Death at the Wheel (28 page)

"What trouble at the bank?" he asked Andre.

Andre's foot came to rest against my leg. He knew what was going on in my head. "There was a problem with some missing mortgage applications," I said. "When the FDIC did a routine audit. His boss thinks Calvin Bass took them."

The detective finally looked at me. "Just what is your interest in all of this?"

"Julie Bass is a friend of mine." It sounded a little too defiant.

"Oh," he said, tapping his fingers. His belly shivered a little.

"What kind of a car was the cousin driving?" I asked.

"Blue Chevette rust bucket," he said.

I remembered something I'd forgotten to ask during lunch. "How would whoever tampered with the car have known that Calvin Bass would be the one to drive it?"

Andre gave me a little approving nod. The detective looked at me curiously. "The names of the drivers and their scheduled driving times for Sunday were posted on a trackside board on Saturday afternoon. All our killer had to do was be able to read."

"And to get inside to read the board," I added.

"Went up before they closed for the day. Anyone could have seen it."

"Did anyone see Julie Bass there? Reading the board?"

He shrugged. "She was seen at the motel. And we know that she's an experienced mechanic."

"Did you find her fingerprints on the car?" He shook his head. "Anywhere at the track? Did anyone see her near the track?"

He took his feet off the desk, dropped them with an abrupt thump onto the floor, and stood up. "We'll take it from here. Thanks for coming by and sharing this stuff with us. Complicates our lives, of course, but still...."

We were being dismissed. "What about the fight in the track parking lot? The one where the security guards had to pry some guy off who was attacking Bass?"

The detective looked blank. "Didn't hear about that one. I'll have someone check with the guys...."

"Excuse me," I said. Andre kicked me in the ankle but I ignored him. "How can you assume that Julie Bass killed her husband? Assume it with enough certainty to keep her locked in jail and away from her kids... when her husband isn't even dead? When her husband was having a very public fight with another man the night before he was killed... or supposedly killed... and you don't know anything about it? This is the most slipshod, half-assed—" Andre kicked me again and I shut up. I even managed to shake hands and say good-bye with a manufactured smile.

Back in the car, he gave me one of his "boy, can you be a pain in the ass" looks but he didn't say anything. Nothing. Not a word. I didn't care. I was mad at the whole world.

We were halfway to George and Ellen's before he spoke. "Thea, how do you expect to get along with people when you all but call them incompetent assholes to their faces?"

"I didn't all but call them anything. I straight out called them incompetent assholes." He sighed. "And," I went on, before he could interrupt, "they were calling me a mindless honey, the way they addressed all their questions to you."

"Well, naturally they assumed, since I was there, that I knew—"

"And that I knew nothing, when I'm the one who—"

"You don't have to tell me that, Thea. I'm just saying that you could take it a little easier. You don't have to prove that you're always right... all the time."

"You mean you weren't shocked that they didn't even know about the fight in the parking lot? That they'd accused Julie of killing someone who isn't even dead?"

"We're not sure...."

"I'm sure."

"That's one of your problems, Thea. You're always so sure that you're right."

I put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. Please, let's not have a fight. I know I make mistakes... I know I'm not always right. It's just that sometimes I get tired of doing everything for everyone when it's someone else's job. And when I get tired, I get cranky." I pulled my hand back and dropped it in my lap. A minute later, he reached out and put his over it. We weren't going to fight.

I tried to pull myself together for dinner with Ellen and George, but I could sense, from the looks that passed between them and Ellen's conversation, that they'd been talking about us, and, more particularly, about me. Things were awkward until we started talking about driving.

"I was right, wasn't I, Thea?" Ellen said triumphantly. "Admit it. You loved it, didn't you?"

"I'd do it again." Recalling the feeling made me smile.

"You should see your face," Ellen said.

"Ellen looked just the same way the first time she drove," George said. "Took me weeks to convince her to try it, and then she was hooked."

"Like skiing. When you're right out there on the edge of control and it's working. Do you still ski, Thea?"

I shook my head. "She works all the time," Andre said.

"Do you ski, Detective?" George asked.

"I like it. I'm not very good."

"You know. We've got a place up at Stratton with a spare bedroom. You guys should come up for a weekend sometime. Seward is dying to ask Andre more questions about his... about being a policeman," Ellen said, "and we'd like to see more of you. Thea and I used to have so much fun."

"Ellen knows all the secrets of my misspent youth," I said.

"Hey, what about me?" George said.

"And George knows all the secrets of my misspent high school days." That seemed to please him, though I knew far more secrets about George than he knew about me. "And we'd love to come up and ski sometime. We need to take more time off." It was an easy offer. Winter was a long time away.

We decided to drive back after dinner, even though they urged us to stay the night. It wasn't that they were bad company. They were cheerful and kind and decidedly pleasant. But Andre and I wanted to be alone—not to hop into bed and make whoopee, though we probably would—but to talk things over and puzzle things out. Even though neither of us had mentioned it to the other, the disappearance of Calvin Bass weighed heavily on our minds.

Andre drove. He's better at staying awake than I am. I put the seat back and dozed. I felt beat up, discouraged, and confused. We were on the Mass Pike around Stockbridge when an idea hit me like a ton of falling bricks. I sat up suddenly and almost startled Andre off the road when I said, "I think I know where he is."

"Where who is?"

"Calvin Bass."

 

 

 

Chapter 21

 

It was after midnight when we arrived at Edgewater, the unfinished condo complex along the Grant River in my hometown of Grantham, a condo complex that had been taken over by the Grantham Cooperative Bank when the developer went belly-up. Everything was dark as we cruised along the narrow street behind the condos that fronted on the river. It wasn't really a street, just a glorified driveway, lined with garages and islands of landscaping, modern ministreet lamps and minidriveways for guests or the second car.

Andre was remarkably patient with me, never once reminding me that we were looking for a needle in a haystack. True, it was a big needle and a small haystack, but we were both weary and longing for bed.

I knew I'd hit a homer as soon as I saw it—a red Mercedes sports car parked beside one of the garages—even before I saw the NAN on the license plate. "There he is," I said. "That's Nan Devereaux's car. I'll bet Jon Bass's little Chevette is in the garage."

Andre yawned. "So what do you want to do now?"

"Talk to him."

"Why bother? Why not just call the police and let them take it from here?"

"Because I found him. Because he's indirectly made my life miserable and I want some answers. Once the police get here, there will be no chance of that."

"All right," he said, "but we're calling the police now, agreed?"

"Oh absolutely," I agreed. "I don't want to take any chances on letting him get away again. Just as soon as I'm sure he's here."

I marched up and rang the bell. A sleepy voice said, "What the hell?"

"Calvin Bass?" I said. Before he had a chance to think, he'd said yes. I nodded to Andre, who picked up the car phone and called the Connecticut police.

"Who the hell is it?" the voice demanded.

"I'm a friend of Julie's. I want to talk to you. Can I come up?"

"Go to hell," the voice said.

"It's me or the cops. You choose," I said, lying without compunction.

"All right. Come up." The buzzer buzzed and Andre and I went in.

Cal Bass and Nan Devereaux made a handsome couple in their matching bathrobes. Thick, white terry with hotel monograms on the front. "Hello, Nan," I said. "Andre, meet Mr. and Mrs. Sheraton."

"You!" Nan hissed. She didn't seem pleased to see me again. Not that I cared. I wasn't interested in Nan Devereaux, except perhaps to be astonished at how a woman suddenly roused from sleep could look so good, nor in the array of expensive luggage that was standing by the door, ready for an imminent departure. I was there to confront Calvin Bass.

Like Nan, he looked awfully good for a guy just roused from sleep. Maybe they hadn't been sleeping. They did both have what might be taken for a healthy postcoital flush. I stared at him—this hunk, this paragon of business, this prince among men, this slimeball. "What were you planning to do?" I demanded. "Just walk away, leaving your kids with your despicable brother-in-law and Julie in prison for murdering you?"

He shrugged. "It was a chance for a brand-new start, so I took it. Things were falling apart...."

"What things?"

"My marriage. My job. My life."

"A responsible person stays and works things out. He doesn't just run away. Were you planning to hide for the rest of your life?"

He shrugged again. "I was planning... I
am
planning... to be Jon Bass. That's all."

"What about Julie and your kids?"

"What about them? Julie's a pathetic clinging vine and it turns out I'm not cut out for fatherhood. I don't like kids very much." He said it with such scorn I wanted to hit him. But if my feelings were written all over my face, it didn't matter. He was looking past me at Andre, who was standing by the door, arms folded. Maybe he was assessing his chances of escape. They were about the same height—Andre's an inch or so taller than I am—but while Bass was slim to normal, Andre was a big guy, and none of it was flab. Andre was making no effort to keep his opinion of Cal Bass off his face. He thought Bass was lower than a dog turd. Bass didn't like what he saw; he switched his gaze back to me.

"What's your angle in all this? Someone paying you to find me? You're no friend of Julie's. Julie doesn't have any friends. She's too weird."

"You're wrong," I said. "She has friends. Friends who aren't going to let you walk away and leave her in the mess you've created."

"Bullshit," he said. "Don't 'poor Julie' me. She ought to go down for something. Julie and that freak brother of hers. Even if they didn't kill me, they did kill Jon."

"What makes you think so?" Andre said.

"Well, that freak Duncan was there, wasn't he? Practically took my head off in the parking lot. Goddamned security guard had to pull him off. Julie must have set it up... how the hell else would he have known I was there?"

"Maybe he was acting on his own," I suggested. "Maybe he'd had enough of the way you were treating his sister."

"Me? Treating her? All I was trying to do was help her make something of herself. All I ever tried to do. Not my fault she was hopeless."

"So you thought it was okay to just fade away and abandon her to whatever fate the courts hand out?"

Another shrug. Indifferent. Unconcerned. "They'll never convict her. And she'll have the insurance money. She can marry her doctor and live happily ever after." He seemed to have no notion that perhaps the jig was up, that his plan was blown.

"And your kids?"

"Oh, she's a good enough mother...."

"And Jon's girlfriend, Karen?"

"That pitiful little drudge? Spare me."

"What about the bank? Those papers?"

"I did my best," he said. "I took those papers so Ramsay couldn't tamper with them, but the slippery bastard managed to turn it around and lay it all off on me. I tried to go back to the house and get 'em, but someone had taken them. The cops, I suppose...." He turned to Nan. "In light of this unexpected turn of events, perhaps we should advance the time of our departure?"

He stopped dead, staring out the window. "Oh Jesus! You did this, didn't you?" Turning my head, I saw the reflection of red and blue lights. "Why? I haven't done anything."

"Maybe it was Ramsay who tried to kill you," I suggested.

Bass shook his head. "Eliot's a shark, all right. But only a sand shark. He hasn't got the guts for murder."

I thought about my nocturnal thugs. I wasn't sure I agreed. "Haven't done anything? Just killed your cousin. Let your wife be separated from the kids and dragged off to jail. Let your cousin die unacknowledged and just walked away. Let his girlfriend and his family suffer and worry, not knowing what happened to him? Let your wife and family mourn, believing you'd died a horrible death? Not to mention all your affairs and the stuff at the bank…"