Death at the Wheel (21 page)

"He told you about his wife?"

"More like I told him and he admitted I was right. It was rather sad—marrying a girl he believed was his social equal only to find it was all a veneer and he was married to a mill-town girl with pretensions who turned out to be a clinging vine. He said he was drowning in her helplessness and dependence yet afraid to leave her, for her sake and the sake of the children. He didn't think she could handle it."

She shrugged her wide shoulders. "Pathetic. It's such a cliché, isn't it? Ah, here's Inez. Would you like some tea or lemonade?"

"Lemonade."

"I'll have tea," she said. "And don't forget the lemon, Inez." The silent, frowning Inez went to get it.

"If you want my opinion, I think she did it." She bobbed her elegant head decisively. "That kind of obsessive jealousy and dependence can cause quite desperate behavior. I expect she found out about me and simply couldn't handle it."

She settled into a more comfortable position with a soft rustling of silk, caught her reflection in a mirror, and smiled fondly at herself. "Perhaps I'm being too trusting, telling you all this. But I haven't anything to hide."

It was precisely the kind of statement that made me assume she did have something to hide. But then, I was already wondering why she'd been willing to talk to me. She was neither grieving nor naturally generous—the two circumstances under which I might have expected cooperation. No. Nan Devereaux thought she had a placid fish on her line and I agreeably took the bait.

"But why kill her husband, if she wanted to keep him so desperately? Why not kill you, instead?"

Before she could answer, Inez reappeared with a tray, which she set on the table between us. Nan swooped gracefully forward and poured herself tea as Inez offered me lemonade. It was made from real lemons, rich with pulp, and just enough sweetener. Oh, to be rich enough to have someone who would squeeze lemons.

She waited until Inez was gone before she spoke. "The insurance, I suppose."

"Was he well insured?"

She smiled. "He never mentioned it. It wasn't the sort of thing we talked about. Actually..." she paused for effect, "we didn't talk all that much." She left the rest to my imagination. If she could have read my mind, she would have been disappointed.

"When was the last time you saw Calvin Bass?"

Her hand clenched her knee and then relaxed. She glanced at her reflection again, raising her head to tighten her chin, and smiled again. I realized she was older than I'd first thought. Closer to forty than thirty. When she didn't hold her head high, I could see the beginning of crepey skin on her neck. Something she'd no doubt attend to in time.

"I was supposed to go to Connecticut with Cal that weekend. Does that surprise you?" Her smile was mocking. "You're not shocked, are you, Detective? You look shocked. He was going to take his racing course and I was going antiquing and then we'd have the nights together." Her voice curled around the words, caressing them. It was an amazing voice, low and husky, with little catches and breathless pauses. Its contrast with her appearance made it doubly arresting. A petulant note crept in. "But at the last minute, he called and said his cousin was going to be there, too, had suddenly taken him up on a long-forgotten invitation, and it would be awkward if I went, so I stayed home. And then..." She stared at her reflection.

She seemed to be gathering herself to say something. There was tension in her posture that hadn't been there before, tension and a suggestion of playing to an audience. Her hand rose like a conductor about to start an orchestra. "Then I had an appointment with my doctor... my gynecologist... and she told me that I had genital warts! And I could only have gotten them from Cal. Shall I tell you how they treat them?"

She didn't give me a chance to reply before launching into a vivid description of having the warts burned off chemically, one by one. It was enough to make any woman celibate. "If he hadn't died in that crash, I would have killed him myself, the little shit!" She set her cup down hard on the table, sending tea cascading over the glossy surface. "A thoroughly nasty business."

Her bravura performance over, she folded her hands together again and gave me a perfunctory smile. "That's why I agreed to see you, so you'd know exactly what kind of a man he was. So you'd understand why that pathetic little creature killed him. Because he deserved killing. He was a thoroughly detestable man." She rose to her feet. "I'd like you to leave. I don't want to talk about him any more. About Cal."

Her voice lingered on his name, then rushed on. "He was handsome, he was charming, he projected the rakish charm of a sexual pirate, yet he was an educated and cultured man. But what I didn't see at first was that underneath he lacked substance. I thought he was a mover and a shaker but he was a user and a taker. If you came here to see if I killed him, the answer is no—why should I?—but if you want to know if I'm sorry, I'm not. Not one bit. I thought I was building a relationship with that two-timing slimeball. I'll think of him fondly while I spend the next month with my feet up in stirrups."

"If I could just ask you a few more questions?"

She shook her head. "I've said enough." She touched her forehead lightly, as though the business pained her. "I'm sorry."

She must have rung a bell I couldn't see, because Inez appeared again. "Ms. Kozak is leaving, Inez. Will you see her out?"

I left my almost untouched lemonade reluctantly and followed Inez. Nan Devereaux sank back down on the sofa, kneading her forehead gently with those predatory fingers and watching her reflection in the glass. It had been a good performance. It would have fooled a lot of people. But I spend my life interviewing and I could see that for all of her protestations of hatred, Nan Devereaux was, or had been, in love with Calvin Bass.

 

 

 

Chapter 16

 

Back at the office, I jumped out of the car, eager to get inside and make up for lost time. My battered body responded with an all-encompassing ouch. A scintillating, reverberating, unignorable ouch, reminding me that I had to slow down. Reminding me also of my nocturnal visitors and the briefcase that was still in my trunk. I couldn't imagine, from the little I'd seen, that I had anything worth dying for, but someone had cared enough to hire those two faux cops. And they had died. Maybe Dr. Durren had taken them along with Julie's letters, but if everyone was so sure I had the papers, I'd better look again.

I popped the trunk and grabbed the case. It was battered brown leather with CAB in faint gold letters. Upstairs, I dumped the papers out on my desk, set aside Julie's letters, and started going through them.

The first twenty sheets were like the ones the police had pulled out when they searched my trunk—real estate sales data and census data for various suburban towns. Very boring. Very innocuous. The twenty-first was the original copy of a mortgage application. So was the twenty-second, the twenty-third, and the twenty-fourth. I yelped an overused expletive and dropped the papers like they were hot. This was, as my mother would say, a fine kettle of fish. Especially since I was in the kettle with the fish. I stared at the forms, rubbed my temples, and tried to sort out where I stood. The incipient headache was becoming full blown.

I was extremely lucky that the cops who'd searched my trunk had been so lazy. Extremely confused about whether I was lucky or unlucky that I hadn't given them to the faux cops. And extremely unlucky that I now had in my possession documents that the federal government, the Grantham Cooperative Bank, and some bad guys wanted—which I most certainly didn't want and didn't know what to do with. Worst of all, I didn't understand what it was about these dull-looking papers that got people so excited.

Feeling paranoid, I took the case and locked it up in the safe. Suzanne and I had bought one after an unscrupulous employee tried to steal our client lists and other vital documents. Another example of how the life of an educational consultant is never dull. Then I called for help.

Help was in the form of Delayne Hatsis, the loan officer at my bank who'd helped me with the mortgage on my condo. Since then, we'd become casual friends. Delayne played a wicked game of tennis and was sometimes willing to go to late movies or spontaneous dinners on week nights. In other words, unmarried. And smart. She invited me to come to her office at the end of the day so she could take a look at the papers and seemed excited at the prospect. "This is as close as I'll ever come to real cloak-and-dagger stuff, I'll bet."

"Real cloak-and-dagger stuff is a lot like a math test," I told her. "Scary and boring all at the same time. Tennis is more fun. So are movies."

"So you say. You ought to try my job."

"Well, I'll be over at four and you can take a walk on the wild side, but don't get your hopes up."

"I'm polishing my dagger," she said. Her slight southern accent made it sound like a genteel activity.

There was one more thing to do before I got back to work, something to prepare for tomorrow's trip to Connecticut. I called a former coworker from my brief stint as a journalist, who now worked for the
Globe,
and asked if he could locate photos of Calvin Bass, Nan Devereaux, Dr. Thomas Durren, and Elliot Ramsay and fax them to me. On the off chance that he might have done something to get his picture in the paper, I also included Dunk Donahue, but I wasn't optimistic. The fleet manager for a New Hampshire trucking company wasn't likely to have done anything very newsworthy, unless mug shots counted.

Reporter to the bone, he said, "Is there a story in this?"

"Maybe. I don't know yet."

"You got some inside info?" He'd once had the desk next to mine and I could picture the too-eager, slightly avaricious look on his face.

"Not yet, Larry. I'm still digging."

"What's your angle?"

"Friend of the accused."

"What's she like?"

"I've only known her a week."

"Newfound friend, eh? I thought you were out of the newspaper business? I heard you'd become a consultant." He made consultant sound like garbage collector, when in my opinion, it was reporters who were the garbage collectors.

"I am. I just happen to think she's innocent."

"Cherchez la femme,
"he said. "Remember, a high proportion of murders are committed—"

"Spare me," I said.

"You'd better share what you learn, Thea. The information highway is a two-way street, you know."

"Right now I'm looking at some real estate with prime frontage," I said, goaded into tantalizing him. I liked Larry, but he always had to get more than he gave. Now I'd owe him and he wouldn't let me forget it. He gave me his home phone number and rang off, promising to fax the pictures if he found them.

I was up to my elbows in revisions of the Northbridge stuff when Sarah buzzed. "Detective Andre Lemieux, Maine State Police, on Three," she said.

I grabbed the phone. "Don't you dare tell me you're not coming."

"I'm not even breathing hard yet."

"Andre..."

"I'm a little slow today, that's all."

"That's what happens when men get older."

He let that one go without a comment. I could tease him with impunity because I knew he didn't suffer from performance anxiety. "Just called to let you know I'd be a little late," he said, "and to remind you to buy food."

"Oh, man of little faith."

"A little salmon on the grill with chives and lemon butter? Potatoes baked with herb cheese? A little Caesar salad? Lemon cheesecake?"

"You think I run a restaurant? And what about cholesterol?"

"I think when you put your mind to it, you're a great cook. Just thinking about you makes me hungry...."

"Are you alone?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"The kind of question a woman asks who would rather not have your comments overheard by a roomful of cops."

"Oh," he said.

"Oh? What kind of an answer is that?"

"The kind of answer a man gives when he doesn't want his conversation overheard by a room full of cops. See you later." He left me with a buzzing line and a foolish smile on my face.

I'd barely begun to work again when Suzanne came in, dropped Junior in my lap, and plunked herself down in a chair. "What's this for?" I said.

"Feeding your baby lust. That's how we mothers are. We can't stand the idea that someone else might still have a waist or be free of stretch marks or be sleeping through the night."

I wanted to be cool, but today Paul, Jr., with his wide, curious eyes, his huge grins, and his happy baby noises seemed quite wonderful. "Michael and Sonia are getting married," I said.

"Ugh," she said. "Are you a member of the wedding?"

"Oh yes."

"When?"

"Labor Day weekend."

"If they have a baby, it will have three heads and eat maidens for breakfast," she said.

"I've always assumed she's such a hostile environment she'll just curdle his sperm. I don't think I'm in grave danger of becoming Auntie Thea."

"Yeah," Suzanne agreed, "it would have been different if Carrie...." She stopped, looking stricken. "I'm sorry... forget I said that. It's all those nights without sleep. My manners are ragged."