In-Laws and Outlaws (6 page)

“No, thanks. But there
is
something I would like. An explanation.”

Rob stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossed his feet at the ankles. “Oh? Of what?”

“Of why you didn't want me to stay with Connie tonight.”

He and Michelle exchanged a brief look, and then they both laughed. Michelle said, “I'd forgotten how direct you are, Gillian.”

“Direct and persistent. Do I get an answer?”

“Of course you get an answer,” she said. “We just wanted a chance to talk to you privately because we know what Connie must have been saying.”

“She's been saying quite a lot.”

“Tell us what?”

“Well, for one thing, she's saying that Raymond was murdered. And she thinks the three kids may have been too.”

“Yes, she believes that.”

“She also believes someone is out to kill off the entire Decker family. That is one frightened lady.”

Michelle shook her head. “Poor Connie. I'd hoped she'd … well. This is what we were afraid would happen, when Annette told us you were back. You're just the person she'd pour it all out on. Part of the family and yet not part, if you don't mind my putting it that way.”

I didn't.

Rob asked, “Did she tell you the whole thing? About the ‘mysterious' footprints in the snow on the Vermont ski slope? And the hit-and-run driver in Toronto who was never caught? And the ‘suspicious' bathtub accident in New York?”

“All that plus the fact that Raymond never smoked in bed,” I added.

“Oh, yes—that too.” Rob scowled. “Do you know she wanted to hire a private detective? We had a hell of a time talking her out of that.”

“You think Connie's crazy,” I said.

“No, of course we don't think Connie's crazy,” he answered sharply, and then took a deep breath. He glanced at his wife. When she nodded, Rob told me heavily, “As a matter of fact, we think she's right. We think all four of them were murdered.”

They hadn't begun to suspect anything until Ike Henry had been smashed against a wall in Toronto by a seemingly out-of-control automobile. Bobby's death they had sadly accepted as the skiing accident it appeared to be, and the footprints in the snow as those of someone who didn't want to get involved. But when less than a month later Bobby's cousin Ike also met with a violent death, they began voicing their first suspicions—tentatively, without conviction. Then when the following month Lynn Ferguson drowned in a hotel bathtub in New York, they were sure.

And “they” meant all of them: the Kurlands, the Henrys, and the Fergusons—everyone except Connie Decker. Connie didn't even start to find anything suspicious in the rash of family deaths until Raymond supposedly caused his own death with a lighted cigarette. But the others did, and had acted on it. They'd hired a bodyguard for Joel. They'd employed a firm of private detectives to investigate. And they'd made sure the police's efforts in Vermont, Canada, New York, and Martha's Vineyard were all coordinated.

“So you see why we didn't want Connie hiring a private detective,” Michelle explained. “We didn't want her detective muddying the waters for
our
detectives.”

That made sense, but … “But why didn't you just tell her so?”

Michelle exchanged a regretful look with Rob, who said, “We probably should have. But Connie never even thought of it until Raymond died, and then she kind of went off the deep end.”

“It's hard to explain,” Michelle said. “This all just happened a few days ago, you know, and Connie really went to pieces when the police said it looked as if Raymond had been smoking in bed. She was crying and screaming and talking like a wild woman … Connie's always been so placid, we didn't know what to make of it. It just seemed that the wisest thing to do was calm her down. Tom gave her a sedative, but she can't stay doped up all the time. When she's lucid, all her fears come rushing back in again.”

I remembered the contrast between last night's frenzy and this morning's remoteness. “She took something before the funeral.”

“Probably a double dose,” Rob muttered.

“You're going to have to tell her,” I persisted.

They both nodded. “The problem is finding the right time,” Michelle said. “We're afraid that right now … well, it might push her over the edge. We'll give her a few more days.”

If it had been anyone other than Connie they were talking about, I'd have found their attitude patronizing. But of all the people I knew, Connie Decker was undoubtedly the most poorly equipped to deal with serious trouble. It was the one thing about Raymond Decker that had always puzzled me, why he should have chosen so passive a wife. Raymond didn't need a woman he could dominate; he had no need to prove he was king of the hill. But theirs had been a comfortable marriage, as far as I could tell; evidently each one supplied the other with whatever was needed.

But that was in the past; now that ugly word
murder
was out in the open, or the semi-open. “Do you also agree with Connie that someone is out to kill off all the Deckers?” I asked the Kurlands.

Rob said, “We think it's a possibility. Someone who has a grudge against the family.”

“Any idea who that might be?”

He shrugged. “Business enemy, perhaps? We've made a few. What gets me is the cowardliness of going after the children first.”

“He skipped Joel,” I said.

“Maybe he couldn't get to him, for some reason. But he, whoever he is, is starting after the adults now. Fooling the kids is one thing, but Raymond would have been on his guard. He was the first to suspect Bobby's accident was no accident. Yet the killer was able to get him just the same. We can't assume Joel is safe.”

“Where's his bodyguard now?”

“We had to let him go,” Michelle said tightly. “It wasn't working out—too many problems.”

A chill ran down my back. “Yet you let him go to his friend's house alone.”

Rob scowled. “We have to try for some degree of normalcy in our lives. Besides, our neighborhood employs a private security agency. No one comes in here that they don't know. You can be sure you got a good looking-over when we drove in.”

“I didn't see anyone.”

“That's the idea.”

I got up and walked to the nearest window. “Lots of woods out there.”

“All enclosed within an electric fence. Joel is about as safe here as he'd be anywhere. Remember, Bobby and the other two were away from home when they were killed.”

That was true; it made a difference, I supposed. “Have your detectives found anything?”

“Nothing. Not a damned thing. The trail was pretty cold by the time they started investigating Bobby's death. But with Raymond, they have a better chance.”

The phone rang, in another room. “Your turn,” Michelle said. Rob groaned and got up and left. “I'm surprised it hasn't rung before now.”

“Lots of phone calls?”

“Tons of them. And we can't just ignore them or let the answering machine take them. Business goes on.”

“I can see why you want to get away for a while. I don't suppose Connie is any too eager to go to Martha's Vineyard, is she?”

“Connie swears she'll never set foot on that island again. But she'll change her mind, in time. However, we do want to make sure all evidence of the fire is removed before she goes. We have people working on it now.”

“Tom Henry's going to the Vineyard. He says Annette is leaving for Paris in a few days.”

“Yes, she's only just decided to go.”

I didn't understand why Tom wanted to spend time with his in-laws during his divorce proceedings, but that was his business. Maybe it was the place that drew him, not the people; he could shut himself away in the house he'd shared with Annette for so many years and not see any of us. Them.

Just then Rob came back in. “That was the head of another outfit Raymond was thinking of seeding,” he reported, and nodded as Michelle
oh-dear
ed. To me he said, “Raymond handled all the heavy-industry investing we did. Everyone he's been checking out has called in to see if his death will affect their chances of getting seed money from us. I've had to tell them yes, it will.”

Rob and the twins would not be advertising for a replacement for Raymond; any new partner in the firm would have to be a Decker or married to one. They might consider bringing in one of the Rhode Island Deckers; but from what I remembered of that branch of the family, those Deckers were all pretty well settled in businesses of their own. And none of the immediate family could do the work; Tom Henry was a cardiac surgeon, Oscar Ferguson had a job in Washington, Elinor Ferguson ran the family's philanthropic foundation, and Joel Kurland was only fifteen. So, no replacement, at least not until Joel had finished Harvard Business School.

“We're going to have to go through his files,” Michelle said with an air of soldiering-through. “He could have been close to a decision on some of them. It'd be a shame to miss out on a good investment only because it's in Raymond's area of expertise.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Rob sounded about as enthusiastic as she did. They both fell silent.

All of a sudden I was hit by a bad attack of cabin fever. “I want to go outside for a while—I need to think.”

Michelle came over and gave me a restrained little hug. “You've had a lot thrown at you in the last twenty-four hours, haven't you? I'm sorry, Gillian. I wish you could have been spared all this.”

So did I. I said I wouldn't be long and left through double doors that opened out to a patio. Through a break in the wooded area behind the house I caught a glimpse of another house, some distance away. I headed in the opposite direction.

A path wound through the trees; I wouldn't be going far, since I wasn't wearing the right kind of shoes for a lengthy stroll through the woods. The ground under my feet was crackly with twigs, leaf litter, and the occasional acorn the neighborhood squirrels had missed last autumn. But the trees had sprouted new leaves, and little green things were pushing their way up through the litter of the woodland floor. It was still early enough in the year that the flying pests that detract so considerably from sylvan charm everywhere were not yet in evidence. The woods were silent, so silent that the sound of my passage became an intrusion.

I found a tree stump to sit on. Michelle and the others had had time to adjust, to a degree, to the fact that someone wanted them dead; but I'd had less than a day to get used to the idea. There was one part of my mind that resisted the notion that the Deckers were being stalked by a killer, and the reason for that resistance was the most unrealistic imaginable. I simply could not bring myself to think of the Deckers as victims.

But plainly they were; first the kids, and now Raymond. Three well-loved children and the king of the clan—all of them gone. Of all the adults in the Decker family other than Stuart, I'd liked Raymond the most. The man had had style. When his father died, Raymond had accepted his new role of
paterfamilias
with grace and authority, Stuart had told me, making the transition as easy as possible for everyone concerned. I could believe it, Raymond was a man who found immense satisfaction in making things work, whether it was a big business deal or a small family outing. And he did it all without acting superior, without puffing himself up; I got a charge out of watching someone who was so thoroughly and yet so unostentatiously in control of his world as Raymond Decker had been.

With the twins, I was never quite that comfortable. Superwomen make me uneasy. Michelle and Annette both managed big careers and big family life with an ease that was almost insulting. In addition, they were exquisitely dressed at all times; no old clothes hung in
their
closets. They carried it all off with an insouciance that seemed to imply anyone could do it with a little foresight and planning—thus setting a standard impossibly out of reach for us lesser mortals. The twins were never anything but hospitable and cordial to me, but we just weren't on the same wavelength. They made me nervous.

Tom, I never got to know very well; his surgical skills were much in demand and he was forever flying off to one place or another to perform difficult operations. Rob, on the other hand, I had come to think of as a third twin; that's how well he fit into Decker life. He could have been born a Decker instead of simply being married to one. Connie too, I supposed; I couldn't imagine her living any life other than a Decker-surrounded one, going along amiably with whatever the more forceful family members decided. That was a strange time in my life, ten years ago; I couldn't be a Rob Kurland and I didn't want to be a Connie Decker, so I'd fled to more familiar stamping grounds in the hope of finding myself a warm spot there. I just couldn't see any place for myself in the Decker family.

Out loud, I said, “I ran away because I couldn't keep up with them.” That was the first time I'd ever admitted that. It didn't make me feel any better.

So there I was, sitting on a tree stump in a Massachusetts woods, wearing the wrong shoes and feeling sorry for myself. With all the grief the Deckers had, I was feeling sorry for
myself
. That didn't make me feel better either. It dawned on me that all this monumentally unhelpful self-exploration was in fact only a diversionary tactic, a way of avoiding facing up to what was going on here.

The truth was, I was terrified. In all my life, I had never before known anyone who'd been
murdered
. My god, that was something you read about in the newspapers! And then I find that four of my late husband's family have all been murdered, and most likely the killing wasn't over yet. As much trouble as I had believing something this messy and out of control could be happening to the Deckers, I was still afraid. Because
something
was happening—I didn't know who was behind it or why, or what would happen next; was I in danger? Connie had said as much after she'd pulled me here from Chicago. Because my name had once been Decker, was I now a target? I wanted to go home—I wanted to go back to my house and my museum and
my
life; I wanted it so much it hurt.