Death at the Wheel (17 page)

"Thea, really!" Mom said. "Why ever would Julie tell Dr. Durren about her personal life?"

I wanted to throw mashed potatoes at her disapproving face and ask what Dr. Durren was doing there, if he wasn't supposed to know anything, but I didn't. "She had to talk to someone," I said. "And people sometimes talk freely to doctors."

"Properly brought up girls like Julie keep their troubles to themselves."

"I hope not," I said, wondering what she'd think if she knew about Deanna at the race track; the drunken mother and missing father, and being raised by Dunk Donahue. Some proper upbringing.

"Why?"

"Because if no one knows anything about her life, we can't help her."

My mother's chin went up. "I don't think we need to resort to common gossip... interfere with poor Julie's privacy...."

I found myself saying something Andre had said to me when Carrie was killed. "In murder cases, Mom, there isn't any privacy. Think about Carrie. Protecting Julie's privacy will only serve to hide the real killer."

"We're not talking about your sister." There was silence until she said, "Does anyone want any more roast pork? No? Tom, will you help me clear?" Both men started to get up and Mom actually giggled. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I meant my husband."

Dad shot me an apologetic look and reached for my plate.

"Maybe the two of you would like to wait for coffee and dessert in the living room?" he suggested.

That was all I needed. Dim lights and soft couches. I'd be asleep in an instant. On the other hand, I'd have Durren to myself. "Thanks, Dad. We'll do that."

Once again, Dr. Durren was there to pull back my chair. Feeling a bit like Queen Victoria, I led him back to the living room, let him get comfortable on the couch, and then fired off my first question. I didn't have much time. "What was your relationship with Julie?"

"We were friends," he told his clenched hands. With a visible effort, he unclenched them and laid them on his knees. They were beautiful. Long and slender yet conveying a sense of strength and competence. Hands you'd feel comfortable placing yourself in. Physically, that is. Emotionally, I'd have preferred a dog. Maybe Julie had liked him for his hands.

"Did she confide in you?"

He shrugged. "A little." I had to lean forward to hear him.

"Do you know any reason why she would have killed her husband?"

He raised his eyes from his hands and gave me a disapproving look. "She didn't kill him. Julie isn't the violent type. She's a true lady...."

"What was her relationship with her husband like?"

He just sat and stared at his hands. "I had no idea we'd have to go into that sort of thing," he said.

I wanted to shake him. "What can you tell me about Julie's marriage?"

He raised the dark eyes again, sighed, and lowered them again. "She wasn't happy with Cal. He was... he wasn't a very kind man. She was afraid of him. But she never would have dreamed of killing him. She was a gentle soul. And I believe that despite his brutish behavior, she loved him."

"Did she ever express anger toward him? Ever say she'd like to hurt him?"

"Never."

"And she didn't talk to you about his work... his friends... there's no one she ever—"

"I didn't say that...."

"...no one she ever mentioned who might have had a grudge against him?"

Dr. Durren squirmed uncomfortably. "What you said at dinner. It was true. He wasn't a faithful husband. That hurt her badly." He sighed and sank deeper into the upholstery.

"Did she ever mention any names?"

He shook his head.

"What about their finances? Did she ever talk about their finances?" Another shake. "What about his work at the bank, his relationships with people there?" No response. My frustration was reflected in my posture. I was leaning forward, stretching toward him as though I could physically break through his reticence. "Look," I said desperately, "is there anyone you can suggest that I should talk to? Friends? Neighbors? Anyone who knew her well?"

"She was a very private person. She tried to keep her troubles to herself."

He was behaving like Julie's plight was tea table conversation. Didn't he understand how serious this was? "Dr. Durren," I said. I couldn't bring myself to call him Tom. Tom was my dad's name. It was a friendly name and this man wasn't friendly. Maybe he just didn't understand. "I know you want to help Julie or you wouldn't be here. To help her, we need information. Details about her life. Details about Cal's life. I'm not trying to be nosy. I believe in privacy just like the rest of you, but to help her we need to have something to offer the police as an alternative. We can't just go to them and say that we believe in her innocence."

It didn't work. "I can't see how anyone could think for one minute that she..." he began.

"You went to her house and took those letters, didn't you?" I asked. His response was a blank, unwavering stare. "Did you know that you dropped some? I found two in the closet and one by the front steps." Two dull red spots appeared in his cheeks, but otherwise his expression didn't change.

It was hopeless. On the one hand I had the police, whose take on the matter was clear. Abused wife with knowledge of cars arranges for a well-insured unfaithful husband to take driving course, tampers with car, and presto, all her problems are solved. On the other hand I had my mother and Dr. Durren, who thought it would suffice to declare that Julie was a lady and refused to discuss anything important, and Dunk Donahue, ready to bash anyone who disagreed with him over the head with a wrench. To use the sports metaphors guys are so fond of, I was on the losing team and all my efforts to rally my players were falling on deaf ears. An unacceptably non-PC expression.

"What is your relationship to Julie?"

He stared at me coldly. "That's none..."

"...of my business?" I finished. "The police will certainly think it's some of theirs. You're her motive. Woman kills husband so she can be free for her lover. Especially if the husband is an abusive philanderer. Surely you can see that?"

His stare remained cold. "You wouldn't understand," he said. "Julie was... is... a remarkable woman. So proud and sensitive. Private. She had needs... feelings... that Cal Bass could never appreciate. She needed an understanding friend."

"Were you sleeping with her?"

"No." I didn't believe him.

"Did you know she was going to Connecticut?"

"She didn't—" He stopped. In the silence, I heard the swing of the kitchen door and approaching footsteps.

Suddenly he raised his head and his eyes were fierce. "She didn't go to Connecticut to hurt him. It was because of the other woman." He clamped his mouth shut and looked nervously around to see if anyone else had heard.

He got up and began to pace. "Forget I ever said... look, you've got to help her. She's innocent!" As a knight in shining armor, he wasn't much, but there was a truckload of feeling in his final declaration. At least now I understood why he'd been willing to risk getting the letters. Not as her doctor but as her lover. At least it was something he could do for her.

Dad appeared at that moment with a tray but it didn't matter. Dr. Durren had shut down. We were a pitiful crew of know-nothings, and we had a long way to go if we were going to help Julie Bass. A long way. Yet the people who claimed they cared most were unwilling to try. Over coffee and dessert, I pondered what to do next. I had a few more questions but by the time the linzer torte had been handed around and adequately admired, Dr. Durren's beeper went off and he escaped.

I was fed up with wasting my time on people who wanted to help only if it didn't involve any pain, effort, introspection, or honesty. It's the TV effect. Everyone thinks murderers are caught in an hour minus commercials. The coffee had resuscitated me just enough to recognize how tired I was. I thanked them for dinner and tottered out to the car, ready to put the whole messy business out of my mind.

My resolve lasted about a mile. That was when I remembered that it was Thursday night. The night, according to Sherry DuBose, that I could probably find Cal Bass's assistant, Rachel Kaplan, at a bar. So what if I felt like I'd been worked over with a two-by-four? Better to get it over with now than to drive back another time. I groaned, pulled into the parking lot at Popovers, and called Sherry on the car phone.

At her friendly hello, I said, "Hi, it's Thea Kozak. Sorry to bother you again. How do I recognize Rachel Kaplan?"

She laughed. "Look for someone who's a cross between a banker and a hooker." I heard a male voice in the background. "Dan says that she has hair like a poodle, eyes like a frog, and a look of perpetual dissatisfaction, but she's not quite that bad! She was wearing a fitted magenta power suit when she left work. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that she's changed her proper white blouse for a low-cut camisole. I wouldn't be single again for a million dollars."

Rachel wasn't hard to spot. She was sitting at the bar with her purse on the stool beside her. A transparent trick to keep the seat open for an available man. I marched up, stared innocently at the purse, and asked if anyone was sitting there. She twitched with annoyance but removed the purse. Her body language said most eloquently that she didn't welcome the competition.

Rachel Kaplan was small and wiry with bright dark eyes, short curly hair, and the kind of turned-up nose lots of girls in upper-middle-class suburbs get for their eighteenth birthdays. Sherry was right. She had shed her blouse and the deep plunge of her suit jacket revealed tantalizing glimpses of flesh and black lace. An attractive package sadly marred by the suggestion of a perpetual pout on her face.

"Save my seat?" she asked. "I'm going to the ladies." I nodded as she slid off her stool and teetered away on heels almost too high to walk in.

Ten on a Thursday night. Popovers was popping, the band heating up for another set, and Rachel Kaplan was already unsteady on her feet. The place favored inky darkness punctuated by vivid pink and blue neon lights, the darkness ringing with the artificial laughter of desperation. A meat market. A place that, despite the noise and music and laughter, depressed me. A balding man with a belly drooping over his belt tried to take Rachel's seat. "Someone's sitting there," I said.

"Yeah, me," he said, sliding onto the stool. "So, what's your name? I haven't seen you here before."

"Someone is sitting there," I repeated.

"Come on. Don't be like that. I'm Bob. Bob the broker. What about you?"

"Someone is sitting there."

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he said, and went in search of greener pastures.

When Rachel came back and slid onto her stool, I said, "It's a jungle out here, isn't it?"

"You can say that again. This crowd seems to go directly from innocence to impotence with nothing in between."

"You come here often?"

"It's the only place around that has any life at all."

She might have been a cop, the way her eyes never stopped searching the crowd. I ordered a Stoli and tonic and asked what she'd like. When her eyes narrowed suspiciously, I said, "I just don't like to drink alone."

She relaxed. "A gibson."

"My name is Thea. I'm a consultant."

"I'm Rachel. A banker."

"Banker, wow, that's still pretty much a man's world, isn't it? They make you wear a tie to work?"

"Just about. We're making some headway, though."

"What bank?"

"Grantham Co-op."

"Isn't that the bank where that guy got murdered?"

She needed some fortification before she could talk about it. "I worked for him," she said. "He was a shit. Married but he put the make on anything that moved. I don't blame her for killing him."

This was too easy. As easy as Rita. If I wasn't careful I'd get overconfident and blow it. I knew Rachel Kaplan wasn't stupid.

I tried not to seem interested. Sipped at my drink and looked around. "The band any good?"

Rachel shrugged. "Too loud but they seem to be able to hit most of the notes."

"So, this guy who was killed. You think the wife did it?"

She considered it while she surveyed the room again, disappointment clear from her face. The pickings did seem slim. "You wouldn't think so, a little bitty thing like her. She seemed so helpless. Underneath, I think she was pretty tough. And living with him must have been hell! Either she did it or she hired someone."

"You worked with him?" She nodded, her eyes darting to the door, noting who came in, and then back to her glass, dismissing the newcomers. "Was he hard to work with?"

"Cal Bass was one of those old-fashioned assholes who believe that women are good for only one thing." Rachel's language grew less refined as the drink took hold and she warmed to her subject. "He saw us as just holes to be filled and believed he was the one with the God-given duty to fill them. I mean, there I am with my MBA and three years of banking experience and he's like the big bad wolf saying 'want to see my etchings, little girl?' I'm killing myself to do a good job there and he pats me on the head like he does his children and then takes all the credit for my good work." She tilted her glass and drained it angrily. "There were times I could have killed him myself."

I laughed. "But you didn't, did you?"

"Are you kidding? What I know about cars wouldn't fill a thimble." Rachel was thoughtful. "No, if I'd wanted to kill him, what I would have done was let Nan Devereaux know, anonymously, of course, what kind of a guy her new loverboy really was. She's a woman who doesn't like to be crossed."

The bartender cruised by and asked if we wanted more drinks. I was dying to know more about Nan Devereaux but I didn't want to seem eager, so I ordered another drink and so did Rachel. "What about you," she said. "Got a man in your life?"

"Yeah," I said, "a cop. You can imagine what that's like—phone ringing at all hours of the day and night—someone always knowing when he spends the night with me... and dates getting broken and being scared to death when he doesn't call and he said he would... but I sure feel safe when he's around."