No River Too Wide (27 page)

Jan Seaton
was
Jan Stoddard, the mother of Harmony and wife of Rex. Tracking her hadn’t been simple, but neither had it been particularly difficult. From the beginning he had figured the daughter was the key. After trying other tactics, he had gotten access to the Stoddards’ phone records and combed through them carefully. In the past two years there had been several calls from Asheville, and the last one, about sixteen months ago, had been made from an Asheville café.

Suspicion aroused, he had called the number, identified himself as an old family friend and asked to speak to Harmony Stoddard. The manager, with no idea what she was revealing, told him Harmony no longer worked there, but as they continued to chat he’d learned that she was still in the area, working at a kennel. The kennel bred service dogs, and before they hung up the manager told him the general area where to find it. He had asked her not to tell Harmony about the call, since he was hoping to surprise her, and she had wished him well.

Finding the kennel had been as easy as finding the Capable Canines web page. Finding Harmony had required old-fashioned surveillance, which had turned up a tall blonde woman who, when his long-distance photos were blown up, looked to be a slightly more mature version of the Harmony Stoddard pictured in her high school yearbook. A day later while he was still watching the Reynolds house and debating what to do next, a bobtail truck had pulled up just beyond the road leading to the farmhouse and a dark-haired woman had gotten out, a woman he recognized from a photo taken several years before at a New Year’s open house for Rex Stoddard’s clients and staff.

Jan Stoddard.

Bingo.

Now that he’d located Mrs. Stoddard, Adam’s job was to find out everything he could. That, too, hadn’t been particularly difficult. He’d seen Taylor and her daughter arrive slightly after Jan, seen them leave with her not long after. He’d tailed them to Taylor’s house, and the rest?

Now it wasn’t simple at all. Because while this was a job that entailed no physical danger, the emotional fallout was going to be a problem. On more levels than he could count.

Taylor was going to be a problem.

At six he got up, showered, shaved and dressed, and by six-thirty he was sitting at a small restaurant within walking distance of his apartment having pancakes and coffee. By eight he was back at his home after taking the longest route home through tree-shaded neighborhoods and streets that turned up little to interest him.

Settled in a corner armchair, he pulled out his cell phone and made the call he had contemplated since waking. He went through the usual procedures and personnel until the man who supervised him was on the phone.

“Got anything useful yet, Pryor?”

“I’d say the wife and daughter’s locations were pretty useful.”

“Right. I was looking for something new.”

“They’re both living simply. The daughter gets child support, and she works, but she shops at thrift stores and lives on the farm in an apartment above the garage. Her car is decent, but it appears the baby’s father gave it to her. He bought it. He signed it over. I doubt money was exchanged.”

“How about the wife?”

“Lives with another woman in a smallish house and provides child care when the woman is working. Doesn’t have a car. Dresses simply. Doesn’t seem to have brought much with her. Got her hair cut and colored, but that’s the only sign I’ve seen that she has money to spend.”

“Still using an assumed name?”

Adam grunted in affirmation. “
I’ve
got questions for
you
now.”

“I don’t know why. You know what we know.”

“Maybe you didn’t think this was important. Do you have any reason to think that Stoddard abused his wife?”

“Abused?”

“Jan Stoddard is skittish, like she’s used to having somebody come at her regularly. Sometimes she flinches when I get too close. She’s in my self-defense class, but she’s terrified to even pretend she’s confronting an attacker. Half the time I can barely hear her when she speaks, like she’s sure whatever she has to say will get her into serious trouble.” He stopped. He could have gone on, but he figured he had made his point.

“Nothing like that’s come up.”

“Did you go deep enough that it would have?”

“When we decided to go deep we hired
you
to figure out what part the Stoddard women play in our little drama. But I can tell you this. I’m not a big fan of women who claim they’re abused. It’s not like they can’t leave. I had a cousin who regularly got beat up by a boyfriend, and she never told anybody in the family, not for a year or even more. Then he went to jail for something else, and she finally told her mother. The family got her counseling, a new place to live, the whole nine yards to the tune of big bucks, but when he got out, she went right back to him.”

Adam knew that arguing would be pointless. “You’re saying that even if Rex Stoddard was regularly beating his wife, she’s just waiting here for him to show up so they can be a happy little family again?”

“I’m saying these things are complicated and you don’t have much to go on yet. If she
was
abused, that could give her the motive for a number of things, right? Including shooting the mister in the head with a gun from that arsenal they found traces of after the fire. I’m sure you’ve considered all the others?”

“There are a number of things to check.”

“This whole thing is dragging on. You got a lot at first, but make sure that continues or we’ll have to rethink what we’re paying you.”

“I can’t just make things happen. They’ll happen when they do,
if
they do. And you’re only paying when I’m working. I’m a cheap date.”

“Because
you
don’t want something full-time. You’re a loner. Just remember what this is about. It’s not social work, okay?”

Adam hung up and considered his next call; then he picked up his phone again. He was glad he had a long empty day ahead of him. He was going to need every minute.

* * *

Jan had a car. Her own car. On Monday afternoon, on the way to the studio to pick it up, Taylor listened patiently as an unusually vocal Jan explained why this car was so important to her.

The story clarified more about the years of abuse. The only time Jan had owned a car herself was when her parents died and she inherited their station wagon, and then only for a month before Rex sold it for her. He had patiently explained she didn’t need a gas guzzler, and the value would go down every day that she hesitated. She could put the money away and buy something more appropriate once it was needed.

Of course, that day never arrived. At first solicitous Rex-the-boyfriend claimed he would be happy to drive her everywhere, or she could have use of
his
car whenever she needed it. In the first months of their marriage, whenever she suggested getting a car of her own Rex-the-husband made excuses. Eventually he hadn’t bothered to respond. By then she had known what would happen if she pushed.

“Why do you think he didn’t want you to drive? Was he afraid you would leave him?” Taylor asked when Jan finished.

“If I’d had my own car, I might have made friends, and maybe talked to them about what was going on at home. Without a car?” She shook her head. “Of course, we had a phone, but after a while who could I call?”

Taylor was afraid she might be pushing too hard, but she really couldn’t stop herself from asking the next question. “Did you realize what was happening, and you just couldn’t stop it?”

“It didn’t happen overnight. It happened a little at a time. He had explanations, excuses. He bought me gifts and told me how badly he felt that he couldn’t afford better for me yet. He made promises, gave me lavish compliments. The abuse came in spurts. In the early years, when he wasn’t in a rage he was funny and kind, and so very sorry when he exploded. I was lulled into submission.”

“You loved him?”

“I loved a man who never existed, but it took too long to see and believe it. I know it’s hard to understand.” Jan’s voice caught. “What’s the expression? You had to have been there?”

“Harmony
was
there, but I’ve never heard her say she loved her father.”

“Like all little girls, she wanted her daddy’s attention, but our son was the favorite. By the time Harmony was old enough to understand what was going on, there were few things to love about Rex.”

“I’m just glad you’re both away from him.”

“I just wish I knew for sure.”

As they pulled into the studio lot, the mood lightened again. Jan changed the subject and chatted about all the things she was looking forward to. She couldn’t wait to study the manual so she would know everything the car could do. She was going to buy a car seat for Lottie so they could go for rides whenever she babysat. She even thought someday soon she might brave the drive up Doggett Mountain to the Goddess House to spend some time with Cristy.

“You’ll meet
all
the goddesses next Sunday,” Taylor said. “I just found out we’re having a harvest celebration, and everybody’s coming up to the house.”

Jan’s car was parked in the corner of the lot. They parked beside it. Jan couldn’t stop smiling, and Jan smiling was a lovely sight.

“It’s great,” Taylor said as she got out and circled it. “And it only has thirty thousand miles?”

The perky little Honda seemed to preen in the sunlight, its sleek blue chassis soaking up the rays. Jan stroked the hood. “He was selling it for his cousin. It’s cute, isn’t it? He had several cars ready to go, but he said this was the best bet. He gave it a complete tune-up, replaced the brake pads and filters, and repaired a few dents. He said I can bring it back anytime in the next six months if anything develops, either to repair or get my money back, and Rilla says I can trust him.”

“That
is
a good deal.”

Yesterday Jan had given Rilla a check for the car from her personal bank account, which had then gone straight into Harmony’s. This morning Harmony had written her own check and done all the paperwork for the title and insurance. Finally she and Rilla had dropped the car off and hidden the keys under the driver’s seat.

Even the cloak-and-dagger nature of the transaction clearly hadn’t spoiled it for Jan. Officially the car might belong to Harmony Stoddard, but the car was her very own, bought and paid for with her own money, and she was delighted.

Taylor completed her circuit and came to stand beside her. “So, where are you going to go to celebrate?”

“I’m going to buy a sewing machine.”

“Wow.”

“I can’t remember a day like this one. First the car, which I needed, and second a sewing machine, which I don’t need but...”

Taylor could hear that this much freedom was heady, if also a little frightening. “To make the girls Halloween costumes?”

“Not just. I have a granddaughter, and while I can’t compete with all those expensive frilly dresses her father’s buying her, I can still sew for her. And for Maddie, if she’ll let me. I just...well, I just want one.”

Taylor realized the significance, and she moved closer and gave Jan a quick hug. “I think you should have anything you want, Jan. Anything at all. You sure deserve to be happy.”

“I’m getting some practice. Waking up in your house every morning makes me happy, for starters.”

Another car pulled into the lot, and Taylor saw who it belonged to. “Adam’s here.” She hadn’t expected to see him. She did a quick mental assessment and wished she had washed her hair that morning instead of waiting until tomorrow.

“I’m going to take off,” Jan said. “I can’t wait to get behind the wheel and drive.”

“You have fun. Will you be home for dinner?”

Jan looked surprised; then she smiled. “I could stay out, couldn’t I? I don’t want to, but I could.”

“Of course. I can bring Maddie with me tonight. The last class ends in plenty of time to get her home and in bed.”

“No, I’ll be home to help you cook. It’s just...” Jan’s smile widened. “It’s so nice to have a choice.” She looked as if she had just seen the sun after years in solitary confinement.

Taylor realized that comparison was too close to the truth. Sometimes out of nowhere she would feel herself standing in the older woman’s shoes and imagine, just for seconds, what it must have been like to have her world so curtailed, so subject to the whims of a psychopath. The false charm, the lies, the manipulation and, most of all, the abuse.

Years of living with that? For a moment she wasn’t sure she could breathe.

Jan was oblivious. “So off I go just because, well, I can!” She went around the car and got into the driver’s seat, then fished under it until she held up the keys for Taylor to see. She gave a quick wave, then backed out carefully, and in a moment she was gone.

Just as Adam got out of his SUV.

“Did I scare her away?” he asked, walking over to where Taylor was standing.

Mentally she shook her imagination back into place and took a deep breath. No one was abusing her. No one was stalking her. No one was lying to her. She was standing in the parking lot of her studio, and Jan herself was off to spend a happy day alone.

“She’s not one bit scared. She’s in heaven. That’s a new car—new to her, at least. She’s off for a drive. And she’s going to buy a sewing machine, too. She’s having quite the day.”

He gave a soft whistle. “She must have a depleted bank account to show for it.”

“Money well spent, all of it.” Taylor cocked her head in question. “Isn’t this Monday?”

“You probably want to know what I’m doing here.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I’m dropping into your drop-in yoga class.”

She was flattered and intrigued, while at the same time slivers of anxiety were working their way into place. Adam as her student? Adam in a class where she needed total concentration? “Yoga?”

“I’m not working out as much as I used to. I figure the stretches will be good to keep me limber.”

“You want to see me in action, don’t you? I’ve seen you teach. Now
you
want to see
me.
”