Death at the Wheel (9 page)

"Who's Rachel?"

"His assistant. She wanted his job; he wanted her body. It was a standoff, as far as I know, but I did once hear her tell her friend Lois that, 'if that pig lays a hand on me one more time, I'm going to kill him.' He stole all her best ideas and then treated her like a stupid bimbo. Cal had her in tears more than once, and Rachel is tough."

"Full name?"

"Kaplan. Rachel Kaplan."

"Married?"

"No."

"Think she'll talk to me?"

"Well, she thinks she's the perfect professional woman and the soul of discretion, but if she's drunk enough, she'll talk. Try her Thursday night at Popovers. If she doesn't pick up some guy, she'll be working on getting drunk."

"He ever make a pass at you?"

"He made a pass at every female between ten and fifty. I think someone once told him he looked like a Kennedy and it went to his head."

"Doesn't sound like it went to his head. It sounds like it went south." Sherry DuBose laughed out loud and then I heard her say something to someone in the room.

"My husband said that was a good one."

"Maybe this is a silly question, but did anyone like Calvin Bass?"

"His secretary, Rita. But she's new. He went through secretaries like some people go through jelly beans. No. Doughnuts. Because doughnuts, like secretaries, have holes, and Cal Bass thought he had a calling when it came to filling holes." She laughed, choked, and mumbled "Excuse me" into the phone. I heard voices in the room, then she came back. "My husband says not to descend to Cal's level."

"You were telling me about Rita?"

"Poor little thing! Rita still thinks he walked on water. She cried all last week because he was dead."

"Was she sleeping with him?"

"I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised. Most of the others did."

"Was he attractive?" I said, realizing that I had no idea what Cal Bass had looked like.

"Devastating. Gorgeous. A hunk. And so driven and calculating. You have to admire a man who knows what he wants and is ruthless in going after it, until he steps on your face. He had a certain predatory charm but underneath he was a gilded dog turd. I always felt sorry for his wife."

"Why?"

"For all the reasons I've already told you. Because he treated her the same way he treated his employees. Demanding, scornful, and condescending. He treated her like a slightly simple child. Once she called him with a medical emergency involving one of the children and he yelled at her not to bother him when he was working. I wouldn't have put up with it, but I think she loved him. I've got to go put my daughter to bed. You want Rita's number?"

I took Rita's number and leaned back, ready to spend some quality time with my friend Jack and ponder on what I'd heard, but Mr. Graham Bell's invention buzzed in my ear. A seductive man's voice, asking for me. I admitted that's who I was and he identified himself as Bennett Landry, Julie's attorney.

"She asked me to touch base and see if you were able to do what she asked." He sounded as if he had no idea what that was.

"You can tell her that I checked the house and everything was secure but that was before the police got there." I wasn't about to admit to some stranger, even a stranger working for Julie, that I'd removed anything from the house.

"I'm worried about her," he said. "She seems disoriented and depressed and extremely anxious about the children. Do you... uh... I know this is awkward... but I'd just like to have some reactions from friends of hers... like you. Do you know of any reason why Julie might have been in Connecticut that weekend?"

"Was she in Connecticut that weekend?"

"That's what the police say."

"I really don't know Julie very—"

"What about his friends, his coworkers. Do you know if any of them might have had a grudge against him? Or of anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Landry. I hate to disappoint you when I know you're trying to help Julie, but I'm pretty useless as a source of information. I've only known her for a few days and I never met him at all."

There was a long silence on his end of the line, punctuated by a thumping sound. I imagined a pinstriped man drumming restlessly on the desk with his pencil.

Then he said, "Julie said you were a good friend." His voice was accusing.

"Only a few days," I repeated. "I'm concerned about her, of course, but I don't know her well. Maybe some of her closer friends could help."

"Give me their names," he said eagerly. "I'll call them."

"You'd have to get them from Julie...."

"The only names she gave me were yours and your mother's."

Probably Julie was so upset she wasn't thinking clearly. Maybe my mother would know. "Ask my mother," I told him. "She knew Julie pretty well. Maybe she can suggest some people."

"I'll do that," he said. "Thanks for your time." I had the impression of him rushing off.

"Wait," I said. "I have two questions for you."

"Yes?" A reluctant, hesitant response.

"Was Calvin Bass well insured?"

"I don't think that's your business," he said.

"Two-way street," I countered. "You want me to help you, you'll answer my questions."

"Help me how? You just said you didn't know anything."

"I know Cal Bass was almost universally disliked by the people he worked with."

"And..."

"And I'm waiting for an answer to my question," I reminded him.

Another long silence after which he grudgingly allowed that Cal Bass was worth more dead than alive.

"Second question," I said. "How did he die?"

"Fire," Landry said. "He burned to death when the car caught fire."

"Thank you. Give me your number and I'll call you if I learn anything."

"Why should you be learning anything?"

I shrugged, even though he wasn't there to see it. "I'm very good at asking questions."

He gave his number so reluctantly that I decided his hesitation wasn't due to caution or legal considerations, it was just his personal style.

I wanted to get back to Jack and it was almost time for my program, but I had to call my mother first. The idea of Julie having no friends troubled me. Once again, I found myself in a hesitant conversation. I asked my question. Mom was silent, a calculated, disapproving silence. "I'm glad you've found time in your busy schedule to try and help her." she said finally.

"Mom, I'm only asking because her lawyer called."

"Your dad says he's a good lawyer. You'll like working with him."

My turn to be silent. Then I said, "I'm not working with him." I spat it through gritted teeth. "I just wondered about her friends."

"I don't know,” she said. “I'll call you back."

Unanswered questions swirled around my mind like dust-balls stirred up by a draft. Why had Julie sent two of us for the letters? Why had her doctor, of all people, picked them up? Why did the police think Julie had been in Connecticut? And what, exactly, had happened to Calvin Bass? Over all the questions, Julie's scared face and my mother's disapproving one hovered, watching me, so Ms. Thea "fix-it" Kozak decided she had to go to Connecticut and learn the TRUTH, especially since I could combine my field trip with a long-overdue social visit.

I called my friend Ellen Bradley and asked if she and her husband George, who lived near the track, would mind some company on Saturday. Ellen and George were delighted, especially when I said I might bring Andre. All my friends are hoping I'll find Mr. Right and have another chance at happily ever after. And Ellen had called several times, trying to invite us down.

After that I returned to my drink but the ice had melted and the bourbon was too watery. I dumped it down the sink and fixed another one to sip while I called Mr. Right. He answered on the first ring: "Lemieux."

"Hi, handsome," I said. "I was going to be in the neighborhood tomorrow and I wondered if it would be convenient to stop by."

"I have a girlfriend," he said. "She lives down in Massachusetts but she's very jealous. I don't think it would be a good idea."

Just the sound of his voice made me want to crawl into the phone and snuggle up next to his ear. "Seriously, folk," I said. "Will you be home if I arrive on your doorstep around five?"

"Make it six and you've got a deal."

"You're a hard man, Lemieux."

"Especially when I think of you."

Yeah, right, I thought, though my pulse rate seemed to be increasing. "What should I bring?"

"I'll cook, you bring wine and clean underwear."

"Clean underwear?"

"Didn't your mother ever tell you...?"

"More times than I can count. So I'm invited to spend the night?"

"It would give me great pleasure."

"I'll bet. Say, have you got any connections with the Connecticut State Police?"

"Why? You got a ticket?"

"Nope. Dead body."

"Theadora... you aren't...."

"No. No way. It's for one of Mom's friends. I just need to know how this guy died. The details of the accident, I mean. He was taking a racing course...."

"You're not going to do anything stupid?"

"That's why I'm calling you, honey, instead of putting on my cloak and dagger."

He sighed. "Give me the basics and I'll see what I can do. And, Thea—"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

"You already said that."

"Come live with me."

"I'll think about it." I was just irritated enough to suggest that that was stupid, but every day in every way I'm getting better at keeping my mouth shut. Besides, when he isn't being overprotective, he's a great companion. And in this case, he'd argue his concern wasn't overprotection, it was common sense. We shared some intimate details about what we planned to do with each other on the morrow and disconnected. I had a fatuous grin on my face, but what the heck. I was alone.

I tried calling the number Sherry DuBose had given me for Rita, but the woman I reached was hysterical. She mumbled something about an angry call from Eliot Ramsay and papers missing from the files and being fired and hung up on me.

I was deeply immersed in the trials of a bunch of homicide detectives when my mother called. She rambled on for a while about trying to locate Julie's friends and how difficult it seemed to be before she delivered her bombshell.

"I heard a terrible thing from Mrs. Pulsifer today, that nasty old gossip." My mother might call Mrs. Pulsifer nasty, but she was the source of all my mother's rumors. "She says the talk at the hospital is that Dr. Durren was having an affair with Julie Bass, and that he's the father of her younger child."

"Who is Dr. Durren?"

"Oh, I forget you don't live here anymore. Dr. Thomas Durren. He's the ER physician over at the hospital. Isn't it dreadful what people will say about you when you're down? They were just as horrid about your sister, Carrie. At least you haven't done anything to be gossiped about. At least not here in Grantham." There was an implied "yet" at the end of the sentence.

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

Wednesday dawned clear and cool. I carried my coffee out onto the deck and listened to the waves and the shriek of gulls and inhaled the salty tang of the air. It was one of those days when it felt good to be alive. I didn't even mind that I had a long drive ahead of me, midway up New Hampshire on the Maine-New Hampshire border, to the Northbrook School. It was good driving weather.

I was meeting with the headmaster and his trustees at eleven to discuss a marketing study. Like many of our client schools, Northbrook was doing all right but getting nervous about their market niche. I wasn't nervous. I'd been through these meetings so many times now that there were few surprises. But it was all new to them, and in their honor I was wearing my most conservative consultant gear—navy suit with an executive blouse, plain jewelry, and shoes with only a suggestion of a heel. My independent hair was trying to pull loose from its confining barrette, but the barrette, like me, was tough and experienced.

Spring wasn't as far advanced in the mountains, and the trees on Northbrook's campus had only buds instead of leaves.

In the gardens, perennials were just beginning to peek out to see if it was safe to emerge. Crocuses were starting to bloom and daffodils were budding. Even still shaking off the grip of winter, it was a lovely campus—a mix of white clapboard houses with green shutters and red-brick Georgian buildings. Vast expanses of green lawns, crisscrossed with paths, surrounded the buildings, and from its location on a hillside, it looked out over the valley like the lord of the manor. The students who passed seemed animated and happy. I was a little sorry to have to go inside.

The meeting went well. Both the headmaster of school and the trustees seemed eager to have EDGE doing some work for them. They were an unusual group in several ways—first, because they lacked the arrogance and self-importance of many such boards, second, because both the head and the board seemed to genuinely love the school, and finally, because there was no tension between the head and his board. I was tempted to tell them that they didn't need us—all they needed to do was let prospective students and their parents see the campus and see their own enthusiasm—but it was a fact that their applications had been down slightly and they were concerned about their continuing ability to attract the kind of students who made Northbrook so lively and desirable.