Quiet as the Grave (19 page)

“F
OR
G
OD'S SAKE
, L
EDGE
.
Quit pacing and start talking.”

Mike hadn't invited Rutledge up to the living quarters, and the other man hadn't seemed to expect it. Instead, the three of them had moved into the boat slip to get out of the stiff breeze and randomly found places to sit.

At least Mike and Suzie had. Mike took the stool next to his workbench, on which several marine charts were spread out and held down by a bright yellow measuring tape. Suzie, who hadn't ever been down here before, grabbed a folding chair toward the back, next to a stack of water skis. Rutledge prowled restlessly from one spot to another, touching things, pretending to check them out.

The large, cluttered area had two boat slips. One slip was empty. The other held a sleek white daysailer, maybe thirty feet long. The mast was lowered, the sails wrapped neatly around it. The boat bobbed lightly as the brackish lake water pulsed in and out, driven by the easterly wind.

Rutledge knelt on one knee by the sailboat, and fiddled with a little metal thingy affixed to the dock.

“This cleat is loose.” He frowned at it, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

“I don't care,” Mike said.

Rutledge looked over his shoulder, as though Mike's tone surprised him. He gave the cleat one last jiggle and stood up.

“Give me a break, man,” he said. “I'm trying…this isn't easy for me.”

“I don't really care about that, either.”

Rutledge nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

He moved away from the slip and went to the far wall, where a slew of life jackets—one of them so small Suzie knew it must be from when Gavin was very young—hung on bronze hooks.

He put himself between Suzie and Mike—naturally. He leaned one shoulder against the old, weather-beaten tongue-and-groove pine and took a breath.

“Okay,” he said. “I can't sugarcoat it, and I can't defend it. So I'll just say it. If those hairs they found upstairs belong to Justine, it's my fault.”

Oh, good grief
. Suzie glanced at Mike, but she couldn't tell anything from his face.

“I think you're going to have to elaborate,” Mike said. “How, exactly, could it be your fault?”

“Your neighbor wasn't lying. She did see Justine come here. But she wasn't with you. She was with me.”

Ledge wasn't even meeting Mike's gaze, the weasel. He had begun picking at a thick rope coiled up on the wall. It looked, at least to Suzie, like a perfectly good hanging rope.

“I brought her here three times. I didn't want to, Mike. But she was obsessed with it. She said that, if I wasn't willing to sneak her into the boathouse, she wouldn't meet me at all.”

Suzie rolled her eyes. “Would that have been such a tragedy?”

Rutledge ignored her. For the first time, he lifted his head and directed his gaze straight to Mike.

“I'm so damn sorry,” he said. “But you remember how it was, don't you? To be so hot for her you'd do anything, no matter how dumb? You used to feel that way about her, once.”

“Yeah,” Suzie interjected. “When he was a
kid
. Some men, when they grow up, learn to keep their pants on.”

Rutledge shot her a glance full of poison. “God, you're as big a bitch as ever, aren't you? Guess cleaning up the outside doesn't guarantee—”

“Shut up, Ledge,” Mike said coldly.

“Why don't you tell
her
to shut up?”

“Because she's making sense. And you're not. How could you have brought Justine here? You don't have a key. Are you saying you broke in?”

Rutledge's tanned cheeks flushed a color as muddy as the wind-stirred lake water. “I had a key. I took yours from the office and made a copy.”

Mike made a noise. “Shit.”

“I know. It was wrong. I wouldn't ever have done such a thing, except…” He leaned his head back and groaned. “Mike, she did something to me. She made me crazy. It was like being under a spell. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep.”

Suzie thought she might puke. But she held her tongue. No point making Rutledge even madder. Mike would just have to referee again, and then this would take forever.

Mike frowned. “Are you telling me you'd fallen in love with Justine?”

“Not in love. Just… Hell, I don't know what it was. I'm telling you, it was like I was crazy. If she'd told
me to tie concrete blocks to my feet and jump off a bridge, I would have done it.”

Too bad she didn't, then.
Suzie was proud of herself for not speaking the words out loud. But she was feeling more generous suddenly, because she had just realized that, however gross this confession might be, Rutledge was actually revealing very good news.

If he'd brought Justine here, that meant the D.A. had no case at all. The upstairs bedroom could be carpeted with Justine's hair—a horrible thought—and it wouldn't implicate Mike in any way.

“Why?” Mike sounded truly puzzled. “Why did she want to come here?”

“I don't know. I guess it grated on her that you wouldn't let her in. You know she couldn't stand the word
no.
And, in a weird way, I always thought maybe she was hoping you'd find out and be angry. Be hurt. Especially because she absolutely insisted that we use—”

He paused, as if realizing his confession might be going too far.

“Use what?”

“Use your bedroom. That's where she wanted to do it. In your bed.”

It was Suzie's turn to groan. “Un-be-
lievable
,” she said. “And you call yourself his friend?”

Rutledge whipped around, and the look on his face was so furious she reared back instinctively. “Yes, I do. And what exactly do
you
call yourself, Suzie-freaka? His slut?”

She sensed Mike standing up, too, but she was closer. She didn't even remember making a fist, but suddenly she was pulling her arm back like the trigger on a pinball machine, and then shooting it forward, landing one right in Rutledge's gut.

He doubled over, coughing, still hanging on to the rope, which slithered down to the wooden floor. Her hand hurt like hell, all the way up to her elbow, but she didn't care. She'd do it again in a heartbeat. In fact—

“Hey, Fang.” Mike moved behind her and held on to her punching arm gently. “Leave the guy at least one kidney, okay?”

Her breath was still coming too fast. She hoped she wouldn't hyperventilate. That would be just too humiliating.

“Damn it, Mike,” Rutledge said hoarsely, still bending at an odd angle, nursing his stomach. “I didn't have to come here. I didn't have to tell you all this. It's going to get me in big trouble, you know. They're probably going to think I killed her.”

“They found blood on the headboard, Ledge. Is that your fault, too?”

For a minute Suzie thought Rutledge might deny it. Hair was one thing. Blood from a woman who just turned up dead was quite another.

But he surprised her. “Yes,” he said dully. “She liked her sex rough.” He took a shaky breath. “Once, when we were there, I actually drew blood. I was only doing what she asked me to do, Mike, I swear to—”

“I know,” Mike said. “I know what she asked you to do.”

“Well, I did it. I told you, I would do anything she wanted me to. Anyhow, I know there was blood on her breasts. Not a lot, but, when we changed positions, and she was up against the headboard—”

“Okay,” Suzie said, “I am
definitely
going to puke.”

Mike squeezed her arm.

“I think we get the picture, Ledge. Look, I appreciate that you were willing to tell the truth. I'm pretty
goddamn pissed that you did it in the first place, but coming out with the truth took guts.”

Rutledge grimaced. “Don't be too forgiving, Mike. It's not all courage and brotherhood. I have to admit there were some other reasons I decided to come clean. Debra's one. See, she found out that I gave Justine some jewelry.”

“Ledge, you are so many kinds of fool, I just can't—”

“I know. Anyhow, this one thing I gave her, apparently she was wearing it the day she died. It was an ankle bracelet. Kind of unique, you might say. It had this big pair of lips, and—”

“You gave her that?” Mike shook his head. “That was the tackiest piece of crap I ever saw.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn't supposed to be elegant. I didn't even think she'd really wear it. It was supposed to be like this inside joke, you know? Big lips because she liked, you know, the biting thing.”

“Look.” Suzie raised one hand weakly. “Just bring me a bucket, okay?”

To her delight, Mike smiled. “Suzie,” he said. “You really are obnoxious.”

Rutledge nodded. “That's what
I've
been saying.”

“No, I'm not.” She looked up at Mike. “Let's be honest here. You didn't love Justine. You hadn't loved her for a long, long time. You knew she slept with all kinds of snakes—I mean men—and you didn't care. So, while the idea that she and Rutledge played stupid sex games on your bed may be perfectly revolting, and will definitely require that you buy a new bed, it hardly breaks your heart. What it
does
do is keep you out of prison.”

Mike gave her a long look. Behind his eyes, she
thought she saw another smile. It made her heart do a silly little hula jiggle.

He turned to Rutledge. “She's right, you know. I'm going to have to buy a new bed.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. He hung his head. “I really am sorry, I wish you knew. But you can't, because you've never been the guy nobody sees. You've never been second best in your life. I used to think I'd give my right arm if she'd just look at me one time, instead of you. And then, when she did—” He ran his hand through his hair. “I wish I'd never done it.”

“Well, you did,” Suzie said sternly, forgetting to stay out of it, “and you're going to have to tell the police, you know.”

He glared at her. “I
know
.”

Mike held up a hand between them, refereeing again. “Hey,” he said. “There's something more important we need to discuss right now. Ledge, tell me something. How much did you know about Justine's other men?”

He shrugged. “More than I wanted to. There were plenty.”

“Did you have any names?”

“No. Suspicions, but not names.”

“Did she ever mention anyone who really gave her what she liked sexually? I know that comparing one lover to another was one of her favorite mind games. Did she ever try to make you do things by saying that, if you wouldn't, she knew someone else who would?”

Rutledge shook his head. “She didn't have to. I told you, I couldn't say no.”

Mike set his jaw, obviously disappointed. “What about a cave? Did she ever say anything about meeting a man in a cave?”

For the first time Rutledge looked shocked. “No. I don't think so.” He frowned. “Could that be where the Mulligan Club met?”

Mike's eyes narrowed. “What's the Mulligan Club?”

“You didn't know about it? It was a club, very specialized, if you know what I mean. I guess she must have joined it after you two…” Rutledge started digging in his back pocket for his wallet. “To be honest, I don't really know much about it, either. She had only just told me about it.”

He was vain, so of course his jeans were a little too tight, and it took him a while to extricate the wallet. But finally he opened it and took out a small white business card. He handed it to Mike.

Suzie looked over his shoulder shamelessly. It was actually a pretty boring business card. It just said The Mulligan Club in large, handsome type, and then, below that, what was apparently the club's slogan, Where Nothing Counts Against You. And then a telephone number.

Mike turned it over, as if he thought there might be more on the back. But there wasn't.

“The Mulligan Club,” he said quietly, as if to himself. He looked at Rutledge. “I take it you were supposed to call this number and get instructions for where to find the meeting.”

“Right.”

“Did you ever go to a meeting?”

“No, they only met once a month, and I'd just been invited. I was supposed to go to the September meeting, but Debra wouldn't let me out of her goddamn sight that night. By the next month, Justine was gone, and when I called the number, it was out of service.”

“What was supposed to happen at this meeting? I assume it wasn't really golf.”

Suzie held up her hands. “Golf? What the heck are you talking about? Why would it be golf?”

Rutledge gave her an infuriatingly condescending look. “I take it you don't even know what a mulligan is.”

“No,” she said. “The local deviants don't invite me to their monthly sex club meetings.”

“I wonder why,” he said, and if it hadn't been for Mike's light touch on her arm again, she might have wiped the smirk off his face.

“A mulligan is a golf term,” Mike said calmly. “In friendly games, if the players all agree, they can let one person take an extra stroke, but they won't put it down on the official scorecard. It doesn't count against them. That stroke is called a mulligan.”

She thought about it, and then applied it to Justine's sexual proclivities. “Okay, I get it. It was a club where you could do things, sexual things, but it would be kept secret. It wouldn't ever go down on your official scorecard.” She made a face. “
Mulligan.
Very cute. Do you suppose one of these good old boys might have chosen to use his mulligan for rape?”

“Rape?” Rutledge looked alarmed. “What do you mean, rape? Justine never said anything about—”

“Forget it,” Mike said. “You know how she is.”

Suzie realized Mike was just trying to keep Rutledge from asking more questions, so she let that pass. They both knew that the last meeting of the Mulligan Club, the one Rutledge missed, might well have been the one at which Justine ended up dead.