Death at the Wheel (4 page)

 

Monday morning. Bane of the working world. I was up at the crap of dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to go out and look for nuts. Actually, I preferred to avoid nuts, at least of the human variety, and I preferred rising closer to noon, which was why the phrase "crap of dawn," gleaned from a friend's young son, always delighted me. The reason I was up and alert and raring to go so early on a Monday morning was that I'd had a wake-up call around six, and much as I hate the phone—Alexander Graham Bell is not among my heroes, even if he was a brilliant inventor and champion of the deaf—an early-morning call is difficult to ignore. So were the caller and the subject of the call. The caller was my mother, her voice shrill with anxiety; the subject, Julie Bass.

Her voice had come bursting out of the phone into my still somnolent ear. "Thea? Are you awake? A terrible thing has happened...." I almost didn't hear what the terrible thing was, for at her words, my mind had raced immediately to which family member was dead or dying. I forced my attention back just as she concluded, "...and now they say that her husband's death is considered a homicide."

"Run that by me again," I said.

She sighed. "Thea, I wish you'd pay attention."

"Mom, I was asleep."

"I said the police came to see Julie Bass last night. They've determined that the car her husband was driving was tampered with and his death is now considered a homicide."

I didn't bother to ask why she was telling me this. Mom believes that bad news is to be shared. She also believes that if something is important to her, it must be important to the people around her. Besides, willingly or not, I was now a fully inducted member of the Julie Bass fan club. I muttered all the right things. How horrible. As if the poor girl needed anything more to worry about. Did the police have any ideas? That I would call Julie later. That got her off the phone. I would have rolled over then and gone back to sleep, but I wasn't sleepy anymore. According to the Thea Kozak book of rules, if I'm not asleep, I go to work.

Actually, driving to work at 6:30 was better than going at 8:30 when the roads were clogged with cars. The morning was cool and sunny and invigorating. Crocuses, and in the warm spots, daffodils were blooming. The bright gold of emerging forsythia softened the brown of mostly leafless trees. Sometimes I wonder how I can live in a place where the trees are bare a full six months of the year, but if I went somewhere else, I'd miss the seasons. I like the rhythm of the year, the changes. Fall is my favorite time, but spring is a close second.

I was at my desk with an oversized coffee and a sack of doughnuts shortly after seven. When I can detach myself from the arms of Morpheus, I enjoy coming in early. The best part of the day is the quiet time before the phones start to ring, before crises come humming over the wire with the regularity of cars off an assembly line. I often feel like a firefighter. The phone rings and I spring into action, putting out fires on campuses everywhere. Then my shift is over and the phone stops ringing and quiet settles. And then I can get to work.

By 8:30 the private school day gets under way, so I had about an hour. I got out my yellow pad, sharpened a stack of pencils, and started writing. I'd covered about five pages when the phone rang. Someone's day was getting under way early, like mine.

I could have let the machine get it, but I didn't. My cheery hello met a hesitant silence, followed by a tentative woman's voice. "Thea? Thea Kozak?" I admitted that's who I was. "This is Julie Bass. I... uh... it's been a bad... uh... I've had some news... bad news... you seemed so friendly and I really need someone to talk to right now... I was hoping... wondering if maybe you could... if you'd like... could we maybe get together for lunch?"

I checked my calendar. By nature I'm an impulsive person so I've had to learn to be very disciplined about checking. My partner, Suzanne, had written herself in red. That meant it was important, priority and unalterable. "I can't do lunch," I said, hating to disappoint her. "What about dinner? That good Chinese restaurant at the Chestnut Hill Mall? Six-thirty?"

"Seven," she said. "If I can get a sitter... plan on it, okay. I'll call if there's a problem." In the background a child's cry rose to an urgent and insistent wail. "Oh Lord! That's Emma. I've got to go. See you there."

I tried not to think about what awaited me at seven. I was sorry for Julie Bass and willing to help her, but the last thing I wanted to go near was another murder, even in a role that only involved being a shoulder to cry on. In my gloomier moments I wonder if I have some sort of fatal attraction that draws death to me like filings to a magnet or perhaps my own personal cloud. Then there was the fact that letting Julie unload her grief and pain would bring back some of my own. In a wry corner of my mind, a Monty Pythonesque character was urging "Line up and be flogged, it's good for you."

There's a strong Puritan streak in my family that says you don't shun other people's troubles to avoid pain to yourself, but sometimes I get tired of the world's troubles and want to just say no. I want some cheerful person to clap me on the shoulder periodically and urge me to not worry and be happy. It's only a dream. In reality, if someone did that I'd probably yell "don't touch me" and punch him in the nose. It was too late, anyway. I hadn't said no. By 8:30 the phone was ringing, people were arriving, and I was too busy to think about anything but work.

At five I forced myself away from the desk and went to my health club, where I submitted myself to the heartless ministrations of a beautiful youth named Aaron, a pearl in the murky world of aerobics instructors. Aaron has the startled eyes and diminutive grace of a faun. He is lithe and muscular and tireless. The ladies love him. He does more to ensure regular attendance than fear of spreading thighs or drooping butts ever did. At 5'11" I tower over him, and I know my chest is bigger than his. He makes me feel like a Clydesdale next to an Arabian stallion, but at the end of the hour my muscles are humming, I'm drenched with sweat, and I know I've had a good workout. That's what I go there for. Lately he'd been into boxing aerobics and boy, what a way to get your aggressions out!

I pulled into a parking space at the mall, muscles still trembling, my stomach growling for food. Suzanne is still trying to lose her postbaby pounds, and her idea of lunch is a pouch full of sprouts—for both of us. Doughnuts and sprouts aren't enough to sustain this full-grown woman.

Julie Bass was leaning against the wall outside the restaurant, looking even more forlorn than she'd looked the day before. Her hair needed washing and her skin was ghostly pale. Without the wall to hold her up, she looked like she would have collapsed. I grabbed her firmly by the arm and steered her into the restaurant.

"I really appreciate this," she said. "Your mom's always telling me how busy you are. I know I'm imposing. It's just... I don't know... I'm feeling so shaky these days and you seem so together. I guess I just felt like being around someone who isn't falling apart. Your mother has been great but she's kind of intimidating... you know what I mean?"

I nodded. Of course I did. "This business about the car. Do you want to talk about it?" I said.

She shook her head, a dazed motion, more like she was clearing her head than replying. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. I don't understand what's happening. It was bad enough knowing he was dead. But that someone killed him? That it might have been deliberate? I guess I don't want to think about it. I'm... I'm having trouble... focusing on anything right now." She picked up her napkin, shook it out, and put it in her lap. Then she picked it up and put it back on the table. "I don't know how we're going to live now that Cal... I know it was stupid of me... but I let him handle everything... about the money, I mean."

I had a badly tuned engine once that ran the way Julie Bass talked. It would rev up and then fade out until it almost died completely and then rev up again. It—her speech, not the engine—was the product of controlled hysteria. Julie Bass was right out on the edge of control. It was there in the trembling of her hands and the taut muscles in her neck. In the stiff set of her head. She'd had two major blows in a week—first losing her husband in a fiery crash, and then learning it was no accident. She should have been at home in bed, under the care of doting relatives or loving friends, being plied with tranquilizers or whiskey tea and soup. Instead, in the way of twentieth-century women without extended families, she was soldiering along alone, trying to make the best of things in a world that expected people to grieve on their own time and then gave them no time.

"Are you worried about money?" I said. It seemed to be weighing heavily on her mind.

"I don't know. I guess. Maybe. I mean, I really don't know what to say about that, either. I have a lawyer, of course, and he's looking into it, but it seems that things are in kind of a muddle. Cal made all the investments and I guess he made some bad ones or something. The lawyer wasn't too clear. You'd think, Cal being a banker, that he'd know better, wouldn't you? Your dad's been trying to explain things to me."

She smiled her sweet smile. "He reminds me so much of my own father... he'll make a wonderful grandfather, won't he?"

"If we ever give him the chance." A waiter came and took our order. I had to order for Julie. She couldn't seem to make up her mind.

"Oh, but isn't your brother planning to—" she began.

"I don't know. We've never discussed it." I couldn't stomach a discussion of Michael and Sonia and children. It was too revolting. "What about life insurance?" I asked, steering the conversation back to finance.

She blinked and put the napkin back in her lap. "I know he was well insured. Because of the girls, he was always careful about that... only it will be awhile before we see any of it, especially if..." She trailed off, thinking better of what she'd been going to say. "I guess I'm going to have to get a job... only finding someone to care for the girls... and Emma's so clingy... and I haven't worked since I was married... Cal didn't like... I just don't know... I don't know how to begin. Resumes, want ads, work clothes."

"It's too soon for you to think about things like that," I said. "Give yourself some time." The waiter brought our food and two glasses of seltzer with lime.

"I know... but..." She picked up her fork, rearranged the food, and set it back down again, leaving the food uneaten.

"The bills... the girls... the house. And I find the financial stuff so confusing." She stared at me, wide-eyed and helpless. "I don't even know how much money he made."

"That will all be in your tax returns... and there must be some kind of pay statements. What about his boss at the bank? I'm sure he can help you out."

Her voice dropped to a whisper and her eyes dropped to her plate. "I don't think he would... he didn't... I don't think he liked Cal very much."

"His boss?" She nodded.

That was the way things went all through dinner. Julie expressed her fears, I offered advice, she offered confusion. I'd chosen a place where the food was great and I was scarfing it down with gusto. Julie's portion was rearranged, that was all. "You've got to eat," I said, knowing I hadn't eaten for weeks after David's death. "It takes strength to deal with all this stuff."

She dropped her fork into the untouched food. "I can't. Can we get out of here? I'm too restless to sit still."

"Why don't you take it home? You might get hungry later."

"I couldn't... can't... it makes me sick...." She shook her head, pushed back her chair, and half ran from the room.

I paid the check and joined her in a haphazard stroll around the mall. I'm not much of a shopper. Too impatient and besides, when you're a tall woman, nothing fits. When you have a big chest, nothing fits. When you have long arms, nothing fits. I have a nice, womanly body, and clothes shopping makes me feel like a freak. My partner, Suzanne, buys most of my clothes. If she sees something while she's shopping, it appears on my desk. Not so much, since marriage and the baby, but enough to keep me covered.

I drifted in Julie's wake through the natural cosmetics store and the expensive lingerie store and through the door of Barneys, where the simplest little shirt is an investment, not a purchase. Julie's fluttering white hands drifted over the luxurious fabrics like a pair of doves, plucking an ice-blue silk jacket and skirt off the rack, and selecting a matching blouse, with the assurance of a born shopper. The clothes she held were so tiny they wouldn't have covered my elbow. Carrie's clothes had been like that. Laughably small. "I'm going to try these on," she said.

I cooled my heels, studying expensive hair ornaments, until she appeared again wearing the clothes. The price tags added up to about the same as my monthly mortgage payment. She looked like a million dollars and I told her so. "I think I'll get the outfit," she said. "If I'm going to work, I'll need some clothes."

"But you were just saying you didn't know how you'd pay your bills," I said.

She shrugged. "So this will be another bill I don't know how to pay, won't it?" She headed for the dressing room, hesitated, and turned back. "Don't be mad at me, Thea. I need something... right now... to cheer me up. I... it's so hard. You understand, don't you?"

I nodded. What else could I do? I didn't approve. I thought it was folly. But I did understand. Each of us has our own forms of comfort. I turn to work, and occasionally to my friend Jack Daniel's, and now I have Andre. But Julie didn't have anything. So if an armload of blue silk made her happy, who was I to criticize?

We walked out to our cars together, two girls on a night out, strolling through the chilly April darkness. To look at us, you would have thought we didn't have a care in the world. I had an African beaded wrap to tie up my hair and Julie had a full bag and an empty heart.

Julie's car was an expensive green Lexus. Another thing she would have to maintain on a diminished income. She put her packages in the trunk, slammed it shut, and turned to say good night. In the harsh yellow glow of the streetlight, I saw tears on her cheeks. Instinctively I put an arm around her. "I'm just so scared, Thea."