What Has Mother Done?

by Barbara Petty

  Bud angled his body toward her. “Get the hell away from me. I know what you’re doing.”

  Thea pulled back from him. “What?” she asked, barely able to breathe.

  “Stop protecting her.”

  “Who?”

  He laughed without humor. “You know who. That woman.”

  Thea fell silent. Was ‘that woman’ her mother? She could hear the clink of glasses down at the end of the bar. Low voices murmuring. Then Johnny Mathis switched to Frank Sinatra singing “All the Way.” Business as usual, but Thea had the feeling that the others were holding their collective breaths, waiting for something to happen. Bud took a long sip of his drink as if to fortify himself. “That woman is evil.” He bit off the words, saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth as he worked himself up to continue his diatribe. “She acts like she’s crazy, but she’s really a Black Widow. She seduced him and got him to marry her, and now she’s killed him and thinks she’s going to go on living in that house. My house. She shouldn’t be there. Killers shouldn’t profit from their crimes. The whole town knows what she’s done and they’re covering up for her.” He lifted his hand and pointed an accusing finger at Thea. “And you come here, pretending to be all nicey-nice, thinkin’ you can put one over on me. I dunno what you came here for, but I can see right through you. You’re just as bad; you’re her daughter. You’re an evil bitch, just like her.”

  Thea stared at him. She felt as if she were looking into the face of delusion itself. Of course it was the alcohol talking, but there had to be something deeply twisted inside him that made Bud spew such vitriol.

  Ever so slowly, not taking her eyes off him for a second, she picked up her bag and slipped off the stool, leaving the bills and the change on the counter. As her feet hit the linoleum, she wasn’t sure her legs were strong enough to make it all the way to the door. She pulled her eyes away from Bud, focusing on the exit that seemed to be receding in the distance. No one else had moved, but she could feel all their Watching Eyes on her. When she had almost made it, she heard a voice say, “Hey!”

  She turned her startled gaze toward the bar.

  The bartender gave her a flippant salute. “Nice tip.” The sneer on his face belied his words. His voice dripping with sarcasm, he added, “Come and see us again, real soon.”

  Someone laughed, and one by one they all joined in. As if they had been waiting for this moment of release. The sound of their laughter followed Thea out the door.

  CHAPTER 20

  The damn car wouldn’t start. Thea twisted the ignition key once, twice. Nothing. An irrational panic surged through her at the prospect of having to go back into the Starlite Room and call for a tow truck. Oh my God, she didn’t think she could face those mocking eyes again.

  Then she sighed in relief as she reminded herself she wouldn’t have to do that—thank God for cell phones. As she reached for her purse, she noticed that the gear shift was in “R” for reverse. Stupid, stupid! No wonder the engine wouldn’t turn over. She’d been so flustered that she’d started the car in the wrong sequence.

  Pulling out of the lot, she drove a few blocks to a residential area, eased over to the curb and turned off the engine. Still shaking from the encounter at the bar, her fingers trembled as she pulled the recorder from her pocket. She rewound the tape and listened to it, fast-forwarding through the beginning until she got to the relevant part in her conversation with Bud. She was amazed at how calm her own voice sounded and how flat Bud’s voice was. Most of the threat she had felt had come from his eyes and his body language. Still, there was enough in his words that she thought she could take it to the police. Not for evidence—she knew it wouldn’t be admitted for that—but it was a murderous threat that Bud had made against both Thea and her mother, and it should be enough to get the police off their asses and looking at Bud and his strong motive for killing his cousin.

  She felt a pang of misgiving as she remembered Bud’s teary eyes as he talked about George’s death. Was it possible those were crocodile tears? Could he be that good an actor to fake grief over a cousin that he himself had killed?

  An out-of-nowhere hot flash turned the car interior into a sauna, and she was forced to open up her jacket and fan herself with her leather gloves. An elderly woman walking past with an ancient Schnauzer stared at Thea as if she might be one of America’s Most Wanted. When Thea cracked open the two front windows, the woman scurried off, dragging the poor dog along behind her. Within moments, the raging hormones had subsided and Thea raised the windows back up.

  She rewound the tape again until it was cued up to the “His killer is walking around free” passage, and then she slipped the recorder into her purse. Allowing herself a few deep breaths and a reassuring glance in the rearview mirror that told her she didn’t look like a wild-eyed maniac, she checked to make sure the car was in “P” and then started it up.

  She remembered the police station as being an ancient red-brick building just a few blocks northwest of her current location. But as she approached the intersection where the old station used to be, it appeared to have morphed into a modern cement and glass pillbox. Searching for parking, she caught a glimpse of the old building hidden behind some trees and an ornamental fountain. Rockridge seemed to have become a lot more aware of architectural esthetics in the decades since she’d left town.

  Across the street from the station she found a large municipal lot and parked. She spotted a couple of CCTV cameras, and reckoned that Rockridge had also become a lot more paranoid since she’d split. The building entry was a sleek, heavy pair of twelve-foot glass doors which opened with a satisfying swish. Inside, Thea wondered if everyone had gone off-duty; no one was manning the front desk and a work area directly behind it was also free of personnel.

  “Hello?” she croaked. “Is anybody here?”

  A gray-haired sergeant popped up from behind the desk, startling her.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, frowning at her. “Tying my shoe.”

  “Oh.” Thea cleared her throat. “I’d like to see Detective Anderson, please. Jerry Anderson.”

  The desk sergeant stared at her for a moment and then reached for a phone and tapped out a number. “Jerry there?” he asked. “Tell him there’s a woman here to see him.” A pause. “Name?” he asked Thea.

  “It’s Thea Browne, George Prentice’s stepdaughter.”

  This was repeated into the phone. Then, “He’ll be right down.” The sergeant hung up and bent down again, evidently unhappy with the way he had tied his shoe the first time.

  Moments later, a metal door swung open off to the left and Jerry Anderson appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves and on his face was a tight-lipped frown. He motioned to Thea with an impatient hand for her to follow him. She glared at him as he turned his back to her.

  Through the door, she trailed him up a flight of stairs and into a large open area with numerous desks back-to-back, but only a handful of people scattered throughout the room. A few of them glanced at Thea without interest and then went back to their previous activities.

  The detective led her to a desk off to one side. On its surface were a soiled napkin and an empty sandwich bag, along with some crumbs and a crumpled Diet Pepsi can. As he pointed Thea to a side chair, he grabbed the remains of his lunch and swept it into a wastebasket.

  He sat and leaned back, his hands poised on the arms of his chair, index fingers tapping against the ends. “What can I do for you?” he asked, his blue-gray eyes devoid of curiosity.

  Thea hesitated. She did her best to look straight at him, but, just as in the Starlite, she felt an awareness of the other people in the room. They seemed to be going about their business, but she could have sworn the ambient noise had dropped a decibel or two—just so they could hear what she was about to say.

  She leaned forward and kept her voice low. “I have some new information about my stepfather’s death.”

  A look of annoyance crossed his face. “And what is that?”

  �
��Are you aware of George’s cousin—everyone calls him Bud, but I think his real name is Harvey—do you know anything about him?”

  “I’m aware of who he is.” Reluctant. Curt. The fingers continued to tap at the armrests.

  Thea pressed on. “This man has made threats against my mother. He barged into the house the evening of George’s funeral, very drunk and spouting gibberish about it being his house.” She paused before adding, “Last night he was stalking us. I was assaulted, almost certainly by him and then, even worse, he told my mother he was going to kill her.”

  Jerry Anderson’s fingers ceased their tattoo. “What?”

  Thea slipped the tape recorder out of her pocket. “Today I went to the bar where Bud spends most of his time. I’m sure you know the place, the Starlite Room?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I went there to see if I could get him to repeat that threat on this tape,” she gestured with the recorder, “and he did. He also threatened me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m all ears.”

  Thea ignored the sarcasm and put the recorder on his desk and hit “play.”

  Jerry Anderson leaned in closer, his gaze fixed on the recorder as he listened to Bud’s rant. When Thea turned off the tape, he leaned back and met her gaze with one that seemed to say “So?”

  “You heard that threat, didn’t you?” Thea blurted out. “And you’ve also put my mother at risk.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “How so?”

  “He’s saying she killed George!” Thea couldn’t keep her voice down, and the others in the room had stopped what they were doing and were now openly eavesdropping. “He says everyone in town believes it and that gives him the right to harass her and threaten her—and God knows what else.” She caught her breath for a moment. “And I want to know what you’re going to do about this,” she gestured toward the tape recorder.

  He unfolded his arms, leaned forward and grabbed up the recorder. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it,” he said, popping open the cover and ejecting the tape. “I’m confiscating this.” He dropped the tiny cassette into a desk drawer. “We don’t take too kindly around here to people taping other people’s conversations without their permission.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Like an automaton, Thea drove without destination. Some streets she went down looked familiar, but others were as foreign to her as the back streets of Calcutta. At one point she crossed the river and then drove north. At every intersection she longed to make a left turn and head west. But once that turn was made, she knew she might not stop until she hit California. That’s where her heart longed to be right now, not in this place that no longer wanted her. Where everyone looked at her with dislike and distrust. Thomas Wolfe’s words echoed in her head: “You can’t go home again. You can’t go home again.”

  But, block by block, reality began to intrude. She couldn’t go back to California again either. Her house was empty, her animals being cared for by Chrissie Taylor. Every once in a while when Thea checked in with Chrissie, she thought about asking her young neighbor to put the dogs on a plane and send them to her. But she knew she couldn’t do that. For one thing, the dogs would not take well to air travel and, for another, her mother had always hated animals, maybe even dogs more so than cats.

  So Thea couldn’t have her dogs for comfort here. And she knew that’s what she was looking for right now. Comfort. A feeling that someone cared. Because today had been the worst.

  She should get back, but somehow she couldn’t quite face Aunt Dorothy and Annie yet, because they would ask her what had happened. She knew she wasn’t ready yet to tell them how miserably she had failed and what a fool she had made of herself. First with Cousin Bud and then with the police.

  So she drove and drove. Until she found herself near the entrance to Rivercliffs. After pulling into the lot, she sat in the car for a few moments, uncertain why she had come to this place. Then, feeling the need to move, she got out and headed for the walking path.

  Sunshine played across the path and the surrounding green lawn. She let out a deep sigh, and felt some of the tension inside her release just a tiny bit. She strolled along, removing her gloves and loosening her jacket. Only a handful of people were on the path with her and most of them were moving faster than she was. That felt good, she didn’t need to be anywhere right now. Aunt Dorothy and Annie would understand that she would need to air out her feelings after the two distressing encounters she’d had today.

  Eventually, she reached the overlook, and it was only natural that she would turn off the path and pause for several moments, thinking of George.

  Who could have killed him? She ran down her short list of suspects: Cousin Bud was at the top, he had the strongest motive—to claim his inheritance. After that, they kind of blended together: Dan Biggs or Bob Rutledge, George’s two biggest political rivals. Their motives were either revenge or something Thea hadn’t discovered yet. Maybe George knew something about one or both of them and they felt he needed to be silenced.

  And then there was the name on the list that Thea was reluctant to even think about: Heather Biggs. The only reason she was there was because of Annie’s bizarre behavior around her. Obviously, Annie had strong suspicions about her daughter’s involvement with George’s death. But until she opened up to Thea and revealed why she felt that way, Thea would have to keep Heather on the list. At the bottom, to be sure, but still occupying a spot.

  Thea was convinced that George had come here to Rivercliffs that day to meet someone. It was possible he had arranged this meeting over the phone. Maybe the answer was in his phone records, or, more likely, his cell phone records. She hadn’t seen those statements in the mail yet. Of course, the police could get access to those records, but after today, she doubted she could even get Detective Anderson to take her phone calls.

  Lost in thought, it took her a couple of seconds to take in the figure approaching until he was only a few feet away.

  “Oh,” she said, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.

  “Sorry.” He leaned toward her as if that would help her remember him. “It’s Bob Rutledge. We met the other day.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Thea had the fleeting thought that maybe good old Bob was stalking her. But that was silly. He was dressed for jogging and it was probably his routine to be here at roughly the same time every day.

  Bob moved closer and turned so that the sun was no longer directly behind him. He reached up and tugged the watch cap off his head. “How are you doing?” he asked in that ‘I’m-so-concerned’ voice that Thea was beginning to find tiresome.

  She gave him a noncommittal jerk of her head.

  Running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, Bob said, “I’ve been thinking about giving you a call.”

  “What for?” Thea said, not bothering to hide her surprise.

  Bob hesitated. “Well, I’ve heard what you’re doing...you know, looking into George’s death.”

  “Who told you that?” Thea said, then shook her head. “No, don’t bother. I know how this town works.”

  Bob offered her a faint smile. “Well, I knew you’d hear about George and me and our, ah, differences.”

  Thea stared at him. “Are you talking about the SOD committee?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re right. I heard that you and George were bitter enemies. You were aligned against him with your buddy Dan Biggs.”

  There was a flicker of something in his dark-gray eyes. Then, “And Annie Biggs just happens to be your best friend.”

  Thea could feel a spout of anger starting to rise. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing.” Another of those polite smiles. “Like you said, it’s just the way this town works. But I thought I could set you straight about my relationship with George.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “And maybe we could get to know each other a little bit better.”

  Thea blinked
at him. Of all the strange twists that had happened today this was perhaps the strangest: Bob Rutledge, sworn enemy to her stepfather and thus high on the list of potential suspects in his possible murder, was actually hitting on her.

  CHAPTER 22

  An A-1 Alarm Systems van was parked in the driveway when Thea returned to the house, so she left George’s car on the street, right behind Aunt Dorothy’s and Annie’s.

  Inside was a fortyish, soft-gutted man in black pants and gray shirt that bore the company’s logo emblazoned on the front and “Rudy” across the breast pocket. He was doing something with wires connected to an alarm panel which jutted out of the wall near the back door. “Hey,” he said, smiling at Thea, “almost done.”

  She nodded at him and pointed to the panel. “Will you show me how to use it?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Surveying the kitchen, Thea saw what looked like leftover lunch dishes on the breakfast nook table and was a little surprised that neither Aunt Dorothy nor Annie had cleared them. Then she realized that the television wasn’t blaring from the den. In fact, the house seemed ominously silent to her.

  Just then Aunt Dorothy stuck her head around the corner. Her crown of gray hair was looking distinctly unroyal. Tendrils were trailing across her forehead, over her ears and around her neck. Her blue knit top had smudges of dirt on it and there were dusty streaks on her black knit pants.

  Uh oh. Thea felt a twinge of dread. “What’s wrong?”

  Aunt Dorothy shot her a rueful look. “Now, Dorothea, I don’t want you to be upset...”

  Thea hustled Aunt Dorothy around the corner out of earshot of Rudy. “I will get upset unless you tell me. Right now.”

  As she reached up to tuck a wayward lock of hair back into her crown, Aunt Dorothy frowned. “Your mother’s all right.” Her gaze couldn’t quite meet Thea’s. “But we had to call her doctor and give her some of her anti-anxiety medication.”