Death at the Wheel (5 page)

"Scared about what?"

"The police. Questioning me. About Calvin's death. They're acting like they think I did it."

"Did what?"

"Killed him," she said, her voice trembling. "Because the car was tampered with. They wanted to know if I was in Connecticut with him. But, Thea, I wasn't with him!"

I slipped automatically into interview mode—I do it so much—and asked the next obvious question. "Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill your husband?"

"Everyone," she said. "Calvin was not a very nice person."

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

I grabbed her elbow, steered her back inside, and found the nearest bar. Once we were settled in the darkest corner and supplied with bourbon and Scotch, I asked the question that had been perched on the tip of my mind for ten minutes. "What do you mean by everyone?"

Her answer was slow and hesitant. "I hate to say this—I know you're not supposed to say bad things about the dead—but my husband Cal, while he had many good qualities—he was charming and handsome and a good provider—well, to be honest... he was... could be... an absolute stinker, Thea."

She was already halfway through her drink, whether for courage or from habit I couldn't tell, and she was drinking on an empty stomach. I signaled the waiter and asked if they had anything to munch on. His weary acquiescence told me two things—that they had snacks for their customers and that they served them only grudgingly. It's one of the many things in life I don't understand. Why have snacks available and then act like it's a chore to serve them? I also don't understand people slowing down to stare at an accident and why I always chose the longest line in the grocery store. But a life without things to learn is an empty life.

She picked up her glass and took another drink. "He was so charming and romantic when we were dating. I was swept right off my feet. I'd never met a man who made me feel so safe, so cared about. All the little details of my life were important to him. I thought it was sweet that he paid so much attention to what I wore, to what I said, to other people's reactions to me. It's true what they say, you know, about love being blind." The Scotch was leveling her out. Where before her conversation had revved and dipped, now it was running at fairly high, but steady, rpms.

The waiter put a bowl of mixed nuts on the table and Julie seized a handful. "What I thought was so romantic," she said, chewing hungrily, "was obsessive control. He had opinions—inflexible opinions—about what I should wear, who I should socialize with... I mean, with whom I should socialize, what I should say, how the house should look. He wanted to remake me in his image of the perfect wife. At first, I tried to humor him... to make him happy. I loved him so much! He wanted me to be the mother of his children... to quit my job and stay home and have his babies."

She stopped. "You don't have children, do you?" I shook my head. "Well, have you ever met a man who wanted to have children with you?" She didn't wait for a response. "It's the most amazing feeling... having someone who wants to have children with you." She clasped her hands over her midriff. "It gets you right here. I don't know how to describe it. I felt like I was bathed in a kind of holy light... oh, I know that sounds hokey...." Her voice dropped so low I had to lean forward to hear her. "...but it was magical to think that someone loved me, valued me, that much.

"By the time I realized that it wasn't really love, that it was ownership, Camilla had been born, and there wasn't anything I could do. She needed a father."

"You didn't consider leaving him?"

She tried a gay little laugh but it fell flat. "It would have destroyed my parents. There's never been a divorce in my family. And they thought so highly of Cal. They always worried—you know how parents will—about me marrying a suitable man. One who would keep me in the style I was used to. I kept telling them that I could take care of myself, that I had my education. That's what women of our generation do, isn't it? And then I went and let myself become dependent on Cal, just like I swore I never would."

The tears were there again and she blinked them away as she grabbed more nuts. Now that the drink was releasing her, she was hungry. Too bad we hadn't saved her dinner.

"You want to order a sandwich or something? I think you should."

She shook her head. "These are fine," she said firmly. Her tone deterred argument. "Calvin Bass was a handsome, brilliant, charming, ambitious, obsessive, intolerant, arrogant, scathingly critical man who imposed his standards on everyone around him." Her voice was so flat she might have been reading from a script, but I didn't think these were things she'd said many times before, though she might have thought them. The lack of emotion was necessary if she was to get the words out. "Cal was an avid tennis player, golfer, and car nut. He was a banker, a vice president at the Grantham Cooperative Bank. And he was in Connecticut taking that racing course because I arranged it for him as a present."

"But you didn't kill him?"

"You are joking, aren't you?"

"You said everyone wanted to kill him."

"Not me." She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, leaving a black blot of mascara on her cheek. "I wanted him to change." Her voice dropped again. "I wanted him to love me... to be happy with me. With me and Camilla and Emma. My brother Duncan once threatened to kill Cal if he didn't start treating me better, but Dunk wouldn't hurt a flea. He's just very protective of me."

"Was your husband abusive?"

Her delicate arched eyebrows rose over her big eyes and she stared at me nervously. "Physically?" She hesitated, weighing her answer, then answered in a rush. "Not very often. Nothing that was front-page news. I mean, he wasn't abusive, he was just impatient when things didn't go right... his way... the occasional shove, twisted arm, wrist gripped too tightly, hair pulling... rough sex. Calvin was as demanding about sex as he was in every other way. It was his right, on his schedule, to meet his needs."

I'd known another banker who was just like that. A wham-bam-thank-you,-ma'am guy who'd never even entertained the notion of foreplay. The first man I'd slept with after David died, he almost put me off men for life. I wondered idly if it was part of the job description. If it's not in
Playboy
or the
Federal Regs,
forget it.

Julie drained her glass and signaled the waiter for another drink. "No," she said, "mostly he was emotionally abusive. I was inadequate, incompetent, an unfit mother. That I'd deceived him. Married him under false pretenses." She took another tissue out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes. "When Emma was born, he didn't speak to me for a month because she wasn't a boy."

Her round red eyes and pink chapped nose made her look a little like a rabbit. She pulled out a mirror, stared at her face, and put it away again. "God, I'm a fright," she said. She scrubbed at the mascara spot below her eye. "Not that it matters now that Cal..."

"Did you tell the police about this, about how Cal alienated people?" I interrupted, hoping to stave off tears. "That there might be a lot of people who disliked him?"

The waiter set down her drink, removed the empty glass, and looked at me. I shook my head. I'm very careful how much I drink when I'm driving.

"Not really. I didn't get a chance to tell them anything. It wasn't much of a conversation... mostly they just came to bring me the news... about the car, I mean... and I guess to see my reaction, since they kept watching me and I was sitting there wondering how they expected me to act. And all the while I was feeling this odd numbness... like I was the one who was dead, and wishing they'd go away."

"I know what you mean," I said. "I've been there... that waiting politely for them to leave you alone so you can scream and cry and fall apart."

She nodded. "I knew you'd understand...." Her voice died away and then she smiled, a humorless, cynical smile. "And they wouldn't go. I guess I did the right thing, though. I offered them some coffee and when I got up to make it, I fainted. Woke up with some guy bending over me who had the worst garlic breath I've ever smelled." This time her smile, though slight, was genuine. "I almost fainted again."

"They didn't ask you questions about Cal?"

"A few. I think they were scared to. They were..." She tilted her head, searching for words. "...cautious. Afraid I might faint again. I did tell them that people didn't like him. That he was hard on people. Maybe I mentioned some specific names, I don't remember. I didn't tell them about Dunk, though." As she said it, she watched my face, looking to see if I was on her side. A little bit of iron crept into her voice when she talked about her brother. "Because he's my brother. The one person who's always on my side. There's just the two of us now, you see. Now that our parents are dead. We're very close. Dunk's always been kind of like a second father to me. Dunk Donahue, the terror of the north." Her pale, expressionless face grew more animated when she mentioned her brother.

"You said he's up in New Hampshire?"

She nodded. "Near North Conway."

"Couldn't you go up there and stay with him for a while?"

"He's got a small house and kids of his own, Thea. It wouldn't work out. And his wife works. And Dunk works all the time. He's incredibly busy. Fleet manager for a trucking company, Verrill Brothers." Her eyes fell to her watch. "Oh my gosh! I had no idea it was so late. The sitter's got a curfew and I've got to run or I'm going to miss it." She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. "Thanks for listening. I really needed that tonight."

"Wait," I said, "do you have someone who could stay with you? You shouldn't be all alone with this stuff." She shook her head, grabbed her purse, and was gone before I could say anything, a little unsteady on her feet.

Cynic that I am, even in the midst of reflecting on poor Julie's plight, I noticed that she had neither paid nor offered to pay for dinner or the drinks. Well, she'd had a lot on her mind. And despite the silk suit, a lot of fear about her finances.

I drove home with the sun roof open, letting the cool air revive me, called Andre, and dropped into bed. I told him I'd had dinner with Julie but I didn't tell him about her troubles. Though we've reached a pretty good accommodation about not interfering in each other's lives, I knew what he would say: "Don't get involved." He claims he can spot trouble a mile away and that I'm a magnet for it. I wasn't in the mood to be told that I shouldn't offer a comforting shoulder to a woman who'd just lost her husband. It made me feel a little bit deceptive but not more than I could live with.

I closed my eyes, the sound of his voice still in my ear, expecting to dream about him. Instead, I dreamed that Aaron the aerobics instructor was chasing me around a race track, leaning out the window of a neon yellow car with a number on the side, yelling encouragement to me as I jogged around vigorously punching the air. I woke up with sore arms.

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

Suzanne and I had our heads together, struggling with the wording of a proposal we were about to send out, when my secretary, Sarah, stuck her head around the door. "Sorry to interrupt you busy ladies, but Thea's mother is on the phone and says to tell you that someone named Julie Bass has been arrested for killing her husband and they're holding her until they can extradite her to Connecticut." Suzanne cocked her head sideways and looked at me quizzically and with the beginnings of irritation that always seemed to be with her these days.

"Tell her I'll call her as soon as I'm through," I said. Sarah nodded and withdrew.

After that, though I tried my best, my concentration was shot. Suzanne didn't bother to control her annoyance. Normally a patient woman, the sleepless nights of a new mother were taking their toll. Sleepless nights and something else bothering her that she wasn't ready to tell me. After seven years, I know her well. "Thea, I don't care if it's your own mother who's been killed. We're up to our ear tips in work around here, with not a whole lot of worker bees to help us out. There is no time right now... I repeat... absolutely no time to be gallivanting around the countryside trying to solve mysteries, so I hope that's not what that phone call is all about. Am I making myself clear?"