I try to remember even one thing Jack and I discussed. Arguments, money worries, what was for dinner. Nothing comes to mind. The bastard kept his plans well hidden from me.
Brett wags his forefinger. “Not when we first spoke. Later Jack admitted he and his father had had a serious disagreement. Very contentious.” He stares at his hands, and then looks up at Nate. “It’s one of the reasons I turned him down.”
“Big Jack, you have anything to add?” Mike fixes his gaze on my father-in-law, while I wonder what he can possibly say in his own defense.
“We argued. That’s all.” Big Jack spews the words out, like the snap of a wet towel.
“What about?” I’m not letting him off the hook that easy.
“He wanted to spend too much on another of his cockeyed schemes. I wouldn’t go for it.”
“Is that when he started contacting other people?” I want to make him squirm and don’t care if it happens in front of my father. “As potential partners?”
“I told him he had to give me back the money he took.”
“You mean, the money you gave him?”
“I didn’t give him any money. On his last day at work, he took $18,000 from the office safe. I told him he’d have to pay it back.”
I sink back in my chair. Is this the money Colton was talking about the other day, when I didn’t believe him? Without grasping all the implications of Jack’s actions, I can see his behavior those last days as desperate. But desperate enough to steal from his father? If Colton knew about it, no wonder he didn’t want me to dig all this up. He’s been fighting me to protect Jack.
“Nate, it appears you might have been the last one to speak to Jack.” Mike leans back in his chair and tugs at his belt buckle. “What was your impression of Jack’s reaction to the news you’d bought the whole enchilada?”
Jack’s David to my father’s Goliath, maybe? Except Goliath would win this one. I am disgusted just hearing about it.
My father places his hands carefully on the edge of the table as if he’s hiding the cards he’d just been dealt. “Disbelief at first. He thought he’d be out of a job the next day.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I offered him his same job at a slightly higher salary, with a chance for advancement. I planned to make him area manager in the event of improvement and expansion.” Nate throws a quick look in my direction. “He knew there’d be hurdles, but he seemed pleased.”
My father’s voice reveals his unemotional, matter-of-fact demeanor, a practiced response to every event, whether crisis or routine. He used the identical tone when he informed me my mother was all packed for a visit to the sanitarium. I don’t cry this time either.
We must have been getting ready to take a trip somewhere because somebody’s luggage waited in the front entryway. No one told me where we were going, but I supposed Mrs. Gussmann had already instructed one of the upstairs maids to pack for me. I climbed the stairs to my room, to be sure my doll Esmeralda came along. Three years ago Mother’s cousin, Audrey Cromwell, ordered it for Christmas from a doll maker who created it to look like me. Esmeralda and I also had seven matching outfits. Despite what Clyde said, nine wasn’t too old to be playing with dolls.
My room looked just as I left it this morning, clean and everything put away. I wondered where my suitcases were. Maybe someone carried them to the trunk of the car already.
I tucked Esmeralda under my arm and wandered down the hall to Mother’s suite. Grunts and groans came from beyond her bedroom. I tiptoed toward her dressing room and peeked in. She straddled a bench, pulling on a knob to her highboy. The bottom drawer wouldn’t open, and she used language that would earn me a spanking. When she noticed me, she asked me to bring her a hammer. She needed lingerie for the trip.
I was not allowed to give Mother any tools, nor was anyone else, but I went downstairs anyway in search of someone to help. To my surprise, our pilot Danny waited in the entry hall.
“Hello, missy.” He doffed his cap. “Coming for another ride with me soon?”
“Of course.” I tried not to make a face at him, since I hated that nickname. The Negro servants called me Miss Sally, but everyone else just used my name. “Can you please come help me?” All the same, I thought he was very cute, with broad shoulders and close-cropped blond hair. He won some medals in the last war and was very proud of them. Mrs. Gussmann once said he acted like he was the Lord’s gift to women, but I didn’t know what she meant by that.
I took him upstairs to my mother’s dressing room. His eyes widened when he saw my mother in her pale pink dressing gown, barefooted and with her blonde hair hanging down.
She asked him to get the drawer unstuck and he moved the bench out of the way. She and I stepped back while he braced his foot against the front of the dresser, next to the stubborn drawer. Standing on one leg, he gave a mighty pull, once, twice, and the drawer popped open. He flew backwards, dragging the drawer with him and scattering Mother’s underwear all over the floor. Danny flopped on his back and a pair of blue lace panties landed on his face.
Mother shrieked with laughter, holding her tummy and leaning against the wall. I started to giggle, until the figure of my father blocked the light in the doorway.
“What is going on here?’ he barked.
Like it was a giant leech, Danny snatched the underpants from his face and turned sickly white. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he gasped. “Mr. Wallace, I swear I was just helping your missus get a drawer unstuck.” He jumped to his feet. “I was downstairs when your daughter came to get me.”
I felt sorry for our pilot. Daddy shouldn’t have been mad at him, because the troublesome drawer wasn’t his fault. Daddy glanced at me, and I nodded, but he glared at Mother. Then he turned to Danny. “Your only concern here is to take the luggage to the airstrip and stow it in the plane. Wait for me on the front porch.”
Danny raced out of the room and I edged toward the door. I didn’t want to witness my parents arguing. It would make for a bad beginning to our trip together.
My father picked up a white bra and tossed it at my mother. “Please get your clothes on. We’re leaving in ten minutes.” He talked through clenched teeth, but his manner was calm.
She shouted at him that she wouldn’t go and didn’t need any check-up at the clinic in Baltimore.
I put my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear her.
“You want the doctor to come here again and give you another treatment?” Daddy spoke softer than she did, the kind of tone that perked up everyone’s ears because they didn’t want to miss a syllable.
He might as well have thrown a blanket over her. She rubbed her wrists and frowned, as if she was trying to remember where she left her gold cuff bracelets. Her voice grew quieter, like she was telling a secret, as she promised to get dressed and meet him in the entry hall.
Daddy turned to leave and stopped when he saw me. “Oh?” He glanced at Mother, uncertainty on his face. “How long have you been standing there, Sally?”
He didn’t wait for my answer, as he left the room in two quick strides.
Mother dropped to the floor and shoveled her lingerie back into the drawer. I knelt to help her, but she told me never mind. Scrambling to her feet, she sent me out so she could change into a traveling suit.
I went back downstairs to the entry. Daddy must have stepped outside. I checked the ID tags on the only two bags remaining. They belonged to Mother. Danny probably stowed mine already.
The front door swung open, and Danny came in to gather up the two bags. He must have been still embarrassed, because he didn’t look at me.
“May I come sit beside you during the flight for a little while?” I asked. “I like to watch the instruments.”
He looked puzzled. “I didn’t think you were coming on this jaunt.” His hands were too full for him to close the front door after he took the bags outside.
His words pierced my heart like icicles. Why couldn’t I go along on the trip? It wasn’t
fair to leave me behind.
In a panic, I looked to the left and right. Daddy wasn’t in either room. A door closed upstairs. The grandfather clock’s first chime startled me, and I ran to my father’s office. He talked quietly into the phone and snapped his briefcase shut at the same time. When he hung up, he stared at me.
As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Not this trip. You’re staying home.” His voice was calm, as if he had just given Mrs. Gussmann his order for dinner.
Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked several times to make them quit. “But I don’t want to get left here. Mother needs me to go with her.”
He hefted his leather case off his desk.
I fought back the sobs and swallowed hard. “How soon will she be home?”
“I’ll be back in a few days.” He walked out, leaving me to gaze at the portrait of Mother hanging over the mantel. It was painted when she was young and beautiful and healthy.
While I still stared at her portrait, the front door closed.
School and Mrs. Gussmann kept me busy, so several days passed before I realized how long they had been gone. By the dinner hour of the third day, I was excited to learn the plane had landed at Daddy’s airstrip. Downstairs, I waited for the sound of his car in the driveway. I wanted to show Mother my book report and what I’d been drawing while she was away. Daddy came in the house alone.
I stood on my tiptoes, but couldn’t see over his shoulder. “Where’s Mother?”
He sighed and placed his briefcase on the table in the entryway. “She has to stay at the hospital.”
“For how long?”
Daddy rubbed his chin, his fingers covering his mouth. “For a long time.”
When he said she was sick and the doctors told him a cure was impossible, I felt like I had stepped into a flowing stream and the water rushed by faster than I realized. I was about to lose my balance and get swept away, taken far from the shore I have always known.
Mike shuffles his papers. “Did you and Jack discuss anything else that last evening, Nate?”
I didn’t know he is allowed to address my father by his first name. Besides Mother, Clyde was the only other person I ever heard call him Nate. Perhaps logical, since Clyde was Mike’s father.
“He expressed concern over telling his wife about the sale of his father’s company. He worried Sally would leave him.” He glances toward me and speaks more softly. “Again.”
Mike’s eyebrows shoot up and his eyes shift sideways at me.
I swallow hard and wonder how red my face has turned. “It was only once . . . before Colton was born.” Does my father also know I returned because I discovered I was pregnant? He has no idea what it requires to keep a marriage together for the sake of a child. His fortune let him take the easy way out.
Mike returns his gaze to Nate’s face. “You mean because her husband would be working for her estranged father?”
Is Mike trying to pin Jack’s state of mind on me? My husband and I never discussed any of his arrangements concerning Brett or my father.
As Nate nods, Mike purses his lips. “Did he mention Big Jack’s reaction to finding his son and his company under new management?”
Nate inclines his head toward Big Jack. “He told me they almost came to blows. His father fired him, then kicked him out of the office.”
Big Jack stirs in his wheelchair. “He was my employee. It was strictly business between us. I had every right to . . .”
So that’s what Big Jack has been hiding. He will never be anything but a vicious, malevolent bastard who deserves to die alone. How could he make his son suffer so?
Mike rubs his palms together and takes a deep breath. “It seems we have several reasons why Jack may have felt despondent, despite the benefits of new ownership. Possibly the good news didn’t outweigh the bad, at least in his mind.” He looks at me and hands me Jack’s book. “Unless you can give me any other insight, I’ll have to stick with the original ruling from the county coroner.”
Gasping, I grab the edge of the table until my knuckles hurt. “But Mike, the appointment book–”
“Doesn’t prove anything.” His voice softens. “It seems like Jack became overwhelmed at the impact of such a big change. Sally, please accept that.” He puts his hand on my arm, but I jerk it away. “That’s not to say anyone’s to blame. Jack probably just didn’t see a way through. The money situation, or whatever you want to call it, was extra pressure. He went out after his last day at work, had a few too many drinks, came home late, and left the motor running when he shut the garage door.”
“You’re wrong. Jack made plans for later. Days after he . . .” I wave Jack’s book at him, while my thoughts choke off my air and I can’t get a breath.
“May I see that, please?” says Nate.
Brett asks my permission and then hands it to Nate. Not even our fingertips touch.
After flipping a few pages, Nate looks at me. “Jack wrote Colton’s name on the Sunday following the day of his death, maybe for a father-son event.” He holds out the appointment book toward me. “Is it possible your son could add something?”
Brett intercepts it for me and I pass the book to Mike. “You’ve got to speak to Colton. You can make it part of his probation.”
Mike doesn’t move. “Are you suggesting I try to trick him?”
“He won’t discuss anything with me. Maybe you can get him to tell you what he and Jack talked about that night.”
Mike glowers at me. “Have you forgotten that he knocked me down at the festival, or did you think he was playing tackle?”
“Use your official powers of persuasion. Tell him he can’t evade your questions or pretend he doesn’t remember.”
“What makes you believe he might know anything?”
“I already mentioned, Colton told me Jack called home around nine o’clock that night, but he wouldn’t tell me what he said, except that he’d be late.” I gulp and try not to hiccough. “Please, Mike.” While he strokes the stubble on his chin, I go numb all over.
Mike shoots a look at Nate, who gives a tiny nod of his head. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.
“Okay,” Mike says. “Tell Colton I’ll need to see him at the station tomorrow.”
A rush of warm air flows over me and my muscles relax, but I refuse to acknowledge it as gratitude. If my father manipulates Mike to dig deeper, I can’t object.
Everyone in the room seems to sigh in relief, but a knock at the door makes me jump. Brett rises from his chair and pulls it open. He answers a question from a uniformed person in the hallway, and then motions to Mike. “Someone to see you.”
Mike excuses himself and steps out into the hallway. The rest of us wait in silence, gazing anywhere but at each other.
When Mike returns, he seems shaken. “Colton called the hospital looking for us.”
I grab my throat. “Is he all right?”
“Angelique fainted. He says she’s still woozy, but she won’t let him call an ambulance. Unless anyone has something to add . . .” He takes his keys out of his pocket.
“I’m coming with you.” I pick up my purse and head toward the door.
I count on Big Jack’s relief to have us out of his way, and on Brett to understand our hurry to reach my son. My father shouldn’t expect me to treat him any differently than he acts toward me. I don’t say good-bye as I leave the room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mike and I speak very little during the ride down the hospital elevator. Since he already agreed to interview Colton, I figure I’ll wait for the outcome before badgering him further. Later I’ll sic both Saint Trixie and my mother on Colton if their powers can do any good. For now, I have to count on Mike to probe the stubborn reaches of my son’s memory.
Mike presses his palm against the rubber seal as the elevator doors part. “I wonder if Angelique has put on more makeup so we won’t notice she’s turned pale and weak.” He tries to smile. “Can’t you just see her flopped on her fainting couch?
”
“I’m not sure what to expect.”
He nods, and we fall in step together out the elevator doors and down the first floor hallway. Our strides match in length and pace.
Images gallop through my mind, getting worse by the moment. What if Angelique has fallen and Colton can’t lift her up? Did she stop breathing? “I’m just hoping Colton hasn’t, well, maybe he kept his cool.” I grab Mike by the arm. “What if we dispatch an ambulance before leaving the hospital and–”
“She’d send it back without setting foot in it.” He holds the emergency entrance door open and we cross the parking lot. “Look, we have to join forces and persuade her to get a checkup.”
Mike is more worried than I first thought. He climbs into his cruiser, leaving me to stand next to my unopened car door and wonder how on earth we will ever talk Angelique into seeing a doctor for professional purposes only.
After following him across town, I park next to his squad car in her driveway. Her front door stands wide open, while laughter ricochets from the back of the house, interrupted by an electronic whirring noise.
Angelique looks up as we peek through the kitchen door. “There you are, darlings. How about a virgin daiquiri?” A long, slim cigarette dangles from her fuchsia-tinted lips.
“New gadget?” Mike asks.
Colton flicks the toggle switch to Angelique’s stainless Hamilton Beach blender, and frenzied pink slush comes to a standstill in the glass container. He sips from a large stemmed goblet, his eyes daring me to stop him.
“Isn’t Colton a little young to tend bar?” I scan the counters for a bottle of rum, not that I suspect Angelique of corrupting my son. But in her condition, whatever it might be, he can easily sneak something past her. I check the ashtray to be sure all the butts wear pink lipstick.
“Strictly in training.” Angelique’s throaty laugh collapses into a deep cough. For a moment her face turns the same shade as her lips, then she says, “We’ll add the alcohol after he goes to bed.”
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