’t explain the state of our marriage. Now does it?”

Her tongue clicked with irritation, her eyes rolled. “I really don’t have time for this, Charles. I’m trying to finish a grant application. I’m low on funds, as you very well know.”

“That’s no fault of mine,” he said gently. “I’ve beggared myself for you, Hannah. And to little purpose. Is that why you ‘re going to this party tonight? To meet fund-raisers?”

“The da Silvas are friends. Their son Will practically lives here.”

“You have no friends, Hannah. Only prospective backers.” Charles reached over and released the pencils from her hair. It cascaded darkly about her shoulders, and he sighed. “Such a beautiful face. And yet there’s no heart behind it. How did Jay die, Hannah?”

She did not answer immediately, but he was prepared to wait. Charles was very good at waiting. He had outlasted every rival for Hannah’s attention, and he sometimes thought she had simply rewarded him for endurance, as though it were a prize genetic trait she might replicate under controlled conditions.

“He drowned.”

“Really. How unfortunate.”

“For Jay, perhaps.”

“You’re singularly unmoved.”

Something flickered in her face—a trick of the light, or a current in the air between them.

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