What Has Mother Done?

by Barbara Petty

  Thea stared up at her and there was an awkward moment as Heather started to lean toward her. But no way was Thea going to hug, or—God forbid—kiss this conniving spawn of the devil. She was definitely Dan’s daughter, not Annie’s. Thea held out a hand in front of her and Heather had no choice but to shake it limply.

  Thea was struck by how much Heather had changed since she had last seen her seven or eight years ago. Back then she had been a rather gawky, unkempt teenager. Now, she was a carefully made-up and polished young professional. She’d always looked much more like Dan than Annie, and the conservative cut of her expensive navy-blue suit emphasized more than just her sartorial differences with her crazy artist mother. There was a hardness to her face, surprising in someone so young. It made it all the easier to understand why Annie felt so alienated from her ambitious, social-climbing daughter.

  But there was more, some darker secret that Annie suspected about Heather. Thea pulled her gaze away from the young woman, but not before she’d been struck by an odd aura that hung about Heather. Under the superficial charm, there was a sense of absolute indifference.

  Heather greeted Bob and then introduced Rachel McCue to Thea. Rachel smiled politely and extended a slender, ruby-tipped hand to Thea, who was forced to grasp it and offer her own fake smile in return.

  Rachel was a stunner. She had deep-set, sapphire blue eyes that were wary as they gazed at Thea. Her full, red lips were still curved up in that meaningless smile, revealing small, perfect teeth that could only have been achieved with thousands of dollars’ worth of orthodontic work and intensive tooth-whitening. Her black business suit was the height of tradition—except for the plunging neckline that revealed a soupçon of black lace and a considerable expanse of cleavage.

  “I was sorry to hear about George,” Heather said, the words sounding hollow with no feeling behind them. “Are you taking care of your mother now?”

  There was a glint in her lizard-green eyes that made Thea feel as if this situation was something this young woman was taking pleasure from.

  Before Thea could speak, Bob chimed in, “Yes, she is. And to my mind, it’s quite brave of Thea to come back here and be her mother’s caregiver. She deserves a lot of credit for that.”

  Heather stared at him for a moment. Clearly, she took his words as an affront to her own lack of sympathy. “Right,” she said, squaring her shoulders; it was apparent that the gravity of Thea’s undertaking was no longer even a blip on her personal radar screen.

  Trying to inject a somewhat more neutral subject into this strained conversation, Thea asked Heather about her job. The young woman’s face brightened and she started to rattle on about all the important people she came into contact with. The hardness in her expression had disappeared and she reminded Thea of the little girl she used to know, the one who thought there was nothing more important in the world than the Backstreet Boys.

  As Heather listed all the first-line politicians she rubbed shoulders with, Thea tuned her out. She was wondering what she was going to do about Annie. Should she tell Annie about Heather’s having befriended Dan’s latest mistress? Would it even matter to Annie? Clearly, there was something much more deeply twisted about Heather that had made Annie upset. But what was it? And why wouldn’t Annie tell her best friend?

  When Thea left the City Hall area, her frustration level with Annie seemed to increase with every mile the car closed on the area where they both lived. Maybe if she could get Annie alone she might persuade her friend to reveal what was at the heart of her fears about Heather. She drove the few extra blocks to Annie’s house, hoping Joe had some kind of after-school activity and wouldn’t be home yet. But as she slowed down to approach the alley at the back of the Biggses’s house, she saw the open garage door and Joe hauling bags of groceries out of the back of Annie’s van. Damn! Annie would never talk while there was any chance of Joe overhearing.

  Her plan thwarted, she pulled over to the curb a few houses down. It hadn’t slipped her notice that Annie had made it a point to avoid being alone with her ever since their coffee klatch conversation the other day. Annie had also done her best to act normal around her, making a show of pretending that everything was just lovey-dovey with their friendship. But Thea wouldn’t be surprised if Auntie D., with her super-duper X-ray vision and her ultra-sensitive bullshit-o-meter, hadn’t already cottoned to the truth that, as far as Thea was concerned, a rift the size of the San Andreas Fault had opened between the two lifelong friends.

  A hot flash engulfed her, and she rolled down her window to cool off. How timely, she thought. My body is pointing out to me that I’m mad as hell at my best friend. Thanks a lot.

  A freshening breeze played past the open window. It riffled the branches of the budding elm trees on the block, making the dappled patches of shade and sunlight dance to a swaying rhythm. She closed her eyes and let the breeze rush past her, cooling her overheated body. In its wake, she felt her overheated emotions—her anger and frustration with Annie—cool down, too.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw something else clearly: the tiny spark of envy she had grudgingly hidden away behind her hair-on-fire anger. Envy for the fierceness of Annie’s protective maternal instincts. Thea had always known that Annie would stop a bullet for Joe, that was a given, but it had come as a shock to her that Annie would fight to the death to protect her daughter, too.

  Those instincts were foreign to Thea, and she was quite certain that her own mother had never had those kinds of instincts, either. Mother would never even have risked a broken fingernail to protect one or the other of her daughters. But, with the situation reversed now, Thea’s role being more like a mother to her own mother, she had to ask herself: Would she ever fight to the death to protect her mother? Not bloody likely.

  That night, Thea lay awake for a long time mulling over what she had learned that day. There was the whole Heather/Annie situation, and then there was Bob Rutledge and his heartbreaking story. She’d have to check up on that, her reporter’s instincts told her. News archives would give her the facts. He did seem sympathetic, but he had also revealed that after the boating accident he had gone into a hospital, presumably some sort of mental hospital. Was it possible that Bob wasn’t entirely stable? That perhaps an angry encounter with George at the overlook could have been the result of their long-term animosity toward each other? In spite of her compassion toward Bob, she couldn’t eliminate him from the suspect list.

  And then there was the surprising fact that Bob had seen Cousin Bud at the overlook prior to George’s murder—of course, it was always possible that Bob was lying about that. At the Starlite Room, Cousin Bud had made a show of insisting that Mother had murdered George. But Thea couldn’t quite let go of the idea of seeing him as the killer because of his strong motive. After all, it was possible that he was devious enough to carry off such a performance to her face.

  But Bob had not answered the question that had been her reason for meeting him: What could George have been so angry with him about? Was it something to do with SOD committee business or was it something else? Something personal? Thea resolved to once again attempt to crack George’s journal on his computer. The answer might be in there.

  And Heather. Should she be a serious suspect, or was it just a figment of Annie’s fevered, paranoid maternal instincts? Yes, Heather was in the proximity at the country club, but how could she have known George was going to be there?

  For that matter, how did any of them know that George was going to be at the overlook?

  Thea realized she needed to do some checking on George’s cell phone and e-mail records. She’d look at the house phone statements, too, but there was no Caller ID, so there would probably be no trace unless it was a toll call.

  Eventually she was able to drift off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that the alarm system was armed. Mother wouldn’t be able to get out and wander without waking her up—and probably the whole block, too.

  Several hours later when the alarm
did begin clanging away, her brain processed it as a fire drill and she slipped into a dream where she was lining up on the sidewalk outside her old elementary school. She was holding hands with Annie who, as always, was laughing and jeering, “I see smoke! I see smoke!”

  Then the persistent clamor penetrated Thea’s awareness and she woke up, ruing the fact that she’d had the damn alarm system installed. The neighbors were going to pillory her.

  Tumbling out of bed, she grabbed her robe; since she had socks on, she didn’t bother with her slippers. She cast a perfunctory glance into Mother’s room, just in case—and, of course, the bed was empty. Pounding down the back stairs she made a beeline to the alarm control and stabbed at the number pad, praying she remembered the code that the service tech had given her.

  Just as the alarm stopped, the phone rang and she grabbed for it. “Yes!” she shouted into the mouthpiece. It was the security company calling. “I don’t know!” she yelled when they asked if everything was okay. “Hang on,” she said, “I’ve got to go see where my mother is.” She put down the phone and went to the back door. The security light was off as she looked around the backyard, so Mother had been gone for more than two minutes.

  Jerking open the back door, Thea stepped outside. The security light switched on. She surveyed the yard as far as the light extended. There was a shadowy mound near the corner of George’s shed. Could that be Mother?

  She flew down the steps and across the cold, near-frozen grass to the lump. As she drew near she could make out shoes—boots, really—and pasty-white, muscular calves where the pant legs had ridden up. Definitely not Mother.

  Wishing she’d thought to bring a flashlight with her, Thea bent over what appeared to be a man’s body lying face down. There was no movement or sound.

  Looking closer at the back of the head, she could make out a wet, glistening mass on what little hair was left on the distinctive bald pate of George’s Cousin Bud.

  CHAPTER 29

  Thea bent over the body and spoke mechanically into the cordless phone as she felt for a pulse along the carotid artery in the neck. “I’m trying to find it,” she said. Under her fingertips the skin was warm as she pushed and prodded, hoping to detect the throb of blood in the vessel. “No,” she reported with a sigh. “I can’t find a pulse.”

  “Okay, we’ll try something a little easier,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Is he breathing?”

  Placing her hand flat against the man’s back, she left it there, hoping to feel an expansion and contraction. There was no movement at all. “No.”

  She stood up, ignoring the dizziness that was threatening to topple her. “Look. Get an ambulance here—and the police. Right away. And send one of your cars to help me look for my mother.”

  “They’re already on the way.”

  Thea pressed the “off” button on the phone and stuffed it into her bathrobe pocket. As she stepped away from the body, her wet feet stumbled over something lying on the ground. She bent down to touch it and her fingers closed over a round, woody object. What was a piece of wood doing here? What an odd place... The thought trailed off as she realized she could be touching the murder weapon! Recoiling in horror, she backed away from it, whirling around. Was the murderer still there, watching her, waiting to attack a second time?

  Off in the distance, sirens wailed. Thea staggered to the back steps and sat. She knew that she ought to start looking for Mother but, just for a moment, she needed to calm down. Forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths, she listened as the sirens drew closer.

  They stopped, car doors slammed, voices called out, and then footsteps sounded—heavy ones, heading for the backyard. Flashlight beams came bobbing around the corners of the house. Blinded by the lights, she rose unsteadily to her feet.

  Thea told her story for perhaps the fourth or fifth time. She had lost track. All around in the neighboring houses she could see lights turned on, could hear low voices, and spotted a few neighbors peering over hedges. “Please,” she said, for what she was certain was at least the tenth time, “let me go look for my mother. She’s out there alone; she has Alzheimer’s. She’s lost. I have to find her. Please let me go look for her.”

  “In a minute.” They had all said that, but Thea estimated that minute had extended to at least fifteen or twenty by now. She didn’t know, she wasn’t wearing her watch. But in that time, Mother could have wandered blocks away or even been picked up by some low-life.

  She had been told that both the regular force and the security cops were out searching for her mother, but Thea wondered how effective they could be. If Mother saw them she might hide from their uniforms or patrol cars, fearful that they had come to take her away to jail. That was the way her mind worked these days. If you weren’t a familiar face, she was either hostile or afraid of you.

  Thea stood up. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m going to look for my mother.”

  “Not just yet,” came a voice out of the darkness. It sounded familiar. Then a man stepped away from the bank of lights now surrounding the body and into the glow of the security light. Jerry Anderson.

  Thea nearly groaned out loud. “Detective Anderson,” she said. “What brings you out at this time of night?” She knew her question sounded sardonic, but she was beyond caring what this small-minded cop thought.

  “It’s my case,” he said, as laconic as usual.

  Thea gestured toward the lights and the group of people that now hid her vision of the body. “Is it Bud Prentice? I thought it looked like him, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  Jerry Anderson didn’t answer her directly. Instead, “What do you think he was doing in your backyard?”

  Thea hesitated, straining to hold back her temper. “I told you he was stalking us—or at least Mother. That’s what he was doing out here!” Then, as if to apologize for her outburst, she added, “I think the murder weapon’s over there by his feet. Some piece of wood or something...”

  “You touched it?”

  Thea nodded. “I brushed it with my hand.”

  He wrote something in a notebook that he pulled out of his pocket. “Where is your mother now? I’d like to speak to her.”

  Thea started to protest that she had no idea where her mother had wandered off to, but she paused with the words still in her mouth. “Uh, I don’t know,” she muttered. “Why do you want to talk to her?”

  He stared at her, his pen poised above the notebook. His look clearly said: Why do you think?

  “Oh, my God,” Thea cried out. “You think she did this!”

  CHAPTER 30

  Luckily, Thea didn’t have to listen to Jerry Anderson’s response to her outburst. They were interrupted by good news: One of the security patrol cars had found Mother. They’d spotted her curled up under a house-for-sale sign two blocks away, sleeping soundly and wearing only her nightgown.

  Thea jumped up and ran toward the side of the house, eager to see her mother—but also glad to get away from the suspicious glare of the detective.

  When the security agency car pulled into the driveway, Thea rushed to it and flung open the back door. Mother was slouched down on the seat, a bewildered, childlike expression on her face. She had her flowered, flannel nightgown bunched up in her hands, revealing an immodest expanse of bare thighs.

  Overcome with relief, Thea burst into tears and reached for her mother’s sagging body.

  Allowing herself to be eased out, Mother stumbled when her bare feet met the frozen grass at the edge of the driveway. “Cold,” she said, shivering.

  Thea cast a glance at the driver, who had come around the car and was now standing next to the open door. “Would you mind picking her up?” she asked. “I don’t think I can carry her.”

  “Sure thing.” The guard stepped forward, replacing Thea as her mother’s support, and swept the older woman up in his arms.

  Thea made sure that Mother’s nightgown covered all the strategic areas, and then walked ahead of them up the drivewa
y, making her way through the various police and support personnel. She decided to go in through the front door, hoping that she could get Mother inside and warmed up before Jerry Anderson pounced on her.

  No such luck. He was there, waiting in the foyer as the security guard stepped over the threshold with his very unbride-like burden.

  “Mrs. Prentice, where have you been?” the detective asked as she was set down.

  Thea wanted to ask for a moment’s respite for her mother, but she was stopped by the long-arm-of-the-law expression he wore.

  Mother blinked at him and then put her hands over her face—as if she were playing peek-a-boo.

  Grabbing her hands, Detective Anderson eased them away from her face. “Let me see,” he said, his voice soothing and singsong. She squirmed, but he held her hands tightly in his own as he examined them.

  Thea knew exactly what he was doing—and she wanted to slap him. “Stop that!” she said. “She thinks you’re playing a game with her.”

  He ignored her and pulled Mother’s hands apart so that he could see the front of her nightgown. Grass stains and splotches of brown were interspersed down the front and along one side.

  Thea saw his eyes narrow as he stared at the brown stains. “That’s not blood,” she said impulsively. “It looks more like dirt.”

  “I’ll need to have the nightgown examined,” he said to one of his minions, his glance passing over Thea as if she weren’t there. And then he added as if it were an afterthought, “I’ll need to have her clothes examined, too,” his index finger cocked in Thea’s direction.

  Thea was staring open-mouthed at him, realizing that his pointing at her meant she was now a likely suspect, too. She was so flustered that she didn’t register the change in her mother’s expression, but she did hear her scream. And then saw her charge Detective Anderson, beating on him with her fists, crying out, “No! No!”