Death at the Wheel (2 page)

My mother's unspoken reproach wasn't all I had to look forward to. My brother Michael would be there, too. Michael the artist. Michael the talented. Michael the disgruntled, a man who had never gotten over his childhood habit of taking out his moods on others. And with Michael came his chronic girlfriend, Sonia, the workout queen, self-involved, petulant, and so virulent she made Michael look sweet. Sonia's conversation was salted with remarks that would give Miss Manners heart failure; remarks that challenged my self-control. Had I ever considered breast-reduction surgery and didn't I want the name of a good hairdresser? Did I know that skillful makeup would cover the circles under my eyes? Once, after staring pointedly at my skirt, she had commiserated about how difficult it is to get stains out of silk, one simply had to give up and throw things away, didn't one. It's not sisterly of me, but if they still had Roman games, I'd relish feeding Sonia to the lions. The poor beasts wouldn't get much of a snack, though. Under her layers of drapy garments, Sonia is rail thin.

In our minds, though never mentioned, would be my sister Carrie, dead a year and a half now, the victim of a brutal murder. Alive, Carrie had been the misfit, angry, challenging, and difficult, a constant thorn in my mother's side. I had loved her like a mother myself, my little adopted sister, and my sadness at her death, and my guilt that I had not done more to help her still lingered, especially there in the house where we'd all grown up.

Through it all, my father, the lawyer known for never backing down, would sit tight-lipped and silent, a row of little frown lines between his eyes, and then begin talking about some unrelated topic of interest to him. My dad is a sweetheart. When I was little, I was daddy's girl, and being a lawyer, he used to come home and pose legal riddles for me, delighting in my ability to solve them. We're not so close now, a fact that saddens me, but in my sometimes tense encounters with my mother, he's wisely chosen to take her side. I don't feel betrayed, just disappointed. I understand. I love my family but much of the time I don't like them. Families are given to us to make us appreciate the value of being grown up and on our own.

The radio announcer was going on much too long about how happy I'd be with a new mattress and a bottle of Bud Light. I had one and didn't need the other. I gave up on the radio and switched to the CD player, treating myself to some reggae, glad I hadn't been penny wise and pound foolish and had sprung for some luxury options on my car. I loved my bright red Saab. My husband David's rusty old Saab, a solid and dependable winter car, had gotten me hooked on Saabs, and when I replaced it, I got another. David was dead, a fact that still caused me pain, and partly my choice of Saab was memorial—a tribute to his taste and judgment. I loved my car phone and my sun roof and in the winter, I loved my heated seats. But it was April and Easter and after the awful winter we New Englanders had endured, it was impossible to stay grouchy on a warm, sunny day, even on the way to family dinner.

My father opened the door and I entered a hall filled with the rich smells of good cooking. He looked older and tireder and I noticed, with the jolt these observations always bring, that his hair was almost completely gray. "Theadora," he said, "Happy Easter. Your mother's in the kitchen." He held out his hand for my coat. "How's Andy?"

"Andre," I said. "He's fine. Still in one piece." He didn't like my answer any more than I'd liked the "Andy." No one who knows him calls Detective Andre Lemieux "Andy."

Mom smelled like cinnamon and yeast and her cheeks were flushed pink from bending over the stove. She straightened up and came to meet me, a regal, impressive woman, 5'10", ample, the impossible hair I've inherited cut short and crisp. She was wearing the apron I'd made her in eighth grade. Once it had been a sunny yellow decorated with bright red and green strawberries, chosen to match the kitchen wallpaper. Now, sixteen years later, the wallpaper was blue, the apron had faded to a dull yellowish gray, and the berries were just darker blotches, but she still wore it. After a hug, she backed up and examined me carefully. "You don't look as tired as usual," she said. "Are things quiet at work?"

"Never," I said, handing her the plant. She set it on the counter next to another, still stapled into its paper wrapper. "Open it now," I said. "I want to see if you'll like it."

She waved a hand at her steaming pots. "I'm busy...."

"Open it." I hadn't tramped all over the planet in the pouring rain to have my offering ignored.

With a sigh, she peeled off the heavy lavender paper and the intoxicating scent of gardenias filled the room, beating back the ham and sweet potatoes and baking bread. She pulled it out, beaming at the glossy green leaves and the profusion of rich, creamy white flowers. "Thea! It's beautiful. How on earth did you ever find such a thing?"

"Just a good detective, I guess."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're not involved in another murder, Theadora? Tell me that you're not."

"Murdering the competition, but that's all."

"Don't even joke about it, dear. You know how it upsets me. Now come in the living room. There's someone I want you to meet." She bustled out, shedding the apron as she went.

Knowing her, I was expecting an eligible young man. She never listens when I tell her I'm not interested, that I'm already involved. She believes Mother knows best. But it wasn't a young man. It was a young woman. Sitting on the couch. Well, perching on the couch. Tiny and blonde and fragile looking. Holding a toddler on her lap with her arm around a little girl. Despite the pink Chanel suit and the expensive gold jewelry, the large diamond on her hand and her superbly cut hair, she looked like a recent refugee, washed up on the shores of my mother's living room. And even though her eyes were brown instead of blue, she looked way too much like my sister Carrie. My lost sister Carrie.

I felt a surge of something like panic. My ESP isn't finely tuned but there might have been a flashing sign over the couch saying "run." I didn't know what was coming but I wanted to rush out of the house, jump in my car, and drive away as fast as I could. Instead I put out a hand and went across the room to meet her.

"Thea, this is Julie Bass. Julie, my daughter, Thea Kozak."

She smiled up at me and held out her hand. "I'm so glad to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you from your mother." She had a light, breathless, little-girl voice. With my mother hovering behind me, I leaned down, took her tiny, cold hand in mine, and was pulled into a maelstrom of chaos, deception, and death.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Up close, she was pale and had deep purple circles under her big brown eyes. When I released her hand, it settled weakly back on her knee as though she'd used up the last of her strength. Her eyes dropped to the children beside her. "These are—"

"Julie volunteers for me at the hospital," my mother interrupted. "She's an angel. An absolute angel. The best volunteer I've ever had. And these are her daughters, Camilla and Emma." Mom is head of the hospital volunteer program, where she uses her boundless energy making things go smoothly. She could as easily have run a corporation but she doesn't believe women should take jobs outside the home. She was smiling at Julie Bass with all the approval she withholds from me.

I felt a twinge of jealousy for the neat little woman and her perfect little children, sitting there being smiled at approvingly by my parents. Obviously, Julie was doing it right—married, fertile, and a good little doobie volunteer. Not like me, with my sixty-hour weeks and unsuitable boyfriend. The only thing missing from the little picture-perfect family was a handsome husband.

I assumed he must be hidden somewhere and looked around for him, but the only man there was my father. His smile gone, he was staring sadly at Julie from his chair across the room. When I turned, I saw that Mom also had a sad look on her face. And now that her greeting was over, Julie looked sad, too. It was like watching a play in a foreign language that everyone else understood. I'm impatient with mysterious behavior. I like to get to the point. Especially when I have a headache and feel jealous and cranky. "Your husband isn't with you?" I said.

The wide brown eyes flooded with tears. "Julie's husband is dead," my mother said, her tone an implicit criticism of my lack of tact. "That's why I invited her. I wanted her to meet you... I thought you might be able to help her, since you understand about..."She hesitated, looking for words. In that fleeting moment, I was afraid she was going to say he'd been murdered and she wanted me to look into it. My lips were already forming a firm "no" when she explained. "Like you, Julie lost her husband in a car accident."

I sank down on a chair, trying to keep my dismay off my face. I'm not good at it like Andre is, but he's a cop. He can lock feelings off his face in a most infuriating way, while my feelings tend to show unless I make a major effort. It's been three years since my husband David went for a ride in his friend's new Camaro and ended up wrapped around a tree, but remembering still hurts. I never talk about it. I don't even think about it that much. Still, sometimes, in the middle of a perfectly ordinary day, a whiff of aftershave or the shadow of a man hurrying will remind me of him and the pain comes back like it was yesterday.

My parents were watching me expectantly, waiting for me to use my experience and wisdom to console Julie Bass. While I don't get any respect from them, my family persists in believing that whatever is wrong, Thea will fix it, just as they persist in believing that within the family, there's no such thing as privacy.

I swallowed hard and tried not to disappoint them. "I'm sorry," I said. "Was his death recent?"

"Last weekend."

I stared at her, astonished. Stared at them all. What could my mother have been thinking? This woman shouldn't be out in public all neatly done up in her pink suit. She should be in her bedroom in dirty jeans crying her eyes out and pounding the hell out of her pillow at the incredible unfairness of it all. No wonder she looked like that porcelain skin would shatter at the first unkind word, like she was held together only by an act of will.

"Daddy's car hit a wall and he got all burned up," Camilla said, her blue eyes wide and serious. She had strawberry blond hair and was wearing a frilly pink dress of the sort my mother used to dress me in at Easter. A pink dress, matching pink socks, and little black patent leather shoes.

"Camilla," her mother admonished, "people don't want to hear things like that."

"How awful," I said, feeling like anything I said would sound idiotic. "Do you have family around here who can help you?" As soon as I'd said it, I wished I could take it back. If she had family, what would she be doing here on a family holiday?

"Only a brother. Duncan. He's up in New Hampshire. He... they... he and his wife Brenda invited me... us... up there, but I just wasn't up to the drive." The small, whispery voice floated up and down. "I don't know... I don't seem to have any energy these days...."

"I think you're doing well to even get out of bed. I couldn't function at all, when David... at first." She gave me a brief, grateful smile, which made me wonder if she'd been surrounded by buck-up-and-get-on-with-it types. Our society is so uncomfortable with grief that we're always pressuring people to get over it. Knowing how I felt, I try not to do that to people. I sorted through my experience, trying to think of something useful to say. It all seemed so obvious, so trivial. "It does get better, but it takes time. And you have to be very kind to yourself. It's so easy to think about the what ifs—what if you'd been nicer, said all the things you meant to say... taken that vacation he wanted.... There's always something to beat yourself with."

She was staring at me but she wasn't looking. "I know exactly what you mean," she said. "I just keep thinking, what if I hadn't given him that driving course as a present? Then none of this would have happened." She buried her face in her hands and started to cry. Little Camilla handed her mother a tissue.

My mother gave me a reproving look. I might not measure up to her expectations, but I was expected to have all necessary social graces including the ability to read minds. I felt my hackles rise and stifled a sharp retort. Julie Bass had enough troubles without having to listen to us snap at each other. "I've got to check the food," she said. "Tom, why don't you get these girls something to drink?" She looked anxiously toward the door. "I wonder what can be keeping Michael and Sonia?"

"They're probably sitting out in the car, fighting," I suggested.

Dad came over to Julie and leaned down over her. He was tall and had to lean a long way, looking a bit like a protective crane. "Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, his voice gentle. He was curbing his usual vigorous hospitality in the face of her fragility.

"Yes. Please. Some Scotch and water...." She hesitated. "No. Wait. A glass of white wine would be nice."

"Thea?"

"White wine."

"Camilla?"

The little girl beamed up at him, pleased at being included. "If it's all right with my mother... Emma and I would like soda? You'd like soda, Emma, wouldn't you?" Emma just buried her head shyly in her mother's lap. "She would," Camilla said with certainty. "But just a little, because she's small."