Darkfall

special happened last night.”
    She said nothing.
    “Did I just imagine it?” he asked.
    “Let’s not talk about it now.”
    “Was it really awful for you?”
    “Later,” she said.
    “Why’re you treating me like this?”
    She wouldn’t meet his eyes; that was unusual for her. “It’s complicated, Jack.”
    “I think we’ve got to talk about it.”
    “Later,” she said. “Please.”
    “When?”
    “When we have the time.”
    “When will that be?” he persisted.
    “If we have time for lunch, we can talk about it then.”
    “We’ll make time.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “Yes, we will.”
    “Now, we’ve got work to do,” she said, pulling away from him.
    He let her go this time.
    She headed toward the living room, where Shelly Parker waited.
    He followed her, wondering what he’d gotten himself into when he’d become intimately involved with this exasperating woman. Maybe she was a nut case herself. Maybe she wasn’t worth all the aggravation she caused him. Maybe she would bring him nothing but pain, and maybe he would come to regret the day he’d met her. At times, she certainly seemed neurotic. Better to stay away from her. The smartest thing he could do was call it quits right now. He could ask for a new partner, perhaps even transfer out of the Homicide Division; he was tired of dealing with death all the time, anyway. He and Rebecca should split, go their separate ways both personally and professionally, before they got too tangled up with each other. Yes, that was for the best. That was what he should do.
    But as Nevetski would say: Like hell .
    He wasn’t going to put in a request for a new partner.
    He wasn’t a quitter.
    Besides, he thought maybe he was in love.
    VII
    At fifty-eight, Nayva Rooney looked like a grandmother but moved like a dockworker. She kept her gray hair in tight curls. Her round, pink, friendly face had bold rather than delicate features, and her merry blue eyes were never evasive, always warm. She was a stocky woman but not fat. Her hands weren’t smooth, soft, grandmotherly hands; they were strong, quick, efficient, with no trace of either the pampered life or arthritis, but with a few callouses. When Nayva walked, she looked as if nothing could stand in her way, not other people and not even brick walls; there was nothing dainty or graceful or even particularly feminine about her walk; she strode from place to place in the manner of a no- nonsense army sergeant.
    Nayva had been cleaning the apartment for Jack Dawson since shortly after Linda Dawson’s death. She came in once a week, every Wednesday. She also did some babysitting for him; in fact, she’d been here last evening, watching over Penny and Davey, while Jack had been out on a date.
    This morning, she let herself in with the key that Jack had given her, and she went straight to the kitchen. She brewed a pot of coffee and poured a cup for herself and drank half of it before she took off her coat. It was a bitter day, indeed, and even though the apartment was warm, she found it difficult to rid herself of the chill that had seeped deep into her bones during the six-block walk from her own apartment.
    She started cleaning in the kitchen. Nothing was actually dirty. Jack and his two young ones were clean and reasonably orderly, not at all like some for whom Nayva worked. Nonetheless, she labored diligently, scrubbing and polishing with the same vigor and determination that she brought to really grimy jobs, for she prided herself on the fact that a place positively gleamed when she was finished with it. Her father-dead these many years and God rest his soul-had been a uniformed policeman, a foot patrolman, who took no graft whatsoever, and who strived to make his beat a safe one for all who lived or toiled within its boundaries. He had taken considerable pride in his job, and he’d taught Nayva (among other things) two valuable lessons about work: first, there is always satisfaction and esteem in a piece of work well done, regardless of how menial it might be; second, if you cannot do a job well, then there’s not much use in doing it at all.
    Initially, other than the noises Nayva made as she cleaned, the only sounds in the apartment were the periodic humming of the refrigerator motor, occasional thumps and creaks as someone rearranged the furniture in the apartment above, and the moaning of the brisk winter wind as it pressed at the windows.
    Then, as she paused to pour a little more coffee for