"Hey, I'm eating. Swabbing anything, I really don't need to hear about."
"Then chew this, while you're chewing. When Belle and I had lunch last week, she pretty much told me she was trying to get pregnant. Yesterday, I hear from McGuire that deHaven had a vasectomy before his previous wife divorced him."
Dina swallowed, then hesitated as though the food might slide down the wrong pipe. "Well," she murmured, "maybe it wasn't her husband's baby she wanted."
"Or she'd had a hot 'n heavy one-nighter with her tennis instructor." Jack picked at a thread dangling from the hem of his shorts. "Yeah, I thought about that. Had plenty of time to think about it. Except there's two things I know about Belle. She never, ever screwed around on me. I honestly couldn't have blamed her if she had."
"You would have, though."
The automatic protest was too lame to vocalize. "Okay. I
shouldn't
have blamed her if she had. But the other thing I do know is the majority of our fights were about me refusing to grow up, settle down and start a family."
"She wanted kids, even then."
"Doesn't every woman?"
"Most, I guess." Dina's eyebrows arched. "Some don't, but get the stupid idea that babies fix lousy marriages. If they're lucky, they come to their senses after a pee test gives a false positive."
If it had. The kits weren't infallible, but their accuracy had increased dramatically since Belle streaked to the drugstore in a panic whenever her period was fifteen minutes late.
Dina said, "You don't think she knew about the vasectomy."
Jack shook his head. "Add it to the list of wild-hare notions, but this is my take. The stork doesn't cooperate. Belle assumes she's the problem. The OB-GYN says she isn't. Hubby's snip job can't stay secret, if he's fertility tested. He lies and says the ol' swim team has never scored a bronze, let alone gold, so he'll eat more oysters and rest longer between meets."
Dina burst out laughing. "Stop it. I mean it. This isn't funny."
Not a bit, Jack agreed. Sarcasm was a coping mechanism. Also a habit, but when the going's tough, the tough get snide. Especially if the subject of derision was a blue-ribbon jerk.
"The clock keeps ticking," he said. "Belle is now either disillusioned with the marriage, or okay with it, but carrying deHaven's biological child doesn't look promising. An anonymous donor-swimmer could solve everything. What's done in the lab, stays in the lab."
An affair, Jack admitted silently, would be cheaper and net the same result. Had Belle conceived while they were married, he wouldn't have questioned who the father was. And if they'd
had
a child, McGuire's second bombshell would have left Jack wondering for the rest of his life.
Dina stared into the ozone, nibbling her lower lip. Almost visible were scenes from Harriet's soap operas to commercials for Jerry Springer's paternity ambush shows.
"Secret vasectomy, secret artificial insemination, huh."
Ice cubes tinked as she drank deeply from her glass. "Poetic justice, I guess." A finger squeegeed the frosty condensation. "Passing off a child, though
Evil
may be too strong a word, but
selfish
isn't strong enough."
If an appropriate one existed, it wasn't in Jack's vocabulary. "However it happened, pregnancy wasn't the murder motive. Belle wasn't far enough along for any champagne toasts."
"You're sure?"
"I'd have been the second one to know." True, if the order didn't include Belle. "Could be," he lied, "she'd packed a bottle of bubbly for the trip to Arkansas."
Unmentioned and unnecessary was that Belle didn't live to celebrate anything, or to discover her husband was surgically sterile.
Jack didn't expect the moist, cold hand Dina laid on his arm. Even less, the blunt "She did what she did, Jack. How she could have, what she was thinking, died with her. It's good you got it off your chest. Now let's work on saving your butt."
He looked at her. Nodded, then grinned, instead of exploding out of the chair, flinging it into the yard, cursing and demanding who the hell Dina thought she was, talking to him like that. About Belle like that.
"Okay," he said, as though she'd suggested a refill on the tea. "After Harriet's nap, if you can leave her alone awhile, I'll introduce you to the fine art of lying for a living."
15
"I
thought we were going to your office."
"We are." Jack ducked and squinted out the Taurus's windshield to check the street sign's hundred block. "This is the scenic route."
He knew without looking that the answer didn't satisfy Dina. Supplying constant explanations was one of many reasons why McPhee Investigations was a one-man operation. Jack lost plenty of arguments with himself without a tiebreaker frowning at him from the passenger's seat.
"Make yourself useful," he said. "Watch for 4722."
"Three blocks up, in the middle. The even house numbers are on your side of the street."
"Gee, thanks. I hadn't noticed."
"Mary O. Blankenship, 4722 Nebraska Avenue," she said. "Brett Dean Blankenship's mother. She's lived there for at least two years."
Jack's head whipped sideways so fast, his neck popped. "And you know that, how?"
"Well
" Dina's drawl insinuated
Elementary, my dear Sherlock.
"The computer searches you did Monday night on Blankenship included his address. This morning, when Mom was so worried about you, I kind of looked him up in the kitchen phone book. He wasn't listed, but Mary O. had the same address."
She grinned. "I was just guessing about her being his mother."
"You didn't call him. Please, tell me you didn't call him."
"I started to, then I decided if he had beaten you up or something, he probably wouldn't admit it."
Jack blew out a sigh. "People are usually a little reluctant to discuss assault and battery on the phone."
"Especially with a stranger."
"Uh-huh." He slowed as he approached the 4700 block. "What made you think Mrs. Blankenship has lived here only two years?"
"At least two years," she corrected. "Because that's how old the kitchen phone book is. There's lots of notes, doctor referrals, billing codes
stuff
written in the front. Saving it's easier than copying everything into new ones."
Jack's archived directories harked back to the annual delivery cycle exclusive to Ma Bell. The handwritten information in them was obsolete; the doodles were priceless.
The yellow brick tract house at 4722 Nebraska was well-kempt, but trimmed in garish plum with an apple-green front door. Parked in the driveway were two subcompact Chevys: a cherry-red, late-model four-door, and Moby the Dickhead's older, grimy white one. Jack speculated it must be Mom's hand-me-down, and Brett Dean was not properly appreciative of her generosity.
"Wow," Dina said. "Somebody smacked him but good."
The caved driver's door, front fender and duct-taped plastic over the window indicated a T-bone collision with an approximately same-sized vehicle. Anything with a higher profile would have crushed the Cavalier like a soda can.
"Do you think he's
all right?" Dina asked.
"Yeah. Relatives of fatalities don't have the cars towed home and plunked in the driveway."
She snorted. "You're all heart, McPhee."
"Well, they
don't.
" Jack went through the intersection, then pulled into the corner house's driveway for a U-turn. "I want the mope off my back, not in the morgue."
"He could have put us there," she allowed. "But his car sure wasn't damaged like that when he tried."
"That Grand Theft Auto getaway might have caused it. A block or few from the cop shop, the side streets are residential with two-way stops. By the damage, I'm guessing he blew one and got clipped."
Jack swung into the curb a house down from the Blankenships'. "Want to pay a sympathy call, or wait here?"
"We're going" Dina glanced down at her bare legs, tennis shoes and shorts. "I'm really not dressed to meet anybody."
"Oh, for God's sake." Jack unlatched the seat belt and shouldered open the door. Before it shut, she'd scrambled out the passenger's side.
As they strode up the sidewalk, she muttered, "I just wish you'd told me about this, is all."
"Spur of the moment. Gotta be nimble, kid. Ready for anything."
What she muttered next was garbled. It didn't sound complimentary.
The woman who answered the door was above average height, roundish at the torso, but svelte compared to her son. Tired yet friendly eyes peered from glasses with stylish rectangular lenses. "Yes?" She looked past Jack at the driveway, then the curb for an identifying vehicle.
"Mrs. Blankenship?" Jack's smile assured her he was neither a salesman nor a serial killer. "We heard about Brett Dean's accident and thought we'd stop by and see how he's doing." A raised hand, then, "Sorry, we should have called first. If we're intruding
"
"No, no, of course not." The dust cloth waving them inside disappeared behind her back. "My boss let me take the week off, but I can't seem to find time enough to clean."
The living room had a cozy, lived-in quality, instead of an impersonal, reserved-for-company feel. From furnishings to accessories, Mary Blankenship was into barnyard country collectibles in a big way. A lopsided corduroy recliner, ginormous TV and slew of video gaming equipment marked Brett Dean's territory.
"Y'all go ahead and make yourself comfortable. There's soda in the fridge, or I can make"
"Thanks," Dina said, "but we really can't stay. We just wanted to make sure Brett was all right."
Jack draped an arm over her shoulder, signaling "Nice job" and a hopeful "Now zip it and let me do the talking."
"He's asleep at the moment." Mrs. Blankenship smiled toward a hallway. "Those pain pills he's on sure knock him out."
"From the look of his car," Jack said, "he's lucky he wasn't hurt a lot worse."
"Coming out of it with two fractured wrists and a broken ankle?" She rolled her eyes. "'Who cares?' he says. 'What am I s'posed to do all day? Can't work the computer, can't play video games. Can't hardly feed myself.'"
Her voice was higher than her son's, but the snivel in it was pitch-perfect.
"Men are so-o negative." Dina flinched, as though an insult had accidentally slipped out. "He'll adjust in a day or two. Good grief, it just happened yesterday."
"Not yesterday. Monday morning." Mrs. Blankenship hastened to add, "But you're right about being negative. Mostly, I think Brett Dean's mad at himself. He won't admit it, but the wreck
was
his fault. He ought to be thanking the Lord that the lady and her two kids in the other car didn't get a scratch."
"Amen to that." Jack's hip gently butted Dina in the ribs. "I guess we'd better run along and let you get back to your cleaning." He reached behind her for the doorknob. "Next time, though, we will call first."
"No need to. I'll tell Brett Dean you stopped by, as soon as he wakes up." She hesitated, then sighed. "This is awfully embarrassing, but your names must've gone in one ear and out the other."
"Melville," was the first one Jack thought of. "Herman Melville."
"And I'm Jane Austen."
"Well, it was very nice to meet you both. Come back anytime."
They were barely out of sight before Dina smacked Jack's arm. "Herman Melville. Are you nuts?"
"A Freudian slip. If you'd gotten a good look at Blankenship, you'd word-associate
whale,
too." He unlocked the car door and opened it. "After you, Miss Austen."
When he got in on the opposite side, Dina said, "I should have made up something instead of teasing you. Mrs. Blankenship was so nice to us, and what if Brett Dean is more of a reader than she is?"
"A description will tag me, and more than likely you." Jack pulled away from the curb. "Originally I wanted to find out if he had an alibi for Sunday afternoon. It's a leap backward from killing Belle to attempted vehicular homicide, but Moby's got more loose screws than a hardware store."
"You think he hates you enough to frame you for murder?"
"Maybe." Jack shrugged. "Underestimating a whacko isn't wise. As for being smart enough to pull it off? The more I considered it, the more doubtful it seemed. But like I told you, his background info on Belle made me hinky the day he showed it to me."
"Then why didn't you ask Mrs. Blankenship where he was?"
Several evasions were evaluated and rejected. "I intended to invent a mutual friend who said Brett Dean got shit-faced Sunday afternoon, then wrecked his car." He glanced sideward. "If he was home, or Mrs. B. knew where he was, she'd have Mama Beared me in a heartbeat."
