The Club

by Jane Heller

  About fifteen minutes later, Hunt did return and he didn’t look any happier than his daughter. He announced that he wanted to go home, which astonished me. He never left the club in the middle of the day, not when there were hours of networking left.

  When we arrived at the house, Hunt called his parents and asked if he could bring Kimberley over for an impromptu visit. Apparently, they said yes, because he and Kimberley were out the door in a matter of minutes.

  “Don’t go anywhere. I want to talk to you,” he said before slamming the door in my face.

  When I was sure they were gone, I ran to the phone to beep Tom. I was dying to know what he’d told Hunt. I was also dying to know why he had beeped me at the club and what kind of dirt he’d dug up on Brendan. But as I dialed Tom’s beeper number, it occurred to me that he might not call me back right away; that by the time he did call me back, Hunt would be home. I didn’t want to make things worse, so I hung up the phone and waited.

  Twenty minutes later, Hunt returned.

  “Is Kimberley all right?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about Kimberley,” said Hunt. “I want to talk about you and…and Tom.”

  “Look, Hunt, if you reached Detective Cunningham, he probably explained to you that the reason he was—”

  “He didn’t explain anything,” said Hunt. “Your boyfriend held fast to your secret.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend and there is no secret,” I said. “At least, not the kind of secret you’re alluding to.”

  “Really? Then why don’t you tell me what kind of secret you and Tom have together.” He stood in the kitchen with his arms folded across his chest. His cheekbones bulged as he worked his jaw.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything.” I took a deep breath. “Just after Claire’s death, Tom Cunningham, one of the Belford police detectives assigned to the investigation, asked me to come down to the station to answer a few questions about Claire and the night she died.”

  “I remember.”

  “During that interview, I must have given him the impression that I wasn’t a fan of the people at The Oaks.”

  “No news there. You trash the club any chance you get.”

  “Do you want to hear my explanation or don’t you?”

  “Go on.”

  “Tom called a couple of weeks later and asked if he could come and talk to me. I said yes.”

  “He came here? To our house?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? He’s a cop investigating the death of the woman I was planning to write a cookbook with.”

  “I suppose.”

  “He came here and said he thought the person who killed Claire might be someone from the club but that he couldn’t arrest anybody until he had a motive for the murder. He asked me if I’d be interested in helping him.”

  “In helping him? How?”

  “By working as a police informant.” There, I said it.

  “You’re telling me this detective asked you to work for the police?”

  “Yes. And I accepted his offer. I thought it would be a great way to help bring Claire’s murderer to justice, make a little money, and give me something to do while I waited for a publishing job to open up.”

  “But a police informant? What does that involve?”

  “It involves spying on the members of The Oaks. It involves trying to help Tom—Detective Cunningham—figure out which one of the members had a motive for smashing Claire on the back of the head with that pitching wedge.”

  Hunt looked sick.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, his face as chalky as Rolaids. “You’ve been snooping around the club, feeding this cop with damaging and incriminating information about people I consider to be my friends, people I play golf with, people I’m trying to get as clients?”

  I nodded.

  “And then you’ve gone running off to secret meetings with the guy?”

  “The meetings are part of the job,” I said. “I can’t exactly have tea with him at the club.”

  “I can’t believe all this. I really can’t.” He pulled on his left ear lobe. “Where do you meet him?”

  “Usually at the Stop ’n’ Shop.”

  “Yeah, right. In the frozen food section, I’ll bet.”

  “No. We meet in the parking lot.”

  “What about your little spot along the river? The ‘make-out’ place Tom took you to yesterday?”

  “That was a special thing,” I said. “Tom wanted to show it to me. So I went.”

  “Yeah? What else did he want to show you, huh, Judy?”

  “Hunt, it’s not what you think. Really.”

  “How about his crack about your legs?”

  “I have nice legs. Tom noticed, unlike other people I know.”

  Hunt flinched as if I’d hit him. “Do you deny that you’re sleeping with the guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me about your little ‘arrangement’? Why did you lie to me, Judy?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It was wrong of me not to tell you I was working with the police. But I knew how much you valued your membership at The Oaks. How could I tell you I was hired to get dirt on the members there?”

  He shook his head. “I’m your husband. I can’t believe you’d do something like this behind my back. I can’t believe you’d jeopardize all the contacts I’ve made at the club. I can’t believe you’d jeopardize your life, for Christ’s sake.”

  “My life?”

  “Yeah. Police work is dangerous business. You could get hurt.”

  “Would you care?”

  “Of course I’d care.”

  “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in months.”

  “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it, Judy,” Hunt said, his voice rising. “You think I’m a boring clod who doesn’t know how to show his wife he cares. Well, here’s a bulletin for you: I am a boring clod. I am not some hot-shit bachelor cop with a thrill-a-minute job, I’m a commodities broker with a wife and a kid and a mortgage. Not very glamorous, I admit, but that’s the way it is. What’s more, you never used to mind. In fact, you never used to mind that I didn’t take you to make-out spots along the river. You didn’t need Hallmark greeting card shit like that to know I loved you. You never used to accuse me of not caring.” He stopped to wipe some spittle from the corner of his mouth. “And speaking of not caring, do you think your constant jabs and barbs and relentless sarcasm go right over my head? Do you think I don’t know how dull you find me? How frustrated you are with me? How ineffectual a parent you think I am? Do you think it doesn’t hurt when you put down every fucking thing that gives me pleasure—my work, my golf, my club, even my daughter?”

  He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and put his head in his hands. I prayed he wouldn’t cry. If he cried, that would mean I’d made three people cry in one day.

  “Hunt,” I said, “hasn’t it occurred to you that the reason I didn’t tell you about my job with the police was that you and I have drifted apart—dangerously apart? We live in the same house, but we’re strangers. We don’t connect. We don’t communicate. We don’t have sex.”

  “And I suppose Detective Cunningham is better at all that than I am?”

  “God! You can be so dense! Listen to me! I am not having an affair with Tom. I am working with the man. Why can’t you get it through your fucking head that the person I want to connect, communicate, and have sex with is you?” I slammed my hand down on the kitchen counter for emphasis and regretted the gesture instantly. Not only did it hurt my hand, it knocked the salt shaker off the counter and spilled salt all over the floor.

  Neither of us made a move to clean it up. Then both of us did. We nearly collided. Under other circumstances, I would have laughed.

  “Let me,” I said. “I’m the one who spilled it.”

  “Fine,” said Hunt. “Be my guest.”

  I wiped up the salt.

  “Maybe we need some
time apart,” said Hunt.

  I gulped. I’d been thinking the same thing, of course, but when he said it, a large lump formed in my throat.

  “If that’s what you want,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to get over the fact that you didn’t tell me about your deal with the police; that you’ve been hanging around the club, not to please me, as I’d allowed myself to believe, but to gather incriminating evidence against my friends and business associates; that you put your life in danger and didn’t think to discuss it with me.”

  I couldn’t respond.

  “How did we get here?” he asked, rhetorically, it seemed. “We were so happy, weren’t we?”

  I still couldn’t speak. The lump was choking me. So was the irony that, in the past few minutes, Hunt and I had said more to each other than we had in months; that in the very process of accusing me of adultery and of acknowledging our problems, he had finally shown some real emotion.

  “Why don’t we think about what we want,” he said.

  “You mean, what we want out of the marriage or what we want out of life?” I managed.

  “Both,” he said. “I know I have a lot of thinking to do.”

  He started to leave the kitchen, then turned to face me. “I think I’ll do some work upstairs,” he said and left the room.

  We didn’t talk much for the rest of the day. Hunt said he didn’t want dinner, so I ate alone in the kitchen. At about ten, he announced that he was going to sleep—in the guest room.

  “I think it’s best,” was his explanation.

  Alone in our king-size bed for the first time in years, I slept fitfully. I was so tired when I finally got up in the morning that I took the elevator down to the kitchen. Hunt was long gone, but he’d left a note: “Kimberley’s staying with my folks. Went into the office. Won’t be back until late. Don’t wait up. Hunt.” No “Love, Hunt.” No XXXes and OOOs. Nothing. Not even a little face with a smile on it.

  I took a shower, ate breakfast, and called Tom.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry I beeped you when I did, Judy.”

  “Listen, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I should have told Hunt what I was doing.”

  “Can you meet me in about fifteen minutes?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “The usual. From the sound of your voice, I don’t think this is the day for anything too wild and crazy.”

  When I pulled into the Stop ’n’ Shop parking lot, Tom was there waiting for me. I parked my car and got into his.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “You think you and your husband will work things out?”

  “I don’t know. But I think I discovered something yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “I want to work things out. Hunt’s terribly upset with me now, because I didn’t tell him about my police work, but I have a feeling the whole incident woke him up. Maybe he won’t take me for granted now.”

  “He’s nuts to take you for granted,” said Tom.

  “Listen, before I start blabbing about my marriage again, tell me why you beeped me at the club yesterday. Your message said something about Brendan.”

  “Yeah, I checked out Mr. Hardy, like I said I would, and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “He’s had a couple of scrapes with the law.”

  “Like what?”

  “A little armed robbery here, a little extortion there.”

  “My God. How could The Oaks have hired a chef with a background like that? The club is so picky about the people it allows on the premises. You should have seen the way Duncan Tewksbury and his pals grilled me when I was applying for membership. They asked me everything but my bra size.”

  “Well, they weren’t as tough on Brendan.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “I’ll tell you why. I have a buddy who can find his way into all kinds of records and files. One of the things he came up with was Brendan’s birth certificate.”

  “How juicy could that be? Did Brendan lie about his age or something?”

  “No, but the birth certificate did turn up a very interesting tidbit concerning Brendan’s parentage.”

  “His parentage? Is the senior Mr. Hardy a notorious serial killer?”

  “No. There is no senior Mr. Hardy. According to the birth certificate, Brendan Hardy’s father goes by a different name.”

  “Which is?”

  “Tewksbury. Duncan Tewksbury.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  As I drove home from my meeting with Tom, I kept thinking about his little bombshell: Duncan Tewksbury was Brendan’s father! No wonder he always stuck up for Brendan! But why did they keep their relationship a secret? Who was Lorraine Pennock, the woman listed on the birth certificate as Brendan’s mother? And how did poor Delia Tewksbury, a woman so depressed about her barrenness that she was still crying about it, feel about the whole thing? Did she even know that Brendan was her husband’s son? And what about Claire? She was a member of the family. Did she know that Brendan was her relative and try to get him fired anyway?

  God, I felt like I’d stepped into a Tennessee Williams play. My mother always said that WASPs had tangled family histories and that you never could tell which were the sisters and which were the cousins. Of course in my mother’s family, you could always tell which were the sisters and which were the cousins, because the sisters were the ones that were never speaking to each other.

  At about noon, Hunt called.

  “I won’t be home for dinner,” he said, sounding very cool and distant. “I’m having dinner with a client.”

  “Yes, you mentioned in your note that you’d be home late,” I said. “Who’s the client?”

  “Leeza Grummond.”

  I felt my stomach turn. So that’s how he was paying me back.

  “Give Leeza my worst,” I said.

  “Very funny.”

  “Hunt? How long is this big chill going to last? You buried yourself in work yesterday. You slept in the guest room last night. You left before I was up this morning. And tonight you’re staying in the city to have dinner with my sworn enemy. Don’t you think we should talk? Try to work things out?”

  “Try to work things out? You’re the one who lied, who went behind my back and—”

  “Hunt, there’s no point in going over it again,” I interrupted. “I’ve already explained why I didn’t tell you about my arrangement with Tom. I didn’t want to ruin your friendship with people at the club, and I didn’t think you cared what I did. You’ve been treating me like a piece of cheese lately, and I felt that you—”

  “Oh, now we’re back to what I did to you?”

  It was Hunt’s turn to interrupt me. Interrupting the person you’re fighting with is dirty pool, but all married couples do it—unless, of course, they’ve graduated from one of those How-to-Save-Your-Marriage seminars where husbands and wives are taught to sit and listen to their spouse say horrible and disgusting things about them without ever interrupting. These couples swear by the technique and come out of the seminars smooching and cuddling and claiming they’ve seen The Light. But I’d like to track some of them down, say, five years after the seminar, and see how they’re doing. I’ll bet you nine out of ten of them are up to their old tricks, fighting and cursing and interrupting, just like the good old days.

  “Look, Hunt. We need to sit down together, face to face, and talk calmly, rationally, like adults. I happen to think that the incident with the beeper at the pool yesterday might have been just the catalyst we needed to nudge us out of our rut.”

  “Our rut? Is that what you call what we’ve been in? When a wife lies to her husband, I don’t call that a rut, I call that a betrayal.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Hunt, I really think you’re overreacting here. I mean, I didn’t commit a crime. Quite the contrary. I agreed to help the police solve a crime.”

>   “Without telling me.”

  And around and around we went.

  “Let’s table this until you get home,” I suggested.

  “Fine. I’ve got a meeting now anyway.”

  “Then I’ll see you tonight?”

  “Right. Bye.”

  “Hunt, wait—I want you to know that I still love—”

  Click. He had hung up before I could get the words out.

  I made myself a sandwich and drove over to the club, hoping to learn more about the Duncan-Brendan connection. As luck would have it, I ran into Delia Tewksbury in the ladies’ locker room.

  “Hello, Mrs. Tewksbury,” I said and got her usual blank stare. “I’m Judy Mills. Hunt Price’s wife.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about you, ever since our little chat yesterday.”

  “Chat?”

  “Yes, by the pool.” Was Delia Tewksbury an Alzheimer’s sufferer or just dotty? Or was she the sort of woman—and there were several at The Oaks—who displayed her superiority by acting forgetful, as if to say to the world: “I’m so important I couldn’t possibly be expected to remember someone as insignificant as you.”

  “We were discussing your grandniece, Claire,” I reminded her, “and your maternal feelings toward her.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember now.”

  “And then you expressed your sorrow about not having had a child of your own, while your husband didn’t share your desire for children.”

  “Yes, I recall saying all that,” said Delia as she smoothed the sides of her already impeccably rendered French twist.

  “Well, the reason I bring it up is that my husband and I are going through the very same ordeal. I desperately want children, but Hunt does not.”

  “Pity.”

  “Yes. You see, he already has a child, by another woman.” Just like your husband, Delia. Now let’s see if you know the truth about Brendan and if you’ll admit it to a perfect stranger, like you admitted your barrenness. “It’s not an easy situation to deal with,” I went on. “Knowing your husband has a child that isn’t yours.”