Slow Kill

Chapter 12

W ith Claudia Spalding in custody and on her way to jail, Lieutenant Dante Macy quickly moved the team of detectives onto the estate. The long lane to the house, shaded by rows of overarching trees, cut the afternoon sun into gleaming flecks of light. On either side, thickets of brambles and tall pines created the illusion of a forest. When the Tuscan-style house and the formal tiered gardens came into view, Macy was stunned by the opulence. Ellie Lowrey’s description of the estate hadn’t done it justice. He wondered how many tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, it took to own such a place.

Macy put his people into motion. Two men would round up the staff and take their statements. Detective Price and two officers would conduct the search for evidence. Two more detectives would do a visual sweep of the extensive grounds to determine what else might need to be searched under a new warrant.

The five employees consisted of Clifford Spalding’s personal assistant, an estate overseer who lived on the grounds, two gardeners, and a resident housekeeper. All of them had attended the funeral services and the wake, staying behind after the last guests departed to tidy up and restore order.

Macy wandered through the house and grounds thinking it would take a platoon of officers a day or more to do a truly comprehensive search. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be needed. He watched as the detectives working under Price examined hard drives on the household computers, then stopped by the kitchen where the personal assistant, a nervous woman in her thirties named Sheila, was giving a statement. The rest of the staff were seated silently around the table in the adjacent dining room under the watchful eye of an officer.

Macy found Price exiting the guesthouse by the tennis courts, empty-handed. Price shook his head to signal that he’d found nothing of interest and walked toward the garage and staff quarters. Macy went back to the kitchen and waited for the detective to finish up with Sheila. Then he took her in tow and had her open every locked door on the estate so the officers could do a visual inspection. There was no good reason to waste time trying to do a thorough search of every nook and cranny. At least, not yet.

After the doors had been unlocked, he told Sheila to wait in the dining room, and sat at the far end of the long antique tavern table that filled the center space of the kitchen. The two gardeners, both middle-aged Hispanic men with limited English language skills, were questioned one at a time by a Spanish-speaking officer. They both said they didn’t know Kim Dean or what his relationship to Claudia was. The detective probed a bit, but it was clear both men had very little personal knowledge about their employers.

Next up was the housekeeper, a woman with a broad Nordic face and pale blue eyes named Cora Sluka. Under questioning, she was uncooperative and evasive at first, but opened up a bit when the detectives pointed out that Clifford Spalding was dead, his wife was in jail charged with murder, and Sluka might have a hard time getting another job if they had to arrest her.

She talked about a male who’d appeared unannounced within the past year to visit Mrs. Spalding, and recalled serving them drinks on the patio. She couldn’t describe the man, but when shown Dean’s booking photograph from the Santa Fe County Jail, she identified him as the visitor.

The information pleased Macy. Claudia Spalding had told Sergeant Lowrey that Dean had never been to the Montecito estate. He wondered what else Claudia had lied about.

Macy motioned the detectives to back off and took over the interview. “Were you present at the house the entire time Dean was here?” he asked Sluka.

“No, Mrs. Spalding asked me to take some clothes to the dry cleaners and then gave me the afternoon off.”

“Was that an unusual thing for her to do?”

“Yes, it was. She liked to keep us busy.”

“Were other employees around at the time?”

“No, just me.”

“Did you mention Dean’s visit to Mr. Spalding?”

“No.”

“Could he have learned about it some other way?”

“Mrs. Spalding might have told him.”

“Does Mrs. Spalding treat the staff fairly, without favoritism?”

Sluka lowered her head. “She treats us all pretty much the same, I think.”

Macy read the dodge. “She doesn’t play favorites?”

“We all try to get along and work together,” Sluka hedged.

“No one gets special treatment?” Macy asked.

Sluka’s cheeks turned red. “That’s not for me to say.”

“Okay, Cora, that’s all for now. But I may have to speak to you again.”

Sluka hurried out, and Glenn Davitt, the estate manager, replaced her at the kitchen table. A man in his thirties, he had jet black hair, dark, deep-set eyes, and a lean, angular face. He looked at Macy with feigned boredom, which raised Macy’s curiosity.

“How long is this going to take?” Davitt asked as he slouched in his chair and glanced at the three cops.

Macy countered the question. “Tells us what you know about Mrs. Spalding’s lovers.”

“I know nothing about any of that,” Davitt said, peering over his shoulder as the two detectives moved behind him.

“Please pay attention to me, Mr. Davitt,” Macy said softly as he approached. “Would you say Claudia Spalding is a beautiful woman?”

Davitt shrugged. “Sure, for someone her age.”

“Hard to resist?” Macy asked.

Davitt crossed his arms. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Macy chuckled. “Come on, don’t give me that. She’s a very sexy lady.”

“If you say so. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think of her that way. She’s my employer, that’s all.”

Macy gave Davitt a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Relax. Talking to me can only help you.”

“Help me how? This is a waste of time.”

“Let’s forget about Mrs. Spalding for a minute. Think about yourself, your future.”

Davitt laughed. “Maybe I’ll write one of those tell-all books and make a pile of money.”

“That’s a great idea,” Macy said approvingly. “But if you don’t tell us the truth, you’ll have to write that book in jail.”

“In jail for what?”

“Making false statements to the police,” Macy said. “Obstructing justice.”

Davitt raised a hand. “May lightning strike me if I’m telling a lie.”

Macy pulled a chair over and sat close to Davitt. “I don’t think you’ve lied, yet. But if you don’t tell us about your relationship with Claudia, you’ll be in a world of trouble. We know you’ve been sleeping with her.”

“Who says?”

Macy glanced at the closed door to the dining room where Cora Sluka waited. “Who changes and washes the bedsheets?” he asked.

Davitt bought into Macy’s trickery and started talking. He copped to having sex with Spalding, and cast himself in the role of a pursued, put-upon employee who only wanted to keep his job.

When Davitt finished, Macy stood. “Did she ever ask you to help her kill her husband?”

“No way,” Davitt said, making good eye contact.

“I believe you,” Macy said, “and I can’t wait to read your book, if you ever get it published.”

Late afternoon turned golden, the clear sky so bright that the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were washed in a flood of light. On such days, Ramona Pino could still believe in the enchantment of Santa Fe.

Good news from California earlier in the day had put her in an excellent mood. She hummed a song, off-key as always, on the drive to Claudia Spalding’s Santa Fe house, search warrant in hand.

In the two units behind her were Matt Chacon and Chief Kerney, who’d invited himself along without explanation. The chief occasionally went out in the field with the troops, but this was the first time for Ramona. Cheerily, she decided not read anything more into it than that, and turned her thoughts to the work at hand.

The arrest of Claudia Spalding, Dean’s confession, and the statements given by Coe Evans and Glenn Davitt were important milestones, but the investigation was far from over. Without an admission of guilt from Spalding, which Ellie Lowrey said was highly unlikely, nailing down motive remained a crucial issue.

Without it, Ramona could visualize Spalding’s defense attorney in court, convincing a jury that the grieving widow had no reason to murder her husband, that she was a victim of lies and false accusations by Kim Dean and other men of questionable character.

Ramona pulled into the driveway of Claudia’s Santa Fe house. It certainly wasn’t the Montecito mansion Ellie had described to her, but it was no adobe shack either. It was a long, rectangular, two-story double adobe under a high, forest-green pitched roof, with deeply recessed doors and windows. A horse stable, corral, and hay shed stood nearby under a stand of trees. Given its Arroyo Hondo location with sweeping views of the distant Sandia Mountains and the tip of Mount Taylor, it had to be a million-dollar property.

She waited at the front door for Matt and the chief to join her, wondering why a woman who had so much would risk so much. Perhaps they’d find the answer inside.

She smiled as the two men approached. “Ready to go hunting for secrets?” she asked.

“Lead on,” Kerney said.

She searched for a spare house key and found it under a rock at the base of a large bronze and stone garden sculpture of a life-size raven perched on a boulder. Inside, a great room consisting of living, dining, and kitchen areas ran the length of the first floor. It rose to a high vaulted ceiling bracketed on both ends by two second-story lofts accessed by staircases.

Ramona went over the scope of the search warrant with Kerney and Chacon. All written or electronically stored materials pertaining to or mentioning Clifford Spalding, Kim Dean, Mitch Griffin, Coe Evans, and Glenn Davitt, including financial and legal documents, letters, journals, diaries, business correspondence, handwritten notes, lists, address books, calendars, computers, electronic organizers, and recorded telephone messages, were fair game.

She made Matt Chacon the inventory officer, responsible for logging and tagging what was found, where, when, and by whom. Prepared for the role that always fell to junior detectives, Chacon opened his briefcase, took out a clipboard, and started organizing the forms he needed.

“I’d better get started,” Ramona said, glancing at Kerney.

“I came along to help, Sergeant,” Kerney replied. “Put me where you want me.”

“We’ll start on this floor,” Ramona said, wondering if Kerney was testing her on search protocol, “and clear an area for Detective Chacon to use.”

The sun was low on the horizon when they finished searching the ground floor and started on the lofts. One served as the master bedroom, and the other was a combination library and music room with a baby grand piano, writing desk, soft leather reading chairs with matching ottomans, and built-in bookcases.

Kerney had just finished with the contents of the writing desk in the library/music room when Ramona came up the loft stairs.

“Have you found anything interesting, Chief?” Ramona asked.

Kerney fanned the stack of papers in his hand. “Not really. Closing documents on the house, property tax notifications, canceled checks, paid veterinary and feed bills for the horses. The usual stuff. How about you?”

“The same. What about the laptop?”

“It’s password protected,” Kerney answered as he rose with the laptop in hand to turn over to Chacon.

“What about the books?” Ramona asked, looking at the shelves lining the walls. There had to be at least a thousand volumes, and each one had to be checked.

“That’s next on the list,” Kerney said from the ground floor.

Ramona glanced at some of the titles on the spines. Carl Jung’s complete works; books by Boswell, Swift, Yeats, Samuel Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Jorge Luis Borges; Shakespeare’s sonnets; Joseph Campbell’s works on mythology; a complete shelf devoted to art and architecture.

She passed in front of a cushioned banco below a large window and inspected the next stand of shelves. A book at eye level, Premier Nudes, caught Ramona’s attention. Next to it was a tome on the erotic world of wrestling, followed by a book of erotic drawings. In fact, the entire set of shelves was given over to erotica, with many of the titles in French, German, and Italian.

She flipped through several volumes. Some were nothing more than photography books of nude men and women, not at all provocative, while others had more explicit sexual content with heavy sadomasochistic and homosexual themes.

“Well, well,” Ramona said quietly to herself.

“Find something?” Kerney asked as he returned to the loft.

She turned and handed him a small softcover German book entirely devoted to photographs of a dominatrix with various men.

Kerney opened it to the first photograph, which showed the finely sculpted buttocks of a woman wearing garter belts, stockings, and spike heels. At her feet kneeled a fat, elderly, nude man with downcast eyes.

“Well, well, indeed,” Kerney said.

“There’s a whole wall of this stuff, Chief.”

“Let’s see if Claudia Spalding left any messages inside these tantalizing little volumes,” Kerney said, fanning through the pages.

They carefully searched through every book in the library, discovering an errant bookmark or two, a forgotten postcard, an occasional cash receipt for a book purchased but never read. They emptied one shelf at a time, and soon the floor, the desk, the chairs, and the top of the baby grand piano were covered with wobbly stacks of books.

Ramona finished first, thumping down an enormous old copy of The Oxford Universal Dictionary of Historical Principles on the last empty bit of floor space. She cleared off the piano bench, sat, and watched Kerney as he pulled a book off the lowest shelf and inspected it in the dim light of dusk that filtered through the window.

Ramona switched on the desk lamp. Her fingers were dirty gray, the creases in her palms etched with grit. During the time they’d been searching Claudia’s library, Ramona had learned that the chief shared her love of books. They’d exchanged comments about interesting titles, the discovery of favorite authors, and some of the more valuable signed first editions.

Kerney fanned through the last book to be checked, put it down, and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “That does it. Have we missed anything?”

“I don’t think so,” Ramona said.

“Have you looked inside the piano bench?”

Ramona opened the bench. Inside there was a stack of sheet music, and under it a diary bound in red leather with gilt edging and a sterling silver clasp lock.

“Is there a key for this in the desk?” she asked, holding up the diary.

Kerney found the key and passed it over. Ramona unlocked the diary and read a random, dated entry, written in neat script.

K has a lovely penis, medium in size, but he uses it enthusiastically. He lets me fondle it, but I haven’t yet taken him in my mouth. I wonder if he’s afraid to give up control.

She scanned another entry.

I’m as twitchy and horny as a broodmare in heat. Masturbated three times this morning.

Ramona flipped back to a longer entry.

Dinner out with K last night. The lovely blonde who arrived soon after us with her escort was enchanting. Tiny waist, long legs, perfect hips, and just a sexy hint of a round tummy. I told him she’d be perfect for us to share, and he made some inane comment that he’d have to sleep with her first before he could suggest a threesome. I’m beginning to wonder if I can take him to the next level. He’s sexually possessive and not as open-minded as he’d like to believe. But I’ll continue to hold my tongue and stroke his little-boy’s ego.

She read aloud an entry made soon after Claudia’s move to Santa Fe.

Putting distance between Clifford and myself hasn’t worked. It’s still bondage of a certain kind, no matter how much freedom I’ve managed to broker for myself in this marriage. It’s all an anachronism, lacking only the lordly robes of some duke or earl hanging from Clifford’s aged body in testimony of his right to possess me. Even his generosity is a two-edged sword, designed to bind me to him to do his bidding, right down to his need to have me at his side at some absurdly boring event. This cannot continue. I will not be owned.

“I think this clears up a few things,” Ramona said as she handed the diary to Kerney.

He scanned a few passages. One detailed how Claudia had used her erotica collection to stimulate Kim Dean’s interest in more adventuresome sex. It read like a sex manual. Another spoke directly of Claudia’s growing desire to rid herself of Clifford.

Kerney closed the diary. “She may have never put her murder plan on paper, but what’s here is damaging.”

“What do you make of her?” Ramona asked.

Kerney shook his head. “I don’t know, but the psychiatrists on both sides will have a field day in court.”

Ramona shook her head. “I never imagined sex could be so devoid of any feelings.”

Kerney smiled at the comment. “Perhaps you just didn’t expect it from a woman.”

Ramona laughed and headed for the loft stairs. “Good point, Chief.”

“Make a copy of the diary for me, if you will.”

“It will be on your desk in the morning.”

A full moon hung in the clear evening sky, shedding a silvery light over the Galisteo Basin and spilling pale shadows across rangeland, low wood-land mesas, and grassy hills.

Kerney’s earlier attempt to locate Jennifer Stover, the woman who’d owned the gallery where Debbie Calderwood’s college roommate once worked, had failed. He was determined, if possible, to find and talk to Stover before calling it a day.

He knew the village of Galisteo well. For a time, he’d worked on the basin as a caretaker of a small ranch while recovering from gunshot wounds, and now he had his own spread on the north lip of it.

Although some of the land near the village had been carved up into residential parcels, most of the surrounding countryside remained open range owned by ranchers who still ran cow-calf operations and cowboyed every day. There were outfits that encompassed ten and twenty thousand acres, but the largest ranch took up almost ninety thousand acres of grassland, canyons, low-slung mesas, and wide sandy creeks that ran west toward the Rio Grande.

Within the private holdings were the remnants of ancient Indian pueblos, petroglyphs etched on massive rock outcroppings, ruins of early Spanish sheep camps, caves with painted pictographs, and abandoned farmsteads rarely viewed by outsiders. Kerney had been fortunate enough to see many of the sites during the times he’d participated in gathering cows on the neighboring ranches during spring and fall works.

A village of several hundred people, Galisteo still retained the look and feel of a Spanish settlement. Tall cottonwoods spread thick branches over high adobe walls, and dirt lanes wound past flat-roofed haciendas and veered away from the deep channel of the small river, in truth no more than a stream, that defined the eastern boundary of the settlement. A small distance beyond the village stood a narrow old highway bridge with concrete railings, and beyond that were the rodeo grounds, consisting of a fenced arena and corrals, where every summer working cowboys from the basin gathered for a weekend of friendly competition.

An adobe church with stone buttresses and rows of narrow, tall windows defined the center of the village, fronting a two-lane state road that crossed the bridge and wandered up grassland hills to Comanche Gap, an ancient route once used by Plains Indians to raid nearby pueblos. Across the road from the church was a small general store with turquoise-blue wood trim, earthy peach plastered walls, and a hand-painted sign that advertized homemade tacos. To the rear of the church, away from the lush tree cover by the river, was a scattering of more modest houses and a cemetery on a rocky knoll.

There were a few businesses in and around the village, but they were not the usual array of gas stations, diners, and motels found in small towns. There was a bed-and-breakfast inn with an excellent restaurant, a riding and horse-boarding stable, an herbalist’s shop, an upscale spa resort, a new age spiritual awareness center, and of course the Stover-Driscoll Gallery, which had to be somewhere nearby.

Kerney stopped at a lighted house behind the church to ask where the gallery was, and was directed to the old territorial-style schoolhouse on the county road that cut west toward the Cerrillos Hills.

Two cars were parked in front, and warm light poured out into the silvery night through the tall, open windows. From deep inside came the soft sounds of a piano sonata. Kerney’s heavy knock on the original double doors brought a quick response by a woman whose expression of anticipation changed to one of surprise.

She was dark-haired with widely spaced eyes and a softly rounded face that matched the attractive curves of her frame. The plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand signaled to Kerney that if she was indeed Jennifer Stover, she had remarried.

“Are you Jennifer Stover?” Kerney asked, after introducing himself.

“I am,” Stover said. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I thought you were Dennis and Marie.”

“There’s no cause to apologize,” Kerney said. “Have I come at a bad time?”

Stover stepped back and motioned Kerney to enter. “I can spare a few minutes.”

“That’s all I need.”

The inside guts of the schoolhouse lobby had been ripped out, enlarged, and renovated, creating a great room of considerable size that spanned the width of the building. Thick posts and beams had been installed to bear the weight of the roof, a rectangular stone fireplace had been added along one wall, and the old oak floors gleamed with a satiny patina.

A fluffy, overweight cat scurried past Kerney’s feet and out the open door. Five seating areas filled the room, each large enough to accommodate six to eight people, strategically arranged for viewing the artwork on the walls, all of it modern, abstract, large canvases.

“I’m looking for an employee,” Kerney said, “who once worked in your Canyon Road gallery. Her first name is Helen.”

Stover smiled. “Helen Randell is my partner.”

“Can you put me in touch with her?” Kerney asked.

“She’s my partner in life as well as business,” Stover added without hesitation. “Why do you need to speak with her?”

“I’m looking for someone she knew a long time ago, and I hope she might be able to help me.”

“She’s in the kitchen. Follow me.”

Stover led Kerney to a converted classroom off the great room, where Randell stood at a counter in front of a bank of kitchen cabinets. Tall, with curly golden hair, she turned when Stover called her name.

“Who do we have here?” she asked, eyeing Kerney.

“A police officer who is trying to find someone,” Stover replied.

“Has someone we know gone missing?”

“Debbie Calderwood,” Kerney said.

Randell laughed. “Isn’t it odd that you can go for years without ever thinking about or seeing someone and then suddenly they repeatedly reappear in your life, one way or another? Debbie is hardly missing, at least not anymore.”

“You’ve seen her or heard from her?”

Randell nodded. “Less than a month ago, at the opera. I was standing in line at the bar before the performance getting drinks and Debbie was right in front of me. At first I didn’t recognize her, but it was Debbie.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Of course. We talked.”

“What did you talk about?” Kerney asked

“We caught up briefly with each other. She’s living in Calgary, Canada, and is married to a man who runs a philanthropic foundation of one sort or another.”

“Did she tell you her married name?”

“No, we didn’t talk for very long.”

“Was she with her husband?”

“She didn’t say, and I didn’t see anyone with her. She did mention that it was her first trip back to New Mexico since she’d moved to Canada many years ago. From the way she was dressed and the jewelry she wore, she’s been living very well up there.”

“Does the name George Spalding ring a bell?”

“He was her high school boyfriend. In the Army at the time. She didn’t really talk about him much, especially after she got involved in the free speech movement.”

“Did you exchange addresses?”

Randell shook her head. “No. It was a rather awkward encounter. Even though we were college room-mates for a time, we weren’t that close, and Debbie didn’t seem interested in chatting.”

“Would you be willing to work with a police sketch artist so we can create a likeness of Debbie?”

“If it’s important,” Randell said.

Kerney handed Randell his business card. “It is. Call my office in the morning and I’ll set up an appointment for you.”

Randell slipped the card into a pocket of her slacks. “Why are you trying to find Debbie?”

“In order to find someone else,” Kerney replied.

A knock at the front door ended the conversation, but Kerney had learned far more than he’d hoped for. He thanked the women for their time, made his way past their arriving guests, and drove home, eager to call Sara and learn what she might have gleaned from George Spalding’s military records.

In the living room with the dim light of a single table lamp turned down low, in a house almost always much too empty and quiet, Kerney phoned Sara.

“I was hoping you’d call,” she said.

“I wanted to apologize again,” Kerney said, “for being so pushy.”

“There’s no need. What happened yesterday is over and done with, and I’ve got other things on my mind.”

“Like what?

“I’ve just been handed a major project, an important one, and it’s a mess.”

“Can you talk about it?”

“If members of Congress can, I guess I can too. A number of female soldiers from the enlisted and officer ranks have come forward with charges of sexual assaults that have gone unpunished or not yet been brought to courts-martial. They’re claiming shoddy, flawed investigations, unacceptable leniency for offenders, and inadequate victim services.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Worse,” Sara snapped angrily. “Many of them didn’t receive rape kit examinations or treatment for their wounds, evidence wasn’t gathered and collected, and their requests for base transfers to get away from their attackers have been routinely turned down by post commanders. Besides that, instead of receiving appropriate sexual trauma counseling, they’ve been ordered to take polygraph tests, and routinely sent back to work while still suffering from psychological and physical problems.”

Kerney sat in the leather easy chair Sara had picked out for him at a local furniture store and put his feet on the ottoman. “How many victims are you talking about?”

“Over ninety that we know about, but probably a hell of a lot more, worldwide. The post commanders are laying the blame on inadequately trained investigators and medical personnel. Pardon my French, but that’s bullshit. Some of these attacks were brutal, Kerney, and the victims frequently weren’t believed. You should read the case files; they’re gut-wrenching.”

Kerney pulled off his boots and dropped them on the floor. “What is it you have to do?”

“Let me quote. I’m to ‘Prepare a report on readiness to adequately and fully respond to sexual assault complaints, including an analysis of training needs, recommendations for changes to current investigative protocols and procedures, improvement in the coordination of services with Medical Corps personnel, and an estimate of staffing requirements needed to ensure the sufficiency of trained personnel, system-wide.’ ”

“That’s a military mouthful,” Kerney said.

“Don’t make me use my French again,” Sara said. “Instead of writing a report, we should be mounting a full-scale, widespread Internal Affairs operation into each and every one of these cases.”

“You don’t sound too happy with the brass.”

“I’m not. They tried to promote it as a plum assignment, sure to earn me another commendation. But all they really want to do is assuage the politicians and hope the furor dies down.”

“You know that for a fact?” Kerney asked.

“Come on, Kerney, you were an army officer. There are two kinds of orders: the ones that are written down and those that aren’t. In a private conversation, the scope of my assignment has been clearly limited.” Sara’s voice was clipped, filled with frustration.

“Does this mean you’ve hit the glass ceiling?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m not resigning my commission, Cowboy, if that’s what you’re asking. I want to pin eagles on my collar at the very least before I retire to civilian life.”

“And after that, you’ll want your first star.”

“Probably. But let’s not wind our way down that road again. How are you?”

“Ready to see my family,” Kerney said. “Will you have time for me?”

“I’ve got a handpicked team assigned to assist me. I’ll make the time. Don’t worry about that. Have our horses arrived from California?”

“Not yet. They’ll be here next week while I’m with you and Patrick. Riley Burke will look after them until I’m back.”

“I’m ready for a long horseback ride with you under a big sky or a full moon.”

“A night ride sounds romantic,” Kerney said.

“I get to ride Comeuppance.”

“Why do fast women always seem to like fast horses?”

Sara laughed. “You ponder that, Kerney. I’ll see you Friday night.”

“See you then.”

Kerney hung up, went to the kitchen, and fixed a light meal. Although he’d wanted to, he hadn’t asked about the George Spalding investigation. It could wait. Worried about Sara’s predicament, knowing he could do nothing about it, he sat and ate his dinner without enthusiasm.