Dark Lie (9781101607084) by Nancy; Springer

full circle, as if her head were a video cam recording the place, and he felt a disconcerting sense of keen intelligence at work. She wasn’t just gawking. She would remember details of what she saw, and they would have meaning for her.
    â€œKittens with butterfly wings?” she inquired of some of Dorrie’s more unusual statuettes.
    â€œUm, yes, they’re Flutterkitties.”
    The officer carefully picked one up, looked at the bottom, and set it down again. “Signed originals. She knows the artist?”
    â€œJust online.” Feeling an irrational need to apologize for signed originals, which implied a level of wealth and culture to which he did not aspire, Sam said, “It’s her only hobby. Collecting art.”
    The policewoman took her time checking out Dorrie’s display of winged horses—clay, carved wood, ceramic, glass—then moved on to the fireplace mantelpiece, home to another collection of porcelain bells upon which perched realistically painted songbirds by way of handles. Gently she lifted one of the bells and tried it out; the tinkling sound of its porcelain clapper could not have been more musical. The officer put the bell back exactly where it belonged. “She has good taste. No kitsch.”
    â€œI met Dorrie in art class at college.” Sam’s throat tightened. He didn’t quite know where that had come from. He had meant to say that Dorrie had minored in art history.
    â€œShe likes the, um, is it Impressionists?” The young woman had stopped in front a Redon print of winged horses pulling a sun chariot.
    â€œI’m not sure.” Dorrie’s art collection took up most of the wall space, but somehow did not make the house feel like a museum, Sam thought with dawning appreciation of his wife’s skill as a homemaker; it coexisted comfortably with soft moss green sofas, fern-print drapes, lightweight golden oak tables.
    â€œ
Angel
, by Moreau,” the unlikely cop murmured, pausing in front of another print. “Symbolist?”
    â€œYou’d have to ask Dorrie.” Pride in his wife combined oddly with Sam’s painful worry.
    â€œShe’s partial to subjects with wings.”
    â€œYes. Anything with wings. Except airplanes.”
    â€œI guess maybe airplanes are a guy thing. When women dream of just flying away, it’s more organic.”
    If the young cop had pulled her gun on him, it could not have startled and discomfited Sam much worse. Too loudly he said, “Dorrie didn’t run away!”
    The young woman swiveled to stare at him with wide loam-colored eyes. “I didn’t mean to imply that she did, Mr. White. It’s not at all unusual for women to dream of a fairy-tale kind of freedom. I’m sorry if—”
    â€œLook, miss, I just want to find my wife.”
    â€œMy name is Officer Chappell. Sorry, I should have introduced myself when I came in. What was it you wanted to show me?”
    Sam took a deep breath, pressed his lips together, and led the way upstairs to the bedroom. Flicking on the light, he said wearily, “In here.” He had thought they would be done before now. He bet Officer Chappell was a rookie, the way she wanted to go over everything one step at a time in slow motion, or so it seemed to Sam. Indicating a location on the box spring of the disheveled bed, he told her, “I found it here.” He picked up the pink folder from a bedside table and handed it to her.
    Officer Chappell paged through it in complete silence, then tucked it under her arm and made a note on her spiral-bound stenographic pad. “How long has this been going on?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œDoes your wife have a PC?”
    â€œLaptop.”
    â€œIf that’s what she used, I can find a history on it.”
    What this had to do with finding Dorrie Sam could not imagine, but he said, “She keeps it in her sewing room.” Sam started to show the way