If so, who? The police? Unlikely.
George’s killer? But why?
She looked to her left and, down at the end of the block, she could see Joe passing under the streetlight. With another furtive glance at the car, she turned and hurried up the driveway and back into the house.
Thea went into the den to check on her mother, who was asleep in the recliner and snoring loudly. Before she closed the curtains, she spied the shadow of the car, lights off, still across the street. Then, shaking off her growing paranoia, she gritted her teeth. She needed to call Annie. First of all, to reassure her that Joe should be arriving any minute, and secondly, to find out if Annie was still speaking to her. And, of course, the third reason was to find out why Annie had sent Joe over with his information about his father’s guilty-sounding phone call.
“Thanks for letting me know about Joe,” Annie said.
Her voice had an off-putting formal quality to it that made Thea feel like screaming into the phone, but she restrained herself.
After a brief, muffled pause where Thea could hear venetian blinds flipping open, Annie added, “He just turned into the driveway.”
“Good.” Thea felt awkward, as if she were talking to a remote stranger. More than anything she wanted to ask Annie about her breakdown this morning, but knew better than to bring the subject up. So she might as well ask her about Joe’s suspicions of Dan, which for some odd reason felt like a safer subject.
“Why did you send Joe over to tell me about Dan’s phone conversation that he overheard?” Thea tried to keep the accusation out of her voice but wasn’t sure she was successful.
“That wasn’t my idea,” Annie said with that still-chilly tone. “It was Joe’s.”
“Ah.”
Annie was silent for a long moment. “He only told me about what he’d heard when he got home from school today.” There was an edge in her voice, as if she were hurt that Joe had not confided this to her before.
“Oh,” was all Thea said, not wanting to get in the middle of this mother-and-child situation.
“Well, I think he really didn’t know what to make of it,” Annie went on, as if she had to explain Joe’s reluctance to tattle on his father. “But when I told him about your misgivings regarding George’s ‘accident’—”
“Did you tell him that the police think my mother did it?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s heard it from somewhere.”
Annie sighed. “Maybe at school. I didn’t tell him that because I didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was. He liked George a lot. In fact, they had a deal that he would caddy for George this summer in exchange for golf lessons.”
Thea nodded. “That sounds like George.”
“I know.” Annie’s tone of voice had become less remote. “In spite of all the animosity between George and Dan, George never let that get in the way of his friendship with Joe.” She added wryly, “Of course, I think he did a little bit of that to get back at Dan and show him up for being such a lousy father.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Thea said. “George would never want to spend that much time with Joe unless he really thought a lot of him. I’m sure his friendship for Joe was genuine.”
“Okay, okay,” Annie relented. “That was just me being cynical.”
“Fine, make up for that by telling me who you think Dan might have been talking to on the phone.”
“I’ve been thinking about that ever since Joe told me. Dan talks to so many people all the time—lots of politicians, of course, like the mayor and the other aldermen.”
“Really?” Thea carried the cordless phone into the living room and stole a peek through the draperies.
“You know that,” Annie said with some irritation, but Thea barely heard her.
The dark car was gone.
Thea turned away from the window. “Who do you know who drives a big, black sedan with tinted windows?”
“What?”
Thea explained about the car.
“Whoa!” Annie exclaimed with a kind of frenetic glee, “Maybe it was a hit man who killed George.”
Thea felt something twist in her gut. Was Annie so desperate that she was grasping at straws? She might as well have said that the boogeyman killed George. Didn’t she realize that this still meant that someone had to hire the hit man? And that could just as easily have been Dan or one of his cronies.
Or Heather.
“I don’t know,” Thea said. “A hit man doesn’t seem very likely.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Annie conceded. “And they probably don’t sit outside their victim’s house afterwards.”
“No.”
“Yeah, that’s probably not in the Hit Man’s Handbook.” Annie’s note of levity sounded strained.
“So who do you know who drives a big dark car with tinted rear windows?”
“Hmm. Lots of people drive big dark cars, but the only one I can think of with tinted windows is the mayor’s car.”
“I seriously doubt that was the mayor sitting across the street just now.”
At least that got a snigger out of Annie.
Thea went on, “And I don’t get the point of sitting and watching the house. Why would somebody want to do that?”
“You’ve got me,” Annie said. “Especially since people in this town are prone to calling the cops when they see strange cars in their neighborhood.”
“Doesn’t Dan drive a black Lexus?”
“Yes,” Annie said. “But it doesn’t have tinted windows.”
For a split second Thea thought about asking her what kind of car Heather drove, but quickly discarded that as a bad idea.
“Well,” she went on, “Whit drives a black Mercedes, but his windows aren’t tinted either. I saw it today. Actually, Whit seemed to think there was somebody waiting for George at the monument. Although he couldn’t say that for certain.” Once again, Annie seemed eager to grasp onto anything that would shift the subject. “So you saw Whit, huh?”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly a happy reunion. Beryl told me that there was a rumor going around that Whit and his dad had seen Mother push George off Rivercliffs.”
“Yeah, I heard that rumor, but I didn’t believe it for a second.”
Thea felt a rush of gratitude as Annie sounded more like the old friend she knew and loved. “Why’s that?”
“Because that’s the way rumors work in this town. Whenever I hear one, I think it’s just people making up something that sounds nasty and juicy, and they either want it to be true or they want people to believe it’s true. So I usually believe just the opposite.”
“Too bad that most people don’t think like you.”
Thea could hear the smirk in Annie’s voice. “Yeah, the world would be a better place, don’t ya think?”
Thea agreed. “Anyway, let’s get back to Dan’s phone call. Joe thinks he was talking with a potential co-conspirator. Got any likely candidates?”
“Mmm, well, Dan does talk a lot to Bob Rutledge. You don’t know him; he’s not from here. He’s related to the Collins family somehow. Dan cozies up to him because he’s the chairman of the SOD committee—”
“Oh my God!” Thea cried. “I met him! Today. At Rivercliffs. I went there and he was out there jogging. He asked me if I was all right.”
“Good-looking guy?”
“I suppose so, in a rugged, Paul Bunyan sort of way.”
“Oh, you mean the beard?”
“Yes, that’s it...” Thea’s voice trailed off as the unlikely coincidence of his being there suddenly occurred to her. “Annie,” she lowered her voice as if afraid of being overheard. “What if Bob Rutledge was the person waiting for George by the monument?”
CHAPTER 13
Thea had just hung up with Annie when the phone rang again. Thinking it was her friend, she picked it up and said offhandedly, “Something you forgot?”
The gasp on the other end was barely perceptible. Silence followed, turning i
nto an ominous void in Thea’s ear.
“Hello,” she prompted. “Is anyone there?”
More silence.
An image of the dark car sitting outside popped into her mind. And then her memory began to re-run the number of these “nobody there” calls she, Beryl, and Aunt Dorothy had fielded over the last few days. They were annoying, but at the time she hadn’t thought much of them, attributing them to lost cell phone connections, people misdialing, etc. But now her paranoia was starting to swell, its distended fingers digging into her belly.
She hung up the still-silent phone and walked into the darkened living room. From there she could look out the bay window and see if the car had come back. Parting the lace curtains only a fraction of an inch, she eyeballed the street outside. No car. She let out a sigh of relief.
Wait a minute, she told herself. This is creepy, yes, but it doesn’t make any sense. Why would somebody be watching the house and making those crank calls? Whoever killed George must feel pretty secure, certain that the police weren’t going to investigate any further. If they’d heard through the grapevine that Thea was conducting her own inquiry, they’d have to realize that any sort of suspicious behavior would get her hackles up and suggest that she was on the right track—wouldn’t they? Unless maybe they weren’t feeling so secure and were trying to scare her off.
The phone rang again. Thea thought about not answering, then realized that if she didn’t pick up, Mother would—and there had already been a couple of scenes with her not wanting to relinquish the phone. So Thea walked into the den and picked up the phone there. Mother opened her eyes, gave her a sidelong glance and then closed her eyes again.
Thea said nothing, but just held the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice. “Is anybody there?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Thea said, letting the tension leave her body. “I was distracted. Who’s this?”
“This is Luanne Varner. We met the other day. I’m from the support group. You know, the one that George was in.”
“How nice to hear from you. Are you calling about a meeting?”
“Yes, exactly. We’re having one at the end of the week. Do you think you might be able to make it?”
“I’ll make a point of it,” Thea said. “Just tell me when and where.”
Luanne gave her the time and place. “Do you know where that is? If you don’t have a ride, somebody could pick you up.”
“No, I have George’s car.”
“Ah, of course.” Then a momentary pause. “How are you doing? With your mother, I mean.”
Thea went into the hall out of Mother’s earshot. “Right now, it’s a standoff.” She sighed. “But I can tell you that I’m looking forward to getting a break. Do you feel that way, too? Or is it just me being selfish?”
“No, dear. We all do. Sometimes we spell each other. There are some in the group who have no one else to back them up, so we take turns giving them some time off.”
“How nice. As of now, my aunt has volunteered to come over and take care of Mother whenever I need to go out. A couple of neighbors also said they would help, but I’m not so sure about them.”
Luanne made a kind of clucking noise. “You’ve hit the nail on the head, dear. Lots of people offer to help and then, when you ask them, they don’t seem to have the time.”
“I suppose this is the kind of stuff you discuss in the meetings?”
“Oh, we talk about a lot of things. Some people feel it necessary to go into great detail about their struggles to cope, and, well, others are just happy to look around the circle and see that they’re not alone.”
“Which kind was George?”
Luanne hesitated, “Oh, dear, I feel a teensy bit uncomfortable talking about him outside of the group.” She made the clucking noise again. “But since you’re family, I guess it’s okay to say that George was more or less our group leader, and in that capacity he talked a lot about caring for your mother.”
Good, Thea thought. Maybe if she became an accepted member of the group, she could garner some additional information out of them—stuff that wasn’t in George’s journals.
Luanne cleared her throat. “But don’t worry, dear. Nothing he said ever went any further than our little group.”
Thea doubted that very much, human nature being what it was. She went over the details for the meeting again and then rang off with Luanne. She was actually looking forward to this get-together. Even if there was nothing more she could learn about George, she hoped at the very least she’d get some insight into the best way to deal with her mother.
Replacing the phone quietly, Thea tried to tiptoe past her mother but, uncannily, just as she had almost made it past the recliner, Mother opened her eyes and muttered, “I gotta pee.” She pushed the chair down and stumbled out of it, down the hall to the bathroom. There was a time when saying she had to pee was language she would have classified as “vulgar,” but now Thea could only shake her head at this unraveling of the person that her mother had previously been.
Certain that Mother would come looking for food when she left the bathroom, Thea went into the kitchen and began to forage for their dinner. It wasn’t a difficult task; the refrigerator was still stocked with platters of meat and mystery casseroles. She pulled out one of the casseroles and peered under the aluminum foil that covered it.
“Wha’s that?” Mother barked as she entered the kitchen.
“I think it might be tuna noodle,” Thea said. “Remember, you used to make this all the time when I was a kid.”
Mother’s face suddenly softened. “I did?” Her mouth puckered up in a sweet, childish smile. “Let’s have that then. I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry, Dot?”
Thea reached out and hugged her mother across the shoulders. “Yes, I am. Thanks for asking.”
A wave of confusion crossed Mother’s face. She blinked rapidly and then pulled away. “Well, hurry it up. I don’t wanna wait.”
Thea removed the foil, popped the casserole into the microwave, and got a couple of side dishes out of the fridge. She set the table in the breakfast nook, determined that Mother was not going to eat her dinner sitting in front of the TV. To entice her, Thea plied her with some leftover appetizers, which Mother ate as if she had gone without food for days.
Thea had been pleased to spy a bottle of white wine chilling in the fridge. Taking it out, she poured herself a generous glass. She was used to drinking wine with dinner at home in California and told herself she might actually need it to get through this meal.
Is this what it’s going to be like? Thea wondered as she sat across the table from her mother and tried in vain to have something resembling a coherent conversation. Mother was so occupied with shoveling food into her greedy mouth that all she could do in response to Thea’s questions was to grunt or point to the serving dish when she wanted another portion. What had George done about this insatiable eating? Had he indulged her? Or had he tried to curtail these new—and, to Thea, bizarre—eating habits? Maybe she could get a clue from the support group about how to handle behavior like this.
After dinner, Thea cleaned up while Mother shuffled off to the den with her prize, a large bowl of chocolate ice cream, and plopped herself down in front of the TV again.
Thea poked her head in. “Mother, I’m going to be in George’s office if you need me.”
Mother gave her a perfunctory wave. “Fine.” She was engrossed in a sitcom, something with a loud laugh-track, a couple of smart-alecky kids, and a man who looked like someone had just punched him in the gut.
Walking down the hall accompanied by the laugh-track, Thea entered George’s office. To blunt the noise, she closed the door as far as she dared, then turned on the computer and went straight to the website for the Rockridge Daily Register. She had interned at the local paper for a couple of summers when she was in college and, as she glanced at some of the bylines and names on the masthead, she could see that she still knew a few of the people who worked
there. That might come in handy.
Annie had half-heartedly tried to ‘pooh-pooh’ Bob Rutledge as a potential villain, but Thea could tell that Annie was also eager to add another candidate to the suspect list—anybody other than her daughter.
Determined to find out all she could about the man, Thea went to the newspaper archives and did a search on “Bob Rutledge.” There were a few hits, but not as many as she expected, so she did an additional search on “Robert Rutledge.” This one came up big, yielding several dozen articles going back a few years.
Good. That was more like it. She decided to start with the earliest one so she could read the articles chronologically. The first hit was a very brief mention in the society section that Robert Rutledge had been a guest at a Collins family Fourth of July barbeque. Interestingly enough, as she scanned the list of names, she saw that Annie and Dan had also been among the invitees, along with George and Mother.
Over the course of the next few articles, Robert Rutledge’s name was mentioned briefly at other society-type gatherings, but there was never a Mrs. Rutledge accompanying him. Was he a confirmed bachelor? Gay? Divorced? Widowed? There was nary a clue. Surely Annie could fill her in on this vital detail.
Thea skimmed through more articles about long-forgotten social events and then began to see Robert Rutledge starting to move in on local politics: a committee member here, a volunteer at some Republican Party event there, and soon he had worked his way up nearly to the highest levels of local politics.
Being elected chairman of the Save Our Downtown committee had, so far, been his crowning achievement. Once he was ensconced on this obviously very powerful committee, he was widely quoted and interviewed by the paper.
In fact, Thea was pleased to see that he actually merited a fairly detailed bio. It reported that he was the nephew of Mrs. Margaret “Peg” Collins (Whit’s mother), that he had been raised in Detroit, gone to college at Penn, and gotten his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. (Mr. Ivy League!) He had worked for a couple of Wall Street firms at the start of his career, but then had gotten involved with international banking and gone to live abroad for several years. He had been in Saudi Arabia for a short while, but then moved around mostly in Europe: Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal. Apparently, he had gotten married while he was over there and had a couple of kids. At some point, the family had returned to the States and settled in Delaware; then, the bio petered out. There was a large time gap between that last section and Bob Rutledge’s sudden appearance in Rockridge, sans wife and, so it would seem, sans children.
What Has Mother Done? Page 9