All Fall Down (11 page)

Blaine pulled up in front of the one-story brick apartment building Rick had moved into after his divorce. The porch lights glowed warmly against the night, and she went up the curving walkway littered with a few leaves brought down by a cool breeze. Rick opened the door of apartment number five, wearing a white terry-cloth robe, his wavy hair wet as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. “Blaine,” he said with his warm smile. “This is a terrific surprise.”

“Been looking for this?” she asked, holding up the pager.

“For about an hour this morning. Then I remembered where it was.”

“And you didn’t come to retrieve it because you wanted to lure me to your place.”

Rick broke into laughter. “How well you know my evil intentions. Actually, I was just too tired to stop by your house for it this evening. I figured I’d survive without it until morning.” Blaine handed him the pager, which he took, then grasped her wrist and pulled her into the apartment. “I have a Dutch apple pie fresh from the bakery. How about having a piece with some coffee?”

“My favorite pie fresh from the bakery,” Blaine said in exaggerated suspicion. “What a coincidence.”

“Not a coincidence. Careful planning. I knew you’d bring me the pager.”

“That’s what I thought.” Blaine glanced around the dismal, cramped apartment, wondering as usual how Rick could stand it after living for four years in the big, beautiful Cape Cod home that now belonged to his ex-wife, Ellen. “Did you have a hard day?”

“Yeah, it was a long one,” he said, “but nothing a good night’s sleep can’t fix. Now back to the original subject. How about I put on some coffee and we can each have a piece of that low-calorie pie?”

“Wish I could, but I’ve got to be going. I’m supervising the talent contest, and rehearsals begin tonight at seven-thirty.”

Rick tapped his forehead. “You’ve only mentioned that about ten times and I still forgot.”

“Hard-working doctors are allowed to forget important things like high school talent contests.”

“Did you talk Robin into entering?”

“I don’t know. As of this morning, she hadn’t made up her mind. She’s so shy.”

“She’ll have to get over that if she wants to perform publicly.”

“She knows that. I hope she comes. I’ve scheduled a slot for her.”

Rick looked at her closely. “Blaine, are you all right? You look kind of washed out.”

Blaine forced a smile. “It’s been a long day for me, too. I guess you heard the police have decided Rosie Van Zandt was murdered.”

“Yeah, I heard it at the hospital right before I came home. The local grapevine doesn’t miss much, you know. Maybe it would be best for you to move back in with Cait for a while.”

“Oh, no, not you, too.”

“You’ve already had this conversation with Cait, right?”

“Right. Rick, the house on Prescott Road is my home. I just got resettled. Besides, Cait’s house is really too small for me and Robin
and
Ashley. The weeks I spent there after my accident were pretty uncomfortable. Also, I don’t like horning in on them. Cait was very gracious, but I could tell Robin and Ashley and I were in her way.”

“I understand, but aren’t you afraid in that big house?”

“A little uneasy,” she admitted, “but I’ll get over it.” She sighed and let Rick drape an arm around her shoulders. “You know, it was terrible to think of Rosie killing herself, but it’s even worse to know she was murdered. And, of course, the students are in an uproar about it. One girl fainted when she heard the news.”

“Who?”

“Kathy Foss. She’s the head cheerleader.”

“I’ve seen her at the games.”

“She’s hard to miss,” Blaine said dryly. “She collapsed in the hall during the noon hour. A crowd gathered around her and she woke up saying, ‘Rosie, I was there and I
saw
.’ Something like that, which really set off the students. They talked about it all afternoon, and like a fool, I told Cait.”

Rick held her out from him and peered into her eyes. “Do you think the girl really knows something?”

“Yes, but when she completely regained consciousness, she wouldn’t say another word.”

“That’s strange.”

“Not if she’s afraid to tell what she saw.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that myself. Attribute my slowness to fatigue and severe sugar deprivation.”

Blaine smiled. “Rick, considering the amount of sugar you consume, you should weigh a hundred pounds more than you do. I thought doctors knew all about nutrition.”

“We do. We just don’t always practice it.”

Blaine smiled again, then glanced at her watch. “I
have
to go.”

“Are you absolutely sure I can’t talk you into pie and perhaps something even more sinfully delightful?”

“Such as what? Watching you doze on the couch? Because, judging by the shadows around your eyes, I think you’re going to be unconscious in half an hour.”

“Maybe you’re right. But one of these nights, when I’m not tired and you’re not worrying about what everyone in town is saying about us…”

Blaine rolled her eyes and laughed. “Get some sleep, Romeo. We’ll talk about gossip another time.”

3

The talent show was being held at the school gymnasium, and Blaine felt a rush of excitement when she saw the participants already assembled in the building, some even practicing their routines. By nine o’clock, though, she was ready to scream and certain this would be the worst talent show in the school’s history.

None of the students had wanted to go first, so she’d arbitrarily chosen Susie Wolfe, who accidentally flung her flame-tipped baton into a cluster of students standing near the stage and sent them shrieking across the gym floor. No one was hurt, and within seconds everyone broke into hysterical laughter while Susie broke into equally hysterical sobbing. It took Blaine fifteen minutes to get her settled down enough to try again.

Susie was followed by Dean Newman delivering a comedy routine that made people laugh only because it was so bad. Crestfallen, he relinquished the stage to a girl who sang “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” while holding up an umbrella and doing a thunderous tap dance that completely drowned out the music. Because two members of Tony Jarvis’s rock band had already graduated and were therefore disqualified from participating, Tony went solo, performing a song he’d written called “Wherever You Are.” Blaine had heard him practicing the song in the empty school auditorium before her pneumonia and thought it beautiful, but tonight it came out flat and uninspired. But then, she’d heard that Tony had been taken in by the police for questioning as soon as school was out that afternoon. Tonight he looked both sullen and tense—his olive-complexioned face tight, his lips pressed into a thin line. She was surprised he’d shown up at the rehearsal at all.

She was also surprised to see Kathy Foss, who seemed to have recovered from her fainting spell. She looked fine and did a gymnastic routine to the Eagles’ song “Witchy Woman.” Kathy was indisputably good, but her routine was completely out of sync with the song, which Blaine was certain Kathy had chosen because it was seductive, not because she thought it was right for the act.

Shortly after her performance, John Sanders walked into the gym. He wore jeans and a well-cut raincoat, and Blaine couldn’t help smiling at all the female eyes following him as he grabbed a folding chair and sat down beside her in front of the stage. “Do we have any budding show-business geniuses here?” he asked.

“No,” Blaine said softly so the other students couldn’t hear. “So far it’s been pretty abysmal. Even Tony Jarvis isn’t performing well.”

“Police investigations will do that to you.”

“You haven’t been through another one, have you?”

“No, but I have this sinking feeling I will be.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Just thought I’d drop by and see if you’re okay. You seemed pretty upset earlier today. I thought you might need someone to take over.”

“That was sweet of you, but I’m fine. I just wish my name wasn’t going to be listed as talent coordinator.”

John laughed. “Most of the people who come to these things are parents of the performers, so you don’t have to worry. They always think their kids are great.”

“I hope so. Can you stay until the end?”

“ ’Fraid not. I’m expecting a call from Sam, and since you’re okay, I’d like to go home to get it.”

“Oh, well,” Blaine said with mock injury. “If you’d rather talk to the woman you love than watch all these stellar performances, I guess I understand.”

“I would.” John’s smile faded. “But if you need me later, call. I mean it.”

“Thanks, John.”

After John left and Blaine had sat through two more extremely bad performances, Robin climbed up to the stage. Blaine had been thrilled to see her arrive with Susie earlier, but she was less thrilled with Robin’s selection. Her head bowed, her hands visibly shaking, she sat down at the grand piano and began Debussy’s “Reverie.” Although Blaine loved the song, she knew it was wrong for the talent show. Robin’s teenaged audience was bored, talking and milling around the gym while Robin forged ahead, her cheeks growing redder by the minute. Blaine felt miserable for her and wondered if she’d been wrong to encourage her to enter. Although Robin would vociferously deny it, the opinion of her peers was vitally important to her, and their disdain could shatter her fragile ego.

She finished and fled the stage while only three people—Susie Wolfe, Dean Newman, and Tony Jarvis—clapped for her. As Arletta Stroud began flouncing around the stage lip syncing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Blaine glimpsed Robin slinking out of one of the side doors of the gym.

4

Kathy lingered in the stage wing while Robin Avery played her classical number. God, how boring, Kathy thought. Did anybody really
like
that kind of music? Judging from the audience, no. Kathy smiled with satisfaction. Nothing to worry about from Robin, no matter how talented all the teachers said she was, no matter how talented Rosie had always said she was.

Kathy stiffened, suddenly cold, although she was still perspiring from her strenuous gymnastic routine. If she couldn’t decide what to do about Rosie, whether or not to go to the police, she was going to go crazy—stark raving crazy. And she was going to give something away to the wrong person. In fact, maybe she already had. God, nobody had let her alone after she fainted today! That was the dumbest thing she’d ever done in her life. But when Arletta had begun describing how Rosie might have died…Kathy thought of Rosie and closed her eyes, shuddering uncontrollably.

Just three months ago Rosie had been tutoring her in algebra. Kathy had been prepared to dislike her. Rosalind Van Zandt was so pretty and so smart. It was humiliating to have that calm, beautiful girl watch her struggle to understand the simplest formulas. But Rosie had never acted superior, and when Kathy completed her summer school class with a respectable C to make up for the F she’d received in the spring, Rosie seemed really thrilled. Since passing the course meant she could not only stay on the cheerleading squad but also still qualify for head cheerleader in the fall, Kathy was ecstatic and insisted on taking Rosie out to the new Mexican restaurant in town. It was over seafood chimichangas that the two of them had begun a cautious friendship.

Although Kathy knew she wasn’t “book smart,” as her parents said, she had an uncanny ability to read people, to sense their strengths and weaknesses, to know when they were hiding something, and it hadn’t taken her long to figure out Rosie had a secret. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to see how she’d pulled away from Robin Avery. Rosie never said anything negative about Robin, but Kathy wasn’t interested anyway, because she didn’t think Robin was the problem. The fact that she couldn’t ferret out the truth, though, nearly drove her wild.

Finally, one evening a week earlier, when she’d been driving home from the drugstore, she’d seen Rosie’s beautiful red convertible whipping out of town toward Prescott Road, and on impulse Kathy had followed her. She’d hung back the way they did on TV shows to make sure Rosie didn’t see her, and watched as she turned off onto a gravel road and drove the car way back into the woods, then crossed the huge Avery lawn and used a key to open the front door. But there was no one home at the Avery house. Everyone knew Mrs. Avery and Robin were staying in town. Puzzled, Kathy had driven up on Prescott Road, turned around, and carefully pulled her car off the road, keeping it close enough to the trees to ensure it wouldn’t be spotted from the house. Then she’d gone on foot to the north end of the Avery lawn.

Fifteen minutes later—cold, bored, and worried about missing her favorite situation comedy at nine o’clock—she’d been ready to head back to her car when she saw another car pulling onto the gravel road and gliding back into the woods. A few minutes later, a man crossed the lawn just as Rosie had earlier. Kathy peered at him, cursing the night. If it weren’t for the bright moon, she wouldn’t have seen him at all. She took a step forward, hoping to catch a clearer glimpse of his face, and when she did she was astounded. The front door opened, and Rosie was outlined in the faint glow coming from a dusk-to-dawn light. She threw her arms around the man’s shoulders, then they both went inside, and the door closed firmly behind them. Kathy clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from letting out a whoop in the darkness. Rosie and him meeting in Mrs. Avery’s house! God, what nerve Rosie had. But it made sense. This place really was out of the way. And luxurious. Actually, Rosie was being pretty smart. With Mrs. Avery gone, she stood very little chance of getting caught.

Smiling to herself, Kathy retraced her steps to her car. Somehow, her estimation of Rosie had gone up even higher. This was great! But she couldn’t let Rosie know she’d followed her. No, that would make her lose Rosie’s friendship, and suddenly that friendship was more important to Kathy than ever.

Without turning on her lights, she started her car and drove out onto Prescott Road. She had gone only a few hundred feet when a police cruiser bore down on her, siren wailing, lights flashing. Horrified, cursing to herself, Kathy had no choice but to pull over and sit there in full view of the house. She rolled down the window and waited until the young deputy sauntered up. “Your lights aren’t on,” he drawled. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it can be dangerous drivin’ around with no lights?”