She jerked back to reality as it registered that the sound from the den had changed again, and she sensed her mother lurking in the kitchen doorway.
Mother had a smug smile on her face. “Whaddya do to Annie?”
Thea ignored this and set down her coffee cup. “She left some muffins. Would you like another one?”
A frown. “Nah.” She sniffed. “I want...” Mother’s eyes glazed over as she apparently went searching deep in her brain for a taste memory. “I want...hmm, uh...chocolate pudding!” she said, her face wreathed in a smile as if she had just done something amazing. Perhaps she had.
Thea moved past her mother to the refrigerator. Opening the door, she peered inside. So much food glutted the shelves it was hard to discern what was there. But no chocolate pudding, so Thea tried distraction. “How about a nice sandwich?” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at her mother. “There’s some really good spiral-cut ham, or how about meatloaf? Don’t you just love meatloaf sandwiches? I seem to remember that you do.”
A puzzled look crossed Mother’s face. Clearly her brain had not processed this memory, but she seemed determined not to let on that she didn’t remember her own likes and dislikes. “That’s right, I do,” she said with a certainty that Thea interpreted as a kind of bravado.
By the time Thea finished making the meatloaf sandwich, Mother had wandered off back to the den. She was plunked down in the recliner again, watching a soap opera with rapt attention. Did she even have a clue as to what was transpiring on the screen?
Thea brought a TV table over and set the plate down. “I’ll bring you a glass of diet soda—er, pop,” she corrected, remembering she was in the Midwest where “pop” overruled the “soda” drinkers. When she came back, Mother had eaten nearly half of the sandwich. That was something Thea would have to get used to: her mother had always prided herself on being “ladylike.” Now, she appeared to have the appetite and table manners of an entrant in a hotdog-eating contest.
Thea hovered for a moment, then murmured, “I’ll be in George’s study if you need me, Mother.” She might as well have been talking to the TV set.
She pushed open the door to her stepfather’s inner sanctum, wishing she could close it to give herself some much needed privacy, but George had told her that a closed door irritated her mother. She would pound on it with a fury until it was opened—even the bathroom door.
Sitting down at George’s massive old desk and turning on his computer, Thea felt a bit like an explorer heading into uncharted territory. What would she find? The expected—or maybe the unexpected?
But first, while it was fresh in her mind, she Googled “Heather Biggs” just to see what would come up. Not surprisingly, a number of people with the same name appeared, so Thea narrowed the search by adding “Rockridge” as a variable. This gave her the usual amount of the local newspaper references to high school and college graduations, and then quite a few mentions about Heather’s job in the City Council office and numerous functions she’d attended in that capacity.
But then, scrolling down, there was one other odd item; it wasn’t in the Rockridge Register, but in one of the weekly throwaways. Heather’s name appeared on a list of young people who had been on the scene when a young woman accidentally drowned in a nearby lake.
Thea’s curiosity was piqued, so she looked up the Register coverage on the drowning. All the articles spoke about the victim, a high school girl named Kristy Manx, and included the names, and even some quotes from the group of high school friends who had been picnicking by the lake. They all said that the Manx girl apparently had drowned while no one else was watching.
But Heather’s name was not on that list.
Aha, Thea thought. The reporter from the neighborhood throwaway had just gotten the names of those present from the police report and didn’t see any reason not to publish all the names, but someone with a lot of influence had probably gone to the daily paper and seen to it that his daughter’s name was kept out of the coverage.
Interesting, but all it really showed was another example of Dan Biggs throwing his considerable weight around. Thea had never heard about this incident from Annie, but Annie had openly told her that Dan was responsible for getting Heather the well-paid job with the City Council. This for a young woman fresh out of college with only middling grades, according to Annie.
But this data wasn’t what Thea was in search of at present. Right now she was more concerned at getting into the files that George had been working on just prior to his death. She went directly to see George’s most recent documents and was excited to see a file named “Diary.”
Could it be that easy? Double-clicking on the file opened up the word processor and then a little window asking for a password. Damn. She found a small notebook in the top drawer and hoped George had put his passwords in there. She flipped through the pages. Nothing for “Diary.” Hmm, evidently this was something George didn’t want—or need—to write down. She tried her mother’s name, then George’s. Neither worked. Her eyes wandered around George’s office and landed on all the Chicago Cubs paraphernalia: hats, signed baseballs, pennants. When she entered in “Cubbies,” the file opened right up.
Thea read the date of the last entry and gasped. It was from the morning of the day of his death. She pored over it, hoping for some clue as to what had happened later that day, but it was a simple accounting of his and Mother’s morning. He had made French toast (Mother had eaten three helpings!), she’d insisted on dressing herself and had pulled the buttons off her blouse when she couldn’t get them to align with the buttonholes. After their walk, he’d planned to take her shopping for a couple of blouses with bigger buttons on them. And that was the end of the entry. So ordinary that it broke Thea’s heart.
But then she realized that she had just read something important. If George had intended to take Mother shopping, why didn’t he just combine the walk and the shopping and go straight to the mall? Why go for a walk on the Rivercliffs path on a chilly, windy day when they could just as well have walked in the comfort of the mall? Clearly George had some other kind of agenda than a simple stroll above the river.
Thea scrolled down through the document, scanning various entries. The only things that leaped out were George’s references to her mother’s sad decline. He made records of her behavior, her conversations, even the increasing amounts of food she ate. It was depressing stuff to read, and Thea decided to close the document and look through some of the other files.
She read through a folder marked “Letters” that showed some promise, as there was a fairly extensive correspondence with local city officials and other members of the Save Our Downtown committee. Thea made notes of the names. There were also a couple of letters that George had written to his attorney about some minor details concerning his will and some token bequests, nothing about the house that would clarify her mother’s situation. But her next step would be to phone this attorney, a J.T. Wilder. Thea had gone to school with a Johnny Wilder, could it possibly be the same person? Meeting up with old school cronies was going to keep happening. In some cases it might be an advantage, in others, not so much.
There was another file named “Collins.” She put the cursor on it to double-click, but looked up to see Mother standing in the doorway. Her face was scrunched up as if she were in pain.
Thea leaped up. “What’s wrong?”
Mother tugged at her lower lip. “TV’s all funny. It’s broken.”
Stifling an urge to tell her to find something else to do, Thea said, “Oh, I’m sure it’s not broken. Let me see.” She put her arm around her mother and guided her back down the hall to the den. The television picture had dissolved into a series of wavy lines. Thea picked up the remote and pressed the button for the cable and the picture snapped back. “See? You just pushed the wrong button. You didn’t break it.”
Mother smirked as if she had just put one over on her daughter and then grabbed the remote. Plopping herself down in the recline
r she began to search through the channels, stopping only when there was something loud and obnoxious on the soundtrack. Thea sighed and started to turn away, picking up the empty plate and glass from the side table.
“Thirsty,” Mother said in an imperious tone.
“But you just—” Thea started and then caught herself. It was no use arguing. “Okay. Do you want more pop?”
Mother shook her head. “Lemonade.”
Thea held back another sigh. Why was it that just about everything her mother wanted was fairly labor-intensive? Oh, well, maybe there was a can of frozen lemonade concentrate in the freezer.
Thankfully, there was. She made up a pitcher and took a glass out to the den. The TV was airing a courtroom drama, complete with a Perry Mason wannabe haranguing a hapless witness on the stand. As the lawyer’s decibel level rose, Mother started chuckling.
Thea didn’t get the joke. “What’s so funny?”
Again that smart-aleck smirk spread across Mother’s face. “Just like George,” she said.
Thea stared at the figure on the screen. This man had coal-black (probably dyed) hair, a trimmed mustache and goatee, and wire-rimmed glasses—no resemblance to George that she could see. “How is he like George?” she asked.
Mother took her index finger and shook it at the screen. Thea looked where her mother was pointing. The attorney had his own index finger practically in the face of the clearly uncomfortable witness. The offending finger was quickly withdrawn after an admonishment from the judge, and Mother changed the channel again, oblivious to the frustration rising in her daughter.
Thea wished she could cross-examine her own mother as to what she had just alluded to: Could it have been the precipitating incident that propelled George to his death? Had he shaken his finger in the face of someone who had reacted in an explosion of rage? And, judging from the reaction Thea had just witnessed, this person was most likely not her mother. She had found it amusing, not something that incited her to violent behavior.
Filled with resignation, Thea left the den and went back to George’s study. She was looking for the phone number of Mister J.T. Wilder, Esq., to see what light he could shed on her mother’s entitlement to the house and George’s will.
The side door banged loudly as Beryl breezed into the house. She had spent the morning hanging out with a couple of her friends from high school. Betty and Veronica, as Thea liked to call them. They were hands-down the biggest gossips in town. Beryl pounded up the stairs and Thea could hear her up in her room throwing things into her suitcase. Thea shook her head. Her baby sister had never been one to move quietly through the world. Wherever she went, she made noise. Just another way of Beryl’s need for attention.
Thea found the attorney’s number, but the office was closed for lunch. She decided to call back later and returned to George’s files.
After a few minutes, Beryl came clattering down the stairs with her bulky suitcase and poked her head into George’s office. “I’m going to take off,” she said. “Are you...” she hesitated.
“Am I what?” Thea responded, maybe a tad more curtly than she had intended.
“Well, you know,” Beryl lowered her voice, “are you gonna be okay with...”
“With Mother?” Thea finished the sentence for her.
Beryl nodded. “Do you really think you can do this?”
Thea glared at her. “What would you do if I said no?”
Glaring back, Beryl said, “You know damn well I couldn’t do a frigging thing to help you.”
“So why do you ask?”
A half-hearted shrug. “Because I care?” It was more a question than a statement.
Thea laughed. “Have a nice trip. Call me when you get home.”
“Okay!” Beryl was already off down the hall toward the den.
Thea could hear her sister saying her goodbyes to Mother and a few seconds later the side door slammed shut. She’d gone back to the computer files, but a sudden draft made her turn toward the door. Beryl was standing there. Somehow she had managed to make her way back into the house without her usual noisy harbingers.
“I almost forgot,” she said, her voice strangely subdued.
“What?”
“There’s a rumor going around town that Whit Collins and his dad were out there on Rivercliffs that day...”
“Really?” Thea interjected with unbridled optimism. “That’s great! I can talk to Whit and find out what he saw...”
Beryl’s chin went up and the corners of her mouth turned down. “No, you don’t want to talk to him.”
“Why not?”
A long drawn-out sigh. “Because people are saying he saw Mother push George over the cliff.”
CHAPTER 9
No surprise, the rumor had come from Betty and Veronica, Beryl’s friends. “Betty,” whose real name was Linda, had told Beryl that she’d heard it from her husband who played cards with Whit Collins at the country club. It was only a few days after George’s death that Whit had just thrown it casually into the continuing discussion about George, a lifelong member of the club.
Once everyone had gotten over their shock the other players pressured Whit to go to the police, but he refused, saying Daphne Prentice had enough problems without him adding to them. Of course by now, Beryl observed, it was only a matter of time before the police heard the rumor themselves.
Thea was stunned by this report. She had been so certain Mother couldn’t have done it. But now it seemed there had been nobody else on the cliff with George and Mother that day. It had happened exactly as the police had theorized. Mother was guilty. Maybe she hadn’t known what she was doing at that moment, but she had been the one who pushed George to his death. There was a witness. Two witnesses, actually.
She had to talk to them.
“Bear, I want you to stay here with Mother for another hour,” Thea said, getting to her feet. “You don’t have any pressing reason to get back to Chicago, do you?”
Beryl opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Thea fired off, “Unless you’ve got husband number four waiting there in the wings.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them.
Beryl’s eyes blazed. “You don’t have to take it out on me,” she said. “I’m just as upset about this as you are.”
Oh, no, you’re not, baby sister! Thea longed to say, but instead she crossed the room to where Beryl was standing in the doorway. “You’re right, Bear, that was uncalled for,” she said. “Will you please stay with Mother?”
Beryl shrugged out of her coat. “Where are you going?”
“To see Whit.”
Putting a hand on Thea’s arm, Beryl said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Probably not. But I have to talk to him myself.”
Beryl pulled her hand away. “But you—”
“If Whit tells me to my face that he saw Mother push George,” Thea said, cutting her off, “I will come back here and you and I can start calling nursing homes for her, okay?”
Beryl’s whole body seemed to tense up. “Uh, okay.”
“What is it?”
Forehead furrowed, Beryl hesitated, then muttered, “I realized just now when you said it that I really hope it isn’t true.”
This was quite a concession on Beryl’s part. “You have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that.” Thea reached out and squeezed her sister’s shoulder.
Beryl shook her head ruefully. “Just go. And get back here as soon as you can.”
Driving through the once-familiar streets that now seemed so foreign to her, Thea longed for the Volvo SUV that was sitting in her garage at home two thousand miles away. George’s Lincoln Town Car was lower and wider and a bit more car than she was used to handling. But once she got her bearings, she realized she knew exactly where to go to look for Whit. The Collins family’s factory was located not far from the country club in a residential area that overlooked the river. Growing up, Thea had never thought it strange
that there should be a manufacturing plant so near an upscale neighborhood, but now, as she drove alongside the building, she realized with its ivy-covered red-brick walls and mullioned windows that it looked more like part of a college campus than a place that turned out heavy machinery.
Pulling into the parking lot, Thea’s heart sank as she passed an empty spot with Whit Collins’s name on it. Oh well, as long as she was here she might as well go in. She found a space, parked and turned off the engine. As a reflex, she glanced at her face in the rearview mirror and decided she could use a little lipstick. She hadn’t really planned on going anywhere today, so she’d only made a perfunctory pass with her makeup this morning. Fresh lipstick applied, she stared at herself for a moment and wondered, not for the first time, whether she was about to do something foolish. But this wasn't foolish. This was something that needed to be done. She had to find out if the rumor was true.
Across the parking lot was a large modern addition to the old building. Not visible from the street was a loading dock with several big-rig trucks awaiting their cargo. This was clearly where most of the actual manufacturing took place. As Thea headed for the red-brick, main building, a memory stirred: she’d toured this building during a class trip when she was in elementary school. It had seemed so huge back then.
Inside, a young woman peered at her from behind a half wall that bore a tastefully Gothic “C” monogram. As Thea approached, the young woman lit up in a professionally perky smile.
She chirped, “May I help you?”
“I’d like to see Whit Collins if he’s in,” Thea said. “I’m an old friend of his.”
“Your name?” The wattage on the smile dimmed slightly.
“My name is Thea Browne, but he would know me better as Dot Linley.”
What Has Mother Done? Page 6